The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  “I do not care whom I serve, no,” Eadric stated bluntly. “As long as the service is worth my while.”

  “So you have become a mercenary?”

  Eadric rested his right elbow on the chair arm, half slouched, legs spread out in front of him. “You do not approve?”

  “No, I do not approve. A mercenary has no soul or honour.”

  “Who taught you that way of thinking? Nay, lad, a mercenary is a man who bargains hard to get the best deal he can.”

  “A cynical and selfish philosophy.”

  “Possibly, but it has served me well all these years.”

  Edmund managed to control his rising temper. “Cnut is devastating the southern coast. I do not intend to make the same mistake as my father and sit whistling in the wind in the hope he may soon grow bored and sail away.”

  Frowning, Eadric studied the man before him. He saw a younger version of Æthelred, the same nose, eyes, mouth. The chin was a little more pointed; he was taller, broader, perhaps—more confident, certainly. Then, abruptly, he changed his mind. This lad was nothing like his father. He had his grandmother’s character, her guile, temper, and decisive independence. Unlike his father, Edmund was not a fool.

  “You are serious about fighting Cnut?” he asked.

  “I am serious about fighting Cnut.”

  Throwing his hands in the air, Eadric guffawed in laughter. “Whatever for? We allow him to burn a handful of peasant bothies, steal some cattle, and carry off a few women; then we pay him to go away, and we get on with our lives. Why stir a hornets’ nest when you can leave well alone?”

  Quietly, looking down at his hands, Edmund answered, “Is that the advice you gave my father?”

  “It was good advice.”

  Edmund had run the length of his patience. He stood, marched to the door, and flung it wide. “It was bad advice.”

  Unperturbed, Eadric fastened his cloak and strolled to the door. “Wars cost money, money that can be better spent in buying peace.”

  “You buy your peace. I intend to fight for mine.”

  Opening the door, Eadric was no longer indulgent, “You forget, boy. You are not yet King. You run close to treason.”

  “I am Ætheling; I act for my father.”

  Dipping his head in farewell, Eadric called for his horse. “My congratulations. My assessment was wrong. You are as much the fool as he is.”

  15

  February 1016—Thorney Island

  Penned into the misery of Thorney Island during a dreary winter, Emma greeted her visitor with excessive warmth. Godwine found himself blushing as she held him to her in an enthusiastic embrace and kissed both his cheeks in welcome. Gods, but how he wanted to kiss her back, and not in the chaste way she had kissed him!

  “What brings you to London? News? Not bad news? No, I see from your face it is not, although equally, I think you do not bring good news? Come, sit, let me pour you ale.” Emma was talking too fast. Was she going mad in this winter Hell-hole of a place? There was nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to see or converse with.

  “I have come with a message for the King, but I am told he is sleeping. I was sent, instead, to you.” Godwine grinned. “I do not object to the diversion!”

  “My husband sees no one before mid-afternoon.” Emma laughed, a false sound. “Not even me.” Especially me, she thought. “He claims I am too much the bully, for I order him to wash and get out of bed.”

  “He is no better, then?”

  Emma shrugged. What constituted better? The stomach cramps and pains had ceased towards the end of October, but Æthelred had not quit his bed. His natural functions appeared normal; he ate well, drank even better. Wept and mithered and called for his priest throughout the day or night.

  For almost fourteen years Emma had been his wife, and during that long period he had rarely spoken a kind word to her, and yet now he expected her to love and comfort him. Well, she would not! Let him suffer, let him reflect on all the cruelties he had inflicted on her and others. He could go to Hell. And the quicker, the better.

  Godwine altered tack. “How are the children?”

  “Edward prays. Morning, noon, and night, he prays for his father’s soul. Alfred, the more practical, has worked out the items he wants his father to leave him in his will, and as for Goda, my pretty angel, she is learning her lessons with enthusiasm at Wilton. They are turning her into a presentable young lady, so I understand. I do not envy them the task.” She smiled, proud of her daughter. “All I knew of her was constant squabbling, bruised knees, and a determination to do everything better than her brothers!” She meant none of it. Emma missed her daughter since her going away to be educated at the nunnery, but it had to be. Goda would become a woman and then a wife.

