The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  “To listen to men like Wulfnoth, I assume?” Eadric answered Athelstan’s statement while inclining his hand towards the man in question, who lounged, unperturbed, against the doorway of a tavern, a half-empty tankard of ale clasped in his fist. “You value the advice of rough-mannered pirates who have for their priority the lining of their own mantles?”

  “Aye, good men like Thegn Wulfnoth, men who were born to men of the sea by women of the sea.”

  Eadric Streona stood scornful, with his arms folded, his feet wide-planted, his derision as broad as the estuary of the Medway River. “The King has better sense than to listen to Wulfnoth. He is nothing more than a thief.” He spat the offence towards Wulfnoth, who said nothing. He had been on the receiving end of worse insults from better men. In good time, the opportunity to slit a cock’s crowing throat always presented itself.

  At his side, Godwine was not being so tolerant. His fingers tightened into a clenched ball as he glanced up at his father, astonished that he was taking no notice. Edmund, too, was angry, ready to draw his blade, would do so at the merest nod from either his brother or Wulfnoth.

  “There are moments,” Athelstan declared, his stirred anger ploughing into a chill, controlled calm, “when I wonder whether my father possesses any sense at all.” He swung away, bull neck jutting forward, jaw clenched, his steps long and impatient. Tossed over his shoulder, “Those moments become more frequent when you are within my line of view.”

  Wulfnoth, shrugging himself from the wall, handed his drained tankard to the tavern girl and, making a low bow to the Ealdorman, strolled after the retreating Athelstan.

  “I would get in the habit of watching the shadows,” he said softly to Streona as he passed by, the marten-fur edging of his cloak brushing against the sable of the Ealdorman’s. “Æthelred will not always be King.”

  “That he shall not,” Streona retorted, “but Athelstan will not wear the crown after him.”

  Wulfnoth raised his right hand into the vague area of his left shoulder, a mocking half-salute. “We shall see,” he said evenly. “We shall see.”

  Edmund and Godwine, not so graciously taking their leave, followed in his wake. Was it deliberate that Edmund set his foot hard in a puddle, spraying salt-rimed water over Streona’s expensive boots?

  “This is it, then,” Godwine said as they jumped down the last three steps from the wharf and landed on the pebbled sand of the beach. Athelstan strode several yards ahead, his feet scrunching on shells and the stinking jetsam of rotting seaweed, fish bones, and human refuse. “Surely your brother will now rally the men to his own banner? He will rebel against this suggestion to move the fleet to London. I do not see he has any other choice.”

  “We,” Edmund hastily corrected, “we will rebel. I will support Athelstan.”

  “As will I, oh, as will I!”

  Overhearing, Wulfnoth, midway between Athelstan and the younger lads, turned on his heel, the calmness that was a few moments before on his face clouding with rage. He marched back to them, clutched at his son’s tunic, his other hand striking his cheek. “Do not ever let me hear you talk so again!”

  “But Papa, what have I said that is not the truth?” Godwine protested. “Athelstan cannot hold off rebellion much longer, and we will be with him, will we not?” He screwed his head round to plead for assistance from Edmund. “It is what we have planned for months now.”

  Ruefully Edmund returned his friend’s gaze, then rested his hand on Wulfnoth’s arm. “Leave him, sir; it is my error of judgement, not his. Godwine, if the need to defy my father arises, as my heart, sadly, is telling me it one day will, we must keep our thoughts private.” He offered a placating smile at his friend. “My brother cannot initiate a civil war. Not while we are threatened by Viking attack.”

  Godwine bit his lip, deflated that the rise of excitement had been punctured, a little relieved, too. Treason was a dangerous path to follow; it was all right for Athelstan and Edmund, they were the Æthelings, men who were kingworthy, expected to be brave and honourable. Athelstan was three and twenty, Edmund eight and ten, men with boyhood long forgotten; for Godwine, manhood, with all its independence, excitements, and fears, was still waiting beyond the corner.

