The Forever Queen (80 page)

Emma was not in the mood for frivolity. She waved him to silence. Her good friend’s loyalty was faltering. Could she blame him? Without Harthacnut there would be nothing to fight for.

“I will never accept any offer of Harold’s over the rights of my son, Godwine. It is foolish of you to think I would.”

Aye, Godwine had known that.

They sat quiet, each nursing his own thoughts. Emma annoyed with her son for being so selfish and stupid; Godwine wanting his bed and his wife.

“I have an alternative choice,” Emma said at last. “I have two other sons who have a greater claim than even Cnut’s whelps.”

Suddenly wide awake, Godwine looked up sharply from the doze he had been drifting into. “Edward and Alfred? Lady, you cannot be serious? There is not a man in this land who would support either of them!”

May 1037—Jumièges, Normandy

Edward was furious that his mother had written to him demanding help. “How dare she send her ‘maternal greetings’? What is there maternal about her? I barely remember her!” Contemptuously, he skimmed the offending letter across the floor.

Alfred rescued it from a flutter of cackling chickens who thought anything thrown down had the possibility of being food. “She sounds distraught,” he tried diplomatically.

“Distraught! Distraught? Did she care that we were distraught when Father died? When we were sent, running for our lives, from England? If she thinks I am going to risk my life to keep her head in high glory, then she can think again!”

“Mon Dieu, she says nothing of risking our lives, Edward,” Alfred countered. “She wishes to discuss the difficult situation in England, that is all.”

“Do not swear in God’s name; we are within an abbey,” Edward admonished. “Are you such a fool? I thought I was supposed to be the naive one! Tell him, Robert, explain what an imbecile he is.”

Alfred felt like retorting, Bugger God, and bugger Abbot Champart!

Robert Champart, Abbot of Jumièges, rubbed at his clean-shaven chin. Edward had been a guest of his since Duke Robert’s death, for the court was unsafe, even for the present Duke. The boy, William, was not expected to remain Duke for long, for already he had survived several attempts at assassination. If this young William managed to reach maturity, it would be a miracle. Mind, if he did, men would alter opinion and be eager to follow him, for it would be obvious that God was protecting him as His chosen one for a purpose yet to be disclosed.

Champart was a man who had pledged his vows to God and believed in His divine intervention, but did not believe William would see adulthood. If—when—William was slaughtered, the likelihood would be that Robert Champart would be one of those in danger; he had no intention of remaining in Normandy when that happened. Nor did he want to throw away his carefully pursued position of prestige. This unexpected situation in England could be a gift sent from God, one Robert intended to exploit to the full.

“Your brother speaks aright, mon ami Edouard,” Robert said with a small, sorry shake of his head. “I believe your mother is thinking of England above personal issues. If you are entitled to the crown and there is no one else to wear it, then, alas, it is your duty to God to go to England.”

Edward mumbled a protest. That was not what he had meant on asking Robert to interfere. Why did this wretched issue of a crown insist on reemerging every so often? He was not interested in England. And to have this final insult from his mother, all of a sudden wanting her sons beside her? Edward was gullible and softhearted—anyone could get anything out of him if they appealed to his easy emotion—but even he could see the ambiguity in this! Mama had been abandoned by her favourite, Harthacnut, and all she had left were the sons she had abandoned to suit her own purpose years ago. To go running to her open-armed and all-forgiving was not an option. Not now. She had left it too many years.

“I do not want a throne,” Edward stated. “If Mama wants security, I suggest she come to Normandy. There are some most suitable nunneries for widows.”

Impatiently Alfred sighed. What he would give for his brother to show an ounce of sense! “Our mama, Edward, is not the sort of woman to pass the rest of her days contemplating God in a nunnery.”

Robert held out his hand for the letter, read it through. He rubbed again, thoughtfully, at his chin. He must tread carefully in this with Edward. Alfred was the bold one, who acted impulsively before thinking; Edward would need delicate manoeuvring. He could ponder forever, never committing himself. The one brother as opposite to the other as vinegar to honey.