  “So,” she said, turning the subject away from one she did not care to think upon, “how does Edmund’s war go?”

  “You heard that Streona went to Cnut with forty ships?”

  Yes. She had heard.

  “Wessex has fallen to the Danes, and the shires of Gloucester and Hereford, and, of course, Bedford and Buckingham, which are already Streona’s, so Edmund’s lands fall direct in the traitorous bastard’s path.”

  “I hear the English fyrds are calling Edmund ‘Ironside’ for his strength of courage. It is a fitting title for a fine young man.”

  “Streona is insisting it is Ealdorman Uhtred’s planning that has been the cause of our success.” Godwine spat into the fire, sending the flames sizzling. “He has no love for Edmund.”

  “And was it Uhtred’s strategy, then, to not meet Cnut’s army head-on, but to take the English into Chester-Shire and Shrop-Shire instead?” Emma was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, wanting to gain every mote of information above the bare essentials she had learnt through the occasional messenger or trader.

  Godwine grinned. “No, that was Edmund himself! We marched as bold as a tomcat into Streona’s lands, and instead of wasting our energy in burning farmsteadings or villages, we headed straight for his estates. Burnt the lot to the ground, taking his horses and armoury for our own use.”

  Emma clapped her hands, delighted. “And you are surprised that he has no love for Edmund?” She paused while a servant handed him ale. “So what else have you to tell me?”

  Stretching his legs towards the hearth, Godwine sighed. Pointless hiding the truth; she would have to know. “We have done our best, my Queen, but it is a futile effort. We have hit them hard; there is no more we can do. Cnut is too strong for us.”

  “Uhtred is as wily as a fox; surely if he calls out the entire northern fyrd…?”

  Godwine interrupted. Best say this quickly. “Uhtred has had to return into Northumbria. Several of his Thegns support Cnut, Thurbrand the Hold being one of them. A long-term enemy, as you know, and kindred to Ælfgifu of Northampton, Cnut’s woman. We discovered that she has been sheltering with him.”

  Emma swallowed the sudden feeling of dread. Thurbrand, another who could match Eadric Streona as a pair of boots cut from the same hide.

  “I understand the Lady is anxious for Cnut to join her and her two sons, but he is not as keen to oblige, for he has a large dose of explaining to do.”

  Emma added her laughter to Godwine’s. “I do not see Ælfgifu as a woman who would easily forgive a man who fled direct from her bed into another.”

  “And add to that…”

  Raising her hands in mock horror, Emma quipped, “There is more? Good God, the woman will not know which way to lace her gown if she swells herself with so much grievance!”

  “…There is the insult of alliance with Streona; after all, he was responsible for her father’s murder. For that alone I reckon she will take a dagger to Cnut’s balls.”

  The laughter died. The fire crackled, the wind moaned through ill-fitting window shutters. Godwine spread his hands on his thighs, uneasily rubbed them up and down.

  “The boroughs have only accepted Edmund halfway up the blade. The fyrds were happy with
raiding Streona’s lands—they have been itching to do so these God knows how many years—but Cnut is on their doorstep, and without Uhtred…” He let his words trail off, then, “Lady! There have been too many rumours that Æthelred has outlawed his son, that Edmund is fighting on his own and not for his father. The men will not rally to Edmund if they think wrong of him. If Cnut marches up the Great North Road, I fear they will stand aside and let him pass.”

  Despair knotted in Emma’s stomach, her laughter and pleasure drained away. It was all happening over again. The North would submit to Cnut, and then he would turn on London. From there would come nothing except the bleakness of exile. She closed her eyes. Not Normandy! She could not stand the indignity of having to beg for her brother’s aid again. Sickness rose into her mouth: the nausea of the memory of the sea.

  “We have able men,” Godwine said. “Each man would fight as if he were two, three men if they had the knowing that Æthelred himself asked it of them.” He fiddled with the hem of his tunic, picking at a hanging thread. “Æthelred cut the heart out of his people when he attacked Lindsey. They are afraid to anger him a second time, and someone has cleverly seen to it that they think he will be angered if they rally to Edmund.”

