The Forever Queen (88 page)

Edward sat, pouted. “There is Mother.”

Robert laid the letter aside. “Do you not think that Harthacnut might want someone reliable to take care of England for him? A man who will maintain the justice and law of the land in his name?” Robert stared at Edward with a new measure of respect and awe. “Sir, this is a most wonderful opportunity!”

Any other man might well have thought of asking for whom the opportunity was best offered. Remaining as an obscure Abbot with no reward, save that of a grave at the end of it all, was not what Robert Champart craved. If he could organise it, he was going to the very top of the ladder, and with Edward as a King, who knew how high that ladder might reach? Archbishop maybe?

“I cannot face England, Robert, I cannot,” Edward confessed. “What should I do there? I have no idea of government, I have no knowledge of meting judgements!”

Champart shook his head in indulgent amusement; he was winning the argument, as he always did. “Not know? Oh, but you do! You possess a heart that would melt the deepest snowdrift, a generosity that would fund an entire lazar house; a kindness and humility of spirit to equal Christ himself.” Robert took Edward’s hands in his own. “You are a man the rest of the world will one day envy and admire.”

Edward preened. There was nothing he liked more than unadulterated praise.

“And think on this,” Champart added as his final persuasion, “as King regent it will be your directive as to what is to be done with the man who was brutally responsible for the murder of your brother.”

Pressing his lips together in the full flourish of sudden anger, Edward hissed, “Harold Harefoot, you mean? Aye, I would be told where they buried him, so I may tip him out and leave him to rot as he would have left my dearest Alfred.”

Champart had actually meant Earl Godwine of Wessex, but as long as they went to England, it was of no matter.

August 1040—Thorney Island

Godwine sent one of his own ships to collect Edward from Normandy. Not one of his shorter, stout merchant vessels, but a full dragon-length warship, complete with crew and fluttering banners. It was his gift to both the Ætheling and King, his contribution towards the royal fleet—and to ferry Edward home with eager welcome.

Edward had last seen London in the midwinter of l016, a black, moonless night. Remembered more than anything the smells and the sounds: the crisp tread of boots on the frost as it had cracked in the freezing puddles, the steam of mens’ breath, the stench of the decaying rubbish rotting in the river as Earl Godwine had helped the two boys, himself, and Alfred aboard a craft that stank as pungently of sheep shit.

Earl? No, Godwine had not been an Earl then; that was an honour the usurper Cnut had bestowed upon him. Godwine had been nothing more than a wealthy merchant then, a man Edward had barely known. It had been Godwine’s ship, too, that night; Edward remembered complaining that it was not a dragon craft. Remembered, also, quarrelling with Alfred.

He wiped at tears that welled suddenly in his eyes as the ship’s crew backswept the oars and hauled the craft in a neat and tidy angle towards the wharf. He missed Alfred, had not realised it until this moment.

Alfred had wept on that cold, uncomfortable journey down the Thames, had hidden the fact by huddling into his blanket and shuffling as far away from Edward as possible. Alfred, braver than his elder brother, had disliked anyone knowing he was capable of shedding tears. Had he wept while they were putting out his eyes? Had he begged and pleaded for mercy?

Edward buried his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving with the sobbing tears of grief. The crowd, gathered at the wharfside to welcome him, assumed they were for the overwhelming emotion of his homecoming. They cheered, loving him for that, waving their green-leafed branches, craning to see better, pushing forward as he stepped ashore, hands reaching out to touch him, to toss flowers and petals, everyone wanting a part of the excitement of the occasion.

Emma stood with Harthacnut, Godwine, and the rest of England’s southern Earls—the North had not been able to come, for trouble was grumbling along the Scots border again, or so Eadwulf claimed. There, too, among the party of nobles, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, as formally robed as Harthacnut and Emma.

The Queen looked magnificent, dripping with jewels that sparked and winked in the sunshine, dressed in silks and brocades. Harthacnut, although it was August and a warm day, wore his favourite mantle of a cream polar bear fur. It had been a magnificent beast; he had killed it himself, its pelt more than fitting for a King to wear.

