The Forever Queen (3 page)

The choir was singing, the beautiful blended voices of the monks raised high in musical prayer, the sound rippling and echoing up into the vaulted rafters and bouncing off the gayly painted stone walls. She understood these words, for the singing, as with the service, was in Latin, familiar and safe. “Let thy hand be strengthened and be exalted. Let mercy and truth go before thy face.” The soaring descant of the younger novices rising like a lark, high, to the very feet of God.

Prostrating herself, Emma lay flat along the tiles before the altar, their hard coldness seeping through her gown, the fine-woven linen beneath an overgarment that was elaborately embroidered with precious stones and pearls glittering in the candlelight. Wulfstan intoned the prayers and blessing, and it was he who raised her, showed her to the congregation, and asked, in a stentorian voice, whether she was acceptable as their Queen.

The shouted answer shook the roof and quivered through the building, to be taken up and echoed outside by the people of Canterbury.

“Aye! Aye! Aye!” Even the flames flickered, as if a wind had rustled through the nave.

“Do you, Ælfgifu, promise to keep good faith to God and peace to your people?”

Emma hesitated; these words were intoned by the elderly Archbishop of Canterbury, who spoke in a mumbled English, Wulfstan, at his side, translating into French. Had the old man said the wrong name? She raised her head, glanced quickly at him then at Wulfstan, but nothing seemed amiss to either of them. Perhaps she had heard wrong?

“Oui, I do so avow.” Her voice was quiet and solemn, barely heard.

The Chrism, the holiest of oils, was poured onto the crown of her head and trickled down her forehead. With a gnarled and bent finger the Archbishop of Canterbury traced the sign of the cross on her skin in symbolism of her change from a mortal woman to that of a Queen. A ring was slipped onto her finger, the royal ring, signifying her union with the kingdom, as her marriage band had signified her union with her husband. The ring of eternity, a seal of Holy Faith. As Wulfstan placed it there, she repeated his words, that she would shun all heretical depravation and bring barbarian peoples to the power of God.

The crown was heavier than she expected, gold, encrusted with jewels, pressing onto her temples, into the back of her head.

“Receive the crown of glory and the public honour of delight so that you may shine out in your splendour and be crowned with eternal joy.”

Overwhelmed, dazed, Emma felt her throat tighten, tears flood into her eyes at the enormity of Wulfstan’s words. She bit her lip, bowed her head as the choir’s united voices lifted into the Laudes Regiæ. She was Queen! Her life, her spirit, her very soul, given to England and God. Forever.

Æthelred was beside her, escorting her along the nave, and her vanity reached a new height of pride, the ceremony completed by her brother’s bow of obeisance. No other event throughout the passing of her life would impress upon her more the worth of a royal crown.

Several goblets of wine were doing very little to ease Emma’s headache and the pain drumming behind her temples, but at least she did not have to endure the noise within the King’s hall across the rain-puddled courtyard or wear that heavy crown during the entirety of the afternoon. Complying with expected tradition, Emma and her women had withdrawn to this smaller, more sedate Queen’s hall. Abbesses and the higher-ranking holy sisters, wives, mothers, and daughters were enjoying conversation and entertainment more suited to their genteel sex. Not that a headache and several dozen chattering women, each one of them eager for a personal opinion to be expressed and heard, formed a suitable combination.

Husband and wife had celebrated the bride-ale feast together, she sitting at Æthelred’s right hand, Richard to his left, on the high dais above the packed hall. How the servants had managed to manoeuvre between the trestle tables and benches with their laden trays of sumptuous delights was a mystery. The dishes served had impressed even Richard: meats and fish of all kinds and varieties. Roasted, poached, baked, fried. Cheeses, breads, and butters; pastries, sauces, fruits, and honeyed cakes; tarts and custards; new, untried delicacies and sworn favourites; wines, cider, and the seemingly never empty jars of amber, specially brewed, frothing bride-ale. A feast fit for a new Queen.

Bellowed laughter roared from the King’s hall, disturbing the wild birds, sparrows, blackbirds, and finches roosting among the high, cobwebbed and dusty, smoke-swirled rafters. The women muttered that the men were deep into the mead, ale, and cider barrels, and would be like bears with sore heads on the morrow. Gulping her English ale, Emma drained the goblet of heady, potent stuff. The morrow? Before tomorrow must come the night. Her wedding night. She was dreading it. How could she be intimate with a man she did not know, who stank of ale and spoke barely a word she understood?

