The Price of Blood. Patricia Bracewell

      Far more serious than the brighter-haired Edwig, who, at fifteen winters, should have been the more responsible one. There was a carelessness about Edwig, though, and she had sometimes glimpsed in him a callous disregard for others that she did not like. He and his elder brother Edrid – the two of them so near in age and looks that they could be taken for twins – served along with Edgar in the retinue of Ealdorman Ælfric, and attended the king only on the high holidays and feasts. Even when they were children she had known them but little.

      She watched as Edwig took a stealthy swallow from a leather flask at his belt – some strong liquor, she guessed, forbidden on this holy night, when only watered wine would be served in the king’s hall. Afterwards he waved away some protest from his frowning, twinlike brother, Edrid, who was clearly the good angel to Edwig’s bad.

      She glanced at the king to see if he had witnessed Edwig’s transgression, but Æthelred’s brooding gaze was fixed upon the two eldest æthelings, Athelstan and Edmund. They stood to one side of the fire pit at the centre of the hall, deep in conversation with two men whose faces she could not make out until one of them turned and the firelight flickered on a handsome, chiselled cheek and black, curly hair.

      And then she knew them – the sons of Ælfhelm, who had arrived without their sire or their sister, Elgiva. Æthelred would surely read treachery in their absence. Did he know, though, with certainty, of some perfidy that Ælfhelm might be planning? Was that the cause of his foul mood?

      ‘I think, my lord,’ she ventured, although she had little hope that he would respond, ‘that you are troubled by the absence of Elgiva and her father.’

      ‘I am troubled by a great many things, lady,’ he replied, his voice laced with sarcasm. ‘Would you care to have me enumerate them?’

      But she refused to respond in kind.

      ‘If it would give you ease, my lord,’ she said.

      ‘Nothing will give me ease except death, and I have no desire for that as yet. Not for myself, in any event. What if I were to tell you that I think my sons are consorting with my enemies? What would you say then to give me ease?’

      His words chilled her, and she glanced again to where Athelstan was speaking with apparent urgency to the sons of Ælfhelm. She placed her hand upon the king’s arm and said gently, ‘You judge your sons too harshly, my lord. They are never your enemies.’

      There were those, she knew, who would counsel her to speak ill of her stepsons – that as the king’s esteem for them lessened, his regard for her own child must increase. As queen and mother of the heir, they would say, it was her task to put forward her own son and so garner greater status for him and, through him, for herself.

      Yet she had no wish to turn Æthelred against the elder æthelings, and that was self-serving, too, in its own way. For she believed that if Æthelred should die while her son was still a child, the witan would place a warrior king upon the throne – someone who could wage war against England’s enemies. It would be Athelstan who would rule the kingdom; Athelstan who would hold her fate – and that of Edward – in his hands.

      When that happened, her world would change utterly, and how was she to prepare for it except by cultivating the goodwill of her stepchildren for Edward’s sake? Æthelred’s tally of years was forty winters long now – many years longer than the men of his line who had come before him. And with each year that passed, the tension grew more pronounced between an ageing king who could not relinquish one jot of control and the grown sons who were eager for advancement and responsibility – especially Athelstan.

      She felt as though she walked a sword’s edge between them – the king who was her husband, and the ætheling she could not help but love and whom she defended at her peril.

      ‘My sons,’ Æthelred said, ‘covet my crown, and would take it from me if they could find a way to do so.’ He nodded towards the group near the fire. ‘Even now Athelstan is garnering support from the sons of Ælfhelm for his claim to the throne.’

      She looked again to where Athelstan’s fair hair showed golden against Edmund’s darker locks and the black curls of the sons of Ælfhelm. The king could not possibly read what matter they were discussing any more than she could. But she knew that although Athelstan might oppose his father at the council table, he would not reach out his hand betimes to take the throne. He had given her his pledge on that, and she trusted him to keep it. Æthelred had enemies, she did not doubt it – too numerous to count. But Athelstan could not be numbered among them.

      ‘My lord,’ she said, weighing her words carefully, for if the king suspected her feelings for his son, it would do Athelstan more harm than good, ‘you do your son an injustice. Should he raise his hand against you it would weaken the kingdom, turn the men of this land one against another. Athelstan must know this, and I think he would do nothing that would place this realm in such peril.’

      ‘Would he not?’ Æthelred asked bitterly. ‘Lady, there is much that goes on, within the court and without it, of which you know nothing. It were best you keep your mind upon matters of your household and the schooling of my daughters. Leave my sons to me.’

      He stood up abruptly and left the dais, disappearing into the passage that led to his private chamber. A moment later, she saw a servant hurry to the group at the fire and escort them from the hall, following in the king’s wake. She did not like the look of that.

      She beckoned the king’s cupbearer to her, a red-cheeked boy of ten whose father was the lord of several large estates within her dower lands near Exeter.

      ‘Take a flagon of wine to the king,’ she said, placing a silver penny in his palm as he bent to fill her cup, ‘and linger in the chamber in case he should have need of you. Tomorrow you shall tell me, and no one else, all that you hear.’

      The boy nodded and left. Emma rose from the table to mingle with the men and women in the hall, but her thoughts were still directed towards the chamber of the king. Æthelred was correct when he said that she did not know everything that went on at court.

      Still, she knew a great deal, and in Æthelred’s court, knowledge was power.

       Chapter Seven

       Holy Saturday, April 1006

       Cookham, Berkshire

      The king’s chamber was alive with light – banks of candles turning the night to day and reminding Athelstan that his father did not like the dark.

      The king was afraid of shadows.

      But his father feared other things as well, and there was suspicion in the hooded blue eyes that swept over the four of them: Ufegeat, Wulf, Edmund, himself. He felt like a warrior in a shield wall, but without benefit of either shield or blade.

      Did the king suspect that they had been speaking of Elgiva and a marriage alliance? Was that why they had been ushered in here? If so, he was going to need the tongue of an angel to convince his father that his only intention was to save the kingdom, not steal it.

      There was a long, heavy silence while a cupbearer slipped in and filled the goblet that stood on the table beside the king’s great chair, and then the silence was broken by the tread of boots and the creak of leather. Six of the king’s retainers, handpicked to do his bidding and ask no questions, filed into the chamber. Two of them stepped forward to flank the king. They were men whom Athelstan knew well, but when he probed their faces, they did not meet his eyes.

      His palms began to sweat. He had often been called to answer to his father for what the king considered misdeeds, but there had never been armed men at his back before. He looked a question at the king, but his father’s eyes were fixed on Ælfhelm’s sons. Following that glance he saw a fine sheen of sweat on Ufegeat’s forehead, and next to him Wulf’s face was so pale that it looked to be