The Forever Queen (70 page)

Robert kept to himself that he had no intention of setting Herleve aside. Or that at the time of his marriage, a second child was already planted in her womb.

For Robert, the alliance with Cnut was essential for the single reason of funding, but God could be a cruel jester with an obtuse sense of humour. On the night of the fifth of August, scarcely two months after the marriage, Robert’s brother was stricken with a seizured flux that emptied his stomach, his bowels, and his body of life.

There were those who suspected poison, but, equally, the fish at supper had tasted rancid, although none other had suffered similar symptoms. But then Richard had always been prone to eat more than was good for him.

January 1028—Rouen

A son. Herleve had given birth to a son. William, he was to be called. A lusty, healthy boy. Estrith had learnt of his existence eighteen days after his birth, after her husband had returned from Falaise and boasted of him to his court. If he had assumed Estrith would not care, then he assumed wrong.

“You will not see that slut again,” Estrith said, standing in front of Robert, her arms folded, her back rigid, face set. “I forbid it.”

Robert laughed. “That slut, as you call her, is the mother of my children.”

“They are the bastards of a whore. This boy will never be anything more than the by-blow of a tanner’s daughter. I am your wife, not her.”

“And I wish to God she was!” Robert roared back. “She is good and kind; she gives me pleasure, gives me love. What do I get from you? Dieu, there is more warmth in a block of ice than in you.”

“Do not blame me for any failure in bed; the fault is yours. How you can believe that boy was sired by you is beyond comprehension. How did you manage it? That flaccid cock of yours has as much chance of siring children as a mule in a herd of mares! I’ve seen more life in a dead chicken than in your pizzle!”

That hurt, for it was true, all of it. Robert rarely visited Estrith’s bed, and when he did, he was so besotted with drink he did not know whose bed he was in. Yet he was never impotent with Herleve. Why was that? he wondered. Because she was young and beautiful and made no demands of him?

“Either you avow never to see her and the boy again, or I shall ensure the child never sees his first birthday.” Estrith was not bluffing.

“You would not dare!”

“Would I not? I cut my husband’s throat for humiliating me; I could as easily do so again with a child.”

“I will have you locked up, have you flogged, starved, beaten…I’ll…”

Estrith laughed. “You can do nothing. If my brother should ever learn of harm inflicted on me by you, then you will surely know the meaning of suffering. Not only this bastard son shall be killed, but his whore mother also. Her death shall be slow, after all of my brother’s army have used her, after she is made to watch as this son of hers is ripped to pieces by dogs or dropped alive into a vat of boiling oil. Lay one hand on me, Robert, and all that shall happen.”

Robert raised his hand, went to strike her.

There was no fear in her face; she did not flinch, did not blink. “Do it,” she whispered. “Hit me, give me an excuse to prove what my brother is capable of.”

Angry, powerless, Robert ran, retching, from the room, did not stop running until he reached the upper walls of the castle. High above the town he leant his arms on the parapet wall, let the wind sting his eyes and bring the tears. No one would think he was weeping, not like this.

How could he give Herleve up? But he would have to, he had known that; from the first when he had lain with her, he had known he could not keep her. She was a tanner’s daughter. How could he make her Duchess? Dieu! If only he knew of a way to be rid of Cnut! Assemble an army, conquer England, take it by force, make it his. Huh! Hopeless dreams! Unless…

Robert’s fingers gripped the stone, his nails digging in, bruising, painful, but he did not notice. Unless he could do it another way? What if he were to do as he had once, in half jest, suggested? What if he were to put Edward back on the throne? He would need approval from his overlord, the King of France, of course, but that should be easy enough done. He would need allies, too. How could he get them?

He relaxed, released the tight grip, rubbed his hands, thinking…Oui, it might work. Had not that old lecher, Herluin, Vicomte de Conteville, always envied Robert his mistress? Herluin was wealthy; he wanted Herleve as wife; he said so often, had again and again offered Robert incentives to give her to him. What if the price was an army and agreement that Robert could see his children and their mother whenever he wished? With Herleve legally married, what possible impropriety could occur?

Huh! Let Estrith parade her high and mighty indignation about that!

