The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  Emma thought of objecting to his lovemaking. She was not convinced about Ælfgifu, but why be churlish and permit that bitch to have all the intimate pleasure?

  23

  10 June 1023—Rochester

  Things, to Cnut’s acute annoyance, had not gone to plan. London had been determined to hinder his ordered removal of such an auspicious man from their care, and although they had lost the fight, protestors jostled and harangued those who dared move the holy remains. More than one stinking egg had met its target and plastered the monks who had come from Canterbury to exhume the bones, but with the housecarls as escort, the belligerent crowd had done no more than jeer and throw what they could. London Bridge, however, had caused the greatest problem.

  Turned out in hundreds to watch the unique spectacle of a woman being burnt alive—it had been an interesting show, the woman cursing Cnut until the thick smoke had enveloped her, and even then her shrieks had continued for some good while—the crowds had elected to remain and pay respect to the coffin as it passed by. But the solemn entourage found the bridge blocked by so many crowding the roadway, making headway impossible. Furious, unsure whether the ploy had been a deliberate ruse or mere coincidence, Cnut had commandeered a ship of his fleet, moored on the downriver side of the bridge, to sail the coffin across to the Southwark side, there to continue its holy progress, accompanied by prayer and song, to Rochester. On the evening of the tenth day of June, Emma, with her children, joined her husband to be ready, on the morrow, to accompany the procession those few final miles to Canterbury.

  “Are you asleep?”

  Emma roused, relaxed, drowsing, her body glowing from the aftermath of pleasure. The King’s quarters were cramped here at Rochester, but sufficient, particularly as far as his bed was concerned. “Not quite,” Emma mumbled.

  “I have chosen my new Earl and Archbishop.”

  Half asleep. “Oh? That’s nice.”

  “I thought you would like to know before I inform council. My choice in both will be loudly obstructed by Ælfgifu.”

  “Oh?” Emma propped herself on her elbow, her loose hair tumbling across her shoulders and breasts. She scrutinised his face in the dim light that filtered through a few narrow chinks in the bed curtains.

  “Christ Church is in full support of my decision,” he said into the semidarkness, his fingers stroking the smooth roundness of her shoulder. “But then,” he added with a shrug that Emma felt rather than saw, “they owe me a favour for my consenting to return their Archbishop’s bones.”

  A lopsided grin spread over Emma’s lips. “So Canterbury will not gainsay your choice for York?”

  “No. Alfric Puttoc is sincerely approved.”

  “Puttoc? Alfric the Hawk?” Emma spluttered, fully awake now and sitting up. “But he is a Bernician priest, a firm supporter of Uhtred. Was it not Puttoc who condemned Ælfgifu’s father and approved Æthelred’s blinding of his sons—despite his being a kinsman of the family?”

  “Ja, it was Puttoc.”

  Emma puffed her cheeks, ran her hand through her hair. Ælfgifu could very well do more than protest!

  Cnut touched his lips lightly into the hollow of her neck. “Elskede, there is more.”

  “More?” Emma said languidly, tipping her head. Mmm, she wanted more.

  “I am appointing Uhtred’s son Ealdred as Earl. He has proved his worth serving as an under-Earl of Bernicia beneath Erik. He has earned the whole glittering jewel for himself.”

  She had been sinking into the delight of his caressing hand, sat bolt upright, pushing his hand away from where it had dropped to her breast. “Guds skyld, Cnut! He killed Thurbrand; you could be stirring that bitch to rebellion!”

  Cnut chuckled and pulled her down beneath the furs, his hands straying over the curves of her body. “That is my intention. I am doing what you have wanted me to do. Giving her the opportunity to speak out against me or forever remain silent.”

  “And if she denounces you? Will you hang her?” Emma asked challengingly, again pushing his hands away. Remained unconvinced when, between kisses, Cnut nodded.

  When not annoyed with him, she enjoyed the pleasure of his lovemaking, but at this moment her responses were slow, dull-witted, for her mind was many miles to the north. In Northampton. Oh, Emma was in no doubt Cnut had told her of only half of his intentions, that this ecstasy he was inducing in her body was to distract her from discovering all he had not told.

