The Forever Queen (60 page)

Spindrift, carried by the wind, touched her face, jerking her awake. She was startled, momentarily lost and disorientated; the dream of the gulls and kittiwakes interloping into reality. Her fingers clasped at the baby, gripping into the linen folds that swaddled him as he stirred and grumbled, her eyes widening into circles of horror, an indrawn breath gasping into her throat. The tide was sweeping in! She stood, her foot slipping on a frond of seaweed, the deep curve of the beach obvious now that the sea had filled more than half of it!

She started walking, forcing her mind from another bay she knew, one somewhat larger, admittedly, but Mont Saint-Michel was a place both beautiful and deadly, the island where the new abbey stood, the buildings clinging like goats to the rock face, more notorious for the speed of the incoming tide than its religious favour. As a child, Emma had always been afraid of going there, fancying she could hear the cries of the dead as they drowned in the sea that came in across the flat sands faster than a man could run. She chided herself as she walked; this was not Normandy. She could see the others, tiny specks in the distance, running towards her, two of the men attempting to urge ponies into the spreading water of a channel that separated her from them, the animals refusing to move forward. Leofgifu was waving her arms, shouting, but not a word reached Emma’s ears. She stopped walking. Her path was barred; the sea had run in over the sand, galloping up the flat expanse and flooding into the hollows. There remained the wide half-moon crescent of gold beneath the cliffs, but without a boat there was no way off. Fright beginning to rise, Emma stared out to sea, willing a sail to appear. The one moment in her life when she would board a ship without hesitation, and there was nothing here to carry her away!

She clutched Harthacnut in her arms, the child, sensing her growing unease, starting to whimper. How far did the sea come in? Would there be enough beach for her to sit, wait it out? Think! Keep calm, woman!

Debris nuzzled close against the cliff base. Driftwood, rotting seaweed, fish bones, broken barrel staves, half a cracked wine jar. A tangle of frayed rope. Incongruously, a battered boot. The cliffs were the tide line, then. Could she swim? The current would be strong, for the tide was not coming in straight but from several angles, and, aside, she was no fine swimmer. She remembered asking her father why the men caught in the tide at Saint-Michel did not swim.

“They do, ma petite, but the tide is stronger than the muscles of a man’s arms. The tide always wins.”

And what of Harthacnut? How could she swim with him in her arms? She looked again at the cliffs, soaring upwards seemingly to touch against the blue sky. There were patterns, horizontal lines in the rock, as if someone had built them in layers, one set down on top of another. Further along, to her left, the lines split, offset, one side pushed lower than the other.

She did not know how long she had left, but sense told her that she could not remain standing here, doing nothing. Quicker to die trying to swim, to drown in a matter of moments, rather than wait for death? She looked again up the cliff face, at the crannies where tufts of sea grass and mats of salt-tolerant flowers clung like limpets, at the gulls. Leofgifu had told of how her brothers used to climb down to collect their eggs. Climbed down? If they came down, they must have gone up again?

Emma studied the rock face, jiggling Harthacnut in her arms against his increasing fretfulness. There was a foothold, there a handhold. From that crevice to that niche…could she?

The tide had slithered another ten yards. Carefully she laid Harthacnut down on the sand; she would try a yard or two, see if it were possible, found as she set her foot in a hollow that the apparent solid rock crumbled into flakes of shale. She tried again, choosing something firmer to take her weight, felt with her fingers, and, pushing and pulling, climbed to a height of eight feet; then her boot slipped, and, with a gasp, she found herself dangling, holding on by her fingertips. She kicked with her feet, trying to locate a hollow, then fell, bundling into the sand. She was no more hurt than if she had taken a tumble from a horse, but how high were these cliffs? A hundred, two hundred feet? More? To fall would be to die. To stay would be to die.

