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 against me.’
Yet they had done so, and with a vengeance. After several years of abiding by the pledges they had made to him, the dogs of war had been loosed upon England.
Æthelred, remembering, grimaced, and rubbed at a suddenly painful temple with his fingertips.
One of those dogs, Pallig, was wed to the half sister of Swein Forkbeard, and when Forkbeard had attacked the southern coast last year, Pallig and his men had joined in the assault. They had pillaged and burned all across Wessex, and the English host that rallied against them had failed to stop them.
He’d had no choice but to bribe the lot of them yet again to leave his realm in peace. Forkbeard had taken his gold to his ships and sailed east, but Pallig had merely made new pledges of peace and retreated to his estates. He and others like him were like boils upon the land that would, one day, erupt to plague him once more. He could not trust them.
‘You spoke to Pallig?’ he asked.
‘I spoke with Pallig and with his wife, Gunhild.’
‘Think you he will keep his oaths to me?’ He watched his son closely and spotted the hesitation before the answer was given. So the lad, too, saw the threat.
‘My lord,’ Athelstan said, ‘Pallig is no farmer. He is a mercenary down to his soul – an adventurer who thrives on danger and excitement. If you do not put him to some use, he will make more mischief in spite of his pledges to you.’
Æthelred waved the suggestion away.
‘Once before I set the fox to guarding the chickens and I paid the price. I will not make that mistake again. Pallig may be living on estates that I granted him, but he is Swein’s man at heart. He is like a knife at my throat.’
‘No, my lord,’ his son objected. Æthelred glared at his presumption but let him have his say. ‘Pallig is more like a kingdom unto himself,’ Athelstan went on, ‘not bound to any man. He takes whatever he feels is his by right and by force of arms. It is not the having that he loves, it is the getting. If you could but find a way to bend him to your will—’
‘Men like Pallig do not bend!’ he snarled. ‘Best you learn that now, boy. If money will not sway him, nothing will.’ Good Christ, he had dealt with vermin like Pallig for two decades; he knew them far better than this cub of his, who had not yet seen eighteen summers.
Athelstan frowned at his father, sympathy for the king’s dilemma warring with exasperation. That England was beset by enemies from within as well as from without was the king’s own doing. Granted, the marriage to Emma might stem the tide of Viking raids, but Æthelred had made a devil’s bargain when he had given land to men like Pallig. They were like feral dogs that must be tamed and muzzled. He could think of only one way to do it.
‘Pallig has a son, my lord,’ he said urgently, ‘newly born. Take the boy as hostage for his father’s good behaviour.’ If the boy were raised at court, he would become English and no Dane. Build trust with one child, and others, no doubt, would follow.
‘Hostage?’ Æthelred almost spat the word. ‘It is far too late for that now. We might have made it a condition in March, before we made the gafol payment, but now we have nothing with which to bargain. Pallig will not willingly hand his son over to me.’ He fingered his beard, his face brooding and dark. ‘He is safe on his own lands, surrounded by his warriors, a law unto himself. Nor is he the only one. There are a dozen more like him, spread across the southern shires. Who is to say what schemes they may be plotting?’
Listening to his father’s groundless suspicions, Athelstan’s exasperation finally overcame his sympathy.
‘Who is to say that they are plotting any schemes at all?’ he demanded. ‘What if they are not? What if Pallig merely craves action? He is a shipman! Can you not put together a fleet and charge him with guarding our coast? My lord, what other choice have you?’
His father made no answer, and Athelstan, looking into a face that he suddenly realized was haggard and far too pale, felt a sudden chill along his spine, as if