What, she wondered, did Elgiva get from the king, other than his attention? He was free with his gifts, surely, but was that all that Elgiva wanted? Emma did not envy her any golden treasures, for she herself had no desire for presents from the king. What she wanted from him was recognition of her true status as queen, something much more valuable to her than gold or silver.
She had no particular wish to keep Elgiva from the king’s bed either, now that she was with child. She was determined, however, to keep the woman from the king’s side, for that was the place that she intended always to fill, in public if not in private. She would have to make certain that Elgiva knew her place—and kept to it.
Elgiva slept fitfully on her cold, uncomfortable convent pallet, waking in a foul mood to the steady patter of rain on the thatch above her head. Her rest had been interrupted ever and again by the snufflings and snortings of the other women housed around her, and by the bells that called the sisters to prayer in the dark watches of the night. Groggy and heavy-headed, she shivered as Groa dressed her hair by the light of a sputtering candle in the predawn dark.
“By the rood,” Elgiva moaned, “we shall have another day of riding in the wet and the mud and the cold. Why did the king not stay in Bath for Easter?”
“You could linger here at the abbey, my lady,” Groa suggested smoothly, “until the weather turns. The rain cannot last forever.”
Elgiva shivered again and turned to scowl at the old woman.
“Because the queen goes to Winchester today,” Elgiva snapped, “I cannot very well beg leave to remain here, even if I could abide convent life for another day—which I cannot, as you well know.”
She despised the strict regimen that governed life within a convent, hated being told what to do and when to do it—all of which Groa knew perfectly well. Besides, she did not dare stray far from the king’s side. There were any number of pretty women at court to catch his eye and take her place if she were not there to keep them at bay.
Within the hour, after a silent convent breakfast of bread and small ale, the royal company made final preparations for the day’s journey to Winchester. Elgiva had wrapped herself as well as she could in the cloak that was still damp from yesterday’s ride. As she stood amidst the other women in the abbey’s narrow entryway, one of the sisters drew her aside.
“The queen,” she said, “bids you to attend her in the royal wain.”
She was given no time to reply, and a few moments later she was seated alone in Emma’s cumbersome wagon, awaiting the arrival of the queen and the other women who would attend her. She saw with relief that despite the wet weather the curtains had been tied back to allow light and air—as well as spatterings of rain—into the compartment. She would not mind the damp so long as she did not feel boxed in.
She wondered if she had the king to thank for this mark of esteem. Grateful as she was for the luxury of cushions and shelter, she would have preferred riding at the king’s side in the rain to spending long hours conversing with her lover’s wife. Thankfully there would be others present, and she would be spared any private conversation with Emma that might prove awkward. Besides, unless Æthelred had succumbed to Lenten remorse and confessed all to his wife, Emma could not be certain either of Elgiva’s relationship with him or her motives in pursuing it.
Nevertheless, she felt nervous when a figure cloaked in Emma’s familiar, fur-lined blue mantle, its hood shrouding her face, took the seat opposite her. She felt even more apprehensive when the wain creaked into movement with a shudder, and she found herself all alone with Æthelred’s queen. She let out a long, slow breath. This was not the king’s doing, then. Emma clearly had some purpose in hand, and now she could only sit, stiff and trembling with cold, as she waited to discover what it was.
Emma, however, said nothing, not even a greeting. The silence between them lengthened unpleasantly, and Elgiva’s mind filled with misgiving. What would she do if she were in Emma’s place at this moment? How would she rid herself of a rival, if she had all the resources and powers of a queen?
There were many ways to make a person disappear. It would have to be done carefully, though, and secretly. No queen would dirty her own hands with the death of an enemy, although . . .
She remembered the stories about the dowager queen and the men whom she had paid to dispose of her stepson, Æthelred’s own half brother, King Edward. Elgiva trained her eyes on the figure sitting opposite her in the shadows. Was that, indeed, the queen sitting so quiet and still, with her face and body all hooded? Or was it someone else? A henchman, perhaps, draped within the concealing cloak, with strong hands to stifle her screams and strong arms to pin her against the cushions—and do what?
Winchester, Hampshire
Athelstan entered the palace grounds at the head of his small troop with the sense of satisfaction that comes at the completion of a job well done. The beacons between Winchester and the sea had been inspected and readied for the coming summer. Should the Danes attack the southern coast of Hampshire at any time in the next six months, word would reach the king at Winchester within an hour of the sighting.
In the chamber that he shared with Ecbert, Athelstan found his brother seated on his bed and his younger brother Edward kneeling on the floor at Ecbert’s feet. Edward was bent over a helmet, a scrap of wool in his hand and a bowl of melted beeswax on the floor next to him, polishing the helmet’s nose plate with an energy that was likely to wear him out within minutes.
“What have we here?” Athelstan asked, throwing off his wet cloak and tousling Edward’s hair. “Are you finally putting this troublesome brat to good use, Ecbert?”
“I am not a troublesome brat!” Edward protested, pausing in his task and turning an affronted face to Athelstan. “Since you have been gone I have been made cupbearer to the king. He says I am to have my own armor soon, and I must learn to care for it. Ecbert is letting me practice on his.”
