Published by Accent Press Ltd – 2013

ISBN 9781909520462

Copyright © Carol McGrath 2013

The right of Carol McGrath to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers: Accent Press Ltd, The Old School, Upper High St, Bedlinog, Mid-Glamorgan CF 46 6RY

About the Author

The Handfasted Wife is the story of the Norman Conquest from the perspective of Edith (Elditha) Swan-Neck, Harold’s common-law wife. She is set aside for a political marriage when Harold becomes king in 1066. Determined to protect her children’s destinies and control her economic future, she is taken to William’s camp when her estate is sacked on the eve of the Battle of Hastings. She loses everything as she flees from an arranged marriage after the Battle of Hastings to fight for her children’s survival.

The Handfasted Wife is an adventure of love, loss, survival, and reconciliation.

For Patrick .

Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks to Jennifer Neville and Douglas Cowie of Royal Holloway, University of London, for their time and valuable advice, and to Jay, my editor - you are simply indispensable!

Les Heures Bénédictines

Matins Between 2.30 and 3.00 in the morning

Lauds Between 5.00 and 6.00 in the morning

Prime Around 7.30 or shortly before daybreak

Terce 9.00 in the morning

Sext Noon

Nones 2.00 and 3.00 in the afternoon

Vespers Late afternoon

Compline Before 7.00 as soon after that the monks retire

Angelus Bells Midnight

Prologue

Tell us a story, you say. Then let us sit by our frames and listen to a tale while we work. Here is a story for you, sisters. Its characters: a king, his mother, his lady, a queen and a stolen child. We have adventures to embroider, a broken promise, a great treasure and riddles to resolve. Charcoal glows in the brazier. The afternoon draws in, so listen carefully as my tale unfolds.

Do you recall the Godwin estate at Reredfelle? No? Let me tell you about this place. Reredfelle was a sprawling territory of ash, beech and oak only a day’s ride from Canterbury. On its southernmost edge, where the forest opened up into parkland, fields and hamlets, Earl Godwin of Wessex built his new, two-storey hall, a magnificent thatched building. The long side walls were painted with great hunting birds and in the centre of the front short wall an oak door led into an aisled room with a raised central hearth. Upstairs, Earl Godwin had his private rooms, an antechamber and, through a doorway hung with a curtain of crimson and blue tapestry, his own bedchamber. Here, he had two windows of glass, like those in the old minsters, set into deep oak frames; so you see, his wealth was great and he was not shy of showing it.

A wide track meandered past the women’s bower, a kitchen, stores and barns to a three-barred gate set into a palisade which protected the hall, its outer buildings, herb gardens, dovecote, an orchard and the Chapel to our Lady. The same track curved from the gate, through parkland loved by huntsmen, and disappeared into the encroaching forest beyond. There was, however, a secret way in and out of Reredfelle. A small latched door was set into the orchard wall, concealed by fruit trees, which were shaped to arch over and conceal it. On the other side of the wall, a shaded path curled down through undergrowth to a riverbed.

Reredfelle was loved by the canny old Earl, who came there to hunt and scheme; its desolation began after his death. The countryside was gripped by a festering plague. The population in the villages shrank and the estate was deserted except for the reeve who watched over the fields, and an odd collection of servants. The painted birds on the outside walls of the hall faded. The herb garden grew wild. Barns lay empty. The bower was silent. Tapestries gathered dust and the glass windows dulled. Years slipped by until King Edward himself passed away and Earl Harold, Godwin’s son, was elected as England’s new king.

Now, sisters, this is not King Harold’s story. That one you already know. My tale follows the fortunes of the woman whom Harold loved, and who passionately loved him back; his handfasted wife, Edith, she of the elegant swan’s neck. But let us call her Elditha, for in this story there is a second Edith, and names can confuse. After he became king he betrayed Elditha and sent her away. But that is not the end of her story. It is but a beginning.

PART ONE

The Burning House

My dress is silent when I tread the ground
Or stay at home or stir upon the waters
Sometimes my trappings and the lofty air
Rouse me above the dwelling place of men
And then the power of clouds carries me far
Above the people; and my ornaments
Loudly resound, send forth a melody
And clearly sing, when I am not in touch
With earth or water, but a flying spirit.

