The Constant Queen (28 page)

‘Why then,’ she demanded, ‘did you bed the Arnasson girl?’

Harald flinched.

‘You heard that too?’

‘Aksel . . .’

‘Talks to everyone. I know.’

‘And there were plenty of ladies keen to discuss it with me too, Harald.
Very
sympathetic they were, as I’m sure you can imagine.’

Harald flinched again. He’d seen the ladies of courts all over the world attacking a good piece of gossip and they were as vicious with it as hounds with a hare.

‘I’m sorry.’

Elizaveta moved towards him. He put out a hand but she did not take it.

‘Why, Harald?’ she asked. ‘Why did you bother bringing me to your precious homeland if you were just going to run off to her when you got here?’

That stung.

‘I did not “run off” to her. You sent me to her, Elizaveta. You told me yourself to go to her.’

‘But not to
bed
her. How long did it take, Hari? The first night, was it?’ He tried to stare her down but her dark eyes were too sharp. ‘I’m so glad our wedding
vows – vows made before Christ’s own altar and my father, your liege lord for so many years – meant so much to you.’

She was panting again now, though whether from pain or fury it was hard to tell. Harald drew himself up.

‘A king needs a mistress; it befits his status.’

Elizaveta snorted.

‘Says who?’

‘Says . . . says the world.’

‘And since when did you care what the world says?’

She spoke true. He edged forward.

‘Please don’t be angry, Lily. You are my wife. You are having my child.’

‘Don’t I know it?’

A hiss of pain escaped from between her teeth and Harald seized the chance to reach out for her. For a moment she rested against his chest, burrowing her head into him, her little feet stamping
beneath her shift as she fought the birth-spasm, but then it must have passed for she sprung away.

‘I thought you loved me, Hari?’

‘I
do
.’

‘So?’

‘So, I was angry with you and you weren’t there and she, she was.’

‘That’s it?’

He spread his hands wide.

‘Need it be more?’ She looked confused and he pressed his advantage. ‘I don’t love her, Lily. She was just . . .’

‘Convenient?’

‘No! Well, maybe a little, but it runs far deeper than mere physical cravings, Lily. It’s about power. Not over her,’ he added hastily. ‘You are the only woman I crave
power over, Lily, and you are the one I fear I will never master.’ Nearly she smiled. ‘Einar is plotting.’

‘And bedding an Arnasson helps, does it? Why not go the whole hog and leap between the sheets with the man himself?’

Harald shuddered.

‘He looks very hairy.’ A giggle escaped his wife’s throat, a light, happy sound and he snatched at it. ‘Things are tense, Lily. Magnus’s faction is hardly pleased
to have me here in Norway and I need as many friends as I can get, even with him gone.’

‘Are you going to bed them all?’

‘Only if you want me to – you can come along if you wish.’

Elizaveta cried out in sudden pain and he ran to her.

‘I never,’ she said between gasps, ‘want to have . . . anything to do . . . with bedding . . . ever again.’

Harald stroked her back nervously. Her breathing was relaxing again but to his intense relief she did not pull away this time.

‘How come,’ she murmured into his chest, ‘this babe of yours was so much fun to put inside me and yet it’s so hellish to get out?’

He kissed the top of her head.

‘It will be fun again,’ he promised.

‘Not just for you.’

‘No. It’s much more fun for me when it’s fun for you too.’

It was truer than he’d realised. Tora had been attentive, almost embarrassingly so, but she had never seemed truly to enjoy herself and that had made him feel somehow useless.

‘It’s always fun for me,’ Elizaveta said, ‘or it was.’

This time he claimed her lips, briefly, tenderly.

‘Just you,’ he swore to her. ‘From now on, Lily, it’s just you.’

She tried to reach her hands up around his neck but her bump pushed her too far away and instead she grabbed at his hair, pulling his face down so their foreheads touched and he felt hers slick
with sweat.

‘I thought a king should have a mistress?’

‘Says who?’

‘She will not be happy.’

Harald thought about this.

‘I think she might, Lily. She did not seem to find it anywhere near as enjoyable as you do.’

‘Hari!’ She batted at his chest. ‘I don’t want to know.’

‘Just hear this then, Lily: she will be relieved to be rid of me. I will give her a farmhouse or something.’

Elizaveta rolled her eyes.

