The Chosen Queen (17 page)

‘From what I heard,’ she said, ‘Earl Torr was more than happy to spend time with the Welsh when he went on campaign there, especially the Welsh girls.’

‘Lucky them. Have you seen his emblem – the sharpened spear? Well, I hear his spear is not just sharp but long!’

The others sucked in delighted breaths.

‘Ooh, Sophie, careful. The Lady Judith is just there.’

Sophie! Edyth remembered her now – the Lord of Thanet’s daughter. She’d been a quiet little thing when she’d last seen her but the girl had clearly grown out of that. Her
friend – possibly Lady Emily of Canterbury, though she too had blossomed from a skinny ploughshare of a girl into a curvaceous young woman – pointed to Torr’s wife, talking
earnestly to a bishop nearby, and they all giggled madly again. Would she have been this way if she’d stayed in England, Edyth wondered, with nothing more to worry about than fashions and
friendships and husbands? If so, it felt a world away. She looked desperately around for escape and finally caught a glimpse of a gown even less fashionable than hers in a meadow-sweet colour that
looked enticingly fresh amongst the cloying riches.

‘Svana!’

‘Edyth! Lord be praised. It’s so good to see you.’

‘And you.’

Edyth set Ewan down and grasped her friend’s hands, drinking in the sight of her after nearly three years apart.

‘You are counting my wrinkles, Edyth – I am grown old in your absence.’

‘Nonsense. You look the same as ever and indeed – though your letters have been a godsend to me – you are far lovelier in person than in writing.’

It was the truth. Svana did perhaps look a little older. Her hazel-gold hair carried tints of silver now and life had sketched itself in tiny lines at her temples, but her grey eyes sparkled as
brightly as Edyth remembered and her slim frame was as lithe and graceful as ever. Now she bent to Ewan.

‘And this must be the Prince of Wales?’

Ewan held tight onto Edyth’s leg but smiled at Svana and when she held out her hand he took it as solemnly as a grownup.

‘Ewan,’ Edyth said, bending down too, ‘this is the Lady Svana, Mama’s very best friend in the whole of England.’

‘Surely not,’ Svana said softly over the boy’s head.

‘Surely so,’ Edyth countered, glancing up at the gossiping courtiers all around them. ‘I’m so pleased you’re here, Svana. I was beginning to feel quite . . .
adrift.’

Svana laughed and leaned in.

‘Fret not, Edie. Everything these women do is designed to make you feel different, unsure – wrong. They’re experts at it.’

‘So what’s the answer?’

‘Simple – talk to the men.’ Svana grinned cheekily. ‘Firstly, they don’t judge, especially if you’re as pretty as you are. Secondly, it really, really annoys
the women.’

Now Edyth laughed too.

‘I shall try it, though I should like to talk with you.’

‘And I you but that’s permitted because I’m not a woman – I’m a witch.’

‘What?’

A server passed by with a tray and Svana, apparently flustered by her own words, rose swiftly and grabbed a honeyed pastry, busying herself breaking it up for a delighted Ewan. Edyth rose too,
waiting pointedly, and eventually her friend met her eye again.

‘That’s what they say, Edie – that I’ve bewitched Harold.’

Edyth shook her head.

‘What nonsense. I confess, Svana, I once thought you something of a faerie queen, but your charm for Harold, as far as I can see, is all human.’

‘Oh no. No, they won’t believe that. They are desperate for any excuse to remove him from me.’ She leaned in. ‘They are talking of him as the next king, Edyth.’

‘King? Why?’

‘Edward has no heir and his only interest now seems to be in the new abbey he is designing for Westminster. It will please God, I am sure – or, at least,
he
is sure –
but it will not keep back the wolves who prowl beyond the sea. Duke William of Normandy seeks a kingdom and Harald Hardrada has never been one to rest on his own throne. He is married to a princess
of Kiev, you know, and looks to make her Empress of the North. The council fears for England’s safety should anything, God preserve us, happen to the king.’

With a jolt Edyth remembered Torr’s talk of such matters back before she had travelled to Wales. It had seemed foolish back then but Edward was over fifty now and the threat was less
easily dismissed.

‘But why, Harold?’ she asked.

‘Lord knows. He does not encourage it. Indeed, he spent months on the continent last winter seeking out the king’s cousin. He dragged him all the way out of Hungary only to have the
wretched man die within days of setting foot in Westminster.’

