The Forever Queen (74 page)

July 1035—Roskilde

The wind, blowing from the sea, caught Harthacnut’s shoulder-length hair and added a few more tangles to its already wind-rumpled appearance. He scooped a lock out of his eyes and shaded his vision to look more carefully out to sea. She was definitely a Norwegian boat, but too far out yet to see her pennant or crew clearly. She was no trader’s craft or merchant ship, but a war boat. Just one? A feeble attack, if that was what she had in mind.

Harthacnut shrugged, turned his attention to the repairing of the sea barrier, clutching at his cloak as the wind tried again to wrestle it away. “That breach made last night will have to be mended before the next high tide,” he said to Scavi Redbeard, the man responsible for the upkeep and care of the barrier. “If we leave it and this wind should pick up again, the whole lot could go.”

“Ja, Lord, we are doing all we can, but as you see, it is not easy with the sea as wild as it is.”

“Do your best, Scavi.” Again Harthacnut glowered at the ship battling her way through the temper of what remained of a two-day storm. He turned to the captain of his housecarls, Thorstein, pointing to the ship. “Keep an eye on her, will you? I do not feel easy about the set of her sail.”

Thorstein, too, was watching the craft. There was nothing unusual about her: thirty-oared, a blue chequered sail, heavily reefed in the gale blowing out there. And yet…

“I shall be at the church, should I be required,” Harthacnut said as Thorstein nodded in acceptance and his other companion, Feader, fell into step beside him. The three of them were tall men, lithe of limb, strong of muscle—arms and shoulders that were used to taking a turn at the pulling of the oars developed a natural strength, and Harthacnut had never shirked his fair share of crewing a ship. At nearing six and ten, he had turned into the image of his father, with perhaps his mother’s nose and her ability to assess someone’s worth within the first few minutes of meeting him. His companions, Thorstein and Feader, were more than friends; men of ten years his senior they were, between them, guard, tutor, mentor, and comrade. Harthacnut had known them for all the years he had been in Denmark. Their fathers had served Cnut, their fathers’ fathers had served Grandpapa Swein. Under their eye the Danish boy King had learnt to use sword and axe, shield and spear. Had learnt to straddle a pony and not fall off too often, to handle the subtle moods of a boat and read the signs of sky, wind, and sea. Thorstein and Feader had aided Harthacnut from innocent child to maturing adolescent. There was no one, outside of his own father, whom Harthacnut could trust more.

“You are thinking that ship could have something to do with Magnus Olafsson?” Feader asked as he strode with Harthacnut along the timber-boarded walkways of the narrow street. Timber houses and workshops stood to either side, the daily noise and movement of a busy wharfside town, with all the attached smells and sounds. Baking bread mingling with fresh dung, women talking, children laughing; the geese, dogs, the cries of the gulls wheeling in the sky as the fishing boats unloaded their catch. Traders’ stalls were set with silver and copper jewellery; Harthacnut stopped to examine an amber necklace. His aunt Estrith enjoyed wearing amber, and this was exquisitely made. “I will take it,” he said, the craftsman beaming in pleasure that the King himself had bought from his wares.

“Magnus Olafsson is squeezing Norway bit by bit, like a woman pressing fresh-made cheese through a sieve. Soon, as revenge for his father’s death, he will have it all for himself, and I am powerless to do anything to stop him. What worries me, my friend, is that once he has wrung Norway dry, will he turn his hook nose towards Denmark? I am not best pleased that I may be facing a war.”

They turned into another street, where the glassmakers tended their craft, then left again into a narrower way behind the rear of a row of houses that led to the Bishop’s Gate and the Church of the Holy Trinity. Roskilde had been the first Danish town to have the proud boast of a stone-built church. Cnut had founded it, in his own and his son’s name, and when finished had laid his father to rest before the altar. It had been Swein Forkbeard’s desire, always, to return to Denmark; it had seemed fitting to bring his body from England and pray that his soul had followed. Harthacnut had not known his grandsire, but there were those in plenty in Denmark who had, and the nights were never lonely or boring when there were tales of the deeds of Swein Forkbeard to recount.

