The Price of Blood

They settled themselves to sleep then, on either side of the fire. For a long time, though, she lay awake, staring into the dying flames and pondering her future. If her brothers were dead, there was no man now who could command her except the king. And once she slipped free of whatever net Æthelred might throw out to snare her, she could claim her estates and marry. She could marry any man she wished.

She closed her eyes, and as she let herself drift towards sleep she wondered where Lord Athelstan was. She wondered if he realized just how valuable she could be to him.

April 1006

Near Saltford, Oxfordshire

Athelstan halted his horse beside the standing stone that pointed skyward like a gnarled finger. In the shallow valley in front of him, beyond the ring of stunted oaks, he could see the circle of stones and the figure seated at its centre, waiting.

It was not too late to turn back; not too late to make his way to London as he had intended when he left his father’s hall. Even now he did not know if he had come here of his own free will or if he had been drawn by some force that he did not understand.

He knew only that he was afraid – for himself, for the king, for England.

A succession of grim possibilities had been coursing through his mind for days now in an endless, looping string. Any move that his father made against Ælfhelm might split the kingdom. Any action that he himself might take to avert such a split would add to the suspicions his father was already nursing against him. Any hint of discord between the king, his sons, and his thegns would bring Viking raiders to their shores like wolves drawn to a bleating lamb, and that might well destroy England altogether.

Below him, the woman seated beside the fire did not look up, but she must know that he was here. He could not shake off the sensation that she had called him – that she had some answer to give him, if he could but ask the right question.

That, too, made him afraid.

Above him the sky darkened, then brightened again, as clouds drifted across the face of the sun.

The sky was of two minds, he thought, just as he was. But he’d come this far already, three days’ ride in the wrong direction.

So he swung off his horse and led it down the hill, leaving it to graze while he walked into the circle to take his place across the fire from the seeress. As they regarded each other for a long, silent moment, it crossed his mind that she had suffered some wasting sickness, for her face was thinner than he remembered, her nose as sharp and pointed as a merlin’s beak, and her skin creased with lines that had not been there two winters ago. He glanced past her, to the daub and wattle hut that was her dwelling. When last he was here he had left behind a purse of silver, but she had clearly not spent it on her comforts.

Finally she broke the silence.

‘Twice before this you have come to me, lord, and twice you left here doubting the truth of the words I spoke to you. Will this time be any different?’

How did she know that he had doubted her? Perhaps it was not such a difficult thing to divine, though. No man wished to believe in a future that was bleak.

‘Mayhap it depends on the question asked and the answer given,’ he replied.

She nodded. ‘Ask your question, then, lord, and I will give what answer I can.’

He paused, and as he looked into her eyes the question that he would pose came to him at last.

‘Is it possible for a man to change his fate?’

The black eyes flashed at him, or perhaps he was merely seeing the flames reflected there.

‘Every man’s wyrd is set, my lord, for it is the fate of every man to die. That end is inescapable.’

‘That end, yes,’ he agreed. ‘But there is far more to any man’s life than just the leaving of it. Is there only one path that a man must follow to his life’s end?’

‘One path only,’ she said. ‘Yet not every step upon that path is carved in stone.’

It seemed to him that her words were a riddle set within a maze.

‘Then how,’ he asked, ‘can anyone read a man’s future?’

She dropped her gaze from his, frowning into the fire.

‘The future of any man’s life is not a path that runs along a plain, my lord, but one that follows a trail over mountains and chasms that are hidden in mist. Sometimes, for a brief spell, the mist clears, and one who has the gift can see the way. Can you change the path? No. But no one, not even the most gifted, can perceive at a glance every valley or every mountaintop that a life will follow, nor every other life path that crosses it along the way.’ She looked into his eyes again. ‘You have not asked me about the thing that concerns you the most, I think. There is something far greater than the fate of a single life that troubles you.’

That much was true. It was not his wyrd that mattered, or his father’s. It was the fate of England that he would know.

He made no answer, but she spoke as if she had read his thought.

