Last Tales of Mercia 1-10



  Last Tales of Mercia 1-10

  Jayden Woods

  Copyright 2012 Jayden Woods

  Edited by Malcolm Pierce

  Cover design by Jenny Gibbons

  Stone texture stock by enframed

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  The ten Last Tales of Mercia are stand-alone short stories featuring real historical figures and characters from the Sons of Mercia series. You may read them independently as quick glimpses into an ancient world, or as a preface to the novel, Edric the Wild. For more news and updates on the Sons of Mercia series, visit www.jaydenwoods.com.

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  Table of Contents

  1

  EMMA THE QUEEN

  To prove her innocence of crimes against her own son, King Edward, Emma of Normandy must walk barefoot over nine scalding ploughshares and come out unscathed.

  2

  RICHARD THE NORMAN

  When King Edward calls on his allies for military support, the Norman lord Richard FitzScrob must take drastic measures to make his Saxon subjects obedient.

  3

  ELWYNA THE EXILE

  To obtain timber for Richard's castle, two Normans will cruelly take advantage of Elwyna's hidden home in the woods unless she finds a way to stop them.

  4

  RALPH THE KNIGHT

  When a fight between a Norman and a Saxon gets out of hand, Sir Ralph must employ the help of a knight named Geoffrey to cover up the unfortunate incident.

  5

  OSGIFU THE SISTER

  Osgifu finds out that her sister, Elwyna, may soon be hanged for murder. She faces a hard decision of whether to leave matters to fate or oppose the Normans.

  6

  HEREWARD THE OUTLAW

  Young Hereward (“the Wake”) finds out that a Norman castle is being built in Shropshire and rides with a group of rowdy boys to cause trouble.

  7

  GODRIC THE THEGN

  When Richard FitzScrob asks Godric to hunt for the youth who desecrated his castle, Godric's loyalty to King Edward and the Normans will be put to the test.

  8

  AUDREY THE SLAVE

  Audrey schemes to escape from slavery at Lord Richard's castle. But the cruel knight Geoffrey keeps a close watch on her every move.

  9

  SIGURD THE GLEEMAN

  Sigurd, once a minstrel and royal courtier, struggles to determine the nature of his relationship with Thegn Godric when Lord Alfric enters his life.

  10

  OSBERN THE SON

  The keep of the Norman castle is finally finished. But when Osbern cannot convince the Saxon Edric to attend the celebration, his own resentment surfaces.

  Clip from Edric the Wild

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  1

  Last Tales of Mercia 1:

  EMMA THE QUEEN

  (back to Table of Contents)

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  “And this year, fourteen nights before the mass of St. Andrew, it was advised the king, that he and Earl Leofric and Earl Godwin and Earl Siward with their retinue, should ride from Gloucester to Winchester unawares upon the lady [Emma]; and they deprived her of all the treasures that she had; which were immense; because she was formerly very hard upon the king her son, and did less for him than he wished before he was king, and also since ...”

  —The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Entry for Year 1043

  WINCHESTER

  Late 1040’s A.D.

 

 

  “Is the tomb secure?”

  Queen Emma’s question hung in the air for a few moments, sending a coarse echo through the chilled stones of the underground hallway. The abbess of Wherwell, who had served as Emma’s prison warden before following her here to Winchester, blinked at the queen through tightly-narrowed lids. Abbess Mildred’s woolen wimple wrapped her hair and neck completely, leaving nothing but a small weaselly face to peer out at the queen. The manner of cruelty suggested by Mildred’s beady eyes never ceased to amaze Emma, especially when compared to the kind but sharp-witted soul that actually lurked behind them. Those same eyes now twinkled with a combination of daring and caution.

  “I suppose that depends on what you mean by ‘secure,’” said the abbess with her nasally voice.

  Queen Emma stared into the flickering shadows of the Old Minster before her. Once upon a time, this hollow chamber full of shifting shadows and the ghostly echo of silence might have sparked her imagination and ignited many nightmares. Now, as an old woman of nearly sixty years who had seen murder, war, and treachery of every sort, she took comfort in such darkness and quietude. She could imagine little that would frighten her beyond what she had already witnessed. These days, she only feared that her own life would be forgotten, or—maybe worse—that people would remember her for false and vile deeds she never committed.

  She sighed heavily, tiring of the game she must play, and at last replied, “By secure, I mean that my prayer will fall on friendly ears, and none other.”

  “It is secure enough for that, my lady. Only the Lord and His own good agents will hear your prayers.” A smile cracked Mildred’s thin lips. “Of that I can assure you.”

