The Forever Queen (79 page)

Gytha said nothing, stood, staring. What was he talking about? She shook her head, frowning, then laughed, remembering the incident from so long ago. “Who told you of that silly business? One of the northern men who had once been friends with Ulf, I wager?”

“Not Ulf, Leofric. Eilaf told Earl Leofric, who then told me, and I had no doubt he enjoyed waiting for the right moment to do so. How he must have been laughing at my stupidity all these years!”

“Your stupidity? No, Godwine, his.” Carefully Gytha picked the tight fingers from bruising her skin any further. “He told you false, husband. That you believed him makes you the fool, nothing more.”

“You deny you lay with Cnut?” The hurt spilt from Godwine’s mouth. How he wanted her to deny it, and wanted to know she told him the truth!

Gytha put her hands on each side of his enraged face and lovingly waggled his head from side to side, a calm and gentle shaking. “Of course I deny it. It is not true. My brothers—both of them—always were able to see great mountains where there were only molehills.” And she told him precisely what had happened those years ago, every detail, leaving nothing out. Of the King, drunk and lonely, of Ulf returning ahead of Godwine. Did he remember the night Cnut had slept, snoring fit to wake the entire hall, in their bed?

Godwine furrowed his brow, thought back. Did he? No.

“Swear to me,” he said, taking her hands, crushing her fingers with his urgency for knowing. “Swear to me my sons are mine.”

Godwine desperately searched his wife’s blue gaze for deceit, but he saw none, saw only her own hurt at being doubted.

“God’s teeth, that bastard brother of mine made me swim to shore, would not let me in the boat!” The door slammed open; Swegn, dripping wet, shivering, burst in. “Edith said you were in here, Mother. Where are my dry clothes? I need to get out of these before my sodding balls freeze solid and snap off!”

He stopped, realised his mother and father had been quarrelling, retreated, raising his hands in submission. “I will find them; I will manage.” But Swegn, being Swegn, an avid collector of other people’s business, could not resist listening at the door.

Gytha tentatively smiled. “And you doubt he is your son? Even though he bears the image of your face and swears in the exact same manner? Still you doubt?”

Godwine slowly shook his head, slumped against the timber wall, attempted an apologetic grin. “We are, all of us, using mud to throw at our opponents. Emma accuses Ælfgifu of lying over the parentage of Harold; Leofric accuses you of bedding with Cnut. As a goad to destroying loyalty, such tactics appear to be working well, do they not?”

March 1036—Roskilde

Striding into his King’s hall, Harthacnut removed his cloak and, tossing it to a servant, walked towards his visitor with both arms outstretched in greeting. “Godwine! I am so sorry to have kept you waiting! I have been inland. Once it thaws, we will be knee-deep in mud.” The two men embraced, hand clasped to arm. “You were not waiting long I trust?” Harthacnut added, guiding his guest towards the hearth-fire and shouting for ale to be brought.

“I arrived yesterday, so, no, not long.” Yesterday morning, a whole day, but no matter.

“And you are well? Aunt Gytha? Your sons? I suppose you know Aunt Estrith died last November?”

He did. “Two days after your father, I believe?”

“Yes, strange that, was it not?”

Again Godwine nodded, yes, strange. Idle chat, surface gossip. Since setting out, Godwine wondered what he was doing coming to Denmark. He felt in his bones this was going to be a fool’s errand, but Emma had begged him to fetch Harthacnut home.

“I would ask a favour of you, Godwine.” Harthacnut was attempting to be the pleasant, welcoming host, yet the smile did not reach the eyes that did not meet with Godwine’s.

Making a jest of the undercurrents of discomfort, Godwine laughed. “What? Favours already, and I have only just arrived!”

Harthacnut laughed. “I would have you take Beorn Estrithsson with you when you return to England, for a season or two, if Aunt Gytha would not mind the having of him at Bosham? He is missing his mother, and, being the same age as your Harold, it may be that the change of scene will cheer him.”

Godwine happily agreed. He had been going to suggest it himself, although not so soon upon arrival. To talk of when he returned within the same breath of giving welcome seemed to be a barrelful of tactlessness.

“The eldest boy, his brother Svein, is taking the loss better?” Godwine asked.

