The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  “Damn the whoreson!” Æthelred stormed as he strode up and down the central aisle of his hall, kicking at unsuspecting dogs, his hands sweeping goblets and wooden bowls from trestle tables. “The revenue from the Côtentin is mine! How dare he refuse it me?”

  Emma, seated with her ladies at the far end, sat mute, her head bowed. Technically, the Côtentin revenue was hers, but she dare not say so aloud. The year, so far, had been unbearable. They told her, the priests and the nuns, that it was a sin to take a blade to your own wrists and let the blood drain away, or to set a noose purposefully at your neck and leap from a tree bough or rafter. Such a sin, they declared emphatically, sent the soul straight to Hell. Well, Hell could be no worse than this utter misery. She had tried to be a good wife, dutiful in bed, an efficient housekeeper—the accounts were accurate and never ran high over the expected allowance. That in itself, for a King’s household, was an achievement. She played the part of Queen and wife to the best of her ability, drawing on all the skills her mother had planted and nurtured within her, but it was never enough to please Æthelred.

  “Duke Richard is aggrieved that you accused him of breaking the treaty between you, my Lord.” That was Alfhelm of Deira. It would have been better had he remained silent; Æthelred was in no mood for pertinent reminders.

  “A justified accusation. Is he not harbouring Danish longships yet again? Did he not pay that bastard Norman, Hugh de Varaville, to allow the Danish scum safe passage? How many of the folk in Norwich, I wonder, had he bribed to disobey Ulfkell’s orders?”

  The last was a ridiculous statement, for no one could have foreseen the unfolding of events that had occurred in East Anglia. Thegn Ufkell had defended Thetford with bravery and skill, but had still lost the battle to the Danes. In his wisdom he had issued orders for men to secretively move in behind the Vikings and burn their ships moored at Norwich. But Ufkell was no Ealdorman. His orders had not been obeyed, the longships had not been destroyed, and Swein Forkbeard had sailed away unscathed, but it was not prudent to contradict Æthelred when he was in a rage.

  “I would that I had never listened to Wulfstan! What do Archbishops know of marriage and political alliance, eh? Answer me that, someone?” No one dared remind him that the alliance with Normandy had been of his own making.

  “Look what I get for the trouble. The Danes attacking ever more often, my treasury depleting before my very eyes, and her, a woman who has no spirit, no damned interest for me in bed!” Æthelred had reached the end of his hall, and instead of turning to stride back up its length, he stepped up to Emma, his bruising fingers grabbing hold of her by the cheeks, forcing her head up. “Look at her! A skinny, sallow-faced cow who, it appears, is as barren as a mule!”

  Shame flooded Emma’s face. “Do not allow your feelings to show,” her mother had told her two years ago. Two years? Was that all? Surely a lifetime had passed her by?

  “She does not give me pleasure or a son, and now she does not bring me the income I was promised! Normandy? To Hell with the place, and to Hell with you, madam!” Æthelred was angry and, as always, took that anger out on the vulnerable. His nobles fought and bickered among themselves, disobeyed his orders, and thought only of personal gain. That made him angry because, despite being a King, he was impotent to do anything about it. Was angry because Richard of Normandy had reneged on the agreed treaty, had humiliated him, and again, he could do nothing about it.

  He could not strike at his nobles, nor could he lash the Norman Duke, but his wife was sitting there, silent, useless, her bone-thin figure a daily reminder of her childlessness. How many were whispering that perhaps it was not her fault she did not conceive? How many were speculating that perhaps he was becoming as inadequate in bed as he was as a King? Angry, Æthelred drew back his arm and brought his hand across Emma’s face, knocking her from her stool.

  Several men gasped, her own bodyguard taking a hesitant step forward, but no one could intervene against a King’s rage. Only one body defended her, only one loved Emma enough to leap up at her cry of pain and fear, and that was Saffron, her dog. She sprang forward, teeth bared, snarling, unafraid to protect and defend.