  He scuffed the toe of his boot into the gritty sand. “Then we accept Streona’s part in all this and sit idle while England drowns?”

  Wulfnoth guffawed, tousled his son’s hair with his broad, calloused, hand. “Nay, lad, I did not say that. I merely argue we do not go broadcasting our intentions where our voices may carry to the wrong ears.”

  39

  August 1009—Sandwich

  AEthelred met his Thegn’s gaze, eye to eye. “You have a strange meaning of the word ‘faithful,’ Wulfnoth. I think it a dangerous thing for a King to have about him men who wrongly influence his eldest son’s thinking.”

  Wulfnoth set the tankard of ale he was nursing onto the table, knowing that how he was to answer could be the ending of him, but saying it anyway because somebody had to.

  “With respect, is it not more dangerous for a King to have about him men who do not influence his sons? Sons have a tendency to learn to think for themselves, a wise King trusts those loyal to him to guide that thinking. Only a fool follows a fool.”

  “There are those,” Eadric Streona said from his side of the table, “who question your knowledge of Thorkell. There are those who say you know him well.”

  “Then those people are wrong,” Wulfnoth countered, forcing affability. It would not serve his cause to be losing his temper. “I have traded with him. It is what I do; I am a merchant trader. I trade with many men: Danes, Normans, French, Germans, even the Spanish. That does not mean I call them friend.”

  He was wasting his breath. Æthelred had decided to listen to Eadric’s advice and retreat from Sandwich into London. And Eadric had already realised that to be listened to he would have to be rid of men like Wulfnoth, who knew what they were talking about.

  “And I say you lie,” Eadric contradicted. “We have proof you are more than a trader where the Dane, Thorkell, is concerned.”

  “Well, one of us is lying,” Wulfnoth growled. “And it is not I.”

  “Then I suggest we let God decide,” Eadric declared, low and menacing, knowing full well that now he had made the challenge and whatever outcome happened, Wulfnoth was finished as an English Thegn.

  ***

  “I will not do it! For you, Athelstan, for no one. I will not carry a red-heated bar of iron just to prove I am no liar!”

  “If you refuse, Wulfnoth, then you brand yourself guilty.” In exasperation Athelstan ran his hand through his tousled hair. This was a mess. He felt as if his feet were stuck firm in boggy ground. “It is my fault. I ought not to have told Papa he is an imbecilic puppet, but unless he ceases listening to Eadric Streona, England will fall to the Danes. I know it as sure as the North Star shall be shining up there in the night sky within the hour.”

  “Papa?” Godwine, standing beside his father, rested his hand on Wulfnoth’s arm. “Papa, are we going to have to leave England?” Wulfnoth’s son could see as clear as day the difficulty and the danger. Refuse a trial of ordeal, and Wulfnoth was instantly branded as a traitor and faced exile or death. Go through with it, and death was as much a risk.

  Wulfnoth sighed, reached out his hand to ruffle his son’s mop of fair hair. There were tears in the boy’s eyes; he was blinking them aside, bravely trying to keep them from falling. “A man pledges his loyalty to his Lord with his word of honour, son. If his word is not acceptable, then what is left for him?”

  Slowly, Athelstan offered his hand. Reluctant, Wulfnoth took it, for this was good-bye. Resigned to fate, the Ætheling said, “The day is coming nearer when I will attempt overthrowing my father, Wulfnoth. I cannot do so while the Danes threaten us, not unless I am certain Englishmen will follow me wholeheartedly.”

  “Aye,” Wulfnoth admitted, “Æthelred can see that day, too. He fears you, lad, and fears those who ar
e your friends.”

  “There is no truth in the rumour about you and Thorkell, is there, Wulfnoth?” Edmund said suddenly, leaning on the low seawall a few yards to the left.

  Godwine bunched his fists, rage swamping his face. “You turd! Dare you ask that?”

  Edmund ignored the outburst, looked across at the older man, an apology in his eyes for asking. He had to know, had to hear a denial for himself.

