(2013) Shadow on the Crown

by Patricia Bracewell

  Ælfric again took up his tale. “My son slipped away again in the night, and although I followed with a party to capture him, by dawn he had alerted the enemy of our intentions, and their fleet had sailed. Only one dragon ship was set aflame. All its crew was slain but for one man—the traitor, Ælfgar. My son.”

  Emma swallowed, forced to ask the question although she dreaded to hear the answer. “What was his punishment?”

  “The king, for the love he bore me, gave me my son’s life. But they gouged out his eyes and left him all but dead. For ten years now he has been cared for by the brothers at Magdalene Abbey near Exeter, but in all that time I have not seen him, for fear of incurring the king’s displeasure.” He paused, and his eyes, when they captured hers, gleamed with unshed tears. “I would see my son again, my lady, reunite him with his daughter if he should will it. Hilde knows nothing of her father’s treachery, but she must learn of it soon. I would rather that she heard it from me than from any other. And when she knows the truth”—he looked at her with pleading eyes—“she will need comfort, I think.”

  Emma though of Hilde, who had often sat with young Edward during his illness, telling him stories to distract him from his pain.

  “I will stand by Hilde,” she said, “and offer her whatever counsel she may need.”

  The old man did not speak, but kissed her hand. As Emma watched him leave, she pondered his willingness to risk his king’s displeasure in seeking out a faithless son, whose actions had cast infamy on his father’s name.

  If the king’s sons should commit some rash, misguided deed, she doubted that they would find their father so willing to forgive.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  June 1003

  Exeter, Devonshire

  When Queen Emma of England entered the royal burh of Exeter on Midsummer’s Day, Athelstan watched the event from a lookout atop the city wall. The day was bright with sun, and as Emma approached the group of nobles waiting for her at the southern gate, all the church bells of Exeter began to peal, and a roar went up from the crowds that had come to watch.

  Athelstan guessed that nothing like it had been seen in Exeter within living memory. Not since the days of King Athelstan, near eighty years before, would such an array of priests, soldiers, noblemen, and courtly ladies have made its way through the gates of the city’s Roman wall, past the minster, to the fortress on the hill. The bishops of Crediton and Sherborne, rivaling each other in capes of scarlet silk, rode at the queen’s side. Behind her, Ealdorman Ælfric’s heavily polished mail tunic and helmet outshone not only the glitter of the prelates’ garb, but even the gleam reflected from their shining tonsures.

  Athelstan barely noticed them, for his eyes were fixed upon Emma, in her cyrtel of shimmering blue godwebbe. Her mantle was of a deeper blue, trimmed with white silk, and clasped at her right shoulder by a broach of gold inlaid with pearls. On her head she wore a delicate silk veil bound in place by a thin circlet of beaten gold. Perched atop her great white horse she looked stunning. It seemed to him that anyone who saw her must love her.

  Yet even as he watched the queen make her slow way through the streets of Exeter, he did not for a moment forget the threat of Swein Forkbeard and his dragon ships. From where he stood Athelstan could see the River Exe as it flowed past the city walls toward the Narrow Sea. Ever and again his eyes strayed to the southeast, where a signal beacon was perched atop a hill crowned by the remains of a fort built by a people long vanished. Should Danish ships be sighted on the horizon the beacon would be lit in warning. But no trace of warning flare blazed on the hill. Athelstan relaxed ever so slightly.

  His two companions, garbed as he was in fine, gray, knee-length woolen cloaks that covered their mail tunics, had been in his service from the time that they were boys together. He nodded to them to remain on watch, and he left them, making his way through the press of people and down from the wall. He skirted the crowds that flooded Ceap Street in the wake of the queen’s procession, following the wall to the western gate, where his mount waited in the care of an old man who preferred the weight of silver pennies in his purse to the sight of a queen.

