Shadow on the Crown by Patricia Bracewell Page B

the fate of an entire people. I could not sway him from his course.”
    Emma felt sick at the thought of Mathilde alone in a foreign land, perhaps a prisoner of the king.
    “What will happen to her?”
    Gunnora began to pace the room again, her hands twisting one inside the other, and Emma grew more and more frightened by her mother’s obvious distress. When Gunnora spoke at last, she did not answer Emma’s question.
    “Richard is not oblivious to the peril that his sister would face in England. It took little effort on my part to persuade him that we must provide her with a weapon that she could use to protect herself should her husband turn against her. The solution was obvious, but we agonized for hours over how it was to be accomplished. In the end, we offered Æthelred my dower lands on the Contentin. It is a princely gift that he could not easily refuse, for it gives him a toehold on this side of the Narrow Sea.” She stopped her pacing and drew in a long breath. “In return, Richard demanded that his sister go to England not as Æthelred’s consort but as his queen.”
    She looked at Emma with a kind of triumph in her eyes. “Emma, Ealdorman Ælfric has returned with word that the English king has accepted the contract. Æthelred’s Norman bride will not be a mere consort but will be crowned as his queen. She will have wealth and stature far beyond that of his first wife. She will stand at the king’s side accorded privileges that he cannot easily rescind however much he may be provoked.”
    Emma saw at once the wisdom of such a provision, but she also recognized the additional burden that a crown would place upon her sister.
    “Does Mathilde know?” she asked.
    A shadow crept across Gunnora’s face, and Emma watched, bewildered, as her mother stepped forward and knelt in front of her. Slender fingers clutched Emma’s own, fingers so cold that they seemed to burn against Emma’s skin.
    “It is not Mathilde who will go to England, Emma,” her mother said. “It must be you.”
    The words flowed over her like water at first, and then they seemed to form into waves that buffeted her until she could no longer pull in even the smallest breath. She did not dare look away from her mother’s solid gaze, because it was the only thing that kept her from drowning in that treacherous sea.
    She felt as if the world she knew had suddenly changed from a place of safety and sanctuary to something unknown and terrifying. She did not want to go to England, did not want to wed a king, did not want to bear the weight of a crown. Yet, gazing down into her mother’s stern and unrelenting face, she knew that she would be given no choice.
    She slipped from her stool as panic engulfed her. Dropping to her hands and knees she began to retch, burning bile scalding her throat. A basin appeared before her, and her mother’s steadying hand grasped the back of her neck. She closed her eyes, but she could not stop the spinning panic that had her in its grip.
    “It is the shock of it,” her mother said, her voice gentle but firm. “You were not prepared for it. But you will receive much worse than this in the years to come, my daughter,” and now the voice seemed to Emma implacable and uncompromising. “You must ever be prepared within yourself to face what trials may await you. Let this be your first lesson: No one else must see you like this, Emma. Do you hear me? However great the provocation, you must never allow anyone to see your fear.”
    Emma, crouched upon the floor, her body braced upon her forearms, her stomach churning, squeezed her eyes tight against the tears that threatened.
    “Why must I be the one to go?” she demanded. “Mathilde is the eldest. She wants it. It is her right.”
    “Your sister has neither the strength nor the will to pit herself against the . . .” Gunnora stopped, as if she regretted her words and would take them back, “. . . against the trials that face a queen,” she finished