The Constant Queen (33 page)

Oslo, September 1050

P
ain, that’s all Elizaveta knew. She was swimming in pain, arms and legs flailing helplessly against it like a Danish prisoner in the mist,
like a canoe beneath the rapids, like a dragon-ship folding in on itself and crashing through the ice to sink to oblivion.

‘Oblivion,’ she thought, forming the word like a liferaft, binding strakes of nothingness in her mind, yearning to sail. Her raft would have an eagle-prow and would take her out of
this hell and into peace.

‘Mother,’ she rasped out. A shape formed before her eyes, moved away again. She put out a desperate hand. ‘Mother?’

‘No Lily, ’tis I, Harald. You . . . You are alive?’

‘Not yet.’

Elizaveta fought to open her eyes. Was she alive? The eagle-prow receded a little and she was almost sad to see it go. Something cold was laid on her face – cold and slimy and clinging.
She thrashed her head desperately against it and it was whipped away again.

‘Sorry. I’m sorry. I thought it might help. Can you open your eyes, Lily?’

Could she? Slowly she forced her lids up and squinted out. A curtain of blonde hair shone in the dim lamplight.’

‘Hari?’

‘Lily, thank God.’ Harald leaned forward but then checked himself. ‘I’m not to touch you, they say.’

‘Who say?’ Even her throat hurt.

‘The midwives.’

He glanced fearfully over his shoulder and memory slammed into Elizaveta – the endless pains, the blood, Greta’s eyes clouding with fear even as her voice stayed calm, the midwife
saying something about ‘wrong way round’ and everything, indeed, feeling turned and twisted and so, so painful.

‘The baby?’ she croaked.

‘The baby is well. She is a fine child, Lily.’

‘She?’

Disappointment thumped into her and she flinched at its impact on her bruised body.

‘She,’ Harald said firmly. ‘I have named her Ingrid.’

‘Ingrid?’ The name jerked out of her on a rush of hot tears. ‘Oh Hari, thank you. That’s beautiful.’

‘As is she, my sweet. As are
you
.’

The tears were soothing her eyes as the cloth had not and she let them flow gratefully.

‘I am not, I think,’ she managed, ‘quite at my best at the moment,’ and now Harald was crying too. Defying tuts behind him he put his arms around her and despite the pain
searing through her body she clutched him close.

‘I thought you had died, Lily,’ he murmured into her hair.

‘Me? No. Too much worth living for to die.’

He laughed, a strangled sound, half mirth, half agony.

‘You have to be an empress, my sweet.’

‘You’ve taken Denmark? How long have I been lying here?’

He flushed.

‘Days, no more, and no, I’ve not taken it yet but I will. As soon as you are fully better I will sail on Svein again and this time I will bring you a throne.’

‘I have a throne, Hari.’ A new thought came to her. ‘Tora?’

Harald tensed.

‘She is delivered too,’ he said cautiously.

‘Another boy?’

Of course it was; she had known really that it would be, just hoped that perhaps she would have one too.

‘Another boy,’ Harald confirmed.

‘What have you named him?’ He looked to the floor. ‘Hari – what have you named him?’

Greta darted forward, alarmed at her harsh cry, but Harald waved her back. He tried to lay Elizaveta down on the mounds of pillows but she clutched at his arms.

‘I have called him Olaf, Lily.’ She closed her eyes. That was it then. It was over. Tora had, after all, won. The big, soft deer-queen had won and she – she might as well sail
her eagle-raft into oblivion. ‘Lily, listen – you must listen. I have called him Olaf so you do not have to go through this again. The midwives told me, my sweet – they told me
they warned you that another child might kill you, especially had it been a boy. I cannot have that, Lily, for I do not want an Olaf if it costs me
you
. Do you see that?’

Elizaveta opened one eye. She felt tired now, so tired; fortune’s wheel was riding over her. ‘Hold fast,’ her father’s voice said inside her head, rich and tearfully
sweet, like a fruit preserved in ice. ‘Hold fast, Lily.’ She gripped the damp sheets.

