Patricia Bracewell - Shadow on the Crown

She picked up a silver mirror and contemplated the perfect arch of her dark brows, then angled the disk to reflect Groa’s aged face beneath her grey linen headrail. That face was as familiar to Elgiva as her own, yet there were secrets behind the shadowy grey eyes that she had never been able to fathom.

‘Tell me again,’ she said, ‘about the prophecy.’

Groa’s normally brooding expression lit up with a rare, knowing smile.

‘You are destined for queenship, my lady,’ she said. ‘Your children will be kings. You have but to reach out your hand and grasp what you desire.’

Elgiva pursed her lips, studying their fullness in the mirror.

‘I intend to,’ she said. ‘I intend to make Athelstan desire me tonight.’ She wanted him to hunger for her body in exactly the way the priests railed against in their sermons.

‘How can he not?’ Groa asked. ‘You are as beautiful as you are wealthy. Even the king desired you, and you were but a child then.’

Elgiva smiled, relishing the memory of her meeting with the king at Yuletide three years before. She had bribed a servant to help her escape from an evening of prayer in Lady Ælfgifu’s chamber, and in the dark passage outside she had unwittingly stumbled into the king. Æthelred had saved her from a fall by pulling her hard up against him, holding her there for far longer than necessary while he inquired if she was hurt. She had answered him with her most beguiling smile, had eagerly pressed her body against his as he held her close. Then, with a skill she could not help but admire, he had slipped a hand through the neckline of her cyrtel to fondle her breast. She had let him do it, of course, because he was the king, and because she had been too astonished to protest. Besides, she had liked it. Who would have guessed that a man so old could have such eloquent, liquid hands?

She had dared to hope that he would lead her to his chamber, but it was at that interesting moment that one of his attendants had come to drag him to some meeting or other, and so her brief little tryst with Æthelred had ended.

Angling the mirror a little lower she studied her full breasts and the necklace of thick gold that had been a gift from her brother Wulf. It had been Wulf who had told her father about her little interlude with the king. Her father, who had ever been one to strike first and ask questions later, had cuffed her so hard that her mouth and nose had bled. He would have hit her again had Groa not come between them, fingering the pagan amulet she wore at her throat and threatening him with a curse. That had stayed her father’s hand, for he was wary of Groa and her curses and potions. Still, her father had hurled filthy words at Elgiva, calling her a cunt and a whore, and he had sent her from court that very day. She still hated him for that, but she had learned a lesson. She was very careful now about what secrets she confided to her favourite brother.

‘I am glad,’ she said, ‘that I did not give my maidenhead to the king. It would have been a waste.’

‘As he already has a wife,’ Groa replied, her face in the mirror gone all grim again, ‘it would have done you little good, to be sure.’

Well, it might have got her more lands and more money if she had become the king’s leman, but she was already one of the wealthiest women in the realm, and one of the few who owned her estates outright. Still, it would not have made her queen, and that was what she truly wanted. Groa had said she would be the mother of kings, after all, so it must mean that she was meant to wed Athelstan, who would surely take the throne when his father died.

And for the next two weeks, Athelstan and two of his brothers would be under this roof for the Yule feast. It was perfect.

Even better, her father was not here, although he had nearly ruined everything by insisting that she go south with him to attend the king’s Yule. He would have had her spend Christmas Day on her knees mouthing prayers with the king’s wife and her ladies. She had gulled him out of that, though, and she smiled to herself as she remembered how her father’s brow had darkened when she casually said that she hoped to become much better acquainted with the king during her time at court. He had raised a threatening hand, and she had feared that he might strike her, but Groa had whisked her out of the chamber, scolding like mad, and that had saved her. After that nothing more had been said about taking her south, and with her father and elder brother now gone, she could do as she pleased. Wulf certainly would not stop her.

‘I think that Lord Athelstan has a look of the king about him,’ she observed. They had the same golden hair and square, pleasing face.

Groa snorted. ‘When I saw him in the yard this morning he had the look of a man who spends more time grooming his horse than he does himself.’

‘I did not ask for your opinion,’ Elgiva snapped. ‘And you are not being fair. Any man looks unkempt when he has been riding.’ Besides, there was an air about Athelstan, an unconscious swagger that she found infinitely appealing. At sixteen years old he was the heir to the throne of all England, and no one knew it better than he did.

She had watched from the hall steps as he rode through the gate, and he had lifted his eyes to hers and snared her in an unsettling blue gaze. She had seen it then, that awareness of just exactly who and what he was. He had worn it like a mantle, and from that instant she had wanted to wrap herself in it.

One day Athelstan would be the most powerful man in the realm, and her destiny, she was certain, must be bound to his. For two weeks he would be her guest – time enough, surely, to make him desire her, and to convince him that he must have her for his wife.

It was the seventh night of Christmas feasting, and Athelstan stood with his brothers amid a throng of revellers near the central fire of the great hall at Aldeborne. The bad weather had finally broken, and it appeared that every estate holder in the hundred of Northampton had ventured out of doors to join Lord Wulfheah and his sister Elgiva at table. The timbered hall, its carved rafters garlanded with greens, was redolent with succulent aromas, and the haunches of roasting meat above the coals made his mouth water. The high table at the top of the hall had been laid, as it had been every night since he’d arrived, with a snowy cloth, silver plates, and fat candles. Tonight numerous extra tables had been set up in the hall as well, and the noise from the crush of guests was almost deafening.

As Athelstan turned to say something to his brothers, the hall quieted, and he saw that Elgiva and Wulf had appeared on the dais to begin the business of formally greeting their guests. They made a striking couple. They were both black-haired and handsome, although Elgiva’s petite figure and small features gave her an elfin grace that was missing from her brother’s taller, warrior’s frame. They were both clad in deep scarlet, and Elgiva’s shimmering gown clung to her in a way that was guaranteed to make every man in the room uncomfortable inside his breecs. Her hair was dressed in loose, wanton curls that framed her face and cascaded down her back, and when her voluptuous lips curved into a beguiling smile, a man would have to be made of stone not to smile back.

He ought to know. She had been favouring him with that smile – and somewhat more – from the moment he’d ridden through Aldeborne’s gate a week ago. On Christmas night she had welcomed him with the ale bowl that was traditional and a molten kiss that was anything but. It had surprised the hell out of him, but he had not been fool enough to take it seriously. Not at first. She had placed him by her side at the table, though, and the casual grazing of knee and shoulder and hand all through the long meal had nearly driven him mad with a desire that food would not satisfy. By then he had caught on to her little game, and although he’d been playing it for seven nights now, it had lost none of its allure. She aroused him still, and he would find relief again tonight with the pretty blonde he had plucked from the kitchens – a girl who expected no reward beyond a few silver coins.