  The tide had turned, was on the flood, creeping higher up the pebbles of the beach on the far side of the wall. The rows of ships, lashed one to the other, bobbed quietly, their wooden keels gently bumping as the water swelled below their bellies. There was always a special, different smell when the tide turned. A saline excitement that hung, quivering in the air.

  “Nay, there is no truth in it. I am no traitor.” Wulfnoth chuckled, a solitary snort of amusement. “If Streona has so desperate a need to be rid of me, then I must be more of a nuisance than I realised!” It was a weak jest, but it brought a smile to their lips.

  Chalk-white with fear, Godwine could see nothing to laugh at. He had witnessed men undergo the ordeal of trial, seen the writhing pain on their contorted faces as they had grasped a bar of red-hot iron by the right hand. Seen the agony as they had stepped—staggered—nine full paces without letting go or falling. He had smelt the burning, seared flesh; seen, as the bar was finally dropped, it peel away in smoking strips, exposing what lay beneath, the hand burnt to the bone. Had witnessed the pain of the next three days, the waiting for the dressings to be removed. If the wound was clean and healing, the man was professed innocent; if stinking of putrid rot, then death by hanging finished the thing.

  What justice was there in mutilating a good, honest man? Oh, aye, even if the wounds were healing and the man proven innocent, many died later of the blood fever or never had the use of the hand again. The fingers permanently gnarled and bent, clutched like a claw; the palm withered and contorted, the flesh wrinkled and scarred.

  Setting his arm along his son’s shoulder, Wulfnoth drew him inwards, guessing his thoughts. Thoughts that were shouting as loud in his own mind. “I cannot serve a man who does no longer trust my honour-word, son.”

  Athelstan smiled a wry expression. “With you gone, the remaining scyp fyrd will go home. My father has been so ill-advised in this. What if we can persuade him to think again?”

  Wulfnoth put his hand on Athelstan’s arm. “As you have just this moment said, this is not a suitable time to raise rebellion, lad.”

  The wry smile became a grin. Athelstan was not his father; he had a quick mind, a grasp of politics, a flair for leadership, and a passion for England. “No, it is not, but a bit of local trouble along the south coast might well make Æthelred think again. He has much land there; he would not wish to lose any assets to a pirate.”

  For an honourable man such as Wulfnoth, the threat of exile held no more appeal than did a red-heated bar of iron. He grinned. “You are right, my friend; he would not. And my land too is along that coast. I would not be content to leave the families of men loyal to me exposed and vulnerable to Danish raiding. I would be obliged to take my ships and crew to protect them, would I not?”

  “Aye, and others of a similar mind may well go with you.”

  Wulfnoth guffawed, slapped his palm onto Athelstan’s outstretched hand. “Your father is not going to appreciate the fact that I am about to do your rebelling for you, lad.”

  “My father,” Athelstan answered with sincere feeling, “can shove his head up his arse.”

  40

  August 1009—Thorney Island

  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, produced by the Church clergy as a record of England’s triumphs and disasters, was to state, when it was written retrospectively, that in the year Anno Domini 1009 King Æthelred “carelessly wasted the nation’s efforts.”

  It was a view his wife, Emma, unequivocally agreed with. “All that cost and organisation. Everything wasted because of your misjudgement!”

  “When I want the advice of a woman,” Æthelred snapped, “I shall ask for it. Though when I shall have the need of the intricacies of sewing, cooking, or childbearing, I cannot imagine.” As with most people, rich or poor, the edge of temper came into his voice because he knew the accusation to be justified. When in the wrong, losing your temper was a habit too many followed too frequently.

  Emma’s temper was also close to erupting. Her monthly flux was due, and the uncomfortable cramp in her abdomen always caused her humours to be out of sorts. Added to that, the children were ill. All three of them with a fever and blister-like spots. Alfred and Goda were not so ill as to be a drain on their mother’s strength and patience; indeed, Alfred was being a brave warrior by hiding the worst of his discomfort and trying hard to not scratch at the rash. Edward’s grizzling was enough to try the patience of the archangel Gabriel himself.

