Shadow on the Crown. Patricia Bracewell

priest fingered the cross at his breast as he pondered her question. At last he said, ‘This is a Christian land, my lady, yet through all the years of Æthelred’s reign, godless men from across the North Sea have raided and burned and tortured this realm. Why would God allow such a thing, unless there was great sin in the land?’

      And what greater sin, she thought, than the murder of an anointed king? Was this the truth about Æthelred that no one had been willing to reveal to her?

      Her anxiety about the man she was to wed grew, yet troubled as she was, she would rather be armed with knowledge than go to him cloaked in ignorance. She murmured her thanks to the priest. Then, as an afterthought, she reached down and touched his hand. ‘Please pray for me, Father,’ she said, ‘and for the soul of the king.’

      As she turned her attention to Hugh she wondered what horror story he might have to tell.

      ‘The word in the marketplace,’ Hugh volunteered, ‘is that the king has just sent nearly thirty thousand pounds of silver to a Danish host camped on an island off the southern coast. I’m told that the Vikings spent all of last summer burning and robbing in the southern shires, and that the silver,’ he paused and smiled wryly, ‘is meant to discourage them from picking up where they left off when the weather turns fair again.’

      ‘So the king bribes the Vikings to leave his lands,’ she said. ‘Jesu, it is a vast amount of money.’

      ‘Aye, my lady,’ Hugh agreed. ‘And the common folk, and even the nobles, it seems, begrudge having to pay the high taxes that the king has imposed to raise it. They complain that first the Danes raid the land, and then the king’s men come and take whatever is left to bribe the Danes to go away.’

      ‘But where are the warriors?’ she asked. ‘This is a rich land with a wealthy king. Can Æthelred not defend his people?’

      Hugh shrugged. ‘The king has his personal guard, as do many of the nobles, but in times of great need he must summon warriors and arms. By the time word of an attack is spread and the levies called up, the Vikings have taken their plunder and made their escape.’ He frowned and shook his head. ‘It is whispered, too, that the king is unlucky. Whenever his soldiers meet the enemy some hapless thing occurs to sway the battle in favour of the outlanders.’

      Was it bad luck, she wondered, or, as Father Martin believed, was it God’s curse? And, merciful heaven, what was the difference?

      ‘My lady,’ Hugh said, ‘my news is not all dismal. There is general rejoicing over your nuptials. The common belief is that the arrival of a new queen can only bring good fortune to England.’

      ‘I expect the new queen’s dowry will not come amiss, either,’ she said, ‘if the king defends his land with silver instead of steel.’

      She dismissed the men and sat a while, pondering all that she had heard. Where was the truth in the rumours, and what secrets lay hidden in the soul of the man she must wed? Even if the king was innocent of his brother’s murder, his throne was bathed in his brother’s blood. She must share that throne. Whatever the fate that lay before Æthelred the king, as his queen she would share that as well.

      

       April 1002

       Canterbury, Kent

      On Easter Sunday, Æthelred of England took his Norman bride to wife, and he watched with hundreds of others as a circlet of gold was placed upon her head and she was named England’s queen. Afterwards, he presided over his wedding feast in the royal hall near the cathedral. Seated upon the dais, his new queen at his side, Æthelred looked about him and was not entirely pleased with the situation in which he found himself.

      He had spent a great deal of coin over the last weeks in an effort to purchase peace for England. Some of it had been settled upon this chit seated next to him, and if her brother kept his promise, England’s coasts would be far more secure than in years past. Whether Richard could be trusted, though, was a question that niggled at him like a sore tooth.

      As for the girl, he liked the look of her well enough. She had a smooth, clear complexion, enormous green eyes, and a long, straight nose. Her mouth was too wide, but she seemed to have good teeth, and her voice did not vex him – not yet. Her hair was pale beneath the silken headrail that was held in place by his gift of a golden crown.

      He frowned. He should never have agreed to her coronation. His council was to blame for that. Their infernal wrangling had driven him to make a hasty decision. Within hours of signing the marriage documents he had regretted the act, but by then the official scrolls were on their way to Normandy, and it was too late.

      His first wife had demanded no crown and had suffered no harm from the lack of it. This one, though, wanted assurances for any children that she might bear, wanted them first in line for the spoils after he died. It would lead to disputes as to which of his offspring were more throne worthy, and if Emma bore a son there would be bad blood between his first family and his second, all because he had given this Norman bitch a circlet of gold.

      It had happened before, and his sons knew their family history well enough – knew of the factions that had formed around himself and his brother when their father died. Edward had been the elder, but men had questioned his claim to the crown because Edward’s mother had been a consort and no queen, unlike his own mother, who had bewitched the king into her bed and then convinced him to grant her a crown. It had led to years of unrest between rival nobles, who had backed either Edward or himself – and it had ended in Edward’s murder.

      He closed his eyes and, with an effort of will, turned his mind from his dead brother, lest his very thoughts draw him from his grave again. He considered the slim girl beside him, mentally discarding her glimmering gown and the delicate garment beneath it until she was naked but for the pearls that hung in ropes about her neck. He imagined those pearls resting against her high, proud breasts and cascading past the delicate curve of her hips to the pale thatch between her thighs.

      Soon he would be lying between those thighs, and the thought made his mouth go dry with anticipation. He emptied his cup of mead and called for more.

      Be fruitful and multiply, the archbishop had admonished them when they took their vows. Well, Emma looked as though she could do that well enough, and if she should bear only daughters, so much the better.

      He drank again from his cup and again he called for more. At one of the tables below him he could see old Ælfric mouthing something at him. Christ! Another duty to perform, as if taking a Norman slut to wife hadn’t been enough.

      Reluctantly he pushed himself to his feet and lifted his golden goblet high, quelling the murmur of the wedding guests.

      ‘To the Lady Emma of Normandy,’ he bellowed, ‘queen of all England!’

      The company responded with cheers, and next to him, his new young queen blushed.

      As the revellers stood and raised their cups to her, Emma searched among them for her own people, but she found no familiar faces in the throng. She trusted that they would have found their way to tables somehow. Certainly there was enough food here that no one would go to bed hungry tonight. The king, she had learned, had ordered food tables set up all over the city in celebration of his nuptials, so even the poorest folk would sleep with full bellies for this one night at least. She was glad of it.

      She let her gaze wander, over the heads of the guests seated at endless rows of tables, and then along the intricately carved oak columns that marched in two rows down the length of the hall and soared upwards so high that they disappeared into darkness. This was a huge edifice, far larger than her brother’s hall at Fécamp, or even in Rouen. It had obviously been built to inspire awe, and to intimidate. It succeeded on both counts, and in its massive, dim interior