The Constant Queen (24 page)

Today that charade would truly begin for Magnus had ridden ahead to prepare the Easter court and now Harald and Elizaveta were to take their place at his side. It was to be a ‘celebration
of unity’, but even so Harald’s men were in full armour and their eyes darted continuously around the beautiful landscape, looking for treachery. Elizaveta’s stomach fluttered
again and she put a hand to it.

‘He kicks?’ Harald asked eagerly, riding up at her side.

Elizaveta shook her head but smiled.

‘He will kick soon.’

‘Now that he is home,’ Harald agreed and Elizaveta prayed it would be so.

This new child had, she believed, been conceived in Sweden at Christ’s mass – a true gift from God – and she prayed for it every day. She had rested as much as possible, even
when journeying, letting Greta tend to her like a child and keeping so quiet that she had barely recognised herself but this time, she was certain, it would be worth it.

‘There, Lily – over there. Look!’ Harald’s voice suddenly rose like a child’s and he leaped up in his stirrups, pointing eagerly. ‘There is the royal
residence. Is it not beautiful?’

Elizaveta scanned the rolling green plain but could see no turrets or cupolas, no walls or gateways, nothing but an oversized peasant’s dwelling on the far slope of the valley.

‘Where, Hari?’

‘There!’ he said impatiently, pointing straight at the barn-like building. ‘Come on – race you!’

He sounded so excited that Elizaveta spurred her horse on behind him, revelling in his happiness. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Ulf, Halldor and Aksel excitedly urging their own mounts
forward and even young Greta kicking her pretty pony into a gallop. There must be more to this place than met the eye. Perhaps the palace was hidden down in the trees, behind the byre? But no,
Harald was cantering straight up to the long wooden structure and as Elizaveta drew close she saw that it was the only building around.

It stood nearly a hundred paces long, the low walls padded with moss and turf so it seemed to magically rise out of the very earth itself. The huge roof of thatched straw seemed similarly
homegrown on the giant hillside and it was only as you moved closer that you could see the stamp of human endeavour on the massive farmhouse.

The thatch stuck out over the walls, supported by a long run of pillars to create a sheltered walkway for shade in the summer and some protection from the harsh snows in winter. In the centre of
the main wall a wooden porch jutted, richly carved and painted in glowing reds and blues to draw out the patterns and pictures. The doors were similarly decorated with vibrant vines and leaves and
they were secured with an iron lock, though that small device seemed to be the only protection for this supposedly royal residence. There were no earthworks, no walls, not even a palisade fence,
and Elizaveta doubtfully drew rein at Harald’s side.

‘This is it, Hari?’

‘It is.’ He caught the look on her face. ‘You do not like it?’

‘No, no, it’s lovely. Beautiful. Just . . . very different to what I’m used to.’

‘I suppose it is,’ he agreed, handing her down from her horse, ‘but you will love it. Wait until you see inside. Everything in one place – so cosy.’

Elizaveta blinked and rubbed at her eyes. Was this really Harald, her Harald – the man who’d fought pirates and defended empires and won battles, the man who, over the last three
years, had bedded her anywhere and everywhere until her body often sang with longing just at the sight of him – her Harald admiring something for being ‘cosy’?

‘It has no defences?’ she hazarded.

‘No defences? Oh, no
walls
!’ He laughed. ‘Look around you, Elizaveta. You could see an enemy coming from miles away.’

‘And then?’

‘And then you’d ride out and defeat them, of course.’

‘Oh.’

‘In Norway, my love,’ Harald told her, chucking her under the chin as her father might, ‘we say that you do not need stout walls for defence, just stout hearts.’ He
looked up at the farm and suddenly seemed to shrink a little. ‘You think it a poor palace for a king, Elizaveta?’

‘No indeed, Harald.’ She rushed to reassure him. ‘It is beautiful, truly. I cannot wait to see inside.’

‘Good. It is very . . .’ He looked for a word to impress her. ‘Very grand. It was built by my brother, King Olaf.’

