Godiva

by Nerys Jones

  ‘My food is good,’ Godiva murmured, ‘but what has happened to you?’

  ‘Nothing. I cannot say,’ Adel muttered, looking round to see where the servants were.

  Godiva got to her feet and took Adel by her thin shoulders. She pulled back the side of her headdress and inspected the bruise.

  ‘Why?’

  Adel hung her head and said nothing.

  ‘My first husband would hit me too,’ Godiva said, putting her arm round her. ‘He was my daughter Milly’s father and I thought I would never escape him.’

  Adel remained silent.

  ‘What happened last night?’

  Adel swallowed several times and then started to whisper. ‘When you did not appear at the feast, Wiglaf was angry. He wants to impress his lord, Earl Godwin, so it was important to manage Lovric’s visit well. I told him I thought something had happened between you and Lovric, but he would have none of that. No, I was a bad hostess and somehow I put you off coming. When the feast was over he came to our chamber. He was drunk and we quarrelled. Then he hit me. I have not seen him since.’

  ‘Oh, my dear!’ Godiva said, taking Adel by the arm. ‘But you know, there was fear in the air last night. Lovric and I argued too, and he slept in the hall. Still, men cannot hit women, however much they might argue.’

  Adel looked down again and didn’t answer.

  ‘You could divorce if he won’t control himself,’ Godiva said. ‘Threaten him. You have your rights, and your own property. Say you’ll take back your dowry.’

  ‘I know about my rights,’ Adel answered, wiping her eyes. ‘But my father would not take my side. Well, you can see how rich Wiglaf is, and Father has taken loans from him. Big loans.’ She sighed heavily. ‘And there are other reasons, too.’ Godiva glanced down at Adel’s small round belly and guessed what these might be. Adel smiled effacingly and backed away into her kitchen. Godiva stared after her and thanked Mary that mortality and luck had relieved her of a man very much like Wiglaf. Lovric, no matter what his faults, was a man she would love forever.

  Shortly afterwards the small riding party that was due to go south to meet Earl Godwin assembled by the door of the manor house. Lovric now appeared, not on his own massive war stallion, but on a smaller mare belonging to Wiglaf. He had also taken off his cloak with its identifying black eagle and was wearing ordinary thegn’s clothing. He was almost unrecognizable. Godiva too was in her ordinary riding jacket, which Agatha had pulled out of the travelling luggage. She smiled at Agatha, who smiled back with the studied dignity of one struggling with a hangover, she was relieved to see her mistress both sober and good-tempered, for she had got up this morning worrying that she would be blamed for last night’s drinking, especially if the earl found out about it.

  Father Godric was in the saddle too, fingering his rosary repentantly. Godiva looked him over carefully. The priest was unusually indifferent to wine, but his delight in the company of bawds was well known. He had gone to his little priest-room early last night and had not been seen for hours. But the look of contrition on his face suggested that he had gained little pleasure compared to the amount of sin he had committed. Good, thought Godiva, who pitied his wife. May his none-too-private parts suffer whore’s itch all day.

  Once they were in proper order for departure, a group of lightly armed horsemen, led by an unusually taciturn captain, surrounded them. Indeed, it was soon apparent that all the members of the Wessex guard were as surly and uncommunicative as their captain, as though the old wars between their country and the men of Mercia were far from forgotten. It was, then, a wary and silent riding party that left Wiglaf’s hall, heading south-west towards the Vale of the White Horse and a meeting with the Lord of the South, Godwin of Wessex.

  Two days later the Berkshire Downs rose out of the woodlands like the velvet breasts of the living earth. A marked change of mood now settled on all the riders: a softening of temper, more patience with the tiring horses and a greater interest in each other. For the first time Godwin’s captain of the guard spoke to his charges in friendly tones, telling them to slow down.

  ‘She’s coming into view soon,’ he said. ‘Dismount and follow me and you’ll see her properly. It’s not a sight to miss, sir, lady.’

