Godiva

by Nerys Jones

  ‘Very well,’ he said quietly. ‘Let it be known. Edith says that about three months after her marriage, the old queen mother came to see her, and brought with her two fine Norman whores, dressed as nuns. You see, Emma hoped the problem – the non-consummation of the marriage – was due to Edith’s inexperience. But when Edith told the whores what Edward had been doing, they shook their heads and went and told Emma she should not hope for grandchildren from this marriage. Men don’t change after thirty, they both agreed, not in this respect, and so there was nothing they could do. Now Edith was young, pretty enough and not half as innocent as everyone assumed. Gytha had made sure of that . . .’

  Lovric’s eyes met Godiva’s. They had both heard the rumours that Gytha was growing rich by finding the prettiest girls amongst the captives brought to the Wessex ports and selling them on at a huge profit, after a bit of polishing up, to the Danish emporia controlled by her kin. Of course Gytha would know what to tell Edith about bed-work with a man. But Godwin, unaware of the revulsion that had overtaken his guests, ploughed on.

  ‘. . . So our Edith was quite ready, for her part, to conceive heirs to the throne. But Edward was not. No, that man had other practices he much preferred to lying with a young woman, and Edith didn’t know what they meant. But the whores did, and apparently so did old Emma, for she went into one of her rages against Edward in which all that could be heard were the words “scopman”, in the sense of story-maker and joker, and “watchman,” and then “scopophiliac” – one who enjoys his own eyes more than his male parts – a word some learned man must have taught her, long ago, when she may once have tried to understand her son. I still don’t understand what this means myself. All I know is that Edith says he makes her dress up like a baby . . .’

  ‘Swaddling bands?’ Godiva asked.

  ‘Yes. Bunting. Then he calls her “baby” and “daughter” and she must cry and suck her thumb and call him “daddy”. And . . .’ Godwin put his head in his hands and continued in a whisper, ‘. . . there are worse things he does also, but I won’t say what they are. She consents to all this because the Norman whores told her that it was possible, if she lay very still and closed her eyes, that the king would quickly do the deed and she might conceive. But now,’ said Godwin, shaking his head in bitter disbelief, ‘after going through so much unnatural torment, Edith says that Edward refuses to beget an heir. She does what the whores suggested and it is almost successful. But then Edward, our king, spills his royal seed. On purpose. And he tells her it is his pleasure to continue to do so, and she, as queen, must submit to his pleasure.’

  Godiva looked up at Lovric and saw the embarrassment on his face.

  ‘Good lord,’ said Lovric, ‘you did not have to tell me so much. This is shameful to your daughter, and to your noble house. And to you, my friend.’

  But Godwin refused to be cheered by this promise of friendship from his oldest rival, and seemed to want to unburden himself further.

  ‘He will devise some torture for you, too,’ he said, looking at Godiva, ‘something inventive and entertaining, something that will make you want to rise in rebellion. His pleasure, you see, is in putting you in his own position – of having to suffer people he can’t endure, such as his mother, and us, the earls. He enjoys making you want to rebel, because he knows you won’t do it – it is not in your interest – and so you must sit there at his command, itching and unable to scratch. That’s what he wants to watch. That is why his mother calls him the jester, the scopman, and the watchman. He teases, like a cruel child tormenting the servants’ children, and this can drive grown men to fury because he is the king and none of us are children. No one knows how to respond, or even what game he is playing.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Lovric cautiously, ‘I will take heed, Godwin. I will be alert for provocation and try not to respond. There is no doubt that we must keep the country at peace until there is a better English heir in sight. Or else we will be ruled by foreign lords again.’

  Godwin stood up now and shook Lovric’s hand. Suddenly he looked younger, like a man who had put down a heavy burden.

  ‘Come,’ he said, ‘we have talked enough. The light is still good. We have time to walk the White Horse’s back together.’

  ‘You too?’ Godiva asked, surprised.

  ‘I go there twice a year. I go on my own and place my coin at the centre of the eye. The old woman picks it up later. She keeps the donations of pilgrims in a chest,’ he nodded at the other room, ‘and whenever an impoverished woman is in labour she sends money for the midwife, or a wet nurse if the mother dies.’

  ‘Many years ago I went there to try to conceive,’ Godiva said. ‘And afterwards I got Harry. I went back once after that to give thanks, as one must. This time, I will make a greater offering for his life, and his brother’s.’

