The Forever Queen (9 page)

“My half-brother is a proud man,” Gunnhilda acknowledged, ignoring the raised voices. “He took it hard that I chose Pallig over him. We were fond of each other.” She rested her hands across the bulge of her pregnancy, smiled wistfully, remembering her childhood. “Swein would do anything to keep me from harm. It was because of me that he rebelled against our father, Harold Bluetooth.” She stabbed her needle into the linen. “I hated Father, a spiteful man who wanted all for himself. I was six years old, and I had committed some minor, childish thing that enraged him.” She shrugged. “I cannot recall what it was now, but never will I forget that brute grabbing hold of my hair and hitting me with his fist. Swein intervened. He stood there with his warrior’s axe, a great double-handed weapon. It must have been a sun-bright day, for I clearly recall a shaft of sunlight coming in, spear-straight, from the open door, to flare against the silver inlay of the haft. It sent little patterns of coloured light dancing over the floor.” She laughed suddenly, glanced up at Emma. “I cried louder when my father stumped towards my brother and broke that sunray, chasing away what I thought to be a host of faery people!” She grew serious again. “Swein hoisted me beneath his arm, called for his horse and his men, and rode away. He took me to safety and returned within the two-month with an army, defeated our father, and claimed Denmark for his own. He was twenty years of age.”

Emma was not going to be diverted. “And Devon, last year?”

At the far end of the hall, where the servants were beginning to set the trestle tables for the evening meal, Gunnhilda watched her daughter toddling after the hens scratching in the dust and debris. If she tried to clutch at their feathers, as she had yesterday, she would earn for herself another set of pecked fingers.

Drawing her breath, the woman related the bare truth. “Because our estate was left untroubled, my husband was accused of aiding Swein when he raided Devon. Pallig did not join with my brother, but he was seen on his pony; he was not going to the Danes, but to warn the villagers. There are those who dislike my husband for the royal-born Danish wife he has taken. They are always eager to discredit him. We were nigh on impoverished, buying our way back into royal favour.”

Emma flickered her gaze towards Ealdorman Alfhelm, husband to Lady Godegifa, raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“Spite is a wicked vice. Those two are vindictive people.” Gunnhilda fashioned a few industrious stitches, smiled. “I would like to believe my brother came into Devon to see his niece, but I think I am being fanciful.” Then she added something startling. “He is Freya’s godfather.”

Emma gasped, blurted, “Given his tendency to steal from abbeys and churches, I would not have singled King Swein to be a Christian man!”

Gunnhilda laughed. “Let us say he prefers to place one boot on either side of the fence regarding Christ and Odin, and that he gets distracted from his faith by the lure of material gain over the spiritual.” She shrugged, stated, “Many Danes follow both beliefs. Swein’s children are all baptised, although it is only his daughter, Estrith, and myself, his half-sister, who follow God with conviction. His eldest son, Harald, is more conscientious, but Cnut, my younger nephew, is inclined to the old gods. It is natural in a boy who sees nothing beyond the sharp edge of a blade, I suppose. Swein, whether Christian or pagan, will always follow the practicality of being a King; he must pay his men, or they will melt away and follow someone else more worthy.”

“And it makes more sense for him to accept tribute payment than to risk an outright fight?” Emma asked astutely.

Gunnhilda inclined her head. Why risk bloodshed when there was a preferable option? “Unfortunately people have a limit to the payment of taxes, and because of it there is unrest growing among the Danish settlers of the Mid Lands and the North, among those who do not fear Swein.” She pointed her needle at the group of men: Ealdorman Alfhelm, Eadric Streona, and Athelstan. “Some men believe it is cheaper, in the long run, to pay an enemy to go away and not fight, but young blood is always eager to initiate their swords into battle.”

Sitting quiet for a while, Emma concentrated on her sewing, her thoughts busy. Finally, she confided what was troubling her. “Gunnhilda?”

“Mm?”

“Is my husband a coward?”

How to answer? Gunnhilda chose the truth. “No, he is not a coward, but he is a fool. He listens to the advice of those preoccupied with their own interests, because he does not have the ability to follow his own thinking. And that, in the eyes of some men, makes him close to being a coward.”

