The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  At least Archbishop Alfheah was spared the distress of seeing his brethren hacked to death and his cathedral burning. He was captured and taken prisoner; secured with rope and chains, and thrust, semiconscious, into a donkey cart and taken away from the town. Sick of heart and stomach, he lay for four days in a stinking hovel, listening to the carousing of his captors and Thorkell’s boasted achievement.

  Eight and forty thousand pounds’ weight of silver was the demand for peace in Kent and, on top of that, the wanting of a separate ransom for the old man, Alfheah.

  The old man, stripped of vestments, freedom, and dignity, closed his tired eyes and prayed for God’s deliverance. Only God could offer that, for it would not be coming from the King.

  48

  19 April 1012—Greenwich, Morning

  What was the point of it all? The question tumbled through Thorkell’s mind as he sat spooning porridge from a wooden bowl. It was coarse stuff, with a bland taste, agreeable to eat only because of the hunger that rumbled in his belly. Seeing the second half of the winter out, here at Greenwich, the ships pulled up along the riverbank for cleaning and mending, had seemed a good idea after the Yule festivities had been enjoyed, when hope and enthusiasm had run high, but now? He scraped the last spoonful, swallowed, and set the bowl down at his feet. Now that the snow was receding and a new spring was blooming, the spark had gone out of the fire. The men wanted to go home. Damn it, he wanted to go home.

  Thorkell glanced across at the young man sitting opposite him, a fair-faced youth, brash and full of self-confidence. Six and ten years old. By Thor’s Hammer, Thorkell had been as confident at that age! He had arrived in England two weeks past. Was also anxious to return to Denmark, but for differing reasons. This boy had much to prove and was impatient to be doing it.

  “King Swein is expecting to receive the English tribute of geld,” the boy said, finishing his own break-fast porridge. “It is needed to pay his men for the summer’s campaigning. Are you certain it is today they are to bring it?”

  Impatiently Thorkell answered—twice already since sunrise had he been asked the same question. “Ja, I am certain. Æthelred has returned to London from Winchester; safe conduct downriver is arranged.”

  As impatient, the boy glowered across the fortified compound, with its ramshackle accommodation and scatter of debris, to where Alfheah of Canterbury sat tethered by the ankle to a solid-fixed post. For their own shelter the men had draped the sails as tents, the oars making effective poles; for the Archbishop they had created a lean-to from wattle hurdles—there was a field somewhere with a hole in its fencing, but then as the Danes had eaten all the domestic livestock in the immediate vicinity, it was of no consequence. Alfheah had fared no worse than the rest of them, except for his loss of freedom, although it had been hard for an old man to endure the severity of a winter outdoors.

  “And the extra we have demanded for the old man’s ransom?” the boy queried, tossing a glance in the Archbishop’s direction. “Shall they pay that?”

  Thorkell did not miss the use of the word we. Full of his own importance the lad already acted as if he were a commander. Thorkell shrugged. If he were the boy, would he behave any different?

  “You will not get more out of the English than has already been agreed. The old goat has ordered no further money is to be paid on his account. His request will be obeyed. These high-ranking monks command great respect among their followers,” Thorkell stated flatly, stretching his legs out before him. His bones ached. The young had the advantage of supple bodies and endless enthusiasm, did not mind sleeping on hard, cold ground or the discomfort of an empty belly. What they lacked instead, most sorely, was wisdom.

  Alfheah had never complained, cursed, or threatened; had offered polite thanks and a blessing to those who had served him food or thought to bring him an extra blanket. Almost, Thorkell could believe the man did not mind this relegation to humble endurance. Wished now that he had paid more heed to the Christian preachers who valiantly attempted to ply their trade back home in Denmark. Was it too late to sit with this old man and ask him the secret of his inner peace? Christianity was a lacklustre belief throughout the Netherlands, although there were several churches, some of them quite astonishingly beautiful buildings, but the nature of the White Christ did not appeal to a warrior used to the violence of war. Thor with his hammer and thunderbolts, Odin with his strength—these were the gods of a man who would often care for his battleaxe more than his wife.

