The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  “You do not think Robert is saying and doing all this merely to impress Henry, do you?” Edward suggested, half hopeful.

  “Why should he? What has he to prove to Henry?”

  Edward did not answer. Perhaps Alfred was right, but what if he was wrong? Could the Duke’s interest be to appear as a great hero in Henry’s eyes? To show he had the power to put exiles onto their rightful throne? Edward sat straighter, folded his arms. He would have his say in this, voice his thoughts.

  “I think Robert has no intention of helping us. He might take us to England, but he will not land, and if he does not, then neither will his men. We will be alone, and we will be roasting on a spit before we have walked across the landing beach. That is what I think.”

  “Oh, nonsense, Edward. Robert knows what he is doing.”

  “You all think because I am quiet, and because I do not always have the courage to speak what is in my mind, that I am some sort of moon fool. What if Cnut does not go to Norway? And what of Mother? Will she welcome us with open arms or with a poison-tipped spear?”

  “Mother will be…”

  Edward lost his temper. He stormed to his feet and kicked over an opened sack of corn. “Do not dare say she will be pleased, Alfred! You know she will not! Mother, if she knew we were coming, would order out the fyrd to arrest us and have us strung up by our privy parts!” He turned on his heel and stumped angrily away.

  Alfred opened his mouth to protest, closed it. Loath as he was to admit it, Edward was right.

  It all came to nothing anyway. The wind changed, but brought in rain that poured down as if there was a hole in the bottom of a well.

  They did sail, eventually, but only the handful of miles along the coast to the bay of Mont Saint-Michel. Robert wanted to show Henry the monastery’s building progress, and after that he lost interest in the expedition, because Henry decided to go back to France. Magnanimously, Robert said his cousin Edward could make use of the ships if he wanted them.

  As well he did not, for at the end of the month they heard that Cnut had decided to allow his Northampton whore to sort her own problems and had elected to stay in England.

  39

  February 1035—Winchester

  Emma had been unwell for several days, nothing serious, a sore throat and a dry cough, treated with so many herbal concoctions that she professed she would sprout shoots and grow into a medicinal plant. Their fussing she did not care for, but the order to rest and be cosseted she accepted, for the weather outside was foul, and her depressed melancholia was suited to a warm bed and Leofgifu’s motherly pampering.

  Her daughter, Gunnhild, had gone to Henri, son of Conrad, Holy Emperor of Rome, soon after the Nativity festival, to meet her betrothed and become accustomed to the ways of his court before the wedding, which would not be until the summer of next year. Emma envied her. If only she had been permitted to discover Æthelred before she had been forced into marriage. Ah, but would that have been worse? Knowing you were to marry a warted toad, with no way out of the agreement? At least, if what she had written in her lengthy letter was accurate, Gunnhild appeared to like her future husband. All the same, Emma missed her company. She would have liked to attend the wedding or visit Harthacnut, had got as far, last autumn, as the quay at Thorney Island but no further. That step onto a ship had been too much. Instead, she had waved farewell to Estrith, who was now back at Harthacnut’s court in Denmark. Emma had a suspicion that Cnut intended to replace Ælfgifu and Swegen with his sister and her eldest son, Svein, but he was keeping his plans close to his chest. Something would have to be done about the Northampton Bitch, for Norway was now all but lost. What a pig’s ear the stupid woman had made of things! And she had wanted to be Queen? Hah!

  Grumpily, Emma punched at the goose-feather pillow behind her back, reached for the goblet of honey-sweetened, watered wine, and found it empty. The chamber was empty, too, not a single servant; they must have left her to sleep in peace—kind of them, but where were they when she needed them? She tried to call out, but her voice came in a bleated croak. She lay for a while, watching the light fade from beyond the glass windows. The panes were small and distorted the view, but she had insisted on the best for her house in Winchester and was pleased about it now. The shutters would have to be closed soon, but it was comforting to lie quiet and watch as night settled outside.