  “Thank you, Mildred.” Emma moved forward, her robes whispering against the stones.

  “Stop there.”

  A hard shoulder knocked Emma’s as a housecarl moved around her. Emma jolted, having forgotten the warrior’s presence. The iron of his sword flashed in the candlelight and his chain mail jangled with obscene loudness. Even now, after all the humiliation she had suffered, Queen Emma had not grown accustomed to the rudeness with which King Edward’s guards treated her. No matter what the charges against her, they should never forget that she had been the wife of two kings, and the mother of two more.

  The housecarl continued his brazen sweep of the chamber, grabbing a torch from the wall and thrusting its flames into the shadows of the Old Minster. Eventually, he approached the tomb of Saint Swithin, Emma’s own destination.

  Abbess Mildred’s piercing voice rang suddenly through the room. “May God forgive you,” she cried, “for your appalling disrespect for his holy ground. For I certainly do not!”

  The housecarl stopped and turned, baring his grimy teeth. Emma gulped, recognizing the man as one of Earl Goodwin’s guards rather than King Edward’s. Some time ago that would have been significant, back when Edward still had his wits about him and recognized Lord Goodwin as one of his most dangerous opponents. Now Goodwin had slithered into King Edward’s mind like a snake through his ear, convincing Edward to turn against his own mother, while Edward continued to trust one of the most skilled liars in all of Engla-lond. Goodwin certainly shared some of the skills of his “great uncle,” Eadric Streona the silver-tongued traitor, even if the two were never really related by blood.

  The thought of Eadric the Grasper seemed to transport her to another time and place, through a maze of lies and treacheries, into the miserable years of her role as King Ethelred’s wife, to the moment that Eadric changed the fate of the country forever …

  Weighed down by the burden of her memories, Emma hunched into the embrace of her linen robes. A lock of her gray hair brushed her chin, having escaped the snug wrap of her wimple and crown. She let it stay there as a reminder of how her own dignity was unraveling. She preferred to huddle in the reality of her modest clothing than fall too deeply into her own mind. Sometimes, remembering the figures of her past felt like stepping into a room full of cobwebs. If she touched one memory, all the others would cling and pull at her until she drowned in their silky grasp.

  “Lady Emma will not be able to escape from this room,” said Abbess Mildred to the housecarl, returning Emma’s mind to her current predicament. “We’re underground, for heaven�
��s sake. Can the poor woman not have just a few moments of privacy before she …” Mildred choked on her own high-pitched voice. She turned away, but couldn’t hide that her beady little eyes blinked back tears. “Before she must face judgment?”

  Emma found Mildred’s pity more annoying than touching. The abbess had probably been about to say “before she dies.” Most people assumed that Emma would die tomorrow when she suffered her trial by fire. Emma wished people would have more faith in her innocence, which was why it was so important she prove it to them, even at the risk of her body.

  The housecarl grunted and gripped the pommel of his sword, perhaps to remind them all of who was really in charge here. Then he heaved his big shoulders and replied, “True enough. This is as good of a prison as any. Stay in here as long as you’d like, then.” A cruel smile twisted his face as he returned to the door, nudging Emma through it, and then slammed it behind her.

  The thud of the wood roared in her ears a long while. It was the last sound she heard before the silence of the chamber enveloped her mind.

  Careful not to disturb the peace of the room, Emma moved forward, her slippers swishing ever so softly against the floor. She watched the candlelight flicker against the gold embroidery of her robes, making it glow as if with life. She glanced upon the faces of the statues watching her from the shadows, wondering how she looked to them. Did she appear to be a poor old lady about to meet her death? Or did she look like a grand queen whose weathered appearance was only an indication of all the hardship she had survived and overcome?

  She nearly lost her footing when she noticed the sarcophagus of King Canute to her left. She paused and stared breathlessly at the burial place of her late husband. Then she diverted her path long enough to brush her fingers over the stones of his tomb.

  “Lend me your strength, husband,” she whispered, and fought back the prickling of tears in her eyes. Sometimes marriage with him had felt like a voyage in a neverending storm. But she had always known he could man the helm strongly enough to protect the boat, as it were; and she had always trusted that he would not let her drown in the chaos around him. He had always challenged her in ways she didn’t expect, or pushed her to reach for dreams she would have otherwise left untouched. She had loved him for that. She had never known exactly how he felt about her. She had bound him to Engla-lond, as well as the Christian faith of the Anglo-Saxons. Sometimes, he had resented her for that; at other times, he had respected her. In the end, at least she knew that much.

