The Constant Queen (38 page)

Oslo, April 1057

‘N
ice weather for the race.’

Tora indicated the sky where a brave sun was poking through the clouds, as if checking it was safe to come out over the rapids in time for what was now an annual event on the great river at
Oslo.

‘Isn’t it?’ Harald agreed, panting slightly as he plunged into another bout of sword play with Magnus in the spacious yard in front of Tora’s house.

Her son, now ten, was proving himself, despite his small stature, to be athletic and quick. Harald, thank the Lord, was pleased with him and if, out of his father’s sight, Magnus still
chose studying bugs and furry creatures over battling, at least he was active. He was a fast and conscientious learner, Olaf too, and both were responding well to their tutors so that they stood up
as skilled, if not crazed, fighters and that, for now, was enough to satisfy their father. As Magnus ducked Harald’s thrust, sending him staggering, Tora took the chance to grab his arm.

‘Time for a rest perhaps? You don’t want to be all sweaty for the race.’

Harald grimaced.

‘Got to keep up my public face, hey?’

‘Well, haven’t you? It’s a big day for the city.’

‘It is.’

Harald released Magnus and let Tora lead him to a bench in the corner of her yard. She dunked a cup into a bucket of fresh rainwater and passed it to him.

‘She’s fed up, you know, Hari.’

‘Who is?’ Harald wiped his brow. ‘He’s quick on his feet, isn’t he, Magnus?’

‘Very,’ Tora agreed patiently, adding, ‘Elizaveta.’

‘Elizaveta is quick on her feet?’

‘No! She’s fed up.’

‘I know that. I’m having to . . .’

He stopped and Tora looked politely away. She knew exactly how Harald would be keeping his other wife busy and found it curious that Elizaveta was still entertained by bedsport. When Harald
spent an evening with her, as he sometimes did when he was in the north alone, they were more likely to play a game of tafel than with each other and for that she was grateful.

‘I think,’ Tora said carefully now, ‘that however rigorous you are, Hari, it will not be enough.’

‘She did say something of the sort but what can I do? I offered her a new viol but she didn’t want it. Life is different now. We are older. I have new priorities. I was thinking, by
the way, of taking Magnus journeying with me this summer.’

‘Magnus?’ Tora froze and looked across to her son, who had sheathed his sword and was peering into a bush, doubtless after some new species of spider for his records. ‘He is so
young, Harald.’

‘Not really. He’s ten, Tora. He will soon be a man in the eyes of the law.’

‘Maybe but . . .’ She fumbled desperately for convincing logic. ‘He is so small.’

‘In stature, yes, but not in temperament. Are you, my boy? Magnus?’ Harald looked around and saw his son’s blonde head sticking out from the foliage. ‘Ah,’ he said
fondly, ‘always in scrapes.’

It wasn’t true. Magnus had never been a naughty child and now, on the cusp of manhood, he was more composed than ever. He would somehow emerge from that bush as immaculate as he had gone
in, more concerned with his animal studies than with adventure, and the thought of him on a ship with only Harald’s hardened warriors to look out for him chilled Tora’s blood.

‘What have you got there, lad?’ Harald asked as Magnus backed cautiously out, hands clasped.

‘I thought it might be a Thor’s blue but it’s just a normal skyberry.’

‘Sorry?’

Harald peered at his son as if he were talking a foreign language and by way of explanation Magnus opened his fingers to let a bright blue butterfly spiral upwards to lose itself in the sky.
Harald was silenced for a moment then roughly cleared his throat.

‘How would you like to come on a journey with me, Magnus?’

Magnus glanced to Tora but she dared not interrupt and could only nod him helplessly on.

‘I would like that very much, Father?’ Magnus offered, more a question than a statement.

‘Of course you would,’ Harald confirmed. ‘You are a big boy now and must learn how to become a king.’

‘Must kings go on journeys, Father?’

‘Of course – they cannot stay at home congratulating themselves on what they already have.’ Tora heard the edge in Harald’s voice and recognised the source of his words
– Elizaveta had got to him then. ‘The world is a large and exciting place, Magnus. Would you not like to see it?’

Magnus considered.

‘I would,’ he concluded. ‘I would like to see all the different creatures in other lands.’

Harald looked both confused and, thankfully, intrigued by his son’s view of the world.