August 1002—Sandwich

With the afternoon warm and sunny, Emma had urged Gunnhilda to walk with her beside the river. She was bored. As a town she liked Sandwich; the people were pleasant, the market stalls interesting, but it was a male domain centred around the fleet and fishing. All she had seen of England was Dover, Canterbury, Sandwich, and the roads between. England, both Gunnhilda and Pallig assured her, was a wondrous variety of landscape: open, wind-whispering reed marsh, and gorse- and heather-clad moors, deep forests, soaring mountains, and winding valleys. Idling her time away in her stuffy chamber, Emma was beginning to wonder if she would ever see anything different from these four walls.

Kent she thought to be delightful, but what had she to compare it with? In its summer array the countryside looked beautiful, but probably so did the rest of England. She wanted to do something, go somewhere; to explore, to see exactly what she was Queen of.

The river seemed an appealing idea; a path wandered along its tranquil bank, an inviting place for the pup to run. Saffron was growing rapidly, all paws, long legs, and boundless enthusiasm. The only enchantment to break the monotony of endless empty weeks.

Once cloaks were found and outdoor shoes donned, a small party of her serving women and their various children walked down through the water meadows, swishing aside the long grass and shooing away over-inquisitive cows. Gunnhilda’s daughter, Freya, clutched tightly at Emma’s hand as one particularly shaggy beast loomed too near.

Reprimanding Saffron for barking at the animal, Emma was flattered that the child should trust her. She had limited experience with children, for as the youngest child born it had been she who had received the mothering and cooing from a host of older siblings. She smiled down at the fair-haired child, squeezed her chubby hand.

“It is only a cow come to see you. I expect she is thinking, Who is this pretty girl crossing my meadow? I wonder if she wants a drink of my milk?” To Emma’s pleasure, the girl giggled.

Ever helpful, Leofstan Shortfist shooed the cattle away, prodding them with the butt of his spear and waving his arms about. The placid beasts regarded him balefully a moment, before shambling off to find a comfortable spot to chew the cud.

Edmund was fishing upstream, his crude pole and line dipping into the solemn water. He scowled at having his peace disturbed, gathered his things, and moved further away from the noisy interruption.

“Oh, look!” one of the women cried as she stepped carefully over a fresh cowpat buzzing with flies. “The swans have come downriver—are they not the most elegant of birds?” The majestic creatures were floating with the current, cob, pen, and a trail of four dowdy grey-clad cygnets.

“Pallig says,” Gunnhilda remarked, “that like us, swans mate for life; if one of them dies, the other dies of a broken heart, and before life fades from it forever, it sings the most beautiful of songs.”

“I would not suffer a broken heart were Æthelred to die.” The words tripped from Emma’s lips before she could stop them. Fortunately, the other women had quickened on ahead, and a sudden squabble from two of the children drowned the indiscretion.

Gunnhilda said nothing, but placed her fingers on Emma’s arm in mute sympathy. She shared passion and love with Pallig, and found it difficult to imagine a marriage without contentment. She was not so ignorant as to be unaware that many marriages were a tortured Hell, though, or that hers was a rare happiness.

“Do not go too near the edge!” she called to Freya as the women spread their cloaks and settled themselves on the summer-dried grass. Some of the children began picking daisies to make neck and ankle chains; two of the younger boys, no more than five years old, found a stick which they tossed for Saffron to chase, although their range was only a few yards. The dog did not mind; any game was eagerly enjoyed.

Tucking her hands behind her head, Emma lay back, gazed up at the white puffball clouds floating overhead. That one looked like a tree, that one a bird. What would it be like to sit on a cloud and stare down at the world? She closed her eyes, drifted into sleep, the sound of laughter and chatter distant in her ears, the sun warm and comforting on her face. She had not slept well during the night, as unpleasant dreams had troubled her.

A shower of cold water sprayed over her, bringing her instantly awake. Saffron, her tongue lolling, tail wagging, stood shaking her wet coat, the stick dropped expectantly by her mistress’s hand.

“Wretched dog!” Emma laughed as, sitting up, she threw the stick away, laughed louder as, landing far out into the river, the dog jumped in after it. “I swear the daft animal would follow a stick were it tossed into the fires of Hell!”