  She called again, wanting a drink, feeling the hard swelling of her throat, the uncomfortable desire to cough. Pulling away the top fur, the yellowish white pelt of a polar bear, she swung herself from the bed, hitched it around her shoulders, and went to the door. No one was in the solar either. From below came a shout of laughter. Someone celebrating? Ah, yes, Godwine had yet another son born and had treated most of Winchester to free ale. How many boys was that now? Swegn, Harold, Tostig, the daughter Edith, and this one—what had Godwine said they were to call him? Leofwine? That had made Emma laugh, this morning, when he had told her of the news.

  “Leofwine?” she had huskily whispered, “but that is the name of Earl Leofric’s father, and you are a mortal enemy to Leofric!”

  “I would not say a mortal enemy,” Godwine had chortled. “I merely cannot abide the man.”

  Emma was weaker than she had realised; her legs were shaking, the breath rasping in her chest, but even at the head of the stairs she could not attract attention. The guard stood at the bottom, laughing at the frivolity going on in the hall. She did not begrudge them their pleasure, for the winter had been long and dreary, and it was not over yet. Godwine had said they were expecting more snow soon, had been pleased the child had come before bad weather closed in.

  The bear fur was heavy and unwieldy, twice it slipped. She went down two stairs, holding tight to the rail, her body beginning to shiver, though sweat stood out on her forehead. She tried to call. The fur caught between her legs and she was falling, tumbling down, unable to stop herself, unable to scream. Pain shot through her arm, a blast of red fire crashed through her head, and she knew no more.

  ***

  Cnut ran. He had not stopped to fling on a cloak or change soft indoor shoes for heavier outdoor boots. They had sent Leofstan to fetch him, knowing Emma’s captain of housecarls would gain instant access.

  “The Queen has fallen down the stairs!” he had gasped, barely bothering to kneel, so great his distress. “We fear her dead, sir!”

  Cnut, too, had been helping Godwine celebrate the birth of another son and was more than a little drunk, but Leofstan’s white face, his spilled words, sobered him as surely as a thrown bucket of ice water. He was on his feet and out of the hall, running up the street as if the devil were after him.

  The High Street was level at the palace end, but began to rise well before Emma’s house, and the wind was blowing down from the hill, bitter and cold. Halfway up, Cnut felt his chest heaving, the breath coming in gasps, his head dizzy. The crowd of men with him had to slow, some overtaking him; Godwine was at his side, taking his arm, urging him to walk.

  “Gain your breath, my Lord; we will get there as soon by walking quickly.”

  Cnut waved him away, ran on, his face ashen, dread churning with every step, every panted gulp of freezing air that burnt and seared at his lungs. In his mind he saw his father lying at the bottom of a flight of steps, his body twisted, blood trickling from his nose, mouth, and ears, his eyes open, staring, blank, up at the sky. A sight that had never left him in all these years. He had thought he had shut the memory away, but here it was, resurrected, as he pushed his labouring body to run, run!

  Torches were blazing, the gates flung wide, people milling, voices muted, frightened, concerned. A few of the women crying. Cnut had been forced to slow to a walk as the hill rose steeper, but now he ran again, in through the gate, across the courtyard. He leapt the two steps up to the open-flung doorway, forced his protesting body to move, move across the hall, through the parting, silent, grey-faced crowd.

  She lay at the foot of the stairway. Someone had covered h
er with the white fleece of a polar bear that had spots of bright blood smeared on it. The physician was there, kneeling beside her, and Eadsige, Emma’s chaplain. Leofgifu stood to one side, her face buried in her hands, shoulders shaking, soundless tears dampening her fingers.

  Feeling as if he were moving through a marsh bog, Cnut knelt slowly, his feet leaden, body weighed down as if with armour twice as heavy as expected. Knelt, lifted her cold, limp hand. The hall, the men and women, all seemed far away, clouded in a shrouding mist.

  “Emma?” he said, reaching forward to brush a strand of hair away from her face. “Oh God, Emma.”

  He had to sit there on the rushes of the floor, for his legs buckled, his body surrendering to the pains thrumming in a tightening band across his chest, and he let the tears fall as he held her hand, tight, so tight in his own. Tears of relief, for her eyes had flickered open and she smiled, weakly, apologetically, up at him.

  ***

  “You scared me.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “They said you were taken ill,” Emma admonished, her voice still hoarse, wincing as she carefully moved her bruised body.