‘Tora gives you kings,’ she objected.

‘Yes,’ Harald agreed. ‘It’s what she does best but you, my Lilyveta, you give me the world. Let her raise Norway’s next generation, but let you and I rule her now.
Together.’

Elizaveta’s mind spun again to her childhood in Kiev. ‘Is that all you want for yourself,’ she’d demanded of Anastasia, ‘to produce kings?’ She’d been
so scornful, so dismissive. ‘I’d like to be a queen,’ she’d gone on – she could almost hear herself now. ‘A queen in my own right who can help my husband rule
and shape a nation.’ Had she set her own destiny then? Was this all her own wilful fault? Or her own wilful right?

‘Stay with me, Lily,’ Harald begged, her big warrior husband with his muscle-hard body and his Stikelstad scar and his beautiful hair.

She reached out a hand to him and he clasped it tight, so very tight that she felt the beautiful ring he had gifted her back in Kiev squeezing her tender flesh. She still hurt, she still hurt so
very much, but she would heal.

‘Ingrid,’ she said softly, ‘my Ingrid – is she blonde?’

‘As an angel.’

Elizaveta smiled.

‘I will stay with you, Hari,’ she said softly, ‘if you will stay with me.’

‘Always,’ he agreed and on that promise, she slept.

Jutland, Denmark, August 1051

H
arald stood at the prow of his new warship and scanned the Danish beach before him. He was determined to take this country from Svein and to take
it fast so he could get back to Elizaveta. She was much stronger now but he worried that she would sicken and that, despite his promise, he would not be there for her if she did.

He put up a hand to the neck of his grand dragon-head prow. He was having a new ship built out on the west coast, one that would bear his wife’s precious eagle, but for
now his brave dragon would have to do. At least his glorious landwaster flew high from the mast. Last winter Elizaveta had started to add a border in swirls of black and red but she had grown weary
of stitching and it went only halfway around the flag. Harald smiled at the thought of his impetuous, impatient wife and vowed to take Denmark for her this time.

It was hard though. Wretched Svein never seemed to know when to admit defeat. Time and again Harald had launched attacks on him but always the usurper had splintered them by playing what
Elizaveta had dismissed as ‘silly games’, ducking away from full battles and preferring to lead Harald round Denmark’s endless islands, picking off single ships in ambush. It made
him a very frustrating quarry and left Harald with little choice but to raid his towns and villages like an old-style Viking in the hope that his people would turn on him. Yet never they did.

It was endless cat and mouse and today Harald felt too much like the mouse. He’d had no reports of Svein’s fleet from his spies and the beach they were sailing towards looked
suspiciously quiet. Usually the local militia would at least muster a defence but today the long stretch of sand sat still and bare.

‘Where are they?’ he said to Ulf, stood just behind him.

His marshal shrugged and pushed his curls from his face to look more closely.

‘Maybe they have the fever?’

‘Or maybe they are hiding.’

‘Well, they can’t do that for long and once they’re out in the open we’ll take them like we always do.’

Harald scanned the low horizon.

‘Something feels wrong.’

‘Maybe,’ Halldor said darkly, ‘that’s not on land but in our own craft.’

Harald grimaced. Halldor, as usual, had put his wizened finger on the heart of the matter. In his own ship all was well. Most of his personal warband of fifty had been with him for years and he
knew he could rely absolutely on their courage, their skill and, above all else, their loyalty. They had sailed into many battles together and sailed out again intact. Most of these men had grown
rich enough in Harald’s service to retire to farm and live out their lives in peace but every summer they came back to serve, not for the plunder, not even for the thrill, but because they
belonged. Much the same was true of the other four ships at the centre of this fleet but the ones at either side . . .

Harald looked across to the lead ship. It was captained, at the man’s own request, by the reinstated Jarl Kalv and over these first weeks of raiding he had proved himself a wily and
capable general. Harald trusted his abilities implicitly – but his loyalty? Kalv Arnasson’s loyalty was to himself alone and that made him dangerous.

