The Price of Blood

by Patricia Bracewell

  The words, as she had read them, had seemed to burn in her mind, as if they had been written with fire. What did her mother know or suspect that she would send her such counsel? How much time did she have to prepare for whatever calamity was hinted at in the letter, and how was she to gather her children about her if such a thing occurred?

  Edward was already far beyond her reach, for Eadric had sent him back to the estate of his foster parents, across the Severn. She had seen to it that Wymarc’s son, Robert, accompanied him, and she had sent Father Martin north as well to watch over the boys from the small monastery of St. Peter at Shrewsbury. But they were all of them many days’ ride away.

  She would have to warn Father Martin and give thought to what her mother had advised. She held two fortified estates near the coast, at Exeter in the west and at Ipswich in the east, both miraculously spared during last summer’s Danish raids. Preparations would have to be made; her reeves alerted in both places to be prepared for her arrival at any moment, unheralded but with a large retinue in attendance. There must be a vessel and crew always at the ready.

  A sudden peal of laughter rang out from the central yard, and she stopped to gaze again at Godiva and Mathilda. Even if she should provide a refuge for her children and her household, what of Mathilda? Unlike her sisters, she had no lordly husband to protect her. Would convent walls and the garb of a nun keep her safe?

  The rain that had been threatening began to drum on the grass, and Godiva’s nurse scooped her up. Emma, watching them run toward her, opened her arms to comfort her now wailing daughter. Perching Godiva on her hip she had taken only a few dancing steps with her when they were interrupted by the porteress.

  “There are king’s men in the outer court, my lady,” she said, “and Lord Edmund has requested audience with you and Lady Edyth. He and the abbess await you in her chamber.”

  Emma felt a surge of alarm and saw it reflected in Wymarc’s suddenly pale face. Edmund would never ask for her unless forced to it. They rarely spoke, and she had long ago given up all hope of earning his good opinion. He must have come on some urgent royal business.

  A dozen dire possibilities ran through her mind, but she kept her demeanor calm as she kissed Godiva, delivered the child to her nurse, and with Wymarc at her side followed the porteress into the wing that housed the abbess’s chamber.

  She could hear Edyth’s voice as she neared the door, and she halted a moment in the entryway.

  “I knew that my father would send for me,” Edyth was saying. “I can be ready to leave within the hour.”

  Edmund stood facing Edyth and the abbess, and he seemed to fill the small chamber. He was a big man, taller than his brothers and broader in the chest and shoulder. He was garbed for war in a coat of mail, and the thick padding beneath it and the ankle-length woolen cloak that he wore over it made him seem even larger. He had thrown back the hood of his cloak, revealing the dark hair that set him apart from his brothers and sisters. There was no mistaking, though, the high brow and straight, aquiline nose that he shared with Edyth. Dark he may be, but Edmund was no changeling. He was Æthelred’s son.

  She stepped into the chamber, and Edmund turned to her.

  “My lady,” he said with a curt bow. “The king sends his greetings, and commands that you and my sisters attend him at Winchester. We are to set out tomorrow at first light.”

  The unease that she had suppressed stirred again.

  “What is the reason for the summons?” she asked.

  Although it was her question, he directed his answer to Edyth. “The Danes are on the move. They have left Rochester, and because we do not know what they intend the king would have all of you inside the city walls.”

  The expression on his face was carefully blank, and she read his purpose. He did not wish to cause alarm. Nevertheless, she guessed that this move by the Danish hird must be Thorkell’s response to the king’s attempt to bargain with him: more slaughter to show the English that this was not a game, as Æthelred had termed it, but deadly serious.

  “What about your sister Mathilda?” she asked. “Does the king wish her to wait upon him as well?”

  But it was the abbess who came forward to answer her.

  “Mathilda is no longer the king’s daughter, my lady,” she said. “She belongs to God, and she will face whatever is to come with her sisters in the Lord.” She turned to Edmund. “If there is nothing else, Lord Edmund, the porteress will show your men where they are to sleep.”