  Cnut made light of it. “A combination of too much ale, the cold air, and my fear for you.” He grinned. “I could not get my breath, that was all; I have been well since.” He had, in fact, collapsed in a heap, the world shrinking away from him as the blood had roared in his ears and pain had ripped from his chest and down his arm. They had made him sit, recover himself, had wafted a burnt feather beneath his nose until his senses had rallied. Rest? Sit quiet? He had lurched, angry, frightened, to his feet, pushing them aside, forcing them away, cursing their well-meaning good intentions, had demanded to see his wife. Godwine—sensible, practical Godwine—had calmed him, told him he must collect himself, for she was in good hands and being tended. Had it been anyone else but Godwine, Cnut might not have listened, or believed, but Godwine loved Emma almost as much as Cnut did. Godwine would not lie, not about Emma.

  “You should take more care,” Emma advised, patting his hand, and Cnut, sitting on the bed beside her, chuckled.

  “You tell that to me? You, madam, should take the care, particularly when negotiating stairs draped in an overlarge bear fur!” He fell serious, his hand clasping and enclosing her fingers. “God’s eyes, Emma, they told me you were dead!”

  “A sprained wrist, a few cracked ribs, and these.” Gingerly with her bandaged free hand, she touched the egg-sized lump on her head and the ugly swell of bruises on her face. “Nothing more. Although my throat is as raw as it was, and my side is now even more painful when I cough.”

  She did not remember falling, and getting out of bed seemed a distant memory. The first she recalled was being carried up the stairs by, of all people, Cnut’s newest-made Earl, Siward of Deira, a great bear of man in build and temper. She had been astonished to find herself in his arms, his concerned face peering into hers, the northern burr of his Viking accent reassuring her.

  “Rest easy, lass, you have hurt yer’sel’.”

  Emma had thought she had gone to Valhalla and was being lifted by Thor himself, a thought she kept strictly to herself now that she was fully conscious. It would not do to have an English Christian Queen fancying herself taken off by a pagan warrior. Although she guessed Siward, with his strong links to Danish ancestry, would have taken it as a compliment. She gazed at Cnut, looking for what he was not telling her. He was never ill, was always vigorous and strong. Hers had been an accident that could have had serious consequences, but had, fortunately, resulted in nothing more than a few aches that would eventually pass, but she was worried, for there was one thing she remembered someone saying, in a wild, panicked cry: “It is a seizure of his heart!”

  40

  July 1035—Roskilde

  The wind, blowing from the sea, caught Harthacnut’s shoulder-length hair and added a few more tangles to its already wind-rumpled appearance. He scooped a lock out of his eyes and shaded his vision to look more carefully out to sea. She was definitely a Norwegian boat, but too far out yet to see her pennant or crew clearly. She was no trader’s craft or merchant ship, but a war boat. Just one? A feeble attack, if that was what she had in mind.

  Harthacnut shrugged, turned his attention to the repairing of the sea barrier, clutching at his cloak as the wind tried again to wrestle it away. “That breach made last night will have to be mended before the next high tide,” he said to Scavi Redbeard, the man responsible for the upkeep and care of the barrier. “If we leave it and this wind should pick up again, the whole lot could go.”

  “Ja, Lord, we are doing all we can, but as you see, it is not easy with the sea as wild as it is.”

  “Do your best, Scavi.” Again Harthacnut glowered at the ship battling her way through the temper of what remained of a two-day storm. He turned to the captain of his housecarls, Thorstein, pointing to the ship. “Keep an eye on her, will you? I do not feel easy about the set of her sail.”

