The Forever Queen (78 page)

Despite himself, even the weary Leofric smiled, hiding the reaction quickly behind a covering hand. Emma was no easy woman to argue with, nor, for that matter, was Ælfgifu, but Emma delivered her pert answers without degenerating into obscenities.

“I take it you have proof my husband was the father of your bastard son?” Emma asked. She was dressed simply, in a dark green gown over an under-gown of dark red, a white veil, minimal jewels, only her betrothal and consecrational rings on her fingers, and a brooch of emeralds and rubies on her shoulder. The only other adornment was her crown. By contrast, Ælfgifu, bedecked in her finest, appeared gaudy.

“I was wife to Cnut. A wife does not require proof,” Ælfgifu retaliated, irritated that Emma was getting the better of her.

“You were not wed in the sight of God. Cnut was not in England when you birthed the boy Harold, was, very probably, not in England when you conceived him.”

As regent in Cnut’s place, she had sat in judgement over many a law trial, listening to the impassioned pleas of men and women brought to stand trial by the majority verdict of a jury of twelve appointed “doomsmen,” Thegns who were duty bound to present suspected evildoers to submit to a court of law. Trial by ordeal usually sealed the fate of those who could not be satisfactorily judged by other means.

“And how would you be knowing?” Ælfgifu thundered back, her strident voice booming up into the rafters. “You had scuttled off to Normandy with your pathetic first husband. You abandoned England for the sake of preserving your skin.”

“As Cnut abandoned you when Æthelred returned. Had you been an acceptable wife to him, would he not have taken you with him? Especially if he suspected you to be carrying his child?”

Ælfgifu turned to the northern Lords, although few of them were the same men as two and twenty years ago. “I did not know I was with child. Cnut, with his father, had released the north from the oppressive rule of Wessex, yet those freed men dismissed him in favour of Æthelred, to the consequential disaster of England. I faced the fear of death, for had he discovered I carried Cnut’s son, we would both have been murdered.”

There were difficulties in parrying some of the arguments, Emma found—how strange that after all these years of contentment, Æthelred’s presence should once again be haunting her? She had to be careful in what she said, could not dwell on Æthelred, lest anyone remember there were two other sons who could claim the title Ætheling. And neither woman would be wanting to remind these men that Cnut had taken England by force and was, technically, a foreign usurper.

“Yet Cnut thought so much of you he took another woman, Ragnhild, as a lawful wife,” Emma said with scorn, directing attention back to Cnut’s abandoning Ælfgifu.

“He took a second woman, as he did not expect to return to England,” Ælfgifu retorted.

“He had every intention of returning,” Emma countered, seizing her chance to amplify this other woman’s ignorance. She smiled, so irritatingly sweetly. “He abandoned you, dear, not England.”

Many of the southern men laughed. The northerners remained stone-faced.

Someone called out, “This is doing nothing save giving us all blinding headaches. We have a situation where our decision is divided. Throwing meaningless accusations is getting us nowhere.”

Earl Leofric added his stout, strong voice, the bellow rising above the mêlée. “As his son, Cnut took the elder boy, Swegen, to Norway…”

“And the boy’s mother handed Norway to Magnus Olafsson on a trencher! I loved Cnut, but he was not above making wrong decisions where the spread of a woman’s legs was concerned.”

Leofric ignored the interruption. “Why would Cnut accept the one son and not the other? Harold is Cnut’s son. Did Cnut, while he was alive, ever deny that fact?”

Shouts of agreement, of jeering, the one faction against the other.

“Is it not plain,” Leofric shouted, “that Harthacnut has no interest in England? Why is he not with us, here in Oxford?”

“Harthacnut is delayed by the weather, as you well know,” Godwine interceded, springing to his feet. “Would you have him risk the uncertainty of winter storms and wager his life to suit your satisfaction? We are, most of us, seamen; we know the terror of the tides.”

“My son,” Emma added forcefully, dipping her head in gratitude at Godwine’s interruption, “will be here by Easter. In the meanwhile, as God’s anointed, I am his representative.”

“And my son is here, now, and he can—will—command an army if any of you spineless lizards go against him!” Ælfgifu threatened.

Archbishop Athelnoth tried to be heard. “Gentlemen, it is to us to decide. We must vote our preference.”

