The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  “You wish to ask me if Ulf can be trusted in continuing to rule Denmark in your name? I can answer you simply. No, he cannot. He lusts too much for pleasure and grows too easily bored with routine.”

  Cnut was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, twirling his goblet in his hands. Looking at her with an intensity that was unnerving. “And can I trust you to be loyal to me?”

  “I am loyal to my husband,” she answered succinctly, “and he is loyal to you.”

  Shaking the drowsy muzziness from his head, he forced himself to concentrate. “For my sister’s sake, I must allow Ulf to continue with this regency. If I do not, he may well declare war.” He laughed, “For want of something exciting to do. By allowing him to do what he wants, and not make comment on his indiscretions and failings, war is narrowed to a possibility, not a certainty.”

  Gytha did not agree, but held her counsel.

  “You are a very beautiful woman, Gytha,” Cnut said, holding his goblet out towards her for more wine.

  “I thank you for the compliment, but I beg you will forgive my candour in answering that you do not see straight, for you are a little tired and a lot drunk.”

  Cnut laughed, a slurred sound, rose unsteadily to his feet. “I would forgive you anything for one kiss.” He patted the air in the direction of the servants. “Send them away, I would talk to you in private.”

  When she did not respond, he ordered them out himself, but she countermanded quickly. “Remain. Sir, I remind you this is my house. I give the orders to my servants.”

  “And I remind you who gave you the house, and who could take it back as easy as this.” Cnut tried to snap his fingers, but his coordination was blurred. He laughed, took a step forward, and collapsed in a crumpled heap to the floor, his arms going out to grab at something to steady the fall—Gytha. He clutched at her mantle and the under-tunic, which tore and pulled away from her shoulders, revealing her breasts beneath—and Gytha’s brother, Ulf, walked in through the door.

  They stood for a long moment, staring open-mouthed at each other, Ulf recovering his surprise first. “So this is how my sister entertains herself when her husband is gone?” He walked further into the room, sat, insolently hooking one leg over the curved arm of a chair. “Does your husband know of your liaison with Cnut?”

  Composing herself, Gytha covered her breasts and ushered the servants from the room; this was how gossip spread and was tattled. “Do not be a fool, Ulf; nothing has happened. The King has overdrunk of my husband’s wine and stumbled, that is all.”

  “Oh, I know what I see, sister.” Ulf leered at Cnut, sitting in a crumpled heap on the floor, attempting to extricate himself from a tangle of legs and arms. “I wonder what Godwine will make of it when I tell him?”

  Gytha’s face, reddened from embarrassment, pinched white at the nostrils. “You dare talk of this, Ulf, and I personally will geld you!”

  Insolent, Ulf rose, strolled to Cnut, and helped him to his feet, brushing floor rushes from his tunic. “You are drunk, my King; let me assist you to bed. I am sure my dear sister will make you comfortable.”

  “Leave him; his housecarls shall see to him,” Gytha snapped.

  Ulf deposited Cnut back on the floor and, bending, smiled into his blurred and vacant vision. “Sleep well. Dream of what you can do to buy my silence about this unfortunate indiscretion.” He walked to the door, a smirk playing across his mouth. “I will seek my own bed for the night, shall I? Your husband will be here shortly. I rode on ahead to tell you he is on his way. As well I did, eh?”

  Come the morning, Cnut nursed a sore head and, apologising to a bemused Godwine for the inexcusable intrusion into the household, made arrangements to sail with Ulf to Denmark.

  30

  June 1026—Rochester

  Do I cut here?” Gunnhild asked, indicating the curved line chalked onto the length of cloth spread out across a trestle table in the hall. The double doors were thrown wide open to allow in the light; two chickens were sitting inside the threshold, their wings and feathers fluffed to make the most of basking in the sunshine.

  Emma peered up from the seam she was pinning. “Cut carefully, though, child; that is the shoulder end of the sleeve, and if you cut it wrong, you will find it difficult to sew it into the bodice.”

  Careful, her tongue peeping through her lips in concentration, Gunnhild cut along the chalked line.

  “You mind those shears, girl; they are sharp,” Leofgifu added, sternly watching her. “Do not put your fingers so near the blade—aye, that’s better.”

