The Chosen Queen (20 page)

‘Why us?’ another wailed. ‘Why Wales?’

‘Why not,’ Becca shot back, though she was shaking.

‘We must arm ourselves,’ Edyth said. ‘We must barricade the door and find what we can to defend ourselves. The king and his men will fight to keep them from the compound but we
should be prepared.’

She grabbed the poker from beside the brazier and brandished it in a show of bravery. The other women looked around but there was little more in the room save needles – sharp, yes, but
hopelessly short. Edyth’s heart pounded. Morgan was squirming in her arms and Ewan had buried himself in her skirts. What would happen to her little princes if Vikings overcame the men? Edyth
remembered Griffin’s words that magical day on the beach so long ago: ‘
I could be king for another twenty years, Edyth, or for just a few more hours
.’ Had those last
hours come? And with her father and Edwin here too. Fleetingly Edyth thought of her mother and prayed Meghan would not lose them all.

Her women were cowering either side of the big window opening, risking timid peeks out, like mice from a hole, but if the Vikings were truly coming there would be no hiding. Edyth had to see
what was happening. She strode back to the window and stood dead centre, focusing on the sea, some half a mile from the palace but clear to the eye on this bright morning.

The Vikings were sailing their sleek longboats between Griffin’s tethered fleet. There were three vessels, two of average size, maybe fifty men, but the third was a vast ship, boasting a
great dragon’s head at its prow, mouth carved wide to spew scarlet flames towards the shore. All three sailed on towards the beach, out of view, and within all too short a time soldiers began
to appear up the cliff path, bright shields flashing in the spring sun.

Directly below the window their own Welshmen were hastily assembling before the small back gates, pulling on helmets and buckling swordbelts. They were a formidable group but the lines of
Vikings on the cliff seemed, from this distance, to swell relentlessly. Then suddenly four trumpeters rang out a volley of triumphant notes and a huge figure rose almost magically over the line of
the cliff. Edyth sucked in her breath. It couldn’t be – could it? Becca looked at her and she saw the same horrific possibility in her maid’s eyes.

‘Harald Hardrada,’ Edyth breathed.

‘I have only heard tales,’ Becca said, ‘but I fear it is him. Lewys says the men speak of him round campfires like a monster of the night. They say he is as tall as a mountain
and as white as snow. They say he has legs like oaks and can wield a sword bigger than any other man’s. They say he has eyes like a storm and a scar down one side of his face from his eye to
his lips as if God – or the devil – had drawn a line between them. They say—’

‘They say too much, Becca. Hush, you are frightening everyone.’

‘
I
am frightening them? ’Tis not
I
on the clifftop brandishing a blade.’

Edyth waved her to be quiet and leaned out over the wooden sill to confirm what she thought she had seen. She smiled.

‘He’s not brandishing a blade, Becca,’ she said, turning, ‘but a flag. He is waving a white flag.’

The women crushed into the window opening in a clamour of joy and relief and even, Edyth noted with amusement, with murmurs about changing into better gowns to receive the ‘honoured
guests’. For the moment, though, they were all glued to their vantage point as the guardsmen rushed to crank open the slim back gates and the Viking horde pounded through. The white flag was
being waved high and the Northmen had their swords sheathed and their huge shields strung across their backs, but still they were a sight to chill the blood.

Swathed in large cloaks and strung with furs against the sea chill, they seemed even stockier than nature had created them. They wore their hair and beards longer than the boldest Saxons and
many of them were so blond it was as if the sun had bleached the colour from their locks. On their heads they wore plain steel helmets with long nose-pieces that cast their eyes into unfathomable
shadows and as they lined up in sharp battle order across the compound, Edyth longed to be able to find a sturdy chest and hide within it. She was queen, though, and she must go down and receive
these . . . these soldiers. Swallowing back the bitter bile that had risen in her throat, she thrust Morgan at his nurse and sought out her own maid. ‘My purple gown, Becca – pray God
it fits – and my crown. And fast.’

The great party were shown into the hall where Griffin had hastily set up his and Edyth’s thrones to receive them. Welsh courtiers clustered along the walls, chattering
and bowing and trying not to look nervous and Earl Alfgar fretted at Edyth’s shoulder.

‘Welcome, welcome.’ Griffin spoke in rough, forceful English as he rose to shake his guest’s hand.