“With votes divided half for Harold, half for Harthacnut?” Ealdred of Bernicia chided in his strong northern dialect.

His brother, Eadwulf, sitting beside him, declared, “The North will not elect a King who cannot attend his council.”

“And the South will not elect a King who is bastard-born, whether he be Cnut’s son or no,” Godwine countered.

“Please, be at peace.” Athelnoth put his palms together as if in prayer. “May I make a suggestion?” Reluctant, the agitated men settled and listened. “To be true to our conscience, we must allow Harthacnut the chance to come to England. Earl Godwine of Wessex speaks correctly; it may be the weather which delays him. I propose we adjourn until Easter.”

Murmurs of agreement; for most of them sitting there, their backsides were becoming numb, their bellies rumbling for food, throats becoming dry for ale or wine, but a decision had to be made before council could rise.

“By doing so we leave England open and vulnerable to attack. Someone must rule, must keep the law!” That was Ælfgifu, indignant.

“Attack from where?” a Thegn asked, a minor northern Lord. “There is no one to threaten us. Normandy is a boy, with his own troubles of staying alive; Henry of France is too lazy to leave his palace; Germany would never leave her borders unprotected; and Magnus Olafsson has Norway to secure.”

“Which leaves only Harthacnut in Denmark,” Emma chirruped, pleased the thing had gone full circle. “And I rule on his behalf as regent. England is only vulnerable internally, from base-born usurpers. You must therefore elect Harthacnut.”

“There is no must about it!” Ælfgifu shouted.

“Ladies, ladies!” Athelnoth boomed. “I propose that Queen Emma take care of the South until we meet again at Easter, and Harold shall see to the safety of Mercia and northern England. To my mind it is a sensible compromise.”

To the minds of others also, for there was a sudden relieved shout of assent.

Emma was mistrustful of the idea, but on rapidly thinking it through, could see the sense. Once Harthacnut reached England, this shambles would be sorted, and Easter was not too long to wait.

The men, pleased that a conclusion had been reached, broke into small groups, some discussing the issue and the outcome, others more eagerly anticipating the morrow’s promise of good hunting.

At the door, Earl Leofric drew Godwine aside. “I am surprised you are so openly backing Harthacnut, in light of what sort of man his father was.”

“And what do you mean by that?” Godwine could never remember liking Leofric, not even when he had been a child brought to court by his father. A boy who was always boasting of having the fastest pony, the most silver in his coin pouch and ensuring that others knew he had the better of them.

Leofric shrugged innocently. “Only that I am amazed you remained friends with Cnut despite all. If that had been me, I would have danced on his grave.”

“I admired and respected Cnut, as I admire and respect the Queen.”

Leofric chuckled. “Oh, we all know how you admire her, Godwine. But is it only admiration, or are you hoping for more?”

Not liking the insinuation, Godwine’s face began to blotch with red anger. “I remind you I have a wife.”

“I would not blame you for wanting to take Emma as wife instead. After all, you have just cause to set Gytha aside.”

Ignoring men pushing past to leave, Godwine curled his fingers into a balled fist. “By which you mean?”

“That Cnut bedded your wife often enough for you to want to bed his.”

Godwine hit him, fast, straight, with his knuckles, directly into his face. Leofric fell, blood bursting from his nose.

Lifting one hand to stem the flow, his other waving concerned onlookers aside, Leofric scrambled upright, his blood-smeared face leering. “Did you not know? I see by your face you did not!”

“I have no idea what you are talking about; if you are trying, in some warped way, to turn me from supporting Harthacnut, then you are miserably failing.”

“Your wife’s younger brother, Eilaf, told me. His estates bordering mine; I saw much of him before he died from that illness.”

“Told you what?”

“Told me of what the elder brother had said. How Ulf had caught Cnut romping with your bare-breasted wife.” Leofric took the hand away from his nose, inspected the amount of blood. “You talk of Harold Ælfgifusson being base-born, Godwine? What of your sons? Are you so certain they are not cuckoos in the nest?”

February 1036—Bosham

Gytha knew there was something wrong. She assumed her husband’s moroseness to be the result of his ineffectuality at the Oxford council. They had argued again this morning; it was more of a surprise not to disagree these days. The slightest thing, the most innocuous remark, and Godwine would flare up like a torch set to marsh gas. All she had said was that the boys were going to be sailing the new boat they had built, and why did he not take advantage of a rare fine February day to go with them? Why he had so suddenly stormed from their bedchamber she had no idea.

