The Forever Queen

by Helen Hollick

  “You filled your belly not more than an hour since, man! You worm-riddled or something?” Thorstein tossed at him with a laugh. He, too, had been scornful of the rumours that the peasants of Worcester were intending to refuse to pay their tax. It was early in the day yet; there could come trouble, but beyond sullen glances as they had ridden in, nothing had seemed untoward. All the same, he would be pleased to get the job done and be away. He pulled a chair towards the table, sat, and started to sort the papers he would need.

  Behind him, the door to the tower was flung open with a crash that echoed throughout the church.

  “What the raven…?”

  Men rushed in, weapons drawn; Thorstein drew his sword, heard Feader shout a warning, turned to parry the thrust of a hunting spear as four solid-built farming men came at him.

  There were more behind him, to the side, ahead. The church filled with angry men intent on spilling blood—and not paying a penny farthing in taxation. Feader was bellowing rage as he swung his axe, the group of eight men with him fighting as hard and desperately, their breathing sharp in their chests, hearts hammering, sweat wet on their palms, throats dry. Concentrating on staying alive. Blood ran, the nave of Saint Mary thick with it.

  Feader went down, his arm severed, bright blood pumping from the artery. Then Thorstein, fighting to the end, though his stomach was pierced through. They struck his head off from behind.

  The carnage was intense, quickly over, and savagely done. The men of Worcester had said they would not pay any damned taxes, and they were men of their word.

  What would happen next no one knew, but they were prepared to wait and find out; prepared, too, to fight again if necessary.

  28

  March 1041—Winchester

  Edward was playing at threading cat’s cradles around his fingers with a knotted lace, a game he had enjoyed since childhood. He hummed a hymn to himself as he twisted his lean fingers in and out of the braid, pausing occasionally to suck his cheek in concentration.

  Emma was reading the book she had commissioned. Her Encomium, the justification of her life and that of Harthacnut. She was impressed with the result, a delicate balance of prose, intertwined with the right amount of fact and detail. He had been clever, her chosen author, the monk and scholar Bovo of Saint Bertin’s in Flanders, for he had managed to gloss over the facts that she had not wanted included. Despite the mention of her first two sons, Æthelred was not referred to. Nor were Cnut’s indiscretions against the English. He was made to appear the hero, the benign Christian conqueror who had saved England from the wrath of God, the politician, not the feared warrior.

  She particularly admired the desperate scene of Alfred’s arrest and murder, the letter, the one she had sent to Edward summoning him to Winchester, was posed as a forgery. More than ever, the account of Cnut’s death was essential, for Harthacnut, far away in Denmark, was daily becoming more unpopular. Barely anyone had spoken out and condemned that bloody and wicked murder in Worcester; few blamed the murderers; many quietly admired them. What Harthacnut would say and do about it when he returned was anyone’s guess. He was expected within the week, sooner if the winds were favourable.

  The frontispiece for the Encomium was particularly charming: a drawing, skilfully penned, showing her enthroned with Harthacnut, Edward standing beside her, Bovo kneeling at her feet presenting her with his work. She intended to recommend Bovo to Saint Bertin’s as an ideal candidate for their new Abbot. He deserved her patronage.

  “Bother!” Edward dropped the link, and the pattern twined through his fingers fell apart.

  He had had read the book but had refused to comment. Secretly he was thrilled at being one of the central characters, but he harboured a grudge against his mother for her friendship with Godwine. Edward had wanted the man stripped of his title for his part in Alfred’s death; Emma had refused to do so. If anything, Godwine appeared on the pages to be as much the victim as Alfred, and knowing how many of the passages were blatant lies, how could he believe otherwise of that particular part?

  “Do you think I might have a book made about my life?” he asked, liking the idea as he said it.

  Emma did not look up from her reading. “I doubt it,” she said.

