‘The boy has gone,’ Rollo said. ‘He will not come back, nor will he suffer himself to be your figurehead, for he knows that you killed his mother.’
‘I?’ Lord Edmund feigned innocence.
‘Men acting on your orders,’ Rollo amended. ‘It amounts to the same thing.’
Lord Edmund got up from his knees with a groan. ‘I regret the necessity for her death,’ he said. ‘It was, however, unavoidable. You must know, Norman spy, how the success of a plan depends so often on not releasing information too soon, and, knowing that the healer girl was on her way to visit Gewis’s mother, I feared that she would discover what must remain secret.’
The healer girl. Rollo felt fear clutch at his heart. ‘She has gone,’ he said dismissively. Desperate to turn Lord Edmund’s attention from Lassair, he went on quickly, ‘You have lost your last throw of the die, my lord, and-’
But Lord Edmund was not to be distracted. ‘She has gone on meddling,’ he said, anger darkening his face. ‘I should have disposed of her as soon as I knew of her existence and, by God, I wish I had. I am old enough and experienced enough to know that people are not always as they seem and even one such as she, small and insignificant, can bring the threat of ruin to a careful plan. She came here to this sacred spot in the guise of a nun, and she met Gewis. I am told they spoke together. I do not know what the lad told her but I feared the worst. Now he has gone, and it is in my mind that he did not escape alone. Friendless as he is but for her outside the abbey, it is, is it not, logical to suppose she is involved in his flight?’
Treating the question as rhetorical, Rollo did not answer. His fear increased. Lord Edmund knew so much. He had but to reach out his hand for Lassair, and if his clutching fingers found her he would not rest until he had found out what he wished so much to know. .
Frantic now, it took all this strength to keep his face impassive. The stakes ran high. To break Lord Edmund’s dangerous focus on Lassair, he must risk his most powerful gambit. ‘Of course,’ he said laconically, ‘it is by no means certain that the boy Gewis is who you think he is. The fifteen years of his life have been spent in obscurity in a village on the fen edge. Where is the proof of his illustrious ancestry?’
Lord Edmund’s face had gone purple. ‘He was kept in obscurity because that was where we wished him to be!’ he snarled. ‘Nothing happened in that place, nothing, that was not relayed to us. We have watched over him since his birth, and we know who he is!’ His voice had risen to a shout, and he was panting from exertion.
Rollo raised an eyebrow. ‘And your proof?’ he persisted.
He thought Lord Edmund was going to puff up until he burst. He struggled for control, and then said in a strangled voice, ‘We know who his father was, and who in turn fathered him. The family resemblance is unmistakable. There can be no doubt whatsoever.’
‘Ah.’ At last they were approaching the crucial point. Rollo had already been told of this by the king but he wanted to hear it from Lord Edmund. ‘You speak of that pale hair, white skin and almost colourless eyes,’ he mused.
‘I do!’ Lord Edmund cried. ‘King Edward the Confessor had the look and so did his brother.’
The rumour that reached the king was right then, Rollo thought. No wonder William had not been able to put it from his mind. ‘They say the brother died unmarried and childless,’ he said. He was gratified to hear how calm he sounded, as if this vitally important matter were of only passing interest.
Clearly, it was far more than that to Lord Edmund. ‘Do you not know the story?’ he demanded, the light of fanaticism in is eyes.
‘Remind me,’ said Rollo.
Lord Edmund took several deep breaths, then he raised his eyes as if searching inspiration from the heavens and began. ‘Our great king, Aethelred, left many sons, but fate decreed that, out of those born to his first wife, only one followed him as king. His marriage to Emma of Normandy produced two sons, Edward, later King Edward the Confessor, and Alfred Aethling, and in early childhood the boys were educated here at Ely, where the monks grew to love and honour them. But later, for their own safety, the boys were sent as children to the land of their mother, for in England the House of Wessex was gravely threatened. For many years the Danish kings ruled, and they would have killed the young princes to remove the possibility that either would ever be proclaimed king. The Danes were ruthless rulers.’
He sighed. ‘When Queen Emma was widowed, King Cnut took her as wife but, always aware of those who would take his throne from him, he ordered the deaths of the surviving sons of Aethelred; still Edward and Alfred could not return. After Cnut’s death, his son Harold, known as Harefoot, became king and for the first time the sons of Aethelred and Emma saw the glimmer of a hope that England might once more welcome them.’ He sighed again, this time putting up a hand to knead his brow as if remembering old pain.
‘Edward, later crowned king, was wise and, sensing danger even before danger threatened, turned around and left the shores of England behind him, not to return for five years. Alfred Aethling was more trusting and, when the great Earl Godwin went to meet him and offered his hospitality in his fine house at Guildford, the young man accepted readily. Godwin gave every indication of being a good friend and a loyal supporter, offering to swear his allegiance to Alfred and the House of Wessex.’ A sound broke from him that was almost a sob. ‘Poor Alfred, our own prince! Godwin betrayed him, for he was in league with Harold Harefoot. Every last man in Alfred’s entourage was savagely butchered, and, even as their blood ran in the streets, Godwin’s men mutilated Alfred.’
The tale was abhorrent, Rollo thought. To take a man into your house, to have him sit at your table to eat your meat and drink your wine, to offer him your loyalty while all the time you plot his death; these actions went against a code so ancient and so venerated that it should be inviolate.
‘He did not die there, our beloved Alfred.’ Lord Edmund picked up the story. ‘They had hacked into him and castrated him, for Godwin’s orders were that he was not to be allowed the slimmest chance of fathering a son. Then they brought him here to Ely, and as they led him aboard the boat that was to ferry him across they put out his eyes. Blind and impotent, he was no longer a threat, and nobody cared any more what became of him.’
Castrated. Blinded. Rollo shuddered. It did not bear thinking about.
‘The monks received him with love and tended him with care and skill,’ Lord Edmund went on, ‘for they had loved him and his brother Edward when they were boys and that love stayed true. The healers did their best but it was to no avail, for quite soon Alfred died of his terrible wounds.’
There was a long silence. Then Lord Edmund looked up and, meeting Rollo’s eyes, said, ‘Alfred greatly resembled his brother Edward, as I have said. Edward left no son, for he was a chaste and holy man and his marriage to his queen, Edith, was one of the spirit and not the body. You ask yourself, I do not doubt, how then it is that we are so sure that in Gewis the true blood of the House of Wessex runs pure.’
‘I do,’ Rollo acknowledged.
‘The nature of Alfred Aethling was not like his brother’s, and when temptation came he did not resist,’ Lord Edmund said. ‘What would you have done, Norman spy? Far from friends and kin, perhaps afraid and already suspicious of the man who would soon take your manhood, your eyes and your life, would you in your loneliness have turned your back on love when it was offered?’ Rollo made no answer. ‘Alfred did not. He bedded Alma, the daughter of one of his trusted followers, who loved and pitied him, showing him kindness and tenderness. It is said that in secret they were wed. After Alfred had been torn away from her and suffered his terrible fate, Alma realized she was with child. In time she was delivered of a boy, who, for fear of Harold Harefoot and his brutal, ruthless followers, was taken and hidden in a remote village. He was taught a skill, for he would have to live his life not as a prince of the House of Wessex but as a carpenter. He grew to adulthood and married, and his wife bore a son.’ Rollo felt the power of Lord Edmund’s eyes and, reluctantly, turned to meet their gaze.