“Mama, be this the right amount of flour?” the girl at her side asked. Edith, seven years old, a child who had a thirst for learning. Another few years and she would be sent to the nunnery at Wilton for a formal education. Gytha would miss her, but not as much as she would miss her boys once they found the impetus to fly the nest.

Peeping into the bowl—she was making bread with her daughter—Gytha smiled at the fact that more flour was on the bench than in the mixture. There had been tears from Edith, too, this morning, when Swegn had refused to take her out in the boat. She had as much a temper on her as any of her brothers.

“You are a girl, girls do not sail!” Swegn had jeered at her, a six-and-ten-year-old who thought himself a full-grown man.

“I sailed as a girl on the fjords at home in Denmark,” Gytha had stated, coming to her daughter’s defence, wagging her finger at Swegn and his two younger brothers, Harold, fourteen, and Tostig, eleven. “I know how to reef and row as good as any of you three lads.”

“Aye, but, Mama,” Harold had impertinently retorted with a broad grin, “that was when you were young. You have too much girth around you now to row!”

Gytha had swiped his ear with her apron.

The dough mixed and patted into loaves, Gytha put them beside the hearth to prove. Then, wiping the girl’s sticky hands, suggested they wrap themselves in warm mantles and walk to the creek to see how the boys were getting on.

The inlet at Bosham was flooded, although even with the sea full in, care had to be taken, for some channels were shallower than others. Swegn, disagreeing with Harold, had insisted on tacking to the steerboard side. Smiling with a mother’s fond indulgence, Gytha could hear her second-born berating his elder brother for his stupidity, his voice carrying clear over the water.

“I said not to, you dolt; there are reed banks here! Now look, we’re stuck.”

“No problem,” Swegn tossed back, “all we have to do is rock her free.” And he began jumping from side to side, pushing against the mast.

“You’ll tip us over!” Tostig yelled.

“Don’t be daft; she’s too sturdy for that,” Swegn assured, leaping again. The boat dipped, and he fell over the side, arms flailing, legs kicking.

Tostig screamed; Harold laughed.

On the bank, Gytha shook her head in exasperation. Just as well she had insisted they had learnt to swim, full clothed, at an early age.

Crowing her delight, Edith slipped her hand out of her mother’s and ran towards her father, approaching from the church. “Papa, Papa! Come see. Swegn was showing off and has fallen in.”

Dutifully Godwine answered her summons, gazed with a stern frown at the eldest attempting to sprawl, sodden, into the boat. Harold pushing him back into the water.

“Pull us off while you’re in there.”

“The water’s cold, Harold; don’t be such a shit!”

“You got us here; you get us off.”

“Are you not proud of your boys, Godwine?” Gytha laughed, turning to her husband, the smile faltering as he thrust a curt answer.

“My boys? Are they?”

Stunned, Gytha stood, hands on hips, confused. “What do you mean by that?” Again, angry. Louder: “I said, what do you mean?”

Ordering Edith to fetch dry clothing for Swegn, Gytha set off after her husband, grabbing his arm before he entered the stables.

Rare for Gytha to let loose her temper. “You have been as a hungry wolf prowling through dark woods these weeks, Godwine. What is it I am supposed to have done? Tell me!”

He shook her off, went inside the stable-barn, and fetched a bridle. “I go to Winchester,” he said. “The Queen shall be wanting me.”

“You go nowhere until you explain yourself.”

“Do I need to explain?” he scoffed. “Is it not you who ought to be doing the explaining?”

“I do not know what this nonsense is, but it stops here, now. You have been treating me and your sons as if we have the pox since you returned from Oxford. What is wrong?”

Godwine’s jealousy had reared full to the surface, along with his anger and humiliation. He had loved Gytha all these years, rarely looking at another woman; to fear that perhaps she had not loved him in return and lain with another twice his worth, with Cnut, was unbearable. Yet he did not have the courage to ask if it were true, for he might see the lie in her eyes when she denied it.

“Tell me of Cnut,” he said suddenly, gripping her wrists in his clamped fingers. “Tell me of the night your brother found you romping all but naked with the King!”