  The words were not yet out of her mouth before Edyth was hurrying toward the door.

  “I will tell the others that we will be leaving in the morning,” she called over her shoulder.

  Emma was not sorry to see her go. Edyth saw this as merely a heaven-sent opportunity to return to court. She did not recognize it for the disaster that it was.

  She looked to Edmund, whose face still gave nothing away, although his glance moved uncertainly now between her and the abbess.

  “How bad is it?” she asked. Perhaps he would reveal the rest of it, now that his sister was gone. “Please tell me.”

  He hauled in a breath, running a hand through his hair in a way that reminded her of Athelstan.

  “It is bad enough,” he replied, addressing the abbess now. “The Danes have pushed south into Kent and Sussex. They’ve burned Hastings, and when I left Winchester this morning there was no clear indication yet of where they might strike next. Best bear that in mind, Abbess. The prioress within the walls at Nunnaminster will offer you and your good sisters shelter. You need but ask.” At last he turned from the abbess to face Emma, and there was something in his eyes that filled her with foreboding. She reached for Wymarc’s hand. “I am charged to tell you, my lady, that Ealdorman Ælfric’s granddaughter is dead.”

  An image of Hilde sprang into her mind, dressed in her bridal gown with a wreath of bay leaves on her head. Another image followed on its heels, of Hilde mounted on a horse at her husband’s side as they set out for Sussex and the estate that was part of her dowry. Sussex, where a Danish army was ravaging, unopposed.

  She felt Wymarc’s arm steal about her waist as though to steady them both, but she kept her eyes on Edmund even as her thoughts flew to Ælfric. How would he bear the loss of his grandchild? How was she to bear it when Hilde had been like a daughter to her?

  But the question that formed on her lips was one she voiced almost against her will: “What happened?”

  “What do you think?” he snarled. “The Danes swept through Sussex like a windstorm and she was caught in their path. She died with her husband, likely in some manner so vile you cannot even imagine it.”

  The sob that had been building in her throat broke free, and beside her Wymarc gave a strangled cry. Hilde was but an innocent girl. In all her brief life she had harmed no one. Why had such a brutal fate been meted out to her?

  And even as the thought formed in her mind she sought the crucifix on the wall, where the suffering Christ hung, dying.

  No one on this earth, Lord, she thought, deserves such a fate. Why do you allow it?

  “What will the king do now?” she asked, and her voice was sullen. What did it matter, really?

  “What he should have done in the first place,” Edmund snapped. Even through her despair she could hear the censure in his voice. “He will do what my brother urged—send them the forty-eight thousand pounds of silver that they demanded. He has no other choice. He never did.”

  A.D. 1011 This year sent the king and his council to the army, and desired peace; promising them both tribute and provisions on condition that they ceased from plunder. They had now overrun East Anglia, Essex, Middlesex, Oxfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, half of Huntingdonshire and much of Northamptonshire; and to the south of the Thames, all Kent, Sussex, Hastings, Surrey, Berkshire, Hampshire and much of Wiltshire. All these disasters befel
l us through bad counsels; that they would not offer tribute in time, or fight with them; but, when they had done most mischief, then entered they into peace and amity with them.

  —The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

  Chapter Thirty-One

  August 1011

  Redmere, Holderness

  “By all the gods, what a stench!” Elgiva hovered in the open doorway of the brew house, her hand over her nose and mouth for fear she might gag. “What’s in there?”

  The ceorl standing beside the cauldron and vigorously stirring the steaming brew paused in his task to look up at her with a blank, stupid gaze.

  “It’s naught but honey and water, my lady,” he protested. “The smell of the honey is strong, to be sure, but not bad, I think.”