‘Then it must be special to you.’

‘Nearly as special as you are,’ he said, kissing her long and hard before whispering, ‘and one day it will
all
be ours.’

‘Sssh!’

The huge door was creaking open before them and she kissed him back to silence him, though the words thrilled through her all the same. It seemed that Harald had become joint king of Norway
without a drop of blood shed and for that they must be thankful, but as Magnus stepped out, feet planted proprietorially in the doorway, she knew their fight had only just begun. She shuddered and
placed a hand to her belly as a small movement, more tickle than kick, jumped beneath her skin.

‘Oh!’

‘What is it?’ Harald asked.

‘I think maybe the babe truly is kicking – here.’ Elizaveta grabbed Harald’s hand and slid it round across her swelling belly. ‘Do you feel it?’

‘I do!’ He beamed. ‘I do feel it. Little Olaf is saying hello. He knows he is truly home.’

‘It seems so,’ Elizaveta agreed, awed, but now Magnus had stepped forward and the dark shadow of Einar Tambarskelve filled the doorway behind him.

Elizaveta instinctively tried to move back but Harald held her tight.

‘My son is practising his war dance,’ he told their grim-faced greeters, hand still placed across her. ‘He is happy to be here in his ancestral home.’

Magnus, however, just looked blankly at them and Einar shot forward, face as dark as a midnight squall.

‘Mayhap it will be a girl.’

Harald beamed more broadly than ever.

‘A princess would be welcome too, Einar, especially if she is as gorgeous as her mother.’

Magnus rolled his eyes.

‘All this devotion, Harald, is it seemly, do you think, for a king?’

Harald stepped forward to shake his hand.

‘God gave us women, nephew,’ he said. ‘I am simply enjoying his gift.’

Magnus tutted.

‘You will find, Uncle, that you have not as much time for such frivolities as women now you are a king.’ And with that Magnus turned, slim shoulders tight, to lead the way into the
hall.

‘Frivolities?’ Harald mouthed to Elizaveta, amused, but they could hear the Norwegian court waiting excitedly inside the farm, and he moved purposefully to Magnus’s side as the
younger king stepped through the door.

Elizaveta fell obediently in behind them, though her heart was thudding as if a hundred babes were kicking it. She felt Einar’s louring presence over her shoulder and was grateful to note
Ulf and Halldor slide in behind him with Aksel between them. Apart from Harald and Greta, these faithful warriors were her only true friends in Norway. She thought longingly of Sweden and
Astrid’s soft, homely welcome and missed her aunt both for her hospitable self and as a shadow of her faraway mother.

What would her family be doing in Kiev now, she wondered as she followed the two kings into the enormous farmhouse and up the central aisle? The Rus’ Easter service would be in
Yaroslav’s magnificent new Hagia Sophia, with its glowing marble floors and rich mosaics and soaring cupolas. His
druzhina
would kneel before the gilded altar and take communion from a
jewelled cup and the richly robed monks would sing to the resonant notes of the silver pipe organ.

Then they would all process through the newly paved streets of Yaroslav’s growing city whilst a mass of Kievans threw flowers before them, and on up into the great kremlin with its
fountain and its bronze horses and its three stone halls. There would be a hundred musicians and acrobats and clowns with new tricks to amaze them and they would feast on a range of fragrant dishes
from all over the vast tangle of the Rus lands and beyond.

The contrast to her current situation could not be more pronounced, but the great and good of Norway were leering at her from either side, and she had no more time for musings. Already the tiny
procession had made it to the top table and Magnus was taking his place on the great throne, leaving Harald to move into the lesser chair on his right. The men were joint kings in everything but
Einar had insisted that when they were together Magnus would have precedence and he clearly intended to enforce that rigidly. Elizaveta moved past him towards her own place, feeling all eyes upon
her, though not, as in Kiev, to admire her, but more as if waiting for her to fall. She sighed and Harald leaned solicitously in.

‘You are well, my sweet?’ he asked, as he handed her into her seat.