‘I hear they have many badgers in Ireland,’ he offered.

‘Iceland?’

‘No, Magnus, Ireland – a country past England ruled by many kings, several of them our Viking allies. We could perhaps visit Iceland on the way though. Call in on Halldor. Would you
like that?’

Magnus looked uncertain again. Halldor had frightened him as a child, but he knew his duty and stuck his little chin up.

‘I would like to go wherever you think best, Father.’

‘Good lad.’

‘And wherever Mother would like too.’

‘Mother? Ah!’ Harald bent down before Magnus. ‘Your mother will not be coming, son. This is a man’s trip.’

Magnus’s lip quivered and Tora felt her eyes start to fill. She looked away. She’d known this time would come; known her boys would become men, become warriors – it was the way
– but she had not looked for it to happen so soon.

‘Will Maria not, then, come either?’

Harald chuckled.

‘She would, given half a chance, I’m sure, but no. You, Magnus, are my first son and my heir and your duties start now.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Now, run along to your dinner. The race will be starting soon and we do not want to miss it, do we?’

Tora had rarely seen Magnus move so fast; he skittered across the yard and into the house as if there were a bear on the loose.

‘See,’ Harald said to her, ‘he’s delighted.’

Tora sighed. Harald saw what he wanted to see and she had not the guts to contradict him. A sudden thought occurred to her.

‘Why not take Elizaveta journeying?’

‘What? Oh honestly, Tora, not you too. Did you not hear me – this is a man’s trip.’

Her fear for Magnus made her bold. ‘Why?’

‘Why?!’

‘Will you be sailing to battle?’

‘No.’

‘Well then . . .’

‘But you never know when a battle might arise.’

‘And if Elizaveta is there she can keep Magnus safe.’

‘Oh, I see.’ He looked down at her. ‘Why not you, Tora?’ She shivered.

‘You have two wives, Harald,’ she told him crisply, ‘with two very different dispositions. Why take the wrong one for the task?’

Harald groaned.

‘I think I preferred it when you two hated each other.’ He took her hands. ‘Look, Tora, I know you’re concerned for Magnus. I understand that, but I’ll take care of
him. I’m no hot-headed young blood any more, just a fat old general.’

‘Did Elizaveta tell you that?’

‘She mentioned it and she’s right. That’s why I need to get into training again, why I need to sail, to see the islands that pay allegiance to me as a king. And it’s why
I need to be a man again, not some poultry-pecked stay-at-home king with more wives than anyone can easily cope with.’

Tora laughed, though her heart was still fearful. ‘Elizaveta will not like this,’ she warned.

‘Elizaveta is busy organising the Rapids Race,’ Harald countered. ‘She will barely notice.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Tora said but he had gone, striding after Magnus to dinner, and she could only pray she was proved wrong and that this afternoon’s racing would be
enough to keep Elizaveta at peace with herself.

Elizaveta shifted her boat, feeling its weight stinging her slender arms, and took the last few steps up the forest path to the start. She knew what to do. She’d
practised, sneaking out of the palace at first light when the rest of the royal household were snoring in their feather beds and the guards on Oslo’s new walls were too blurry-eyed to spot
her slipping down the streets through the dawn mist to the chirpy waters of the river Lo, the banks of which she now trod with her fellow racers. She knew, because she’d been over and over it
with Aksel before that first ever Norwegian race, how to spot the vicious downward suck of a whirlpool, the dark shadow of a rock too close to the surface, and the eerie light of a sandbank. She
knew how to find the current that would carry her, swift and true, to the great rope, strung between the grandstands on the lower plains to mark the finish line. She knew it and she was determined
to rise to it.

The others had looked at her a little strangely when they’d collected their boats but, eyeing up her slim figure in some of Aksel’s old clothes, they had not, she was sure,
considered her much of a threat and, indeed, she was not. She stood no chance of winning but she cared not. She wanted to finish, that was all. She wanted to feel again the thrill she’d known
as a girl before she had been jolted from the water by the dark cloud of the preying net.

‘How dare you stop me?’ she’d shrieked at her captors back then but they had been dancing to her father’s tune and had simply said: ‘How dare we let you
continue?’ Yet she remembered still the younger guard sneaking food to her bedchamber that night. ‘Next time, Princess,’ he’d told her, proffering stolen soup and ale,
‘please adventure on someone else’s watch,’ and she’d smiled. She’d smiled as she smiled now because he’d said ‘next time’ and at last ‘next
time’ was come.