  Æthelred was a large man, strong in muscle and build. Although he did not care to put himself in danger on a battlefield, he had been trained in weaponry and warfare, had the reactions of a man who could swing an axe or wield a sword. He pivoted on his heel, his other boot jabbing at the dog’s exposed throat, knocking her aside. She yelped, fell, tumbled, was up, ready to spring again, but Æthelred was quicker. He ran the few paces to the hall’s white-plastered wattle wall, grabbed at one of the shining war axes hanging there and, turning, brought it down clean through the dog’s neck.

  Emma watched the severed head roll several yards, the blood gushing in grotesque fountains of spray over her gown and feet. Saffron. Dead. Slaughtered, murdered. The memory of Gunnhilda surged into her mind, and Pallig. The feel of his blood, hot and sticky on her skin, the stench of it in her nostrils…Æthelred had his back to her, was gloating at the mess, pleased with the spectacular result and the silence it had brought. Emma had no weapon, had no idea how to fight, but reaction, fuelled by bottled anger and desperate grief could be as powerful as any blade. Her fingers brushed against the stool she had been sitting on, touching the two carved arms that curved upwards like auroch’s horns. Her hand tightened round one and, unaware of what she was doing, lifted the stool and brought it down, with all her strength, across Æthelred’s shoulders. Æthelred staggered forward onto his knees, his bodyguard as hesitant as Emma’s had been. Shaken, bruised, but unharmed, he pushed himself upright, wincing, flexing his shoulders to explore any damage.

  Realising what she had done, Emma paled, dropped the stool, and backed away, her tongue moistening dried lips, her throat trying to swallow saliva that was not there. Instinct was shouting at her to be still, not to move, but she was a fifteen-year-old child and had not yet developed a trust for her own sense. As Æthelred turned, glowering in fury, she fled, running along the narrow corridor that led to her private chamber.

  In two strides he was behind her, clutching at the swirl of her gown, his grip tearing the material along one of the seams, the skirt ripping, exposing her undergarments. Emma screamed, tried to kick him, but she only wore lightweight indoor slippers; what good were they? His hand clamped on her wrist. She struggled, her wimple coming away in his grasping hand amid a shower of hairpins, the thong tying one of her two braids snapping, cascading the plait loose.

  “I have had my fill of women!” he roared as he dragged her into the privacy of her chamber, his hand slapping twice across her mouth and cheek. “Whores telling me what I can or cannot do, criticising my decisions. You are no better than the rest of them!” His fist punched into her breast and belly. “I will be obeyed. I will be respected!” His nostrils were wide, his breathing heavy, the muscles at the side of his left eye ticking. He slammed the door shut, bolted it. Quieter, ominously, added, “And I will get you with child.”

  ***

  Bruised and bleeding, her hair matted, her gown ripped, she lay half conscious, stiff, and aching on the floor, unaware of how many hours had passed, how many times and ways he had abused her. A square of night sky showed through the unshuttered window. No light cheered the room, only the strip of flickering torches hustling under the door from the lit corridor outside. No sound from the hall. Beyond the window an owl screeched, and then the bell from the monastery rang Matins. The second hour of the day.

  A snore resounded from the bed, the curtaining undrawn, the man sprawled there semi-clothed, an empty tankard of ale clasped in his hand.

  Her body shrilling protest, Emma crawled to the side table. Feeling with her hands, she found the jug of watered ale always set there, felt for a drinking cup, knocked it, clattering, to the floor, drank instead from the jug, her swollen lip sore against the rim.

  “So you are awake,” Æthelred said into the darkness, with no hint of compassion. “Get you to bed.�
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  “If you were a man,” she slurred through the swelling of her mouth, as with shaking hands she set the jug down on the table, “you would take what is owed from Richard, not from me.”

  “I said, get you to bed.”

  She ignored him, listened while he fell, drunk, asleep again, lay silent throughout the long night on the floor, and spoke only once more, an hour after dawn.

  He was at the door, dressed, unbolting it, making to leave. To his back she said clearly, distinctly, “But you are not a man, are you, Æthelred?”