  Thorstein, too, was watching the craft. There was nothing unusual about her: thirty-oared, a blue chequered sail, heavily reefed in the gale blowing out there. And yet…

  “I shall be at the church, should I be required,” Harthacnut said as Thorstein nodded in acceptance and his other companion, Feader, fell into step beside him. The three of them were tall men, lithe of limb, strong of muscle—arms and shoulders that were used to taking a turn at the pulling of the oars developed a natural strength, and Harthacnut had never shirked his fair share of crewing a ship. At nearing six and ten, he had turned into the image of his father, with perhaps his mother’s nose and her ability to assess someone’s worth within the first few minutes of meeting him. His companions, Thorstein and Feader, were more than friends; men of ten years his senior they were, between them, guard, tutor, mentor, and comrade. Harthacnut had known them for all the years he had been in Denmark. Their fathers had served Cnut, their fathers’ fathers had served Grandpapa Swein. Under their eye the Danish boy King had learnt to use sword and axe, shield and spear. Had learnt to straddle a pony and not fall off too often, to handle the subtle moods of a boat and read the signs of sky, wind, and sea. Thorstein and Feader had aided Harthacnut from innocent child to maturing adolescent. There was no one, outside of his own father, whom Harthacnut could trust more.

  “You are thinking that ship could have something to do with Magnus Olafsson?” Feader asked as he strode with Harthacnut along the timber-boarded walkways of the narrow street. Timber houses and workshops stood to either side, the daily noise and movement of a busy wharfside town, with all the attached smells and sounds. Baking bread mingling with fresh dung, women talking, children laughing; the geese, dogs, the cries of the gulls wheeling in the sky as the fishing boats unloaded their catch. Traders’ stalls were set with silver and copper jewellery; Harthacnut stopped to examine an amber necklace. His aunt Estrith enjoyed wearing amber, and this was exquisitely made. “I will take it,” he said, the craftsman beaming in pleasure that the King himself had bought from his wares.

  “Magnus Olafsson is squeezing Norway bit by bit, like a woman pressing fresh-made cheese through a sieve. Soon, as revenge for his father’s death, he will have it all for himself, and I am powerless to do anything to stop him. What worries me, my friend, is that once he has wrung Norway dry, will he turn his hook nose towards Denmark? I am not best pleased that I may be facing a war.”

  They turned into another street, where the glassmakers tended their craft, then left again into a narrower way behind the rear of a row of houses that led to the Bishop’s Gate and the Church of the Holy Trinity. Roskilde had been the first Danish town to have the proud boast of a stone-built church. Cnut had founded it, in his own and his son’s name, and when finished had laid his father to rest before the altar. It had been Swein Forkbeard’s desire, always, to return to Denmark; it had seemed fitting to bring his body from England and pray that his soul had followed. Harthacnut had not known his grandsire, but there were those in plenty in Denmark who
had, and the nights were never lonely or boring when there were tales of the deeds of Swein Forkbeard to recount.

  The people of Roskilde, and of Denmark, were as proud of the grandson as they had been of the grandfather. Harthacnut, although young, had taken the position and responsibility thrust upon him with serious equanimity, particularly as he reached the verge of manhood and the full spate of his duties fell upon him. There had always been men to advise and guide him, good, loyal men, and his father, too, of course, whenever he came to Denmark, but those trips had been shorter, less frequent as Harthacnut grew older and had found a firmer footing. Cnut was proud of him; Harthacnut would make a good King for Denmark.

  Whenever he could, Harthacnut visited the Holy Trinity to pay respect to his grandfather’s tomb. On his knees, he willed himself to relax. It was no good talking to God if there was a background noise of jangled thoughts nudging for attention. The Bishop had taught him how to pray, and Harthacnut valued these few treasured moments of silence and solitude, when there was nothing and no one except him and Christ.

  Boots scraping on the tiled floor. A discreet cough. Thorstein—Harthacnut would recognise the throaty growl anywhere. He finished the prayer, crossed himself, rose. “Well? She is in harbour?”

  Thorstein looked grim. “My Lord, she is. The Lady Ælfgifu and her son, Swegen, your half-brother, seek sanctuary.”

  ***

  Ælfgifu stood rigid, as if her body had been turned to stone. She was cold, hungry, scared—the sea crossing had been as much a nightmare as the final desperate days in Norway.

  “They hounded me,” she complained, “threw sticks and bones and dung, spat and called me vile names. Not one man, not one whore-poxed, bastard-born turd came to help me or my son. Not even the men supposed to act as my guard! Not one! They gave me and my son a choice. Leave Norway or hang.” Her face was a contorted mask of fury. “I demand a fleet and your best crews to take us back, to enforce my rule. Magnus must be defeated; the will of Cnut, your father, must be imposed.”