The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  The streets had been designed into their grid pattern many years before by King Alfred when he had ordered the structural rebuilding and defence of his Wessex capital. Trade, business, commerce. Winchester could boast of its pottery, iron making, bell casting, and leather working. The royal mint employed ten moneyers, while the Benedictines took responsibility for the numerous churches, chapels, and the New Minster, built to the north of Alfred’s older building.

  Emma avoided the wretchedness of the cattle market when possible, the hosier and shoemaker and potter more easily drawing her fascination. Craftsmen with names like Godric Clean-hand, Ælfric Sheep-shanks and Cudbert Penny-feather. Particularly, this morning Emma intended to purchase pepper, for she understood that a trader’s craft had moored yesterday, carrying the precious cargo obtained from Pavia in Italy, Europe’s greatest centre of commercial exchange. The temptation to go and buy had been too great for her to resist, despite the inconvenient bulk of her pregnancy.

  This February day the frosted air carried sounds sharp and clear: the calls of the traders to come see their fine wares, the haggling of bargain-wise women, the laughter of the children. A donkey brayed his reluctance to carry such a heavy load; two dogs fought a brief but vicious contest over a scrap of meat.

  It was good to be out here, to be among people who had no care beyond inspecting what lay on the next stall along. Æthelred had been in a black mood all morning, Alfhelm of Deria and Emma’s brother, Richard of Normandy, once again being the joint cause. The one because he was at court, the other because he was not. Mind, in this instance, Emma could not disagree with her husband’s grumbled opinion that Ealdorman Alfhelm and his family had outstayed their welcome and ought to return north to York.

  Her peppers safely purchased, Emma picked over a bundle of woollen braiding, selecting a length an inch wide with the colours of red, green, and yellow intricately woven into an intriguingly delicate pattern. She studied it closely, sure there must be flaws in the weaving, a mismatch of colours, a knot in the thread, an inconsistency in the complex pattern. “The woman who wove this,” she said to the stallholder, “must have exceptionally dexterous fingers and a sharp mind. I can find no fault with it.”

  “My daughter does the weaving, madam. You will not find anything better.”

  Emma paid her pennies. There was no possible chance that Lady Godegifa would allow her husband to leave Winchester without first attempting all she could to secure Æthelred’s eldest son in marriage to their daughter, Ælfgifu. Emma had to admire Godegifa’s persistence, while scorning her credulity. Athelstan was not in the slightest interested in the pinch-faced girl, nor in formal marriage. He was a man determined to become King after his father, and to ensure it he would need to make a strong and strategic alliance when the time came. Who could foresee the important men of the future? To ally himself with Deira now could turn Bernicia or Lindsey against him. A man who wanted to be King did not take a legal-bound, Christian-blessed woman as wife until the crown was safe upon his head.

  She strolled on to the next stall. The child in her enlarged belly was heavy, due any day, her lower back was aching, her ankles and hands swollen. She ought to rest, but she needed to feel the fresh, crisp air on her cheeks, enjoy the pale February sun. Needed to be away from the cloying atmosphere of the palace.

  Pope John, fifteenth to bear the name, was attempting to repair the broken treaty between England and Normandy. In a letter to Æthelred he had declared his interest in reestablishing a workable agreement; the petty bickering, he had insisted, must cease. Rome was investing heavily in the profit of overseas trade and was none too pleased at the disruption of income, caused by the squabbling between King and Duke. Neither was Emma, but she had resigned herself to the inevitable.

  The frost had been hard and widespread overnight; the sun, as midday approached, bright but not sufficient to melt obstinate patches of ice. Twice, Emma had almost slipped and Leofstan had insisted she take his arm for her safety. She had not objected, for he took his recent promotion to captain with serious conviction. Towards the western end of the High Street, where the hill climbed steeper and the wind swirled all day, the stalls were wider spaced, the hiring tax for each pitch cheaper by half a penny. There was nothing more Emma wanted, but she had been determined to walk the length of the street from East Gate to West and, as she passed, look in at her property, the cluster of humble dwellings ceded to her as a marriage portion by Æthelred. They needed pulling down and rebuilding, for several were nigh on uninhabitable, certainly not fit as a residence for herself. One day she would see to it. Huh, she was sounding like her husband! Empty promises!