An Anglo-Saxon riddle, A Swan, translated by Richard Hamer

1

Westminster

December 1065

Through snowflakes that floated out of heaven’s pale circle she heard voices crying. Closer to the palace they became the greetings of women, the shouts of noblemen, their children’s shrieks, the snorts and stamping of horses. She could hear the earls and bishops and their families, their grooms and servants who were arriving at the Palace of Westminster for King Edward’s winter crowning.

Elditha had ridden in from the east on her mare, Eglantine. She raised her hand to stop the guards that trotted beside her and the wagons that followed. The new stone minster rose up behind St Peter’s monastery, its white walls merging with the snow-clad ground, its tall towers silent in the pale afternoon light. She nudged the mare’s flanks and, urging the creature forward, she walked it into the palace yard, her retinue of wagons and her guard trailing behind.

Grooms rushed to help her dismount. Breathing clouds of icy breath, her younger children, Ulf and Gunnhild, jumped from the first wagon and raced to her side while Thea slowly climbed down after them. Elditha told her guards to go find stable space for the horses, if any was to be had.

‘Elditha!’ The shout came from the great hall behind them. She spun round. Harold’s brother, Earl Leofwine, was striding towards them, clapping his hands and calling, ‘Elditha, welcome, welcome. Come into the Hall. The servants are throwing cloths on the tables. You are in time for dinner.’

Sensing that his joviality was only half-felt she hesitated. All was not well here. She frowned, shook the snow off her mantle and glanced up again, smiling and composed. ‘Leofwine, it’s good to see you.’ Then, lowering her voice so that others could not hear them, she added, ‘But, cousin, is it true that the King is unwell?’

‘No, no. The old man may yet recover. Edith and my mother are with him. Physicians are hopeful.’ He seized Elditha’s gloved hands and, holding them tight, stood back from her. ‘Look at you. Holy Madeline, Elditha, my brother is a fortunate man. You are as unchanging as the Queen of Heaven; you are indeed a true winter queen in that ermine-trimmed mantle.’ He dropped her hands and studied her face. ‘Eyes, what are they today, emeralds or jade, or have they changed to wild wood hazel! So, lady sorceress, how was your journey?’

‘Come, come, and don’t let the Queen hear you spin such fairy tales, Leofwine. As for the journey, well, let us just say it was a long one,’ she said, trying to look serious. ‘Enormous snow drifts; wolves howling from the woods, terrifying; monsters were ready to devour us . . . but,’ she waved her hand towards the Hall door, ‘here we are at last and we shall put it behind us.’

‘You look none the worse for the ordeal,’ Leofwine remarked, smiling now.

‘We were sheltered and cared for. Still, this year it took us two whole days to get through those woods.’

‘Then, cousin, let us get you settled. You have your usual chamber. The boys are sharing hall space with my lads. Your girls, Ulf and the nurse will have a room to themselves behind the bower hall, your ladies in the bower.’ He spoke quietly. ‘Elditha, it is the biggest gathering in years. The greatest earls and bishops are here for this Christmas feast. They fear for the King’s health.’ He held her eyes with a warning look and she slowly inclined her head. It was best to watch everyone and say nothing.

Her servants were already unloading their luggage. She directed them to carry her belongings to a chamber in the East Hall, to unpack the clothing chests and hang her wall tapestries. ‘We will all need to change into fresh garments,’ she warned Ursula, her chief lady. ‘See that our clothing is aired.’ As the women scurried off to do her bidding she said, ‘Leofwine, can you take the children into the hall? I wish to give thanks for our safe delivery, and to pray for the King’s recovery.’

Leofwine took Ulf’s tiny hand in his great bear’s paw and made a sweeping gesture with the other towards the tall towers and arches beyond the gates. ‘Isn’t it the most beautiful building in the world?’

‘It must be. I have never seen a building like it.’ And so, here she was, once again in the heart of the King and Queen’s world. She bit her lip. A woman of 32 summers and as excited as the children; still, it was Christmas, the most magnificent season of all. If King Edward recovered all would be well, but if King Edward sank into a deep, dreamless sleep, what then? The sour taste of fear rose in her mouth. Who would be crowned in his stead?

