Patricia Bracewell - The Price of Blood

He sheathed himself inside her and she wrapped her legs about his hips, moving to the rhythm that he set. His thrusts were quick and hard and deep, and it did not take long. Well, what was she, after all, but a prize to be plundered? When he collapsed on top of her the Danes sent up a roar. The slave, Tyra, came forward, and for an instant their eyes met and held. Elgiva felt her skin prickle under that knowing gaze, and she breathed a sigh of relief when Tyra drew the curtains around the bed and that cold glance was hidden.

They were alone after that, and as she lay spooned against Cnut beneath the furs, he murmured to her in Danish. She did not understand him, and she was glad when he finally fell asleep, his hand cupped possessively over her breast. She was uncomfortable in his arms, though, and in spite of her weariness she lay awake far into the night. She tried to conjure up her future, tried to imagine herself in a great hall wearing a golden circlet, but the only images that rose in her mind were the faces of her father and her brothers, who stared at her with cold, accusing eyes. At last she fell asleep, and she dreamed of a woman in grey who sat spinning, and the golden thread that fell from her fingers shrivelled into dust.

The next day, gowned in her own shift and cyrtel, and bedecked with some of her bridal gold, she followed Cnut through the hall to the dais, where King Swein waited to greet her. Alric, looking haggard after last night’s celebration, fell in behind her, whispering that he had been commanded to act as interpreter.

Cnut took her hand, standing at her side as Swein pinned her with those black eyes of his, eyeing her belly as if he had the power to discern whether Cnut’s son was already growing there. She resented that look and resented the way this marriage had come about, although she was satisfied enough with her husband – assuming that, in the end, she got what she wanted.

‘I wish to know,’ she said, not waiting for the Danish king to speak first, ‘when King Swein will take the crown of England as his own.’

She watched Swein’s face as Alric translated her question, and she thought she caught a flicker of amusement in the king’s eyes.

‘When you give Cnut a son,’ the reply came back, ‘blending English blood with Danish, I will wrest the crown from Æthelred. Your father’s death stalled our preparations, but we will begin again. You have but to do your part.’

She nodded. It would do, for now. She would complete her part of the bargain. After all, even the whey-faced Emma had finally produced a son. Surely she must be as fecund as Emma, although – the alarming thought fluttered into her mind – she had not conceived in the months that she had slept beside the king.

She reminded herself, though, of the prophecy that Groa had sworn to her was true, that she was destined to wear a crown, destined to bear sons who would be kings. So it was foretold and, therefore, she assured herself, no power on earth could prevent it.

Windsor, Berkshire

Æthelred paced his inner chamber as he waited for Emma to respond to his summons. It was late and he was weary but, by Christ , he would not face another night in his bed alone. His dreams were a torment, filled with phantoms – the dead come to haunt him. His brother, his mother, even his father had troubled his sleep for a week. Their faces, decaying and putrid beneath golden crowns, hovered over him, as if they would warn him of some coming disaster. Last night it had been Elgiva, beautiful and naked, riding him hard until suddenly she was no longer Elgiva. It was her father whose dead weight pressed upon his chest and whose rough, bearded mouth covered his own, drawing all the breath from his lungs until he woke, crying out in terror.

The menace of that nightmare still clung to him, yet it offered a glimmer of hope, for it could mean that Elgiva, too, was now rotting in some unhallowed grave.

So far, she had not been discovered in either Mercia or Northumbria, and he dared to hope that some mischance had befallen her – the last of Ælfhelm’s brood of vipers.

Alive, wedded to some powerful Danish lord, she could be a threat – a rallying point for Ælfhelm’s disgruntled northern kin.

Dead, she could do no more than haunt him.

He paused at his work-table to finger a pile of scrolls and wax tablets that bore news from Kent, where the Danes continued to burn and plunder. His fyrds were doing exactly as he had ordered, shepherding his people into the burhs to protect them. From within the safety of their fortress walls, though, they had to watch as their homes were torched and their livestock driven away. They were powerless to stop it, for they had not the numbers to confront the better-armed shipmen and their savage leader – some bastard, he saw scrawled on one of the tablets, named Tostig.

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