‘You Norwegians and your farmhouses,’ she said but the words stumbled and she grabbed at him, pulling his tunic so tight he thought it might strangle him.

Both of them fought for breath until the pain subsided and her hold loosened.

‘You,’ he told her when he could speak again, ‘shall have your stone house, my sweet.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No. I’ve decided I don’t want that and you don’t either.’

‘I don’t?’

‘No. A king should not live on a farm.’

‘A big farm.’

‘No, Hari. Come, you’ve lived in Kiev, you’ve even lived in Miklegard for heaven’s sake so you must see – in this day and age a king needs a city.’

Harald stared at his tiny wife, her dark cheeks flushed with pain and her belly pulsing with his child.

‘You want me to build you a city?’

‘Build
us
a city, Hari, yes. Forget Denmark for now; let us make Norway great and let us start with a proper capital. I have had letters from my sisters in Hungary. Andrew is king,
praise God, and Anastasia says they are working to develop a settlement on the Danube river called Buda into a worthy place from which to rule. She writes that she lives in a great new palace and
that she has been given free rein to commission builders and artisans to make it greater yet. Agatha confirms it.’

She ground her teeth as another spasm rocked her.

‘A city?’ Harald said, testing the idea. ‘A capital for Norway? But we have Nidaros, Lily.’

Elizaveta tossed her head.

‘Nidaros is not a city, Harald. It is a market, no more; a rough little harbourside market. And what’s more it’s up here, in the north, where all those overblown lords rule the
roost. You need a city in the sou . . . ow!’

He held her through the next pain. They seemed to be getting longer and closer together and he looked nervously to the door wondering if he could call back the midwives, though at the same time
his mind was racing. A city in the south, deep within the safety of the great fjord in his Ringerike homelands? As Elizaveta returned to him he leaned back a little to look into her eyes.

‘A city, Lily?’

‘Yes. That will show Norway where its future lies and who it lies with. Who wants Magnus and his remote wooden farmhouse when they can have Harald in a palace for all to see, in a walled
city full of churches and libraries, statues and courtyards and ooowww! Harald, it hurts. It hurts so much.’

‘I’ll call Greta.’

She nodded and he shouted towards the door for assistance. It flew back and Greta, no longer the timid girl he remembered, strode inside, the two midwives waddling in her wake.

‘It hurts her,’ Harald told them urgently.

‘It will, Sire. It hurts all women, even queens.’

He crushed Elizaveta against him.

‘She will be safe though?’

‘We’ll take very good care of her,’ Greta assured him.

‘You must. She is very precious.’

‘As are all women,’ one of the midwives intoned piously.

‘No! She is far more precious than that.’

The poor woman cowered and Elizaveta, recovering again, let out a low laugh.

‘All will be well, Hari.’

He looked at her. She seemed tired, frail. She had always had a fragile quality to her slim frame but never before had he feared she might actually break. She was tough, strong, wild. He held
her against him again.

‘I can’t lose you, Lily. I love you – you know that.’

‘I know, Hari.’

Her voice was wavering again.

‘You and me,’ he said urgently. ‘It’s just you and me now, my Lilyveta – you and me always.’

‘You and me,’ she echoed but the words were swallowed up in a roar of pain and the midwives rushed forward, somehow lifting her from him and moving her onto the bed.

‘Let me stay,’ he said desperately.

Greta put a gentle hand on his arm.

‘No, Sire, please. This is woman’s work and we will do it best alone.’

‘I . . .’

‘We will see her safe, Sire, I promise. Now please . . .’

‘Lily!’ he called out but she was lost in the spasm and could not reply and before he knew it, he was outside, staring at the door.

Behind him someone coughed and he turned to see Ulf.

‘You look pale, Hari.’

‘Pale? God, yes, it’s horrible in there.’ Ulf waved for a servant and pressed a goblet of wine into Harald’s hand. He gulped at it gratefully. ‘What do we do
now?’ he asked his friend.

Ulf shrugged.

‘We wait.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s all.’

Harald looked slowly around him. The hall was packed. His soldiers were outside in their own camp but all the lords and many of their ladies, come to welcome them home from their raiding, were
gathered around the hearth. A large pot of stew sat over it and many held steaming bowls.

‘You should eat,’ Halldor suggested now, coming up next to Ulf. ‘Keep your strength up.’