‘May I come too, Mama?’ Gunnhild was tugging at her cloak.

‘Yes, of course, if you wish.’ She turned to her older daughter. ‘Thea, would you like to see inside the new minster?’

‘No, I will wait for grandmother in the hall, if I may.’ Thea was watching a young thane who was saddling a beautiful Arab horse with a jewel-encrusted saddle, kicking up a flurry of snow as he circled the beast. ‘Is that him, Mama – is that Earl Waltheof?’

‘Yes, but stop staring, Thea,’ Elditha said.

‘Come with me,’ Leofwine said quickly. ‘Your grandmother may have left the King’s chamber already.’ He looked down at Ulf. ‘And you, Ulf, too, you must meet our little prince from Hungary. His name is Edgar. Your Aunt Edith and the King have adopted him.’ He hesitated. ‘And his mother and his two sisters.’

So this was the boy who might inherit England, this young son of Prince Edward who had fled into exile after Danish Canute killed his father, King Edmund Ironside, all those years ago. She touched Thea’s arm and fixed her eldest daughter with a stern look. ‘Do not move from the hall until I return.’

‘Of course not, Mother.’ Thea tossed her copper curls and stomped off through the snow behind Earl Leofwine and her brother. Elditha called after them, pulling her mantle more tightly around her shoulders, ‘And have your maid braid your hair. That will not do here, Thea.’ She turned to Gunnhild. ‘Come, follow me and careful where you step. We don’t want your new boots ruined.’

With Gunnhild following closely after her, Elditha made her way along the swept path into the abbey’s grounds. Sweepers paused and waited for her to pass. Snow was piled in fat heaps under the skeletal ash trees. Thankfully, the track ways were clear. She grasped Gunnhild’s hand. ‘Be careful now, the ground is slippery.’ The murmur of prayer filtered out of the opened door into the afternoon. A knot of young men bowed to her as they brushed past and hurried out. Still grasping Gunnhild’s hand Elditha entered the new doorway and walked along the apse, through an abbey that was full of faces – many familiar ones, who acknowledged her as she passed – until she had almost reached the front. There, a group of noble ladies turned to stare at her. She recognised them. They were from the north – Earl Morcar’s family. Could they be staring at her so boldly because she was a handfasted wife?

She smiled at them, wishing no one ill-will, but the looks they gave her back were distinctly chilly. Elditha felt her eyes widen as she recognised one who continued to stare coldly at her. Surely that was Aldgyth of Wales? Harold had only a few years before been responsible for her husband Gyffud’s death and something about that look was unsettling.

She held her head proudly and moved away from them and closer to the great altar. ‘Kneel, Gunnhild,’ she whispered and pulled her child down beside her, her back rigid. These days everyone talked of how important a church wedding was, the priest listening to vows exchanged in the church porch and then blessing the marriage. Harold, her lord, was the greatest noble in England and ruled the land for King Edward. So what if they had been handfasted in the old way? Their wedding ceremony had been held in her father’s meade-hall up in the flatlands of Norfolk and they had sworn their oaths there, clasping each other’s hands on the great silver-and-gold whetstone that was placed at the hall’s entrance. But though she was Harold’s handfasted wife and the mother of his six children, she never could forget that she was also his cousin thrice removed. It was that which impeded any renewal of their vows in a church wedding.

As she knelt on the cold stone floor, she stared ahead at the flickering candles, trying to concentrate on prayer. The scent of new wood emanated from the elaborate pillar carvings mingling with the scent of beeswax candles, a smell that drifted towards them as soothing as summer. No sooner had she begun to feel peace again than there was a rustling of robes close by. The chanting of prayer in the nave hushed. She raised her head. A choir of monks was gathering in their stalls.

‘Tu autem Domine miserere nobis,’ the precentor intoned loudly, his voice echoing through the nave.

‘Gunnhild, we shall find a quiet chapel,’ she said softly and, hurriedly rising, taking her daughter’s hand again, she guided Gunnhild back through the nave into a small side-chapel halfway along it. ‘The most magnificent church in Christendom,’ she whispered as they sank to their knees again in the seclusion of the alcove. Elditha touched Gunnhild’s golden head. The child seemed lost in the murmur of prayer. Elditha folded her hands and gave thanks to St Christopher for their safe deliverance from the icy roads and snowdrifts that had threatened their journey. She prayed for the ailing King, for the Queen, her sister-in-law, and for Gytha the Countess, who was Edith and Harold’s mother. She prayed that Harold would have a safe journey to ThorneyIsland from the distant Midlands.