  ‘I go there,’ Godwin said, ‘to look across at Alfred’s Castle and tell myself that I must not give up his work. Strange, isn’t it, that I, the grandson of a farmer, should be carrying on the great king’s fight, while the man with full royal blood sits idly on his throne, playing despicable games? Matters have not gone as we expected. When Edith married Edward, I thought of hanging up my sword and going to live in peace in a monastery. I don’t think of that any more. There is more danger now to Wessex, and all the regions and islands of Britain, as each year passes and Edward remains childless on the throne and his Norman friends circle like vultures, waiting for the death of Alfred’s kingdom.’

  It was a strange little procession that left the priests’ house a few minutes later: two famous earls in ordinary clothing, a beautiful lady carrying a heavy bag of money, a pretty maid with her eyes agog and a priest who was frantically thumbing his rosary. As they neared the point of departure on the hillside where pilgrims stepped into the trench and the deep carved line of the horse’s back began, Godiva raised her eyes and beheld, spread all around them, the hearth fires of dozens of Wessex farms, lighting up for the night, warming the mothers and fathers, children and servants who were coming together after their day’s work, all thanking God for the peace that let them do so, and some thanking the Goddess for the new life that lay quietly suckling in a corner of the room. Oh, dear mother Mary, she prayed, let us have peace, no matter what this king of ours may do.

  ‘I was thinking,’ Lovric said, breaking the silence as they walked back later to the priests’ house. ‘Perhaps, if you would arrange an escort for her, Godwin, my wife should go back now to Coventry.’

  ‘No,’ Godiva exclaimed, ‘I intend to see Alfgar and Harry. Nothing could change my mind.’

  ‘It might be better, though . . .’

  ‘No.’ Godwin cut into their growing argument. ‘Edith says that Edward is looking forward to meeting Godiva again, at court this time, as you plead for Alfgar’s life. If you cheat him of his desires he’ll take some revenge. He has both your boys in his hands, remember.’

  He rubbed the sweat from his brow and Godiva, looking at him carefully, could see that he really was a man on the cusp of age, a man who would have been well placed in the walled herb garden of some luxurious monastery, not travelling the roads of the kingdom trying to keep at bay its slowly approaching doom. He took her hand and kissed it, and then in a whisper told her to be strong and wise in dealing with whatever the future held for her. They watched him go alone, down a bridle path that went due south towards his nearest manor house. In the distance they could see torches, moving towards him in a neat column. His bodyguard would meet him soon, probably at the ford over the small river in the valley below, and then the guard assigned to protect Lovric and Godiva would come and lead them on to wherever they would spend the night. It would have been the same had Godwin come to Lovric’s Mercia – the same distrust, the same protection, the same formality. You could almost think this is a safe country in which we live, thought Godiva. Safe and so dignified. How hard, then, to understand why it should be quaking beneath our feet, not from the tramp of foreign armies, but as thou
gh the solid British rock and turf on which we stand is composed of quicksand, caverns and reeking, treacherous bogs, pitted with holes and inhabited by hidden enemies. She crossed herself again: it was time to ride once more.

  Four

  As the moon emerged from between thinning clouds, the Wessex captain led the horses down a gravel path towards the banks of a fast-flowing, powerful stream and the entrance to the upper decks of a wooden mill house. The horses, along with Agatha and Father Godric, were taken off at once to separate quarters in the nearby hamlet that housed the carpenters, masons and other attendants of the mill, while Godiva and Lovric were brought into the miller’s house to rest for the night. The miller and his wife greeted them correctly, made no attempt at small talk and showed them at once to a large open room that contained a bed, a table laden with food and wine and everything a guest could want for the night.

  ‘Wessex hospitality!’ the miller said, allowing himself one pleasantry and pointing at the sacks of flour that lined the walls of the room. ‘Earl Godwin likes to send me his special guests.’

  Lovric could see why. The sound of the rushing water and the clattering of the turning wheel drowned out all other noise. The bags of flour would further hinder any eavesdroppers with their ears to the walls. Lovric and Godiva ate alone and in silence for a while, as each reviewed the events of the day.

  ‘That was a strange meeting,’ Godiva said at last, putting down her tankard of beer. ‘Godwin could have won your friendship without shaming himself like that. I can’t see what he gained from it.’

  But I can, Lovric thought, continuing to gnaw at his ham bone. He saw into me at that meeting. He knows that Edward ordered me to bring Godiva to Winchester. That she herself now wants to come is irrelevant: I would have persuaded her anyway. Godwin has guessed that I’ve told her nothing about the king’s orders. He and I are sharing a similar humiliation. Edward is playing with us endlessly, and we can’t stop him, short of hurling his chess board in his face and starting a war that we can’t afford. It is right that Godwin and I strengthen our alliance; we have this shame in common. And yet, I do not trust him. He has left his daughter to the king’s mercies, and today he exposed her to my scorn, and Godiva’s, too. Something is happening in the House of Godwin. Some secret crumbling.

