The Price of Blood

by Patricia Bracewell

  Could such a skill be taught?

  One day she would ask those questions, when she and Tyra were quite alone. Now, though, she led her company toward her steading over the uneven, marshy terrain, following paths that had become familiar to her in nearly three years of exile from England’s heartland.

  How she hated this place, Holderness. She yearned to go home, to Mercia and the low hills of Northamptonshire, to escape from this wretched world that seemed to hold nothing but water, sky, and the scattered farms of men who called Thurbrand lord. Perhaps soon she could do so. Perhaps Cnut’s arrival meant that Swein’s conquest of England had begun.

  Long before she reached the manor gate a lookout, one of her own men, hailed her. Cnut and a small retinue, he said, had arrived midday. Elgiva smiled. So, Cnut had come looking for her and had been forced to wait. She hoped it made him impatient and ill tempered, because it was just what he deserved.

  Delighted with this small victory she drew a deep breath to dispel the tension and ill humor that knotted her stomach. She needed Cnut. She needed his ships and his army and his protection. And she knew from experience that it was far easier to manage a man with smiles than with scowls.

  Once inside the palisade she dismounted and handed her reins to a groom. As she did so, her husband, ale cup in hand, stepped through the door of the hall and stood beneath the eave, showing not the least sign of impatience. Their eyes met and held, and the swift, unexpected rush of desire she felt as she gazed at him unsettled her. It was as if her body, unbidden, responded to some memory of his touch. For a moment she could not move, but could only stare at him.

  Cnut seemed more formidable than she remembered. His thin frame had filled out, and his shoulders seemed broader beneath the fabric of his scyrte and tunic. His thick red hair was neatly trimmed, and a smudge of coppery beard shadowed his face. In place of a cloak he wore a gray wolf pelt around his shoulders, and there was gold at his neck and wrists.

  His black eyes, the crescent of skin beneath them dark with weariness, never left hers, but he said nothing. He seemed to be waiting for her to make the first move. Yes, Cnut would do that, mindful of his status as Swein’s son. So she forced her limbs into action, dropping into a deep reverence before him and greeting him in his native tongue.

  “My heart,” she said, “is gladdened at the sight of you, husband.”

  She smiled at him and saw one eyebrow quirk up, his face registering both surprise and approval as he reached for her hands to draw her upright.

  “Much as I wish to believe that, lady,” he said, his voice low, “after so many months away from your side I hesitate to take from you even what is rightfully mine.”

  “You wrong me by doing so, my lord,” she said and, standing on her toes and grasping the wolf pelt to draw his head down to hers, she kissed him full on the mouth. He responded by flinging his cup away and pulling her close against him and returning her kiss with gratifying urgency.

  The men about them whistled and howled, and Cnut murmured against her ear, “Where is your bed?” She laughed and pointed toward the sleep house, where even now she saw her servants herding out Catla’s squalling children. Cnut slipped an arm beneath her knees and swept her up, across the dooryard and into the chamber where a fire crackled on the hearthstones and the bed curtains yawned wide. He kicked the door shut and laid her on the bed. Then, heedless of garments, stockings, and boots that kept them from touching skin to skin, he took her with the same impatience that she remembered from their wedding night, devouring her the way a starving man wolfs down bread.

  When the passion was spent, all too quickly it seemed to her, she tugged off his boots, tunic, and trousers. Then she stood before him and slowly divested herself of every scrap of her own clothing until he was aroused again. This time they pleasured each other slowly and, she thought with satisfaction, most thoroughly.

  Sated at last she lay beside him, her head nestled against his shoulder, an arm and a leg draped across his naked frame, and a thousand questions running through her mind.

  “Why did you stay away so long?” she chided him. “We could have spent many days and nights like this if you had but returned to me. What kept you from my side?”

  He drew her close and murmured, “I could not come any sooner. Surely you must have known that.”

  “I knew only that you were across the sea. Is Swein’s hall at Roskilde so far away that in two long years you could not find your way to my bed?” She had no idea where Roskilde was, or even where Denmark was, except that they were beyond an expanse of water that was not so vast that a man could not cross it if he was minded to do so.

  “Would you have me give you an accounting?” he asked, with just the slightest edge in his voice. “I was at Roskilde for only a few weeks. Then I went to one of my father’s fortresses for a year. After that I went to Wendland and spent a season raiding in the Baltic with a band of Jomsvikings. This past winter I was with them in Wolin. And yes, they are all a great distance from here. I had little news of England and almost no word of how it was with you.” He paused and drew a breath. “Only that you had given me no son.”

  She heard the accusation in his words and, stung, she snapped, “I might have given you a son by now, my lord, had you but come to me. Were there so many women to service you in your fortresses that you had no need of your wife? How many brats did you leave in your ships’ wake?”

  His eased his arms from her to tuck his hands beneath his head, and immediately she felt the subtle distance he’d placed between them. Realizing her mistake and silently cursing herself for a fool she pushed her irritation aside.

  “But you have come now,” she said, “and you have brought warriors to conquer Æthelred’s northern shires, have you not? Where are the rest of your men? You will need a massive army to subdue Mercia and Northumbria no matter how well trained your followers. Surely Swein will be bringing a great force for this.”