  Emma’s head shot up as if she were a hound hearing the music of the hunting horn. “Cnut?”

  Godwine shook his head. “Possibly his idea, but, no, Streona spreads the lies.” Said, his eyes meeting hers, “We need the King.”

  How Godwine wished he had not spoken, how he so desperately wanted to comfort her, hold her, tell her it would be all right, in the end it would be all right.

  “He will not get up from his bed, Godwine.” Emma hung her head, her hands clasped, her fingernails digging into her palms. “ My husband is frail. He is truly ill, dying mayhap.” Guilt was a terrible burden to carry. She should have had some patience with him, have been more compassionate. It must be hard to know one is old.

  Godwine stood before her, put his fingers under her chin, and tipped her head up. If he was going to kiss her, it would have to be now, while he was standing so close, drowning in the nearness of her. The moment passed. She was his Queen, he a mere Thegn.

  “Dying or not, Lady, he has to lead an army north. He has to show support for his son, or everything will be lost to Cnut.” He repeated it, so that she clearly understood: “Everything.”

  16

  March 1016—Huntingdon

  As the last week of February drew to a close, the royal entourage, escorted by his own and his Queen’s cnights, and the militias of London were heading north. It had been slow going. Ermine Street ran for miles as straight as a harpstring, but was treacherous with mud and half-melted snow. The unforgiving wind, howling across the East Anglian fens direct from the sea, was bitter in its vehemence; the pewter-skied days were short, the frosted nights long. They had covered less than fifty miles in six days, and Huntingdon was still more than four miles ahead.

  Every few yards Æthelred’s litter became bogged down and had to be hauled free. Tempers were as short as the days, and impatience was running as wide as the fenland skies.

  Emma had never travelled with an army before, and this was only a militia of three hundred and fifty men. The logistics of moving these few was a headache; how in God’s name were full armies shifted about in winter conditions? She began to admire the fortitude of Edmund and Cnut. Her body ached from riding; the insides of her thighs were chafed raw, and she was certain she would never be able to sit down properly again. Some nights they had not been able to find a hunting lodge or manor house; twice they had slept in a farmsteading bothy, once out in the open, sheltering themselves from the bitter cold beside winter-bare hedging, although Emma and her husband had tents of horse-hide leather stretched over hazel poles. They at least provided shelter from the wind, if nothing else.

  The column halted; again the litter was stuck. A distinct grumble murmured along the line of shivering, tired men, like a sullen wave rippling in across a flat beach of shingle.

  Godwine rode up to Emma, saluted. “The King is calling for you, Lady.”

  “Can his body servant not deal with it?”

  “I think not in this case, ma’am.” Godwine lowered his voice, leant across his horse’s neck to whisper, “He wants to return to London.”

  “He has been wanting to do that since a half an hour after leaving!” She sighed. “I will come.”

  Throwing her leg over the high, square saddle pommel, she slid to the ground, grimaced as her boot sank ankle-deep in mud. She wore male apparel beneath her gown—breeches, gaitered leggings. It was warmer and more comfortable for riding, although it made it more difficult to relieve herself. The skirt of her gown was fuller than it would be normally, and slit at front and back, so it fell on either side of the saddle when mounted, but appeared loose and appropriately modest when not. Modesty, on this interminable journey, had long been thrown out with the piss in the pot. Emma hitched the gown to above her knees as she made her way towards the King’s litter, not caring who might glimpse the trousered legs beneath.

  He was weak and thin, his face more like the mask of a skull than a live man’s warm flesh. With sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, Æthelred’s body had shrivelled into itself. It was plain that he could not go on much further, but he would have to.