  Brushing away the bud of a tear, she turned and forged onward.

  Eventually she stood before the tomb of Saint Swithin, the patron saint of Winchester Cathedral. Around the raised sarcophagus, the shrine twinkled with jeweled candelabras and a silken cushion. Emma knelt gratefully on the fabric, breathed deeply of the candles’ smoke, then exhaled her supplication.

  “Oh dearest Saint Swithin, who performed sweet miracles for the lost souls of your lifetime, please hear my prayer tonight. Perform another miracle for me, our Lord’s humble servant, Queen Emma.”

  She waited, peering cautiously into the shadows, and mourned the fact that her vision was not as sharp as it had once been. “Does my prayer fall on deaf ears?”

  “It does not.”

  Emma’s heart leapt into her throat as a dark shape arose behind the sarcophagus. At first she dared not believe her eyes: a human figure stepped forward, gleaming with the finest robes and vestments. Then yellow light brushed over his face, revealing its familiar features, and Emma cried out with unrestrained relief.

  “Stigand!”

  She forgot the aches of her joints as she rose up and rushed towards the archbishop—the man who had been her counselor and adviser for so many long years as a queen. The man who had comforted her when she struggled with the frightening temperament of her second husband, King Canute.

  She forgot all rules of propriety as she sank against his robes, wrapped her arms around him, and rested her cheek against his shoulder. She felt her own wimple fall back, releasing her gray and yellow locks to brush against his face. She inhaled the familiar scent of him, sweet with incense, carrying only a slight hint of the musky man beneath the wool.

  He hesitated at first, then returned her embrace, pressing his hands to her back. “Emma. It is not too late. I have found a champion to fight in your name. He is a skilled warrior, and he would easily—”

  “No.” Emma reluctantly pulled back, meeting his golden gaze with her own blue eyes. His face was growing as old and weathered as her own, she realized, but this warmed her heart and made her smile. “That would not prove my innocence well enough, Stigand. I should be the vessel of God’s justice, rather than two men with swords, if I wish to demonstrate my purity.”

  His eyes saddened. His hand reached up to brush back her hair. “And are you pure, Emma?”

  She stiffened and pulled away from him. How dare he ask her that, of all people? And yet she knew by the weight filling her heart that he was right to doubt her. “My son Edward—or should I say his new friend, Earl Goodwin—accused me of three things. First, that I helped arrange the death of my own son Alfred.” She managed to say the terrible words without wavering, but afterward, she needed a moment to regain her strength before continuing. “Secondly, that I withheld riches from Edward in order to give them to his enemy, Magnus of Norway. And finally, that I had impure relations with Bishop Alwyn of Winchester.” She smiled sadly at Stigand. “He gets closer to the truth with each accusation. But of those exact crimes, at least, I am innocent.”

  Stigand regarded her with an icy gaze. He was a soft man, well-fed and a stranger to hard labor, but his spirit could be as hard as steel when he focused it. The candlelight flickered against his chin, emphasizing the firm set of his jaw. The graveness of his expression surprised her.

  “Did you ever doubt it, Stigand?”

  “I ...” He deflated and looked away, grinding his jaws. “I wondered about Alwyn, sometimes.”

  Emma didn’t know whether to laugh or cry out with rage. Instead she made a torn sound of pure surprise. “Why would you even … ?”

  His eyes met hers again, the regret in them cooling her temper. “I suppose I was guilty of the sin of jealousy. I could accept that you had to … withhold yourself from me, out of respect for the laws of heaven and your husband, King Canute.” The confession clearly required effort; Emma had never heard him speak so plainly of the temptation that had always hung silently between them. “But the fear—no, rage—at the thought that you might sin with another man … perhaps it clouded my judgment.”

  “Oh Stigand ...” She resisted the urge to reach out and touch him again. Mirthless laughter burst from her throat. “How ironic it is! I never felt tempted in the presence of Alwyn, so I was more careless. I didn’t go to great lengths not to be closed in the same room with him, or wonder what people might think if we took a long walk together. I didn’t hesitate to touch him or show fondness towards him, for I knew nothing would come of it. I suppose that is why someone like Goodwin thought he could weave a scandal from it. But with you ...” She shook her head at the ridiculousness of it all. “With you, I must have seemed especially cold, for I was afraid that if I let any of the warmth I felt for you seep outward, it would melt my heart completely.”

  The firmness of his face cracked. Emotion clouded his eyes. He turned his head and hastened to change the subject, but she knew what she had seen behind his mask, and it gladdened her more than she could express. “If you will not accept a champion to fight for you, then we must think of another way to save you tomorrow.”

