The Forever Queen (90 page)

Harold was studying the board. The first game he had been lenient, had let his sister win, but not the second or this third. “As God is my witness, Edith, how you did that I do not know.” He stretched and pushed away from the table, shaking his head emphatically when she urged another match. “No way, miss—and have it four in a row? Leave me some pride, eh?”

“Edward, will you play?” Edith asked.

“Tæfl? I am not so good at that, but I will happily play chess with you.”

Edith frowned; chess was too slow a game for her liking, and Edward usually spent so long over deciding his moves that Edith grew bored. But if it would please him…she nodded, agreed, and he hurried to fetch the board, set out the playing pieces.

“I will be tending my stallion,” Harold said, taking leave. “The mud we have endured this winter has severely irritated a hind leg; it is quite sore.”

“Best not pick the scabs off,” Edward advised as he seated himself at the playing table. “That could make it worse. Keep the infected area dry, though. Use plenty of goose grease.”

Harold thanked him politely for the advice, refrained from saying that was precisely what he was already doing. He bowed to Emma, who acknowledged his courtesy and returned to her reading.

“Chess,” Edward remarked after they had made their opening moves, “is a game of skill and concentration.” He moved a playing piece, frowned as Edith took it.

“Chess,” Emma remarked from across the room, not looking up from her reading, “would be a better game were the Queen piece to have more moves and greater power.”

Chess, Edward thought to himself, would be a better game were it to not have a Queen at all. He suppressed an eager smile, held his breath as Edith made a foolish move. “Got you! I win!”

“How did you manage that?” Edith queried. “I did not see the danger!”

Emma glanced up as Edward cavorted triumphantly around the room, saw Edith’s smug smile as she packed the gaming board and pieces away. She was a clever one, this daughter of Godwine, had a brain in her head and used it. Very sensible to let Edward win.

The door opened; Harold hurried in, breathless, rain spattered on his hair and shoulders. “News! Harthacnut is back in England.”

A flush of a smile darted across Emma’s face, hastily stifled as Harold plunged on. “Word has come that he sailed direct for London and marched west without pause.”

Harold’s colour had drained white with apprehension. “He has taken the army into Worcester.”

March 1041—Worcester

Harthacnut marched direct to Worcester-Shire the day after he arrived in London; no pause, no rest, he would not indulge in either until his murdered friends and comrades were avenged. Earl Leofric at Coventry received orders, sent ahead by swift messenger, to meet them with a gathered army of his own at the hill of Oswald’s Low, a suitable place to encamp and wait. Leofric balked at complying as long as he could, had no option but to obey. He would have to explain why he had not acted to punish a savage murder that had happened within his earldom, but he had his excuses ready. More difficult would be his reason for taking a mere fifty men with him to meet Harthacnut.

Oswald’s Low was an ancient burial mound to the southeast of Droitwich, from where Leofric’s main source of personal income was acquired. The underground springs where natural brines welled up were one of England’s richest areas of salt production. From the complex of salt pans and furnaces the industry radiated outwards by means of well-travelled routes, the saltways, tracks, and roads that had been in use from a time before the Roman Red Crests had come.

Harthacnut travelled quickly from London, using the broad way of Sealtstræt that led from Oxford towards the Vale of Evesham. He marched quickly, covering more than forty miles in one day, for the weather was mild and the roads easily passable, although outriders going ahead had a thankless task of moving the slower traffic out of the way, the strings of pack ponies laden with salt, oxcarts, peddlers, travellers, traders.

Away to the west, the horizon was dominated by the ridge of hills that bordered the Hwicce, the Welsh border shires. Cnut, during his reign, had amalgamated these lands into the one area of Mercia, giving its ultimate command first to Eadric Streona and eventually to Leofric. Riding at the head of the vanguard, Harthacnut wondered whether that giving had been one of his father’s mistakes, but then Leofric had been a loyal man to Cnut. Not so to his legitimate son.