  He was young, this fellow, his dark beard still thin although he was tall and brawny enough for the task he’d been set. She’d seen him about the yard and the stables, and she liked the look of him. Just now his bared arms glistened with sweat from heat and exertion, and his sinewy shoulders and broad chest strained against the fabric of his thin summer tunic.

  She wondered how skilled he was with a sword. She was likely to need men who were good in a fight before long. Right now, though, she envied him that light tunic and those bare arms. She was wrapped in three layers of linen, and she was far enough along in her pregnancy that she felt like a sow.

  Reluctantly she pulled her eyes from the lad and looked to Tyra, standing at a nearby table, for confirmation that what she was smelling was only the mead beginning to ferment.

  Tyra looked up from the huge basket of flowers and herbs in front of her and slapped her assistant on his bare arm.

  “Keep stirring, man,” she ordered, “or you’ll find yourself back in the smithy instead of the kitchens.” She nodded to Elgiva. “Likely it’s the bairn in your belly that’s causing the mischief, my lady, not the scent of the honey.”

  It was true that she’d been sickened by odors all through this pregnancy, more so than ever before—a sure sign, she’d been told over and over, that she was carrying a boy.

  Boys are right bastards even in the womb, was a general saying among the women of Holderness. As if to prove the point the baby gave a sharp kick, and Elgiva winced. She stepped out of the brew house and away from the nauseating fumes just as the gate ward shouted that a large company of men was approaching.

  “Ten horsemen,” he called, “and the rest on foot. They’ve just unfurled the raven banner.”

  She paused to draw in as deep a breath as her cramped lungs allowed. The raven was the badge of both Cnut and Swein, but surely it had to be Cnut who was beneath that banner. She had sent word to him months ago that she was with child, begging him to come before the winter set in. Now here he was, even sooner than she had looked for him. There must be news! Perhaps his father was poised to invade England at last.

  Her babe seemed to tumble inside her, and she clapped a hand to her belly. Yes, this was surely a boy—and as unsettled by his father’s arrival as she was.

  She hurried across the yard and went into the hall, calling for servants to fetch food and ale.

  By the time the newcomers stepped through the open doorway and made their way toward the dais, the torches in the hall were blazing and she was clutching the brimming welcome cup. In the flickering light, though, she could see that the man who led the party was not Cnut.

  The silver drinking bowl felt suddenly too heavy in her trembling hands, and the child within gave another vicious kick. Cnut must have stopped on his way to consult with Thurbrand. It would not be the first time that he had done so. Likely he had sent these men ahead to apprise her of his coming.

  “You bring me word from my husband, I think,” she said. “When will he be here?”

  “Not for some time, my lady.”

  She didn’t like vague answers, and she scowled at the man.

  “Why?” she snapped. “Is he hurt? Where is he?”

  “He sailed for Roskilde some weeks ago. Before he left he charged me—”

  She muttered an oath and slammed the vessel onto the table beside her, not caring as ale sloshed across the table and onto the floor.

  Damn all men, she thought, and damn her wandering husband most of all.

  She turned back to Cnut’s man and glared at him. She was tired and hot; her back ached as if she’d been broken in two and then stitched back together; and now here was news that was as unwelcome as it was unexpected. He glared right back at her, his contempt for her so obvious she wanted to cuff him. Yet he had brought her news, and unpleasant as it might be, she would hear all of it.

  “You men,” she said to his companions, “there is food and drink. Sit you down and eat. You,” she said to their leader, “come with me.”

  She led him to one of the alcoves at the side of the hall and eased herself onto the bench at the table there, nodding to him to sit opposite her. She waited while servants brought him food, studying him in the charged silence that lay between them.

  She knew this man vaguely—one of Cnut’s retainers. She tried to remember his name, Ari or Arni or—Arnor. That was it. Arnor. He had to be well past thirty, with a humorless face that was weathered from a lifetime spent at sea. His beard and hair were still dark, though, as were his eyes. Just now he was filthy from travel, and he smelled far worse than the vat of boiling honey in the brew house.