  Thorkell ran his hand over his chin. His beard and moustache needed trimming; they had grown straggly this last month. A bath, too, in hot, herb-scented water would not go amiss. He had not enjoyed that pleasure for more than seven months. A quick sluice in cold water was not the same. He wrinkled his nose. Gods, but how they must all stink! The men were nothing more than a rabble, unwashed, unkempt, rowdy, and quick to squabble. More often drunk than sober. Mercenaries, the lot of them, interested only in the highest they could get for the least they could give. For his own benefit of dignity, he would need to do something about his appearance before the royal envoy arrived. Shave, wash, find clean clothes. He sighed. It would have been interesting to have talked in full with the old man. Ah, well, the opportunity had been missed.

  “The English will pay to see us gone,” Thorkell said, perhaps a little too patronisingly, to the boy. “They will expect us to sail soon after the geld is delivered.”

  The boy raised his eyebrows. “They expect us to do their bidding? I think not, my friend!”

  Suddenly irritated at being lectured by one who barely shaved, Thorkell got to his feet and fastened his cloak tighter. The wind, sweeping in off the river, had a bitter chill to it. “I intend to meet the envoy with my pride intact. I go to bathe and change into something more fitting for King Swein’s commander to be seen in.”

  The young man made a derogatory gesture with his hand. “Why do we need to impress? Æthelred has not managed to defeat us. This coming year will be no different from the last; we could change our minds and demand twice the amount they are to bring us.”

  Thorkell jerked on his war cap. He did not need it, for they were secure here in camp, but a soldier’s habit of a lifetime was difficult to break. “We could, but we will not, because our men, sitting on their backsides around these campfires, are bored with England. They want to return to their families, show what they have achieved. They will not fight again, not this year.” He stepped over the empty bowl at his feet, walked past the blaze of the wind-fanned fire, and stood directly before the scowling youth.

  “You have a lot to learn about what motivates a man to fight, son. It is the wolf defending cubs or the stag brought to bay who are the most dangerous. These men of ours fight for reward, not for loyalty. They want gain, not death. The English, if someone ever finds the guts to rouse them, will be fighting for their homes and their families. There is your difference. Our men will not fight that sort of motivation, not for me, nor for you, Cnut. Even if you are King Swein’s son.”

  49

  Mid-Morning

  Life for Emma had continued much as usual over the winter; Æthelred had taken his Christmas court to Woodstock to enjoy the seasonal hunting, then moved to Winchester to preside over the quarterly judgement courts of Wessex, and they were back now at Thorney Island for Easter and the paying of the heregeld. Except he had decided to send his wife into the Danish camp instead of going himself.

  Londoners were not so happy with the lengthy delay of payment, the general opinion being that if a geld had to be paid, why could it not have been settled earlier? Trade had dwindled to virtual nonexistence, for no ship had sailed further than the Viking encampment at Greenwich since their arrival. London was feeling the pinch of tightened belts and the constant watching over the shoulder for the ever-present expectation that wholesale slaughter was residing only a few miles downriver. Æthelred had not received a rapturous welcome when he arrived at Thorney. Had he ventured as far as London itself, he might have f
ound the gates barred to him and more than a few rotting vegetables and stinking eggs thrown. Unraed, they were calling him, and not quietly in the privacy of a man’s home but openly, out on the street. A play on his name, that taunt, unraed. Æthelred meant noble counsel. That was a jest! Æthelred Unraed was the more suitable. It meant ill-counselled.

  Æthelred had used the high-running feeling against him as an excuse to spend a few days in the forests of Epping hunting deer—stag hunting; the does were breeding. Instead, Emma was to escort the chests of silver from the palace to Greenwich, an obvious choice, in Æthelred’s opinion, as she needed no interpreter to bargain for the release of the hostage and they would not harm her, a woman and a half Dane. If his sending her was thought odd or cowardly, no Londoner remarked upon it. But then Emma held respect among her people.