Harthacnut drew rein and camped for the night, content to sleep rolled in a blanket, curled beside the fire. On their way again by sunrise, over the higher land of White Hill to Pershore Abbey in the Evesham Vale, where Harthacnut agreed to pause and allow the ponies and men to rest. A short indulgence but necessary, for he had covered the miles faster than he had anticipated and preferred to rest in comfort within an abbey rather than wait, kicking his heels, at Oswald’s Low with nothing more than densely forested trees and a handful of shabby farmsteadings as company.

The Abbot served him well but uneasily. There was no need to ask the purpose of the visit. He provided a sufficient table, although it was Lent and limited to fish and plain fare.

“I noticed several cattle and sheep lay dead in the meadows,” Harthacnut commented as he explored the contents of a pie, discovered the filling to be lamprey. “Many others appear ill, with sores on their mouths and udders—lame, too. Be there a problem?”

“Alas, it is a plague that affects the cloven-hoofed creatures. Swine and deer as well as sheep and cattle. It starts with blisters on the mouth; within days the animal is usually dead. Butchered carcasses show the blistering to have spread down the gullet and into the stomach.” The Abbot shook his head; in whatever form, plagues were always a sorry thing. “Like any pestilence, this one is spread on the spit of the devil’s own. They dance on the dead at night and tread with the healthy by day.”

“Then is it not foolish to leave the dead where they fall? Have the creatures butchered more speedily.”

“There are too many to deal with—most villages along the saltways have lost their entire herds of livestock. Lambs born in the fields are dead within the week. There will be no calves born later this year, no meat to eat, no milk to drink. No wool, no swine. All we will have is an excess of leather and render.”

Harthacnut frowned, concern beginning to register that this was no small and local problem. “You have lost the abbey’s stock? I noticed your fields are empty. I assumed the land was lying fallow.”

“We have one cow and five sheep left. Nothing more.” The Abbot rested his head in his hands, close to despair. “How we are to survive I know not.” And he had to say it, for the sake of his soul and his conscience could not hold the words back. “Already the shire is bereft, for it was hard to raise the tax you demanded. Forgive me, but there will be many a family who will starve next winter.”

“I hear your words, but the shire has a debt to pay. And a plague among cattle shall not reprieve those who have murdered my men.”

The Abbot picked at his meagre plate of stewed fish. Said no more.

At Salter’s Brook, they watered the ponies then pressed on. Leofric, awaiting them, rode out to meet Harthacnut, the excuse he needed for having so few men ready on his lips. “I have not the men I would wish for; there is plague among the farm stock. I could not take men away from the disposal of so many carcasses.”

“This cattle plague affects you in Coventry, too, then?” Harthacnut asked, astounded. “Is it so widespread?”

“Alas, it is,” Leofric admitted. “All we can do is watch our animals die or cut their throats to ease their suffering.”

“And there is nothing more that can be done?” What was the use of being a King if you could not find answers to problems? But then, as his father had once discovered, he was only a mortal man; some things were for the Heavenly King alone to control.

“No, nothing, although there are a few farmsteaders who are not allowing any man or beast to enter through their gates. But the devil spreads his evil by wing and wind; roping gates closed is no answer. All we can do is pray for God’s mercy and sprinkle Holy Water throughout our byres.”

If Leofric was hoping to soften Harthacnut’s heart, he failed. The death of two favoured housecarls, Thorstein and Feader, had angered him, and while a plague was to be feared, the healing of that was for monks and priests to sort. Harthacnut was here to deal with the breaking of the law and a slight against his command. He would have vengeance for his friends, obedience towards himself, and respect for the law.

“Perhaps,” Harthacnut remarked drily, as he prepared to give the order for the army to move out, “this plague is sent by God as punishment? I doubt He is no more pleased than I over murder committed within the sanctity of His house.”

Riding beside Harthacnut, Leofric admitted the same thought had occurred to him also.

There were few killed at Worcester, for the town had been warned of the approaching army and the folk had fled to safety. Harthacnut contented himself with burning everything to the ground instead, then he harried the shire. For five days the skies glowed orange at night. Without mercy he burnt crops and house-place, stable and byre alike; ordered the killing of anything that lived—horses, dogs, fowl, sheep, cattle, goats and pigs; all that had escaped the plague died.