  Emma sent a servant for water, spooned a little into her husband’s mouth, although most of it dribbled out again. His breathing was shallow, his skin yellow-tinged, and his breath stank sour. As much as she wanted to taunt him that God was punishing him for all the wrongs and evils he had committed, she could not be cruel. She had realised, soon into her marriage, that to survive she had to keep herself hard and remote, detached, but that was the woman everyone else saw. For herself, her inward eye that looked into the privacy of her soul, she knew she had an expanse of compassion and love. No one had brought it to the fore, that was all. No one except Pallig, all those years ago, and Godwine maybe, and her daughter, Goda. No, not Goda; she had let go of her, played indifferent. How else did one survive, and endure, a shattered heart when a daughter left home to be wed?

  “It is not far to Huntingdon,” she said to Æthelred, wiping his mouth. “We will rest there.”

  He became agitated, his fingers plucking at the furs covering him. He kicked his legs, trying to sit, climb out of the litter. “No! Not Huntingdon!” He screeched in a high, tinny voice. “I cannot go to Huntingdon!”

  “It will be comfortable there. Riders have gone ahead to make preparations for us. If you wish, we can stay a day. Edmund awaits us at the burgh of Stamford; you will not have to travel further north than there. Once it is seen that you readily embrace him as your son, you can rest.”

  “North? I am not going north! There are men waiting to kill me in the North!” Æthelred’s disquiet became more pronounced; for all his apparent feebleness there was strength in his arms as he pushed Emma aside. He was half out of the litter, his stockinged feet sinking into the mire.

  As befitted a King, a guard was set around the low-slung, wallowing conveyance, two men on each corner, two behind, two walking with the sturdy ponies pulling it. A conscientious man always kept his weapons sharp and ready, and it was something to do to pass the time during these irritating stops, to reach into your pouch and pull out the small whetstone that every soldier carried there to keep an edge on his dagger or sword blade.

  Scrabbling in the mud, with Emma calling for assistance and trying to induce him to not be such a fool, Æthelred heard the rasp of the coarse stone on the steel. He saw the gleam of the blade and screamed. “I am to be murdered!” Where to go to be safe? Where to hide? Where to get away from these men come to do away with him? Æthelred flung himself into the litter, pulled the furs up, covering himself as he lay curled beneath, alternately whimpering and screaming. “Take me to London!” he demanded, his voice shrill and insanely intense. “Take me back, I order it, take me back!”

  There was nothing Emma could do, short of gagg
ing and binding him, but even that would have served no purpose. Æthelred’s wailing had carried along the line of men, and the Londoners—already weary and discontented, none of them caring for this miserable march into a fight that was not theirs—in an unspoken unanimous decision, swung around. When men have decided they have had enough and their King is ordering them to turn about and go home, there is no asking of questions.

  Strange how the reversal of the route was to be accomplished so much more efficiently than the outward one.

  Whether he had imagined it or overheard some mischievous or careless talk, Æthelred was convinced treachery awaited him at Huntingdon. He gibbered and whimpered all along the road, and Emma, furious, betrayed, and ashamed at his spineless weakness, rode behind his litter in stiff-backed silence, all of her guilt at her lack of tender kindness quite gone. He had forsaken England for his own imagined terrors. He was no King; he was worthless.

  Edmund was abandoned and with him the opportunity to outmanoeuvre Cnut. Except for London, Æthelred had lost his kingdom.

  Whether he was mortally ill or not was irrelevant as far as Emma was concerned. Æthelred, to her mind, was already dead.

  17

  March 1016—Wighill, Yorkshire

  Bad news always spread with the rapidity of a swelling flood. With the English fyrd unwilling to fight, Cnut moved swiftly up the Great North Road, sweeping all before him as a housewife takes a new-made broom to the spring cleaning.

  Uhtred was the best Ealdorman Æthelred had, one of the North’s greatest magnates, whose kindred went back through generations. For this reason Cnut had to hold Northumbria; without Uhtred’s submission, England was nothing. In turn, without the support of Æthelred, Uhtred could not hold Cnut at bay. With the Danish army marching closer to York, and for the sake of his people, he surrendered. A bitter potion to swallow, for Cnut would be demanding hostages. And what had happened to those he had taken before? There was not a noble family in all England, save for the King’s own, who had not suffered the result of those wicked mutilations Cnut had ordered at Sandwich harbour.