  He studied her in silence for a moment, then sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed so that his back was turned to her. “My father is in Denmark,” he growled. “I have come here to see my wife, to get her with child so that when I have a son I can better sway the Mercians and Northumbrians to my side. The conquest of England will take planning and patience if it is to succeed. All of that takes time. Elgiva, you know this.”

  “But now is the moment to strike!” she insisted. She sat up among the bedclothes, and kneeling behind him she wrapped her arms about his neck and whispered, “England is weak and her fleet destroyed. Have you not heard that news?”

  “I have heard, and it makes no difference,” he said grimly. “England is not yet weak enough! There are still many who will take up arms against an invading force, and the firm hold that the king and his sons have on Mercia and the north will not easily be loosened.”

  “There are also many men in Mercia who will turn against their king,” she assured him. “They will welcome you.”

  “You cannot be certain of that.”

  “I can, for some have already made pledges to me.”

  He turned, alert and frowning, to grasp her by the arms. “Who has? Who knows that you are here?”

  “No one knows that I am in Holderness, but I have sent messages to some of my father’s allies and kinsmen in the Five Boroughs. I know that there are many more who will give you their pledges of—”

  “You little fool!” he snarled, shaking her so that she blinked at him in surprise. “Who do you think will keep such a pledge when the king holds a sword to his throat? If Æthelred discovers you, all our plans will be at risk.” He threw her back against the pillows. “You will send no more messages! Time enough for that once your child is born.”

  She glared at him, rubbing her hands against her bruised arms. He was the fool, she thought, to so casually dismiss the alliances that she’d been building for him.

  “What mak
es you think that the birth of your son will make so much difference?” she sneered.

  “By itself, it will not. We must also have more ships, supplies, arms, and men, all of which will take time to acquire. We will need a mountain of silver as well, and England itself will provide that. There is a fleet massing on the southern coast even now. When we have bled Æthelred’s kingdom just a little more, my father will be ready to make an end of it.”

  “So in spite of all that I have done, you will not make a lethal stroke against Æthelred until I bear you a son,” she said, her voice laced with scorn, “or until your father’s ships are ready, or until you have amassed a mountain of silver, or until the stars fade into darkness and the sky—”

  She bit back her words as he rose from the bed and strode to where his clothes were piled. Pulling on his breecs he said, “I have but a few days to spend with you, lady, until I take my ship to join the rest of the fleet.” He snatched up his tunic and boots. “Will we spend our time snarling at each other? Is that how you would have it?”

  She bolted up from among the pillows. “What do you mean, a few days?”

  But he was gone even before she’d finished asking the question.

  Only a few days? Why had he bothered to come at all, then?

  She fell back against the cushions, still furious. Closing her eyes she called to mind the box and the counting beads devised by Tyra. Red and white had been used up for this month and now only the black remained.

  She ground her teeth in vexation. Even if Cnut were to stay for a sennight, she could not hope to conceive his child, although it would be useless to tell him that. He would never believe it. The workings of a woman’s body were mysterious and frightening to men, and if a wife’s belly failed to swell it was God’s will or a curse. And it was always the woman’s fault.

  Yet she needed a son, so either she had to keep her husband by her side, or . . .

  She opened her eyes and stared into the shadows above her.

  If she wished to outwit the men who held her future in their hands, then she must put Tyra’s beads to their proper use. Next spring she must give birth to a son. And if it was Cnut’s or another man’s, who in this miserable northern wasteland would be able to say?

  August 1009

  Canterbury, Kent

  On the fourth day after Lammas, a Viking fleet was spotted off the eastern coast of Kent, making for the harbor at Sandwich. From the coast watch on the Isle of Thanet to Canterbury to Ledesdune to Fæsten Dic to London, the beacons blossomed one after another, warning of impending disaster.

  When Athelstan heard the news, he set out for the southeast with his hearth troops to learn what he could of the enemy’s movements. Three days later the company paused at the crest of a thickly forested hill and gazed down upon Canterbury.

  “Holy Mother of God,” Athelstan murmured.

  He had never seen so massive a force. How many? Three thousand? Four thousand? Far too many for the Kentish levies to withstand.

  In the distance, Canterbury was a ring of fire. The hamlets and farms that lay outside the city’s walls had been torched, and smoke stained the sky for as far as he could see. With any luck, most of the folk who had dwelt there had made it inside the safety of the walls along with their cattle and goods. But their fields, ripe for harvesting, were at the mercy of the voracious army that surrounded the city.

  Canterbury, with its cathedral and its churches, would be a rich vein of gold if the attackers could find a way to breach its walls. Even if they could not, all of Kent lay at their feet, ripe for plunder, for the men of Kent could not withstand them.

  Immediately he sent three of his men to Cookham to report what they had seen to the king. Leaving a dozen warriors behind to shadow the enemy and keep him apprised of their movement, he made for Rochester, where the local fyrd had gathered in response to the beacons.

