They rattled along the Winchester Road, the cart jouncing them up or sideways—a reminder that the day’s journey would be long and far from smooth.
And pregnancy, Elgiva thought, contemplating Emma’s worn expression, was much the same, fraught with dangers for both mother and child. Any number of things could cause a woman to go into labor too soon and lose her child. Any number of things. The queen may have won this little skirmish, but until she gave birth to a healthy, living child, the battle between them was not yet over.
Chapter Eighteen
Easter Sunday, 1003
Winchester, Hampshire
While the king was at Bath teams of workers had descended upon Winchester’s great hall, and by Easter day the massive chamber was resplendent—newly thatched and freshly painted. The carved acanthus leaves that twined sinuously around the enormous oaken columns and roof beams had been regilded so that they gleamed golden in the torchlight. Silken streamers looped overhead from pillar to pillar in clouds of gold and white. The tables had been laid for the great Easter feast, covered with linens and garlanded with flowers, and upon the royal dais the high table wore a cloth of shimmering gold.
Emma, seated next to Æthelred on Easter day, toyed with the almond-stuffed honeyed dates on her plate and wished that she had more appetite, for the meal had been lavish. Assorted cheeses, sliced eels, a terrine decorated to resemble the tower of the New Minster, and four different kinds of fish had been followed by enormous bowls of lamb stewed with leeks and pulses. Finally, golden brown peacocks, spit-roasted to perfection, their tail feathers splayed behind them in wide fans, had been ceremoniously borne to the tables.
Now, as the tables were cleared, Emma gazed out at the dazzling array of sumptuously dressed men and women. They gathered in languid groups, milling about in a kind of food-induced torpor, drinking vessels in hand while the wine and the mead continued to flow unabated. Behind Emma the king’s cupbearer, young Edward, was taking his new position quite seriously and had not spilled a single drop throughout the meal.
Her own cupbearer was Ealdorman Ælfric’s granddaughter, Hilde, a slim young beauty of eleven summers who had joined Emma’s household the day before. The girl’s mother had died of plague when Hilde was but a babe, and of her father, Ælfric’s son, the ealdorman would only say that the man was gone. Emma suspected a great sorrow there, and she did not press him. She found Hilde biddable, willing to please, and eager to learn palace ways. The girl, she thought, would do well in the royal household.
As she drank from the wine cup that Hilde replenished almost too frequently, Emma regretted that the child growing in her womb had robbed her of any pleasure she might take in food or drink. The wine, in particular—a newly arrived gift from her brother Richard—left a bitter aftertaste at the back of her throat. Nevertheless, she drank it—for she had need of the courage it bestowed.
The king’s demeanor today was solemn and forbidding—hardly the mood for a celebration of spring renewal. They had had little to say to each other during the course of the meal, and it occurred to her that it was not unlike the Easter feast of the year before, when she had dined with him as a new bride and he had glowered through the entire meal.
There were differences, though, she reminded herself, apart from her pregnancy. Today the bishop of Winchester, Ælfheah, sat on her right, and his thoughtful and intelligent conversation contrasted sharply with the king’s morose silence. And, in the crowd below her now, most of the faces were familiar. She could identify the factions that formed in little eddies around the room, and she could even guess at the topic of their conversations: They would be speculating about the child she carried.
She slipped her hand protectively across the small bulge at her belly.
She caught sight of Athelstan just then, standing with a knot of men that included his brothers Edmund and Ecbert. He seemed to feel her gaze, and he looked up and nodded to her. She smiled. As ever, her heart grew lighter at sight of him. She had missed him during her long, weary stay at Wherwell. She had missed their long rides and easy conversations, had missed the way he bent his head toward her when she spoke of Normandy, had missed the passionate intensity in his face when he spoke of his plans for the future of the realm.
She had missed him far too much during the short winter days, and in the long nights her rest had been plagued by the memory of a single kiss. Often she had knelt in the dark chapel and raged at God for binding her to the father and not to the son. Why, she had asked Him, must she bear a child that had been conceived in bitterness and fear instead of a child born from love and trust?
If God had answered her, she had not heard Him.
She bit her lip, drank again from her wine cup, and turned her gaze to the scop who had begun to play for the assembly. She did not dare rest her eyes or her thoughts any longer upon the king’s eldest son.
Æthelred, sated with rich food and strong drink, regarded the throng in the hall with detachment. It turned to displeasure, though, when he saw his eldest sons in huddled conversation with Ælfhelm’s brood and their northern companions. The bond that continued to exist between his sons and the Mercian nobles was likely to become troublesome if he did not find a way to break it. And what business was it that kept Ælfhelm himself in the north when he should be here at the Easter feast?
His glance fell on Elgiva then, and his displeasure grew. She was beguiling two of the Mercian lords who had lobbied in her favor during the debate over his choice of a wife—their support purchased, he suspected, by her father’s gold. Æthelred wondered how much influence Ealdorman Ælfhelm, and by extension Elgiva, had now with the northern lords. He was no fool. He recognized Elgiva’s thirst for power. It was a family trait, one that all her father’s brood shared. He could easily imagine the uses that Ælfhelm might make of his daughter as messenger, as spy—as king’s whore. She had pleased him well enough in that role, although of late his disapproving bishops had forced him to set her aside. But if she could whore for him, she could whore for someone else as well, and that might lead to alliances too dangerous to contemplate. What, he wondered, were his sons discussing with Elgiva’s kinsmen?
