(2013) Shadow on the Crown

by Patricia Bracewell

  She could not go back, it was too risky. Groa would not expect it. Groa would tell her to run, to save herself.

  She got to her feet, clutched the jewels and her long skirts to her breast, and sprinted after Wulf.

  When she reached the shelter of the forest he was there, panting from the run and shaking his head as he stared past her.

  “Poor old bitch,” he muttered. “She’s in for it now.”

  She turned round.

  Groa had dropped to her knees, and as Elgiva watched, two men appeared from behind the nearest cottage. They pounded toward the old woman, but Groa did not see them because her eyes were fixed on the trees where Elgiva and Wulf stood hidden in the forest shadow. The men were huge, tall and broad-shouldered, shirted in mail, their heads protected by skull-shaped leather caps. Each one bore a long- handled broadax.

  When they reached Groa one of them gave her a brutal shove, so that she fell forward onto her hands. He tossed up her skirts and threw himself on her like a dog, thrusting and heaving. When he was done he drew aside and watched while the other took his turn.

  It lasted only a few moments. Elgiva told herself that they would leave Groa alone now. Why shouldn’t they? She was harmless, not worth the effort it would take to kill her. But when the second man had rolled off of her, the first one raised his ax high. In that single instant before the downward stroke, Elgiva saw the ax head glisten, bright as a jewel in the sun.

  Devonshire

  Emma’s captors led her steadily southeast. Swein rode on Emma’s right, the leading rope of her mount wound tightly around the pommel of his saddle. His son—Cnut, his father had called him—kept pace with her on the left, and the third man, Halfdan, brought up the rear. They had been riding for some time when Emma saw, in the distant western sky, an ominous pall of smoke. Slowly the black stain grew and spread until it devoured the sun, and Emma knew that the walls of Exeter must have been breached.

  Swein’s men would have found la posterle and opened the city gates, and the carnage that she had witnessed this afternoon in the narrow lane between the hills was now being repeated in the streets of Exeter. The bitter certainty of it kindled in her heart a burning rage toward the Danish king, an anger that was fueled to a white heat by her helplessness to do anything about it.

  She never ceased looking for an opportunity to escape, but as the miles passed her despair grew. She would need a miracle to get away. Her captors kept close watch on her, and the boy, Cnut, seemed to never take his eyes from her.

  She could not tell how far they had traveled, but as the sky grew steadily darker, they drew ever nearer to the coast. At the crest of a low hill Swein checked his horse and brought the company to a halt while he studied the horizon. She followed his gaze and saw that the road ahead of them continued almost due south, where a cloud bank marked the shore, she guessed, of the Narrow Sea. A second, narrower track led downhill to the left, through a small village and then across a sheep-strewn meadow, until it disappeared into a dense forest of pines.

  She looked eagerly for anyone who might come to her aid, but it was as if the land had been swept clean of everything human. She guessed that with the lighting of the warning beacons folk had grabbed whatever valuables they could carry and had gone to ground like rabbits in a thunderstorm. They would be hiding now, waiting for the storm to pass. Whatever belongings they had left behind would be free for the taking.

  Swein gestured toward the hamlet below the hill.

  “There is likely food to be had in the village there,” he said to his companions. “We may have a long night ahead of us, so go see what you can find. Be quick. I will go on ahead with the lady.”

  As the boy and the guard wheeled their horses toward the village, Swein urged his own mount down the southerly track, drawing Ange behind him. This, Emma realized, might be her best opportunity to get away. She eyed Swein’s strong, sturdy figure. He was a formidable man, to be sure, but she deemed that skill and the speed of her horse would be in her favor, if she could but break away.

  Still, she hesitated. If her attempt should fail, she would never get another. Covertly she studied the man while the sheath of the hunting knife tucked into her boot seemed to burn like a brand against her skin. She dared not attack him directly, for Swein—bigger, stronger, and better armed—would overpower her in a moment.

  No, she thought as she worked out each move, she would have to rely upon the sharpness of her blade, on her own strength and quickness, and on the element of surprise. Swein would not expect her to attempt to flee, for in truth, she had nowhere to go. She could only trust to her horse to outrun her foe so that she could lose him in the forest. Still, that was better than whatever awaited her at the end of this road.

  Her mouth went dry as she slowly eased her trembling hand down the side of her leg until she had the hilt of the knife in her grasp. Then, deliberately slowing her mount, she pulled the knife free with a quick, fluid move and slashed it through the taut leading rope. Swein, shouting, lunged for her, but she wheeled her horse to the left and widened the gap between them. Kicking the mare into a gallop, she bent her head to its neck, urging Ange toward the eastern road. Her Norman horse, pursued by Swein’s more stolid mount, ran as if the devil himself was giving chase.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  August 1003

  Bishop’s Waltham, Hampshire

  “Although you have not asked for it, my lord king, I wish to give you counsel regarding your eldest son.”

  Æthelred did not much like the disapproving tone he could hear in Bishop Ælfheah’s voice, and he shifted uneasily in his chair. He and Ælfheah were facing each other in the bishop’s lodge, several hours’ ride from Winchester. The hall was not large, but Winchester’s canny bishop had made sure that the two of them could converse in private, away from the retainers and huntsmen who were gathered nearer the fire pit.