Waving a servant forward to pour more Norman cider, the Abbess of Canterbury’s nunnery, seated beside Emma, indicated that her Queen wished for a refill.

About to shake her head and say she wanted no more, Emma changed her mind. Perhaps more would help steady her wavering nerve?

Sampling the golden liquid within her own cup, the Abbess licked her lips appreciatively. Said in French, “This is a fine cider your brother has engifted us with. From where in Normandy are the apples harvested?”

“De la Côtentin,” Emma answered, appreciating the diversion of conversation. “My apples, I suppose, my cider, now I am wed. La Côtentin is my dower land; I bring its revenue with me. Mama said for that alone I am a most valuable catch.”

Kindly, the Abbess squeezed Emma’s arm, remarked, “For yourself too, chêrie. You will be a handsome woman come maturity. Æthelred must be congratulating himself over there in that boisterous and rowdy hall. La Côtentin and a lovely girl to bear him a brood of strong sons? How fortunate he is!” With careful deliberation, for the girl’s sake, she did not extend the sarcasm.

Reading Emma’s doubtful expression and guessing the thoughts behind the sudden, obvious rush of fear, she added gently, “Come tomorrow morning, you will be wondering what worried you. Æthelred has a short temper, one as brittle as dried kindling, but I have not known him to be unjust to a woman.” She spoke accurately, but not with the whole truth. As with so many wives and concubines, Æthelred’s bedmates had not complained, but had endured in silence.

Emma appreciated the well-intentioned words, but they failed to reassure her. Æthelred was a virile and experienced man; she knew nothing of wedded intimacies.

The day had been long, overwhelming, and confusing, so many emotions surging, wave after wave, like a wind-driven high tide on an unsuspecting shore. She felt as though she had been half drowned, pulled from the surf, and hung up to dry; had been left wrinkled, crumpled, and drained. And soon she would have to face this next great surge of new experience. She gulped another mouthful of ale. Were the walls moving? Why were faces blurring, the lilt of voices rising and falling? She giggled, childishly, into her goblet, aware she was drunk.

Women had been coming and going through the rear door to visit the specially dug latrine pit. Realising it would be prudent to follow their example, Emma motioned for her cloak to be brought, stood, was momentarily stunned by everyone else coming immediately to their feet, the talk rapidly subsiding into silence. Not expecting her necessity to answer a requirement of nature to be so publicly acknowledged, she blushed. Unsure how to react—should she respond to the obligation of courtesy or ignore it?—she opted for compromise. Giving a slight nod to no one in particular, she announced, “Be seated. I attend a personal matter.”

She walked towards the door, her concentration focusing on putting one foot before the other without stumbling or zigzagging in too noticeable a wavering path. Thank God for her appointed captain of cnights, a Thegn, Pallig Thursson. Bless the man; he strode beside her, his hand lightly guiding her elbow, his face stern and serious, daring any one of these tongue-wagging gossips to make, or think, a disparaging comment. Not until the bearskin had flapped back over the opening and the outer door had closed behind them did the rumble of talk inside resume.

“It does not take a seer to predict they are taking this opportunity to talk about me,” she said, wearily leaning her head against the welcome solidity of the doorpost. She closed her eyes, let the world spin by, breathed in the coolness of the evening air. “Making fun of me.”

“In my experience, women spend more hours of the day deriding others of their own sex than on anything else. Especially women who feel wrong-footed,” he said in Danish.

Opening her eyes, Emma smiled at Pallig, marvelling at how a man could possibly be so superbly handsome. He wore his fair hair long, as did most of the English, and also like his fellow countrymen, a moustache that trailed to either side of his expressive mouth, although, unlike Æthelred, his chin was beardless. An axe rested with nonchalant ease over one hard-muscled shoulder.

Pallig Thursson, Thegn of Exmouth in the shire of Devon, had pledged his honour and service to Emma as she had sat enthroned beside the holy altar of Canterbury’s cathedral. He and fifty other freeborn landholders in turn had proclaimed their fealty and loyalty to her and her alone. They were the Queen’s cnights, a most special and elite body of men, with Pallig as their captain. Her captain. Emma alone would he obey and serve. In exchange for her gift of a heavily jewelled cloak pin, Pallig had taken his place at her side, from where he had declared, using the Danish tongue, he would not, while there be breath in his body, move by so much as one step.

