Beside her Lady Wymarc was muffled in the folds of a woollen cloak, and as a blast of rain hit them, she pulled Emma’s fur-lined hood up to keep the rain off her hair.
‘Do you suppose,’ Emma murmured, her heart as grey and heavy as the swollen clouds, ‘that the sun ever shines in this dismal place?’
‘To be sure, my lady,’ Wymarc replied briskly. ‘It cannot always be this wet or the English would have feathers and webbed feet.’ She placed a hand on Emma’s arm. ‘Do not lose heart, I beg you. Not now, when the worst of the voyage is behind us.’
Emma could not help but smile as she looked into the wide brown eyes that regarded her with a mixture of sympathy, pride, and excitement. Wymarc was ever one to look for the sun behind the clouds. She had an irrepressible exuberance – a quality that had not found much favour with Duchess Judith but had endeared her to Emma. The two of them were much the same age, and during the mad weeks of preparation it had been Wymarc’s unbridled enthusiasm for the adventure that lay before them that had buoyed Emma’s spirits and kept her from despair.
‘I will be grateful to leave this ship,’ Emma said, ‘but I fear that the worst is likely yet to come.’ She dreaded this first meeting with the king, and she wanted it behind her. Yet even that, she reminded herself, would not be the worst that she would have to face in the coming days. There was the bedding to get through, but she put that out of her mind for now. ‘When we go ashore, do not leave my side,’ she commanded, ‘even for a moment.’
A bridge spanned the river ahead of them and led to a wide, tower-crowned stone gateway from which banners hung, limp and dripping. Emma could see a throng of folk crowded at the tower’s foot and massed upon its parapets, waving kerchiefs and hats enthusiastically in spite of the rain. A rumble of voices floated across the water towards her in a general roar of excitement and cheers. Armed men in mail tunics and scarlet cloaks lined the path that led from the riverside to the city wall, their black shields overlapping to keep the crowd at bay.
At the water’s edge, four black-clad acolytes, oblivious to the steady downpour, held a scarlet canopy over a scarlet-robed archbishop. A knot of brightly clad noblemen, their fur-lined mantles and hoods testifying to their high rank, clustered behind the prelate, their faces turned expectantly towards the approaching ship.
‘Which of them is the king?’ Wymarc asked.
Emma scanned the men again but none of them fitted the description that Ealdorman Ælfric had given her of Æthelred – a tall, well-built man with long golden hair and a trim beard.
A little shiver of foreboding crept along her spine to mingle with the anxiety already there. Was it possible that he had not come to greet her? She recalled how her brother Richard had made the five-day journey to Bayeux to wed Judith and escort her back to Rouen, and how the count of Turenne had travelled for near a month to sue for the hand of her sister Beatrice. Æthelred, though, had sent a delegation to Normandy to bid for his bride rather than come in person. Could he not even trouble himself to meet her at the city gate?
‘I do not think that he is here,’ she murmured to Wymarc.
‘Perhaps he is waiting to greet you in great state inside the palace,’ Wymarc said, ‘or at the church. Perhaps he thinks you will not wish to see him until you have had a chance to rest from the journey.’
Or perhaps, Emma thought, he is somewhat less than eager to meet his bride. Whatever the reason, it was an affront to her, and her anxiety grew.
The boat drew up to the dock, and Emma recognized Ealdorman Ælfric standing foremost among the nobles waiting to greet her. He had left Normandy some days before she had, and now the sight of his gaunt, old face, already smiling a welcome, cheered her somewhat. He helped her over the gunwale and into the shelter of the canopy, then took both her hands and bent to kiss them.
‘The king sends you greetings, my lady. Your bridegroom wished to come himself, but pressing matters of state have kept him from your side. I am bid to welcome you and escort you to your lodgings in the abbey precincts.’
He had barely finished speaking when the archbishop raised his hands and intoned a blessing, and the noise of the crowd hushed as the Latin words floated on the air. After that Emma was introduced to each nobleman in turn, and she greeted every man with a gracious word and a smile in spite of the misgiving that clutched at her heart. She had been anxious at the prospect of meeting the king. That he had not come to greet her, whatever the reason, only increased her unease.
‘I thank you, my lords,’ she said, in a voice as strong as she could muster, carefully enunciating the tongue-twisting English words, ‘and I thank the people of England for their welcome. May the Lord shower his blessings upon us all.’ The crowd gave a roar and, satisfied that she had pleased them, Emma turned to Ælfric. ‘I beg you, my lord, to tell me when I may look forward to meeting the king.’
The archbishop, an ancient man with a sour expression, raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips in disapproval. ‘You would do well to curb your impatience, my lady,’ he said gruffly. ‘Be content that the king will attend to you in his own good time.’
Stung by his rebuke, Emma had to bite her lip to keep from saying something she might regret. Here was one who disapproved of her. Was it because she was young and a woman, she wondered, or because she was Norman?
It was Ælfric who jumped in to mend the awkward moment.
‘On Sunday,’ he said, ‘the king will greet you at the church door to recite the marriage vows. Immediately afterwards he will escort you into the cathedral for the coronation ceremony.’
Not until Sunday! That was five days hence. What kind of man was this Æthelred that he would not meet with his bride in private for even a few moments of conversation before he wed her? Was this how things were done in England? The sense of panic that she had kept at bay for the last six weeks began to clutch at her again.
‘I wish to meet the king tomorrow,’ she insisted, smiling, although it was an effort. ‘Surely he can grant me a few moments of his good time.’
‘I am sorry, my lady,’ Ælfric said gently. ‘That will not be possible, for the king has not yet arrived in Canterbury. He has sent word that he will not be here before Sunday.’
She could feel the eyes of each nobleman fix upon her, taking her measure, curious to see how she would receive this unwelcome news. She said no more, but nodded to Ælfric in acknowledgement of his apology, doing her best to disguise both her displeasure at the king’s slight and her fear of what it might mean. She doubted that she was very successful. Her hands, she realized, were clenched as tightly as the muscles of her stomach. Drawing a deep breath, she made an effort to relax as she followed in the wake of the archbishop, who had started towards the city gates. She would have turned to search for Wymarc behind her, but she knew instinctively that she must keep her back straight and her head forward.
Ælfric escorted her to a litter draped lavishly with furs beneath a silk-lined canopy. Making a low bow, he handed her into it, and then she was borne on the shoulders of eight noblemen through the streets of Canterbury. She forced herself to smile, lifting her hand to the crowds of folk who lined the way or waved at her from thatched rooftops. She heard cries of ‘Welcome! Welcome to Richard’s daughter!’ over and over again as she was carried through the streets and past the great cathedral towards the abbey.
Her head ached from the noise, and from the effort to hold back tears that clouded her eyes – tears of both gratitude and dismay. The people of this realm had welcomed her with joy, yet the king who was to be her husband had not welcomed her at all. In the midst of this jubilant crowd, she had never felt