  The day’s sport had gone well, the feast that followed had been more than satisfactory, and although he could not expect to find a woman waiting for him in his bed tonight, he had been lulled into a pleasant languor by the bishop’s hospitality. He should have guessed, though, that Ælfheah had more on his mind than merely reflecting upon today’s wild chase and the hart that had been brought to bay at last.

  “I thought you invited me here to hunt, not to give me unwanted advice,” he muttered.

  “When I see the need for counsel, I offer it,” Ælfheah replied, “wanted or not.”

  Æthelred studied the man who had been giving him counsel, usually unasked, for more than half his life. The years had been kind to Ælfheah—or, more like, God had favored him—for he looked far more youthful than a man of fifty years who had been a bishop for near twenty. His tonsured head was crowned with thick, brown hair and a smooth, seamless brow. He had an aquiline nose, a usually genial mouth framed by a short, dark beard, and his perceptive brown eyes bespoke a keen and agile mind. Those eyes were fixed on Æthelred now as if they would search his soul, and he glanced away.

  This bishop lived in the light of God’s grace. What right had he to judge a man who lived in the shadow of hell?

  “So you wish to tell me how to deal with my son,” he murmured. “Based on what, Bishop? How many sons do you have?”

  “Many, my lord, for a bishop is father to all men in his care. Even kings.”

  Æthelred reached for the mead-filled cup set beside him and took a long swallow. That was the trouble with most bishops, and this one in particular. Ælfheah believed that his office gave him the right to put his nose into royal concerns where it certainly did not belong. Nevertheless, the bishop would have his say in his own hall, and even a king, for courtesy, had to listen.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “I have heard rumors that Athelstan is to be punished for leaving court without your permission. I understand that you must discipline him, but I ur
ge you, my lord, to be lenient. His departure, I believe, was not without provocation.”

  “Provocation?” Æthelred nearly laughed. “Because I refused to countenance his mad idea to cross the Narrow Sea and fire an imaginary Danish fleet?”

  “Because you treated him with contempt before all your court. He is your heir, my lord, and if you do not treat him with respect, neither will the nobles of this kingdom. You are undermining his future.”

  Æthelred snorted. “You need have no worries about his future. Even now he is laying that foundation. Have your priest spies not told you what he has been doing in the west?”

  “They report that he has been repairing Exeter’s walls, readying the city’s defenses against—”

  “Against what? The Danes attacked Exeter two years ago but could not breach those walls. Think you they would try again and expect a different result? If they strike at all it will be farther east, and my forces there will be ready for them.” He took another pull from his cup and waved it at the bishop. “Oh, I grant you, Athelstan may be repairing the damage from that last assault, but that is not his main purpose. He is building alliances, wooing the men of the western shires and assuring them that he will one day make them a better king than I.” He scowled at Ælfheah. “His sins, Bishop, are pride and ambition. He thinks he can defy his father and his king with impunity. Mark me: If I do not continually slap him down, one day the cub is like to challenge me for my crown.”

  Ælfheah’s face went blank with astonishment.

  That, Æthelred reflected, was Ælfheah’s weakness. His own goodness blinded him to the black intentions of other men.

  “I think you misjudge him, my lord,” Ælfheah protested. “I have often spoken with Athelstan—”

  But Æthelred had ceased to listen, his attention claimed by a royal messenger who had entered the hall and came to kneel before him.

  “What is it?”

  “I am come from Winchester, my lord. We have had a bird from the royal manor at Norton with news that a Viking fleet has landed at Exeter.”

  He gaped at the man. It wasn’t possible. He had been certain that of all the coastal towns in England, Exeter would be safe from Viking attack. Emma herself had written to her brother that she would journey to her dower lands. Surely the Norman duke would have cautioned his pillaging Danish allies to spare his sister’s haven.

  “At Exeter?” he asked, incredulous. “Has there been any word from the queen’s reeve in the city?”

  “No, my lord, not when I left Winchester.”

  Æthelred dismissed him, keenly aware of the bishop’s eyes hard upon him.

  “Is it King Swein, think you?” the bishop asked.

  Swein—the Danish king who had a sister’s death to avenge. The very name hovered in the air like a curse. But he would not believe it.

  “Any Danish lord who can outfit a dragon ship might join with a handful of others to go a-viking. This is likely half a dozen vessels filled with desperate men out for whatever plunder they can grab. Let us hope that my ambitious son has completed the task he claims to have set for himself, and that the shipmen break themselves upon the city’s defenses. In any case,” he said, getting to his feet and gesturing to a light bearer, “I shall say good night, for I must return to Winchester at daybreak.”

  Ælfheah rose as well and now his smooth brow was furrowed with concern.

  “But if it is Swein . . .” he began.

  “If it is Swein, he will show us no mercy. He will make us bleed—first blood and then gold.” And if he should break through Exeter’s walls, Æthelred thought darkly, Swein will find an English queen within. “Batter heaven with prayers, Bishop,” he growled, “that it is not.”