When she rose again, Nones had finished. The northern women were filing past them out of the church. Aldgyth, she now observed, was really quite plain despite her thin, silver-edged linen veil and gold fillet. Then, the answer to why the widowed woman was at Edward’s Christmas court occurred to her. She was here because her ambitious younger brothers were hopeful of finding their sister another noble husband.

Two days later, Earl Harold sailed down the Thames to ThorneyIsland, the magnificent Wessex Dragon flying in the prow of his ship. London merchants walked through white fields and across frozen streams to cheer him on to the wharf. When he strode into the courtyard, it was his sister, Queen Edith, and her retinue of noblemen, who hurried out through the palace door to greet him. For an instant Elditha’s forehead creased as she waited with the other women inside the hall, as Edith had rushed past them. Today, the cold-eyed Queen’s attention was all for Harold. Elditha swallowed her pride and smiled and told Thea to smile too; that was until she saw that the girl was boldly watching the young nobles who waited to greet her father. Irritated, she found herself frowning again and snapping, ‘We are on show, Thea. Stop staring.’

At that moment, with a trumpet announcing his arrival, Harold entered the hall. He spoke to the noblemen who had gathered by the door. Elditha stepped forward, but before he could greet her, Edith took her brother’s arm, swept past them and led Harold straight up the stairs towards King Edward’s chamber. Elditha noticed her boys among Harold’s retinue and raised her hand to acknowledge them. They, unlike their father, pushed out of the throng towards her. Magnus, the youngest at 13, grasped her hands and kissed her.

Edmund, two years older, said, ‘Lady Mother, we are here now too, and you look lovelier than all of the other ladies at King Edward’s court.’ Then he turned to elbow his younger brother out of the way to embrace Thea.

Glowing with his praise Elditha smiled and turned to Godwin, who was the eldest of her sons. He knelt before her and said simply, ‘It is good to see you, Mother.’ She raised him up and said quietly, ‘Godwin, I fear all is not well here.’

‘The King, I know. Father says . . .’ She never heard what Harold had said about King Edward because Leofwine emerged from the great press of people, made a fuss of the boys and rushed them away, saying, ‘You will all be housed with your cousins, and they will be excited to see you, all three of you.’ He turned to Elditha. ‘May I?’

‘Of course, Leofwine, I am sure they are just as pleased to see their cousins too.’

Thea said after Leofwine disappeared with her brothers through the press of courtiers, ‘That was quick. They hardly noticed me. As for father, he never even spoke to us.’

The gathering nobles and their ladies began to disperse, conversing in lowered tones and as the crowd thinned Elditha saw that they were almost alone in the middle of the vast great hall.

Elditha turned to her daughter. ‘Never mind, Thea. There is a tapestry to be worked. Your father will greet us later.’ She guided Thea to a side door that led from the great hall to the women’s building, with a servant scurrying in front of them to move back the tapestry and usher them through. Outside, they crossed the snowy yard, winding around drifts and abandoned storage wagons to the bower hall which lay peacefully under its glittering white covering. As they were shaking snow from their cloaks inside the doorway, Thea clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, Mother, I nearly forgot. Grandmother Gytha says that she needs to talk to you.’

‘I see.’ Elditha surveyed the long room. Candles burned and spluttered in their sconces. An enormous log hissed and glowed in the central hearth, but otherwise the hall was quiet today, the large tapestry frame deserted and the stools before it empty. The northern women had absented themselves and only a few women from their own lands of Wessex were talking quietly in corners as they spun wool. She nodded to them, sat Thea down to sort threads into colours and, when the girl was settled, she asked quietly, ‘And why is that? Does your grandmother need to speak about you, Thea?’