Kalv had taken Harald and Tora’s sons under his fearsome wing in much the same way Einar had done with the last King Magnus. He had ordered them tutors, built them homes and commissioned
them clothes befitting not just princes but kings. He paraded them at court whenever he could and Harald could scarcely object – Magnus and Olaf were his proclaimed heirs and fine boys
besides. In a strange way, though, their very existence threatened his own. If Norway were to lose him now, they had kings to play with and powerful local lords to control them. It was a situation
the county had oft been used to in its history. Even at the start of this century the jarls of the north had ruled for fifteen years without any king at all and Harald was increasingly convinced
that Kalv was seeking a return to such blissful times. Plus, Elizaveta hated him.

Harald looked back to the beach, scanning the gentle rise of the grass-strewn dunes for any sign of an ambush. All was still.

‘If Svein is setting a trap,’ he said, ‘he’s doing it very well.’

‘So we must turn it to our advantage,’ Halldor said quietly. ‘Send the lead ship in.’

Harald looked at him.

‘To draw out the attack?’

‘Exactly.’

‘So we can then land strategically in the best place to back them up?’

‘If that seems appropriate, yes.’

Harald eyed his hunched lieutenant curiously. Halldor had not spoken openly against Kalv but Harald had seen him watching the northern jarl very carefully and knew he distrusted him.

‘What’s your plan, Hal?’

Halldor kept his eyes firmly on the horizon.

‘No plan. Simply that Jarl Kalv has a very high opinion of his generalship so it seems only fair to give him a chance to prove it.’

‘It does,’ Harald agreed, ‘but Finn . . .’

He glanced back to his foster father’s two ships, bringing up the rear. Finn was past his sixtieth year now and recently his proud frame had become hampered by a stiffening disease. He was
slow to move in the mornings and his fingers, in particular, were twisting painfully, making it harder for him to accurately wield a sword. Harald had taken to putting him in the rearguard both for
his calm head in a tricky situation and, increasingly, to protect him from the worst of the fighting.

‘Finn is six boat-lengths back,’ Ulf said, moving in at Halldor’s side. ‘He is not here to attack.’

Harald considered. His comrades spoke sound military sense. Their tactics were entirely justifiable – should they ever be called upon to justify them – and any other motivation would
be lost in the fog of battle. If any such there was.

He looked across the water, ostensibly assessing his position, though in truth he was seeing Jarl Kalv’s actions the day they had set sail from Norway. Much of the court had gathered on
the beautiful new jetties at Oslo to see off the invasion force that had sworn, once again, to finally take Denmark. Harald had ordered pennies thrown into the crowd and two barrels of mead to be
opened so all the fast-growing city could toast their king on his way, and the mood had been buoyant.

Harald’s ship had been launched into the water to huge cheers and he had stepped confidently up to board her, turning first to bid his family farewell. Such events had become slightly
awkward affairs with Tora and her two boys on one side and Elizaveta and her girls on the other but that day it had been made easy by Maria. His feisty little Maria, soon to turn five, was
heart-breakingly similar to her wilful mother, with an all-too-large helping of his own daring and stubbornness thrown in, and he sometimes felt as if she could see into his own mind.

‘Come on, Magnus,’ she’d said loudly that day, grabbing his hand. ‘Let’s say Godspeed to Papa.’

Magnus, who, like much of the court, was dazzled by his confident half-sister, had gone eagerly enough and Harald had even, to his amazement, caught a look of almost complicit fondness between
the two mothers. He’d held his arms wide to embrace both children, delighted that the world would see how obedient his unusual household was to his authority, but at that moment Magnus had
been snatched back. The boy, startled, had cried and Maria, furious, had rounded on his captor, hands on her slim little hips.

‘What are you doing?’ she’d demanded of Jarl Kalv.

‘What everyone else should,’ he’d snarled back. ‘You may kiss your precious papa if you must but Magnus will be the last to say farewell and alone.’