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Devonshire

  Emma kept her eyes on the lane where it left the hamlet and bisected the meadow to disappear among the trees. She raced flat out, the wind tearing against her face. Sheep scattered away from her, bleating in alarm. She sensed that Swein was falling behind, and she felt a surge of elation. She whispered a prayer to the Virgin and shouted encouragement to her horse.

  The hamlet lay on her left now, and she kept her mount in a diagonal line that would bring her to the lane at a point beyond the last house of the village. Just a little farther and she would have won her freedom. But as she neared her goal she saw another horse and rider fly out of the village, bolting along the lane to head her off. Swein’s son. Unlike his father, he sat his horse well, and his lithe figure seemed to be one with his mount.

  She did not slow down but veered to her right, away from the dirt track and heading instead straight across the meadow for the woods. If she could stay in front of him, she might still escape, for she had the faster horse. The trees loomed directly in front of her, and as she slowed her mount to enter the woods, she saw the boy urge his horse off of the track to follow her.

  Then she was in the trees, keeping her head low to avoid whipping branches that might blind or kill her. She trusted to Ange to stay ahead of her pursuer, but the horse came to a shuddering halt at a cliff edge, and Emma cried aloud in frustration. A river swirled far below her in a deep channel. She took no time to gauge the distance, but slid from the saddle. Grabbing the bridle, she led Ange toward the steep ledge, but suddenly the boy was there beside her, and long, thin fingers clasped her wrist.

  Using all her strength she wrenched her hand away and turned to face him, brandishing the knife.

  “You will let me go!”

  He halted, more in surprise at her use of Danish, she guessed, than in fear of the blade in her hand.

  Perhaps he sensed that she had neither the will nor the instinct she needed to make a lethal strike. Perhaps he was simply reckless. She only knew that for an instant they stared at each other, frozen in time like figures carved into stone. Then, as she turned to fling herself down the ledge, he clutched her blade arm and dragged her backward, so that she lost her balance and fell against him. Regaining her footing, she twisted and kicked, trying vainly to escape his cruel grasp. Slowly, and with a careless strength that maddened her, he pried her fingers from the hilt of the knife and tossed it away.

  Still she resisted him, more frantic than ever, but he dragged her from the cliff edge, and as she continued to struggle he finally grasped both her arms and shook her until her teeth rattled.

  “No more!” he shouted at her.

  He shook her again, and she had to stop struggling then, for she was dizzy and weak from frustration and rage. She looked into his face, into dark eyes that regarded her not with the contempt that she expected but with compassion.

  “You have lost the battle, lady,” he said. “You cannot escape. It was a brave attempt, but it is done.”

  Any thoughts she may have had about making another attempt vanished with the arrival of Swein and Halfdan. Swein dismounted quickly and strode toward her, his face hard. She knew instinctively that he would cuff her, and she had no wish to feel the brunt of his anger again.

  As he raised his hand to deliver the blow she cursed him in Danish and followed it with a threat.

  “If you strike me,” she said, “when next I lay my hand on a knife I shall slit your throat.”

  Swein checked his swing, gazed at her in amazement, then lowered his hand and grinned at his son.

  “By all the gods! Spoken like a wench from the stews of Hedeby.” His grin faded when he turned back to Emma. “The more fool I for forgetting your lineage, my lady. I shall gladly stay my hand, and I shall make certain, as well, that nothing sharper than your tongue comes within your reach. May I,” he asked with a mock bow, “assist you to your horse?”

  She did not want him to touch her, but having avoided a slap, she decided not to press the point. She spoke softly to Ange as the mare stood trembling with the exertion of their pointless bid for freedom. Their
journey continued just as before, except that Emma gave way to bleak despair.

  They crossed the River Otter at a ford above another deserted village, then followed a track that led them along the river’s eastern bank. The land rose slowly until they were riding atop a ridge. Emma looked southward, and she could see that the ridge curved around to the west like a crooked finger. Below her the tidal estuary of the River Otter glimmered like the shards of a mirror in the last of the dying light, but her senses registered nothing of its beauty. She was numb to everything now except the realization that her life as she had come to know it was over.

  They had reached the sea. She could hear the lash of waves upon the beach and smell the salt in the air. Somewhere nearby, she knew, there would be salt pans and tiny huts where the seawater was boiled to extract the precious grains. There were numerous tuns of that salt, even now, sitting in the storehouse below Exeter fortress. Or perhaps, she reflected, they had already been carried to Forkbeard’s waiting ships. In any case, the saltworkers would have fled to shelter at the first sign of the warning beacons. There would be no one on the beach now to come to the aid of a beleaguered queen.

  The evening sky was clear, although a bank of clouds lay threatening just off the coast. A moon nearing the full shimmered overhead, and it was late, she knew. She had come to day’s end, land’s end, and, for the moment, journey’s end. She was hardly grateful. Indeed, she wished that she could simply continue to ride until she and Ange both dropped, exhausted and senseless. Instead she would be forced now to dismount and wait for whatever her captors had planned for her.

  As they drew within sight of the sea she searched the waters for sign of a ship, but she could make out nothing. Perhaps the Virgin had answered her prayers, and the ship was not there.