  She watched him wolf down a hunk of cold meat and take a huge swallow of ale before she spoke.

  “What message did Cnut ask you to give me?” she asked.

  He set down his cup, belched, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “He bid me say that he will come as soon as he is able.”

  She snorted. How many times had Cnut sent her that message? Twelve? Twenty? A hundred? She was sick to death of hearing it. She looked at Arnor, waiting for the rest of it. There had to be more, but the brute seemed in no hurry to share.

  “What else?” she asked, irritated and impatient.

  He picked up the brown loaf in front of him and ripped off a chunk before answering.

  “That’s all of it,” he said.

  He didn’t look at her. He seemed far more interested in his food than he was in her, and she had to struggle to keep her temper. All of Cnut’s Danes treated her like this—as if she were a nithing, as if she were Cnut’s hostage instead of his wife. It did not matter that she had learned to speak their language or that without her meddling, as they called it, the battle at Ringmere would have been a rout instead of a victory. The Danes still treated her as if she were an inconvenient necessity, someone to be guarded, not trusted—an outsider. It was what she disliked about them the most.

  The shipmen understood bribery well enough, though, and so did she. If she wanted any information from the locked coffer of this fellow’s thick skull, she was going to have to pay for it.

  She pulled some coins from the purse at her belt and pushed them across the table toward him.

  “Why did Cnut go to Denmark?” she asked. “Did Swein send for him?”

  He eyed the coins for a moment, hesitating, then he lifted his gaze to her. There was something malevolent in his eyes. It was far more than dislike, and something she had never observed before. All her life men had looked at her with hunger. Even Cnut’s men, who made no secret of their distrust of her, still betrayed their lust in quick, covert glances. What made Arnor different from all the rest?

  Much as she would like to know, this was hardly the time to address the question. All she wanted from him was information about Cnut, and the silver should buy her that.

  She cocked an eyebrow at him and said, “Well?”

  He responded by using his knife to sweep the coins into his own purse. He said, “Our Cnut had a bit of treasure he wanted to see delivered safely to King Swein.”

  Ah. She should have guessed that silver would send
him scurrying to Denmark. Swein’s coffers must be empty again, and he would look to Cnut to refill them.

  “Has Æthelred paid the gafol, then?”

  Once more Arnor was slow to respond, seeming to weigh his words as if they were as precious as Æthelred’s gleaming silver.

  “Only a quarter of it. He has asked for more time to raise the geld, so there’s to be a quarter payment again at the end of September and the last of the forty-eight thousand pounds of tribute will be delivered in the spring. Getting these stiff-necked English to pay what they’ve promised us is like trying to raise sail in a tempest,” he grumbled.

  Yes, she thought. It was almost as difficult as prying useful information out of a tight-lipped, stinking Dane. But she was not so much interested in where Cnut was as when he was likely to make his way here.

  “When will I see my husband in this hall?” she demanded. “Before he returns to Rochester?” King Swein the greedy would certainly insist that Cnut be in Rochester for the next gafol payment, but that was weeks away.

  “He may not return to Rochester at all.”

  Now he’d surprised her, and she stared at him, astonished.

  “What do you mean? Why not, if there is still tribute to be paid him?”

  “There’s a nasty storm brewing at Rochester,” he growled. “I’ve sent to Cnut, warning him to keep his distance.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table to point his knife at her. “Look you, Cnut hadn’t been gone a single day before that Canterbury archbishop came nosing around like a dog in heat.”

  Archbishop Ælfheah. She had never liked him. He was far too fond of Emma, and far too in love with his God.

  “What did he want to do?” she sneered. “Baptize them?”

  He used his knife to spear a hunk of meat and raise it to his mouth. “Whatever it was, it led to a quarrel between Thorkell and his brother Hemming, and next day Thorkell sailed with more than half his ships, all of them loaded with treasure. My guess is he went to his family lands at Ribe.”