  24

  December 1004—Hedingham, Oxfordshire

  Six entire months had passed in the relief of knowing her husband was many miles away and, with good fortune, would not be returning. Six months, with the first four of them plagued by sickness that had lasted throughout the day, not merely in the morning. The child within Emma had been conceived through violence and hatred, her body reacting with distaste and loathing. If she had known how to be rid of it, she would have done so, despite being cursed by God for all eternity. Huh, was she not cursed by this pregnancy anyway?

  God was already punishing her, so it had not been difficult for Emma to add to her sins by hoping—praying—for Æthelred’s ending. Ships foundered and war was a dangerous, bloody business. But God was not interested in the misery of a young woman. Æthelred had not been harmed, and his campaign to regain all rights to the Côtentin had been a disaster. A total, complete failure.

  “I told him to wait for a more favourable wind,” Athelstan was grumbling, although no one was listening, for the same words had been tossed around and around these past two hours.

  With the threat of Danish aggression temporarily swept away through Ulfkell’s heroic challenge—the brave English fyrdsmen of Norfolk had lost the fight, but had also sent more than half of Swein’s men to Valhalla—Æthelred had seized the opportunity to make a challenge to the Duke of Normandy. Two days after he had killed Emma’s dog, that had been. There were some who said he had decided on the idea to escape the prospect of another hurled stool; others, who had a liking for Emma, Edmund among them, used their eyes and thought it more likely he was running away from the guilt of a dishonoured conscience. Aye, it was for a husband to treat a wife how he willed, but no man who called himself a man of honour would want a wife to be seen as Emma showed herself those two days. Even the hard bastards like Eadric Streona had gasped as she had entered the hall that first morning, her face blackened by bruising, an eye so swollen she could not open it, her mouth so torn she could barely chew the bread of the break-fast meal. And that was the damage that could be seen. From the way she moved, there was more, worse, beneath her clothing. There was not a man that day, in that hall, who had not felt admiration for Emma. They knew the significance of courage, recognised it when it stood so blatantly defiant in front of them.

  Sitting to the far side of the chamber, Emma rested her hand on the bulge of her pregnancy. Every morning at Mass, since the day her monthly flux had failed to appear, she had prayed that she was carrying a girl. She did not want to give Æthelred a son, did not want to please him, did not want to do what they all expected of her. Did not want to break the frail friendship she had made with Athelstan. With a daughter born to a widowed Queen, she could have taken the veil and retired quietly from public sight, sound, and mind. Immaterial thoughts, now that Æthelred was home and alive.

  “Father’s expeditions of the past went well,” Edmund said to his brother across the board game they were sharing, although neither were concentrating on the moves. “Why did this one go so wrong? Papa once rid the Island of Man and the Strathclyde coast of Danish incomers.”

  “They were successful,” Athelstan answered with a growl, “because they were planned with the forethought and knowledge of men of ability and worth. Men who are now in their graves. Papa was young then, with not so much ale paunched in his belly and stupidity clogged in his wool brain. He also had a mother who had the wit and talent to rule effectively.”

  Edmund said nothing, stared at the smooth walrus ivory playing piece in his hand.

  “Fifty ships,” Athelstan added. “Our father sailed with fifty ships, expecting us to follow blindly in his wake and bare our teeth at Normandy. Only, the wind changed and a storm blew up. We spent weeks scratching our arses in Bruges, those of us who managed to get that far. Until the seas run dry, a quarter of that fleet will never be seen again.”

  Setting the gaming piece aside, Edmund lifted his finely carved King instead, studied it. “Is it for us to speak ill of a King’s judgement? Even if that King is our father and incompetent?” He put the piece carefully down in the centre of the board and, selecting four of his jet soldiers, Athelstan set them in a square around it.

  “Our papa, Edmund, intended to raid the Côtentin with the same efficiency, fear, and havoc that the Viking kind bring to us. Only when we finally reached the Normandy coast, Richard’s fleet was waiting for us. We turned tail and came home without a single spear being thrown or sword drawn. Papa is no seaman; he does not relish the misery of wet blankets, cramped quarters, and a heaving stomach. He does, however, apparently welcome ridicule.”

  Would his sons be talking like this, Emma wondered, half listening, if Æthelred were here? Most certainly not, but then the disparagement had been plain to read in every man’s eyes. The words did not need to be spoken.