“Your mother says there are many who would support you. She urges you to hurry to England, for the usurper is buying his way to favour with gifts and great promises. Where he cannot purchase support he issues black threats and warnings. It is your choice, of course, Edward, but unless you act now, England shall be lost to you forever.”

“I do not want England,” Edward tried again, but Robert hushed him.

“It is not always for us to choose what we do or do not want, my son. That is for God to decide. You are the eldest-born of a King, the grandson of a Duke. Why do you think God has so carefully attended your safety all these years?”

Edward slumped forward, dejected. “I thought He wanted me to become a monk.”

“Ah, mon brave, you have another, greater, commitment to God. To serve Him as King of England, to hold the authority to restore His justice and will. To build churches in His name, to…”

Annoyed, Edward erupted to his feet. “I have no intention of going to England. This summons”—and he struck the parchment in Robert’s hand with his knuckles—“is a ploy of my mother’s for her own benefit. I will have nothing to do with it or her. Neither shall Alfred.”

“I can speak for myself!” Alfred retorted. “All my life it has been Edward this, Edward that; always have I had it rammed down my throat that you are the eldest, you are the one most likely to wear a crown. Never me, never Alfred, yet I am the more capable, I am the one who can fight! All you can do is prance around with a look of piety on your face!” The outburst swelled, let loose after so many years of being suppressed; a horse set free to kick his heels, a dog allowed to chase hares without restraint—a younger brother shouting his worth above an elder. “You may not want England, Edward, but I do!”

Ordinarily, Edward abhorred conflict and disagreement of any kind, but he was also a self-centred, vain man who could not abide being treated as second best. “God gave me the right of the firstborn. It is for me to become King, not you.”

“You would not last a single day without me!” Alfred exclaimed. It was near the truth. Edward, at one and thirty years old, possessed the emotional passion of a child. Insecure and uncertain, he relied on the familiarity of routine and the advice of others to make up his mind in almost everything, even the choosing of his clothes. There had been occasions at the Norman court when Alfred had despaired of his brother’s ability to cause embarrassment. Yet Edward was learned in his reading and writing, was compassionate and attentive to the detail of the written word, and, a rare thing in a man, was willing to sit and listen to another’s outpouring of problems without interruption or sanction. Nor would he make judgement without first hearing all sides of the argument. For a King, such skills were to be admired.

“If I decide to answer Mama and go to her,” Edward whined, “I shall not be taking you, Alfred. It is me she is asking for. I was the one she sent the letter to.”

Robert rolled his eyes Heavenwards. Were these two men adults or children? Infants trapped within a man’s grown body? “She asks for the both of you,” he stated, pointing at the relevant section in the letter.

“I am perfectly able to attend my mother without a younger brother trudging behind me!” Edward declared, his belligerence aroused beyond reason by Alfred’s defiance.

“I have no intention of trailing in your wake!” Alfred hammered. “I am able to make my own plans!” Furious, he slammed from the room.

He wanted to go to England, wanted to show his mother what he had become and what he was capable of. Could Edward not see that? Did Edward not realise that if they hurried across the sea and saved Mama, she would be eternally grateful to them and would have reason to love them again?

July 1037—Winchester

What,” Emma asked her firstborn son looking him up and down with acerbic scorn, “is the use of one solitary ship? How in Heaven’s name can we fight and win a war with one ship?”

That was her greeting for her eldest son, having not seen him for twenty years. It was not what Edward had planned, but then neither had Emma foreseen that the boy would mature into a man even more useless than his father had been.

“You asked for me to come to you to discuss your future,” Edward protested, finding a voice through his bitter disappointment. “You said nothing of fighting and war.” He had imagined hugs and tears, and an outpouring of lost opportunities and regrets, a rainbow of emotion. Had not bargained for scornful disdain as the first words to leave his mother’s lips. Like his father, he had no ability to see beyond his own feelings, had no sense of realising why others spoke and behaved as they did. Could not see that his mother was equally disappointed.

“I had no idea I would need to spell it out for you. I advised you to come for your crown. How do you expect to do so without an army? Do you think Harold will take fright at the sight of your face and meekly hand England over?”

