The Constant Queen (32 page)

Oslo, April 1050

‘I
t’s all so perfect, Hari. Isn’t it perfect?’

Elizaveta looked up at Harald, willing him to love her new venture as she did. The city of Oslo was growing swiftly under her careful guidance and today its myriad new citizens were all out to
watch their young men dare to participate in the inaugural Rapids Race. The great seawater fjord did not freeze as the Dnieper had so there was not quite the same feeling of release but up in the
forested mountains, the waters of the Lo were being set free and the current was more than strong enough to create an exciting race down into the open finish in the fjord.

Elizaveta had been delighted when she’d found the winding rocky tributary that rose up out of the north-west of the city into the hills and had been personally supervising the training of
the men who would be Norway’s first ever rapids riders. One of them in particular she had trained hard and as she, with the rest of the excited crowd, peered upriver, she prayed
sixteen-year-old Aksel would fulfil his potential and take the prize – a jewelled cup she had persuaded Harald to part with from his still-bulging caskets of treasure.

‘I hold the keys after all,’ she’d told him, straddling him, naked of all bar her jewelled ring and her neck chain, wrapped like a scarf around her throat.

‘You hold all the keys, Lily,’ he’d agreed slightly ruefully, stirring, as always, beneath her.

‘And don’t you forget it!’

Now she squeezed his arm eagerly.

‘Isn’t it perfect?’ she repeated.

‘It looks quite good,’ he agreed, his lip twitching.

‘Quite good?! I think it’s magnificent.’

‘Then why do you care about my opinion?’

She pouted.

‘I don’t know, Hari. I sometimes wish I didn’t – it would be much simpler if I could just let you come and go like Tora does.’

‘Lily, hush.’

‘Why?’ she demanded, pulling three-year-old Maria back from the edge. ‘It’s true and it’s not as if it matters. Finn is happy, there’s peace in the north,
Kalv is back – nasty creature that he is – and you have two new children on the way.’

‘Lily . . .’

‘I’m just stating facts, Hari. Not many kings can have such matching wives.’

Elizaveta ran a hand over the swell of her belly and looked across to a similarly bulging Tora, tying Magnus’s tunic tighter against the crisp spring air. She had been furious when Harald
had sheepishly admitted to his rushed handfasting but really, who wanted a husband you had to wed in the secrecy of the forest? Besides, Tora, strange woman that she was, did not seem to bother
much with Harald any more.

‘You know, Lily,’ Harald said now, grabbing her hand and yanking her close to him, ‘that save your bellies you and Tora are about as like as a deer to an eagle.’

Elizaveta laughed.

‘You are calling me a deer, Hari?’

‘You know I am not. Now hush – the race will start soon and you’ll miss it with all this gabbling.’

Elizaveta smiled and turned to look upriver again, memories swirling around her. She felt a sharp jab of pain that none of her family could be here to share this moment. Greta had been a
wonderful support but her maid could hardly join her on the royal grandstand and she missed her sisters.

Agatha was still in Hungary and had birthed two daughters. She seemed happy there, settled even, and Elizaveta almost envied her proximity to Anastasia. She had heard nothing much from her
brothers, though her mother wrote that they were well. She thought of Vladimir, once the closest of her siblings, and suddenly saw him running into the boathouse to fetch her the fateful day that
Ulf had visited with the first of Harald’s treasure keys. The memory bloomed and she recalled the eagle-prow that Jakob had offered to carve for her – the eagle-prow that had watched
benevolently as she and Harald had first lain together. No wonder that’s how Harold saw her.

‘Hari.’ She tugged on his arm and he looked impatiently down. ‘Hari, do you still have my prow?’

‘Your what?’

‘My prow. The one shaped like an eagle that Jakob carved for me in Kiev. We brought it to Norway, remember?’

Suddenly it seemed a matter of utmost urgency to see it again. Was Jakob still alive? Was he still lovingly fashioning wood down in the Podol? Did he ever think about the little princess who had
wanted wings for her very own ship?

‘I remember,’ Harald said. ‘It must be in the treasury.’

‘Underground? It will be sad down there.’

‘Sad? Elizaveta, it’s made of wood. It cannot be sad.’

‘You told me once that wood lives.’

Harald rolled his eyes.

