The Price of Blood

It was hardly the courteous greeting she had looked for, but she had no chance to rebuke him. A moment later she found herself riding swiftly through the mist with armed horsemen on either side of her. She cursed under her breath. How could she have forgotten what a brute Thurbrand was? He had all the courtesy of a boar, and now that she’d seen Holderness, she would not be surprised to discover that he was not only uncivilized but half-mad as well.

Her decision to come to him for help seemed far less wise in this light, but it was too late to do anything about it. She could only wonder uneasily who was waiting for them at Ringbrough, whatever Ringbrough may be.

As it turned out, Ringbrough was a small manor – far smaller than she had expected. It was set within a palisade among fields of rye bordered by a forest of oak and ash. There was a hint of salt on the breeze, and she guessed that they must be very near the sea. The afternoon was far advanced as they entered the compound through a narrow wooden gate guarded by armed men. When she heard the latch close behind her she could think of nothing so much as a trap springing shut, and she felt a sudden tremor of apprehension.

As Alric helped her from her horse, she glanced towards the centre of the yard, where a timbered hall – half the length of her father’s – stood flanked by smaller buildings. It was not long, but it was tall, with a high, curved roof ornamented with soaring crossbeams carved in the shape of beasts gaping with fierce, open mouths, like the monsters on the prows of dragon ships. She did not like the menacing look of that hall, and when Thurbrand grasped her elbow and would have led her inside, she wrested her arm away and rounded on him.

‘Why have you brought me here?’ she demanded. ‘I’ve heard my father describe the massive stronghold of the mighty Thurbrand. This is not it.’

‘Aye, that’s so. But what we do today must have few witnesses, and those only men that I can trust. Get you in.’

Now her fear was as wide as a river in flood.

‘I will not,’ she snapped, ‘until you tell me what you are about.’ And likely not even then, if she could help it.

‘Lady Elgiva,’ he growled, taking her arm again and pushing her towards the open door, ‘I stand here in your father’s stead. You have nothing to fear.’

Yet she was afraid, for she saw her father’s hand in this, reaching out from the grave to bring her to ruin. She was afraid that some bastard of a Dane was waiting in there for her, and that the marriage she had tried so desperately to avoid was about to come to pass. But she was not strong enough to resist Thurbrand, who simply dragged her through the doorway as if she were made of straw.

Inside, the far end of the hall was lit by thick candles set on a trestle table, where four men sat laughing and drinking. She did not recognize any of them, and she turned around to look to Alric for help, but there was only darkness behind her. As Thurbrand propelled her towards the strangers their talk and laughter died, and she felt their gazes burn her skin. She was thrust none too gently onto a stool next to one of them. Volleys of words shot back and forth among the men, but she understood nothing.

When a servant appeared from the shadows to set a cup before her, she reached for it eagerly and took a long swallow, then coughed as the liquid burned its way down her throat. It was beor, a drink more potent than wine or mead, but she was thirsty. She wiped her streaming eyes, then drank some more while she peered at the faces around the table and considered her options. The usual tricks for cozening a man would be of no use to her here. She did not want to charm them but repel them. And if her men’s clothes and the stench from a week’s worth of travel filth did not do it, likely nothing would.

She decided that the fellow seated directly across from her must be their leader, for he was covered in gold. There were gold rings on his fingers and arms, and a heavy gold chain hung about his neck. Well, if he was to be her husband, he appeared to be rich enough to suit her, but, Jesu, he was ancient. Still, he might well die soon, and that would be an advantage.

His long hair, tied back in the Danish fashion, was stark white, and his face was so seamed and weather-worn that she was reminded of the chalk cliffs that she had seen on the southern coast. His black eyes scanned her as if he were calculating her worth, and when she arched an insolent brow at him, one corner of his mouth lifted, as if she’d amused him. He flicked a finger, and Thurbrand pulled the hood and woollen cap from her head, releasing the long braid that fell to her waist.

‘Do not touch me, you whoreson,’ she snarled, batting his hand away. ‘Who are these men? I came to you in trust and you have betrayed me.’

‘No betrayal, lady,’ he said smoothly. ‘I am merely completing the bargain that your father agreed to.’