He would have to put a rein on the girl. He could not allow her to stray too far out of his reach—a problem just now because Emma, empowered by the child in her womb, had dismissed her. That must not stand. He could not keep Elgiva’s ambitions in check if she were not close at hand.
He would have to persuade Emma to bring the girl back. It was beneath him to meddle in the queen’s household affairs, but he had no choice. He needed Emma’s cooperation in this. Christ, he was going to have to woo his wife. How much was it going to cost him?
He took a wizened apple from the bowl before him, leaned slightly toward Emma, and said, “I would speak with you of the Lady Elgiva.”
Emma stiffened. Well, he had known it would not be easy.
Carefully, he sliced the apple, offering Emma the first piece and waiting patiently until she took it.
“Have you considered,” he asked, “why it behooves us to keep Elgiva here in Winchester?”
She bit into the fruit, and a small, thoughtful frown creased her smooth forehead.
“You fear a marriage alliance in the north,” she said softly, “that might sunder the allegiance of your northern lords.”
So she did recognize the danger. He had forgotten again how cunning she was, and that she, too, had her ways of discovering things.
“Even so,” he said quietly. He gave her another slice of apple. “Your brother wed you, I fear, to a king under siege. The Danes press upon us from the east. The chieftains from Ireland strike at our western shores to grab whatever cattle and gold they can. Warlords who answer to Alba’s king would snatch our northern borderlands all the way to Jorvik, if they could. My own nobles are restive. Their allegiances to each other are stronger than their oaths to me. Yet bec
ause my daughters are too young as yet to bind the more powerful ealdormen closer to me, I must use more,” he paused, searching for an acceptable word, “unorthodox measures to control those most likely to conspire against me.”
She looked straight at him, her expression solemn and grave.
“Whatever your political difficulties may be, my lord,” she said, “it is not seemly for you to have two women at your side. A year ago you made me your wife, yet the Lady of Northampton would claim that which should be mine.” She set down the slice of apple and wiped her fingers delicately with the edge of the tablecloth as if she were wiping her hands of Elgiva. “I have borne with that lady’s ambitions for far too long and will do so no longer. I will not have a rival in my household.”
He pondered this for a moment. Was it possible that Emma, who had never welcomed his attentions as her husband and lord, was jealous of Elgiva? He supposed that it could be so. It was possible to care little for something yet care very much that no one else should lay claim to it. Women were weak creatures, he had observed, and therefore susceptible to the most grievous of sins.
“I do not perceive Elgiva as your rival,” he said, hoping to placate her.
“It is how others perceive her that concerns me,” she replied. “Your attentions to her while you were at Bath did not go unremarked, I assure you. As your queen, soon to be the mother of your son, God willing, it is I who should be always at your side, not Elgiva.”
Æthelred, irritated, tightened his grip on apple and knife, controlling each cut with precision. Would that he could control his troublesome queen so well. When he had agreed to marry Richard’s sister he had hoped that he would find her pliable, willing to be ruled by him in all things. He had hoped for a young wife who would accept his favors gratefully and would meekly agree to all his desires.
Emma was none of these things. Yet he could not rid himself of this queen, and there were many at his court who would agree with everything that she had just said were he to give them the opportunity. The clergy, to his disgust, adored her, and the higher she rose in their esteem, the lower he fell. If anything should happen to Emma’s child, or if the Danes should attack, or the crops fail, or a plague strike, the blame would be laid upon his shoulders. They would declare it God’s punishment for his debauchery.
And so, if he wanted to maintain control over the actions of Elgiva and her kin, he was going to have to appease his queen and offer her a compromise. He did not like it, but he saw no alternative.
He placed his right hand, palm open, upon the table, and gave Emma a meaningful look. She raised a questioning eyebrow but placed her hand in his.
“I vow, my lady,” he said, curling his fingers over hers, “that at every possible public function, in the church and in the palace and in the hall, I will keep you close to my side. In return for this you must find a way to keep Elgiva close to yours.”
Emma considered the king’s words, weighing her options. Even if she agreed to his proposition, she could not know for certain that he would keep his vow. And then there was the matter of Elgiva. She had no wish to keep that lady in her household, but if she refused the king’s request there would be consequences. She knew him well enough now to recognize that, and she did not care to consider what form his reprisal might take.
So, knowing that she might be making a bargain with the devil, she nodded in agreement. She did not see that she had any other choice.
As the king raised her hand to plant a kiss upon her ring, Emma glanced out at the company below the dais. Elgiva was there, looking up at her with a cold smile that made the fine hairs on the back of her neck rise.
“Let us drink to our bargain,” she heard the king say. He called for their cups to be filled, but after they drank, Emma set her cup down and pushed it away from her.
“I am learning that your child does not care overmuch for wine, my lord,” she said.