  Athelstan mounted his horse and urged it out of the gate and away from Exeter, and from Emma. He had toyed with the idea of trying to see her at once, to be waiting for her at Hugh’s side when her reeve welcomed her to the fortress at the top of the town. He had much to say to her, for they had parted badly and it had been his doing. She would grant him pardon, he was certain, were he to ask it. But this was neither the time nor the place to ask for pardon. He would have to be patient, for today she belonged to others—to the thegns and their ladies, to the bishops, to those who sought a boon from the white hand of the Lady. He would not seek a public audience with her. He had learned from his last, disastrous interview with the king that such a thing would be unwise. He must bide his time, and wait for an opportunity to speak with her alone.

  And when they met, what would he say to her, beyond the words that he would use to beg for forgiveness? Would he tell her all that was in his heart? No, for it would be cruel to burden her with that. Did she not already have enough to bear? A husband who used her badly, a babe miscarried, and the fear of whatever horror the Danes might bring.

  Would he burden her, too, with words of love? Already today the folk of Exeter had hailed her, cheering for their Lady Queen, smitten by the very sight of her. No, she did not need the burden of his love. He could offer his service, though. He would be the queen’s man, if she would but let him. He would guard her and protect her, come what may, and ask for naught in return.

  He spurred his horse northward toward his holdings at Norton. Soon, though, he would return and make his pledge to her, if she would have him.

  Several days later, beneath a dismal sky, Emma stood upon the ramparts of the fortress that would be her home for the next two months. She would have preferred a chamber in St. Nicholas’s Priory on the edge of town, but Athelstan’s dire warning about the Danes had convinced her to be prudent. Here, atop this enormous bloodred rock, she would be protected by timber, stone, and sheer height from any danger. Except a high wind, she told herself wryly, as the thin silk of her headrail swirled around her face.

  She pushed back the veil and studied the view before her. The city itself was surrounded by hills, and to the south the River Exe wound its way through them. From the city gate that faced the river the long Ceap Street, crowded with shops and lodgings, ran toward her in a straight line. On one side of the Ceap the walls of the minster rose above houses roofed with thatch, the red stone of the church sharply outlined against the green of the close and the fields that surrounded it.

  From her vantage point she could just make out three of the great gates set into the city’s high Roman walls. The fourth gate, Northgate, lay behind her, and, according to Hugh, once the gates were closed there was only one other way into the city—a secret door, its precise location known to only a few. La posterle, Hugh had called it, explaining that the door led to a tunnel that burrowed beneath the city walls. In case of an attack upon Exeter, defenders from the burh could slip out through la posterle to spring upon the enemy from behind. Its most recent use though, Hugh had said with a grin, had been by the former reeve who would slip through the hidden passage at night to visit his mistress in Northgate. Those forays had ceased when he returned to the burh one night to find his wife waiting for him beside la posterle with a switch in her hand, to the great amusement of the castle guards.

  It occurred to Emma that it could hardly be a secret door if even the reeve’s wife knew of it. Nevertheless, she had been given a tour of the entire fortress, and she had not been able to spot the tunnel’s entrance.

  She made her way past the guard who stood gazing stolidly toward the sea, and she paused to look down the wooden steps into the fortress yard. It was a stark contrast to the tranquil, royal enclave of Winchester. This was n
o palace, safely enfolded by the Hampshire downs and graced with the luxuries that the wealth of sixty years of peace and prosperity could provide. This was a fortress on the edge of Æthelred’s kingdom, and there was little here of comfort or beauty, cleanliness or quiet. The enclosure below churned with soldiers, servants, horses, carts, and a never-ending line of tradesmen who came and went through a small door next to the main gate. Hugh had made his own quarters available for her use, and the high stone hall with its thatched roof sheltered not only Emma and her women, but its undercroft harbored a chicken coop, a small sheep pen, a dwindling store of grain, and assorted families of resident vermin that she preferred not to think about. Presumably, it hid the entrance to that secret tunnel as well.