‘Then I will give you this answer to the question that you do not ask. Whether the thing that you desire is within your reach or not, failure is only a certainty if you do not strive to grasp what you would have.’

So. He must do whatever he could to preserve the kingdom, no matter the cost. Yet she would not promise him success, only certain failure if he did not make the attempt. What, he wondered, would be the price that he must pay?

‘And if I give you my hand now and ask you to tell me my future, what would you say to me?’

She dropped her eyes to the flames again, and her voice was a mere whisper.

‘What I would say to any man, for I have searched the fire and smoke again and again these many months, and what I see is ever the same.’

He waited for her to speak, and when she seemed disinclined to go on, he prodded her.

‘What is it?’ he demanded. ‘What is it that you see?’

She lifted her gaze to his, and he thought she tried to smile, but her eyes were filled with tears.

‘I see fire,’ she said, ‘and smoke. There is never anything else.’

April 1006

Cookham, Berkshire

The imprisonment of Ælfhelm’s sons led to angry clashes between Æthelred and his ministers. Throughout Easter Week while the council sessions continued, Emma observed the discord and the king’s response to it with growing dismay. Æthelred went nowhere without a ring of trusted warriors close about him, but the presence of armed men in the hall merely added to the tension that charged the air like lightning about to strike.

She was not present on the day that Lord Eadric of Shrewsbury strode into the hall with a dozen men at his back to report that Ealdorman Ælfhelm was dead. She heard about it soon enough, though. His bald statement set the court buzzing. The king declared that Ælfhelm had been punished for his treachery against the Crown, and immediately ordered Ælfhelm’s sons sent in chains to the fortress at Windsor. For safekeeping, he insisted.

This led to more unrest among the men of the witan. They demanded an accounting of Ælfhelm’s crimes and the crimes of his sons, but the king steadfastly refused to enumerate them. It was enough, he claimed, that he knew what they were, and even his bishops could not move him to say any more. At this Lord Æthelmær of the Western Shires grew so irate that he retired from the king’s council altogether, saying he would rather spend the rest of his life in an abbey serving God than continue paying court to an unjust king.

Emma had met with the man and tried to dissuade him from taking a step so drastic and irrevocable. He had listened to her arguments with grave respect and courtesy, but in the end she could not sway him from his decision. The next morning he had left Cookham with his sons and more than fifty warriors beside. The king never even tried to placate Æthelmær and sent no word of Godspeed, but Emma had watched the company ride away with misgiving.

And all the while there was an endless flurry of rumours about Elgiva, who seemed to have disappeared from the earth altogether. Some claimed that she was dead, but Emma gave those stories no credence. Elgiva was alive, she was certain. The Lady of Northampton had somehow slipped whatever snare Eadric had set for her, and that had merely goaded him into redoubling his efforts to capture her. He’d even sent men to the convents that were scattered throughout England – a fruitless endeavour in Emma’s opinion, despite tales that Elgiva had been seen at Polesworth, at Shaftesbury, and at Wilton. Elgiva, she knew, would never willingly place herself within the confining walls of a nunnery.

She had said as much to Wymarc as they walked together one morning beside the river. Pausing for a moment to look up, into the wide blue expanse that was uncharacteristically free of clouds, she had wondered aloud, ‘Where under this English sky is Elgiva? And what is she doing?’

‘She’s a temptress, isn’t she?’ Wymarc had replied. ‘She’ll have used her looks and her cunning to persuade some fool of a man to give her shelter.’

Emma thought that all too likely. But to whom would Elgiva turn for help?

‘Let us hope,’ she said, ‘that she has gone to ground and stays well hidden.’ Preferably outside England’s borders, where her wealth and connections would not tempt one of Æthelred’s ambitious thegns or, God forbid, an ætheling, to wed her.

Such an alliance, even now, with Ælfhelm dead and his sons imprisoned, would have its advantages. She imagined Athelstan fettered to the beautiful, scheming Elgiva – and abruptly she pushed the thought away. The king would never agree to it, and to attempt it without his blessing would mean catastrophe – father and son irrevocably divided and, far worse, a kingdom in chaos. Athelstan would never take that step.