The people of Roskilde, and of Denmark, were as proud of the grandson as they had been of the grandfather. Harthacnut, although young, had taken the position and responsibility thrust upon him with serious equanimity, particularly as he reached the verge of manhood and the full spate of his duties fell upon him. There had always been men to advise and guide him, good, loyal men, and his father, too, of course, whenever he came to Denmark, but those trips had been shorter, less frequent as Harthacnut grew older and had found a firmer footing. Cnut was proud of him; Harthacnut would make a good King for Denmark.

Whenever he could, Harthacnut visited the Holy Trinity to pay respect to his grandfather’s tomb. On his knees, he willed himself to relax. It was no good talking to God if there was a background noise of jangled thoughts nudging for attention. The Bishop had taught him how to pray, and Harthacnut valued these few treasured moments of silence and solitude, when there was nothing and no one except him and Christ.

Boots scraping on the tiled floor. A discreet cough. Thorstein—Harthacnut would recognise the throaty growl anywhere. He finished the prayer, crossed himself, rose. “Well? She is in harbour?”

Thorstein looked grim. “My Lord, she is. The Lady Ælfgifu and her son, Swegen, your half-brother, seek sanctuary.”

***

Ælfgifu stood rigid, as if her body had been turned to stone. She was cold, hungry, scared—the sea crossing had been as much a nightmare as the final desperate days in Norway.

“They hounded me,” she complained, “threw sticks and bones and dung, spat and called me vile names. Not one man, not one whore-poxed, bastard-born turd came to help me or my son. Not even the men supposed to act as my guard! Not one! They gave me and my son a choice. Leave Norway or hang.” Her face was a contorted mask of fury. “I demand a fleet and your best crews to take us back, to enforce my rule. Magnus must be defeated; the will of Cnut, your father, must be imposed.”

Harthacnut was staggered at her presumption. She had barely waited to be announced into his hall, but had swept in through the doors, Swegen, her miserable, plump rag of a son, scuttling at her heels. Nor had she waited for the politeness of formalities, but had launched immediately into a tirade of abuse and condemnation against the Norwegian people, followed by this demand for assistance.

For a full minute Harthacnut sat, staring in disbelief at her audacity, saying nothing.

“You have the effrontery, madam, to burst uninvited into my hall. To that you add demands of my crews and ships, without any suggestion of financing such a nonsensical expedition. Why should I bail you out of a sinking ship? What are you to me? What have you been to my mother, save a festering thorn that ought have been poulticed and plucked before I was born?”

“You dare talk to me so?” she snapped at him. “I am your father’s first-taken wife. This”—and she shunted Swegen forward, the boy wiping at a dripping nose—“is your father’s firstborn son. Cnut set us to rule Norway. It is your duty to fulfil his wishes.”

“My duty is to Denmark. If Magnus Olafsson cares to bring a fight to me, then he shall feel the edge of my blade, but I am not in a position to take the sword to him. Not for myself, my father, nor, and most especially, for a whore and her bastard-born by-blow.”

Ælfgifu took one angry step forward—just one—and found herself surrounded by the sudden standing to attention of Harthacnut’s housecarls, all of whom cradled an axe or a spear. Had she made that two steps, the second would have been her last.

“Your father shall have something to say about this when he hears!” she hissed, rage oozing from every pore.

“Then I suggest, madam,” Harthacnut answered laconically, “that you reboard your ship and go personally to tell him.”

She was a proud woman who had no idea how to admit defeat or to show humility. The years of bitter hatred had wormed into her, the cruelties she had witnessed seeping like black pus from her heart to contaminate her soul and every fibre of her body. Hate breeds hate that can never, once it has anchored, be sated.

“You shall suffer for denying me, Harthacnut.”

“Get her from my sight,” he ordered. “Come sundown, I do not wish to see her ship in my waters.”

***

Swegen sat hunched and miserable in the stern of the ship, a walrus skin pulled close to his shoulders and head. It was supposedly waterproof, but how did he stop the slop of the waves from breaking over the side? The runnels of water gushing along the deck? He was wet, cold, and uncomfortable, and he had not liked Norway, not the land, the mountains, nor the people. He never wanted to eat another fish, smell the stench of another oily dead seal or whale ever again. Swegen loathed the sea, and he had been useless at government—what little chance he had had at it. His mother had done most of it, making charters, judging law, dictating this and that. Swegen could barely read, although the tutors had attempted to beat into him the letters and sounds scrawled across the pages. Harold was good at all that, but not Swegen. All he was good at doing, as she often told him, was annoying his mother. She blamed this present predicament on him too, of course.

