Shadow on the Crown. Patricia Bracewell

quarters of St Augustine’s abbey. With so many familiar faces about her Emma could almost imagine that she was still in Normandy. She could not dispel, though, the anxiety that she felt at the king’s absence today. He should have been there to greet her, and he had slighted her by staying away.

      She called to mind Richard’s parting words five days before, as he accompanied her to the waiting ships.

      ‘You are not the first bride, Emma, to go to the bed of a foreign king, and you must be very clear about what is expected of you. Bear in mind that you go to your lord not as a woman, but as a queen. In the same way, he comes to you not as a man, but as a king. He will not be father to you, nor lover, nor even friend. Do not expect it. All you can expect from his hands is what any of his subjects can expect, and that is justice and mercy. You, as queen, though, must demand one thing more. You must demand his respect. Never forget that for a moment, and never do anything that might cause you to forfeit it.’

      Today Æthelred of England had not shown her the respect that she deserved, although she did not know why. She wished that one of her brothers had accompanied her to England. Surely Duke Richard or Archbishop Robert would have been able to give her some insight into what might be going on in the mind of the king. Instead she was without counsel, and she felt as if she had been thrown rudderless into high seas. She could not reach safe haven, even if she knew what it looked like.

      In the meantime, the people in this room depended upon her for direction, and she had very little to give. What she needed was information – not the history lessons that Ealdorman Ælfric had given her but news of the court and of the people in it. If she were at home she would send someone to the kitchens to listen in on what was being said, but she could hardly do that here.

      She considered the men and women around her. Only a few members of her household could understand English, much less work their mouths around it well enough to speak it. Wymarc was one, for her stepmother was the daughter of a Kentish lord. Young Hugh of Brittany, who had been one of Richard’s stewards, was another. Her bard, Alain, could recite their poetry, but she was not sure how much of it he actually understood.

      And there was her priest, Father Martin. She did not know him and had had little time to speak with him in the weeks before they left Normandy, but he had served her mother well. She knew that he was a scholar, good with languages, and that he had studied for a time in an abbey somewhere here in England. Her mother had said that he was an excellent clerk, for he wrote a fair hand.

      At the moment Emma did not need a clerk. What she needed was a spy. Father Martin, clad in fine, dark-coloured wool and with a crucifix hanging at his breast, was the likeliest candidate to gather news within the cathedral precincts. The community there would likely welcome a priest and scholar who was part of the Norman retinue.

      She called the priest to her side, and then, after some thought, she summoned Hugh as well. As they knelt before her, she studied their upturned faces, both of them clean-shaven in the Norman style. Apart from that they were a study in contrasts. Father Martin’s lined face and grey hair bespoke his age, and his solemn brown eyes studied her with the gravity of experience. Hugh was youthful and dark, strikingly handsome, with an engaging charm that, she had reason to believe, had captivated Wymarc on the voyage here. Her friend had spoken of him with such admiration that Emma had warned her to have a care for her heart. Still, Hugh’s genial manner was well suited to the task she had in mind for him.

      ‘I am in need,’ she said, ‘of information about the English. I must know what their concerns are, what they think, what they believe, and, particularly, what they fear.’ She looked at the priest. ‘Father Martin, I want you to mingle with the cathedral community in any place where you can engage them in conversation. Hugh, I want you to go into the market square tomorrow, down to the port and into the alehouses. Find out what the people of England think of their king. Discover what is being said about his marriage. You must not be afraid to tell me what you learn, even if you fear it will displease me. Do you understand?’

      When she had dismissed them she felt more composed. She had set something in motion, and soon she would have results. She reminded herself that she was not alone here, and that she had resources, if only she took the care to use them.

      The next evening Emma met Hugh and Father Martin in a once barren abbey chamber that her attendants had transformed into a quiet retreat suited to a queen. A brazier burned in the centre of the room, and embroidered hangings covered the cold stone walls. Emma sat in a high-backed chair with cushions behind her shoulders, furs on her lap, and a stool under her feet. As she considered the two men before her, she saw that the priest looked particularly grave, so she turned first to him.

      ‘Tell me,’ she said.

      ‘There are … evil rumours, my lady,’ he said slowly, ‘… about the king, and how he obtained his throne.’

      Emma frowned. ‘But surely Æthelred inherited the throne from his father,’ she said. ‘Ealdorman Ælfric said that King Edgar died young, and that his son was crowned after that.’

      ‘That is true,’ the priest said, frowning, ‘but the boy who was crowned after King Edgar was not Æthelred. It was his elder half brother, Edward. In the cathedral scriptorium there are chronicles that report,’ he paused, ‘unsettling events that occurred in those days.’

      So Ælfric, whom she had liked so well, had told her only part of the truth. Could she not trust anyone in England then?

      ‘Go on,’ she said.

      ‘King Edgar had three sons by two different wives. The middle son died very young, while his father still sat the throne. Some years later, when King Edgar died of a sudden illness, no heir had been named, and the two sons who survived him were born of different mothers. Edward, the eldest, was crowned, but many of the great men in the land questioned his right to the throne, for his mother was not a consecrated queen, and Æthelred’s mother was.’ He paused and heaved a weary sigh before continuing. ‘After he had ruled but three years, King Edward was murdered – brutally, the chronicles say. He was young when he died – only sixteen. It was then that his half brother, Æthelred, was named to the throne by the witan, the group of nobles who advise the king.’

      ‘And what happened to the murderers?’ she asked. As a brother and a king it would have been Æthelred’s particular duty to punish such a terrible crime.

      ‘The murderers were never discovered,’ Father Martin said. ‘No one was punished and no restitution paid.’ He hesitated, his expression grim. ‘I persuaded one of the brothers here, an old man now, to tell me what he recalled from that time.’

      Again he hesitated, clearly unwilling to burden her with his knowledge. Emma waited, her heart filled with misgiving, and at last Father Martin continued his tale.

      ‘It was believed by many that Æthelred’s mother, the dowager queen, plotted the murder of her stepson. That was a terrible time, with bloody portents in the night sky that even the priests could not ignore. I am told that last autumn, just before the dowager queen died, the night skies ran with blood again, although the old man I spoke with did not see it.’

      Emma sat very still, pondering his words. She knew well the power of rumour and superstition. When her father was alive, Rouen had buzzed for a time with tales that he wandered the streets at midnight, going into darkened churches to battle phantoms and demons. Indeed, it was true that her father had visited the churches by night, for his final illness had bereft him of sleep, and he sought the intercession of one saint after another in his search for healing. But the duke had wrestled with no demons, only with the knowledge of his own coming death. The rumours about him had contained a kernel of truth that had been misshapen by wild conjecture. Perhaps this was the same thing.

      ‘How long ago did this happen?’ she asked the priest.

      ‘King Æthelred has ruled England for twenty-three years.’

      She did the sums. Æethelred, who was now in his thirty-fifth year, could have been no more than a child when his brother had been murdered. What possible role could a child play in such a heinous act?

      ‘Tell