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Authors: Patricia Bracewell
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king.
“It is your duty to be submissive to your lord, Emma,” she said in clipped tones, as she sat facing her daughter. “It would be perilous for you to refuse the king your favors or to rebuke him, for your crown will be little more than an ornament at first.”
Gunnora’s expression softened then, and she cupped Emma’s cheek with her hand.
“You are very young, my girl. That is your weakness as well as your strength. The king will cherish you for your youth and your beauty, and you must use both to gain his favor.” She drew a deep breath and placed her hands on Emma’s shoulders. “Never forget that your first and most important task is to bear a son. It is your son who will be your treasure and your protector, even while he is yet a babe. It is your son who will give you power, who will bind the king to you in a way that he can be bound to no other living woman.”
In the brief moments that she was alone, Emma pondered her mother’s words. Would her child, she wondered, really be of much importance to a king who already had numerous sons and daughters? Could Æthelred of England ever be bound to her as he had been to that first wife?
It was a question she did not ask aloud, for even her mother could not know the answer.
On the night before she was to leave for England, there was no great feast held in Emma’s honor, for it was Lent and feasting was forbidden. The ducal household, though, gathered in the great hall at Fécamp, where the betrothal gifts sent by the English king had been spread out over six long tables. Among the treasures there were caskets filled with gold and silver; bolts of silk, linen, and the finest wool; silver bridles and saddles of tooled leather; fur pelts of martin, ermine, and sable; cunningly carved wooden boxes that held delicate musical pipes; necklaces studded with amethysts and emeralds; and an assortment of books magnificently bound in gold. When the gifts had been admired, Richard’s bard recited a poem about a flower that was borne on the tide from Normandy to England, where it bloomed and prospered and was loved by all.
Emma listened to the poem with dry eyes and a mild expression, for that was what was demanded of her. In her heart, though, she carried a weight of grief, uncertainty, and fear that filled her with dread and seemed to press upon her very soul.
A.D. 1002 Then, in the same Lent, came the Lady Emma, Richard’s daughter, to this land.
—The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Chapter Eight
April 1002
Canterbury, Kent
T he voyage from Fécamp to Canterbury took five days, and every one of them was cold, wet, and miserable. The heaving of the ship and the unremitting stench of fish oil that the shipmen used to waterproof their clothes and rigging sickened Emma and her companions. It was a relief when they left the open sea and finally entered the placid waters of the River Stour. As they sailed past the wattle huts and wooden enclosures marking the outskirts of Canterbury, Emma stood at the entrance of the shelter that had been rigged midship. She gazed through a steady rain at a flat, sodden, dreary landscape. In the distance, cathedral towers seemed to pierce the forbidding clouds that hung low and gray over the city.
Beside her Lady Wymarc was muffled in the folds of a woolen cloak, and as a blast of rain hit them, she pulled Emma’s fur-lined hood up to keep the rain off her hair.
“Do you suppose,” Emma murmured, her heart as gray and heavy as the swollen clouds, “that the sun ever shines in this dismal place?”
“To be sure, my lady,” Wymarc replied briskly. “It cannot always be this wet or the English would have feathers and webbed feet.” She placed a hand on Emma’s arm. “Do not lose heart, I beg you. Not now, when the worst of the voyage is behind us.”
Emma could not help but smile as she looked into the wide brown eyes that regarded her with a mixture of sympathy, pride, and excitement. Wymarc was ever one to look for the sun
“It is your duty to be submissive to your lord, Emma,” she said in clipped tones, as she sat facing her daughter. “It would be perilous for you to refuse the king your favors or to rebuke him, for your crown will be little more than an ornament at first.”
Gunnora’s expression softened then, and she cupped Emma’s cheek with her hand.
“You are very young, my girl. That is your weakness as well as your strength. The king will cherish you for your youth and your beauty, and you must use both to gain his favor.” She drew a deep breath and placed her hands on Emma’s shoulders. “Never forget that your first and most important task is to bear a son. It is your son who will be your treasure and your protector, even while he is yet a babe. It is your son who will give you power, who will bind the king to you in a way that he can be bound to no other living woman.”
In the brief moments that she was alone, Emma pondered her mother’s words. Would her child, she wondered, really be of much importance to a king who already had numerous sons and daughters? Could Æthelred of England ever be bound to her as he had been to that first wife?
It was a question she did not ask aloud, for even her mother could not know the answer.
On the night before she was to leave for England, there was no great feast held in Emma’s honor, for it was Lent and feasting was forbidden. The ducal household, though, gathered in the great hall at Fécamp, where the betrothal gifts sent by the English king had been spread out over six long tables. Among the treasures there were caskets filled with gold and silver; bolts of silk, linen, and the finest wool; silver bridles and saddles of tooled leather; fur pelts of martin, ermine, and sable; cunningly carved wooden boxes that held delicate musical pipes; necklaces studded with amethysts and emeralds; and an assortment of books magnificently bound in gold. When the gifts had been admired, Richard’s bard recited a poem about a flower that was borne on the tide from Normandy to England, where it bloomed and prospered and was loved by all.
Emma listened to the poem with dry eyes and a mild expression, for that was what was demanded of her. In her heart, though, she carried a weight of grief, uncertainty, and fear that filled her with dread and seemed to press upon her very soul.
A.D. 1002 Then, in the same Lent, came the Lady Emma, Richard’s daughter, to this land.
—The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Chapter Eight
April 1002
Canterbury, Kent
T he voyage from Fécamp to Canterbury took five days, and every one of them was cold, wet, and miserable. The heaving of the ship and the unremitting stench of fish oil that the shipmen used to waterproof their clothes and rigging sickened Emma and her companions. It was a relief when they left the open sea and finally entered the placid waters of the River Stour. As they sailed past the wattle huts and wooden enclosures marking the outskirts of Canterbury, Emma stood at the entrance of the shelter that had been rigged midship. She gazed through a steady rain at a flat, sodden, dreary landscape. In the distance, cathedral towers seemed to pierce the forbidding clouds that hung low and gray over the city.
Beside her Lady Wymarc was muffled in the folds of a woolen cloak, and as a blast of rain hit them, she pulled Emma’s fur-lined hood up to keep the rain off her hair.
“Do you suppose,” Emma murmured, her heart as gray and heavy as the swollen clouds, “that the sun ever shines in this dismal place?”
“To be sure, my lady,” Wymarc replied briskly. “It cannot always be this wet or the English would have feathers and webbed feet.” She placed a hand on Emma’s arm. “Do not lose heart, I beg you. Not now, when the worst of the voyage is behind us.”
Emma could not help but smile as she looked into the wide brown eyes that regarded her with a mixture of sympathy, pride, and excitement. Wymarc was ever one to look for the sun
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