Her boots and stockings must go, the leather sole had no grip, and she would do better to feel with her toes. Harthacnut? How was she to carry him yet keep her hands free? A sling? Yes! And it would give her more freedom of movement to take off her outer tunic; the overdress hung in more elaborate folds than the under-dress. Quickly, her fingers trembling, she unthreaded the side lacings and slipped out of the garment. The under-dress was of linen also, but plainer and draped straighter. She bunched the gown through the braiding of her girdle so that the skirt hung to her knees, not her ankles, then pondered how best to make a carrying sling for the baby. If only she had her veil, had not left it with Leofgifu! Her over-gown had been one of exceptional quality, a shame to rip it, but rip it she must. Tearing along the side seam, she split the garment in two, then worked on loosening one front panel, using her teeth to break the stitching at the neck. She had no cloak pins or brooches, but there was sufficient material to wind crisscross round her chest and neck, to make a safe and secure knot. For extra security she tucked the ends through the girdle band, pulled it tighter, a thick braid of strong, coloured silks.

Harthacnut was crying. She lifted him, jiggled him in her arms, distracting his attention, then eased him into the crossed sling so that he lay against her breasts, his weight more than she had allowed for. He had seemed of no consequence sleeping across her shoulder, but across her chest, the drag on her neck was already causing the muscles to ache. She checked the knots, looked again at the horizon. No proud fleet of dragon ships, no flotilla of fishing craft. Along the beach the men had not persuaded the ponies to swim; they could not reach her. Through the trees of the descending ravine she caught a glimpse of movement going upwards at speed, the bright red of a tunic. Elfric Wihtgarsson, Leofgifu’s nephew. They had teased the young man mercilessly about the brightness of that tunic. Was he racing up to the clifftop to summon help? Who from? There were no farms or fishermen’s huts along this wind-tousled stretch of coast, and Whitby was miles away.

“Shh, baby,” she soothed, stroking Harthacnut’s curl of red-gold hair. Taking a breath, she reached up and clasped her fingers into a crevice, and lifted her foot into another. Began nervously humming a comforting lullaby.

She swallowed hard, bit down the scream as her hand missed a hold and rocks crumbled. The story of the Green Man swam into her mind. If only he had called on God…Her tune changed to a holy one.

First He created Heaven as a roof.

The holy Maker, for the sons of man…

Grasping at a grass tussock, she paused, steadied her breathing, dared a glance downwards, regretted it. She had climbed fifteen feet, too far to fall. Harthacnut had ceased his crying, was silent. She smiled at him.

“Well, my sweeting, this is a fine way to journey, is it not?” Her legs were shaking, her arms aching. She climbed on, feeling carefully with her fingers, touching with her toes, ignored the sweat as it trickled down her back and between her breasts, the abrasive sores on her hands and feet that were already scraped raw.

“Almighty God and everlasting Lord…Why in damned Hell did you have to create the sea and these bloody cliffs?” The words tore from her as she shoved loose rock from a crevice. There had been no wind on the beach, but up here a salt breeze was blowing in off the sea. She risked another look down. The first waves were lapping at the base of the cliff, the tide almost fully in. As far to go upwards now as it was to go down.

In a bird-dropping-filled crack, her fingers moved a stone, cold and hard. She made to toss it aside, noticed its coiled shape. She had seen these at Whitby, lying on the beach or embedded in the rocks, some small, as tiny as a thumbnail, others as large as a cartwheel. Sea snakes, they called them, Saint Hilda’s serpents, for her command had petrified the evil creatures and turned them all to stone. There were other shapes in the rock, solidified bones, the imprints of shells and fronds that looked like bracken. Shapes that to a mind already filled with fear added more dread.

“Will we be turned to stone, eh, my dumpling?” Emma said to the child through ragged, uneven breath. “If we cling here long enough, will someone one day find our bones squashed into this rock face?”

A clump of samphire fell from above, hitting her shoulder. She looked up, distant faces, small against the sky, were peering down at her: Elfric in his red tunic; his aunt, Leofgifu, her veil askew, tears streaming; Leofstan, her captain, white-faced and at a loss for what to do. If they were calling to her, she could not hear for the singing of the wind. Above, in the blue sky she noticed two black ravens lazily circling.

“Odin’s birds,” Emma explained to Harthacnut as she hauled herself another four agonising yards. “His two messengers were ravens, Hugin and Munin, Thought and Memory.” Another yard, slightly to the left to avoid a solid outcrop that yielded no handhold.

“The birds of the battlefield.” Wished she had not considered that aspect. Were they hovering, waiting for her to fall, waiting to pick her bones?