Not having the courage to ask, Emma wondered whether in his enthusiasm he had meant that literally and would escort her right to the latrine pit itself, or wait at a discreet distance while she relieved herself. Wondered, too, what he thought of playing nursemaid to a girl. What would a man prefer? The company of his own kind, a bellyful of fine ale, and the teasing of the serving girls, or standing, brooding and bored, behind a bewildered child?

Something else she would have to grow used to, this necessity to be escorted everywhere. The girlhood days of freedom suddenly seemed far behind her. Dolls and games were gone forever.

“Ah, well,” she said, to break the awkward silence, “at least their gossip is providing entertainment.” She pushed herself from the door. “I can be content that they are enjoying themselves, even if I am not.”

“Lady?” Pallig, falling into step beside her, queried her meaning. “Are you not happy to be here in England?” He spread his broad hand, not understanding. “As a Queen, you now have everything.”

Emma forced a smile. “Oui, naturally I am happy to be here. It is an honour, n’est ce pas?”

“Indeed, ma’am, that it is.” Gesturing with his hand, Pallig ushered her forward. Hiding her embarrassment, she walked on, saying, with more authority than she felt, as they neared the evil stench of the pit, “I am capable of tending my own need. You may wait here.”

Turning his back, he planted himself, legs spread, arms folded, across the pathway to ensure her privacy.

Fumbling with the wicker gate, Emma wrinkled her nose at the foul stench of human waste and, holding her breath, squatted quickly over the hole in the covering board. Rearranging her garments, she took several hasty steps away from the noisome place, gulping clean air into her choking lungs, swallowing down the nauseous churn of her stomach. Pallig was waiting patiently, his back towards her. Was she the fool to think he liked her? That they might become friends? She smoothed her gown. Pallig had chosen to serve her, she had been told, but then they had said something similar in Normandy. “It is a good choice, chérie, that you have made, to wed this Englishman.”

Choice? Hah! She had good reason to be cynical of choice!

She shivered, gathered her cloak tighter. Now the rain had cleared, a mist was rising, creeping in over the palisade walls from the sodden forest beyond. Dusk. It would soon be night, and with night would come…Closing her eyes, Emma thrust the thought aside; instead, filled her nostrils with clean, spring-scented, rain-washed evening air. England smelt different than Normandy. Damper, more earthy.

She had not accounted for the deep breath mixing with the surfeit of ale, and her head whirled and spun. “Dieu!” she gasped, feeling herself toppling forward, the nausea that had been churned to the surface by the stink of the latrine rising higher into her throat. She put out her hand, intending to steady herself against the granary wall, and was promptly sick.

Pallig was there, supporting her, the great axe dropped, forgotten, to the muddy ground. “My Lady?” he asked, concerned. “Are you all right?”

Sagging against him, Emma laid her pounding head on his shoulder, feeling as if she would lose consciousness, but the swirl of red passed, and her stomach sank down to where it belonged.

Fumbling to untie the linen kerchief tucked into the neckband of his hauberk, Pallig dabbed at her mouth, wiping away the unpleasant residue.

“I fear,” she said, attempting to lighten her embarrassment by a weak jest, “that I have drunk overmuch of my bride-ale.”

Pallig laughed, the sound deep and friendly. “No bad thing for a wedding feasting, I am thinking.”

Her mouth twitched into a grateful smile, and he smiled back at her. “Unfortunately,” he said with a grin, “it may be a good thing for a feast, but too much drink can be bad for the head and stomach.” He bent to retrieve his axe. “Although there will be more than a few sore heads on the morrow, I am thinking.” He stuffed the soiled kerchief through his leather baldric, rubbed his nose with his fingers, and added, “And if you forgive my outspokenness, Lady, a shy maid such as yourself may be better off on the wrong side of sober this night.”

She blushed, embarrassed, ducked her head, and walked relatively steadily back towards the hall, Pallig following dutifully a pace behind.

He had his own young wife. He loved Gunnhilda, and she him, yet their first bedding had been an anxious time for her. It was no easy thing for a maid to put her trust in a man so completely. Was it so surprising? Too many men gave their wives no more regard than the hounds in the kennels and blatantly abused that given trust by caring nothing for the woman’s part in the doing of a wedding night.