‘Oh dear.’ Edyth looked down at Ewan, licking honey from his fingers and glancing hopefully at the still-laden platters on the table. ‘Does he have children?’

‘Yes, three, one a boy – Edgar – but he’s a mewling little thing, not like this chap.’ She ruffled Ewan’s red-gold locks. ‘The only one of them fit for
rule, if you ask me, is the middle one, Margaret, but she’s a girl so no use to anyone.’

‘Svana!’

‘You know what I mean. She cannot rule.’

‘I don’t see why. Griffin says I could do anything if I set my mind to it.’

Svana smiled.

‘All goes well at Rhuddlan then, Edie? You are content?’

‘I am, though it seems,’ she added, noticing two women pointing at her, ‘that I am grown a curiosity.’

‘I told you,’ Svana said, ‘talk to the . . .’

‘Men,’ they finished together.

‘What men?’ a deep voice demanded and the women jumped guiltily apart.

‘Harold!’ Delighted, Edyth hugged the Earl of Wessex but his broad back felt stiff against her hands and, embarrassed, she pulled away. ‘I’m so sorry, my lord. I forgot
myself.’

‘Then I am glad of it.’ He pulled her in again, squeezing her so tightly her feet lifted from the ground. ‘And I am glad to see you well. The way my wife talks anyone would
think your father had fed you to a monster.’

‘Harold!’ Svana protested indignantly.

‘I confess,’ Edyth said quickly, ‘that I thought Griffin might truly be the devil the first time I saw him, but he is not.’

‘Devilish enough,’ Harold spat, ‘especially if you live in the Marches. There he slaughters all he comes across.’

Edyth took a step back at his sudden dark tone.

‘My husband is prone to exaggeration,’ Svana said swiftly but Edyth had caught the change of mood and felt dizzied by it.

She pressed her hand to her belly and the welcome flutter of life inside steadied her.

‘You are with child,’ Harold said, shifting subject smoothly. ‘God bless you. And you have a bonny son already.’

He crouched down to talk to Ewan who went gladly to him, reaching up a podgy hand to play, wide-eyed, with his sand-blond hair.

‘He’s not used to such fairness on a man,’ Edyth said as Harold winced at a curious tug.

‘You think me fair, Edyth, Queen of Wales?’

‘I think your
locks
fair.’

‘Ah! Shame.’

Svana shook her head.

‘Harold is used only to adulation. Every unattached woman here wants him for her husband.’

‘He is
your
husband, Svana.’

‘We are but handfasted.’

Her voice was light but Edyth heard the pain.

‘You are the most tightly joined pair I know,’ she said stoutly.

‘Thank you, Edyth,’ said Harold, standing again. ‘At last someone that agrees with me.’

He turned to summon his bondsman, Avery, with wine and Svana clasped Edyth’s arm urgently.

‘Do you think I should spend more time at court, Edyth – with Harold?’

Edyth blinked.

‘I’m not sure. Do you?’

‘With Harold, yes, but I hate it at court.’

‘Sometimes I hate it in Wales.’ Svana stared at her and Edyth noticed, again, the shadows of lines on her beautiful face. ‘I’m sorry. It’s different. I do not have
lands of my own, I—’

‘No, Edyth, it is not different. You are right. I will make more effort. I will travel more and keep my husband close lest one of those cats sink their claws into him.’

‘Why not marry him?’

‘Love prefers to be free. If he cannot stay true without Roman bonds he is no good for me.’

‘Oh Svana, the Roman bonds are not to keep Harold, but to bind up the rest of the world.’

Svana looked close to tears and Edyth had no idea what more to say so she was hugely grateful when Harold turned back with drinks and her friend visibly gathered herself.

‘A toast,’ Harold proposed, ‘to the glorious memory of Earl Leofric. May he rest in peace.’

‘Peace?’ little Ewan echoed curiously and Edyth hastily passed him another pastry.

‘Earl Leofric,’ she said firmly and they all drank.

Coventry Cathedral was packed. Commissioned just ten years ago by the earl whose tomb would now stand at its centre, it was spacious and modern in design but never intended to
house the entire court. The lords and ladies were squeezed against each other like eels in a barrel to mark the passing of the great man. Edyth stood at the front with her family, her fine Welsh
crown as heavy on her head as her heart felt in her chest. She was sure everyone was staring at her.

‘Nobody likes me any more,’ she whispered to Edwin.