‘You are determined to be contrary today, my sweet. I will find your eagle, I promise, and release him to the winds if it will make you happy but today, please, can we just watch the race
–
your
race? Look – the flag is up!’

Elizaveta looked into the dense trees and the sight of the great red and white flag stirred her heart.

‘You must beat the gong,’ she said to Harald. He shook his head and she frowned. ‘You must, Hari. The boats will be ready and it is hard to keep them steady on the
start.’

‘As you know?’

‘As I know, yes. Please sound it.’

‘No.’

‘But . . .’

‘
You
sound it.’ He pushed the hammer into her hand, taking hold of Maria, who was still tugging to be closer to the water, and nudging her forward. ‘And quickly, Lily
– the boats are hard to keep steady on the start.’

All eyes were upon her so she resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at her infuriating royal husband and instead lifted the hammer and brought it down with all her might into the big copper
gong. The soft sound, rich with memories, rippled across the water and, further up the hillside, the others sang out like echoes until, to a whoop from the excited crowd, the starting flag went
down and the race was begun. Elizaveta fixed her gaze on the trees, looking for the flag at the first turn and praying Aksel’s red one would be raised. The crowd hummed curiously.

‘What happens now?’ someone asked behind Elizaveta.

‘They are taking the first turn,’ she explained, turning eagerly. ‘They will . . . oh.’ She stopped, for there was Tora, her big blue eyes as surprised as
Elizaveta’s own at who had chosen to answer her. ‘They will drop into a pool halfway up,’ Elizaveta forced herself to say, ‘and the flag bearers will raise a colour in the
trees to signal which rider enters the rapids first. There, oh there – look! It’s red!’ Unthinkingly she’d clutched Tora’s arm at the sight and now she dropped it like
a hot coal. ‘That means Aksel is in the lead.’

‘Your squire?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s good then.’

Elizaveta nodded, unsure what to do now. She rarely spoke to Harald’s handfast woman and never kindly; it felt as strange as taking a sip of ale and finding it to be mead. Not unpleasant,
just all wrong. Thankfully the canoes were soon tipping into view. The crowd upriver were leaping and cheering madly and the pulse of the competition rippled through the men and women at the wide
finish, giving Elizaveta an excuse to turn away.

‘Go on, Aksel!’ she screamed. The young man was battling against a sharp Varangian, both boats tipping precariously as they dug their paddles into the churning water on the lower
stretch of the race. ‘Go on!’

‘Dignity, Lily,’ Harald’s amused voice said in her ear.

‘This is no time for dignity,’ she retaliated, ‘they’re neck and neck.’

The crowd were roaring wildly, pushing up to the bank to see, and she tightened her hold on Maria who looked set to leap into the boat with their favourite. Then suddenly the other contender,
trying to cut through along the near bank below them, caught his paddle on a root and slewed his boat. Aksel shot under the finish line, his rival coming through sideways just seconds behind and
Elizaveta punched the air in delight.

‘He won, Mama,’ Maria called, every bit as pleased as her mother, and Harald bent down to sweep her into his arms. ‘Can I give him the prize, Papa?’ she demanded.
‘I’ll do it really well, promise. I’ll let him kiss my hand and I’ll say “Aksel Halldorsson, you are the winner” and I’ll give him the cup very carefully.
I won’t drop it, promise I won’t. Please, Papa?’

She wound a strand of his fair hair around her finger, something she was often wont to do, and he laughed and kissed her nose.

‘It’s your mama’s cup to give, Maria.’

Maria looked at Lily, weighing up her chances, then back to Harald.

‘But you’re the king.’

Harald laughed louder.

‘Queens count for more than kings, Maria, believe me.’

‘Really? Is that, then, why you have two?’

The people around who had been indulgently watching their precocious princess sucked in their breath. Elizaveta glanced at Tora and to her astonishment the other woman came forward.

‘No, Maria,’ she said directly to the child in her soft voice, ‘that is just because your papa is very, very lucky. Now look, the winners are coming – you’d better
get the cup ready.’

Maria, thankfully, scrambled to do so, Harald ducking after her to ‘help’, and the two wives were left together.

‘It’s less lucky,’ Elizaveta said under her breath, ‘than greedy.’

‘Probably,’ came back the reply, ‘but let’s keep that one to ourselves.’

