Love and Power: The Silent Queen

Bertha's Tale: A Novel - episode 17

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Bertha’s Voice  
c. A.D. 596-7 
Canterbury, Kent

Life didn’t change very much after our coronation. For me, at least.

Æthelberht continued to be frosty with me, even withholding the night-time visits that had allowed me to pretend, for a few moments at least, that we were still wildly in love with one another. Clearly no heir was going to be born of our union, so I guess he’d decided it wasn’t worth the pain of spending time in my company.

Struggling to process the grief that came with his recent elevation to kingship, Æthelberht decided to pin all his anger and frustration on me. I was the physical embodiment of the political contract that had forced him to abandon his teenage sweetheart, after all. With the papal reminder of his obligation to rule alongside me as his only queen, or else risk military invasion by my relatives across the Channel, his first marriage had, finally, ended. Not trusting himself to be faithful to me when Hild was at the palace, he’d banished her to some far-flung corner of the kingdom, as far away from him as possible. He didn’t want to be tempted, he’d said.

But I could tell that he missed her. He’d become a sort of moping, depressed version of himself. This was not the man I’d first met all those years ago. The man I’d fallen in love with.

He was a shadow, as if some part of his very self had become lost.

Perhaps she had been his great love. If there is such a thing. Perhaps they had, truly, been happy together. Even with my presence a thorn in their sides.

I did feel sorry for him, seeing him like that. It’s a weird kind of feeling: to have compassion for the man you’d fallen in love with as you see him grieve the loss of the woman he loves (who’s not you). I found myself praying that the Lord would relieve him of this burden, that with Hild’s banishment he would be able to move on from this chapter and begin his new life as king. And I only slightly (perhaps) prayed that by freeing him from his grief, the Lord would allow him to love me again.

I guess I had expected him to remain curt with me for a while, for our relationship to remain strained until he was able, little by little, to let me back into his life.

But I had thought that my elevation to queenship would involve some change in my day-to-day life.

How wrong I was.