June 1028—Nidaros, Norway

Cnut’s talent was the aptitude to use his brain. If something went wrong, he would analyse it, look at it from every angle, decide why it was a failure and what best to do about it. Never, during the entirety of his life, did he make the same mistake twice.

Olaf of Norway had got the better of him once; he would not be doing so again. Sailing from England in the late autumn of 1027, he took fifty ships to start the bringing of Norway under his control. He was not expecting too much of a fight, for there was more than one way to destroy a rat’s nest. His ploy would perhaps take longer, all winter and spring, and would be less exciting and more tedious, but it would be wholly effective.

From as far away as Rome, Cnut had been putting tactics into place: a subtle word here, a bribe there, sowing seeds, scattering whispers and grumblings into the wind. Olaf was not a great leader, nor was he especially liked. How simple for Cnut to build on the resentment against his austere rule and his paranoia of rooting out all heathen and pagan practices. The people of Norway had nothing against the Christian God, many of them happy to embrace Him along with Thor and Odin, but they did not take kindly to being ordered when it came to the personal belief of worship. They preferred to make their own choices, their own decisions, and, if necessary, their own mistakes. No Lord, no matter how powerful or how devout, would sway the í-víking opinion by force. Olaf’s mistake, Cnut’s advantage.

So hated was Olaf that by early summer Cnut found he could sail along the entire coast of Norway and not meet a single ship in opposition. At each landing place he gathered more men and ships, until at the most northerly point, at Nidaros, all men of importance were willing to submit to Cnut as the undisputed ruler over all Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and England. Recognising defeat when it snapped at his backside, Olaf fled into Russia.

For Swegen, sailing with his father, the moment of triumph was exhilarating. “My God, Father, is it so easy to achieve revenge? Why my mother goes on so much about it, I cannot imagine.”

Raising an eyebrow, Cnut turned, with his arms casually folded, to observe the boy seated and stuffing his face with roasted meat to the far side of the cooking fire. Did he never stop eating? Either he was chewing, gnawing, running his fingers round the residue of a bowl, or searching for something to fill his already paunched belly. He was in his fourteenth year, yet had the girth of an old beer-barrelled man. Ælfgifu’s son. Cnut’s firstborn. A worthless hunk of whale blubber.

“So you think war is easy, then, do you, lad?”

Through a mouthful of wheat bread: “Ja. Look how easily you’ve made an empire for yourself.” Swegen chewed, swallowed. “And a future kingdom for us, of course, for Harold and me.”

How odd that his three sons were all so different. Swegen here, lazy, greedy, expecting everything to be provided for him—so much like his mother, the very image of her, even down to the nasal whine when circumstances did not go his way. Harold. Harold was the fighter, the athlete, the wrestler, the one who always had to be better, braver, stronger than everyone else. They called him Harefoot, his friends, for his fleetness at running. Cnut did not deny him the praise he deserved for all those attributes, but where was the counterbalance? Where was the willingness to acknowledge others as good, the humility of losing? And Harthacnut. Still a child, not quite nine years, but with a streak of ruthlessness about him that would, when he became a man, bode ill for an enemy. He was the quiet one, the one who accepted that it was as important to read books as it was to learn how to use a shield and spear. Swegen the greedy, Harold the warrior, and Harthacnut? Harthacnut was the thinker. The one who, although the youngest, would, in Cnut’s opinion, one day make the better King. Although Ælfgifu would never see it that way, but then she was not a woman who could see anything except her own narrowed vision and her ceaseless lust for vengeance.

Cnut scratched at his beard and set his boot on the brick hearth-ledge, leant forward, his arm resting on the raised thigh. “I may decide that only one of my sons deserves to step into my boots when I kick them off. Then where will you be?”

Sullenly—there it was, that whine—Swegen complained, “Mama says you want all this to come to us. Denmark and Norway for me, England for Harold. That is why you came to Northampton to fetch me and bring me here with you on this campaign. That is why you left Harold in England. You brought me with you because you wanted me at your side when you transferred the body of your father from York Minster to your new church at Roskilde. To show your men I am your eldest son and the chosen Ætheling.”