Elizaveta felt a ridiculous giggle building inside her. Her lips twitched and Tora, seeing it, smiled too.

‘I’m meant to hate you,’ Elizaveta said.

‘You don’t seem to me like a woman who does what she’s meant to.’

‘I try not to.’

Elizaveta looked on as Maria, clutched in Harald’s arms, presented Aksel with his cup to cheers from the crowd. She noticed Halldor leaning against one prop of the grandstand trying to
look nonchalant but beaming from ear to ear and was glad. He’d seemed out of sorts recently, grumpier than ever, and it was good to see him smile.

‘I rode the rapids once,’ she said, still watching the winners.

‘You?’

Elizaveta smiled even wider at Tora’s horror.

‘I wasn’t meant to. I sneaked out. Pretended I was a boy.’

‘What happened?’

‘I got into terrible trouble.’

‘I’m sure, but did you win?’

Elizaveta whirled round to look at Tora, intrigued at the question.

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I was stopped halfway by my father, but thank you for believing that I could have done.’

Tora shook her head.

‘I sometimes believe you could do anything, Elizaveta of Kiev.’

‘Bar produce a son.’

Tora’s jaw tightened and her hand went to her belly.

‘We don’t know that,’ she said stiffly and turned away just as her uncle, Jarl Kalv, sidled between them.

Elizaveta shivered and looked for an escape. The jarl who’d returned from the Orkneys was exactly how she remembered him from her brief childhood encounter – as lithe and sly as a
forest-weasel – and she distrusted his every move.

‘A wonderful race,’ he said, his voice as soft as cooking fat. ‘A Kievan tradition?’

‘It is.’

‘It must bring back fond memories then, Princess.’

‘Queen. I am queen now.’

‘Of course. Foolish of me. You must miss Kiev.’

‘As you must miss Orkney.’

‘Ah, but it was never truly my home. I don’t believe anyone can ever truly be at home away from their birth country.’

‘You don’t? Then you must be very unadaptable. I find myself every bit as settled here in Oslo as I ever was in Kiev.’

That silenced him, but only for a moment.

‘There are traders here from the Rus, you know,’ he said, his voice sly. ‘I have been speaking with them. They were delighted to see the race. They said – what was it?
– how pleased your father would be to see his influence spread so far.’

‘My mother too, I’m sure,’ Elizaveta agreed, looking desperately for a way past but the crowd around Aksel and his fellow riders was blocking her in.

‘Your mother? Ah yes . . .’

Elizaveta saw a dark gleam in Kalv’s eyes and her heart scudded.

‘Excuse me, I must . . .’

‘I have news of your mother actually. Sad news.’

Elizaveta would not look at him; would not give him the satisfaction.

‘She is gone to God.’ The world swam before Elizaveta’s eyes, as if the great fjord had risen up in a wave and swamped her. Ingrid – dead? She could not be. The happy
memories that this glorious race had released inside her just a short time ago seemed to loom up and threaten to tear her from within. ‘There was a lump,’ Kalv’s voice went on.
‘It grew until it suffocated her heart, or so they say. I am sorry, Princess.’

‘Queen!’ Elizaveta rounded on him, hating him and clutching at that hatred to keep her afloat on the waters of rising grief. ‘I am the Queen of Norway – the only queen
– and whatever nasty news you delight in bringing me, I ask you to remember that. All of you.’

She swung round to include Tora in her glare. For a moment the hurt in the other woman’s blue eyes – so very, very like Ingrid’s – almost sent her staggering, but she set
her legs against it.

‘Dignity,’ she reminded herself, hissing it through her teeth so that the crowd, unnerved, parted swiftly before her. Tears swam but she would not let Kalv or any of the damned
Arnassons see them. She owed her mother that much.

‘Aksel!’ Elizaveta reached her squire and clasped his hands and, to his astonishment, brought them to her lips and kissed them flamboyantly. ‘I’m so proud. You’ve
honoured me with this win today, me and all my family. I shall ask my husband to make you a lord.’

And with that she grabbed her confused squire and led him away. She would save her grief until later. For now she would be the queen her mother had been proud of; the queen she had raised her to
be; and the queen who would give Harald his King Olaf and silence the Arnassons once and for all.