Patricia Bracewell - The Price of Blood

Harper

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Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2015

Copyright © Patricia Bracewell 2015

Maps © Matt Brown 2015

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover photographs © Dave Wall / Arcangel Images (medieval interior); Gordon Crabb / Alison Eldred (woman)

Lines from William of Malmesbury’s Gesta Regum Anglorum, The History of English Kings Vol. 1 edited by Mynors, Thomson, and Winterbottom (1998) are reproduced by kind permission of Oxford University Press

Patricia Bracewell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008104603

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008104597

Version: 2015-05-07

For Ron and Dot

Who share my earliest memories

In the Year of our Lord 979 Æthelred, son of Edgar … came to the throne … His life is said to have been cruel at the outset, pitiable in mid-course, and disgraceful in its ending …

He was hounded by the shade of his brother, demanding terribly the price of blood. Who could count how often he summoned his army, how often he ordered ships to be built, how often he called his nobles together from every quarter, and nothing ever came of it?

The evil could not be lulled to rest … for enemies were always sprouting out of Denmark like a hydra’s heads, and nowhere was it possible to take precautions …

– The History of the English Kings

William of Malmesbury

Twelfth Century

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Dramatis Personae

Maps

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Glossary

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

A Q&A with Patricia Bracewell

About the Author

Also by Patricia Bracewell

About the Publisher

*Indicates a Fictional Character

Royal Family

Æthelred II, King of England

Emma, Queen of England

Children of the English king, in birth order :

Athelstan

Ecbert

Edmund

Edrid

Edwig

Edgar

Edyth

Ælfgifu (Ælfa)

Wulfhilde (Wulfa)

Mathilda

Edward

Emma’s Household

Aldyth, niece of Ealdorman Ælfhelm

Elgiva, daughter of Ealdorman Ælfhelm

*Father Martin

*Hilde, granddaughter of Ealdorman Ælfric

*Margot

Wymarc

Robert, Wymarc’s son

Leading Ecclesiastics

Ælfheah, Archbishop of Canterbury

Ælfhun, Bishop of London

Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, Archbishop of Jorvik

Leading Nobles

Ælfhelm, Ealdorman of Northumbria

Ufegeat, Ælfhelm’s son

Wulfheah, Ælfhelm’s son (Wulf)

*Alric, his retainer

Ælfric, Ealdorman of Hampshire

Godwine, Ealdorman of Lindsey

Leofwine, Ealdorman of Western Mercia

Eadric of Shrewsbury

Godwin, Wulfnoth’s son

Morcar of the Five Boroughs

Siferth of the Five Boroughs

Thurbrand of Holderness

Ulfkytel of East Anglia

Uhtred of Northumberland

Wulfnoth of Sussex

Duke Richard II, Emma’s brother

Duchess Judith

Dowager Duchess Gunnora, Emma’s mother

Robert, Archbishop of Rouen, Emma’s brother

Swein Forkbeard, King of Denmark

Harald, son of Swein

Cnut, son of Swein

Hemming

Thorkell

Tostig

Shrove Tuesday, March 1006

Calne, Wiltshire

Æthelred knelt, his head clutched in his hands, bowed beneath the weight of his crown and his sins. Somewhere above, the vesper bells rang to mark the call to evening prayer, and at the very moment of their tolling he felt his limbs tremble, convulsed by a force beyond his control.

The familiar, hated lethargy settled over him, and though he strove to keep his head down and his eyes shut, a will far stronger than his own pulled his gaze upwards. The air before him thickened and turned as black and rippling as the windswept surface of a mere. Pain gnawed at his chest, and he shivered with cold and apprehension as the world around him vanished. Sounds, too, faded to nothing and he knew only the cold, the pain, and the flickering darkness before him that stretched and grew into the shape of a man.

Or what had been a man once. Wounds gaped like a dozen mouths at throat and breast, gore streaked the shredded garments crimson, and the menacing face wore Death’s gruesome pallor. His murdered brother’s shade drew towards him, an exhalation from the gates of heaven or the mouth of hell – he could not say which. Not a word passed its lips, but he sensed a malevolence that flowed from the dead to the living, and he shrank back in fear and loathing.

Yet he could not look away. For long moments the vision held him in thrall until, as it began to fade, he became aware of another figure – of a shadow behind the shadow. Dark, indistinct, shrouded in gloom, it hovered briefly in the thickened air and then, like the other, it was gone.

Released from the spell, he could hear once again the pealing of the vesper bells and the murmur of voices at prayer, could smell the honeyed scent of candles and, beneath it, the rank stench of his own sweat. The golden head dropped once more into cupped hands, but now it was heavy with fear and tormented by a terrible foreboding.