  They had argued last night when Æthelred had announced his change of plan; when did they not argue? Emma’s contempt for her husband had reached the depths from where there could be no return. To honour a husband there had to be respect. For respect there had to be admiration and trust. Emma had none of either for Æthelred, only disgust for his ineptitude. Did this latest example surprise her? Was it so astonishing he should prefer to chase deer rather than procure the release of his Archbishop? The argument had not been about Emma going to Greenwich, although her cnights had vociferously objected; it had been the mode of transport that had fuelled a furious exchange of words.

  The collected tax of eight and forty thousand pounds of silver was aboard the King’s ship, and Emma had flatly refused to travel downriver on it. Nothing would budge her, not her husband’s scorn, entreatment, pleading, or rage. Only under circumstances of the direst need would Emma ever voluntarily step aboard a ship again. Even if it were just to sail down the relatively calm waterway of the Thames. She had been adamant: the chests were to be loaded onto pack mules; she would ride to Greenwich.

  Emma was aware that she looked resplendent as her retinue was admitted through the wide-flung wicker gates of the í-víking camp. She rode her favourite mount, the chestnut mare Pallig had advised her to buy, a horse that had, through the years, proven her worth to be ten times the amount paid. She was no longer in her prime but remained spirited, with a proud head carriage and a mettlesome pace, but for all her dancing and snorting there was no vice in her; she did not buck, bite, or kick, did not pull at the bit or nap away from things she did not wish to go near. She would toss her froth of mane and cavort, her shod hooves striking sparks on cobbled streets or roadway stones, her arched tail held high as she jogged and pranced, her rider sitting erect but at ease, hands light on the reins. If the effect was deliberately to impress, then it worked as intended.

  Thorkell ducked out of his tent to greet the Queen and her guard of cnights, himself dressed in the full armour of a Danish warrior Lord, but it was Cnut who stepped forward to help the Lady from the saddle.

  “We were expecting King Æthelred, not a woman,” he said, as he set her on the ground, looking partially over her shoulder as if expecting to find him riding behind.

  “And I was expecting a man, not a boy,” Emma retorted, giving a dismissive nod of her head as she sidestepped him and walked towards Archbishop Alfheah.

  “Do you not know who I am, madam?” Cnut rebuked as he moved to stand in her path.

  Emma stopped, disdainfully looked him up and down. She saw a youth with a hint of blond fluff on his upper lip, his limbs the wrong length for his lanky body, several pus-oozing spots marring his forehead and the side of his nose. His mantle was sable, his woollen tunic an expensive mustard-yellow dye. “I do not know who you are, nor, if your name is not Thorkell the Tall, do I care to know.”

  In turn, Cnut stared at the woman addressing him. She was as tall as he, as lean. She, too, wore sable, but her gown was a sumptuous forest green, with an under-tunic of a lighter spring shade. Her wimple a pale primrose yellow, a delicate, fine-spun linen, and above it her gold and jewelled crown. Her eyes appeared dark in the shadows of the tents, a hint of gold hair frothing against her forehead, above high, arched eyebrows and features that could have been carved by a master sculptor. She was straight-backed, regal; every inch shouted her elegance.

  When I am come King of England, Cnut thought, this is how I would wish my consort to look. He shunted aside the unbidden codicil that he would give anything to learn how to brandish this same authority and poise. He tipped his head, lifting his chin, attempted to copy the detached composure this woman was radiating. “I am Cnut, second son of Swein Forkbeard.”

  “Then it is not you I am interested in,” she answered formidably. “I speak only to the man at the helm, not his oarsman.”

  The words stung. Cnut reddened, but he had the wisdom to hold a retort on his tongue.

  Thorkell, suppressing a smile, wished he had the ability, and nerve, to put this princeling upstart in his place as easily as this Queen had just done.

  Turning her attention again towards Alfheah, Emma was appalled at the old man’s shameful condition; he was bone-thin and ragged, his skin chafed with weeping sores. She knelt before him, not caring that the ground might muddy her gown, and, taking his hands in her own, she kissed the gnarled fingers where his rings would have nestled, had his captors not stolen them. They had left him only his crucifix, and that he had found the need to beg for.

  “My Lord,” Emma said, concerned, “they have not treated you well; this is not to be tolerated!” She rounded on Thorkell. “How dare you? How dare you treat a gentle, innocent old man who has committed you no harm, in deed or intention, with such shame? Where is your honour? Is it as nonexistent as your manhood?”

  “My honour is as intact as your impertinence. This man’s prolonged captivity is none of my doing; had your husband paid our demand before now, our hostage would not have endured this delay. Have you brought the extra ransom for his release?”

  Indignantly Alfheah answered for Emma, “She has not. I refuse to allow coin to be paid in my name.”

  “I have brought the required geld,” Emma confirmed acerbically. “But you shall receive nothing more, except the damnation of God, should you refuse to release the Prelate of Canterbury.” The Archbishop’s brave refusal of extra payment was not on the same level as Æthelred’s. He had haughtily proclaimed that if Canterbury wanted their holy shepherd back, they would have to pay for him themselves. A shaming statement.

  “Then I am damned by your God, but I had assumed I am already damned by Him, so I do not have much more to lose, do I?”

  Thorkell’s answer brought a roar of laughter from the gathered onlookers of his Danish army. They stood in groups, some leaning on their axes, others with their swords resting casually over their shoulders. Several had not repressed the gawp of lust they dribbled at Emma; a few were edging greedily towards the stack of wooden caskets of silver unloaded from the pack mules.

  Returning to her mare Emma attempted one last try at clemency. “We will not allow you to keep our Archbishop. He is to come with me.”

  “No,” the boy, Cnut interrupted. “Not until you pay his ransom. Unless you care to take his place? I am sure the men would prefer staring at your face to his.” Lewd guffaws rippled through the ranks of listening Danishmen.

  Leofstan, who had not moved more than one inch from Emma’s side, boosted her into the saddle, then swung onto his own horse; his hand ready at the hilt of his sword, relieved to be leaving this nest of vermin.

  Gathering the reins, Emma nudged the chestnut into a walk; continuing to ignore the boy, she regarded Thorkell disdainfully. “As I am sure your men, in turn, would elect to live rather than be slain by my English fyrdsmen.”

  Thorkell spread his hands, gave her the courtesy of a low bow. “But the presence of the fyrd, Lady, is as noticeably absent as your husband.”

  Emma halted her mare and gazed with disdainful loathing at the tall Danishman. “The King did not come, sir, because we considered it unworthy for him to concern himself with lowborn scu
m.”

  Thorkell raised his eyebrows. “I am, then, not unworthy of a Queen? I am flattered!”

  “Then do not be. I came to see for myself how the Archbishop fares, and my mare needed the exercise.” She kicked the chestnut into a canter, tossed over her shoulder, her words carrying, still in Danish, into the wind, “Take your silver, thief, and take yourself from this land over which I am Queen. Do not harm God’s servant, for you will pay dearly for his pain. If not by the wrath of my husband, then by that of mine and God.”

  Once through the gates, Emma urged the horse into a flat gallop, her cnights thundering after her, the Viking camp cheering and yelling their aroused excitement.

  Impressed, despite the cutting words, Cnut ran a hand through his hair. “I thought our warrior women were imposing, but that one…!”

  “She is of Danish blood; what else do you expect?” Thorkell said, watching the riders disappear into the misted distance of the marshes. “And think on this: if her brother had not married her to Æthelred, you might have found her as wife. She is not more than a few years your senior.”

  Cnut puffed his cheeks. “Then glad I am that Æthelred has her! Thor’s Hammer, I wonder if her claws are cut as sharp in bed?”

  Hearing, someone called out, good-humoured, “As I understand it, Æthelred has not the balls to find out!”

  ***

  Urging the mare faster, heedless of the uneven ground beneath her flying hooves, Emma was thankful that the tears running from her eyes could be accounted for by the sting of the wind. Her wimple had blown askew, and her hair was streaming behind, her heart thundering, body shaking. Never, never had she been so terrified. Those men! The menace, the intimidation, the utter, sickening fear. In all the good names of God, if ever, ever Æthelred made her do such a thing again, she would kill him. With her bare hands, if necessary.