  Through her numerous kindred—there were so damned many of them—Ælfgifu had been steadily and, as she assumed, secretively cultivating a hold on northern power, a bribe here, a favour given or called in there. She thought herself secure, subtly manoeuvring herself into domination, forming friendships and alliances, binding those of influence to her side; ready, waiting, to make her move if—when—anything happened to Cnut. Emma almost laughed aloud, skilfully changed the sound to a pretended gasp of aroused delight. With these appointments, the bitch would lose all she had so carefully built, as if the whole of it had been made of sand, washed away with one sweep of an incoming tide. She would lose everything but her small domain of Northampton, and that Emma could easily ensnare if need be.

  Perhaps it would be wise to start laying the traps now? Reward Ealdred, grant him favour; be attentive to the new Archbishop, fund his charities, finance the building of a few churches. Offer her undivided attention. What was stronger, more exhilarating? The climax Cnut brought her to or the delight of triumph over Ælfgifu?

  24

  August 1023—Bosham

  When Cnut was busy, as more often than not he was, Emma passed the day in Gytha’s company, for her own friendship and that of the children. They were the family that Emma had always wanted, the laughter, the enthusiasm, the love that she had been denied by the austerity of her rigid upbringing. Gytha was a natural mother, love pouring from her spirit as easily as milk came from her breast—she fed her own children, would have nothing of a wet nurse. “They are my childer—I bore them, I will suckle them.”

  Swegn, in his third year, was weaned and a terror; Harold, two years the younger, still in demand for his mother’s teat. Godwine humoured her, guessing the inclination would wear thin once several more infants came along. He would jest proudly, “She is happy with sleepless nights with only the two of them; you wait ’til we have our own home-bred army to feed! We will be employing wet nurses by the score then!”

  “If you are thinking on producing that many children, husband,” Gytha would quip back at him, “then you can go sire them with someone else to labour through birth! I am not a brood mare!” And they would smile at each other secretly, knowing she wanted as many children as it took to fill the house place to the rafters with laughter.

  “Cnut works too hard,” Emma said, thinking aloud, as she held the naked babe, Harold, above the stream, bobbing his toes in and out of the sparkle of cold water, making him gurgle and chuckle with delight. She shrugged her shoulders at Gytha, sitting on the bank, keeping a watchful eye on the others, playing in one of the wider, shallower pools. “He hates the thought of sitting still, always has to be occupied, doing something. He gives me a headache with all that energy of his.”

  “I think men are only truly happy when either planning a battle or lying flaccid and spent in a woman’s bed,” Gytha answered brightly.

  Emma laughed and, holding Harold high, stepped out of the stream. “One and the same thing to some men!” She passed the child to his mother and, releasing her gown from where she had hitched it through her girdle, sat on the spread blanket, began drying her wet feet with a corner of it.

  “Harthacnut!” she called, looking towards the children, “do not splash so. Swegn’s smaller than you; he does not care for water in his eyes.” If her son heard her gentle admonishment, he paid no heed.

  Pulling her hose and boots on, Emma said, “We have had word that Thorkell is willing to talk peace.”

  “Word with truth behind it, or wild rumour?”

  “I th
ink the truth. Cnut is planning to sail for Denmark again come the autumn, to over-winter in Roskilde.”

  Gytha settled Harold more comfortably in her arms. He was a good baby, easy to nurse, to amuse, quick to settle into sleep. Swegn, her firstborn, was an entirely different barrel of salted fish. What a lad for temper! Even his mother, who doted on him, admitted she would be wary of meeting him in the dark once he became a man grown.

  “I will never understand Thorkell’s thinking,” she said, rocking the baby in her arms. “He had an exalted position, second in command to Cnut, had the world at his feet, yet he tossed it all into the midden—and for what? To come crawling on his belly, seeking forgiveness?”

  There came a cry of rage from the stream, a sudden flurry of a squabble. Leofgifu thrust aside her spinning and hurried to her feet to separate the two furious boys, Harthacnut and Swegn, both of them haggling fiercely over the ownership of a toy boat. As fast as it had arisen the storm subsided, the two, at Leofgifu’s insistence, sullenly agreeing to share. All the same, Harthacnut deliberately splashed Swegn again by bringing his palm down fast into the water. Swegn cried; Harthacnut laughed.

