‘Perhaps it is some matter of trade—’
‘Even so,’ he said, and now he pulled harder to make sure that he had her attention. ‘What do you think they are likely to trade between them? I shall tell you. Poor English folk dragged from their homes to be sold as slaves, shiploads of silver, and booty from English towns.’
And there was the little matter of Swein’s revenge for the death of his sister on St Brice’s feast day. In London the bishops had railed at him interminably about the likelihood of the Danish king’s vengeance, and though he had made light of it, his own fear of Swein’s retaliation gnawed at his gut like an incurable, weeping wound.
Emma was squirming beneath him now in a vain effort to ease the pain he was inflicting.
‘Stop it,’ she hissed.
But he had no intention of stopping. With his other hand he twisted another bright strand about his fingers and pulled that as well. She would have clawed him like a she-cat, he guessed, but he’d taken the precaution of pinning her arms at her sides.
‘Earthly pain leads to greater glory in heaven, does it not?’ he asked. ‘Be submissive to life’s afflictions, lady, and you will find them easier to bear. I’ve told you that before.’
‘Tell me what you want,’ she said through clenched teeth.
He smiled, but he did not ease the pressure. It would take far more than this to break Emma, but he would master her eventually, hopefully before her belly swelled again.
‘I would have you remember that you are the queen of the English and no longer a tool of the Norman duke,’ he replied. ‘You will write to your brother and remind him of his promises to me. It would be unfortunate if he should commit himself to an alliance that you, more than anyone else, might regret. Do you understand me?’
There were tears in her eyes now, though she did not weep. She was cold, this one. Even in her pain, Emma did not weep.
‘I understand,’ she ground out.
‘Good. I shall expect to see the letter tomorrow.’
To remind her of her task, he snagged the tender flesh beneath her ear with his teeth. When she flinched, he grinned. His queen did not have Elgiva’s taste for sexual adventure.
He rather missed Elgiva, but there were other women at court to satisfy him.
He rolled off his lady wife and watched, amused, as she slipped from the bed, drew on a robe, and stalked across the chamber and well out of his reach.
‘What were those letters I saw you poring over with the priest?’ he asked.
‘They are from my reeve in Exeter.’
‘Bring them to me. And light some candles. It is too dark in here.’ She lit a taper at the lamp, and one by one set all the candles in the room blazing.
‘You have not asked about your ailing son,’ she said.
‘What about him?’ He reached for the flagon beside the bed and poured himself a cup of wine. ‘His fever is gone, is it not?’ He tossed back the wine and poured more.
‘He tires easily. I am concerned for him.’
He grunted. The children were her concern, not his.
‘He goes to Headington next week with the rest of them,’ he said. ‘He will be well tended there. Bring me those scrolls.’
She fetched them, then began to dress herself while he sat on the edge of the bed, looking over each missive as he drank a second and third cup of wine. There were reports from her reeve, as she had said, as well as a petition from a host of Devonshire landholders urging Emma to visit her properties in the southwest.
Of course they would want her to make a royal progress to her dower lands. After all, it had been the southern nobles who had supported her as his bride in preference to Elgiva. They wished to curry her favour now, get her among them and fete her in the hope of solidifying her royal patronage. He’d had a letter from one of his Devonshire thegns some months ago suggesting just such a journey. He had dismissed it at the time. Now, though, he thought, fondling his cup as he considered the idea, things had changed.
If Duke Richard had allied himself with King Swein, then for the next four months all of England’s southern coast would be at risk of attack from ships striking across the Narrow Sea, and England’s fleet was too small to patrol that long sweep of coast. So what if he were to use Emma as a shield for the western shires? If he placed her in Devonshire and made certain that her brother knew of it, Richard would doubtless seek to protect Emma and her lands by urging his Danish allies to aim their strikes further east. That would leave him with only half of the coast to defend. It was perfect.
He tossed the scrolls onto the bed and began to dress.
‘You will make that progress through your dower lands,’ he told her. ‘The southern lords would take it amiss if you refuse them. I will send Ealdorman Ælfric and his men to escort you. And now I think on it, you may wish to stop at some of the shrines along your route and pray that your womb will soon be fruitful again.’
He watched her face as she weighed his words, and the consternation he read there amused him. Emma wanted a child. It was not obedience that had driven her to spread her legs for him today but the hope that his seed would take root within her. A son would garner her more lands, more money from his own purse, and even more support from the bishops than she had now. Once Emma had a son she would be a force to be reckoned with, something his damned bishops seemed unable to grasp. Well, they could hardly expect him to bed her if she wasn’t here, which would leave him free to seek his pleasure elsewhere. And Emma would have to wait a little longer for that child.
She made no reply to his suggestion but turned away from him, fingers busily braiding her hair. He pulled on his breecs and his tunic, and then noticed the small scroll that lay on the floor. Languidly he reached for it, glancing quickly at its lines of script.
And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand.
He stiffened, the menace in the words as palpable as a physical blow.
Christ, what fiend had given him this?
He tried to visualize the faces that had surrounded him in the palace yard, but he had taken too little notice of the rabble. He read again the baleful words – the Almighty’s curse upon Cain. As his mind quailed from the threat it carried, he felt, to his horror, a menacing cold come upon him.
He guessed what the chill portended, but surely he had to be wrong. He had freed himself of his brother’s vengeful shade when he had rid himself of the Danes who had schemed to destroy him. The fetch was gone! It could not come again to hound him. Even God would not be so cruel!
He steeled mind and body against the panic rising within him, but the growing cold clasped him in its unrelenting embrace, its icy tendrils reaching beneath his flesh to clutch at his heart. The scroll slipped from his hand, and his eyes, frozen wide, could only stare into a void that swirled and spun. All light fled the chamber, and in the darkness his brother’s glowering visage shivered before him like an unsteady flame, filling his soul with dread.
This time, though, he refused to succumb to the numbing terror. A rage sparked within him, bright as a glowing coal. He wanted to throttle the horror that faced him, to channel all his fear and fury into a lightning bolt of violence that would shatter this fiendish exhalation and send it back to hell. He struggled against the invisible bonds that held him, but he was spellbound, encased in a shroud of ice.
‘Why?’ he howled, wrenching the word out of the depths of his soul. ‘Speak, damn you! What do you want of me?’
There was no answer, and with a strangled curse and a supreme effort