  “You’re right. It is only God who can save me.” Emma bowed her head. “I suppose it is not enough that I am innocent of Edward’s exact accusations. I must be pure in the eyes of God, as well. For the truth is that while I never deliberately caused Alfred to die, I was foolish to invite him to Engla-lond without being more cautious. I was even more foolish leave him in the care of Goodwin, the true murderer. And it is t
rue that sometimes, even now, I blame myself for what happened.”

  “Emma ...”

  She ignored Stigand and looked up at the tomb of Saint Swithin, hoping to draw strength from it. “Secondly, I did not save my riches especially for Magnus the Good of Norway, who would have waged war against Edward and all of Engla-lond. But I did withhold my money from Edward, and I did believe that Magnus would have made a better king than my son; it was almost as if Edward could sense that. Magnus once made a treaty with my Harthacanute in Denmark, showing fairness and patience. He also wanted to reunite the North Sea Empire under one king, as Canute once dreamed of doing.” She smiled sadly. “I used to think of Canute as conceited and greedy for having that dream. But after our many years together, I admired him for it. I admired Magnus, as well. More than I admire my own son, Edward, who now seems to love Normandy more than the land on which he rules.”

  She turned her gaze back to Stigand, knowing that in order to purify her soul, she must speak to him directly. “And thirdly, though I never had impure relations with Bishop Alwyn, my heart did not always belong to the men who were my husbands.”

  “Stop this.” Stigand surged forward, seizing her shoulders in his grip. “You should not have to confess anything, Emma. You should be free of all guilt, for you have done nothing wrong. If anything, you are only wrong for doubting yourself.”

  She appreciated his faith in her, but she did not want it right now. “Then there is nothing else to do,” she said, “but pray.”

  “That’s not true!” His hands moved down to clasp hers. His forwardness unnerved her, but she took what comfort she could from his grip, nonetheless. “Don’t you see? I will be there tomorrow, holding your hand as you walk over the nine ploughshares.”

  Emma cringed at the reminder. She tried not to think about what she must do tomorrow in any detail; she tried to keep her mind as blind to the truth as she would be when it happened with a cloth around her eyes. But now she envisioned the horrible truth, and it made her weak in the knees. Nine large blades pulled from ploughs would be laid out on the floor of the cathedral. Moreover, they would be burning hot, lifted from the flames of a blazing fire. Blindfolded and barefoot, she would have to walk all the way across the cathedral through the path of the blades. If she suffered many injuries and those injuries festered, they would mark her as guilty.

  She became grateful for Stigand’s hold on her as she trembled. She squeezed his hands tightly. “God save me,” she gasped, “I only wish there would not be anyone watching—especially you.” People from all over Engla-lond would gather tomorrow to watch her trial, she was sure of it. If she slipped and sliced herself on the blades, they would all witness her pain and humiliation; some might even revel in it. But the thought of Stigand watching her suffer so was the greatest injustice all. “Why must it be you who leads me over the ploughshares?”

  “Because I volunteered.” The exhilaration in his voice surprised her. His eyes blazed into hers. “Emma, if you are willing to let me, I can guide you tomorrow. I will be holding one of your hands as you walk forth; a second bishop will hold the other. Our task is to keep you walking forward, so you do not tarry too long, or wander from the path of blades completely. But I can do more than that, if you let me.”

  Initially, the suggestion affronted her. Did he advise a form of cheating? She should have dismissed the thought completely. Instead she found herself asking, “What of the other bishop?”

  Stigand considered this a moment. “I’m not sure who it will be, but if my fears are correct, the other bishop may be Robert himself, the new Archbishop of Canterbury.”

  A tendril of hate snaked through Emma’s belly. “He’s the Norman who suggested I undergo this trial in the first place!”

  Stigand nodded reluctantly.

  Emma shook her head at the ridiculousness of the situation. “How strange that I spent my childhood in Normandy, then my adolescence in Engla-lond, and now my heart belongs to the latter kingdom. For Edward, I feel the opposite happened. He spent his tender years between youth and adulthood with his Norman relatives, and they have seized his heart until there is room for nothing else! I find it hard to believe that he has already made Robert of Jumièges the most powerful man of our church. But I suppose I cannot deny it forever.”

  Stigand bowed his head in affirmation. “Several other Norman lords now hold positions of power in Engla-lond. But that is not our concern now, Emma. You can do nothing about it until we have restored you to your former status.”

  “You are right about that.” She met his gaze fearlessly. “So tell me what you have in mind.”