  A scuffle caught Emma’s attention, a woman shouted, and a child, no more than eight years old, darted from behind a stall, a hunk of bread clutched in her hand. She ran in front of Emma, startled momentarily by Leofstan as he lunged forward to intercept her, but she was quick, used to running off, fast, with whatever she could steal. Ducking beneath grabbing hands, she was away and gone down a side street, curses rippling in her wake.

  “Damned brat, this be the secon’ time she’s ’ad ’alf a loaf of bread from me.” The woman shook her fist in the direction the child had disappeared, declared, “I ’ave ’er face now, though; I’ll get ’er if she comes pesterin’ again.”

  “She looked hungry,” Emma said with compassion, having noticed the gaunt thinness of the girl. “Is there nowhere those such as she may find food and shelter here in Winchester?”

  “The nuns of Nunnaminster serve broth to those willing to work in exchange. There’s never owt for nowt in this life, my Lady.”

  Handing the woman a copper penny, Emma refrained from agreeing. “Take this for your trouble,” she said and then, as an afterthought, gave the woman another. “And this for when the child comes again. Give her bread and bring her to the palace kitchens. Tell them the Queen commands they are to find her work in exchange for her keep. There will be a silver coin awaiting your trouble.”

  “You will have all the poor of Wessex turning up by the morrow,” Leofstan said with a chuckle as, again offering his arm, he escorted Emma up the steep incline towards the gaping arch of the western gateway. He approved. It was a compassionate Queen who helped the poor where and when she could. Æthelred’s mother had offered no patience with them, a royal woman who had gone unloved by England.

  Owt for nowt, Emma thought. How true. She had the security of never going cold or hungry, had furs, fine woollen gowns, and soft leather boots. Owt for nowt. In return for her comforts, she had to give herself as wife to a man she loathed. Fair exchange? Emma was not certain, but then she would never willingly give up this life for one of poverty, grime, and discomfort.

  At the gateway she turned north, drawn by the aroma of new-baked bread. Several Jews, trusted even less than the Danes, lived along here, making a handsome living from moneylending. The tavern at the end of a small side street was English, owned by a Saxon.

  “It is amazing,” Emma laughed as she signalled for Leofstan to see whether the place was suitable for her to enter, “how tantalising smells can of a sudden make you ravenously hungry.”

  The Gate was a modest establishment; the trestle tables, wooden stew bowls, and pewter tankards clean and in good repair, the tavern keeper enthusiastically welcoming. The bread, when it was served, was made from wheat grain, not cheap rye, and the meat fresh and well cooked with a subtle seasoning of herbs.

  Emma enjoyed the meal. She had eaten only morsels these last few weeks, the size of the babe giving her indigestion if she overfilled her stomach. This stew, however, was appetising, the meat tender and, a rarity in England, a variety she had so enjoyed in Normandy—rabbit.

  “My brother is a wine merchant,” the taverner explained as he personally served his royal guest. “He fetches us a few coney whenever he sails to Normandy or France. He got us through the worst of last year’s difficulties; famine was bad here in the South, but those across the sea thrived on our misfortune. There�
�s many a Frenchman grown fat on our silver after trebling the price of meat and flour.”

  “My husband ordered grain from his own granaries to be distributed to the worst-affected areas,” Emma said, knowing as she spoke that his generosity had come too little too late. Tactfully, the taverner served his brother’s best wine and said nothing.

  Emma remained an hour, but with the afternoon sky beginning to cloud over, reluctantly pushed her ungainly weight up from the bench. As she came to her feet, a great gush of water burst from her womb and a pain shot through her abdomen. She cried out, half fell, embarrassed and alarmed. Frightened.