“He has other things to occupy his mind. I have made him my heir, you know, should I not have children.” Harthacnut chuckled again, a mirthless, self-deprecating sound. “Which, given I never find time to bed a woman, seems nigh on a certainty at the moment!” He was not going to be telling his personal secrets—that he had tried with women but found himself impotent. Who did you trust enough to speak of a matter like that? Certainly not a man who had sired a whole crew of sons.

Godwine remained silent. Harthacnut was a good-looking young man. He had turned six and ten last birthing day, looked all of five or six years older. When he compared him with his own Swegn, God’s truth, how clumsy and immature his son appeared; although having discovered women, Swegn could never find the time for anything except sexual pleasure.

There was no point in rummaging about the bush. Godwine decided he might as well come straight out with why he was here. Surely Harthacnut must have guessed, so why this pitter-pattering? “Your mother has sent me to fetch you.”

“More ale, Godwine? Your tankard is empty. Ah, good, they are bringing us food.”

Looking at him, Godwine realised that, although Harthacnut had an air of confidence and carried himself well—knew the right gestures, the rights words to say—he was too young to show much of a beard or moustache. The skin around his nose and forehead was blemished with adolescent pimples. He was a boy, nothing more than a boy doing a man’s work.

“In public, your mother hides her grief, but she often has red-rimmed eyes of a morning and sits for hours gazing at nothing, her fingers fiddling with whatever she holds in her hand.”

Harthacnut chewed the meat pasty he had selected, wiped crumbs from his mouth with a linen cloth. Denmark was his home. He knew so very little of England.

“My father brought me to Denmark when I was a child. From then I saw him perhaps for a month once a year, occasionally longer. How can I miss a man I did not know?”

“It is not for your father that I am here, but your mother.”

“I am not a hound to be whistled to heel, Godwine.”

“We never thought you were, lad.”

Harthacnut’s sudden-risen hackles settled. “All I know of England is a manor house here, a town there. I remember nothing of it from childhood. I was not born until I came to Denmark.”

What he said was not quite true—there was much he remembered, but all of that he had tried very hard to forget. He remembered Bosham, with its white church and tower, the way the sea crashed in across the causeway and rushed, booming, up the mill race. Oh, he remembered the mill race and a girl beneath the water. Her hair floating, her white face staring up, her mouth open in a silent scream! He remembered Godwine bending over him, very angry.

“I thought you were going to hit me,” Harthacnut said suddenly, tucking his hands between his knees, his head bent down.

Godwine was confused. He had not raised his hand, made any movement, had he? “When, lad? You have lost me.”

Harthacnut’s face was full of pain as he glanced up. “When Ragnhilda died.”

“That was a long while ago.”

“You were so angry.”

“Not angry, frightened. I did not know what I was going to tell your father. Have you not realised now, as an adult, that the first thing we do when we are scared or in the wrong, is to shout?”

Very quietly, Harthacnut said, “It was so hard to accept that father loved her more than me.”

“Nonsense. He loved you all, which is why we are in trouble now. Cnut could not willingly set aside any of his children. If he had, Ælfgifu would not be attempting to claim the throne for Harold.”

Godwine had never liked Harthacnut. He had been a sly, whining child, throwing a tantrum when he did not get his way. He saw before him now a thin young man with no colour to his face and no substance to his body. How could this boy outwit someone like Ælfgifu or beat a warrior such as Harold in battle? Yet he had held Denmark all these years.

“You have no intention of coming to England, have you?” Godwine said abruptly, realising the truth.

In answer, Harthacnut stood, beckoned Godwine to follow him outside. Beyond the door he pointed at the view. “England is not my home, this is. My first loyalty is to Denmark and, if I can get it back from that thieving Magnus Olafsson’s hands, Norway, too. To the north there is Sweden, which I rule, and Finland looks to me for protection. I command the fjords and the seas. Every ship that enters these waters or wishes to sail north does so with my permission, or did, until Olafsson poked his nose over the horizon. If I leave Denmark and sail for England, he will seize his chance and take all of this for himself. I cannot be risking that.”

“Nor can you risk losing England.”

“England can wait. Mother can hold it for me.”

“No, Harthacnut, she cannot. Not for long. We can stall until the summer at the most. Come to England, secure your crown, then use the English scyp fyrd against Magnus Olafsson.”