  Godiva, who had seen the White Horse at Uffington long ago, and seen other White Horses too, carved on the hills in several parts of Mercia, had yet to see the fabled image at the necessary distance. Expectantly she followed the captain and Lovric up a narrow path that led from the lane to a stile and on round a bramble-strewn bend. Then, suddenly, there it was – its clear white-chalk outline spread out over the hill and facing them directly across a fold in the land, the forelegs prancing, the long tail flowing behind, and the head, mysteriously beaked, pointing the way forward. And right in the middle of the horse’s face, staring up at the sky, was that large, round and magical eye, the eye that everyone came to see. Complete silence took hold of the group, except that Father Godric was mumbling a prayer as quietly as he could, asking God’s forgiveness for coming to this pagan place.

  ‘It’s a good time for walking her back, sir,’ said the captain, taking in the signs of the weather and noting the dryness of the soil beneath their feet. ‘But my instructions are to take you straight to the house, sir.’

  Agatha noticed how the man had mentioned no names on this whole journey, and she signed the cross on her bosom. As far as she was concerned, they were alone in Wessex, a foreign country to a Mercian girl, and they were alone with armed strangers. God only knew what Lord Lovric was up to. Godric saw her bite her lip and he said another prayer, this one a bland benediction for travellers that he could say out loud without offending the presiding pagan spirits. And then the group stumbled back down the path to their horses and were on their way to the meeting place.

  A few minutes later the captain pointed ahead as their destination came into view. It was an unlikely house for an earl and his lady to visit, no more than two rooms built of wattle and daub, with one thatched roof over both of them. Scattered around were some other structures – a couple of small huts, an open-air pen for the temporary quartering of horses and what appeared to be several graves. The whole scene had an air of abandonment about it. But there was one mark of distinction, the only sign that, despite the coming and going of tribes and legions, old gods and new priests, here was still a place of great importance. This was the network of tracks and paths that sat like a cobweb on the hillside and converged here. It was where people came first, before they walked the Horse.

  An elderly, long-bearded man came out to greet them and show Lovric and Godiva into the house. Inside it was dark, despite the strength of the late-afternoon sun, and the man called for candles. A woman of similar age, her toothless face sunken and shadowed, appeared from the other room carrying small oil lamps. Godiva started in surprise at the sight of these, for the lamps were made of solid gold and set around with rubies that lit up with fire like the flames rising from the scented wicks. The poverty of this place was only partial; it was meant to mislead.

  ‘Great lord,’ the old man began. ‘Greetings. Earl Godwin is here already. Are you prepared, sir? If so, send the maid and the priest outside.’

  After Godric and Agatha had gone, the door to the other little room opened again, and in strode Godwin of Wessex, the man most of England thought should be king. He stood there before them, not quite as tall as Lovric, and nowhere near as handsome, thought Godiva, noting his beaky nose and low brow, but strong as an ox, heavy as a plough, and full of the force that everyone saw as royal, though there was scarcely a drop of king’s blood in his veins. He put out his hand at once, and Lovric shook it. Then, with surprising grace, he took Godiva’s hand, kissed it lightly and motioned them to be seated.

  All round the room ran benches built into the walls. They were strewn with cushions whose worn tapestry covers told of many other secret meetings held here over the years.

  ‘Welcome to the oldest shrine in the land of Wesse
x,’ said Godwin, in such a pronounced south-Saxon accent that Godiva had to struggle to pick out his words. ‘I make no apology that it is a pagan centre, and that the old man and woman in there are priests of the Horse’s cult. My bishops know about this place, but turn a blind eye to its existence. This means that I can come here with no clerical spies to hinder me in my business.’

  ‘And what is our business?’ Lovric asked.

  Godwin passed Godiva a glass of wine and another to Lovric.

  ‘It is the business of our children, sir,’ Godwin answered in a level voice. ‘And the business of our king, and thus our country. And of your son, Alfgar, and my son, Sveign; my daughter Edith, and now your Harry, and soon after that, any one of our other children. They are all young; the boys are looking for lands, looking to lead armies, to have noblewomen to wife and to start raising children. They are all prepared to defy the king, and to obey their fathers only when it suits them.’ He paused and looked at Lovric and Godiva intently.

  ‘I know that,’ Lovric said.

  ‘But what you perhaps do not know,’ said Godwin, a touch of sympathy entering his voice, ‘is news that came down to me from Hereford while you were still on your way to Oxford. Alfgar has been captured . . .’