Edyth stood at his side and tried not to stare but it was hard. King Harald of Norway, long known as Hardrada, or Ruthless, was even taller than Griffin and his white-blond hair was a startling
contrast to her husband’s coppery locks. He did, indeed, have a scar on his cheek, though faint and not as long as legend would have it, but it was his eyes that held you.
Eyes like a
storm
, Becca had whispered, and they did seem to swirl in flinty flecks of grey and yellow towards gaping pupils that pulled you towards him if you looked too long. He moved fluidly for one so
large, like a wolf in a night-time forest, and his hands, though calloused from years of sword-grip, were surprisingly slender.

‘My wife, Sire – Queen Edyth of Wales.’

Edyth stepped forward and held out her hand. Her knees trembled to curtsey to this great man but she kept her back rigid and her head high so that her crown glowed in the hastily sparked rush
lights around the walls. Hardrada kissed her hand gently.

‘It is an honour to meet you, my lady. I thank you for your gracious hospitality.’

His voice was cultured, his accent soft and teasing – not just a warrior then, but a courtier.

‘It is our pleasure. You have travelled far?’

‘Indeed. I have been overseeing some business around the Irish seas and heard great tales of your Red Devil. As we needed a safe harbour on our return to Norway, I thought I would come to
see him for myself.’

A smile slid across his face, pulled disarmingly crooked by the scar. He was playing with her – testing her. She knew the game well.

‘You won’t be disappointed, Sire. Wales is a jewel.’

‘Her queen certainly is, though not, I think, Welsh?’

‘Welsh now.’

‘But not by birth. How goes it in England?’

‘You should ask my father,’ she said, indicating Alfgar, bobbing eagerly in the background.

‘Oh, I will,’ King Harald agreed, barely glancing at him, ‘but for now I ask you.’

Edyth swallowed.

‘I have scarcely been there these last four years, Sire. I am content to dwell at Rhuddlan.’

‘And you have exchanged
no
news?’

Despite herself Edyth flushed. Svana’s latest letter had arrived but a few days back.

‘I have correspondence, Sire, yes, but it is mere women’s trifles – tales of gowns and children.’

She smiled sweetly at him and he laughed.

‘You do not seem to me, Edyth Alfgarsdottir, to be a woman much preoccupied by such things.’

‘You do not like my gown?’

He let his rich eyes run slowly over her, lingering at the curve of her milk-ripe breasts.

‘I like your gown very much. Griffin is a lucky man.’

‘I am.’ Griffin seized a chance to break in. ‘My wife has but recently given birth to our second little prince.’

‘Congratulations!’ Hardrada clapped Griffin on the back. ‘My first-born son is with me, learning how to be a warrior. Magnus!’

He clicked his fingers and, to Edyth’s surprise, a slight, almost fragile-looking boy moved up to his father’s side.

‘You Norwegians learn early,’ Griffin said with a half-laugh.

Hardrada frowned.

‘Magnus is older than he looks. He was born early.’ He peered down at his son as if he were a foal at market. ‘He will catch up and he is brave enough.’

‘I have killed a man,’ Magnus informed them proudly and even Griffin had no ready answer for such an assertion.

He glanced awkwardly at Edyth who forced herself to step forward.

‘You must be very proud, Sire,’ she said smoothly, ‘and you have other children too, do you not?’

Hardrada’s eyes caught on Edyth’s and he smiled lazily.

‘I do. I have two sons and two daughters and, indeed, two wives.’

‘Two wives?’

‘Yes – why not? Elizaveta, my beautiful Slav princess, is my Roman wife, and Tora Thorbergsdatter is my handfast woman – though I count them equal.’

‘And do
they
?’ Edyth asked.

‘If they know what’s good for them, yes.’

Edyth felt herself shiver at the rapid shift in his voice and even Griffin looked taken aback.

‘Don’t get any ideas,’ she said crisply to her husband.

‘Just like her mother,’ Alfgar put in, rolling his eyes and Hardrada, thank the Lord, laughed.

‘I think, my friend,’ he said to his host, as the gong sounded to call them to table, ‘that you have two wives in one here. I’m sure she is enough for any man.’

