Shadow on the Crown

At the water’s edge, four black-clad acolytes, oblivious to the steady downpour, held a scarlet canopy over a scarlet-robed archbishop. A knot of brightly clad noblemen, their fur-lined mantles and hoods testifying to their high rank, clustered behind the prelate, their faces turned expectantly towards the approaching ship.

‘Which of them is the king?’ Wymarc asked.

Emma scanned the men again but none of them fitted the description that Ealdorman Ælfric had given her of Æthelred – a tall, well-built man with long golden hair and a trim beard.

A little shiver of foreboding crept along her spine to mingle with the anxiety already there. Was it possible that he had not come to greet her? She recalled how her brother Richard had made the five-day journey to Bayeux to wed Judith and escort her back to Rouen, and how the count of Turenne had travelled for near a month to sue for the hand of her sister Beatrice. Æthelred, though, had sent a delegation to Normandy to bid for his bride rather than come in person. Could he not even trouble himself to meet her at the city gate?

‘I do not think that he is here,’ she murmured to Wymarc.

‘Perhaps he is waiting to greet you in great state inside the palace,’ Wymarc said, ‘or at the church. Perhaps he thinks you will not wish to see him until you have had a chance to rest from the journey.’

Or perhaps, Emma thought, he is somewhat less than eager to meet his bride. Whatever the reason, it was an affront to her, and her anxiety grew.

The boat drew up to the dock, and Emma recognized Ealdorman Ælfric standing foremost among the nobles waiting to greet her. He had left Normandy some days before she had, and now the sight of his gaunt, old face, already smiling a welcome, cheered her somewhat. He helped her over the gunwale and into the shelter of the canopy, then took both her hands and bent to kiss them.

‘The king sends you greetings, my lady. Your bridegroom wished to come himself, but pressing matters of state have kept him from your side. I am bid to welcome you and escort you to your lodgings in the abbey precincts.’

He had barely finished speaking when the archbishop raised his hands and intoned a blessing, and the noise of the crowd hushed as the Latin words floated on the air. After that Emma was introduced to each nobleman in turn, and she greeted every man with a gracious word and a smile in spite of the misgiving that clutched at her heart. She had been anxious at the prospect of meeting the king. That he had not come to greet her, whatever the reason, only increased her unease.

‘I thank you, my lords,’ she said, in a voice as strong as she could muster, carefully enunciating the tongue-twisting English words, ‘and I thank the people of England for their welcome. May the Lord shower his blessings upon us all.’ The crowd gave a roar and, satisfied that she had pleased them, Emma turned to Ælfric. ‘I beg you, my lord, to tell me when I may look forward to meeting the king.’

The archbishop, an ancient man with a sour expression, raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips in disapproval. ‘You would do well to curb your impatience, my lady,’ he said gruffly. ‘Be content that the king will attend to you in his own good time.’

Stung by his rebuke, Emma had to bite her lip to keep from saying something she might regret. Here was one who disapproved of her. Was it because she was young and a woman, she wondered, or because she was Norman?

It was Ælfric who jumped in to mend the awkward moment.

‘On Sunday,’ he said, ‘the king will greet you at the church door to recite the marriage vows. Immediately afterwards he will escort you into the cathedral for the coronation ceremony.’

Not until Sunday! That was five days hence. What kind of man was this Æthelred that he would not meet with his bride in private for even a few moments of conversation before he wed her? Was this how things were done in England? The sense of panic that she had kept at bay for the last six weeks began to clutch at her again.

‘I wish to meet the king tomorrow,’ she insisted, smiling, although it was an effort. ‘Surely he can grant me a few moments of his good time.’

‘I am sorry, my lady,’ Ælfric said gently. ‘That will not be possible, for the king has not yet arrived in Canterbury. He has sent word that he will not be here before Sunday.’

She could feel the eyes of each nobleman fix upon her, taking her measure, curious to see how she would receive this unwelcome news. She said no more, but nodded to Ælfric in acknowledgement of his apology, doing her best to disguise both her displeasure at the king’s slight and her fear of what it might mean. She doubted that she was very successful. Her hands, she realized, were clenched as tightly as the muscles of her stomach. Drawing a deep breath, she made an effort to relax as she followed in the wake of the archbishop, who had started towards the city gates. She would have turned to search for Wymarc behind her, but she knew instinctively that she must keep her back straight and her head forward.

Ælfric escorted her to a litter draped lavishly with furs beneath a silk-lined canopy. Making a low bow, he handed her into it, and then she was borne on the shoulders of eight noblemen through the streets of Canterbury. She forced herself to smile, lifting her hand to the crowds of folk who lined the way or waved at her from thatched rooftops. She heard cries of ‘Welcome! Welcome to Richard’s daughter!’ over and over again as she was carried through the streets and past the great cathedral towards the abbey.

Her head ached from the noise, and from the effort to hold back tears that clouded her eyes – tears of both gratitude and dismay. The people of this realm had welcomed her with joy, yet the king who was to be her husband had not welcomed her at all. In the midst of this jubilant crowd, she had never felt so achingly alone.

That evening Emma dined with her Norman household in the guest 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 me, Father Martin,’ she said, ‘do you believe that the king had a hand in his brother’s death?’

The 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 she felt small and insignificant … and cold. A breeze fingered its way through the roof thatch to tease the brightly coloured banners hanging from the crossbeams. In its wake, the wall torches and the banks of thick candles danced and flared, throwing shadows that loomed menacingly and then shrank to nothing. A constant draught from somewhere behind her chilled her backside, and she regretted not wearing a second chemise beneath her gown.

She took a sip of mead from the silver cup, which was intricately etched with a tracery of vines – one of several wedding gifts from the king, along with the two finger rings and the crown she wore. The sweet liquor burned her throat but warmed her from within, giving her the courage to consider the man seated beside her, whose brooding expression seemed a fit accompaniment to the cold, dark hall.

She knew that he was several years younger than her brother, but he looked much older than Richard. The long golden hair that Ælfric had described to her was streaked with grey at the temples, and the king’s face was creased and seamed across the forehead and around the mouth and eyes. It struck her, as she studied him with quick, furtive glances, that he was not a happy man. Careworn, she might have said, although Father Martin’s tale of the unpunished murder of a king made her wonder if it was guilt, and not care, that had etched the lines in his face.

On his head he wore a massive golden crown studded with gems that glinted in the firelight, and she pitied him for that. The thing looked heavy, and it must be a punishment to wear it for any length of time. His white tunic, belted at the waist, was woven of fine linen, its sleeves elaborately embroidered in bright colours. The deep blue mantle of shimmering godwebbe that he wore was lined with gold silk and clasped at one shoulder with an enormous gold brooch that was studded with rubies.