  “I am telling you, boy!” Emma threatened, “Stop splashing! If I need remind you once more, you will be away inside until you can learn to behave yourself.” To Gytha, resuming their conversation, said, “The doing was all Wulfhilde’s; hers was the insistence behind the trying for more. Like her father, she always was a self-centred madam.”

  “So her death at Easter past may explain Thorkell’s change of heart?”

  “I would assume so. If he has any sense, he will lay the blame squarely at her feet and plead insanity through beguiled lust! Oh, for Heaven’s sake, boy!” Emma scrambled up, strode to the stream, and hauled Harthacnut, kicking and yelling, from the water. “What did I say to you?” she slapped his leg. “How dare you disobey me?”

  “But he splashed me!” Harthacnut wailed, attempting to wriggle from her grasp. “He splashed water right in my face!”

  “Do not go tale-telling to me, lad. I plainly saw you! Now, get you inside and stay there until I think fit to release you!”

  Screaming his protest, the sound squawking like a henhouse full of fox-chased chickens, Leofgifu bore Harthacnut away, mindful of his whirling arms and kicking feet.

  “I reckon my lad and yours both need a switch on their backsides,” Gytha observed.

  “Aye, but it is the fathers who let them get away with it,” Emma answered wryly. “‘They’re just being lads,’ they say and give them no more than a frown and a pat on the head.”

  Gytha chuckled in amused agreement. Unless the sin was truly serious, it was not she who was the soft one in the household, but Godwine. Comforting to know Emma considered the situation to be the selfsame in the royal hall.

  ***

  For two hours Harthacnut sat nursing his resentment, hunched in a corner, watching the intricate efforts of a spider repair a torn web. Come the lowering of evening, they all trooped in from the stream—his mother, Aunt Gytha, his sisters, Swegn—all laughing. Laughing at him. He swept his hand down through the new-completed web, destroying the hours’ work, stumped from the hall and out into the evening air, not caring that his mother was sharply calling him back.

  He headed straight for the stream, but it was deeper now, filling, like the entire inlet, with the flood tide. Men were down at the boats making ready to sail, fishing boats, traders’ craft—Bosham was a busy harbour, with or without Cnut in nearby residence. He wandered down to the shoreline, stooping halfway along to retrieve the toy wooden boat that the argument had been over. Trust Swegn to leave it behind; it would have been there all night, then forgotten and lost. Well, it was Harthacnut’s now. Swegn could mither all he liked, but he would not get it back!

  A wagon stood outside the open doors of the mill barn, half emptied of its load of grain. Much of the harvest in these parts came straight to the mill for grinding, the flour stored in great barrels raised off the ground to keep them dry and vermin-free. To allow room for the cats and weasels to creep underneath hunting for rats.

  The bread baked was coarse-ground stuff, flat, and often burnt on one side, doughy on the other. Their bread within the household was made from wheat flour; that gave the flat loaves more of a rise than the poor man’s diet of rye or barley bread, although many a nobleman insisted barley was food fit only for horses or the fermenting of beer. The water-turned mills had been a rarity a few years past, but their value had spread as rapid as their building; every Lord had ensured a mill was installed in at least one of the villages; Cnut had one near every residence. For the villagers, like the plough teams, the mills were a communal facility, jointly operated, their worth adding to the economy and an easier life.

  The massive, water-driven, oak-wood wheel with its elm gearwheels transmitted power through the solidity of a shaft, also of oak and banded with iron, and all of it turning with creaks and groans, the great, round, grinding slabs of the quern stones. The mill wheel turning slowly, with the force of several horses, better and more efficient than a single woman using her arm to grind the corn laboriously into flour. The wheel was not turning, its huge brake rammed in place, for it operated one way only, on the ebb tide, a faster, more controllable push against the paddles.