  She stepped carefully along the rocky path that led to the hall and climbed the stairs to its timbered door. Wymarc waited there for her, a pair of clean leather slippers in her hands and such a bright expression on her face that Emma had to smile. Hugh was responsible for Wymarc’s joy, she was certain. She had been witness to their reunion and to the looks of suppressed longing that neither had been able to disguise. She’d sent the two of them off on a trumped-up errand, just to give them some moments alone together, and Wymarc had been glowing like the moon ever since.

  Emma was about to broach the topic of Wymarc’s feelings for Hugh when a shout went up from the guard at the fortress gate. The massive bulk of the outer gate swung wide, and a group of horsemen rode in, but Emma saw only the man at the head of the troop.

  There was nothing in his garb to mark him as the eldest ætheling and the heir to the throne, for he was dressed simply, cloaked in fine gray wool, his head crowned with only the golden sheen of his hair. Yet there was no mistaking the air of authority that proclaimed to anyone who saw him that this was a son of the royal blood.

  So Athelstan had come, as she had known that he would. She wished with all her heart that he had not. She was not prepared to see him, for she could not feign indifference to him any more than Wymarc could pretend indifference to Hugh. She suspected that every word she spoke, every action, every glance was observed and noted. If she were to allow Athelstan into her presence, how long would it be before the king heard of it?

  Æthelred and his sons were already at odds—had been since the day of her marriage. As peaceweaver was it not her duty to mend the rents in the fabric of the kingdom, reconcile father to son if she could? Yet if the king were to harbor suspicions about her feelings for Athelstan, her efforts would only sow more discord between them.

  She would have to send Athelstan away, and she must do it in such a way that he would not attempt to see her again.

  “Find Hugh,” she said to Wymarc.

  Athelstan placed both his hands upon the table in front of him and glowered at Emma’s reeve. As the king’s eldest son, he was not used to being thwarted, and he did not much like it. Beyond that, he had come to consider Hugh a friend and had not expected this man, of all men, to stand in the way of his desire.

  “How can you know that the queen will not see me?” he demanded. “You have not even sent her word that I am here.”

  “She knows well that you are here. She has bid me tell you that, as she is certain that you have brought her greetings from the king, she thanks you for your courtesy. She hopes that you will comprehend the heavy matters that prevent her from granting you an audience with her, and she requires that any message you bear from your father be delivered through me. She asks me as well to urge you, upon your present return to Winchester, to bear the greetings of a loving and obedient wife to your father the king.”

  With an effort, Athelstan reined in his temper. He and Hugh had shared ale together in the king’s hall and had told bawdy jokes to each other in the long hours of the night watch in the palace yard at Winchester. Hugh’s face was wont to reflect his every thought, and the fact that right now it was as blank as a pool of still water told Athelstan a great deal. For the moment, Hugh was nothing but the queen’s mouthpiece. He would say only what he had been ordered to say, and nothing that Athelstan could do, short of violence, would change that. In the great hall of her dower city, the orders of the queen overruled even those of the king’s heir.

  Hugh’s formal greeting was meant for everyone within earshot to hear, yet Athelstan perceived a hidden message that washed over him like icy water. Emma greeted him not as a friend but as the wife of the king. That in itself was a wall placed between them as thick as the fortress walls of Exeter itself. She wanted to hear no pledges from him. At least, not in public, he told himself. And for reasons that he could only guess at, she was not willing to risk seeing him in private.

  Was she afraid of what he might say to her? Or was she fearful of what others might say about her? When he entered the hall he had taken careful note of those present. The room was not overly large. Perhaps three of them could fit within the great hall at Winchester. There were maybe thirty people milling about, and the conversations that had reached his ears as a loud buzz when he first stepped through the doorway had dropped, almost immediately upon his entrance, to a low hum.