  Her maidservant, a quiet girl who served with enthusiasm but limited conversational talent, ran to her side, urging Leofstan to send quickly to the palace for a litter. “The babe is coming,” she gabbled, flustered, her arms and hands whirling in anxiety as the busy tavern, attracted by the commotion, began to take an interest.

  “The waters have broken, that is all,” Emma countered, sounding more in control than she felt. “I am quite all right.” Another stab of intense pain and she stumbled to her knees, her head bowed, breath coming shallow and fast through her contorted face. “God’s mercy,” she gasped, her hands clutching at her belly. “The babe is coming!”

  “Holy Mother! You cannot have the babe out here!” A woman entering from the street thrust her way through the crowd, removing her cloak as she walked. To Leofstan, ordered, “You, bring her into the back,” and without waiting for an answer she opened a rear door and ushered Emma into the privacy of the living place beyond the public tavern.

  “This is Leofgifu, my late wife’s sister,” the taverner explained as he hovered, anxious. “She was widowed in the Saint Brice’s Day killings, came down from York to help me when my wife went to God.”

  “A Dane?” Leofstan asked, eager to accept a distraction from the Queen’s discomfort. All the same, his eyes were darting around the room, taking in the modest furnishing and the lime-washed walls that displayed a few pieces of weaponry and an embroidered tapestry depicting an í-víking longship, satisfying himself that this private house-place would be suitable, and safe.

  “Get you gone!” Leofgifu ordered, waving her hands at the men. “If you want to be of help, fetch me hot water and send to the palace for my Lady’s midwife.” For emphasis she ushered the captain out. “You had best hurry.” Without saying more, she slammed the door on the craning world.

  Calm, capable, she guided Emma to the hearth-place, sat her on a stool, and robustly poked fresh life into the embers, sending sparks and a drift of smoke hurtling towards the escape hole in the low, red-tiled roof.

  “Let’s unfasten your veil, my dear, and these lacings on your gown. There, child, breathe with the pain, not against it.”

  The contraction passing, Emma attempted a wan, brave smile. “You seem to know what you are doing. I thank you for your assistance.” She grimaced as another wave swept through her.

  “I’ve birthed six of my own and brought several more nieces and nephews into the world. You had these pains long? Backache, perhaps?” Her accent was different from the normal soft burr of Anglo-Saxon Wessex, some of her words with a distinct hint of the northern Danish dialect.

  “I did not sleep for the discomfort,” Emma confided. “I have been restless for several nights now.”

  “Ah, birth works its own way. It is often only the first that takes the effort and trouble.” As another pain came, and Leofgifu gently rubbed at Emma’s lower back, then, with the contraction passing, helped remove her gown, boots, and stockings. “There’s not going to be opportunity to get you away before this one makes an appearance.”

  “I do not care where I have it!” Emma gasped through gritted teeth, trying to hold down a scream. “I do not care about the damned thing at all. I did not ask for it; I do not want it!”

  “Nay, none of us ever do, lass, not ’til the bairn’s safely sucking at our breast. Were it men who had the bearing of them, there’d be precious few of us in the world!”

  Emma barely heard. She threw her head back, let the scream out as the pain overwhelmed her, and delivered her child on her hands and knees, down among the fresh straw that Leofgifu had quickly spread, the babe slipping into the world within an hour of the waters breaking. A girl, a daughter. Leofgifu, dressing Emma in one of her own clean under-shifts, settled her into her curtained box bed that nestled in an alcove and handed her the child.

  She was beautiful! Large, pale blue eyes, pink, wrinkled skin, soft, downy hair. A face like an angel. She lay in Emma’s cradling arms gazing, unfocused, quiet and content at the face hovering above her. When Emma put her, tentatively, to her breast, she suckled with no fuss or whimpering. Why could Edward’s birth not have been like this? Why could he not have been as utterly, divinely perfect as this child?