  Wandering over for a closer look, Harthacnut stood at the edge of the open culvert, a deep, narrow channel, especially dug with sluice gates to regulate the flow during high tides. The gates were open, the scummy water flooding in. He ought not to be here—the children were not allowed near the mill, but then children made a habit of going where they were forbidden.“Harthacnut? Harthacnut!” Ragnhilda’s voice, floating on the lazy breeze. “Harthacnut? Where are you? Supper is served.” Stubborn, Harthacnut stayed where he was, allowing the darkening evening to enfold him like a shrouding cloak. The girl spotted him. She was a serious child who accomplished her expected chores and duties in earnest and with a willing heart, doing anything to please her papa and the woman who was his wife. Ragnhilda was aware Emma was not her natural mother, but who else had she to love and cherish? Perhaps if Papa were not so often gone from home…ah, well, as Leofgifu often said, if perhaps were a horse, then all would ride.

  The sun had been hot today, and she had enjoyed playing in the stream, but now she was hungry and tired, wanted only her supper and her bed. She had been irritated that Leofgifu had sent her to seek Harthacnut. Why should she? She was not a servant. But Leofgifu had asked her in a kindly way, saying please, indicating she was busy with the babes, and Ragnhilda was a child eager to help those she loved. A pity it was Harthacnut she was sent to find; she did not much love him.

  “Leofgifu says to come now. Everyone is soon to be seated at table; we are to have ours first in the kitchens.”

  “Go away. I will not eat in the kitchens. I am not a servant like you.”

  “Do not be silly. You know full well we always eat in the kitchens, Harthacnut.”

  “I am a Prince. I should eat at table.”

  “And I am a Princess, but you do not hear me complaining. Now come on!” Irritably Ragnhilda lunged forward, aiming to grab the child’s arm. He swung away, her fingers missing, but knocking against the toy boat, which flew from his grip and spiralled into the churning, bubbling water filling the mill channel. It sank, rose, bobbed on the surface, twirling with the force of the eddying current.

  “You stupid dolt!” Harthacnut shrieked. “You sham-legged, poxed whore!” As with all his swearing, he was astute at picking up phrases that adults frequently used and were beyond his comprehension of meaning. Wildly he flung out his hand, clawing at her hair. “You fetch it back!” he yelled, kicking and punching at her. “You climb down there and fetch it back!”

  “Let me go!” the girl shouted, furious, frightened. “You let me go! Papa shall hear of this! Let me go!”

  “Fetch it back! Fetch it, I say!” and Harthacnut pushed, with all his weight, with all his strength he pushed, slamming into the
girl, toppling her off balance. She fell, screaming, down into the green darkness of the water, and, like the boat, she went under. But she was heavier than a wooden toy; she wore skirts and boots. Unlike the boat, she did not come up again.

  Harthacnut stood, frozen, watching the tumble of water, the splash and churn as it flowed past the wheel. When they came to fetch him in, he pointed silently and said nothing.

  They found her when the tide had ebbed out. The great wheel for once held still and silent by its brake, the men prodding with poles and sticks, dreading what they would find. The undercurrent had taken her up against the wheel itself, and her hair had been caught between the worn cracks of a submerged paddle. They hoped she had been dead before then, had drowned quickly as she first went under, not slowly, entangled and submerged, unable to escape.

  With Cnut away, it was Godwine’s duty to ask the boy what had happened; the Earl found him, sitting alone on the stone steps that led down from the wall surrounding the manor yard to the causeway, which at high tide was covered halfway up by seawater. Harthacnut was tossing pebbles at a post, attempting to hit it, missing every throw.

  “Did she fall, boy?” Godwine asked gruffly.

  “Of course she fell,” Harthacnut answered, his head lifting, mouth pouting, defiant. He was afraid of Godwine, for he was a large, gruff-voiced man who often bellowed and raged when things went wrong.

  Several times he had seen Godwine whipping Swegn, once only last week because he had caught the boy deliberately stamping on a nest of duck eggs. Cnut had never struck his son; he laughed and ruffled his hair when Emma sent him to his father for some misdemeanour or other, declaring boys were boys. Emma occasionally smacked him on the legs, which stung but was bearable. Once she had paddled his backside with her house slipper, and Harthacnut had cried for an entire two hours before Leofgifu had come to cheer him with a beaker of milk and sticky honey spread on new-baked bread.