‘But I did not agree to it!’ She stood up, knocking over her stool and glaring at him.

He responded by striking her so hard that she lost her balance. She would have fallen but for the man who occupied the stool beside hers. He caught her, and she heard him shout something at Thurbrand. But the blow and the beor made the room spin, and she was only dimly aware that in the moments that followed, her hands were clasped hard between a man’s calloused palms and more words were spoken that she did not comprehend.

‘It is done,’ she heard Thurbrand say then. ‘Greet your husband, lady. His name is Cnut.’

She looked up into eyes as dark as those that had bored into her from across the table. But these eyes belonged to a far younger man – younger even than she was, she guessed. His beard, like his hair, glinted copper in the candlelight while those dark eyes considered her with a steady, solemn gaze. He slipped a fat gold ring from one of his fingers and placed it upon one of hers. She studied the ring and dredged up a smile for him.

Then, still smiling, she spat in his face.

Elgiva could not say how long it took for her head to finally clear from a haze of confusion, anger, and beor. She remembered being bathed and clothed in a clean shift of white linen. Now she was alone, her hair combed and plaited, and she was lying on a curtained bed that was strewn with furs. Despite the fire that burned on the small hearth in the centre of the chamber, she was cold. She sat up and, wrapping one of the furs around her shoulders, noticed a cup on the table next to the bed. She picked it up, sniffed it, and tasted it. The liquid inside was hot – a herbal infusion of some kind, sweetened with honey. She sipped it gingerly as she tried to make sense of what had happened to her.

She appeared to be in a woman’s bower – the rafters above her head intricately carved with flowers and birds, and painted in bright hues. The linen hangings that covered the walls were embroidered with sailing ships and sea monsters. A loom stood against one wall, and next to it several coffers were stacked one atop another. She wondered idly what they held, but she was too tired to get up and inspect them. Instead she lay back upon the pillows and saw that some fool had scattered flower petals there. Jesu! Did they think a few blossoms would placate her for having to spread her legs for a filthy Dane?

That was what she would be forced to do, assuming her hazy memory was correct and she had actually been wed to that youth in the hall. There had been no priest to bless the nuptials, but that made no difference. Whoever he was, he could claim her as his handfast wife once he’d bedded her. No doubt he would set about that soon enough.

The chamber door opened slowly and she sat up, expectant and wary. A woman entered, perhaps several years younger than she was, thin as a stick, with flaming hair that hung in plaits to her waist. Her green woollen cyrtel was belted with a silver chain, and she wore strings of amber beads around her neck.

Someone of status, then.

Another woman slipped into the room behind the first. This one would be a servant or slave, for she was gowned in a shift as grey and plain as dirt, and she moved as silently as a shadow. She went to a stool in the corner and, pulling a spindle and wool from a basket, she began to spin.

Like one of the Norns, Elgiva thought, one of the mystical creatures that the Norse believed in, who spun the thread of fate for each living being. Even as she thought it, the woman looked up with an expression so dark and knowing that Elgiva instinctively flinched and looked away.

She is but a slave, she told herself, and no Norn. There is nothing to fear from her.

She turned instead to the woman in green, who was still hesitating near the door.

‘Who are you and what do you want?’ The question was probably pointless. She’d heard nothing but Danish spoken since she’d arrived in this miserable place.

‘I am Catla,’ the young woman whispered. She looked nervous, her eyes enormous and her skin pale as milk. ‘I am wife to Thurbrand, and he has bid me attend you until your lord comes.’ She smiled weakly and gave her head a little shake. ‘I cannot abide the hall when the men get …’ She waved her hand helplessly.

Dear God. This waif was hardly a match for the bearlike Thurbrand. He must chew her up and spit her out daily to make her look so frightened. But at least the girl spoke English and might be able to tell her something useful.

‘Sit here, then.’ Elgiva gestured to the bed but she could not bring herself to smile. She was still too furious at the trick Thurbrand had played on her. ‘I won’t bite you. Tell me of the man they’ve foisted on me. Do you know who he is?’

The girl came closer but she did not sit down.

She reminded Elgiva of a fawn or a rabbit, frightened of its own shadow.