  “Æthelred will be angry,” Emma said to Leofgifu, who, after wrapping the afterbirth, was disposing of the soiled linen and straw. “He expected a son. A daughter will not be to his liking.”

  “He gets what God gives and is grateful for it,” Leofgifu answered tersely. “Now, you hand that bairn to me and get yourself to sleep. If the palace comes meddlin’, I will send them away with a flea in their ear. You will stay here until you’re full rested, King or no King.” She was firm, in command, and her smile was like that of a serene Madonna, loving and warm.

  “Leofgifu?” Emma said as she began to drowse. “Would you consider coming with me? I am in much need of a capable companion.”

  “I’ll consider your asking, but there is my sister’s husband to think on. It was good of him to take me in when my husband and sons were hanged, and I was left with nothing more than the gown I stood in.”

  Her answer was dismissive, but she had already made up her mind. She would accept. Her brother-in-law had his eyes on a new wife, and there would not be room for two women in a small tavern like this. The offer was a gift from God, even with its sting in the tail. She would be living beneath the roof of the man who had ordered the murder of her family.

  29

  April 1006—Canterbury

  Another Easter. Where did the weeks go? From the morrow, the men of the council of all England, the Witan, would start arriving at Canterbury. Another tedious round of bickering and petulant disagreement about the Danes, taxes, Scotland and Æthelred’s failure to agree a truce with Duke Richard of Normandy.

  The next birthing day, Æthelred would reach eight and thirty years of age, not far from a tally of two score years, and he was tired and sick of it all. What pleasure was there in being a King? His mother had revelled in political debate and intrigue; he loathed it.

  At least here at Canterbury, unlike many of his palaces, there were separate King’s and Queen’s apartments; he would not have to endure the screaming of that child Edward. Did the boy never cease crying? The girl, Goda, was a sweetheart, quite the most enchanting of all his children, but Æthelred saw little of her. Emma doted on the girl—he had warned her several times to keep herself detached, that come a suitable age, Goda would be sent away into marriage.

  “Daughters only have one use for a King,” he had said to Emma, rougher than he had intended, “and that is for useful alliance.”

  Emma had paid her husband little heed. She herself had not been wed until her thirteenth year, and none of his elder daughters had husbands. Goda was barely two months old; there was no need to fret so soon about an enforced parting.

  Athelstan sat before the hearth-fire, his wet boots stretched towards the blaze of the flames, his hands occupied with twisting three thin strips of leather into a durable plaited thong. Æthelred scowled at him.

  “Have you seen to those horses?”

  His agile, capable fingers automatically weaving the strands in and out of each other, Athelstan looked up. “Aye. They are comfortably settled.”

  “Fed? Dried? I do not want the Reaper coming to any harm.”

  Like his father’s, Athelstan’s hair, braes, and boots were w
et. Along the wall by the doorway their sodden cloaks had been hung on pegs to dry. The hunting this morning had been going well until the skies had opened and shed heavy rain that looked set for the rest of the day.

  “He is muzzle-deep into a warm bran-mash. As with my own fellow, he is dry and content.”

  The Reaper was one of Æthelred’s best stallions, sturdy, fourteen-hand, jet-black, and of uncertain temper. Soon after he had acquired him, the animal had viciously lashed out and killed a stable boy by splitting his head open; only those who were competent around horses dared go near him, his reputation as grim as his name.

  Æthelred pushed aside his son’s feet and seated himself on another stool; held his chilled hands to the warmth. “I want you to keep close contact with Alfhelm throughout the duration of council.”

  Athelstan groaned.

  “Am I asking too much of you, boy? Can I not depend on you for anything?”

  The response was as irritable. “I have no liking for Ealdorman Alfhelm, nor his damned wife or daughter.”

  “You will have a liking for whom I tell you to like! You had best start getting used to the girl, for I have a mind to agree to marriage between the two of you. I need to bind Alfhelm’s loyalty tighter than it is.”

  “Then you will need to find another way to do so. I will not wed until I am crowned as King.” Athelstan lashed his curt answer.