‘Do not judge Groa too severely,’ Margot reproved her. ‘If she loves the girl overmuch it is hardly to be wondered at. Elgiva has been the only bright thing in that poor woman’s life.’
Wymarc looked, astonished, at Margot.
‘Why do you say that? What do you know about Groa that we do not?’
Margot pursed her lips, glanced from Wymarc to Emma, and then heaved a little sigh.
‘When Groa was a young woman she was taken in a raid from her home somewhere in the far north. Her captor was one of Ælfhelm’s thegns, and he kept Groa as his concubine. She bore him six children, all of whom died before they were a year old. Her man died, too, while Groa was pregnant with her last child, and when that babe died at her breast she was given Elgiva to suckle.’ She sighed again. ‘Since then the girl has been her all in all.’
Poor Groa, Emma thought. She was a grim-faced creature, as hard, cold, and sharp as a sword to all but Elgiva. Did bitterness and loss truly do that to a woman? Must she become hard when misfortune struck, so that she did not break?
Wymarc, too, seemed subdued by this glimpse into the life of Elgiva’s old nurse, for she was silent for some time, gazing out at the passing fields of new grain.
‘I grant you that she has suffered,’ Wymarc muttered, ‘but Groa does her mistress no service by defending her even when she knows Elgiva is in the wrong. I’ll warrant that Elgiva does what she pleases because she has always been allowed to do so. Look at her now, riding next to the king with her skirt hitched up almost to her waist. It is not seemly.’
‘If the king bids Elgiva ride with him,’ Emma murmured, ‘she cannot easily refuse him.’
And if the king were to command even more from Elgiva – what then? Emma did not believe that Ealdorman Ælfhelm would sanction an illicit relationship between his daughter and the king. Elgiva was much too valuable in the marriage market to waste. But Ælfhelm had gone to his lands in the north, and if the king wished to bed Elgiva, there was no one to stop him.
Almost unconsciously, her hand pressed against the belt cinched tightly at her waist. Her womb had not yet quickened with the king’s child, and it had been three months. She could not help but think of her own family history. Her mother had borne six children while she was the unwed consort of a duke whose Frankish wife had died young, childless, and brokenhearted. If Elgiva were to seduce Æthelred from Emma’s bed, it might be Emma’s lot to remain childless. And without a son to protect her, she would be at the mercy of the king and his sons.
She had tried to befriend them – the three eldest – after their return from their eight-week exile at St Albans. The eldest, Athelstan, had treated her efforts with a frosty disdain that occasionally warmed into chilly courtesy. Sometimes in the hall he would not bother to disguise his dislike. He would stare coldly at her, as if she were some outlandish creature from another world – which, in some ways, she supposed she was.
His brother Ecbert, a year younger than she was, did not seem to know what to do whenever he found himself confronted with her. He was a genial fellow by nature, his normal expression a lopsided grin. Whenever he was in her presence, though, he took care to rearrange his face into a frown. He could not maintain it for long, though, and she sometimes caught him observing her with shy interest.
It was Edmund who seemed to resent her the most. He was fourteen summers old, but a dour lad who seemed far older. He never greeted her with anything but a scowl, and he never spoke to her if he could help it – and then only in monosyllables.
She had far better luck with Æthelred’s youngest children. To her surprise and relief they seemed to accept her with dispassion, if not enthusiasm, looking to her as if she were just another one of the many functionaries who oversaw their schooling and daily care. She thought that they could not have been very close to their mother, for they never spoke of her, and even the girls did not seem to miss her.
There was one other child – Mathilda, the youngest and barely two years old – whom she had not met, for the girl had been installed in a convent shortly after her mother died. It was not unusual for the daughters of kings and wealthy magnates to be consecrated to God, but Emma thought it hard that this child would have to live such a circumscribed life from so early an age. She could not imagine giving up a daughter of her own to such a life.
None of Æthelred’s children would be at Winchester just yet. The eldest had left on business of their own, and the youngest had been sent to some estate in the country. The purpose, ostensibly, was to give the king and his bride time alone together, unencumbered by the children of his first wife. Emma had laughed when she heard that, for she liked the king’s younger children far better than she liked the king.
In August, though, the children would return to Winchester. When they did, she must welcome them as a mother and a friend. If she could not give the king a child, then she must befriend her stepchildren, because her own safety – her very life – might one day lie in their hands. She was confident that she could win the affections of the girls and the youngest boys. It was the king’s three eldest sons – Athelstan, Ecbert, and Edmund – who presented the real challenge. Somehow she had to convince them that she was not a threat. How was she to do that, though, when everyone knew that her whole purpose was to give birth to a son who would be their rival for the king’s affection and largesse – and perhaps, one day, for the throne itself?
August 1002
Winchester, Hampshire
Æthelred stood beside a light-filled window embrasure in his private chamber and greeted the arrival of his eldest son with a grunt. He half anticipated another outburst of resentment like the one he had had to endure before he’d banished the pup to St Albans, and he did not relish the prospect.
Christ, he was weary of it all – the restless, sleep-troubled nights, the days of wrangling with councillors and churchmen, and underneath it all the incessant rumour of trouble that he knew was far more than rumour. He had dispatched this recalcitrant son of his to gather information, and now, eyeing Athelstan as he bent the knee with sober regard, Æthelred took heart. Perhaps the whelp was beginning to learn humility. Perhaps he would be of some use after all.
‘You followed my instructions?’ Æthelred asked, coiling himself into his chair and gesturing for his son to stand.
‘Yes, my lord.’
‘And do you understand the problem that I face?’
Athelstan inclined his head. ‘Some years ago you forged an alliance with Viking raiders who were ravaging our lands, you bade them serve you as mercenaries, and rewarded them with gold and properties. Now you have bands of well-trained, well-armed Vikings, most of them Danes, settled throughout your kingdom.’
Æthelred scowled. His son had grasped the situation well enough, if not the policy behind it.
‘I had little choice at the time,’ he said, ‘nor am I the first ruler to settle mercenaries in his realm. The Frankish king did it. Even the great Alfred was forced to allow Danes to settle north of the River Humber.’
‘But in Alfred’s time,’ his son said, his expression carefully bland, ‘the Danes settled in lands where few of Alfred’s people dwelt. Your mercenaries are in Devonshire, Hampshire, and Oxfordshire – in the very heart of your kingdom.’
His son did not say it, but Æthelred heard the unspoken accusation. He had placed a pack of wolves in the sheepfold.
‘I gave them estates,’ he growled, ‘and they gave their oaths that they would not turn