‘Quite well. Just thinking of home.’

He frowned slightly.

‘This
is
your home, Lily.’

‘Of course. I know that, Harald, truly and I am so glad to be here with you – a solid partnership at the head of a nation makes the nation solid too.’ He squinted at her and
she blushed. ‘’Tis something my father used to say.’

‘And he was right.’ Harald kissed her firmly. ‘We will build our own farm, my sweet. We will build it however you want it.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course.’

‘Of stone?’

Harald frowned again.

‘I’m not sure that would be possible, Elizaveta – you’ve seen enough of Norway to know that trees are more plentiful here. Besides, it is prettier. Wood lives.’

‘It does, Hari,’ she agreed, looking around at the decorated pillars and panels and roof-beams, ‘and there are some truly talented carvers here. It’s just so . . .
brown.’

‘Of course it is brown, Lily. What other colour would it be? Is the baby rotting your brain?’

He laughed but there was an edge to his mirth and she knew that over the riotous, nervous feasting ahead she would need him close. Now was not the time to tell him that the dark, heavy colours
of this strange Norwegian farm depressed her spirit.

‘It must be,’ Elizaveta said lightly and squeezed his arm as Einar took a seat alongside a large, sour-faced woman.

‘My wife,’ he said shortly, ‘Lady Brigid.’

Brigid leaned forward and glared at Elizaveta.

‘The Arnassons should be here at any moment,’ she announced without a word of courtesy. ‘I am so excited. I haven’t seen dear Tora since she was newly widowed and
it’s been far too long.’

Elizaveta’s throat contracted. Brigid spoke fast, and her Norse was thick with a northern inflection, but Elizaveta did not mistake her meaning. This was another reason she needed Harald
close – the infamous Arnasson family were due here at any moment to ‘welcome’ the new arrivals and she was dreading meeting Harald’s one-time betrothed. Harald had told her
a little of Finn, the man who had raised him and who he so clearly admired. He was looking forward to seeing him again and that worried Elizaveta, but not nearly as much as the fact that he had
told her nothing at all of Tora.

‘You are queen,’ she reminded herself sternly, ‘and you are carrying Norway’s heir.’

She placed quiet hands over her swelling belly. This child was as much her weapon in this strange new country as Harald’s sword was his and she cradled it tight as the keen neigh of a
horse cut into the hall from outside.

‘Here they are now,’ the dour Einar said, sounding disorientatingly jolly at the prospect of trouble.

All heads turned to the door, then back to Elizaveta, as the court waited eagerly to see their new queen meet the woman they believed she had supplanted. Elizaveta rose slowly. She reached for
Harald’s hand but he had stepped away, joining Magnus at the front of the dais as the doors swung open. Elizaveta shivered and Aksel leaped forward, offering his strong young arm. She
clutched at it, tears of gratitude springing to her eyes, as a man strode into the hall and bowed low.

‘Finn!’ Harald called and jumped down to clasp the man’s shoulders.

‘King Harald,’ Finn said carefully, ‘welcome home. We have missed you, have we not, Niece?’

He turned and drew forward a woman dressed in a gown of purest blue, topped with a snow-white cloak of ermine fur. Elizaveta watched, frozen, as Harald took her hand and, bowing lower than
she’d ever seen him do before, kissed it. Her eyes, though, were stuck on the woman who was everything she suddenly realised she had known she would be.

Tora Arnasson was tall and voluptuous, with soft, feminine features and a curtain of honey-blonde hair. Her eyes were wide and as blue as her dress and her skin was pale and clear. She was the
perfect Norse woman, beautiful in a way Elizaveta had always craved. Indeed, as she stood there, teetering on the dais of an unknown hall full of unknown customs, the dark walls seemed to crowd in
and the great wooden rafters threatened to fall on her head and the smoke from the huge central hearth pricked at her eyes. For this woman, this rival, was the incarnation of Ingrid, her mother,
and Elizaveta was torn between an ice-cold desire to see her dead and a sharp, intense longing to throw herself into her arms.