  All night he had whimpered and cried, demanding to be sat with, sung to, amused, and occupied. Much of it Emma left to his nurse, Wymarc, and the serving women, but as his mother she had to take her share of responsibility. Constantly, he had called for her when she had tried to slip away, believing him to be, at last, asleep, each time walking no more than a few yards before his screams all but woke the entire palace at Thorney Island. By dawn, Emma herself was close to screaming.

  “You appear to have no concern for what you have done. No regrets, no doubts. Can you not see that the people will not take much more of this?”

  “The people,” Æthelred sneered, “can go to Hell.”

  “Which is where they already are! You cannot go on raising tax after tax and not give them any return, Æthelred. You are raising twelve shillings per hide, more than half a man’s expected income, and what have you shown for the use of it? Nothing, absolutely nothing!”

  Æthelred pouted, aware he was not getting the better of the argument. “It is not my fault; I have not been well advised.”

  “God’s truth, but you whine like Edward! Nor is it your people’s fault, yet they must pay. If they cannot pay, your reeves take in kind! How many good men have you made homeless this year alone, Æthelred? How many freeborn children, wives, mothers, and husbands, brothers, and fathers have been forced to sell themselves into slavery because of your incompetence and Streona’s greed? Reeves like him grow rich on the misfortune of the poor.”

  The anger was spilling over, flushing from the overfilled pot. These people were Emma’s subjects, too, and she could no longer see their suffering ignored. It had come on gradually, this realisation that she was becoming fond of England and these Anglo-Saxon people, so gradually that she had not been aware of it until she had been on the verge of losing it all. Winchester, and standing so bold on the ramparts, had invigorated her, the cheering of the people reaching into her heart and giving her something worth living for—worth fighting for. And along with the realisation of her love for her adopted country had come the awakening of ability and the possession of power. She was not going to permit anyone to take this feeling of excitement, of being alive, away from her.

  Emma’s outburst had hit several nails square on the head. Æthelred was aware he had made an almighty mess of this summer’s campaigning, but he was damned if he was going to be reprimanded for it by a woman.

  Thrusting herself from her chair, Emma paced the room. That wretched child was still screeching. “You left Sandwich undefended. Despite all the money you raised to prevent it from happening, Kent is left open and vulnerable. Nor does it take sense to understand if you insult a man like Wulfnoth, he will take his ships and abandon you.”

  “Take his ships!” Æthelred roared. “His ships? He has taken more than his ships! I have lost twenty craft to that traitorous bastard!”

  “Were I a King, I would be recalling Wulfnoth with all forgiveness, would ask my eldest, most competent son to take command of the fleet, and, cladding myself in armour, take up my sword and personally go out there to slit Thorkell’s throat if he should as much as dare to set one foo
t on English soil.”

  “And if I were a Queen,” Æthelred retorted, as he drained a fourth goblet of his best and strongest ale, “I would not allow my damned son to afflict the entire palace with a thundering headache!”

  41

  September 1009—Thorney Island

  Eighty ships? You are telling me you ordered eighty ships, under the command of Eadric Streona’s brother, to go in pursuit of Wulfnoth?” Athelstan was incredulous. He said it again, unable to believe what he was hearing. “You have lost eighty ships because your pride would not accept the plain, simple truth of common sense?”

  No such thing had been ordered. Eadric had sent his brother off after Wulfnoth with the King’s permission, but Æthelred had assumed the man would take five, eight ships at most. Not eighty. On top of all the other blunders, however, Æthelred was not about to admit to yet another mistake. Instead, he retaliated with blind temper. “If you have no liking for the way I govern, then I suggest you leave my court. In fact, until you can speak to me with a civil tongue in your head, I suggest you leave my kingdom. Time and again I forgive you and allow you back. Well, no more. You are nithing. I declare you out of law and banish you from England. You have four and twenty hours to be gone.”