‘He is Cnut, lady. Son of Swein, son of Harald, son of Gorm.’ She recited it as if she were a skald about to begin a tale, or as if it had been beaten into her.

‘Swein,’ Elgiva repeated. ‘Is that the man I saw in the hall, clad all in gold?’

Catla gave a quick nod. ‘He landed on Lammas Day, and he was furious when he did not find you here. It’s as well that you arrived today because by tomorrow he and his son would have been gone.’

Elgiva closed her eyes. Another day, and she would have escaped this fate. How the Norns must be laughing at her.

When she opened her eyes again, Catla was gesturing towards the caskets that stood beside the loom.

‘King Swein bid me tell you that everything here is yours. The bed, the hangings, everything in the boxes you see there, even Tyra’ – she nodded towards the grey woman with the spindle – ‘belongs to you. She will be your body servant. They are all morning gifts from Cnut.’

But Elgiva was no longer listening, for the words King Swein had struck her ears like a thunderbolt. She thrust herself from the bed and crossed the chamber to lift the lid of one of the coffers that stood against the wall. It was filled with silver – rings and chains, cups and plates, crosses, candlesticks, and medallions. She turned to another coffer and inside she found golden arm rings, enamelled necklaces, finger rings set with precious gems – a Viking hoard of gold and jewels.

She knew now, who it was that she had wed. She was the handfast wife of the son of King Swein of Denmark. It must be. She had never heard of any other king named Swein, and the wealth in these chests argued that she was the bride of a king’s son.

She closed her eyes, remembering the prophecy of her old nurse, Groa.

You will be a queen, and your children will be kings.

She had always believed that she must marry Æthelred or one of his brood for that to come true. It had never dawned on her that there might be another way. But there was, and this was it. This marriage was an alliance that would inspire northern lords like Thurbrand, men dissatisfied with the kingship of Æthelred, to pledge themselves to the warrior king from Denmark – and to his son. Æthelred might one day find himself ruler of only the southern half of England, while Swein held all the rest.

And one day, when Swein died and Cnut was crowned king after him, she would be queen beside him.

How long had her father been negotiating this marriage? And why had the fool not confided in her, not told her that it was Cnut she was to wed? She would have helped him, not betrayed him. If he’d had the good sense to trust her with his great secret, he might still be alive and her brothers would not have been tortured and left to die.

Her father, damn him, had wasted all their lives.

The sound of voices outside brought her bitter musing to an abrupt end. She made it back to the bed just before the door was flung wide and the room filled with drunken men. Two of them carried torches, and when one of them stumbled towards the bed, she cried out for fear he would fire the hangings. But he righted himself and she saw that it was Alric, ogling her and grinning like an idiot.

She scrambled to the top of the bed and pulled the furs up against her breasts, making the men howl with laughter. Catla, the little coward, slipped out the door like a shadow, but Elgiva knew that for her there would be no escape. She was wed to Cnut, and his kinsmen had come to watch him plough his furrow and plant a babe in her belly. Jesu, if they expected to find blood on the sheets afterwards they were in for a disappointment, for she was no virgin.

She glanced at the king, who was staring at her wolfishly, his mouth set in a leer. Would they kill her in the morning because she was no maid?

No. They needed her to claim the allegiance of her kin.

She had no more time to think about that, for Cnut had come to the foot of the bed and he was surveying her with eyes that showed no trace of drunkenness. He pulled off his tunic and skinned his breecs away as the men cheered and pounded their feet on the floor – for encouragement, she supposed. But Cnut was naked now, standing tall in the torchlight that gleamed on his skin, and judging by the way his rod stood at attention, the encouragement was hardly necessary.

Well, she was not going to just sit here like a stick of wood, like a frightened little Catla.

She drew her feet under her, stood up on the mattress, and slowly walked its length to face her husband. A shout of anticipation went up from the men, and Cnut eyed her warily, perhaps thinking she might spit at him again. But she knew who he was now, and she had no qualms about consummating this marriage. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him, drawing his tongue into her mouth. He responded by slipping his hands beneath her shift and pulling her roughly against him. Beneath the pounding of blood in her ears she heard the howls of the men as Cnut guided her back down to the mattress.