She said they were to return to England and demand that Cnut call out the scyp fyrd to redeem her honour. Swegen could not see Cnut doing it, but who was he to gainsay his mother when she was flying in one of her rages?

He looked out at the heave of the sea, the white-topped waves that rose and fell as the ship lurched up and down from trough to trough, her keel rolling with the heavy swell. He felt sick. He did so hate the sea. And his mother. Scrabbling to his knees, he leant over the side, his belly spewing bile. He knew the crew was laughing at him—Cnut’s son, the useless dog who spilled his guts as soon as he set foot aboard a ship. Did not care. His only thoughts were of despair and discomfort, of the hopelessness of everything.

Whether the high, wind-driven wave that shook the boat and tossed her, as if she had been no more than a delicate child’s toy, knocked him overboard, or whether he let himself fall, no one knew. One moment, as the ship rose, he was there; the next, he was gone.

Ælfgifu screamed that they were to put about, but the sea was rough, and although they looked and called until nightfall, they could not find him.

Perhaps he had not wanted to be found.

September 1035—Falaise

The fear that Edward had felt when Duke Robert had threatened to invade England had been nothing to this. This was a gut-wrenching, cold, clammy terror, for the Duke, Robert, was dead and Edward did not know what to do. He had died at Nicea on the third day of July, returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Herleve, hysterical with weeping, declared over and over that she had begged him not to go. The eight-year-old child, William, had sat, withdrawn and silent in the same window seat for nigh on four and twenty hours now. And Edward? Edward was close to panic.

Already Normandy was crackling with the sparks that threatened to turn, in the next breath, into a blaze of war, for the men who had professed to love and respect Robert were greedy to sit in his empty chair. Whereas Edward and Alfred had always been welcomed at court, suddenly they were being regarded with distrust and suspicion. Who could blame the noblemen of Normandy? The only heir was an eight-year-old boy, born illegitimately of a tanner’s daughter who now had a nobleman as husband; anyone who was able had the chance of claiming Normandy for his own. A Count or Viscount, or an exiled English Ætheling, son of the dead Duke’s aunt?

Edward wanted a duchy as little as he wanted a kingdom, but to profess his lack of interest would be to open himself to ridicule. These harsh-minded, warmongering men of Normandy struck with an axe first and asked questions later, if it occurred to them to ask. They were not the sort of men who would believe a thirty-year-old exiled Prince would not want to take power for himself if opportunity presented itself. Edward had tried convincing Robert of it, to no avail—even Alfred could scarce accept his elder brother did not want a crown or coronet, only a monk’s cowl.

“What do we do, Alfred? What do we do?” Rocking backwards and forwards, hunched into a ball, his arms clamped tight about his knees, Edward’s plea was pitiful. “You can fight; you are skilled with sword and shield, but I am not. Could we go to Henry, do you think? Would France protect us?”

Alfred doubted it. “Henry will have his hands full keeping this lot on a tight leash without the need to bother with us. We would do better to attach ourselves to the strongest Lord and brazen it out. Offer our swords in service.”

That idea did not appeal to Edward at all. Tentatively he suggested, “We could go to Jumièges? Robert Champart will take us in.”

Alfred raised his hands in despair. “A life of celibate boredom may suit you but it has no appeal to me. I enjoy my women too much, even if you do not.”

Edward said nothing. Women frightened him; he had, so far, had very little to do with them.

They were in the great hall of Falaise castle. Herleve, who had always regarded it as hers, had shut herself away in the solar, up at the top of the corner stairs, the servants going about their daily tasks as if nothing had happened. But then to them, Edward supposed, once the initial excitement had been exclaimed over, there would be nothing different—a change of Lord, that was all. Routine would be the same, the daily, weekly, monthly drudge. Get up, do your work, go to bed. The shakes began in his body again, trembling through his arms into his hands. “We could always write to Mama?” he said, knowing it was a stupid thing to say as soon as the words left his mouth.