  Gunnhild was a quiet, thoughtful child, a girl who, like her mother, enjoyed her books, but, unlike Emma at that age, was enthralled by the mysteries of learning how to become a woman. At eight years old she was young enough for Emma to coddle yet old enough to be a companion during the long months that Cnut was abroad, and he was so often abroad. There were nights when Emma lay awake, so unable to find sleep that she cursed Denmark to the fire pits of Hell. For taking her son and her husband. On the spear side, Gytha had once said that she envied Emma the months of freedom from the confine of marriage, to do as she wished, without thought of a husband. It was a compensation, but not one Emma would have elected by choice. Had it been Æthelred, ah, then months apart would have been eagerly made welcome.

  The gown they were making was for the midsummer festivities, the first time Gunnhild had been permitted to help with the completing of her own dress from the start of marking the cloth with the pattern to cutting and sewing it. She had held pins before, threaded needles, and made tiny garments for her wooden doll, but this was to be a gown to match her mother’s. She had even woven some of it on the loom that stood in the corner of Mama’s chamber, although Leofgifu had only allowed her to do half a row, for she had dropped the shuttle and somehow two of the ring weights at the end of the warp threads had become tangled.

  Finished, Gunnhild handed the length of cut cloth to her mother, who inspected it, smiled in approval. “I will cut this last bit,” Emma said, “then tomorrow we can begin sewing.”

  Carefully, Gunnhild helped Leofgifu fold the pieces and put the shears and pebble of marking chalk away in Emma’s sewing box. Gunnhild loved looking in there at the needles, thimbles, threads, and wools. Unexpectedly, the girl asked, “Mama, is Papa dead?”

  Emma was clearing the remnant scraps from the table. She stopped, stood absolutely still, staring at the child. “Of course he is not. Whatever made you think he was?”

  Shutting the sewing-box lid, Gunnhild chewed her lip, slowly lifted her head, her face troubled, eyes wide and frightened. “I heard Leofstan talking to some of the men. They said Papa had been defeated and that his ships had sunk.” She stared down at her boots, not seeing them through the mist gathering in her eyes. “They said that man in Norway had sent a great flood of water over Papa. I do not want him to have been drowned like Ragnhilda.”

  Emma dropped the bundle of material and walked quickly to her daughter, knelt, and enfolded the child into her arms. “Papa is not dead; he has not drowned! The Sea Serpent is a beautiful ship; nothing, not even a whale leaping from the waves, could sink her!”

  “Then why has he not come home?”

  Ah, why indeed!

  Emma motioned with her hand for someone to bring her a stool. She took it to the doorway, shooing the chickens out of the way with her foot, sat, much as they had, in the sun. Patted her lap for Gunnhild to climb there. “Now, my lamb, let me tell you what happened from start to finish. Ulf, who is husband to your aunt Estrith, did a very wicked thing. He decided that Olaf of Norway was a better man than Papa.”

  “No one is better than Papa!” Gunnhild interjected hotly.

  “Of course not, but Ulf was a very stupid man. Papa could not allow him to be so stupid, so he had to take the fleet and follow him. Only Olaf thought he was clever and decided to try and trick Papa by pretending to run away and entice him into a narrow part of the river. He had ordered the river to be dammed, and at the r
ight moment he released the held water and sent a flood whooshing downriver. Papa lost many men and ships, but the Sea Serpent is a fast, safe ship, and he escaped. He is very, very cross, but he is not hurt.”

  “So why has he not come home?”

  “Because Ulf is now dead, and Aunt Estrith is a widow. Papa has to make sure she and your two cousins are safe and well.”

  “Did the flood kill Ulf?”

  “No, he died in another place.” In his bed, his throat cut—cut, so rumour said, by his enraged and humiliated wife.

  “And Harthacnut?” Gunnhild asked. “Aunt Estrith looks after Harthacnut with her two sons, doesn’t she? Is he all right?”

  “Yes, dear, Harthacnut is growing into a fine young King.”