  “You have not the numbers to make any kind of stand against this army,” he told their leaders. “You will be able to do little more than harry the foragers they send out, but that you must do as best you can.”

  He felt helpless against such a sizeable force. Even if the king called out the entire nation, an army could not reach Canterbury in time to save the city. And after they had overrun Canterbury, where would they turn next?

  He made his way back to London, already thinking how best to prepare its people for war.

  September 1009

  London

  Emma, heavy with child, stitched tiny flowers in gold thread onto the blue silk gown that was meant to grace the statue of the Virgin at Ely Abbey. Pausing for a moment, she glanced about at the twenty or so women gathered this morning in her outer chamber and reflected that they would put a hive of bees to shame. Margot, with the assistance of the abbess and three nuns from Barking Abbey, was pawing through an assortment of herbs that the good sisters had culled from their recent harvest. Five noblewomen from Sussex, who had come here for refuge from the Danish army, had their hands full trying to keep up with their children as they tumbled about the floor like puppies.

  Given the bleak news from Sussex, Emma had no doubt that others like them would soon be seeking shelter in the city, and she had already sent messages to some of the prominent women in London, asking for their aid. Several had responded by arriving this morning with offers of lodging, and now they were busying themselves with needlework as they regaled the Sussex women with gossip.

  It was all about keeping their minds off of what was happening in the south. She tried to keep her own attention focused on their conversation, but she could not avoid dwelling on the events of the past four weeks.

  It was just after Lammas Day that Archbishop Ælfheah and many of the Kentish nobles had found themselves trapped inside Canterbury by the massive Viking army that had surrounded the city. With no hope of relief, the archbishop had bartered three thousand pounds of silver for the safety of his people, their lands, and their crops.

  Satisfied with that prize, the shipmen had left Canterbury and Kent relatively unmolested, and Emma had prayed with the rest of England that they would leave the country altogether. Instead they sailed south, following the route that, in June, Æthelred’s great fleet had taken to its utter destruction. The Northmen had better luck. The weather held fair and word arrived in London that as soon as the ships passed the Rother estuary that marked the boundary between Kent and Sussex, the burning began again. Lewes, Arundel, Dean, and Bosham had all been hit.

  And that was as much as she knew today, some of it gleaned from the women who had come to her for refuge, some of it from London’s Bishop Ælfhun, but most of it from Athelstan, who had met with her nearly every day since the Danes had first been sighted.

  She had been grateful for the constant stream of news that he brought, for she heard nothing from the king, who remained in Winchester. But it was not just gratitude that she felt. In these past weeks the old companionship that the two of them had shared years ago had sprung once more into being, far too sweet a thing to last, she knew, even had it been chaste. Her feelings for Athelstan, though, were far from chaste. Even now she felt the heat rise in her cheeks just from thinking about him and, distracted, she started when a servant appeared suddenly beside her to whisper that Athelstan requested audience and awaited her in the palace chapel.

  She hesitated, considering whether she should beckon Margot to accompany her. She had taken pains to avoid being alone with him during their sojourn here in London—a necessary precaution that he had never questioned. If he wished to see her alone now, there must be good reason. She set aside the blue silk with its golden flowers and, pressing her hand against the mound of her belly, she pushed herself toher feet and left the chamber.

  The deserted chapel was cool and dark, lit only by the sanctuary lamp and by the dim light that filtered through thick panes set high in one wall. Athelstan, who stood facing the altar, turned as she
approached him, his brow knit with worry.

  “I am sorry to draw you from your women,” he said, “but there is news from the south that I did not wish to speak of in front of them.”

  She held her breath, certain that it must be bad, else he would have announced it in her chamber.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “The shipmen have settled on Wight Isle, and the king fears that they will winter there as they have in the past. From that base they can strike our market towns and abbeys without warning and bleed us to death. He has called his counselors from all across England to meet him at Bath in mid-September to determine what to do.”

  “And you among them, of course,” she said. “When must you leave?”

  “If I attend the council,” he said, “I must leave tomorrow at dawn.”

  She heard the indecision in his voice, and she shook her head.

  “My lord,” she said, “you must attend the council. This is a command from the king. You have no choice.”

  He waved her words aside.

  “You are Æthelred’s queen,” he answered her, “awaiting the birth of his child. No one would question it if I remained here to grant you my protection.”

  She looked into his eyes and what she read there worried her as much as it comforted. He would defy his father if she asked it. But she could not ask it. Athelstan was needed elsewhere. For weeks now, while she remained in the comfort and security of this palace, in the south men were beaten or murdered, their wives and daughters raped, children taken for slaves, and entire families left homeless and destitute. The king needed every tool at his disposal to deal with the enemy.

  “The king would question it,” she reminded him. “I cannot bid you stay when he bids you go. And London, as you have told me yourself, is well defended, no matter who is in command.”

  “Words spoken before I saw the size of the Danish force,” he said with a frown. “They have enough ships to strangle this city, should they choose to do so, without ever coming to battle. They already control the port at Sandwich, and now their fleet is moving toward the Solent. Our coastal trade is already suffering. If they should send ships to blockade London they may very well starve us out. To leave you alone and unprotected—”