A hero receiving a hero’s welcome, Emma thought with scorn. How fickle people were! Three years past, London had wanted nothing to do with her sons, had shut their gates to Alfred and shunned him. And Alfred would have made a better King than this feeble mouse. Even his hands, those long, slender fingers, looked too thin and fragile to be of value—if anyone grasped them too tight, would the bones break?

Edward reached the King, his face bemused at the unexpected euphoria of the reception, beginning to spread into a conceited grin as he realised the extent of the pleasure being shown for his return. Harthacnut was smiling. Edward hesitated. Was he doing the right thing? Was this a carefully planned, cruel trap? He glanced anxiously over his shoulder at Robert Champart, received an encouraging nod and a smile. Champart had come as his chaplain, a role the Abbot had humbly, but eagerly, accepted the instant Edward had, with a little guided prompting, offered him.

Seeing the wariness, Harthacnut strode forward, arms outstretched to embrace Edward—two men, both the sons of one woman, who had never met. “My brother!” Harthacnut beamed. “It is good to greet the man I always wanted as my friend and companion. Welcome to England, sir, welcome!” And he kissed Edward on both cheeks, held him close in a bear’s hug of delight, and Edward shed a few more emotional tears.

“Come,” Harthacnut said, “I must not have you all to myself. Mother, Edward has returned to us. Is this not a glorious and happy day?”

The smile on her face appeared sincere—indeed, the upward-turned lips were genuine—but the delight did not come wholly from Emma’s heart. Too much was uncertain, too many questions were rambling about, questions that did not yet have satisfactory answers. And too many sleeping memories joggled into lurching wakefulness. Edward was too much like his father, particularly now that he sported a new-grown moustache that drooped to either side of his mouth and a curled beard. The face, if not the body, reflected too much of Æthelred.

“My son, you have been gone too long from England; it is with gladness in my heart that I see you come home again.” Emma presented her cheek for a kiss, the response from Edward dutiful but nothing more. He might tolerate this young man, Harthacnut, for he knew nothing of him, but his mother? Oh, he knew and remembered her well enough! Her austerity, her coldness. The disgust with which she had greeted him that last occasion at Winchester.

But Robert had urged him not to think of that. To put it behind him. “Look to the future with fresh eyes. Cast a new beginning,” he had said.

The parade through the London streets, once all the formality of greeting had been completed, was slow and seemed everlasting, for the crowds would not allow Edward through before they had been permitted full inspection of him and had offered their unequivocal allegiance. He soaked it up as if he were a cloth drawing in water. Waving and nodding his head, acknowledging their delight, he rode a pure white horse bedecked with fine harness and coloured ribbons, a horse with flowing mane and tail that pranced and sidestepped and snorted dragon’s breath at the flowers and green branches being strewn in Edward’s path.

Riding behind, Harthacnut was pleased with the adulation. He had wondered whether this was to be one of his better or worse ideas. Thank the Lord it appeared to be the former, though why these Londoners should be so ecstatic over this frail-looking, thin, and bemused man he could not comprehend. Edward was not a warrior type; one gust of wind and he would be blown over! As for wearing armour, would he be able to stand upright in a chain-mail hauberk? Lift a sword, wield an axe? Harthacnut had the clear impression that Edward had never handled such weapons. Quite possible, for the Norman Dukes would not have been wanting to encourage a potential rival in the art of warfare. A poor idea, then? Would Edward be able, or willing, to defend England in time of crisis? His father certainly had not, but then it would not be Edward making any ultimate decision, and there were always men like Godwine, Leofric, and Siward to guide him. And Mother, of course.

***

By the time they reached Thorney, dusk was closing in. Harthacnut had planned a welcoming feast, his hall was strewn with splendour in honour of his brother; Edward was to be seated alongside him at the centre of the high table. But first Edward insisted on attending God.

“We have Mass to celebrate your coming at the Cathedral of Saint Paul, on the day following the morrow,” Harthacnut explained. “Although, naturally, if you also wish to pray this evening…”

“I do, I insist upon it. Do you not attend Compline? Shame on you as a Christian if you do not.”

Harthacnut did not. There were already too many demands on his day.

Edward was insistent, and there was nothing else for it. Instead of heading directly for the awaiting feast, the party proceeded towards the timber-built West Minster Abbey that spilt light from its numerous rush candles through the line of small, slit windows.

