The Price of Blood (10 page)

She closed her eyes, and as she let herself drift toward sleep she wondered where Lord Athelstan was. She wondered if he realized just how valuable she could be to him.

April 1006

Near Saltford, Oxfordshire

Athelstan halted his horse beside the standing stone that pointed skyward like a gnarled finger. In the shallow valley in front of him, beyond the ring of stunted oaks, he could see the circle of stones and the figure seated at its center, waiting.

It was not too late to turn back; not too late to make his way to London as he had intended when he left his father’s hall. Even now he did not know if he had come here of his own free will or if he had been drawn by some force that he did not understand.

He knew only that he was afraid—for himself, for the king, for England.

A succession of grim possibilities had been coursing through his mind for days now in an endless, looping string. Any move that his father made against Ælfhelm might split the kingdom. Any action that he himself might take to avert such a split would add to the suspicions his father was already nursing against him. Any hint of discord between the king, his sons, and his thegns would bring Viking raiders to their shores like wolves drawn to a bleating lamb, and that might well destroy England altogether.

Below him, the woman seated beside the fire did not look up, but she must know that he was here. He could not shake off the sensation that she had called him—that she had some answer to give him, if he could but ask the right question.

That, too, made him afraid.

Above him the sky darkened, then brightened again, as clouds drifted across the face of the sun.

The sky was of two minds, he thought, just as he was. But he’d come this far already, three days’ ride in the wrong direction.

So he swung off his horse and led it down the hill, leaving it to graze while he walked into the circle to take his place across the fire from the seeress. As they regarded each other for a long, silent moment, it crossed his mind that she had suffered some wasting sickness, for her face was thinner than he remembered, her nose as sharp and pointed as a merlin’s beak, and her skin creased with lines that had not been there two winters ago. He glanced past her, to the daub and wattle hut that was her dwelling. When last he was here he had left behind a purse of silver, but she had clearly not spent it on her comforts.

Finally she broke the silence.

“Twice before this you have come to me, lord, and twice you left here doubting the truth of the words I spoke to you. Will this time be any different?”

How did she know that he had doubted her? Perhaps it was not such a difficult thing to divine, though. No man wished to believe in a future that was bleak.

“Mayhap it depends on the question asked and the answer given,” he replied.

She nodded. “Ask your question, then, lord, and I will give what answer I can.”

He paused, and as he looked into her eyes the question that he would pose came to him at last.

“Is it possible for a man to change his fate?”

The black eyes flashed at him, or perhaps he was merely seeing the flames reflected there.

“Every man’s wyrd is set, my lord, for it is the fate of every man to die. That end is inescapable.”

“That end, yes,” he agreed. “But there is far more to any man’s life than just the leaving of it. Is there only one path that a man must follow to his life’s end?”

“One path only,” she said. “Yet not every step upon that path is carved in stone.”

It seemed to him that her words were a riddle set within a maze.

“Then how,” he asked, “can anyone read a man’s future?”

She dropped her gaze from his, frowning into the fire.

“The future of any man’s life is not a path that runs along a plain, my lord, but one that follows a trail over mountains and chasms that are hidden in mist. Sometimes, for a brief spell, the mist clears, and one who has the gift can see the way. Can you change the path? No. But no one, not even the most gifted, can perceive at a glance every valley or every mountaintop that a life will follow, nor every other life path that crosses it along the way.” She looked into his eyes again. “You have not asked me about the thing that concerns you the most, I think. There is something far greater than the fate of a single life that troubles you.”

That much was true. It was not his wyrd that mattered, or his father’s. It was the fate of England that he would know.

He made no answer, but she spoke as if she had read his thought.

“Then I will give you this answer to the question that you do not ask. Whether the thing that you desire is within your reach or not, failure is only a certainty if you do not strive to grasp what you would have.”

So. He must do whatever he could to preserve the kingdom, no matter the cost. Yet she would not promise him success, only certain failure if he did not make the attempt. What, he wondered, would be the price that he must pay?

“And if I give you my hand now and ask you to tell me my future, what would you say to me?”

She dropped her eyes to the flames again, and her voice was a mere whisper.

“What I would say to any man, for I have searched the fire and smoke again and again these many months, and what I see is ever the same.”

He waited for her to speak, and when she seemed disinclined to go on, he prodded her.

“What is it?” he demanded. “What is it that you see?”

She lifted her gaze to his, and he thought she tried to smile, but her eyes were filled with tears.

“I see fire,” she said, “and smoke. There is never anything else.”

April 1006

Cookham, Berkshire

The imprisonment of Ælfhelm’s sons led to angry clashes between Æthelred and his ministers. Throughout Easter Week while the council sessions continued, Emma observed the discord and the king’s response to it with growing dismay. Æthelred went nowhere without a ring of trusted warriors close about him, but the presence of armed men in the hall merely added to the tension that charged the air like lightning about to strike.

She was not present on the day that Lord Eadric of Shrewsbury strode into the hall with a dozen men at his back to report that Ealdorman Ælfhelm was dead. She heard about it soon enough, though. His bald statement set the court buzzing. The king declared that Ælfhelm had been punished for his treachery against the Crown, and immediately ordered Ælfhelm’s sons sent in chains to the fortress at Windsor. For safekeeping, he insisted.

This led to more unrest among the men of the witan. They demanded an accounting of Ælfhelm’s crimes and the crimes of his sons, but the king steadfastly refused to enumerate them. It was enough, he claimed, that he knew what they were, and even his bishops could not move him to say any more. At this Lord Æthelmær of the Western Shires grew so irate that he retired from the king’s council altogether, saying he would rather spend the rest of his life in an abbey serving God than continue paying court to an unjust king.

