Shadow on the Crown. Patricia Bracewell

now to bend the knee with the others and speak.

      ‘My lord king,’ Ælfhelm said, ‘I beseech your pardon for our late arrival on this auspicious day. We were delayed upon the road.’ He looked up then with not the least sign of regret evident upon his craggy face. ‘I return your sons to you,’ Ælfhelm said, but he was casting an appraising glance now on the young bride, and his mouth twisted into a sneer. ‘They would greet their new … mother.’

      Æthelred did not reply. His eyes were drawn again to Athelstan, for he still marvelled at his son’s resemblance to the dead Edward. Finally he considered the others. Ælfhelm’s cubs he knew – the two sons and the daughter. He let his gaze linger on the girl briefly before he fixed his attention on his own whelps.

      They should all have been at the ceremonies today. This tardy arrival in the midst of the feast and the scowling faces of his three offspring were meant to underscore their opposition to the marriage. He had been right to think that granting his bride a crown would lead to friction. It had already begun, and Ealdorman Ælfhelm had no doubt fanned the flames of dissension. The old devil would like nothing better than to pit his sons against him, setting them upon him like a pack of hounds.

      Well, let them howl their outrage to the moon for all the good it would do them. The deed was done. They would have to live with the consequences, just as he would.

      He fixed his eyes upon the thunderous face of his eldest son and said, ‘You are welcome to our feast. It would have done my queen greater homage had you arrived in better time, but go, refresh yourselves. We will speak of this another time.’

      He resumed his seat as the whispering began among the guests. There would be rumours in the city tomorrow about the king’s strange behaviour at his wedding feast. He raised his cup, and when he drank he felt the warmth course through him, soothing his tortured nerves. Let them whisper. His brother, the king, was safely dead and in his grave.

      He watched his sons melt into the crowd, and he did not miss the look of smouldering resentment that the girl, Elgiva, cast upon the new queen. That amused him. Elgiva’s high rank and wealth assured her a place in the queen’s household. All by herself she would likely be a significant burden for his new bride to shoulder. Emma was welcome to it.

      He glanced at his queen and saw that she was watching him, her eyes huge with amazement and speculation. He scowled. She wearied him, and he wanted rid of her.

      He stood again and, drawing her up beside him, he announced, ‘The queen will now retire, and she bids you all good night.’

      The assembly rose amid the usual bawdy shouts and applause, while Emma raised an eyebrow in surprise. But she said nothing, merely offered him a gracious courtesy before turning abruptly to follow the servants who would lead her to his private chamber.

      Satisfied at having the dais to himself, Æthelred sat down and applied himself once more to his food and drink. He would tend to his queen soon enough.

      Emma surveyed the great royal bed, which was sumptuously draped with curtains and bedecked with furs and intricately embroidered pillows. It had been arranged here just this morning, she knew, for all of the accoutrements of the king’s bedchamber accompanied him wherever he went – hangings for the walls, pelts for the floor, the finest linens and furs for the bedding, even the candle sconces and braziers for light and warmth. She felt a shiver of foreboding, though, as she looked solemnly about her. There could never be enough candles, she thought, to light this chamber. All the furnishings were dark and oppressive, in spite of their richness.

      Her own household goods were already on their way to Winchester, for she would have no need of them here. Tonight, and while the king stayed in Canterbury, she would share his chamber and his bed. It made her feel like she was just another piece of chattel, like a gilded coffer or a handsomely embroidered cushion.

      She tried to put that thought aside as the dozen women who had escorted her from the hall began the business of preparing her to greet her husband. Emma had assisted with this same task herself when her sister Beatrice had wed, and she recalled how Beatrice had chattered and laughed all through the undressing. Emma felt too numb to speak, and she submitted dumbly to her attendants’ ministrations.

      Most of the women were strangers to her, for it was an honour granted by the king to assist his bride at the bedding. She had been allowed to choose only two attendants from her Norman retinue, and so Wymarc was here with her, and her old nurse, Margot, looking like a little brown wren amid all the fine ladies.

      When Emma had been stripped of her wedding finery and garbed in the delicate shift that Gunnora had embroidered with her own hands, Emma was escorted to the bed. She exchanged the appropriate courtesies with the women of Æthelred’s court, and then she dismissed them. It was not politic, she knew, but she could no longer bear their curious stares. When only Wymarc and Margot remained in the room, Emma collapsed backwards upon the bed cushions, exhausted.

      A moment later Margot was at her side, offering her a cup of wine. ‘It is good Norman wine, that,’ she said, ‘from your own stock. Drink it all, my lady. It will do you good.’

      ‘God bless you, Margot,’ Emma said, sitting up and grasping the cup. She took a greedy gulp of the wine, then considered the flagon still in Margot’s hand. ‘Put that here, near the bed, and you’d best pour some for yourselves. I expect we might have a long wait. Something tells me that the king will not be in any hurry to lie with his new queen tonight.’

      Wymarc’s unflagging smile dimmed a bit. ‘Why do you say that? He should be eager to attend you. You are the most beautiful woman in this hall.’

      ‘Beauty, I fear, is no great advantage,’ Emma said slowly, staring into her wine cup. ‘The king seems to regret his … purchase.’

      She looked up at Wymarc, whose face clouded with misgiving.

      ‘That cannot be true,’ Wymarc said. ‘Why would he regret it?’

      Emma sighed, exasperated. ‘I do not know why! I only know that he is in an ill temper, and it is directed at me. He all but threw me out of the hall.’

      ‘Dear God,’ Wymarc breathed. She exchanged a worried glance with Margot, then suggested hopefully, ‘Could it be that he is just a nervous bridegroom? He is so much older than you; perhaps he is afraid that he will disappoint you.’

      It was kind of Wymarc to look for an excuse for the king’s odd behaviour, but she had not heard Æthelred’s curt words. Emma took another swallow of the wine, thinking with dread of the bedding to come. If he had been so cold at the table, what would he be like in the bedchamber?

      Then she remembered the stricken look on the king’s face when he saw his sons. He had been more upset with them even than with her.

      ‘There was something else,’ she said, ‘something to do with his sons. They came late to the feast. When the king saw them he was so distracted that I thought he had been taken by some kind of seizure. He recovered himself in a moment, but it gave me a fright.’

      She described the undercurrent of tension between the king and his offspring. Even now it flayed her nerves to recall it. The king’s sons had been hostile, but Æthelred had not looked angry as much as frightened. His eyes had grown wide and his face had gone pale with terror, as if he were facing Death itself.

      ‘Mayhap it was one of their companions that frightened the king,’ Margot suggested.

      ‘That may be so,’ Emma said slowly, remembering the older man who had addressed the king. His face had been seamed and rugged, with a flat nose and small, mean eyes – a hard, nightmarish face behind a thick, black beard. But could even a man such as that strike terror in the king?

      ‘Oh, God,’ she said, pulling her knees up and dropping her face against them, ‘there is so much that I do not know.’ She raised her head and thrust her empty cup at Wymarc for more wine. ‘The man’s name is Ælfhelm,’ she said. ‘In the morning I want Hugh to discover everything that he can about this Ælfhelm and report to me. You must find Hugh tonight and tell him.’

      ‘Of