  The great hall was ever a breeding ground for rumor and gossip. Anything he said here was likely to be repeated, perhaps even into the ear of the king. He cared nothing for that, for himself, but he had to consider Emma. Clearly she wanted him to be gone, to return immediately to Winchester. Had his father threatened her in some way? Was the king, indeed, fearful of losing the wife he did not want to the son he did not heed? His father was ever one to misjudge where danger lay, a king who started at shadows. Nevertheless, he himself must be mindful of the queen. He would have to frame his response to her with the same care that she had used in couching her message to him.

  He nodded brusquely to Hugh.

  “Tell the queen that I apologize for my impetuous arrival today, as well as for all my other ill-considered acts. She will be able to think of many, I am certain. My father sends assurance,” he could not refrain from a bitter smile as he stretched the truth somewhat, “of his confidence in the summer’s continued peace. I will of course bear the queen’s greetings to the king when I see him.” This would not occur any time soon, but the audience around him need not know it. “Have you begun the repairs to the city walls as I directed?” he asked. At least he would make sure that the city’s fortifications would withstand any assault.

  “We started work today, my lord,” Hugh replied.

  “Good,” he said. “There is one more thing. I understand that Lord Ælfric accompanied the queen to Exeter. Can you direct him to attend me at my Norton estate in four days’ time?”

  “My Lord Ælfric set out early this morning toward Torverton on some purpose of his own. He will return by nightfall, however, and I will give him your message then,” Hugh said, rising from his stool to bow in acknowledgment.

  Athelstan nodded and made his way out of the hall. The queen would know now where to find him. And if she had any message for him, of warning or of forgiveness, she would find a way to send him word. For the moment, he could do no more.

  Elgiva, wearing a sober black cloak, and with her wanton curls bound in a demure braid and covered by a linen veil, stood in the shadows near the door of St. Mary Minster, pretending to pray. Her father’s man was late today. She had been waiting here, cold and uncomfortable, throughout an entire Mass. Her feet hurt from standing on the hard stone floor, and every inch of her felt damp from the moisture that seeped through the wall next to her. Groa, silent and watchful, stood in front of her, shielding her from curious eyes and from the chill draft that came in through the open door. Groa’s company, though, gave Elgiva little in the way of comfort. It was her father’s handsome thegn, he of the searching eyes and arrogant mouth, who she wanted beside her. He had sent her word through Groa to meet him here, and her frustration and anger grew as the minutes dragged by and he did not appear.

  A crowd had formed at the
church door now, made up of priests and worshipers trying to make their way out as pilgrims tried to make their way in. The pilgrims, some moaning, some weeping, all of them wretched, advanced in a line toward the altar. Most of them crawled, brought to their knees by illness or devotion, others hobbled on crutches, and she could see one who was carried on a pallet. They all sought forgiveness or miracles—or both. They came to place their hands upon Mary’s stone, reputedly taken from the tomb of the Virgin and placed in the floor before the altar of this church when it was first built. One of the old kings of Wessex—Alfred or Athelstan, she could not remember which—had purchased it and set it here. Countless folk, so the story went, had been healed of whatever miseries ailed them just by touching it, and so the believers continued to come in search of healing and peace.

  At the moment there was little enough peace to be had. The shrill clamor from the pilgrims set Elgiva’s teeth on edge, and she had just made up her mind that her father’s messenger could go hang when a form clad in dark green separated itself from the cluster of folk at the door and moved to stand immediately behind her.

  “What news, my lady?”

  She recognized his voice, and a thrill of anticipation shot up her spine. But the church and the wait and the pilgrims had put her in a foul temper, and she was not to be easily appeased.

  “You are late,” she hissed. “Why have you kept me waiting so long?”

  “Forgive me. I was on a mission, and I was delayed.”

  She caught his scent now, a pleasing man smell of leather and horseflesh and sweat. The heat from his body displaced some of the chill from the stones beside her, but there was not enough remorse in his tone to pacify her.

  “Do not keep me waiting again,” she snapped. “My time is more important than any mission that you might have.” She clasped her hands and bowed her head to give the impression that she was praying, should anyone chance to glance in her direction.