Tora waved and smiled at the crowd, letting Magnus and Olaf walk before her so the people could see their future kings. Olaf, she knew, had not much hope at the crown unless
anything were to befall his older brother, or Harald were to win more land, and as thoughts of the planned voyage crowded her brain, she prayed her younger son would never rule. Harald’s
blasted landwaster made her shiver. The raven’s sharp wings made it look, to her, more like an angel of death than a conquering bird, and she hated the thought of her sons fighting beneath
its cold heart. Olaf would be happy as Magnus’s marshal, or maybe his Metropolitan, for the boy was enchanted by the rituals and music of the church. It would be a fine destiny for him, and a
safe one.

Tora knew Elizaveta was frustrated by her lack of interest in the world beyond Norway, but what Elizaveta could not see was how her own refusal to settle frustrated Tora too. Why did she seek
other countries, when this one was so rich in all they needed? Why did she always have to look for trouble?

She cast around for her fellow queen, her friend, but could see her nowhere. She would be with the racers, no doubt, giving them last-minute advice and seeing them off up the path to the start.
She would soon join the royal party on the podium where Harald was already stood, courtiers crowding around him. They seemed twitchier than usual, Tora thought, but then she noticed that their feet
were being jumped on by an over-excited Maria, welded to her father’s side and already clutching the winner’s cup. She smiled and waved, turning to gather six-year-old Ingrid, dawdling
behind, and lead her up the steps into the grandstand with her and the boys.

‘Where’s Mama?’ Ingrid asked anxiously.

‘She’ll be on her way,’ Tora assured her. ‘You know your mother – she never misses the Rapids Race.’

‘Take your places,’ the race-leader instructed and Elizaveta edged her canoe into the pool, slipping into it and wedging the skins around her body. The man
– the only one in on the secret – looked nervous now.

‘You are sure you know what you are doing?’ he hissed at her, but she knew – oh, she knew exactly.

‘I brought this race to Norway,’ she reminded him and he retreated, dark-eyed, already perhaps seeing Harald’s wrath.

‘He will not blame you,’ she assured him. ‘He will know there was nothing you could do to stop me.’

‘Save net you.’

She frowned furiously at him.

‘No one nets me.’

‘No, my la . . .’ He looked nervously around. ‘No. Not unless you are in trouble.’

‘I will not get into trouble. Raise the flag.’

Nodding, he stepped back, checked all the canoes were in the pool, and gave the signal to the lad up in the trees, who lifted the great red and white flag. Elizaveta heard a cheer from the
crowds below rise faintly up the river but it was muffled by the pines and the roar of the rapids and the sound of her own blood rushing around her head. She pointed her canoe to the edge, keeping
a little back from the muscular young men jostling for the best line, and waited for the gong.

Harald looked around as the flag rose above the trees and the crowd cheered.

‘Where’s Elizaveta?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Tora admitted. ‘I assumed she was with the racers but they’re long gone up the hill.’

Maria tugged on her skirts.

‘She’s not well,’ she said. ‘She said she was exhausted and wanted to lie down before the race.’

Harald glared at his daughter.

‘And no one woke her? She’ll be furious.’

‘
You
didn’t wake her, Papa,’ Maria pointed out.

Goodness, that girl had no fear, Tora thought, flinching back as Harald growled furiously.

‘It is not
my
job, Maria. That’s what she has maids for – and daughters.’

‘Oh,’ Maria said breezily, ‘I was too busy placing my wager.’

‘Maria! Princesses do not wager.’

‘Of course they do. Everyone wagers.’

Harald shook his head in despair but he was smiling at his precocious eldest – the child, despite her sex, most like himself.

‘What about Ingrid then?’ he demanded now. ‘Where is she?’

‘She’s here,’ Tora put in quickly, ‘with me. I brought her from the nursery with Olaf and . . .’

She stopped herself from adding ‘Magnus’; he was not supposed to be in the nursery any more but he still liked to sneak inside when he got the chance. He and little Ingrid were happy
together for hours, comparing their finds of plants and animals, and Tora loved to see them in such innocent amusements.