desires. He had treated her like a fool instead of recognizing that she could be of far more use to him if he would but confide in her. She would make him see that she was not without resources, make him regret that he had so badly misjudged both her wit and her willingness to bend to his will.
March 1006
London
A procession of heavily laden carts was making its way from the Thames bridge towards the East Ceap. Athelstan nudged his mount past it, grimacing at the noisy clatter of wooden wheels on gravelled street. It was just past midday, the sun had burned away the mist that frequently hovered over the river, and London was, as usual, crowded as well as noisy.
And stinking, he thought, as he was forced to wait for another cart, laden with baskets of fish, to turn into the side gate of one of the city’s larger hagas before he could make his way into Æthelingstrete.
A sennight ago, when Ecbert’s coffin had been borne along this route to St Paul’s Abbey, the streets had been quiet. The ground had been more river than road that day and the air thick with fog and mist, but the men and women who had lined Æthelingstrete to watch the sombre procession had stood in silence – a mark of respect for his brother that still moved him.
It had been ten days since Ecbert had died, yet a dozen times on each of those days he had found himself turning to speak to the brother who had been his near constant companion for as long as he could remember – only to discover yet again that Ecbert was not there. He wondered if he would ever become accustomed to that emptiness. Certainly he had tried. He had thrown himself into his work, overseeing the building of a new wooden tower on the London side of the bridge; it exercised his brain and body well enough, but it did little to fill the void that Ecbert had left behind.
He rode beneath the wooden archway that marked the entrance to what the Londoners called the Æthelings’ Haga – usually an apt description, although since Ecbert’s death and Edmund’s immediate departure for Wiltshire, he had been the only ætheling in London. That was apparently no longer the case, he concluded, eyeing the lathered mounts in the yard. Edmund must be back.
He left his horse with a groom and moments later he entered the hall, where he found his brother waiting for him, still cloaked and grimed from travel. Edmund was seated at a table with an ale cup in his hand, and he wore an expression forbidding enough to keep the other men in the hall – slaves, men-at-arms, and trusted companions – at a healthy distance.
Even on a good day, Athelstan knew, Edmund could be forbidding. He had always been burly, but now, at seventeen, he had outstripped all his brothers in height. Athelstan couldn’t even remember the last time he’d won a wrestling match with Edmund. It had been years ago.
Going on looks alone, men took care not to cross Edmund.
The dark, silent one, their grandmother, the dowager queen, had named him. They are always the most dangerous. When he speaks, you would do well to listen.
At the moment Edmund was staring into his ale cup as if he could read the fate of the world there and he had just discovered that the world was about to end.
‘You look like hell,’ Athelstan said, sitting down opposite his brother. And no wonder, considering the tidings he had borne to the king. ‘How bad was it?’
Edmund took a long pull from his cup, then set it down and stared at it morosely.
‘He wanted to know every detail,’ he said heavily, ‘so I had to relive it in the telling.’ He took a breath and ran a hand through the thick brown hair that set him apart from his Saxon-fair brothers. ‘One can’t blame him, I suppose, for wanting to make certain that all had been done for Ecbert that could have been.’ He drained his cup, then pushed it away from him. ‘She came in while I was answering his questions. Hung on every word. Pretended to grieve for Ecbert. As if anyone would believe that she would mourn the death of one who might have stood between her son and the throne.’ He scowled at Athelstan. ‘I am mistaken,’ he corrected himself. ‘You would believe it.’
‘Leave off, Edmund,’ he said wearily.
Emma had ever been a sore point between them. To Edmund she was not a living, breathing woman but a tool of her ambitious brother, the Norman duke Richard, and so a threat to all the sons of the king’s first marriage. And as for him – but he thrust the thought of Emma away from him. She was on his mind far too often as it was.
‘Was the king satisfied that we had done all we could to save Ecbert?’ Had they done all that they could to save their brother? The question had been nagging at him like a toothache and would not go away.
‘Do you mean does the king blame you for Ecbert’s death?’
Edmund’s penetrating eyes probed his own, and Athelstan admitted to himself that this was exactly what he’d meant. As the eldest ætheling he had always shouldered responsibility for his brothers’ welfare, at least when they were together. He had also been burdened with most of the blame whenever their father found fault with them.
He made no reply, though, and Edmund shook his head.
‘Ecbert’s illness and death were no fault of yours, Athelstan, and the king knows that. When will you allow yourself to believe it?’
‘I keep asking myself if there was something more—’
‘The answer is no,’ Edmund said. ‘He was treated, he was blessed, he was shriven, and he has gone to God. Now you must let him go.’ He leaned across the table and his dark eyes were insistent. ‘You cannot bring him back.’
Athelstan rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. Edmund was right. He could not bring Ecbert back from death; could not change his wyrd. Yet since Ecbert had died, he had been unable to rid his mind of words that he had long tried to forget.
A bitter road lies before the sons of Æthelred – all but one.
That prophecy had been uttered two years before, within the shadow of a pagan stone dance by one who was said to be able to read the future. They were dismal words that he had repeated to no one. Why tell others a thing that he wished he had never heard himself? Even if he had shared the prophecy with Ecbert, it would not have changed anything; nor would it change Edmund’s fate, whatever it might be, if he were to speak of it now.
So he remained silent, and when he looked again at his brother he saw that there must be something more on Edmund’s mind, for he was tapping his fingers nervously against his empty cup while he chewed on his lower lip. When Edmund did not speak, Athelstan prodded him. ‘What are you not telling me?’
‘It’s just that …’ Edmund frowned, glanced away, then seemed to make up his mind about whatever was troubling him. ‘Ecbert’s death did not surprise the king. He already knew. When I entered the hall he looked up at me and nodded, as if he had been waiting for me. Before I said a single word he asked, Which of my sons is dead? Not sick or injured, but dead. He knew. I have been trying to explain it to myself all during the long journey back, but I cannot make sense of it. How could he have known?’
Edmund’s question hung in the air between them, and Athelstan was uncertain how best to answer it. Not with the truth, for the king had forbidden him to speak it.
The king is troubled in his mind.
It was Archbishop Ælfheah who had first alerted him to his father’s secret torment. And then he had witnessed it himself – had seen the king cower, grey-faced with horror from some invisible threat. Afterwards, when his father was himself again, he had spoken of seeing signs and portents of disaster.
Had he, then, been given some warning of the death of a son?
Jesu. He did not want to believe