His eyes bored into her and Edyth felt herself pinned down beneath his appraisal. She glanced uneasily to her father. He had told her a little of Hardrada’s history as commander of the
much-feared Varangian guard when she was a child and, like Becca’s whispered tales, it had taken on a quality of legend so it felt unreal to be stood before the great man. She forced herself
to stay calm as she took her throne and he slid his long frame into the specially placed chair between herself and Griffin.

The servers came forward with their first course – fresh fish with a rich garlic sauce and hunks of soft white bread. They could not usually afford to discard the coarser grains but Edyth
had ordered this to be baked specially for the fearsome guests and she was glad of it as Hardrada took a bite and nodded approvingly.

‘You say you are returning to Norway, Sire?’ she asked politely.

‘That was my intention,’ he agreed. ‘If nothing more interesting presents itself.’

‘Oh, I’m sure there is little of interest here for a man such as yourself,’ she said quickly. ‘Unless you are skilled at birthing lambs?’

His lip curled.

‘I think that may be a skill I lack, my lady. My talents are not so much in the bringing of life.’

Edyth drank deeply of the costly Rhenish wine Griffin had brought back from his raids last summer, casting for some way out of this uneasy conversation, but now her father was leaning forward
from her other side.

‘Your reputation as a warrior precedes you, Sire.’

‘I thank you, Earl Alfgar.’

Alfgar coughed.

‘Sadly, Sire, I am not an earl at the present time. The fools in the English council are playing with me for their own gain.’

‘Really?’ Interest sparked in the swirling eyes and for the first time since he’d strode onto their shores Hardrada truly looked at the English exile. ‘You seek, then, to
make them see sense?’

‘I do, Sire. And I seek partners in that mission.’

Hardrada laughed, low and rasping.

‘I am no man’s partner,
Lord
Alfgar.’

‘Of course not, Sire,’ Alfgar stuttered, pushing away the calming hand Edyth tried to place on his thick thigh. ‘Of course not. What I meant to say was that I seek a
leader.’

‘A leader. Interesting. Is that not interesting, King Griffin?’ He swivelled suddenly to his host. ‘Lord Alfgar seeks a leader to mount an attack on the English.’

Griffin instinctively touched his crown. He looked to Edyth and she knew that he was wondering how to tell the great Norwegian that when it came to attacking the English
he
was the
leader. He did not find the words in time.

‘I was planning on heading home,’ Hardrada said, ‘but with such a tantalising alternative it would seem a shame to take to the seas too soon.’ He glanced around his men
who were drinking deep of Griffin’s ale. ‘A war with the English,’ he went on, as if it was somewhere you might ride out to for the day, ‘why not?!’

There was nothing Edyth could do to stop them. The three men sailed just a few days later, the Welsh ships riding the waves proudly between the slightly larger Viking craft as
they headed for the Mersey river – ‘the back gate to England’ as Hardrada gleefully called it. They were all in high spirits on their departure but Griffin’s men returned
alone three months later, muddied and bloodied and crawling with lice and bounty.

‘Good Lord, husband,’ Edyth greeted him, hustling the boys behind her, ‘you look as if you have travelled to hell and back.’

‘Mayhap we have,’ was all she got in return and, scared by his dark mood, she turned her attentions to bathing, combing and feeding him and his troops.

It was a long job and one carried out for men who had none of the usual exuberance of a returning warband. More stared into their ale than drank it and when the spoils, as was customary, were
cast out across the tables, only the poorest soldiers moved to take their share. Edyth stared at the bounty in horror, sickened at the sight of so many domestic tools and trinkets. These were not
treasures taken from dead enemies on a battlefield but from innocent people with the misfortune to live in the path of a rampaging army.

‘Hardrada is well named,’ was all Griffin would say when she quizzed him in the privacy of their bedchamber later. ‘He is ruthless indeed.’

Seeing her devil of a husband so cowed scared Edyth more than anything.

‘At least he has gone,’ she offered, gesturing to the blank horizon over which the great Viking had sailed his dragon boats.

‘For now,’ was all Griffin would say, ‘but I do not think he is a man, Edyth, who is ever truly gone. My only consolation is that he liked the look of England more than Wales,
though he left precious little of it behind to return for.’

‘And my father?’

‘Earl Alfgar is back in Mercia, your brother with him. He made terms within weeks. Your father talks a good fight, Edyth, but in truth he has little stomach for it these days, unlike the
King of Norway. He only left when he feared his haul was growing great enough to sink his precious dragon boats.’