By necessity he had to be at Oxford for the Easter council, but, satisfied justice had been done, he rode slowly with his men, not much need for haste; they could take their time, rest the ponies—and themselves. He tired easily these days, had noticed it shortly after Yule, assuming the fatigue and the thundering headaches were the result of excessive merrymaking and the indulgence of feasting and drinking. He would feel better once he reached Oxford and found an opportunity to rest. The dagger slash on his left thigh, a minor wound taken during a skirmish with a few men determined to protect their farmsteading, would heal faster there, too, once he was out of the saddle.

Although he could not know it, the order to slaughter the livestock had halted the spread of the cattle plague from rampaging further south and into Wales, but for himself, even in Oxford, his wound proved slow to mend, and the headaches and tiredness persisted.

The spilling of blood for the collecting of taxes, however, had tarnished his reign, and when, in the early autumn, Harthacnut sailed again for Denmark, Englishmen began to pray that perhaps he might not return. While those of the Church who wrote the record of the Chronicles began to wonder whether he would ever do anything worthy of the consecrated title “King.”

7 June 1042—Thorney Island

You are not well. It would be foolish to attend this wedding feast.”

“Oh, Mother,” Harthacnut complained, weary of the repeated argument. “I am a man grown, I am able to take care of myself. I have a headache, that is all.”

“You are thin. Your face is pale.” Emma walked close to her son and sniffed his breath. “Your guts smell foul.”

“Why, thank you, Mama; it is always splendid to hear such compliments tripping from your tongue! It is a wonder I come to England as often as I do, to hear such niceties.”

Irritated, Emma flounced away, began to rummage through her clothes chest with her handmaid, finding something suitable to wear for the afternoon of celebration.

“Well, if you must go to Tovi the Proud’s wedding, then I shall not stop you, though Edward and I between us could easily represent you.”

“And have everyone wonder why I cannot be there?”

Dropping the austerity, Emma held a red gown to her body for effect. No, too brash. The blue perhaps? “It is only that I care for you, my dear; I worry for your health.”

Harthacnut relented; ja, he knew that.

His relationship with his mother had improved through the last year, possibly because he had been in Denmark for most of it. A good way of doing things, spending the summers here in England, the winters in Denmark. It was colder there, admittedly, darker, but England was so damp; he would rather have six months of snow than the incessant drizzle of rain. His mother ruled England well during those months, hindered more than aided by Edward, who regarded hunting and hawking more important than making legal judgements and signing charters. He would make a hopeless King, yet who else was there?

Emma had returned to stand in front of her son, was straightening the crooked fold of his tunic. As if reading his thoughts—mayhap she had; he tended to frown whenever he thought of Edward—she said, “Is it not time we sought out a wife for you? Tovi has made a good choice. Can we not find someone as pretty and equally intelligent?”

Harthacnut brushed her hands from fiddling with his clothing. “I will think on it.”

“What if we send an envoy to Kiev? An alliance with the Rus would be to our advantage. Or Spain or Italy? Alliance with any one of those great Lords who have control over the eastern trade routes would have benefit to us. Think of the riches to be had in the spice trade!”

“I am not ready for marriage.” Already, Harthacnut was beginning to regret this marriage of his friend Tovi. When someone they knew became wed, he went through this same routine.

“This is not about whether you are ready or not. You need a son, several sons, and unless you start breeding soon, you will be getting dangerously close to leaving a decision to God!”

“And is He not trustworthy, then?” Harthacnut quipped, knowing his flippancy would annoy her more but might divert her to a different subject.

“No, He is not!” Emma declared, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from her handmaid at the blasphemy. “Not where the matter of my crown is concerned. I trusted Him once before, and look where it got me!”

“Here in England, Mama, with two sons. Why not pester Edward to produce grandsons for you? He is, after all, not as busy as I am. I am sure if he were to tear himself away from his hounds, he could find a spare moment to service a wife.”

“Do not be absurd,” Emma snapped back.

Harthacnut chuckled, slid his arm around her waist, and kissed her cheek. “No, you are right. Edward thinks all women were born to be nuns and all men monks! I doubt he even knows what his pizzle is for. A fine King he will make when I am gone!”