The Price of Blood. Patricia Bracewell

       Chapter Twenty-seven

       Chapter Twenty-eight

       Chapter Twenty-nine

       Chapter Thirty

       Chapter Thirty-one

       Chapter Thirty-two

       Chapter Thirty-three

       Chapter Thirty-four

       Chapter Thirty-five

       Chapter Thirty-six

       Chapter Thirty-seven

       Glossary

       Author’s Note

       Acknowledgements

       A Q&A with Patricia Bracewell

       About the Author

       Also by Patricia Bracewell

       About the Publisher

       Dramatis Personae

      *Indicates a Fictional Character

      Anglo-Saxon England, 1006–1012

       Royal Family

      Æthelred II, King of England

      Emma, Queen of England

      Children of the English king, in birth order:

      Athelstan

      Ecbert

      Edmund

      Edrid

      Edwig

      Edgar

      Edyth

      Ælfgifu (Ælfa)

      Wulfhilde (Wulfa)

      Mathilda

      Edward

       Emma’s Household

      Aldyth, niece of Ealdorman Ælfhelm

      Elgiva, daughter of Ealdorman Ælfhelm

      *Father Martin

      *Hilde, granddaughter of Ealdorman Ælfric

      *Margot

      Wymarc

      Robert, Wymarc’s son

       Leading Ecclesiastics

      Ælfheah, Archbishop of Canterbury

      Ælfhun, Bishop of London

      Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, Archbishop of Jorvik

       Leading Nobles

      Ælfhelm, Ealdorman of Northumbria

      Ufegeat, Ælfhelm’s son

      Wulfheah, Ælfhelm’s son (Wulf)

      *Alric, his retainer

      Ælfric, Ealdorman of Hampshire

      Godwine, Ealdorman of Lindsey

      Leofwine, Ealdorman of Western Mercia

      Eadric of Shrewsbury

      Godwin, Wulfnoth’s son

      Morcar of the Five Boroughs

      Siferth of the Five Boroughs

      Thurbrand of Holderness

      Ulfkytel of East Anglia

      Uhtred of Northumberland

      Wulfnoth of Sussex

      Normandy

      Duke Richard II, Emma’s brother

      Duchess Judith

      Dowager Duchess Gunnora, Emma’s mother

      Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Emma’s brother

      The Danes

      Swein Forkbeard, King of Denmark

      Harald, son of Swein

      Cnut, son of Swein

      Hemming

      Thorkell

      Tostig

       Prologue

       Shrove Tuesday, March 1006

       Calne, Wiltshire

      Æthelred knelt, his head clutched in his hands, bowed beneath the weight of his crown and his sins. Somewhere above, the vesper bells rang to mark the call to evening prayer, and at the very moment of their tolling he felt his limbs tremble, convulsed by a force beyond his control.

      The familiar, hated lethargy settled over him, and though he strove to keep his head down and his eyes shut, a will far stronger than his own pulled his gaze upwards. The air before him thickened and turned as black and rippling as the windswept surface of a mere. Pain gnawed at his chest, and he shivered with cold and apprehension as the world around him vanished. Sounds, too, faded to nothing and he knew only the cold, the pain, and the flickering darkness before him that stretched and grew into the shape of a man.

      Or what had been a man once. Wounds gaped like a dozen mouths at throat and breast, gore streaked the shredded garments crimson, and the menacing face wore Death’s gruesome pallor. His murdered brother’s shade drew towards him, an exhalation from the gates of heaven or the mouth of hell – he could not say which. Not a word passed its lips, but he sensed a malevolence that flowed from the dead to the living, and he shrank back in fear and loathing.

      Yet he could not look away. For long moments the vision held him in thrall until, as it began to fade, he became aware of another figure – of a shadow behind the shadow. Dark, indistinct, shrouded in gloom, it hovered briefly in the thickened air and then, like the other, it was gone.

      Released from the spell, he could hear once