  Edward pouted and wandered to the far side of the room, to where Edith, Godwine’s twelve-year-old daughter, was playing tæfl with her elder brother, Harold. Edward’s objection to Godwine did not extend to the family. Harold he admired; Edith was amusing.

  To Harold’s annoyance she was winning again. She would be returning to Wilton soon after Easter, and Emma had taken it upon herself to welcome the girl into her household for these few interim weeks of the Holy Festival.

  Making her next move, Edith placed her piece and won the game. She smiled brightly at Emma. “I think it is a beautiful book, madam; there are passages that made my heart beat with fear and others where I wept.”

  Wishing he had thought to say that, Edward scowled.

  Harold was studying the board. The first game he had been lenient, had let his sister win, but not the second or this third. “As God is my witness, Edith, how you did that I do not know.” He stretched and pushed away from the table, shaking his head emphatically when she urged another match. “No way, miss—and have it four in a row? Leave me some pride, eh?”

  “Edward, will you play?” Edith asked.

  “Tæfl? I am not so good at that, but I will happily play chess with you.”

  Edith frowned; chess was too slow a game for her liking, and Edward usually spent so long over deciding his moves that Edith grew bored. But if it would please him…she nodded, agreed, and he hurried to fetch the board, set out the playing pieces.

  “I will be tending my stallion,” Harold said, taking leave. “The mud we have endured this winter has severely irritated a hind leg; it is quite sore.”

  “Best not pick the scabs off,” Edward advised as he seated himself at the playing table. “That could make it worse. Keep the infected area dry, though. Use plenty of goose grease.”

  Harold thanked him politely for the advice, refrained from saying that was precisely what he was already doing. He bowed to Emma, who acknowledged his courtesy and returned to her reading.

  “Chess,” Edward remarked after they had made their opening moves, “is a game of skill and concentration.” He moved a playing piece, frowned as Edith took it.

  “Chess,” Emma remarked from across the room, not looking up from her reading, “would be a better game were the Queen piece to have more moves and greater power.”

  Chess, Edward thought to himself, would be a better game were it to not have a Queen at all. He suppressed an eager smile, held his breath as Edith made a foolish move. “Got you! I win!”

  “How did you manage that?” Edith queried. “I did not see the danger!”

  Emma glanced up as Edward cavorted triumphantly around the room, saw Edith’s smug smile as she packed the gaming board and pieces away. She was a clever one, this daughter of Godwine, had a brain in her head and used it. Very sensible to let Edward win.

  The door opened; Harold hurried in, breathless, rain spattered on his hair and shoulders. “News! Harthacnut is back in England.”

  A flush of a smile darted across Emma’s face, hastily stifled as Harold plunged on. “Word has come that he sailed direct for London and marched west without pause.”

  Harold’s colour had drained white with apprehension. “He has taken the army into Worcester.”

  29

  March 1041—Worcester

  Harthacnut marched direct to Worcester-Shire the day after he arrived in London; no pause, no rest, he would not indulge in either until his murdered friends and comrades were avenged. Earl Leofric at Coventry received orders, sent ahead by swift messenger, to meet them with a gathered army of his own at the hill of Oswald’s Low, a suitable place to encamp and wait. Leofric balked at complying as long as he could, had no option but to obey. He would have to explain why he had not acted to punish a s
avage murder that had happened within his earldom, but he had his excuses ready. More difficult would be his reason for taking a mere fifty men with him to meet Harthacnut.

  Oswald’s Low was an ancient burial mound to the southeast of Droitwich, from where Leofric’s main source of personal income was acquired. The underground springs where natural brines welled up were one of England’s richest areas of salt production. From the complex of salt pans and furnaces the industry radiated outwards by means of well-travelled routes, the saltways, tracks, and roads that had been in use from a time before the Roman Red Crests had come.