  ‘Holy Mary,’ Godiva whispered. ‘Is he hurt?’

  ‘I’m sorry, lady, I know nothing more. But it is certain that he will soon be in the hands of the king, like your Harry.’

  ‘I thank you,’ Lovric said, motionless but for the clenching and unclenching of his fists. ‘This changes the situation I will face in Winchester. It will be harder now to bargain with Edward.’

  Godwin nodded and then paused again, as though gathering his energies before resuming.

  ‘This is not all,’ he said at last, ‘I have bad news of my own, but not the sort that can be talked about where men drink in thegns’ halls or where laws are bound at meetings of the Witan. It concerns Edith.’ He paused and looked at Godiva’s averted face. ‘Godiva?’

  ‘Yes?’ she turned to face him, and Godwin, seeing her clearly and at close quarters for the first time, was taken aback. He had glimpsed her at a distance over the years, veiled like the other ladies of Edward’s court, and riding or walking beside Lovric on great royal occasions, and thus he knew of her beauty chiefly by report, for everyone said that the Earl of Mercia had the best woman in England and loved her beyond all reason. By now, he thought, age seemed to have confirmed this legendary beauty, suggesting there was permanence and an inexplicable depth to her grace.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, as carefully as he could, ‘would you say, as a married woman, that you could have taken Edward to be your husband? Or would you have wished your daughter to be his wife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Godiva . . .’ Lovric began.

  ‘I must speak the truth, Lovric. I wouldn’t wish that man on any woman. When he came to Coventry, to the dedication of my priory, he said nothing to me for two whole days, but he kept his eyes on me the whole time, and they were wet and cold. It was a look I can’t describe well – contempt, some revulsion, but also a kind of amusement. It’s hard to pin down what it meant. I took it that he was sneering at me, but then I saw that he looked at everyone that way, though not at Lovric and one or two men he fears. With them he stared at the ground and looked pious.’ She took a deep breath and thought for a moment. ‘Earl Godwin,’ she continued soberly, ‘women say Edward is unmanly. My maid tells me the common women laugh and make up stories about him all through the land.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Godwin. ‘You say what my own wife says. Every night Gytha weeps and says that we have wronged Edith, that she was plucked as a young girl from the convent at Wilton and delivered to the bed of a man unfit for any woman – but a certain kind of whore.’

  Lovric shot Godwin an unguarded look of concern. He knows, thought Godwin, looking back at him. It shows in Lovric’s eyes, in the absence of shock or curiosity. He knows about Edward’s strange ways, and he has said nothing to his wife or anyone else in order to protect Edward’s position. And perhaps to muffle the cries of his own conscience, as he takes his wife to meet the king. Takes her as I sent Edith, knowingly putting her at risk. Godwin scrutinized Lovric: there were no signs of guilt in his eyes, none of the evasiveness, the self-pity, the confusion that marks the faces of guilty men. But nothing had happened yet. Edward had not touched Godiva. Yet he was sure to try, of that Godwin was sure. He turned his gaze towards her. She was composed again, and she was lively, not like a woman enduring suppressed fear or resentment. He felt sure she knew nothing about the king’s orders. No, she was going to Winchester like a good mother, anxious to do what she could for her captured sons and, like a good wife, trustingly cooperating with her husband’s request that she accompany him.

  Lovric in turn examined Godwin. The man looked like someone who had struggled to come to a difficult decision, and was still struggling, trying to find the right words to phrase what he had to say next. He would make his announcement soon, declaring the reason for this meeting.

  ‘Where does this leave us?’ Lovric asked.

  ‘Edith, my daughter,’ Godwin began, and stopped in dismay at what he had to relate. Then he started again, but from a different angle. ‘Lovric, for many years I have opposed you and Siward. I cannot pretend that this was for any reason other than that I wanted to be king myself, or at least to be the grandfather of the next king and control the man who now sits on the throne. I have failed in both my aims.’

  ‘Both?’

  ‘Yes. I cannot be king. None of us can. Not one of us is strong enough alone to topple him. Nor will I be grandfather to Edith’s children with Edward. There will be no such children, ever. I want to make a pact with you, as I have already done with Siward, to support this monarchy until Edward meets his natural end. Division will only weaken us, and the kingdom of England will pass to the Normans or to the Danes. We must work towards a smooth succession after Edward’s death.’

  Lovric stared at Godwin. For all his farmer’s forthrightness and good cheer, the man was full of guile. If henceforth he had to trust him, he would need to know more about the reasons for his willingness to cooperate fully with Siward and himself. He would have to probe.

  ‘My good lord,’ he began in his smoothest diplomatic manner. ‘It is not clear to me why Edith should not bear an heir to Edward. She is young, and the marriage is not yet three years old. One knows of many marriages that remained unfruitful for years, and yet eventually yielded several children.’

  Godwin said nothing and seemed unwilling to take the conversation further.

  Godiva put her hand on his, startling him with a gentle touch of sympathy. ‘It is hard to be a parent of grown children and watch them suffer life’s hardships.’

  Her words seemed to dissolve whatever pride or sorrow had been stopping the Earl of Wessex from getting to the heart of the matter. ‘As you must know,’ he said, still holding her hand and letting his speech stream out in a torrent, ‘for the whole country knows this – Edith’s marriage is not consummated. I thought this would be a passing matter. But now Edith tells her mother that Edward will never consummate the marriage. Never. Not that he can’t, but that he refuses to. The bastard will not bed my daughter.’

  Lovric frowned down at his hands. ‘I too had hoped the king’s marriage would eventually be consummated, and I too have started to think otherwise.’

  ‘But surely,’ Godiva intervened, ‘if Edward once took religious vows of celibacy, as some say, he is released from them, by the very act of marriage.’

  ‘He never took vows.’ Godwin spat into the corner of the room. ‘He would not bind himself to anything in this world. He wears the black Benedictine robe merely because he likes it. It is an affectation. He’s worn it ever since he arrived in Normandy, after his father died and his mother sent him away.’

  ‘Others say he is spiting his mother,’ Godiva continued. ‘Queen Emma will be angry to have no royal grandchildren. Perh
aps he will change . . .’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘It must have driven him mad when she married King Canute, and then produced heirs that we all preferred to Edward. To be betrayed, disinherited, by your own mother! But if he could forgive her, he might change and decide to have children.’

  Godwin seemed not to be listening, but brooding on something.

  ‘What does your wife think?’ Godiva went on, trying to draw him back into the discussion.

  ‘Oh, Gytha believes that is true,’ he said wearily. ‘She says that Edward’s story is like the tale the Danish scopmen tell about a prince of Denmark whose mother did something similar. A certain Hamlet. It left him so twisted in his mind that he could never decide anything or love any woman . . .’

  ‘And yet,’ Lovric interrupted, ‘I know that Edward can be decisive sometimes, and astute too.’

  ‘Intelligent, or learned?’ Godiva asked.

  ‘Both. He reads every day, and plays games that I haven’t even heard of. I used to play chess with him when I visited court, but no longer. It is embarrassing how quickly he checkmates me. As to his celibacy, I think it is a reasoned decision. I think it may be his way of avoiding assassination. As long as he remains married, we will keep hoping for heirs from him. Then, if we got one . . .’

  ‘No,’ Godwin said, leaning forward onto his hands and looking up from under his haggard brows. He seemed to have come to a decision. ‘Forgive me now, Godiva, for my coarse words. Lovric, I have to say this. The problem with our king is not about politics. It is about fucking. It is about men and women, birth and families. He hates it all.’

  He stood up suddenly and started circling the small room.

  ‘Go on, sir,’ Lovric said. ‘No one will ever learn from us what you have to say.’

  Godwin continued to pace the room, clasping and unclasping his hands. Like racing clouds, conflicting emotions showed on his face, one chasing the other, nothing lasting. Rage predominated, but disgust followed quickly, then pity and sorrow as he thought, perhaps, of his daughter. Afterwards came pride, making its case for silence, then fear and confusion as the need for comradeship and understanding from an equal came to the fore. In the end, with a gasp that almost resulted in tears, it was the last that prevailed. Godwin had to tell another man what was on his mind.