  Harthacnut? How would Emma be knowing anything of Harthacnut? He never came home to England, rarely wrote; what letters he did send were polite missives about what he had been learning from his tutors, or what the weather was doing in Denmark. Emma could not give a clipped coin for if it was raining or snowing! How was he? Was he growing? How tall was he, how strong? Was he handsome like his father, or had he the shape of Emma’s nose? Her father’s jutting chin? Emma sighed; Harthacnut would not be coming home. But at times such as this, when she missed him, it was a hard acceptance to swallow.

  “So will Papa come soon?” Gunnhild asked, snuggling into her mother’s warmth. “I do so miss Papa.”

  “I miss him too, sweetheart, and Harthacnut.”

  Gunnhild wrinkled her nose. She didn’t! Harthacnut had been a bully, always pulling her hair or poking her with sticks or putting live mice down the back of her gown.

  Affectionately, Emma kissed the tip of her daughter’s nose. “Papa will be home as soon as he can.”

  Gunnhild was pleased. As long as he did not bring Harthacnut with him.

  31

  September 1026—Thorney Island

  So now that your brother has gone to God and Normandy left to his eldest son, I hear your nephews have fallen seriously foul of each other?” Cnut said, as he languished on the bed nibbling sweet red apples piled in a dish propped on his belly. “Who has opted to support the younger Robert? Men of note, or worthless flotsam?”

  Emma was attempting to do something different with her hair, twisting the braid and looping it round her head. “He apparently has some eminent followers, les Vicomtes de Conteville, d’Arques, Avranchin, and Blessin. Le Comte de la Mortain and Eu. The family Montgomerie.”

  Cnut raised his eyebrows. Montgomerie? He was impressed.

  “Those who cannot stomach Robert and that slut of his are either with Richard or have cut their losses and sailed for New Normandy in southern Italy.” Her brother would be turning in his grave if he knew the turmoil his sons were causing. Ah, let him turn; it was no more than he deserved!

  She tumbled her hair loose, began rebraiding to try a different style. “Alfred says that given the chance, Edward would have sailed with them.”

  Cnut bit into his third apple.

  “You will give yourself bellyache,” Emma warned.

  Grinning, Cnut tossed the core at one of the dogs, who ate it as if he were starving. “Damn sure this hound thinks he is a horse.”

  Coiling her hair at the nape of her neck, Emma laughed. “He is certainly as big as one!”

  “What if,” Cnut said slowly, pausing with the next half-chewed apple in the air. “What if the sickly, always ill, Richard dies?”

  Emma looked at him. “I assume the question is rhetorical?” she asked after a long pause.

  Cnut waved the apple animatedly. “You know what I mean. When Richard dies—it’s a forgone conclusion, after all—what do we do about Robert?”

  Putting her comb down, Emma sat with her hands folded in her lap. What do they do about Robert?

  “I know very little of him,” she confessed. “I knew virtually nothing of them until those few months of exile with Æthelred.”

  “Word on the wind is that Robert is very much like his father, stubborn and self-opinionated.”

  Emma snorted. “Then perhaps he had better find himself a suitable wife and forget this tanner’s daughter whore he is bedding as if his piece will drop off if he does not regularly exercise it!”

  Wiping juicy fingers on his tunic, Cnut set the fruit bowl aside, sat up. “Exactly what I was thinking.” He stood, walked over to her. “Estrith is in need of a husband.”

  “Estrith,” Emma answered indignantly, “is in need of no such thing. She is only too pleased to be recently rid of the last one.”

  Frowning, Cnut unpinned the hair Emma had just so patiently set in place. “Think of the alliance, elskede, think of that.”

  Emma slammed her hand against the table in front of her, making the array of jars and bottles leap and rattle. “They said that same thing to me! I like Estrith; I will not permit you to inflict misery on her!”

  Prepared to drop the subject for now, Cnut shrugged. “Well, the decision is with God. Mayhap Richard will rally from his sickbed, or Robert will come down with a dose of the pox and be the first to die, then all will be settled.” He kissed the crown of her head. “When I travel to Rome next year”—the excitement at the prospect ticked in his voice—“I may well decide to visit Normandy, see how the tide turns for myself.”