Emma had met with the man and tried to dissuade him from taking a step so drastic and irrevocable. He had listened to her arguments with grave respect and courtesy, but in the end she could not sway him from his decision. The next morning he had left Cookham with his sons and more than fifty warriors beside. The king never even tried to placate Æthelmær and sent no word of Godspeed, but Emma had watched the company ride away with misgiving.

And all the while there was an endless flurry of rumors about Elgiva, who seemed to have disappeared from the earth altogether. Some claimed that she was dead, but Emma gave those stories no credence. Elgiva was alive, she was certain. The Lady of Northampton had somehow slipped whatever snare Eadric had set for her, and that had merely goaded him into redoubling his efforts to capture her. He’d even sent men to the convents that were scattered throughout England—a fruitless endeavor in Emma’s opinion, despite tales that Elgiva had been seen at Polesworth, at Shaftesbury, and at Wilton. Elgiva, she knew, would never willingly place herself within the confining walls of a nunnery.

She had said as much to Wymarc as they walked together one morning beside the river. Pausing for a moment to look up, into the wide blue expanse that was uncharacteristically free of clouds, she had wondered aloud, “Where under this English sky is Elgiva? And what is she doing?”

“She’s a temptress, isn’t she?” Wymarc had replied. “She’ll have used her looks and her cunning to persuade some fool of a man to give her shelter.”

Emma thought that all too likely. But to whom would Elgiva turn for help?

“Let us hope,” she said, “that she has gone to ground and stays well hidden.” Preferably outside England’s borders, where her wealth and connections would not tempt one of Æthelred’s ambitious thegns or, God forbid, an ætheling, to wed her.

Such an alliance, even now, with Ælfhelm dead and his sons imprisoned, would have its advantages. She imagined Athelstan fettered to the beautiful, scheming Elgiva—and abruptly she pushed the thought away. The king would never agree to it, and to attempt it without his blessing would mean catastrophe—father and son irrevocably divided and, far worse, a kingdom in chaos. Athelstan would never take that step.

He must not.

“I doubt you need worry about Elgiva,” Wymarc said. “She’s crafty as a cat. Toss her in the air and she’ll land on her feet every time.”

Yet Emma worried. As relieved as she was that Elgiva was no longer in her household, she had no wish to see her at the side of an ætheling or of some northern warlord, but neither did she wish her to be at the mercy of Eadric and his hounds.

When the council session ended, most of the nobles set out for their homes—fled, Emma thought—eager to get away from the king’s fierce, suspicious gaze. Two of the Mercian magnates, though, were ordered to remain. They were the brothers Siferth and Morcar, kin by marriage to Ælfhelm and the first to plead with the king on behalf of Ælfhelm’s sons. Æthelred claimed that he wished them to advise him in the search for Elgiva, but everyone knew that the men were hostages to the king’s fear of Ælfhelm’s supporters. The two men could not plot against him if they were at court, under his so-called protection.

Siferth’s young bride was Elgiva’s kinswoman, Aldyth. She was fifteen winters old, and tall for her age, quite the opposite of Elgiva, who, Emma reflected, was elfin in comparison. Everything about Aldyth was large—mouth, hands, feet, even her teeth. Yet she was not unattractive. The large eyes beneath her dark brows were beautiful, and her skin was fair and smooth. She had a lovely, wide smile—when she did smile, which had not been a frequent occurrence of late.

When Aldyth had first arrived at court, just before Easter, she had been shy and exuberant all at once. With the arrest of her cousins though, her excitement had turned very quickly to bewilderment. And when word came of her uncle’s death and Elgiva’s disappearance, her bewilderment had turned to horror and fear.

Emma had done what she could to shelter her from the rampant speculation about the fate of her cousins and from the cloud of suspicion that had settled upon her husband and his brother. It was Hilde, though, Ealdorman Ælfric’s granddaughter, who had taken charge of Aldyth, just as she had once taken charge of the king’s young daughters when she was no more than a child herself.

They sat together now, Hilde and Aldyth, on one of the fur hides that covered the floor, keeping watch over Edward and Robert, who seemed determined to explore every corner of the chamber. From her place at the embroidery frame under the high window, Emma watched them and smiled. Hilde had grown into a lovely young woman, her hair in its long braid the color of honey. She was the same age as Aldyth, but she seemed years older somehow. Perhaps that was due to the responsibilities she had shouldered in the royal household, Emma thought. Or perhaps it was because she had lost both of her parents when she was so young, her mother to sickness and her father to the king’s vengeance. Hilde was smiling now, though, as Aldyth spun a wooden top before the delighted eyes of the two bairns.

Edyth, who was seated with her sisters beside Emma, looked at the group on the floor and scowled.

“Can we not get some servants to take the children so these ladies can help us with this altar cloth?” she asked, her tone surly. “The design is intricate and it is likely to take us years to finish it.”

“This is a gift from the royal family to Archbishop Ælfheah,” Emma replied, “and therefore we should be the ones to work the embroidery.”

She frowned at Edyth, who had been discontented with the entire world, but mostly with Emma, for some weeks now. The king’s eldest daughter was clearly gnawing on some grievance, but Emma had yet to determine in what way she was at fault.

She saw Edyth about to make another protest, but before she could say anything one of the household slaves, a boy of about eight, raced into the chamber and straight to Emma’s side. Without waiting for permission to speak, he cried, “There is word from Windsor that the lords Wulfheah and Ufegeat have had their eyes put out!”

The needle slipped from Emma’s hands, her gaze drawn immediately to where Aldyth and Hilde sat frozen, their faces ashen. They stared back at her with horror in their eyes until Aldyth collapsed forward, wailing as if she’d taken a mortal blow. Instantly Margot was at the young woman’s side, wrapping a comforting arm about her while Wymarc swept a protesting Robert from the floor.