She must have dozed longer and deeper than she had realised, for the sun had shifted and more clouds had ushered in. The swans, too, were gone—no, there they were, preening their feathers a short way along the bank. Edmund, Emma noticed, was fetching in his fishing line, winding the thread carefully around the birch pole, fastening the hook. She would like to have been friends with Edmund, but Athelstan had made that hope impossible.

Scrabbling up the bank, Saffron hauled herself from the river, shook herself again, showering the children this time.

Emma stretched the ache in her shoulders, closed her eyes, and breathed in the damp freshness of the riverside air, the scent of the grass, the summer drowsiness. She liked the smell of England; it was strong and dependable, centuries of existence wrapped in its surrounding comfort, like a mantle. She sighed. A contented afternoon, quiet and pleasant, but meaningless. Could she go through the rest of her life like this, drifting from one idle day to another with no ultimate aim or focus? Perhaps when children came it would be better for her; perhaps Æthelred would have some respect for her then? Perhaps. Unlikely, though.

The dog started barking again. A girl screamed. Emma’s eyes snapped open as two of her women, shrieking with fear, began frantically flapping their hands and skirts. The cob swan had waddled along the bank in search of food, and the dog, not knowing better, had run at it, hoping to play. Enraged, the huge male bird spread its wings, lowered its long neck, and lunged at the barking nuisance. Doing the sensible thing for once, Saffron hurriedly backed away, but the girl, Freya, was not so agile. She turned to run and tripped, falling headlong into a clump of nettles, her screams rising louder as the irritant poison of the leaves burnt into her skin. The bird, annoyed by the new noise, made straight for her.

Everything was so quick! Edmund, seeing what was happening, was running along the bank, waving his fishing pole and shouting. Leofstan was running, too, but he had wandered over to a group of trees to relieve himself and was too far away. He took aim with his spear, but did not dare throw it for fear of hitting the girl. Gunnhilda was trying to lumber to her feet, the weight of the child she was carrying and her full skirt hampering her movement.

Thinking quickly, Emma bent to pick up the dog’s discarded stick and, swishing it backwards and forwards, drove at the swan, made her own threatening, hissing noises through her teeth. Distracted, the bird swung away from Freya, but before it could open its wings to beat at Emma, she darted forward and, without care of her own safety, threw herself on top of the bird, straddling its body, pinning its wings down with her arms. “Get the children away!” she shouted. “And call my idiot dog! Get away!”

Someone was beside her, Edmund, a dagger in his hand, his intention to cut the creature’s throat.

“No!” Emma yelled. “He meant no harm,” and before the boy could react, she had somehow twisted herself and shoved the startled bird, with a crash of spray, into the river.

Grinning, Edmund helped Emma to her feet, the pair of them breathing hard, the reaction of laughter twitching at their mouths as the swan, feathers ruffled, indignantly paddled out into the safety of the current.

“That was bravely done, though somewhat foolish. I have known a swan to seriously injure a man.”

Calming her breath, Emma busied herself with brushing imaginary stains from her gown. She had known that too. One of her sisters had suffered many months of agony with a broken arm because of an angered swan.

“I would rather it was I who came to harm than the little one,” she said, nodding towards Freya, who was sobbing in her mother’s arms. The women and the elder children were hastily gathering cool, green dock leaves to put on the mass of white, stinging blisters erupting on her arms and legs.

“There is a better thing!” Edmund said as he hurriedly unlaced his braes. “Hold her still…”

“What are you doing?” Gunnhilda shrieked, appalled, dragging her daughter aside as the boy promptly began to urinate over the girl.

“It is all right!” Emma reassured, remembering a long-forgotten incident from her own days of childhood. “Urine stops the stinging. My father did the same to me once; it took the pain away almost immediately.”

Gathering the girl into her cloak, Gunnhilda nodded her uncertain gratitude, and Edmund regarded Emma with a new look of respect. Two years younger than her, he was, nonetheless, almost her height. A stocky boy, with the promise of a man’s handsome face once his features fleshed out. “I misjudged you,” he admitted generously. “Godwine said you were a promising Queen. I told him he did not know shit from shingle.” Gallantly, he held out his hand in a gesture of surrender and offered friendship. “He was right, I was wrong.”