Her brother leaned down to her. He was as skinny as ever but, now fourteen, he had grown taller than her and his ever-solemn face was shadowed with the first wisps of a beard.

‘You’re a queen, Edie,’ he said simply, ‘of course nobody likes you. They’re all jealous as hell – especially in that crown.’

Edyth touched her fingers to her magnificent diadem and felt Griffin’s power beneath them. Thank the Lord he’d insisted she bring it; however outmoded her dress, no one would sneer
at her in this.

‘Griffin had it made for me.’

‘He must value you very highly.’ Edwin paused then added, ‘We are next, you know.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Now that Grandfather is dead we are next. Brodie is glad of it, he is twitching for power, but I am not so sure.’

Edyth squeezed his arm.

‘You need not be sure, Edwin. You are young yet and a second son. You have years to enjoy yourself and you should. You have ever been too serious. Do you have a sweetheart?’

Edwin shook his head furiously.

‘No. Marc’s the one who’s always running around with the girls.’

Edyth wasn’t surprised, for her youngest brother, though only twelve, had matured fast, growing nearly as tall as Edwin and already broader across the shoulders. A handsome boy with a mop
of curly hair and a wicked twinkle in his tawny eyes, he was definitely one to enjoy himself and Edyth was glad of it; there was too much sorrow in the world. Instinctively she looked to Lady
Godiva. Her grandmother held her head as high as ever but her sharp eyes were swollen at the edges and her handsome face was lined with grief. Moving closer, Edyth offered her arm. Godiva glanced
down, hesitated, and then took it.

‘I loved him well, Edyth.’

‘And he you, Grandmother. You were lucky.’

Godiva smiled softly.

‘That’s exactly what he used to say and I am glad, in some ways, that he has departed a peaceful England. Storms are coming, Edyth – can you not feel them?’

Edyth thought carefully. It was certainly true that the court seemed to be turning. Earl Leofric had commanded central England through the reign of four kings and had been the last of his
generation of great counsellors. With him gone, the council would be led by the younger earls – Alfgar, Harold and Torr – and uneasy rumblings behind pavilion walls suggested that only
Harold was truly trusted. Earl Torr, it was said, was taxing his northern subjects to fund his southern hunting estates where, more and more frequently, he spent his time. Her own father was known
by all to be volatile and she was heavily aware of barely whispered concerns about his close associations with the ‘wild Welsh’, of which she was now considered one.

‘I have not been here,’ she muttered to Godiva.

‘So you will see all the more clearly now.’

‘The court does feel . . . uncertain.’

‘That is it exactly, Edyth, and spies will report that to the predators over the seas. It is this matter of an heir riling us all. England is not satisfied to have her present secure but
must sew up her future too. Still, it seems you have done that for Wales. You must be proud.’

‘I am.’

Edyth was grateful for Godiva’s understanding. So many others at court seemed to think of her marriage country as nothing more than a predator on their own. She wanted to say more but now
Earl Leofric’s coffin was being borne into the cathedral and the great choir of monks was singing and she had to content herself with squeezing her grandmother’s arm as they saw her
husband to his rest.

The court lingered in Coventry, encouraged by Godiva’s elaborate hospitality and Alfgar’s childish enthusiasm for his new role as Earl of Mercia, and Edyth lingered
with them. November marched in, yanking frost across the land, and it became madness to delay, but delay she did. Every morning she woke knowing that she should order her baggage prepared but every
morning she found reasons to stay. She missed Griffin still but life was so familiar in the English court and her small train, most notably young Becca and Lewys, seemed in no hurry to leave its
pleasures.

She told herself it was important Ewan became familiar with his maternal relations but in truth most of her family commitments were despatched within an hour of breaking fast and after that she
spent her time with Svana, who lingered also. Together they took the children out riding, Ewan and Crysta tucked safely in before their mothers and Svana’s older boys riding free and, at
times, wild. They ate in quaint little inns and bought trinkets from traders, and one ice-bright Sunday they seized the chance to confirm Edyth as little Crysta’s godmother.

It was a simple ceremony, performed, at Svana’s behest, beneath the open skies in the frosty garden of Coventry’s Benedictine abbey. The only people there with Edyth and the
kind-faced monk who offered the fur-swaddled child to God were Harold, Svana and their older children, and in the quiet of that morning Edyth felt as if she had been drawn into the family’s
world as magically as at the long-ago wedding but with more solidity, more reality. That same night, though, she watched a heavy sun set over the west and knew she was stealing time.