A small, humble place, wholly different from the churches Edward was familiar with in Normandy. Those were huge and magnificent buildings, stone cathedrals, soaring into the sky for the sole purpose of glorifying God. This, in comparison, was a peasant’s bothy. Edward saw nothing, however, beyond the golden crucifix central to the altar, the serene faces of the twelve monks, and heard nothing beyond the beauty of their soaring voices as they sang praise to God.

Emma noticed that Champart was the one to pucker his mouth and flare his nostrils, disdainful and patronising of the squalidness of it all.

Proceeding up the nave, Edward suddenly stopped, a shriek of rage issuing from his lips as he hurried forward the last few yards to the chancel steps.

“What be the meaning of this? What outrage is this? Get it gone! Get it removed!” Agitated, he waved his arms, stamped his feet.

Nervous whisperings from some, silence from others. The Archbishop of York, Alfric Puttoc, presiding this night in honour of his position as the officiating priest, hurried forward, enquiring, puzzled as to what was amiss.

“Be there something that meets ill with your approval?”

“How dare you insult me, how dare you!” and Edward darted forward, to stamp at a stone slab on the floor. He fell to his knees, began clawing at the edges set into the tiles. “Dig it up! Remove it! Get him out of here; how dare you bury my brother’s murderer within the sanctity of God’s grace!”

Harthacnut was appalled. He glanced at Godwine, at his other Earls who stared back at him, blank-faced. It had never mattered to any of them that Harold had been buried in ceremony by the monks less than four and twenty hours after his death, buried in the place usual for a King, before the chancel arch with his name, Harold, etched into the stones. No one had said not to, for by the morning after his death, most of his court had scattered to the four winds, Godwine to send for Harthacnut, others to their own estates.

Not one of them had given thought as to how Edward would react, for the grave, in truth, and the man within it, had been almost entirely forgotten.

“Dig it up, I say!” Edward shrilled again.

Alfric Puttoc whispered hastily to Harthacnut, “I would do so, my Lord. It is, I grant, a most embarrassing situation, and it would do you no harm to show England you value the son of your mother over the bastard son of your father.” Added wryly, “After all, Harold did not have right to this honour; he was illegitimate born.”

“He was also a consecrated King,” Harthacnut murmured, balking at the wilful desecration of a grave.

“Dig him up,” Emma declared, sweeping to his side. “Edward speaks right. It is insulting that he should be buried here; he does not deserve a Christian grave.”

Tools were fetched, pickaxes, spades. The stone slab lifted easily, spewing dust and soil; there was no coffin, only a shrouded body that issued a foetid, choking smell of rotting decay.

Thank God, Harthacnut thought. It would have been difficult to explain this despoiling if the body had been discovered incorrupt.

“You,” Edward squeaked, his voice high and uncollected in his agitation. “You, Godwine. You were responsible for my brother’s death.”

“Sir, I beg you to not think so. I had no choice, I…”

“Do not interrupt me!” Edward shouted. “You will remove that…that thing, and dispose of it.”

Godwine spread his hands, at a loss, seeking command from Harthacnut. “What do I do with it, sir?”

An uneasy silence. Harthacnut had no idea either.

In his incensed rage, Edward decided for him. “Toss what remains of him into the marsh. Let the filth of the bog take their own!”

Earl Leofric of Mercia, standing somewhat toward the back of the crowd, bowed his head, thanked God that his wife was not here to witness this shame. What could he do? Speak out? Shout that Harold had been a crowned King and deserved respect? He would lose his earldom for the trouble of it!

Godwine carried the foul burden in his arms. Not normally a squeamish man, he resolved to strip to his skin as soon as this deed was completed, to bathe, scrub himself with goose fat and lanolin soap. Burn these clothes he wore, no matter that they were made new and had cost a fortune. He walked a short way to where the Tyburn River edged the marshes, crossed the water by way of the bridge, and, without ceremony, dropped the enshrouded body into the bog. It disappeared slowly, the bubbles rising, the gloop of sound indecent. Harold was gone. His reign, finally ending in indignity and Edward’s homecoming, was complete.

Kneeling before the altar in prayer, Edward reflected that Champart had been right: this had been his chance to reap vengeance for his brother’s wicked slaying. What more would there be for him to do now he had accomplished what he had come to achieve within the first hour?