He must not.

‘I doubt you need worry about Elgiva,’ Wymarc said. ‘She’s crafty as a cat. Toss her in the air and she’ll land on her feet every time.’

Yet Emma worried. As relieved as she was that Elgiva was no longer in her household, she had no wish to see her at the side of an ætheling or of some northern warlord, but neither did she wish her to be at the mercy of Eadric and his hounds.

When the council session ended, most of the nobles set out for their homes – fled, Emma thought – eager to get away from the king’s fierce, suspicious gaze. Two of the Mercian magnates, though, were ordered to remain. They were the brothers Siferth and Morcar, kin by marriage to Ælfhelm and the first to plead with the king on behalf of Ælfhelm’s sons. Æthelred claimed that he wished them to advise him in the search for Elgiva, but everyone knew that the men were hostages to the king’s fear of Ælfhelm’s supporters. The two men could not plot against him if they were at court, under his so-called protection.

Siferth’s young bride was Elgiva’s kinswoman, Aldyth. She was fifteen winters old, and tall for her age, quite the opposite of Elgiva, who, Emma reflected, was elfin in comparison. Everything about Aldyth was large – mouth, hands, feet, even her teeth. Yet she was not unattractive. The large eyes beneath her dark brows were beautiful, and her skin was fair and smooth. She had a lovely, wide smile – when she did smile, which had not been a frequent occurrence of late.

When Aldyth had first arrived at court, just before Easter, she had been shy and exuberant all at once. With the arrest of her cousins though, her excitement had turned very quickly to bewilderment. And when word came of her uncle’s death and Elgiva’s disappearance, her bewilderment had turned to horror and fear.

Emma had done what she could to shelter her from the rampant speculation about the fate of her cousins and from the cloud of suspicion that had settled upon her husband and his brother. It was Hilde, though, Ealdorman Ælfric’s granddaughter, who had taken charge of Aldyth, just as she had once taken charge of the king’s young daughters when she was no more than a child herself.

They sat together now, Hilde and Aldyth, on one of the fur hides that covered the floor, keeping watch over Edward and Robert, who seemed determined to explore every corner of the chamber. From her place at the embroidery frame under the high window, Emma watched them and smiled. Hilde had grown into a lovely young woman, her hair in its long braid the colour of honey. She was the same age as Aldyth, but she seemed years older somehow. Perhaps that was due to the responsibilities she had shouldered in the royal household, Emma thought. Or perhaps it was because she had lost both of her parents when she was so young, her mother to sickness and her father to the king’s vengeance. Hilde was smiling now, though, as Aldyth spun a wooden top before the delighted eyes of the two bairns.

Edyth, who was seated with her sisters beside Emma, looked at the group on the floor and scowled.

‘Can we not get some servants to take the children so these ladies can help us with this altar cloth?’ she asked, her tone surly. ‘The design is intricate and it is likely to take us years to finish it.’

‘This is a gift from the royal family to Archbishop Ælfheah,’ Emma replied, ‘and therefore we should be the ones to work the embroidery.’

She frowned at Edyth, who had been discontented with the entire world, but mostly with Emma, for some weeks now. The king’s eldest daughter was clearly gnawing on some grievance, but Emma had yet to determine in what way she was at fault.

She saw Edyth about to make another protest, but before she could say anything one of the household slaves, a boy of about eight, raced into the chamber and straight to Emma’s side. Without waiting for permission to speak, he cried, ‘There is word from Windsor that the lords Wulfheah and Ufegeat have had their eyes put out!’

The needle slipped from Emma’s hands, her gaze drawn immediately to where Aldyth and Hilde sat frozen, their faces ashen. They stared back at her with horror in their eyes until Aldyth collapsed forward, wailing as if she’d taken a mortal blow. Instantly Margot was at the young woman’s side, wrapping a comforting arm about her while Wymarc swept a protesting Robert from the floor.

Emma grasped the young slave by the arms and pulled him towards her. He was new to the court, still raw and untutored, sold into slavery during the worst of the famine when his parents could no longer feed him. He had meant no harm. He had only been eager to tell her the news, but a slave who could not hold his tongue was of no use to her.