  Harthacnut travelled quickly from London, using the broad way of Sealtstræt that led from Oxford towards the Vale of Evesham. He marched quickly, covering more than forty miles in one day, for the weather was mild and the roads easily passable, although outriders going ahead had a thankless task of moving the slower traffic out of the way, the strings of pack ponies laden with salt, oxcarts, peddlers, travellers, traders.

  Away to the west, the horizon was dominated by the ridge of hills that bordered the Hwicce, the Welsh border shires. Cnut, during his reign, had amalgamated these lands into the one area of Mercia, giving its ultimate command first to Eadric Streona and eventually to Leofric. Riding at the head of the vanguard, Harthacnut wondered whether that giving had been one of his father’s mistakes, but then Leofric had been a loyal man to Cnut. Not so to his legitimate son.

  Harthacnut drew rein and camped for the night, content to sleep rolled in a blanket, curled beside the fire. On their way again by sunrise, over the higher land of White Hill to Pershore Abbey in the Evesham Vale, where Harthacnut agreed to pause and allow the ponies and men to rest. A short indulgence but necessary, for he had covered the miles faster than he had anticipated and preferred to rest in comfort within an abbey rather than wait, kicking his heels, at Oswald’s Low with nothing more than densely forested trees and a handful of shabby farmsteadings as company.

  The Abbot served him well but uneasily. There was no need to ask the purpose of the visit. He provided a sufficient table, although it was Lent and limited to fish and plain fare.

  “I noticed several cattle and sheep lay dead in the meadows,” Harthacnut commented as he explored the contents of a pie, discovered the filling to be lamprey. “Many others appear ill, with sores on their mouths and udders—lame, too. Be there a problem?”

  “Alas, it is a plague that affects the cloven-hoofed creatures. Swine and deer as well as sheep and cattle. It starts with blisters on the mouth; within days the animal is usually dead. Butchered carcasses show the blistering to have spread down the gullet and into the stomach.” The Abbot shook his head; in whatever form, plagues were always a sorry thing. “Like any pestilence, this one is spread on the spit of the devil’s own. They dance on the dead at night and tread with the healthy by day.”

  “Then is it not foolish to leave the dead where they fall? Have the creatures butchered more speedily.”

  “There are too many to deal with—most villages along the saltways have lost their entire herds of livestock. Lambs born in the fields are dead within the week. There will be no calves born later this year, no meat to eat, no milk to drink. No wool, no swine. All we will have is an excess of leather and render.”

  Harthacnut frowned, concern beginning to register that this was no small and local problem. “You have lost the abbey’s stock? I noticed your fields are empty. I assumed the land was lying fallow.”

  “We have one cow and five sheep left. Nothing more.” The Abbot rested his head in his hands, close to despair. “How we are to survive I know not.” And he had to say it, for the sake of his soul and his conscience could not hold the words back. “Already the shire is bereft, for it was hard to raise the tax you demanded. Forgive me, but there will be many a family who will starve next winter.”

  “I hear your words, but the shire has a debt to pay. And a plague among cattle shall not reprieve those who have murdered my men.”

  The Abbot picked at his meagre plate of stewed fish. Said no more.

  At Salter’s Brook, they watered the ponies then pressed on. Leofric, awaiting them, rode out to meet Harthacnut, the excuse he needed for having so few men ready on his lips. “I have not the men I would wish for; there is plague among the farm stock. I could not take men away from the disposal of so many carcasses.”

  “This cattle plague affects you in Coventry, too, then?” Harthacnut asked, astounded. “Is it so widespread?”

  “Alas, it is,” Leofric admitted. “All we can do is watch our animals die or cut their throats to ease their suffering.”

  “And there is nothing more that can be done?” What was the use of being a King if you could not find answers to problems? But then, as his father had once discovered, he was only a mortal man; some things were for the Heavenly King alone to control.

  “No, nothing, although there are a few farmsteaders who are not allowing any man or beast to enter through their gates. But the devil spreads his evil by wing and wind; roping gates closed is no answer. All we can do is pray for God’s mercy and sprinkle Holy Water throughout our byres.”