Athelstan raised his eyebrows at this and exchanged a grin with Ecbert. The king’s hearth troops were expected to polish their own armor, a task that was tedious as well as tiring. It was something that Ecbert complained about regularly.
“Well, that’s very generous of Ecbert,” Athelstan said. “You can practice on my armor as well, if you like.” He pulled off his helmet and byrnie, laying them across the chest that sat at the foot of his bed.
Apparently Edward did not yet find the task onerous, for he nodded happily and resumed his rubbing.
“What other news is there?” Athelstan asked.
“The biggest news, next to the ascendancy of Edward Ætheling here to the post of cupbearer to the king, arrived by messenger late last night. Queen Emma, it seems, is with child.”
Athelstan paused, briefly, in the act of pulling off his muddy boots, but he did not look up.
“Is it so?” he grunted. The news should not surprise him. She was the king’s wife. She shared his bed. It was what she had come here to do.
He threw his boot, far too vigorously, onto the floor.
“The royal party is making its way here even now,” Ecbert went on, “for the king intends to dispense the Maundy Thursday alms to Winchester’s poor tomorrow. Edward,” he said, “go and fetch Athelstan something to eat and drink. It is some little while yet until the next meal, and he must be hungry.”
“But it is a fast day,” Edward protested. “The pantry will be locked.”
“You are the king’s cupbearer,” Ecbert said. “Use your new influence to get your brother a loaf of bread and some ale, at least.” He hoisted Edward to his feet and swatted him on the backside, and the boy scuttled out.
Ecbert waited until Edward was out of hearing range, then said, “You realize that this will change everything, do you not? If the queen has a son, she will want her child to inherit the throne, and she will play upon the king until he grants her that. We have no one
to speak for us, no one to push our suit before the king.”
Athelstan scowled. Ecbert’s fears seemed a trifle premature.
“What makes you think that the king will listen to Emma?” he asked. “He has all but ignored her for months.”
“If he were ignoring her, Athelstan, she would not be with child. And now that she is breeding, her influence must increase. If Emma insinuates herself and her babe next to the king, what place will there be for us?”
Athelstan pictured Emma lying curled on a bed next to his father, her body white and naked, her belly rounded with his father’s child. Shaking his head to dispel the unwanted image, he slammed the second boot to the floor.
“Let us assume, Ecbert, that you are correct. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the child is born and that it is a boy. Let us even imagine that the king agrees to name this child his heir. What then? Our father is not like to die any time soon, and by the time that unhappy event occurs, a great many things could have taken place to change the course of all our lives.”
Ecbert leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and peered earnestly at him. “And in the years between now and that uncertain future,” he said, “you and I and all our brothers will fight and bleed to preserve this land whole from the Danes. Should we then turn around and hand it over to Emma’s son?”
“Jesu! We don’t even know that Emma will have a son!” Athelstan glared in helpless exasperation at his brother. “And what is your proposed solution to the problem of Queen Emma and her unborn children?” he demanded. “Do we drown them at birth? Or perhaps we should attempt to drown the queen before she can bear them!”
Ecbert raised empty hands, palms up.
“I have no solution!” he said irritably. “I just—God damn it! He is an old man! He has sons enough and whores enough! Why could he not keep his cock away from this queen?”
Athelstan barked a bitter laugh.
“Would you,” he asked, “if you were in his place?” He certainly would not.
“Some men could! Edmund could, were he wed to Emma. He hates her.”
There was some truth to that. Edmund’s dislike of Emma had been immediate and visceral, and it was based, as far as Athelstan knew, on absolutely nothing except that she was Æthelred’s queen.
“Edmund,” he said, “is a pragmatist. If it were in his interest to wed and bed a woman, he would do it, like her or not. Even Emma. And so would you.”
“Mayhap I would not bed her,” Ecbert muttered, “if I had the Lady Elgiva to distract me.”
“Truly? And you would be willing to settle for one woman when you could have two at the snap of your fingers?”
Ecbert collapsed backward on the bed and groaned. “No, I would not! I take your point, but Sweet Holy Mother, what are we to do?”
“Nothing,” Athelstan said. “There is nothing to be done. Put the child out of your head, Ecbert. When it is born, weaned, and has learned how to use a sword, then let us speak of it again.”
When Ecbert left, Athelstan prowled the chamber, his mind toying uneasily with his brother’s news. He recalled, not for the first time, the doom foretold him by the seeress at the stone circle—that the realm would never be his. She had not been able to tell him, though, who would next wear England’s crown. It lay in shadow, she had claimed.
What did that mean? That there would be many rivals for the throne? Or could it be that Æthelred’s heir was not yet born? If he were to search her out again a year hence, after the birth of Emma’s child, would the old woman’s answer be different?
He scowled. He did not truly believe what she had told him, yet the prophecy gnawed at him, as galling as the image of Emma lying white and golden in his father’s arms.