They stood on Winchester’s busy wharf beside the River Itchen, traders’ and merchant craft moored alongside the modest ship that Edward had hired to bring him from Normandy; the smell of fresh-caught fish pervading the other dockside aromas of tar, sewage, and unwashed men. Edward’s annoyance had started to swell the moment the crew had tossed the mooring rope ashore, for the harbour reeve, hurrying from his house at the far end of the quay, had refused to allow them to disembark.

“I am Queen Emma’s son!” Edward had proclaimed with indignation.

The reeve’s answer was humiliating. “That be Harthacnut. I knew him as a lad, afore ’e went to Denmark, and you be not he. Nor be that his banner flying from your mast.”

“No, that is my father’s banner, the white boar of Wessex. I am Edward, King Æthelred’s son.”

“Harthacnut be our King. You canna’ come ashore.”

“Send word to the Queen,” Edward demanded, controlling his inclination to stamp his foot. “And do not come whining to me when she orders you flogged for this impertinence!”

Unimpressed by the threat, but mindful of his duty, the reeve did so, and Emma had come personally, sure the message she had received was incorrect, that her son’s ship from Normandy was in harbour and did she wish him arrested? Had she realised that it was, indeed, “ship,” singular, not “ships,” plural, perhaps she would have been tempted to stay within doors and agree, aye, lock him in a cellar somewhere until the next tide, then throw him back to the sea as if he were a worthless shrimp.

Edward objected to Emma’s accusation. “You did not ask for an army. You said I had plenty of support here in England.” Strange how he thought he had forgotten how this woman looked and sounded, worrying, through the voyage, that he might not recognise her.

A crowd had gathered, curious, as men and women were when there was gossip to be made from listening to family conflict. Someone pushed through, roughly shoving aside those more reluctant to move, a large man, broad of shoulder and girth, his temper as hard-edged as his elbow. Godwine.

“What in the name of God is this?” he bellowed, stamping to a halt before Emma and Edward. “What is he doing here?”

There was no doubting who the boy was, for he was the image of Æthelred, save for the absence of a beard. “Do not tell me you sent for him, madam, please do not!”

Emma was about to lie, say no, she had not, when Edward, folding his arms and standing square in front of Godwine, countered, “And why should she not?” Affronted, added, “I am the son of Æthelred, the second King of that name. I am Ætheling. I have every right to be here.” Disdainfully wrinkling his nose, he looked at Godwine as if he were a begrimed beggar-boy “And who might you be?”

“I wanted my sons with me; is that not a reasonable thing for a mother to want?” Emma said quickly, belatedly aware of the storm rage glowing over Godwine’s face, and that she had made an enormous mistake. “Harthacnut has ignored my summons. You are deliberating the possibility of abandoning me.” She flicked her hand, desperate, uncertain. “I thought it prudent to call my other son to me.” When Godwine made no answer, protested loudly, “I cannot allow Harold to walk in through an open gate, can I? I must try all I can before facing defeat. I am prepared to fight this thing through to the end, Godwine, even if you are not!”

Godwine stared at Edward, at the cut of his light blue tunic and darker-hued mantle. At the ermine trimmings, the curled, combed hair, the slender, manicured fingers. If he had shown the curve of a bust and braided hair, Godwine would have sworn he was looking at a woman.

“To fight?” he echoed scornfully. “What? With this delicate bluebell?”

“I have returned from exile,” Edward declared, drawing himself straight and thrusting his face close to Godwine, whom he instantly disliked. “It is obvious I have been too long abroad, for Englishmen appear to have forgotten their manners.”

Godwine remained staring at him, speechless.

“Let England rejoice at my homecoming!” Edward shouted to the crowd, raising his hands, the sun sparkling on his adornment of rings. “Let the fyrd take up their arms and march with me!” He was enjoying being the centre of attention, although it would have been more encouraging if the cheers had not been so thinly scattered. How wonderful it would be when he had the chance to parade before all these onlookers with the crown on his head and the sceptre in his hand! He was quite looking forward to the pomp of all that. Was this another reason why he had never taken that final step into a monastery? Because he liked the thrill of pageantry and glory, and abhorred the thought of always having to be humble. Realised, suddenly, he preferred the knee bent to him, not the other way round.