Queen of Ashes: A Bittersweet Triumph

Bertha's Tale: A Novel - episode 16

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Bertha’s voice 
c. A.D. 589 
Canterbury, Kent

The news of Eormenric’s death was a shock to us all.

I guess you never really believe that someone like him could ever just end.

Pressured by internal instability that threatened to destroy their kingdom, my relatives had begged him for the military support guaranteed by my marriage contract. The same emissary that had crushed my monastic dreams had delivered their plea, reminding us all of our indebtedness to our neighbours. I had to stay in my marriage, and our king had to come to their aid. Neither of us had a choice.

Time and again he’d crossed the Channel to bolster their armies, fighting variously for one side and then the other. He’d always returned triumphant, basking in the glow of his victory and self-importance. Though my relatives were far more powerful than him, Eormenric was a skilled warrior, without whom they had struggled to push through the deadlocks they inevitably found themselves in. Perhaps it was this tactical mastery that had brought him supremacy on this isle.  

My relatives needed him and he knew it.

But on his last visit he’d never made it. We’ll never know if it was bad weather or more vindictive forces that led them to their untimely, watery grave. All we heard was that the Frankish welcoming party scanned the horizon until nightfall, and again the next day, but to no avail. Eormenric did not land on their coast and he did not return to ours; he was gone.

Which means that I am now queen.

I had imagined this moment to look quite different, of course. When I first found out that I was to marry the prince of this far-off land, I had dreaded it. So many of my sisters had walked this path before me, leaving our home to stand by the side of cold, battle-hardened men. Though they’d lived in splendour, they had not been loved. Rough treatment led to many an early death and I feared what my life might become. I’d envisaged the royal title weighing heavy on me, crushing me. But then I had met and married Æthelberht, and foolishly, perhaps, I’d allowed myself to blur the line between dreams and reality, forgetting that a brutish warrior lay beneath my husband’s romantic exterior. And after I’d fallen headlong, he’d reminded me of his true self, discarding me for his teenage sweetheart.

Sometimes I see a sad kindness cloud his eyes, perhaps as he remembers fondly those heady days when we’d been so in love. I think of them too, from time to time. Was it love that we’d felt? Or simply teenage infatuation? Lust, perhaps? I’m not too sure now when I look back with the benefit of a decade of hindsight. I think we could have loved each other, had we been given the time. How different it could have been… For most of our marriage, certainly since his commitment to polygamy was made plain to me, our relationship has merely been functional. Once I’d announced my intention to become a nun, thinking I’d found a convenient way out of this unwanted liaison, he’d all but abandoned me, visiting only to do his conjugal duty. I confess that part of me was glad about the barrenness of our union: though I crave that delightful bond between mother and child, any progeny of ours would serve only to complicate further an already disastrous mess.