Bracewell started her series about Queen Emma with her compelling debut Shadow on the Crown. The Price of Blood picks up in 1006 with Emma’s husband King Aethelred mired in suspicions of everyone around him and haunted by the ghost of his dead brother. Aethelred’s primary policy aims to keep all his strongest leaders fighting with each other so that they have no ability to rebel against him. He listens to advice only from the man he knows is willing to commit murder for him—clearly not the counselor of high moral standards. Instead of stability, this crazed plan brings England to desperate straits, unable to defend herself from Viking raids. Aethelred’s eldest son shows signs of having the leadership qualities his country so desperately needs, but as we watch Aethelred’s fear of his son mount we doubt he will be permitted to aid his father in any meaningful way.
Against this dark backdrop Bracewell builds a plot of intrigues, court politics, battlefields and daily life both among the Vikings and this early English royal family. Her psychologically taut portrayal of Emma is utterly engaging. Bound by violently conflicting vows and needs, Emma tries to act in the best interests of England, the King and her children—although those three arenas of interest often conflict. It does not help that she must deny any hope for the love she shares with the king’s eldest son. The young woman of Shadow on the Crown has sharpened into a sophisticated and savvy ruler who wages power struggles with her self-destructive husband in her attempts to bring about wise policies. That her hold on power is so fragile and her husband’s personality so volatile fills the pages with suspense and powerful tension. Ironically, Aethelred’s real enemies stay hidden from him—although they are vividly brought to life for us with their schemes and ambitions. Instead of the people he most needs to defeat, Aethelred attacks those who could help him.
One of the great strengths of this novel lies in the portions told from Aethelred’s point of view. While we are inside his mind, we see his thinking in action and how it is that he gradually comes to suspect evil intent of everyone around him. He is not a simple mad man. It’s way more complicated and, frankly, all the more worrisome for that. It does not matter what Emma’s motives are, for example, he will find a reason to distrust her actions. This holds true for his sons, his bishops and other advisors. Here’s a passage showing Aethelred’s reaction to Emma’s request to return to the court and her place at his side. To most people this would sound loving or at least positively concerned. Indeed she means no harm toward her husband but wishes to help him rule well—all in his best interests, if he could only see it. This, however, is how he winds it up into contortions of distrust in his mind:
“What maddened him, though, was not the thought of Emma at his court, but the knowledge that she had so damned many allies. His first wife had lived in his shadow, where she belonged. Emma, though, courted his churchmen and ealdormen, garnered information, and corresponded with men of power. His mother had done the same, and her ambitions for him had led to the murder of a king. When he considered that, his ill temper turned to misgiving. What might Emma’s ambitions for her son lead her to do?”
This is skillful placement of the reader inside Aethelred’s thought patterns. We might not sympathize with this man but we want to know what he will do next. We can’t resist seeing how far his twisted mind will take us. Just when we need to escape from the grimness of Aethelred, Bracewell shifts point of view and we are inside Emma’s mind or that of Aethelred’s eldest son, or Elgiva, who returns to this book as a formidable challenge to Emma and Aethelred. These point of view shifts greatly deepen the book and place the reader in a variety of emotional states.
This is a book of rising psychological drama, an in-depth portrayal of family dynamics at their most disastrous as they spill out onto a stage that encompasses a whole country. There is a Shakespearean feel to these conflicts and their subtle working out inside the minds of these living, breathing characters. This is not a happy book, but it’s one you won’t want to miss. It’s a profoundly insightful book that keeps drawing the reader along its intriguingly dark paths.
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