Thea must not upset Gytha. None of them must: not Thea, not her either, nor any of her other children – especially her three boys all older and, hopefully, gaining sense. She sighed. For how long would they remain a family? The boys would soon be off to King Dairmaid’s court in Dublinia, but Thea was to go to her grandmother’s household to learn responsibility from Grandmother Gytha and to prepare for marriage. Her grandmother would train her to be a wife and mother, to learn other ways of running a household: brewing, understanding herbs, making cheese, churning butter, organising maids. ‘Thea, if you upset your grandmother you will be spending the feast of St Stephen here sorting those threads and without company except for your maid. Do you understand?’ She pointed at the box of threads.

Thea bowed her head. ‘I do not think that Grandmother Gytha is angry with me. She just said that she must find time to speak with you.’ Thea looked down at the box of threads on her knee.

‘Well, then, behave and you will enjoy Christmas after all.’

Young Gytha, known to them all as Thea, since Harold’s mother possessed the same name, was developing into a provocative girl of 14 who dwelled in a world of new gowns and ribbons, gazing into her silver mirror and preening. Yet for all Thea’s faults, Elditha loved her beautiful elder daughter’s spirit, and she would miss her terribly. In a year’s time her child would be married.

She sighed. Any talk with the family matriarch could be daunting. Gytha had wasted no time in putting Elditha firmly in her place as a wife and mother. When she had been a new wife – Thea’s age, young and inexperienced – it was Gytha who had befriended, protected and guided her, but when she had confided worries about Harold’s fidelity to her, Gytha told her, ‘A soldier needs comfort at night when a wife is not there to provide it.’ Elditha had bristled at those words and from that day on she could not help wondering which ladies had slept with her husband, even though Gytha had meant soldiers’ women, never noblewomen.

Gradually the bower hall filled up and, as the afternoon light grew into twilight, there was the comforting hum of female conversation. The ladies ate dinner in the bower so that their husbands could discuss the King’s illness. With great thumps the servant boy turned the sand clock over and over as the afternoon passed. Elditha longed to see Harold but he did not attend the evening service either. Perhaps he was waiting for her to come to their chamber. She said her goodnights to the other women early, returned to their apartment, her three women trailing behind in case they were needed, but she sent her ladies away to her children and sat alone sewing by candlelight.

Towards midnight, just as she began to think he would not come to her, he swept into their antechamber. Wearily, he pulled off his mantle. ‘I am sorry to make you wait, Elditha, my love, but it bodes ill. King Edward is weak. Edith says he won’t eat. Now he only wants clergymen by his bed. We can do nothing more for him.’

She set aside her embroidery, rose and took his mantle, folded it and laid it neatly over the wide arms of her sewing chair with a comforting and familiar gesture.

‘So, then, husband, which will it be: Christmas banquet or a funeral feast?’

‘Edith says that he wants us to carry on without him and the physicians tell us that he may yet recover. Who knows? We can do nothing more but wait and pray. It’s in God’s hands now.’ He caught her waist and drew her close to him. ‘But I am sorry, my love. How have you passed your time here? Come here and tell me.’

His presence filled the room. She adored him and she knew he still loved her too. ‘Well, we are mostly with your mother, our own cousins and our women. Thea adores her grandmother. But Gytha wants to speak to me about something. I wonder if it is about Thea.’

‘Probably the arrangements for Thea to be in her household, and that is good, don’t you think?’ He reached up and pulled her veil away and tossed it onto the cloak.

Elditha kissed him and, anticipating what was coming now, began to loosen her thick plait’s binding. ‘Well then, your mother has set up a tapestry for us to embroider, a hanging depicting the Garden of Eden. It is for the new cathedral. Thea avoids it when she can. I am working on Eve. And appropriately enough Gytha is embroidering the apple.’

‘Ah, I suppose you have left the serpent for my sister? Here let me. I love to loosen this.’ He was undoing her pale hair and shaking it out. She was aware of it dropping in thick swathes about her shoulders.

She composed her face into a picture of serenity. ‘Of course not, though she can be domineering. We never see Edith these days. There are so many ladies working on the tapestry. We move around it. It keeps us occupied. We talk together.’

Now he was untying the laces of her overgown. His hands moved over her body and to her it felt as good as it had always felt. Nothing had changed, nothing; and as usual she was beginning to soften at his touch. ‘Ah, so what do you talk about?’ he asked in a teasing tone as her overgown slid to the floor.

She drew back, took a deep breath, exhaled and said, ‘Harold, everyone speculates about everything, about the King, about us. There is whispering in corners. What will happen if he dies?’ She clasped his arms but he gently removed her hands, pulled her back and continued to unlace her gown. ‘Who will be king?’ she said.

‘Let us not think of that now, my love. Tell me about Thea and the others.’ Her gown slid to the floor and she was in her linen undergown. He turned her round and parted her loose hair and began to kiss the back of her neck. ‘No one can ever hold a candle to you, my Edith.’ He whispered the words into her hair. ‘Don’t ever forget it.’

She kissed him passionately, seeking out his tongue with her own, before breaking away to say, ‘The boys are well, of course. Ulf is very, very mischievous and Gunnhild is serious.’ She sank down on a stool and tugged off her deerskin boots, fondling them for a moment before setting them neatly by the bed. ‘Thea is growing up quickly. Betrothal is all she can think of. She teases Earl Waltheof, but then she tells your mother that he is not good enough for her. Our Thea wants a prince.’

Harold raised his head and said sharply, ‘She’ll take who she is given. None of us can choose.’

‘We did.’

‘We were fortunate. We have love,’ he said but there was, she noticed, a momentary pause. He took her in his arms again and laid his chin on her head.

It was an old familiar gesture, but she twisted out of his grasp and studied his face. ‘When you are by my side, yes, we have love. When you are not . . . The women here, they talk among themselves about you and other women . . . I cannot help but hear them . . .’

He put a finger to her lips. ‘Enough, Elditha, they are of no consequence.’ He drew her close again. He smelled of the sea, of the earth and, slightly, of the musk oil with which he sometimes anointed his hair. He was her husband and she had loved him since she was 15 years old and he had so gently taken her maidenhead. She loved him still. He buried his face in her hair. ‘Not now,’ he murmured. ‘Come with me. How I have missed you. Perhaps we can ride tomorrow.’ He led her to the bed and they tumbled onto the goose-feathered mattress and he loved her until she made herself forgive him all his passing infidelities.

Snow fell heavily during the night and that made riding impossible. The women passed the following day closed inside Queen Edith’s bower hall. Servants carried great pitchers of hippocras and plates of honey cakes into the bower and, as she nibbled on cakes and sipped the sweet wine, and tried to keep warm, Elditha would glance over at the northern widow who sat with her frosty relatives. Sometimes she caught Aldgyth watching her too. She had noticed how Harold greeted the brothers Morcar and Edwin in such a friendly manner, how he had turned to Aldgyth, their sister – once a lady of Mercia and a queen of Wales – when they had been in the hall that morning, for a moment giving her his full attention, his grey eyes seeking hers. Aldgyth had modestly looked down, but when he moved on around the great hearth talking to others, Elditha had noticed how her eyes had followed him.

All morning the women worked on Gytha’s tapestry. They talked about the King’s illness. Would he die or would he recover? In the afternoon they sewed gifts for each other, purses and belts, and as they stitched they tried to pretend that everything was normal, though nothing was. Everything creaked. A chill wind rocked the timbers of the wooden hall; the dark skeleton branches of trees outside bent under great plops of snowfall; conversations in the bower hall became in turn knife-edged or dreary. Elditha wished now that she had remained at Nazeing this Christmas, where she would not have had to see the northern women who gathered about the ex-queen of Wales, as though she were a queen bee in the hive. Aldgyth sat close by her, quietly stitching on a length of fine white linen. It seemed to be a man’s new shirt with extravagant gold and silver embroidery creeping around the neck opening. Elditha wondered who it could possibly be for. She tipped a pitcher and poured wine into a cup for Gytha and said in a low voice, hoping that Aldgyth could not overhear, ‘Thea mentioned that you wished to speak to me?’

Gytha leaned forward in her chair and lowered her voice to match Elditha’s own. ‘Elditha, if King Edward dies there will be an election and they could decide that Harold must rule. It’s a pity that King Edward and Edith have no children of their own.’

Elditha pricked her finger. A drop of blood showed crimson on her embroidery. And I could be queen, she mused. She sucked the blood away.

‘What about Edgar?’ she said. ‘He may not be his son, but he is the nearest living relative and it was Harold who brought the family back from Hungary. Do you not think, Gytha, that now his father has died, Edgar will be king when Edward dies?’

Gytha gave a low laugh. ‘The country needs more than a boy to save it from the scavengers, my dear.’

‘Duke William?’

‘Others too. Harald of Norway and Sweyn of Denmark.’ Gytha sniffed, lifted her long sleeve and wiped her nose on it. She nursed her hippocras for a moment, slowly turned the cup and then sipped from it. ‘Still, we all know that that William, the bastard son of a washer-woman, is the worst of the locust princes. Edward’s mother always wanted Duke William to be England’s heir.’ She sat her cup down and glanced over at Aldgyth. Elditha followed Gytha’s sharp eyes. Aldgyth immediately raised her head from the shirt she was stitching. Gytha placed a finger on her lips and lifted up a linen fillet that she was embroidering with tiny blue flowers. ‘I think Thea will like this,’ she remarked. She paused then added, ‘Blue will go with the red hair.’ She snipped a pale blue thread with her scissors and rethreaded her needle. In and out her needle slipped, making tiny stitches, her eyesight very keen for a woman who had three score years.

Aldgyth of Mercia, the widowed Queen of Wales, bent her head again and seemed absorbed in a section of work about the shirt collar. ‘It’s not surprising, of course, that Edward’s mother wanted William to be the heir; he is her own nephew,’ Elditha said in a whisper.

‘Emma was a schemer. King Edward hated his mother for abandoning him and marrying Canute. After all, Canute killed the father and married the mother. What do you expect? That woman hated us Godwins too, but she couldn’t do without us in those days.’

‘Emma is long dead, Gytha.’

‘But now, Elditha, that bastard William wants England’s throne when her son is dead. What about that claim he made about Harold’s promise to him?’ Gytha’s lips pursed.

‘It will certainly cause trouble that both Edgar and William consider that they have a claim.’

‘Even so, my dear, the earls won’t have either of them. The boy is too young and the bastard’s a foreigner, a liar and a thief.’

‘Duke William claims . . .’

‘. . . that Harold promised to uphold his claim over relics gathered from all over in churches in Normandy. Well, he told me that those reliquary boxes were empty. Some trick.’

Aldgyth stood up, came closer and lifted the warm pitcher and a cup from the hearth. Elditha bent her head over her embroidery. Harold had told her another version of that story. He had confessed to her in bed that he’d been given a choice of becoming William’s vassal or of remaining William’s hostage. He had made the only choice he could; but when he’d made his oath of fealty to William in the church at Bonneville-sur-Touques, his hand had been firmly placed on reliquaries.

‘It’s different, you see,’ he had whispered into her ear, ‘all fealty means is that I will help the Duke if he is in difficulty. I owe him that loyalty at least: he saved me from the pirates when I’d been shipwrecked when I went over there to get our family hostages from him. I never swore that I would be a kingmaker. I, Harold, Earl of Wessex, will never support any claim by William of Normandy to the throne of England. And so I got my nephew back from him.’

Frowning, Elditha pulled the gold thread through the linen on her lap. ‘The earls will declare for the Atheling,’ she heard herself saying.

‘No, they will not,’ Gytha said. ‘Edgar’s father, had he lived, would have been a fine king, but it won’t be that young boy who follows his uncle nor the bastard – nor will it be any other prince who has been elf-shot with greed. It will be an English earl. And what I have wanted to say to you, Elditha, is that Thea will have greater prospects than young Earl Waltheof. Now, where is my thimble?’

Elditha pulled a thimble from the purse hanging from her girdle and dropped it into Gytha’s lap. She spoke her thoughts aloud. ‘Edward will not choose a Godwin. He will want Alfred’s descendants . . .’ Before she had a chance to say anything else, the bower door creaked open, blowing a flurry of snow inside and Queen Edith herself swept into the hall with four of her ladies following. Now, Elditha thought grimly as she dropped her sewing, there really will be an end to any Christmas festivities.