  Emma made no answer. She was pleased for him that he had received this invitation to attend the coronation of Conrad as Holy Roman Emperor, second of that name. He would be guest of the Pope, meet with the senior dignitaries of all Europe—but, oh, he was already so often gone, and Rome was so far away. For his sake, she had to match his enthusiasm, look to the event with eager delight. How good an actress she was becoming!

  “I am off to see about the breaking in of that grey colt,” Cnut said, the cadence of his voice as jaunty as his step. At the door he turned. “I prefer your hair as it usually is. A single braid hanging down your back. Much prettier.”

  32

  May 1027—Winchester

  My dearest wife,

  How it is in my heart to have had you here with me in Rome! Rome! I can scarce believe I have been there, seen its glories, touched its past, and witnessed its holy present! How can I begin to describe the beauty, the richness, the grandness of this place that I have seen with my own eyes? Words scratched upon a parchment cannot do justice; such a task is impossible.

  “Needless to say,” Emma stated with a laugh, looking up from the letter she was reading aloud to her daughter and the Earl Godwine, his wife and their children, “he then goes on to describe in great detail that very impossibility.” She read on.

  The seven hills were lush and green, dotted profusely with olive trees and vines; through it all the meander of the river—alas I cannot say it sparkled blue, even in the dazzle of the sunshine, for the Tiber is more of a mud colour. It also stinks to high Heaven.

  “As does the Thames,” Gytha remarked. “I wonder if it is as bad or worse come summer?”

  “Oh, worse, I should think,” Godwine commented. “The heat is more in Italy.”

  “Go on, Mama,” Gunnhild urged. “What does Papa recount next?” This though she had heard the letter on a dozen occasions already.

  Emma scanned through a few paragraphs, selecting suitable reading material:

  It was most odd to wander among the ruins that once served as functional buildings. Temples, houses, shops, marble-clad archways. The towering circle of the Colosseum, where so many Christians were martyred in blood. Rome is all glorious churches with ruined monuments scattered about. The Forum, where the Basilica and all the grand and important legal buildings stood, is nothing more than broken pillars of stone among the marsh meadow where cows now freely graze. It is called the Campo Vaccino, the Cow Field. No matter how imperial you may be, it is possible to end up covered in cow shit!

  The children laughed. Godwine and Gytha smiled.

  “It is true, that last,” Godwine admitted, “very true.”

  “Cnut goes on to talk of his audience
with Pope John, nineteenth of that name, and all the people he met at Easter, on the six and twentieth day of March at the coronation of Conrad as Holy Roman Emperor. Alfric Puttoc was there too, of course, having at last travelled to Rome to collect his pallium from the Pope. It was he, coming home ahead of my Lord husband with greater speed and urgency, who brought these letters.”

  Although he did not make mention of it, Cnut was especially proud that Pope John considered England to be important enough now to welcome in his holy presence not only the senior Archbishop from Canterbury but the representative of York as well.

  “Is the King coming home soon?” Harold, Godwine’s second son, asked, engrossed in brushing Cnut’s favourite hound, Liim. The dog was on his back, eyes closed in bliss, his paws limp, tail thumping as the boy patiently searched for fleas, gleefully cracking each one he found.

  “He is on his journey home,” Emma answered. “He will be with us soon.”

  “Is he to stop in Normandy again?” Gunnhild asked, skewing her neck round to squint up at her mother from where she sat curled at Emma’s feet. “Will he meet with Goda, your other daughter?”

  Emma smoothed her child’s fair hair. She was nine now, a pretty lass, with wide blue eyes and dimpled cheeks. “No, dear, Goda is not with Count Robert.”

  “Read me what he says of the husband he has found for me then, Mama.”

  Emma obliged:

  I have made the most wonderful arrangement for our beloved, Gunnhild. I have achieved, my dear wife, an agreement of betrothal between her and Conrad’s own son, Henri. Think, Emma! Our daughter, in maturity, will be the Holy Roman Empress!

  Gunnhild was not certain whether she would enjoy being a Holy Empress. Mama’s chaplain often said she was not holy at all, especially when he caught her idling her thoughts when she ought to be reading her Bible, or when she sat daydreaming during worship. Henri sounded fun, though, and anyway, it was not to happen until they were both grown.