  For the sake of the men, she had tried to warn Æthelred not to underestimate Richard.

  “What do you know of it?” he had slammed at her, sneering at her before the entire hall. “My wife,” he had jeered, “who cannot fulfil her duty to me by conceiving a child, thinks she knows of battle tactics.” Well, he could take back both accusations now, couldn’t he?

  At the time, she had wanted to hide her shame, as she had wanted to secret away what he had done to her, but for the same reason that she had risen from her bed and entered the public hall, she had held her head high and retained an impassive expression against his mockery.

  Sitting here, quietly listening to the discontented talk these months later, Emma permitted herself the reward of a satisfied smile. The Côtentin, her dower land, was lost to England for good. Who, now, was the more humiliated? The smile was short-lived, the reality too painful. Her ties to Normandy were now severed; all she had left was a loveless marriage, an unwanted child, and a hollow crown. There it was, resplendent on the outside, appearing solid and mighty, a thing of status and power, wealth and glory. But when you looked inside, all that was there was a gaping hole, filled with nothing more than the echo of disappointed dreams, with the only escape the promise of eventual death.

  A tear rambled down her cheek, hastily wiped away. She still had her pride. Nothing, no one, not God nor the devil himself would take that from her. Not while she had the breath in her body to lay claim to the authority that permitted her to wear that crown on her head, for all its worthlessness.

  The door was flung open and Æthelred strode through, removing his cloak and leather gloves, going straight to the fire to warm his backside. “By God it is cold out there,” he declared, “cold enough to freeze a man’s essentials off.” He chuckled at his jest, did not notice that no one responded or how silent the room had fallen.

  Rubbing his hands, he crossed to Emma, lifted her chin, and roughly kissed her lips, his other hand resting on the bulge of the child. “No mumbling about my balls and prick now, eh, madam? Not now that I have proven my manhood.”

  She did not answer.

  25

  March 1005—Islip

  Nothing ever would induce Emma to want to give birth to another child. The pain was unbearable.

  Beyond Emma’s chamber the snow lay thick, roads impassable, rivers frozen. Even the urine in the night pots had formed ice around the rim. Dawn had broken, the sky that threatened more snow streaking with the first pale, frost-bitten fingers an hour or so ago. Daylight, however, was not warming into anything more than a sullen, dismal greyness.

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nbsp; Emma had awoken yesterday irritable and restless. Her back had ached, her swollen feet and hands had throbbed. She had not been able to lie, sit, or stand comfortably these last few days, was tired and cold. She had eaten a light morning meal of cold chicken, but had brought it all up again. During the morning she had tried concentrating on her embroidery, had thrown the thing, spoilt beyond repair, into the hearth-fire.

  Æthelred was not at Islip; he rarely stayed long at the manor, for as Emma had discovered soon into her marriage, he did not like the place that had been his mother’s favoured residence. It suited Emma to be here, though, alone with her books, her ladies, and her personal guard of cnights. She had delighted in making Islip hers, discarding most of what had been Ælfthryth’s and furnishing both hall and her private chamber with expensive care. All the comfort available, however, could not take away the agony that was now tearing her body apart. Her insides were being ripped open; she had sweated and gasped through the onset of labour yesterday afternoon, and had screamed through the long night. The pain had gone on and on, unstoppable and relentless for over eighteen hours. She was too tired to scream now, too tired to do anything.

  On the far side of the chamber the two midwives were talking together, deciding between them what was best to do, their voices no more than a whisper.

  “The babe is wrong within her, the arm is in the way, the head cannot push through.” The eldest, a thin, elderly woman with white hair and prune-wrinkled skin, shook her head at her daughter. Both experienced birthing women who, between them, had brought most of the children in and around Oxford into the world.

  They had already tried most of their knowledge and arts to ease the labour; rubbing Emma’s abdomen and women’s parts with sweet-smelling oils, spooning spiced drinks into her mouth. In her hand, Emma clutched a small stone of jasper for its beneficial powers and, bound beneath her right foot, an unused new wax tablet with the words of a prayer scratched on it: