The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  Confidentially, Cnut said, “Father is concerned that Thorkell is no longer as devoted to his King’s cause as once he was. Watching him, I too have my doubts.” To ease the sting, for he was not fully certain on which side of the ship Erik preferred to row, added, “I think he is considering turning away from the old gods and is looking to this Christian Jesu.”

  Erik shrugged. “There are plenty who are devoted Christians who love your father, Cnut. Swein’s dead sister, Gunnhilda, among them.” He gave a lopsided grin, “She never ceased attempting to convert him from his divided faith. He pretended to believe in the White God for her sake, but once she was dead, well, her God had not lifted a finger to save her, even though she sought the sanctuary of a church.”

  They fell silent. Like Cnut, Erik watched Thorkell talking to the old Archbishop. The Dane was a man of honour, but honour could always be shifted if a deeper conviction overturned it. Had Thorkell converted to Christianity, Erik wondered? If he had, was there any reason to suppose he would consider deserting Swein? Erik thought not. Not without good cause.

  Ah. Would a lack of King-given praise be good reason? It was well known that Thorkell had expected Swein to offer him the regency of England once it fell into Danish control, but, no, here was the boy, Cnut, come to preen over what he wanted for himself.

  A King only retained his men if he held their unyielding loyalty clenched tight in his hand. If that loyalty should turn into sour vinegar, then it would trickle away like a handful of cupped water. And Thorkell was, indeed, deep in conversation with that old holy man.

  53

  Greenwich—Late Evening

  The bore tide of earlier in the day had roused a feeling of exuberance, sending a thrill coursing through the men as if the surge of water had stirred a great, restless need. Many were talking of going home, a few had even made ready their belongings. Such was the way of things with a fickle mercenary army. The ripple had swelled as the afternoon had grown older and became a persistent rustling by nightfall. No one had spoken any intention aloud, but they were going to be leaving on the morrow, earlier than intended. This was the last feast in England until they next returned.

  Was it the exhilaration of that bore tide, the receipt of the geld, or the longing for the open sea and the thought of home? Perhaps it was nothing more than the cumulative strength of a fine brew of ale. Whatever reason, the Danish were more drunk than usual. The air was clear, the sky full to bursting with stars; the many fires sending sparks crackling from dry timber, leaping up into the darkness, and they were going home.

  Laughter from one of the groups, movement as a man rose to stagger a short way into the darkness to relieve himself. Returning, had to pass the old man’s shelter. Out of habit, he tossed a defamatory curse at him. Alfheah, intent on prayer, ignored the taunt.

  “Damn you, does nothing stir you from that odious piety?” The man, drunk, aimed a kick at Alfheah; in his stupor, missed and stubbed his toe on a water bucket, sending the thing tumbling. His comrades, lazing beside the fire, roared in laughter, and, grumbling, the man sat, drank more ale, and helped himself to a rib of beef sizzling in the heat. Glancing at Alfheah, he complained, “Bloody man makes my flesh crawl.”

  “They’re all like that, these Christian monks,” observed the man opposite as he wiped grease from his mouth, unconsciously spreading it into his thick, lice-riddled beard, “It’s because they have no balls.”

  “Figuratively or literally?” someone else quipped.

  “Both, I reckon,” answered the first man. “They shrivel up with all that kneeling on the floor to pray.”

  “Is that why they all sing so sweetly?” asked another.

  “Ja, high-pitched, like little boys!”

  Alfheah, had he chosen to listen, would have heard every word. Did these imbeciles not understand the power of God when He entered your soul?

  “Was this Christ a eunuch also?” someone asked.

  “Well, he didn’t have the guts to fight—all that ‘turn the other cheek’ nonsense! How are men supposed to earn the reward of eternal honour by loving thy neighbour?”

  “I love my neighbour.” The conversation had returned to the first man. “She has teats like a new-farrowed sow! Wasted on her dotard of a husband. I see she’s well suckled, though!”

  Thorkell had sensed the restlessness; no words, no gestures, it was like scenting rain coming in on the wind. They were tired, homesick; the geld had been delivered, there was no reason to fight again, for there was nothing more to take. He had talked with Alfheah, but found no answers to his questions and had returned to the solitude of his hearth. Picking over his own meat bone, he sat silent, watching the men. Normally, he would have been laughing with them, enjoying the sharp, exchanged wit, the jesting. Not this night. Why did he feel so remote? Because there was nothing of worth to go back to, only an empty house and cold graves?

  He tossed the bone into the fire, watched as the fat hissed and spat. Why could they not leave the English priest alone? It was not as if they were all Odin’s men; several among them were Christian. Ah, but then that was Danish Christianity, faith packaged in a different cut of cloth. It had been a mistake taking this man as prisoner, Thorkell realised. The old man had been right; nothing had been achieved except that his quiet dignity had stirred Thorkell’s interest. The Dane had expected him to preach and attempt to convert his captors, to declare woe would come upon them, the wrath of God, the evils of all that was bad and dark in the world, but he had not. He had sat there, day after day, calm, content in his meditation and prayer, impervious to the outer world.

  The men this night were, as often they did, jeering at him, their ribaldry growing noisier, and Thorkell, sitting there watching, also realised, suddenly, how much he admired the English monk. It took courage to believe. To truly, unwaveringly, believe.

  On impulse, Thorkell made his decision. What had this man to do with them? There was enough grief to bear without punishing those who were guilty of nothing more than a devout belief. He set his legs under himself, making to rise, was halfway up when it began.

  “Want a bone to suck?” that first man jeered at Alfheah. Cackling, excited, he tossed a rib bone at him, an idle throw, not especially aimed, but it hit Alfheah on the cheek, its sharp edge cutting the flesh, immediately drawing blood.

  “Good throw—I’d wager you could not do it again!”

  Another bone, another hit. Thorkell leapt forward, angry, his arms waving. “Stop that!” he yelled. “Where is your respect?”

  No one listened, no one heard. Men were on their feet, flinging the remains of their meal, tossing anything that came to hand. More and more men, throwing rib bones, chop bones, leg bones, lumps of gristle. Stones.

  “Stop it, I say!” Thorkell was shouting, attempting to bat aside the missiles, taking several injuries to his own face and hands.

  Cnut was there, on the outskirts, cheering and applauding any good throw. “Leave it, Thorkell,” he shouted. “Come away!”

  Hemming, glaring at the boy for not attempting to stop the indiscipline, ran to his brother Thorkell’s side, shielding his face with an upraised arm, grabbed at him, and forcefully dragged him beyond the circle of men and the flickering firelight. “What in the name of sense are you doing? Leave them; they are drunk, beyond reasoning with!”

  Blood dripping from a cut eyebrow and lacerations to his cheeks, Thorkell stared blankly at his younger brother. “They do not obey me,” he said, baffled. “If they do not obey me, then am I finished?”

  Alfheah knelt in the centre of the menacing, expanding circle of hostile men, his head lifted, hands clasped together, his lips moving in prayer. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

  A leg bone struck his shoulder; he half toppled, steadied himself. Continued praying.

  “I cannot let this continue!” Thorkell bellowed, again trying to dodge in to protect the old man, but his brother grasped his arm, roughly swung him a
side.

  “Leave it! If you try to stop this, with the mood they are in, they will turn on you, too!”

  “…For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.”

  Shouting, jeering, laughing. Cnut, a grin on his face, relishing the frenzy of blood-rush enjoyment. Thorkell aghast, impotent.

  A single, gasped cry. Abrupt silence.

  Thorkell shouldered through the men, hauling and kicking, punching them aside, though they parted easily now that it was all over.

  Alfheah lay dead. His mouth open, his hands clasped in prayer. A knee joint, a great ox bone, larger than a clenched fist, beside him, the blood and hair and bone of an old man’s shattered skull clinging stickily to it. The circle of men fell silent, those holding bones, things they had been about to throw, dropped them. The outer circle already melting away into the night, the rest shuffling, coughing, clearing throats. Ashamed.

  Thorkell touched the oozing blood, eased aside a lock of matted hair and with his dagger cut through the tethering ropes. He lifted the dead man into his arms and looked up at the sullen men, tears streaming from his eyes.

  “What heroes have I fought with these months? Men? Warriors? I see none such before me. I see only cowards who have no shame, men so weak they must show their feeble strength in the killing of an old and defenceless man.”

  Cnut ambled forward, the light of the fires illuminating the slim features of his youthful face, shining on his blue eyes and fair hair. “You speak as if you have no respect for us, Thorkell. We are men of the í-víking; none shall call us coward to our faces.”

  A few murmurs of assent from the younger men; the older ones remained silent.

  Carrying the dead man, Thorkell walked up to Swein’s second-eldest son, stood before him. “When it comes to murder such as this, then I have no respect, and I call you all coward.”

  He shouldered through the circle, paused at the outer edge, his brother Hemming, joining him, his face also grey-grim.

  “You wish to become a King?” Thorkell said to Cnut. “Well, there is more to being brave than killing the old and the weak. A King must know of his responsibilities and be a father to all who look to him for protection and justice. A King must know right from wrong, for if he does not, how can he wisely govern the laws of his kingdom?”

  “Nor can a King afford to dwell on his conscience, Thorkell, for if he did, he would never be more than a stomachless weakling.” With a sneer, Cnut added, “Like Æthelred.”

  Dipping his head by way of a leave-taking, Thorkell turned, walked away towards the river and his ship, called, as he went into the darkness, “You speak right, my Lord, a King cannot dwell on his conscience, but a loved King will have an understanding of the difference between weakness and strength, and will know the word compassion. A hated King will not.”

  Thorkell sailed with the turn of the flood tide; those who had not taken part in the blood-surge killing, who had felt sickened by its doing, going with him. And there were many of them. As the pull of the river began to take command, they slipped the oars, raised sail, and departed upriver towards London.

  Standing tall and straight beside the steerboard, Thorkell turned his back on the old gods, on Denmark, Swein, and the boy Cnut. He wanted no more of it, no more killing of the innocent and the gratification of that poxed whoremaster, greed. He did not know how he was to accomplish it, but he was determined to take the battered body of a devout, brave, and honourable man to his own people and somehow, somehow, make amends.

  When the tide had turned again and had ebbed downriver, Greenwich was deserted; only the trampled grass and detritus of occupation remained. Few of the men following the tide home did not feel shame at what they had done. As Thorkell had said, there was nothing to boast of in the drunken killing of an old man.

  Cnut, standing alone, feet wide-planted on the deck of his ship, felt anger at the snub Thorkell had made toward him. He was a King’s son. No one so deliberately insulted him. Not even when the insults were justified and were the plain truth. Easier to plant your anger at the feet of someone else rather than admit your own wrongdoing.

  54

  March 1013—Roskilde, Denmark

  Tempers were flaring high between two fathers and their sons on opposite shores of the cold, grey North Sea. Cnut and Edmund would have been surprised to discover they were both arguing on the same side of the fence over the proposed marriage of the daughter of a dead English Ealdorman. Swein of Denmark was irritated with the unhelpful attitude of his second son, Cnut, and Æthelred had been raging for most of the afternoon about his ingrate of an eldest-born.

  “I cannot allow Thorkell to thrust his fist up my arse,” Swein exclaimed, exasperated. “His deserting me to aid the English was an insult I cannot tolerate or allow. I thought you understood that, Cnut? He has deprived me of five and forty ships and crew, his experience, and loyalty; has made me into a laughing stock.” Nor could Swein permit Thorkell to become Æthelred’s military commander, for if the English found themselves a capable leader, they just might decide to make a fight of things. And win.

  “That I do understand,” Cnut answered, his hands spread palms upwards, pleading. “What I do not understand is why I have to wed this prawn-faced English girl!”

  Swein swung away, his head bowed between his clasping hands. “Woden’s beard, boy, but I thought you had intelligence. Have I nurtured a simpleton all these years?” Abruptly he took hold of his son’s upper arms, shook him, his mind half registering that the lad, at one month short of seven and ten, was already taller than himself.

  “Alfhelm was murdered because I approached him with an offer of alliance. The Danelaw, even at that juncture, was weary of Æthelred’s ineptitude.” He gave another, lighter, shake, and said, trying to explain, “It is an odd thing, son, but if a King rules for too long, his people grow bored with him. It is as if they have been rowing in the same direction, at the same speed, in the same conditions for year after year. All they have is dry biscuits for food and brackish water to drink. They want something different. A change of wind, to hoist sail, make landfall, anything. They need meat for dinner, ale in their tankards. Æthelred has been King of England for four and thirty years. Four and thirty years, boy! That is a damned long time to become as expertly useless as he has.”

  “I am not an idiot, Father, I am quite aware of the English situation. I realise you are anxious to win these northern Lords to your side by faith and trust rather than by strength and killing—what I cannot comprehend is why does it have to be Alfhelm’s daughter? He is dead. His sons are blinded; they do not hold any power or use for us. What good will this Ælfgifu be to me?”

  At least Swein was honest with his cynical reply. “To you? Apart from pleasure in bed and a possible brood of sons, none at all.” He lifted his head slightly, said to a man hurrying from the wharf, “Ja? What is it?”

  “We have found the leak, Lord. There is a patch the size of my fist that is rotten on the steerboard-side keel.”

  Swein pursed his lips, further annoyed, as he stared down towards the fjord and the ship hauled onto the ice-hardened shore, her underside exposed to the scrutiny of the shipbuilders. The Sea Serpent, Swein’s favourite dragon ship. She should not have required repair so soon after her building.

  “I reckon the damage was done when she got scraped on those rocks last autumn. We were lucky not to have holed her.”

  “Can you repair the damage, or will the whole of the planking need to be replaced?” Damn! With only two weeks until Swein’s plan to sail, weather permitting, this could cause an annoying delay. He could use a different ship, but since her launching he always sailed in the Sea Serpent, did not like to tempt fate by using a sister ship.

  “I think I can repair it, my Lord. If I start early tomorrow, it should not take more than a few days, the week at the most.”

  Swein grinned, relieved. “If you have her seaworthy by Thor’s Day, there will be an extra bag of silver in it for you.”


  Saluting, the man hurried off, scowling up at the evening sky as he made rapid mental calculation. If he assembled his tools and searched for the right piece of wood straightaway, he could make a start at first light.

  Cnut too was squinting upwards. A crescent moon was glowing pale silver, and the evening star sparkled, bright against the clear sky. Snow lay in deep rifts up on the higher ground and in the shadowed hollows. Some parts of the fjord, too, where the weak sunlight could not penetrate, were rimmed by ice. He loved the smell of Denmark. Crisp and intoxicating, the cold air rammed up your nostrils and hurtled into your brain, making you feel vibrant and alive. He would miss all this when they went to England. Miss it because he knew he might never come back, not after his father had his final victory over Æthelred, as he would very soon.

  A bell began to clang from the outer rafter of the wooden chapel further along the shoreline. Vespers was it? Or was that a later service? He could not remember. A handful of Roskilde inhabitants came scurrying from the warmth of their houses, hooded cloaks drawn tight, five, six families? More women than men. Cnut sniggered; this Christ was a soft-bellied woman’s God, fit only for virgins, eunuchs, and peasants to worship. What was the attraction? Why had a warrior like Thorkell so suddenly deserted everything and everyone he valued to have himself immersed in holy water and baptised into the family of this Christian God? All for the sake of an old monk who had done nothing but mumble and mutter prayers, and had been accidentally killed by an over-lively group of drunken men? Unease shifted uncomfortably in his conscience. A King could not afford to have a conscience, he had said that night. But what of leadership? Compassion? Duty? Without those, of what use was a King?

  “To you, son, this Ælfgifu will be nothing more than a concubine. When you are King of England in my stead”—Swein, unaware of his son’s troubled thoughts, held up one warning finger—“and mark my word well, I do not intend that to be for many years yet, so do not be tempted to think much on it too soon—when you are eventually King, you will need a more fitting wife, a daughter of another King or Prince at the very least. For now, you must wed this northern girl because I need the Lords of the English Danelaw to take the crown from Æthelred and put it on my head instead.”