The Winchester Road, Hampshire
Elgiva held her breath as the cowled figure seated opposite her drew back the concealing hood, but she relaxed when she saw that it was Emma who gazed at her in the dim light and not some pitiless Norman henchman. As the wain lurched over the muddy, rutted road, Emma fixed stern eyes on Elgiva, and she grew uneasy again. The queen looked ill, her face drawn and cold. She clearly had something unpleasant that she wanted to say, and Elgiva wished herself anywhere but here.
“I have heard reports,” Emma said at last, “that you have found great favor with the king.”
Elgiva sat up a little straighter. This was no less than she expected, but clearly Emma was fishing. She could not know for certain of Elgiva’s trysts with the king unless Æthelred had told her. She felt a tiny shiver of misgiving. Could the king have confessed his sin to his wife?
She cleared her throat and said, “I have been blessed with some skill as a weaver of tales, my lady—for which I thank God. My stories seem to amuse the king.”
“Ah, Elgiva.” It was almost a sigh. “You are, indeed, a storyteller.” Emma folded her arms and her glance became appraising. “And you have beauty as well as talent. It is no wonder that the king values your . . . services. I hope that he rewards you to your satisfaction.”
Elgiva looked demurely down at her hands. “The king’s pleasure,” she said, “is all my reward. I seek no other.” She looked up at Emma with what she hoped was a chaste smile.
Emma smiled too, so sweetly that Elgiva almost believed it, but not quite.
“Nevertheless,” Emma said, “we all have secret longings. I wonder what it is that you desire in your deepest heart.”
Elgiva kept her face guileless and said, “I can think of nothing, my lady.”
“Can you not?” Emma’s head tilted to one side. “And yet, I am told that once you thought to be Æthelred’s queen.”
Emma’s pale green eyes all but pinned Elgiva to her seat, and Elgiva could not turn her own away. Which one of them, she wondered, would blink first?
“It was my father who put me forward for that honor,” she said. “I am innocent of any such ambition, my lady, I assure you.”
Emma raised one eloquent eyebrow.
“You need not protest your innocence to me, Elgiva,” she said. “My mind is entirely made up on that score.”
Elgiva kept her expression perfectly bland. She understood Emma’s twisted meaning well enough, but she would die before she would let Emma see it. She waited for whatever would come next.
“I wish to explain something to you today,” Emma said, brusquely, “because I want there to be a perfect understanding between us.” She leaned forward a little, so that her face was very close to Elgiva’s. “I am Æthelred’s anointed queen,” she said, pronouncing her words so carefully that her Norman accent all but disappeared. “I will never step aside, willingly or unwillingly. The king will never put another in my place. Whatever hopes you may have, lady, you will never be Æthelred’s queen.”
Elgiva felt a momentary pang of compassion for Emma, because of course the queen was mistaken. If she remained barren nothing could prevent Æthelred from putting her aside.
“My only hope, my lady, is to remain in your service and to please you,” she said. “I hope you do not doubt my loyalty to you. I pray daily for your health and for the blessings of children upon your union with the king.”
Emma gave a short laugh, cut off as the jolting of the wain flung her back against the cushions.
“Then it will please you to learn that your prayers have been answered, Elgiva, for I have, indeed, been blessed. Even now I am with child.”
It was the last thing that she had expected to hear, and for a moment she merely stared, stunned, at Æthelred’s queen. How had the Norman bitch managed to conceive? She had been shut up in her convent for months, and even before that the king had had little to do with his wife. She herself had seen to that. Pulling herself together, she bestowed a smile on Emma.
“This is wonderful news, my lady,” she said. “Indeed, I am very pleased to hear it. W
ho would not be?”
Emma’s eyebrow flicked up again. “A great many people, I expect,” she said, almost to herself. Then she said, “Because of the child, it will be necessary for me to make some changes in my household. I will want to have about me women who are experienced with babies and with childbirth. I am sorry to have to dismiss any of my ladies, but so it must be, in order to make room for others. As you, Elgiva, are yet a maid, I fear that you do not have the knowledge or experience that I will need in the months to come. I have already arranged it that tomorrow you will be returned to your estate in Mercia.”
The wain gave another sudden lurch, and Elgiva felt her stomach clench, although it was not from the jarring. She licked her lips to respond to Emma, but her mouth had gone dry. So this was how Emma would rid herself of a rival. The plan had much to commend it, as it was innocent, painless, and bloodless. Emma would not be responsible for whatever might happen to Elgiva when she faced her father’s wrath after such a dismissal.
Did the king know about Emma’s plan? She suspected that he did not. With Emma pregnant and the Lenten fast behind him, Æthelred would be in need of a woman, and Elgiva had no intention of being sent away from Winchester when her services, as Emma had put it, would surely be required.
“You are all kindness, my lady,” she said. “I think, however, that given your obvious lack of confidence in me, it would be best if I do not return with you to the palace. My brother Wulf, who rides today at the king’s side, owns a town house in Winchester. He will care for me until my father can come to claim me.”
For a moment, Emma looked nonplussed, and Elgiva drew some satisfaction from that. Nay, lady, she thought, you will not have it all your own way.
“As you wish,” Emma said.
It was not as Elgiva wished at all, but for now it would have to do.
(2013) Shadow on the Crown Page 17