  If Leofric was hoping to soften Harthacnut’s heart, he failed. The death of two favoured housecarls, Thorstein and Feader, had angered him, and while a plague was to be feared, the healing of that was for monks and priests to sort. Harthacnut was here to deal with the breaking of the law and a slight against his command. He would have vengeance for his friends, obedience towards himself, and respect for the law.

  “Perhaps,” Harthacnut remarked drily, as he prepared to give the order for the army to move out, “this plague is sent by God as punishment? I doubt He is no more pleased than I over murder committed within the sanctity of His house.”

  Riding beside Harthacnut, Leofric admitted the same thought had occurred to him also.

  There were few killed at Worcester, for the town had been warned of the approaching army and the folk had fled to safety. Harthacnut contented himself with burning everything to the ground instead, then he harried the shire. For five days the skies glowed orange at night. Without mercy he burnt crops and house-place, stable and byre alike; ordered the killing of anything that lived—horses, dogs, fowl, sheep, cattle, goats and pigs; all that had escaped the plague died.

  By necessity he had to be at Oxford for the Easter council, but, satisfied justice had been done, he rode slowly with his men, not much need for haste; they could take their time, rest the ponies—and themselves. He tired easily these days, had noticed it shortly after Yule, assuming the fatigue and the thundering headaches were the result of excessive merrymaking and the indulgence of feasting and drinking. He would feel better once he reached Oxford and found an opportunity to rest. The dagger slash on his left thigh, a minor wound taken during a skirmish with a few men determined to protect their farmsteading, would heal faster there, too, once he was out of the saddle.

  Although he could not know it, the order to slaughter the livestock had halted the spread of the cattle plague from rampaging further south and into Wales, but for himself, even in Oxford, his wound proved slow to mend, and the headaches and tiredness persisted.

  The spilling of blood for the collecting of taxes, however, had tarnished his reign, and when, in the early autumn, Harthacnut sailed again for Denmark, Englishmen began to pray that perhaps he might not return. While those of the Church who wrote the record of the Chronicles began to wonder whether he would ever do anything worthy of the consecrated title “King.”

  30

  7 June 1042—Thorney Island

  You are not well. It would be foolish to attend this wedding feast.”

  “Oh, Mother,” Harthacnut complained, weary of the repeated argument. “I am a man grown, I am able to take care of myself. I have a headache, that is all.”

  “You are thin. Your face is pale.” Emma walked close to her son and sniffed his breath. “Your guts smell foul.”

  “Why, thank you, Mama; it is always splendid to hear such
compliments tripping from your tongue! It is a wonder I come to England as often as I do, to hear such niceties.”

  Irritated, Emma flounced away, began to rummage through her clothes chest with her handmaid, finding something suitable to wear for the afternoon of celebration.

  “Well, if you must go to Tovi the Proud’s wedding, then I shall not stop you, though Edward and I between us could easily represent you.”

  “And have everyone wonder why I cannot be there?”

  Dropping the austerity, Emma held a red gown to her body for effect. No, too brash. The blue perhaps? “It is only that I care for you, my dear; I worry for your health.”

  Harthacnut relented; ja, he knew that.

  His relationship with his mother had improved through the last year, possibly because he had been in Denmark for most of it. A good way of doing things, spending the summers here in England, the winters in Denmark. It was colder there, admittedly, darker, but England was so damp; he would rather have six months of snow than the incessant drizzle of rain. His mother ruled England well during those months, hindered more than aided by Edward, who regarded hunting and hawking more important than making legal judgements and signing charters. He would make a hopeless King, yet who else was there?

  Emma had returned to stand in front of her son, was straightening the crooked fold of his tunic. As if reading his thoughts—mayhap she had; he tended to frown whenever he thought of Edward—she said, “Is it not time we sought out a wife for you? Tovi has made a good choice. Can we not find someone as pretty and equally intelligent?”