“Then, lady,” he replied, “you must give him good English mead instead.”
Many hours later, in the dark watches of the night, Emma lay tangled in the clinging web of dream. She was riding Ange bareback along the beach at Fécamp in high summer. A hot wind blew against her face and the sun beat down hard, its heat radiating in visible waves from the white sand. Beneath her garments her body was drenched with sweat—her thighs clammy and slick with it as they pressed against the horse’s hide.
Her legs ached from her efforts to control her mount, for Ange pelted headlong in a wild, unsteady gallop, and suddenly, beneath horse and rider, the sand turned to rock. Each hoofbeat sent pain shooting from Emma’s tensed legs up through the core of her body, and the grinding agony of it grew so intense that she thought she must die. She tried to scream for help, but she could not force any sound past the fear that wrapped around her throat like a length of rope pulled tight.
Some tiny corner of her mind recognized the stuff of nightmare, and with an effort of will she opened her eyes. The darkness of her curtained bed replaced the burning brightness of her dream, but the searing waves of pain still clawed at her, and the scream of anguish that had stuck in her throat loosened at last and tore free.
Instinctively she drew herself into a tight ball around her womb. The child was coming too soon. She screamed for Margot, and then felt the covers ripped from her. Strong hands grasped her shoulders, and Margot was there, calling her name—her voice commanding and her face hard.
“You must push, Emma! You cannot save the child. Do you hear me? There is nothing you can do to save the child. It belongs to God already. Now you must save yourself. If you want to live, you must push!”
Afterward she would remember it as part of the nightmare—the pungent smell of blood and the crescendos of pain that crested and broke and crested inside her womb over and over. With Wymarc on the bed behind her for support and Margot reaching between her bloody, naked thighs, she braced herself against them, straining and pushing until she had freed her body of the tiny burden that it had borne for so little a time.
Released from the worst of the pain, but aching and empty, Emma lay desolate as her women tended her. It was only when she saw Wymarc take up the tiny bundle and carry it toward the door that she roused herself.
“Wait,” she called. She would not have her babe disposed of like so much night soil. “Send for Father Martin. I want him to bless the child.” It could not be baptized, but she could send it to God with a blessing. “In the morning we shall bury it in the minster garden.”
It was such a little thing, this child, with no one to protect it but her. And she had failed at the one task that she had been given.
She turned to Margot, her vision blurring with tears that she wiped away with the back of a hand. “What did I do wrong?” she asked. “What did I do to hurt the babe?”
Margot sat at the edge of the bed and took her hand. “You did nothing,” she said gently. “Do not blame yourself.”
“But I am to blame! I told the king that I would hate this child because it was his.” She closed her eyes at the memory. “It was not true. You were right. I would have loved the babe, yet God punished me for speaking such evil.” She did not confess all of it. She did not speak of how she had raged at God for binding her to a man for whom she could feel neither respect nor love. In her heart she had wished her husband dead. God, hearing her, had taken the child instead.
Margot turned Emma’s face so that she looked into the familiar eyes of the woman who had cared for her for as long as she could remember.
“I do not believe,” Margot said, “in a God that punishes unborn children for a mother’s hasty words. Nor should you. Think you that the Lord cannot read your heart? Surely He knows that you loved this child. We shall never know why such an innocent was lost to us, nor should we ask to know the workings of God. We can only thank Him for your safe deliverance and pray that your womb quickens with child again soon.
”
But God had, indeed, read her heart, and He had found wickedness there. She looked over at the tiny bundle still in Wymarc’s arms, and her anguish at her loss engulfed her yet again. What would happen now? What if her womb never quickened again? Or what if it did, but she gave birth only to dead children? Her life would have been a complete and utter waste.
She turned her face into the pillow to stifle her tears, and a moment later felt a gentle hand upon her head and heard Margot’s soothing voice.
“You must do your grieving now, my lady,” Margot whispered, “and then I beg you to let this babe go. You cannot cling to it, not even in your heart. There will be other babes.”
“But what if there are not?” She grieved for the babe, but it was not that loss that terrified her. It was her fear of what the future held that weighed upon her like a black cloud. She did not know how to dispel it.
“You will have more children,” Margot said, and her voice held a matter-of-fact certainty that Emma clutched at with hope.
She turned to face Margot, searching for reassurance. The age lines in that familiar face seemed deeper than usual. It had been a long, weary night for Margot, too, yet her eyes were clear and bright, and when Emma looked into their brown depths they did not blink. “How can you be sure?” she whispered.
“Because,” the old woman said, taking Emma’s hand into her own and squeezing it, “there is no reason on this earth why you should not.” She heaved a long sigh. “I speak to you as one who lost three babes, one after another, born before their time. Yet I saw six sons grow to manhood. Your mother, too, lost three babes in much the same way. Did you not know?”
Emma shook her head. She had been the youngest. All she knew of childbirth she had witnessed when Judith had presented Richard with a son after a labor so brief that even Margot had been astonished.
Margot was smiling now. “It will take no miracle for you to get with child again, my lady, so long as the king is willing. The miracle would be if you did not.”
(2013) Shadow on the Crown Page 18