‘You are never to speak in my presence until I give you permission to do so, whatever the message you carry. I shall punish you if you ever burst into my chamber like that again. Do you understand?’

He nodded, his eyes wide and frightened.

‘Good,’ she said, drawing him still closer. ‘Now, tell me,’ she said more gently, for his ears alone, ‘what else do you know of their fate?’ She cast another quick glance at Hilde and saw with a pang that the girl’s face was wet with tears as she clutched a whimpering Edward to her breast and stared pityingly at Aldyth. Hilde’s father had suffered this same cruel punishment, had even survived it, although he’d spent the rest of his life in exile, consumed by bitterness and hatred. Hilde had known him only in the weeks before he died – a twisted wreck of a man. This news, Emma thought, must bring back all the anguish that his young daughter had felt for him. Swallowing the hard knot of pity in her throat, Emma turned back to the boy and asked urgently, ‘Do the prisoners still live?’

‘I know not, my lady,’ the boy whispered, clearly frightened by the distress he’d caused.

‘Go and see if you can discover it,’ she said, ‘and bring me word.’

‘Yes, my lady,’ he said, remembering to bow before he scampered off.

Emma drew in a long breath and stood up, considering what to do next. Aldyth still sat on the floor, wrapped in Margot’s arms and sobbing with sorrow or with terror – likely both, Emma thought. The girl certainly had good reason to be afraid. She belonged to a family that had earned the king’s enmity, and there was no telling how far Æthelred would carry his vengeance. If he should send men here to take Aldyth away, even she would not be able to stop them.

All work on the archbishop’s altar cloth had ground to a halt. Edward was crying despite Hilde’s efforts to soothe him. Aldyth was distraught, and Edyth was frowning at her while her younger sisters stared at the weeping girl with frightened eyes.

‘Hilde,’ Emma said, taking Edward from her and pacing with the light, bouncing step that usually quieted him, ‘please take the younger girls outside for a walk.’ That would remove them from this turmoil and give Hilde a task that would hopefully take her mind from painful memories.

But it was Edyth who stood up and began to herd her sisters towards the chamber door, saying, ‘I will take them.’

‘I wish you to stay, Edyth,’ Emma said. ‘I may need your assistance.’ Edyth was old enough now to begin to learn how to deal with a court crisis.

‘And I wish to go,’ Edyth said, her voice taut as the string on a bow. She paused beside Aldyth and said, ‘You should not weep for those men. They were my father’s enemies. He would not have punished them had they not deserved—’

‘Be silent!’ Emma said sharply. In an instant she had thrust Edward into Hilde’s arms and, drawing Edyth aside, she hissed, ‘Edyth, you must show compassion for this girl. Her cousins have been horribly punished, her uncle is dead, and whatever they may have done, she must be very frightened. She is all but a hostage because of them.’

‘If she has done nothing wrong,’ Edyth replied, ‘then she need not be afraid. My father will not harm her. Why do you not tell her that?’

Emma wanted to weep with frustration. ‘I cannot tell her not to be afraid,’ she said, ‘because things are not as they should be. Everyone is frightened, tempers are raw, and I cannot speak for the actions of anyone.’ Least of all the actions of the king.

‘But it is your duty to defend my father,’ Edyth persisted, her face growing flushed and angry. ‘Only you will not, because you hate him.’

Emma stared at her. Where had this come from?

‘You are mistaken, Edyth,’ she said coldly. ‘I do not hate the king.’

‘Yes, you do,’ Edyth insisted, her voice rising. ‘You hate all of us. You only care about Edward and no one else. My brother Edmund says that you will not be happy until all of us are dead.’

Emma slapped her almost before Edyth finished speaking. The girl glared at her for an instant, then turned and fled the chamber.

Still stunned by the poison of Edyth’s words, Emma let her go. Her heart, though, was filled with misgiving. When had Edyth begun to resent her? At the time that she and Æthelred had wed, his daughters, all of them so very young, had accepted her almost as if she were an elder sister. Whatever suspicions the king’s sons may have harboured against her, his daughters had warmed to her. Clearly that had changed, at least where Edyth was concerned.