He sheathed himself inside her and she wrapped her legs about his hips, moving to the rhythm that he set. His thrusts were quick and hard and deep, and it did not take long. Well, what was she, after all, but a prize to be plundered? When he collapsed on top of her the Danes sent up a roar. The slave, Tyra, came forward, and for an instant their eyes met and held. Elgiva felt her skin prickle under that knowing gaze, and she breathed a sigh of relief when Tyra drew the curtains around the bed and that cold glance was hidden.

They were alone after that, and as she lay spooned against Cnut beneath the furs, he murmured to her in Danish. She did not understand him, and she was glad when he finally fell asleep, his hand cupped possessively over her breast. She was uncomfortable in his arms, though, and in spite of her weariness she lay awake far into the night. She tried to conjure up her future, tried to imagine herself in a great hall wearing a golden circlet, but the only images that rose in her mind were the faces of her father and her brothers, who stared at her with cold, accusing eyes. At last she fell asleep, and she dreamed of a woman in grey who sat spinning, and the golden thread that fell from her fingers shrivelled into dust.

The next day, gowned in her own shift and cyrtel, and bedecked with some of her bridal gold, she followed Cnut through the hall to the dais, where King Swein waited to greet her. Alric, looking haggard after last night’s celebration, fell in behind her, whispering that he had been commanded to act as interpreter.

Cnut took her hand, standing at her side as Swein pinned her with those black eyes of his, eyeing her belly as if he had the power to discern whether Cnut’s son was already growing there. She resented that look and resented the way this marriage had come about, although she was satisfied enough with her husband – assuming that, in the end, she got what she wanted.

‘I wish to know,’ she said, not waiting for the Danish king to speak first, ‘when King Swein will take the crown of England as his own.’

She watched Swein’s face as Alric translated her question, and she thought she caught a flicker of amusement in the king’s eyes.

‘When you give Cnut a son,’ the reply came back, ‘blending English blood with Danish, I will wrest the crown from Æthelred. Your father’s death stalled our preparations, but we will begin again. You have but to do your part.’

She nodded. It would do, for now. She would complete her part of the bargain. After all, even the whey-faced Emma had finally produced a son. Surely she must be as fecund as Emma, although – the alarming thought fluttered into her mind – she had not conceived in the months that she had slept beside the king.

She reminded herself, though, of the prophecy that Groa had sworn to her was true, that she was destined to wear a crown, destined to bear sons who would be kings. So it was foretold and, therefore, she assured herself, no power on earth could prevent it.

Windsor, Berkshire

Æthelred paced his inner chamber as he waited for Emma to respond to his summons. It was late and he was weary but, by Christ, he would not face another night in his bed alone. His dreams were a torment, filled with phantoms – the dead come to haunt him. His brother, his mother, even his father had troubled his sleep for a week. Their faces, decaying and putrid beneath golden crowns, hovered over him, as if they would warn him of some coming disaster. Last night it had been Elgiva, beautiful and naked, riding him hard until suddenly she was no longer Elgiva. It was her father whose dead weight pressed upon his chest and whose rough, bearded mouth covered his own, drawing all the breath from his lungs until he woke, crying out in terror.

The menace of that nightmare still clung to him, yet it offered a glimmer of hope, for it could mean that Elgiva, too, was now rotting in some unhallowed grave.

So far, she had not been discovered in either Mercia or Northumbria, and he dared to hope that some mischance had befallen her – the last of Ælfhelm’s brood of vipers.

Alive, wedded to some powerful Danish lord, she could be a threat – a rallying point for Ælfhelm’s disgruntled northern kin.

Dead, she could do no more than haunt him.

He paused at his work-table to finger a pile of scrolls and wax tablets that bore news from Kent, where the Danes continued to burn and plunder. His fyrds were doing exactly as he had ordered, shepherding his people into the burhs to protect them. From within the safety of their fortress walls, though, they had to watch as their homes were torched and their livestock driven away. They were powerless to stop it, for they had not the numbers to confront the better-armed shipmen and their savage leader – some bastard, he saw scrawled on one of the tablets, named Tostig.

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