This time it was Cnut who laughed. “You think all that, do you? Or, rather, your mother does. The extent of her imagination never ceases to amaze me.”

Swegen’s scowl deepened. He disliked being laughed at.

“And what of Harthacnut?” Cnut asked. “What is there in this grand scheme for him? Does your mother conveniently forget that he also was with me? That he stood on my other side when we laid your grandfather to rest in his beloved homeland?”

The boy said nothing.

“Let me enlighten you to another way of thinking!” Cnut snapped, the easy nature disappearing as he came to attention and stormed around the hearth to lock his hand into the boy’s neckband. “I brought you here because there is no point in a man having sons if those sons do nothing more than fill their bellies or brawl with others half their size. Nor am I interested in building an empire. As King of Denmark, I control the narrow entrance from the Kattegat into the Baltic Sea. With Norway mine, I have command over the open waters that lead to that entrance. As King of England, I rule the North Sea. I dominate the great trade routes which lead from the Bay of Biscay to the eastern Baltic. No one who wishes to trade in my waters can ignore me. That is why I am recognised as an equal in any European court; that is why I am respected and listened to. And that is why neither you nor Harold will receive any of it solely for yourselves. If you think you can hold a kingdom, then I suggest you get off your fat arse and start learning how to do it!” He shouted the last and, releasing his hold, cuffed Swegen’s ear.

The boy slumped onto his stool, miserable and resentful. His father would not have dared hit him had his mother been here. And as for Harthacnut, what, that twisted shrimp? Swegen could eat him for break-fast. Or at least Harold could.

“I’d do a better job than Harthacnut,” Swegen grumbled, scowling up at his father. “He is nothing more than a milksop babe.”

“He will grow.”

“As will I!”

Cnut was impressed at that, that the lad was more proficient at shouting back than he had realised.

September 1029—Bosham

Cnut poked his head round the storeroom door, his eyes adjusting from the bright sunlight into the dimness. “They said I’d find you here,” he announced as, ducking, he walked through and down the three steps, reaching out to take one of the apples off the table.

Emma smacked his hand. “If we ate them all, there would be nothing to store!”

“One will not go amiss, surely?”

On every shelf, bench, ledge were rows of crocks and jars. On the floor, larger pots, their openings covered with greased parchment, the string ties sealed airtight with a mixture of clarified butter and oil. Barrels, wooden chests, small boxes, all of them, every one, crammed with the year’s harvest. Boiled, honeyed, or dried fruit; rose-hip preserve. From the roof beams hung bunches of drying herbs. Nuts, berries, root vegetables.

“Not that one,” Emma said sharply to one of the servants, pointing at the apple in the girl’s hand. “It is mouldy; put it with the others for the pigs.”

She turned back to Cnut. “What is it you want? You can see I am busy. With Gytha about her woman’s work, I have the two households to oversee, my own and hers.”

“Having had a daughter last time, Godwine is hoping for another boy,” Cnut offered as conversation.

“Godwine will get what the good Lord and Gytha together give him.” Again she attempted to shoo Cnut out; there were all these apples to store in the bran barrels, then the last of the plums to cover in honey and seal in jars. The fruit had ripened well this year, the crop offering a good yield. Everything that was not to be eaten immediately was to be stored in sealed containers, for rats and mice could make short work of a storeroom, despite the employ of cats, ferrets, and weasels.

“I need to talk,” Cnut admitted as he finished the apple.

“What, now?”

“It is a fine, clear day. Will you walk with me?”

“What is it you need to talk about?”

Cnut nearly answered with snapped impatience, “Just stop what you are doing and listen,” the words hastily bitten before they left his mouth. “Anything and everything, Emma,” he said, “but mostly my sons.”

Emma passed another handful of apples across to be packed in the bran. There was maybe a further half an hour’s work to be done here, but these girls were sensible, they knew what to do, and aside, this was only a favour she was offering Gytha. Once the babe was born, and she was on her feet again…“Finish here,” she ordered, “and see you tidy everything away. I shall be checking.” She unfastened the sacking apron from her waist, presented herself to her husband. “To where do we walk?”