‘Eat? Don’t be ridiculous, Hal. I’m not the one who needs strength right now.’

‘Even so, it could be a long wait.’

‘Nonsense. You heard her – the babe must be close.’

Halldor shook his head pityingly.

‘If I remember Aksel’s birth correctly,’ he said, ‘she’s only just getting started.’

And so it proved. Hour after miserable hour rolled past. Night fell. The lamps were lit around the walls of the hall and more stew was brought. Harald even ate some. People
talked quietly amongst themselves, trying not to stare whenever Elizaveta’s screams drowned out their words. Harald paced up and down, up and down, with his men taking brave turns
accompanying him as his temper grew with his fear.

‘It’s quite normal,’ a low voice said suddenly in his ear.

‘Finn!’

Harald turned to his foster father. Finn and Einar had marched away to see Magnus laid out with all pomp. They intended taking him to nearby Nidaros to be buried beside Olaf, his sainted father,
and Harald was worried what that might do to the mood in the north. Magnus’s death was his chance to unite Norway, not divide her. He looked cautiously into Finn’s eyes but Finn threw
an arm around his shoulder as if there was not a care between them.

‘Honestly, Harald,’ he said, nodding towards Elizaveta’s door, ‘it sounds as if they are being ripped apart but it’s quite normal.’

‘Really? It doesn’t seem very fair.’

‘No,’ Finn allowed. ‘I’d not be a woman, even for all the gold in
your
caskets.’

Harald grimaced.

‘Nor I.’

‘Planting the seed seems a deal easier than bearing the fruit. And you, Harald, seem especially good at planting seed.’

Something in Finn’s voice caught at Harald and even Elizaveta’s cries seemed to fade slightly. Was he saying . . . ? Surely not? Elizaveta would kill him – if she was not dying
already.

‘What are you telling me, Finn?’

Finn leaned in close.

‘I have news from Austratt. Joyous news.’ Harald felt the stew he had forced down fighting to return. He put out a hand and found Halldor’s broad shoulder, but his old friend
could do nothing to protect him from this one. ‘Tora is pregnant.’

Harald closed his eyes. He longed to ask if it was his but knew that would be mean. Foolish too, as he had been foolish. He’d let himself be seduced by Tora’s softness, by her
connections, by memories that ran deep into his past but that might now wreck his future. A cry from Elizaveta, louder than any that had gone before, rang out around the hall and Harald felt it
shudder all the way through him.

‘A king must have heirs,’ Finn said calmly.

‘A king,’ Harald snapped back, ‘would rather have a queen.’

‘Oh well,’ Finn said, ‘you have plenty of those too now.’

Harald stared at him.

‘I cannot make Tora my queen, Finn. I am wed already.’

‘And pray God your wife stays safe.’ Finn looked pointedly at the chamber door. ‘You could handfast, Harald,’ he went on, his voice dangerously soft, ‘as many have
before you.’

‘Tora would never agree to that.’

‘Tora would do as she is told. As might a king who needed support against a possible rebellion in the north.’

‘Are you threatening me, Finn?’

‘Of course not. Guiding you, that’s all. Magnus is dead, Harald; this is your opportunity –
our
opportunity. You are like a son to me, you know that. I just want to see
what’s best for you.’

‘And you think that is two wives? Good God, man, I am suffering enough with one. When on earth will this be over?’

‘I’m sure it will be easier with Tora. Her mother birthed very quickly.’

It was too much. Harald grabbed Finn’s tunic, pulling him close.

‘Now, Finn, is not the time for this. I am busy with my wife, my Christian wife, and . . .’

A new cry stopped him short – a tiny, plaintive but determined little cry. He looked at the door as the whole court leaped to its feet.

‘Not the time,’ Finn agreed calmly. ‘Go, Harald – see your child, your first-born but not, remember, your last. We will talk again.’

Harald heard the words. Some part of his brain stored them nervously away but for now all he wanted was to see Elizaveta. He ran for the chamber door but it was barred. He banged his fists
against the wood.

‘Let me in.’

‘One moment, Sire.’ The voice was wavery, faint.

‘Now. Let me in now.’

‘Please, you must . . .’

‘No. No more waiting. Let me in or my axe will do so.’ The bolt slid slowly back to reveal the older midwife, her ample frame blocking the gap. ‘Where is she?’