All the women seated in the hall rose and bowed their heads. The children stopped playing. Aldgyth was nearest to the door rummaging in the silks basket for a fresh thread. She sank onto her knees. But, to Elditha’s surprise, Edith just smiled and gestured to them all to sit again. She raised Aldgyth to her feet and shooed her back to her embroidery with a thin smile. Then she approached Gytha, bent over and kissed her mother’s cheek in greeting. Turning to her women, she sent them off to work on the tapestry frame saying, ‘I wish to speak to my mother.’

The queen’s dark-cloaked women scurried off to the Adam and Eve embroidery, seeking empty stools. The others made room for them and threaded needles for them. Sitting opposite each other in pairs, they began to stitch the flowered border, talking in hushed voices. Elditha rose again, thinking to join them but Edith said, ‘No, Elditha, stay. You may listen to this too.’

Edith sat by Gytha on a cushioned chair and arranged the heavy folds of her blue cloak. ‘Edward may yet recover,’ she said, smiling her thin smile. ‘We must hold the Christmas feast as usual. Nothing must appear amiss. The King will attend.’

‘And if there is a relapse?’ Gytha’s face was anxious.

‘There will be no relapse, Mother. The King must show the world that he is recovering. If we all pray for him, God may spare His most faithful son.’ She paused, looked round at the other Godwin women who were listening and raised her tone. ‘So, since you are all listening, I come to say that we women, all of us, and the families, must attend a nightly vigil in the new AbbeyChurch, asking God to spare our king.’

‘The children, Edith,’ Elditha said, dismayed. ‘Should they attend the services? Some of them are so young.’ She looked over to where the nurse, Margaret, was playing a game with Ulf and the other young children, thinking how harsh her sister-in-law could be, but surely she would not insist on the younger children observing the vigil?

‘As you wish, sister; but they ought to understand the value of humility and the importance of such prayer. The King is, after all, their uncle.’

‘Of course my children will pray too, Edith,’ Elditha said quickly, not wishing to cause offence. How would her four-year-old Ulf stay awake?

Nightly, as the moon hung above the abbey, the women and children joined the monks for the midnight vigil. On the fourth evening, when Elditha picked up her cloak, Harold said impatiently, as if this had been her idea and not his sister’s, ‘Not again. Not the children as well. Not my mother.’

‘Edith has insisted. We should all pray for his recovery – you too.’

‘But not my mother; she is so old. Her nightly vigil must stop.’

‘She will not stop.’

‘Let us hope her prayers are answered. By the by, I am told that you are crowning young Edgar Atheling king already, Elditha.’ She could hear the gathering chill in his voice.

‘I was not wishing the King’s death, my lord.’

‘That is not what I have heard.’

‘From Gytha?’

‘No, but you must guard your conversation, Elditha. There are ears everywhere.’

Only one person would have reported that particular conversation and twisted it into something she had clearly not intended. She did not wait to ask what he had heard. She lifted the latch, allowed it to crash down behind her and headed out into the cold courtyard alone. So Aldgyth had lied to her brother, Morcar, who had repeated the lie to Harold. It was the only explanation.

That night God listened to their prayers. The following morning, Edith’s steward announced that the King would attend the Christmas festivities, and following that announcement a sense of levity returned to the court. Elditha pushed Aldgyth from her mind. She riffled through the gowns hung neatly on her clothing pole until, after much indecision, she selected a fine woollen overgown to wear. It was dyed a shade of green that complemented her eyes; its gold embroidery the richness of her heavy plaits. She owned a green mantle of the same wool and a curving brooch pin of gold studded with garnets, a present from Harold. He would be pleased to see her wear it. Although she chose to ignore his accusation, she could not but continue to notice his glances towards the one whom she suspected had tried to come between them.

Determined to enjoy the Christmas festivities she sat in the bower and strummed on her harp. The girls and their cousins practised their dancing steps. Elditha showed them all a new dance with high leaps and swirls that turned as fast as the weather-cock spinning atop a church steeple on a windy day. She laughed when her sons came to the bower to tease them and tell jokes, relieved that the vigil was over. But, often, she felt a pair of pale blue eyes watching her when they dined in the hall. She sensed them following her from the shadows of the nave in the cathedral, where Aldgyth’s pasty countenance would suddenly appear from behind pillars. Most annoying of all was when that mousey head popped up smiling from the shirt she was embroidering, and which she seemed to thrust forward menacingly every time Elditha passed by.