“The English would not agree, Godwine, and you know it.” How could he admit the truth without this proud and capable man assuming him to be a weakling coward? How to say that he had no interest in England, did not want it? “I am King of Denmark. I have no ambition to be King of England also.”

Godwine felt as if the wind had been taken from his sails. He shook his head in disbelief. “Are my ears hearing wrong? You are refusing to come?”

The sun was low, although it was not far past midday; in Denmark, in winter, the days were short, the nights long. Staring out into the fresh, brilliant sparkle of blueness, Harthacnut knew he could not leave, whatever Godwine said or thought.

“I had a letter from my sister,” Harthacnut said, hooking his thumbs through the broad, bronze-studded belt. “From Gunnhild. She is settled and appears happy at the German court. I wish her well in her marriage. In this letter she said Mama was desperate for me to go to England. Why, Godwine? Answer me why Mother wants me there. For my sake or hers?”

Godwine’s answer was succinct. “For England’s sake. For England.”

The day was bright, but the air cold. Harthacnut shook his head. “No, Godwine, I have seen precious little of her, but I know my mother well enough to understand it is her crown she wants to preserve, not mine.” He pushed the heavy door shut, closing out the light and the chill. “If Mama wants England, until I am certain Denmark is secure, she will have to do her own fighting.”

April 1036—Winchester

Emma stared uncomprehendingly at Godwine. “What do you mean, he is not coming? He has to come; he has to be consecrated.”

“He cannot leave Denmark; Magnus Olafsson is too much of a threat.”

“Not as much a threat as Harold Ælfgifusson!” she barked.

Godwine could only keep his thoughts to himself and shrug. He agreed, but short of trussing Harthacnut in rope and carrying him aboard a ship, what could he have done?

“Ælfgifu is working to deprive my son of his kingdom. Are you aware, Godwine, that she holds feasts and entertainments for anyone of influence from the North? Thegns, Bishops, and the Earls, of course. She buys gifts and pretties herself to persuade them to swear loyalty to her and her bastard. Beds them too, I do not doubt.”

The anger she felt was to hide the hurt. Cnut had been taken from her without warning, leaving her to fight alone for survival. Now Harthacnut was refusing to accept the responsibility of duty to his kingdom and his mother. She slumped into a chair, rubbing her aching forehead with her hand. “What am I to do, Godwine? Cnut never foresaw this.”

Godwine was tired. The voyage from Denmark had not been easy, for the wind had been tempestuous and the waves strong. Nor had he relished this interview. He had taken the opportunity to bathe and change, to eat, but had not known how to prepare for telling Emma that her world was crumbling to dust. His world too? His life could, if he went the right way about it, continue much as it already was, whatever Harthacnut’s ambiguities or Harold’s ambitions. Provided he made his mind as to which path to follow.

He lifted his shoulders, wearily let them fall, the defeat plain. “Without Harthacnut here to shout about his cause,” he shook his head, “there is nothing we can do to salvage the situation.”

Carefully, Godwine added, “I hear Harold is willing to offer you the respect of a King’s widow?” He had heard this from Gytha not more than half an hour since. “Is willing to leave you a portion of the treasury and for your lifetime your dower lands.” He rubbed at his moustache. “If he has so offered, I would judge it to be without the knowledge of his mother. Ælfgifu would never consent to such generosity. Harold, in this, is showing considerable sense.”

This was a double blow, the knife stabbed in and twisted. Emma felt her stomach churn, her head reel. Her hands were shaking; she gripped her fingers into the chair arms so that Godwine would not notice. “So,” she said with false civility, “you also are to abandon me? You are contemplating turning to Harold?”

Godwine all but ran to her, knelt, took her hands. “No! I did not say that! I convey only the facts, but without Harthacnut’s commitment to England, what choices are left us?”

“You judge Harold Harefoot to be honourable, do you?” she rebuked. “He will imprison me within my own house.” If she did not hide behind scorn and anger, she would be sobbing; she could not allow defeat to consume her, for once she let go of her hold, she would tumble into despair and never find the courage to climb out again. She had to stand firm, steel her resolve, and fight.

“I do not judge him, not until, on your behalf, I find chance to talk further with him.” Godwine smiled jestingly. “Perhaps we could ask for his mother as hostage?” he slumped, tired, into a chair.