Blood was oozing from the cuts and grazes on her fingers and palms, the fingers themselves swollen, too stiff to move, often locking, refusing to bend. Her feet, too, although she could only feel, not see, were as badly mauled. She was tiring. Should she stop, rest? She set her forehead against the rock, closed her eyes; her legs felt like lead, shook like the jelly-ooze of bone marrow, her arms a dead weight. Just let go…Harthacnut whimpered again; it felt as if she had slung a millstone weight around her neck. Best to keep going, find the strength, the energy. Keep going!

Easing slowly, right hand, left. Left foot, right.

From above they were trying to lower a rope made from joined reins, stirrup leathers, and harnesses. It would not be long enough! Nothing would be long enough! Her foot crunched into something, an abandoned nest, cracking open the eggs, the pungent sulphur smell wafting into her nose, gagging in her throat. On. Climb! Climb!

Then the sling ripped. Emma heard it, the tear as the weakened material gave way. Felt the weight suddenly ease from her neck as Harthacnut began to slide down her chest and stomach, what was left of her tunic fluttering away from her legs, sailing lazily, turning and twisting in the breeze. She did not have the breath to scream, but her heart lurched, the sickness rising from her stomach and her head spinning dizzily. Every fibre of her body was trembling as she pressed inwards to stop the baby from falling, held him tight between the cliff face and her abdomen. What to do? Oh, good God’s mercy, what to do? Think! Steady the rattling breath; breathe in; slow the frightened heart-rush of heat.

Carefully, she let go her clinging hold with her right hand, gripping tighter to a jutting rock with her left. She shifted her weight from left foot to right, lowered her hand, feeling for the child—she dared not look down, for the swirl of dizziness would come again and she would fall. Felt his curl of fine hair, his cheek, his neck, dug her fingers—those cramped, sore, swollen fingers—into the swaddling linen. Slowly, slowly dragged him up her body, ignoring his rising wails of protest, hoping the cries were nothing more than fretful indignation and soiled swaddling. She had him at her breast, his head at her left shoulder; tears would come if only she had the spare energy to shed them. She nestled her cheek against his hair, her breath catching in her throat, dared not let go of that clamped hold on him, though the pain in her hand was shrieking as if the muscles and sinews were afire.

She closed her eyes, breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. What to do now? She needed her hand free to climb…pushed him higher so that he lay across her shoulder and fastened her teeth into the folds of the linen, praying that the wet nurse had swaddled him tight, that the encircling binding would hold. Emma climbed.

Breathing was hard now, for she had only her nose, not her mouth. Her jaws were aching, the muscles locked in spasm. Sweat dribbled into her eyes; her hands were clammy, wet, sticky. But she would not stop or give in. Would not listen to the voice that shouted and screamed at her to let go. Give up.

Inch by inch she hauled herself up the cliff face. Inch by slow, pain-racked, agonising, stubborn-minded inch.

And hands were on her shoulders, twining into her hair, grabbing her arms, the baby; dragging her over the edge, rolling her onto the flower-speckled sweet grass, the wind hitting her sweating face, her sodden clothing. Her body trembling uncontrollably, the blood pounding through the taught, clamped fingers, the aching shoulders. They were crying together, laughing, jubilant—afraid. Unbelieving that she had done it, had climbed those cliffs with a babe carried in her teeth.

18 October 1020—Ashingdon

Cnut finished his prayer, crossed himself, then turned and smiled radiantly at Emma. The consecration of his church built at Ashingdon to commemorate the dead had been a moving service, one he could boast of for many years to come.

Emma smiled up at her husband as he helped her from her knees; the dedication prayers had been long, and her joints were always stiff since that nightmare climb. She still shuddered when she thought of it, breaking out in a sweat, feeling her stomach lurch, her muscles lock in remembered fear. When she dwelt on what could have happened…She stood, her hand clasped firmly in Cnut’s. No good would come of the might-have-beens; nightmares were for children, who did not face the reality of the day. What could have been had not happened; she was here, alive and well, except for the occasional creak of the knees and knuckles.

She turned her dazzling smile to Archbishop Wulfstan. By right, the dedication should have been made by old Ælfstan of Canterbury, but he had gone to God on the twelfth day of June, and his replacement Archbishop had not yet been appointed.