Had it started with Ecbert’s death, or did it go even further back, to the birth of Edward?

She put her fingertips to her temple and rubbed them against the pressure that had begun to pulse there. Dear God, she should have expected this. She should have prepared herself to face it, for it had to come sooner or later – this chafing between them. The girl was mature enough now to understand that her prestige had been lowered when her father had wed a Norman bride and given her a crown that Edyth’s own mother had never been granted. Edward’s birth could only have added to Edyth’s resentment. Edyth was ambitious. As she grew older, she would likely demand a role that held some influence within the court, and until she got it there would be no peace between stepmother and king’s daughter.

She looked at the others in the room – all of them upset and afraid. The younger girls were most frightened of all, she suspected, because they would not understand what tensions lay behind the little drama they had just witnessed.

She nodded to Hilde to take Edward and his half-sisters away, then she drew Aldyth to the bench along the wall and sat beside her. Even as she murmured words of consolation, though, she brooded on the king’s eldest daughter. She would have to find a way to reassure Edyth, win her over somehow; only she was at a loss as to how to go about it.

Edyth was too proud ever to admit that she could be in the wrong. She shared that trait with her father.

And was the king wrong about the guilt of Ælfhelm and his sons? Perhaps not; but the cruel measures that he had taken against them and his silence about their crimes could only breed discontent among men whose loyalty was already strained. If the summer brought dragon ships to England’s shores, would the men of England unite under their king, or would they turn to someone else to protect them?

Once more, her thoughts flew to Elgiva, who was as capable of treachery and deceit as her father and brothers. Where was she, and what kind of vengeance might she even now be plotting against the king?

A.D. 1006 Then, over midsummer, came the Danish fleet to Sandwich, and they did as they were wont; they barrowed and burned and slew as they went.

– The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Chapter Ten

July 1006

Cookham, Berkshire

The midsummer sun was at its height as Athelstan rode with Edmund and a dozen of their hearth guards along the Camlet Way towards the royal manor at Cookham. The road here, just north of the bridge that crossed the Thames near Shaftsey, cut through a forest of oaks, and he was grateful for the cooling shade. As they neared the river the trees thinned, and a horn blared from the walls of the burh that guarded the crossing.

Good, he thought, the guards are vigilant. He counted fifteen of them on the palisade. His bannermen, riding at the head of his company, signalled to them, they signalled back, and the wail of the horn faded. Casting a critical eye on the fortified structure perched on the island midriver, he noted that two new watchtowers had been added since last he was here.

‘It looks like Ealdorman Ælfric has been strengthening the shire’s defences,’ he said to Edmund. His brother made no reply, and Athelstan, irritated, scowled at him. ‘Edmund, something’s been eating at you all day. Are you going to tell me what it is, or are you going to continue to keep me in suspense?’

Edmund scowled back at him, but finally he broke his sullen silence.

‘How much will you tell the king about what you’ve been doing?’

It was a fair question, and one that Athelstan had been asking himself for weeks as he met with thegns all through the Midlands in an effort to stem their outrage over Ælfhelm’s murder. He had told them that Ælfhelm had been consorting with men close to the Danish king. He had done what he could to convince them that his father had been forced to move against the ealdorman, but he had not been able to defend the king’s tactics – the ruthless butchery of Ælfhelm and his sons. When pressed he had vowed that if he were on the throne, he would be far more open and even-handed in his dealings with his nobles than his father had been.

It was a promise not likely to endear him to the king, should he hear of it.

‘Are you afraid that I will end up like Wulf and Ufegeat?’ he asked Edmund. Poor devils. They had been mere pawns in their father’s dangerous game, yet they had died miserably in a dank and fetid stone cell, their wounds, it was rumoured, gone untreated. Siferth and Morcar, it seemed, had been granted possession of the ravaged bodies of their kinsmen for burial, and they had borne witness to the consequences of the king’s wrath. Word of it had spread through the realm like wildfire.