It’s been a busy year and only quite recently, I realized that next year is the millennial anniversary of Cnut’s accession to the English kingdom. This occasioned some quick rethinking as to my writing for the end of the year and, unsurprisingly, it’s not been quite as smooth a ride as I’d hoped. Originally planned as a mere 50000 word novella and side story to the Earls of Mercia story, he’s blossomed to a monumental 105000, the second longest in the Earls of Mercia series.
Not that I’m complaining. Too much story is always far better than too little, and it’s given me the perfect opportunity to turn the focus away from the Ealdorman of the Hwicce’s family and look at the wider events taking place. I’m not entirely convinced that this will be the last time I write about the events from 1014-1016 but for now it is, and it’s time to move on. Only not for my lucky readers, they still have the chance to enjoy Cnut and so, prior to the release on 24th December, I’m attaching a little snippet below.
Chapter 1 – Cnut – February 1014
Outside it was as black as night could get. No lights showed anywhere along the coast. It was a night to be alone with his thoughts, and Cnut didn’t want that. He tried to shake the worries away, but there was little point in even that small movement.
It was cold and chill, frozen more than likely further inland, and nothing would detract from the knowledge that his father was dead and with it the family’s hopes of bringing England within their sphere of power.
He was angry and lonely and unsure, and not one of the emotions did he like to feel. He glared up at the overcast sky, thick with heavy black clouds, and he wondered what the weather had in store for him now. He almost taunted the heavens but he knew better.
His God had forsaken him in his time of need, quickly followed by the English men of the Witan, or so they called it. The only supporters he had slept now on their ships rocking in the gentle current, and on board his own ship, his father’s heavy coffin making the ship ride low in the sea.
It was a doleful night and one that seemed to hold no hope for the next day, the next week, or even the next year. Everything he’d had was lost to him now.
For now.
He had his men, and they’d proclaimed him as the king of their fleet of forty-five ships, but even he wasn’t foolish enough to think that he’d keep that position when he returned to Denmark. It would be his brother who succeeded his father in Denmark, just as his father had always wanted. That was why he’d attacked England in the end for so long and with such determination, both for his own gain and also to give his younger son the kingdom he deserved to rule, one that would have hopefully, and with time, proved easier to rule than any of the small states of Norway and Sweden.
Pity he’d died doing just that.
The movement of the sea caused gurgling sounds to surround his ship, but it was nothing he wasn’t used to. He sometimes wondered if he’d been born on a ship. He had few memories of any long spells on land. There had been the time he’d been a hostage for the king of England, Aethelred for Thorkell’s good behavior when he’d claimed Oxford, and the time Thorkell and he had attacked the English in East Anglia, but little more than that.
It was a pity that Swein had failed to kill the King Aethelred, settling instead for his exile in Normandy, the home of his second, and much younger wife. If was a pity more that he still lived and would be recalled by his ealdormen. A great pity indeed.
If he wanted what his father had gained, he was going to have to fight for it, and fight hard. He knew it with certainty and it tired him and filled him with a firm resolve doubly. To win England he much fight for it, and he’d only just finished doing so.
It was almost as though the last few years of his life had come to mean nothing, standing for nothing.
If his father had only killed Aethelred instead of negotiating his banishment from England, and then killed his sons as well, then perhaps the English would have been happier to see Cnut as their king. It would have been a great many deaths to get what he wanted but Cnut knew that if he resolved to retake England, as his father wished him to, he would need to kill those same men. The thought didn’t fill him with revulsion. He was a practical man. He knew that in another’s death, his success would be guaranteed.
He sighed deeply. His thoughts were dark, his men leaving him to stew and work out a way to fulfill his father’s wishes. He knew they expected him to bury his father at Gainsborough, reunite with his wife, and then somehow, and this was the part he found the most difficult to fathom out, reclaim England for himself.
Aelfgifu would be disappointed with him and he suddenly thought he dreaded seeing her face most of all. When he’d left her to ride with his father, her expression had been one of tolerance and love. She’d wanted him and his father to succeed, her hatred for King Aethelred a mighty thing. Her detestation of Eadric so immense that Cnut thrilled to watch the play of emotions over her face whenever she spoke of him.
He must remember to never incite the hatred of a vengeful woman. They were more cunning and deceitful than men.
His thoughts turned to her now and her wishes that she be married to king of England, or at least the king of England’s acknowledged heir, as he had been whilst his father had lived. How could he accomplish what she wanted now?
He could kill his brother and take Denmark and rule there instead; only he loved his brother and thought he had just as much right to rule in their father’s stead as he did. Alternatively he could kill the English king, Aethelred, and all of his sons, and there were almost as many of them as he had sisters.
He sighed once more. He was tired, bereft and lonely. All his years he’d been surrounded by strong men, his father, Thorkell and even the English king when he’d been in exile at Aethelred’s court, but now he was alone with his future. His for the taking if he could only decide what he wanted to take.
No, he reconsidered. He knew what he wanted. He wanted England.
Intrigued? Preorder now, or remember to buy it over the Christmas holidays.
Here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cnut-Conqueror-Earls-Mercia-Book-ebook/dp/B015R35BUI/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1450013387&sr=8-8&keywords=M+J+Porter
And look out for many events celebrating Cnut next year.
M J Porter 