  ‘And why was he so sure the king expects me in Winchester?’ Godiva went on, ignoring his silence. ‘Is Edward guessing that I’ll appear, or did you make him a promise, Lovric?’

  ‘No,’ he lied, longing to tell her the truth, but afraid she might start to despise him. It was better that she did not know. ‘Let us talk about Edith,’ he said, putting the bone down and wiping his hands. ‘Some may pity her, but she is still the queen, and no matter what her father and brothers may think, there is every chance she will want to remain queen. She will continue to please and indulge Edward. She will see you as a rival, because of your beauty and because you have children. And he will see you as challenging him, because of your priory. Only the king may shine with holiness in this land, Godiva.’

  ‘I had the same thought about Edith,’ she replied. ‘If she can’t have children, she must be worrying about her future.’

  ‘Indeed she is. It is said she is growing closer to two of her brothers – her many hungry brothers. She will be trying to get them lands . . .’

  ‘Mine!’ Godiva gasped.

  ‘No, Eva. There are easier targets for Edith’s schemes.’

  ‘I’m not so sure, Lovric. You are away so much, and we have very few men-at-arms at Cheylesmore. We are not so far from the northern Wessex border, and if something were to happen, if some of the sons of Godwin came over . . .’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare,’ he said, taking her hand again.

  But Godiva, deep in thought, didn’t respond.

  ‘My love,’ he said anxiously, ‘when we are in Winchester, don’t mingle too much. The less you have to do with Edward or Edith, the better.’

  Godiva made no reply. Then she seemed to nod agreement. Lovric felt his heart sink. In Winchester she would have to dissemble and calculate. That was not the Godiva he knew and loved. Oh God, he swore into his beard and clenched his fist round the hilt of his sword. How sweet it would be at this very moment to plunge cold steel into the royal viscera and relieve England of Edward, that obstruction lodged high up in its bowels, bringing misery and holding back the life of the whole country.

  Lovric took his hand off the hilt, gave Godiva an unconvincing pat of reassurance on her arm, and asked for her help in unbuckling his belt and getting him ready for bed. Five minutes later the earl, who never lost a minute’s sleep even in howling storms on the night before battle, was dead to the world, while beside him lay his wife, listening to the tumbling water and worrying about her captive sons and, for the first time since marrying Lovric, worrying profoundly about her own future, too.

  From the Vale of the White Horse the route to Winchester lay south and east through countryside that was less wet and forested than southern Mercia, and that seemed altogether older as a site of human habitation. The ride became pleasanter now that the prospect before them was downland, open fields and meadows, rather than woodland, coppice and tall marsh grass. Lovric made such an effort to keep up the spirits of his small party – Godiva, Agatha and Father Godric – that even the taciturn Wessex captain of the guard joined in the banter and started telling southern jokes, the sort of village jokes that didn’t travel well and which none of the Mercians had heard before. Lovric roared with laughter as though he had nothing more challenging ahead of him than a pleasant ride along a well-maintained road in good weather.

  Godiva, unable to produce more than the occasional tepid smile, wondered about his state of mind. He must be terribly anxious to display such exaggerated good cheer. This was what he did, he told her, when he had to lead his men into battle on the following dawn. But whatever awaited them in Winchester, it was probably nothing Lovric had fought before.

  They came to a stop at a rendezvous point beside a ford on the River Kennet. Here the Wessex guard handed over the duty of escorting the Earl of Mercia to a small detachment of Lovric’s own men, drawn from amongst those who had come down with him from Coventry. The captain of the Mercians greeted Lovric and Godiva, bowed coldly to his Wessex counterpart and then led his party straight on until they were out of view of Godwin’s men. But at the first sheltered spot on the path that ran above the river they slowed down, and the captain approached Lovric to deliver his news.

  ‘My lord,’ he began, ‘the rest of your men are with Earl Siward in Winchester, awaiting your arrival. Sir, I was sent back here to meet you after we were stopped by an envoy of the king.’

  Lovric tried to conceal his dismay. ‘So, the king knows about my meeting with Earl Godwin?’

  ‘It appears so, sir.’

  Lovric, distracted, let his gaze wander over his soldiers as he tried to weigh the implications of the latest news. Suddenly his eyes alighted on Bret, sitting in the middle of the other soldiers on a stallion that belonged to one of Lovric’s oldest followers.

  ‘What is Bret doing here, on Cenric’s horse?’ he demanded.

  ‘Bret rides stirrupless, sir,’ said the captain, ‘and Siward thought it would not look right, to parade to Winchester gate with him in the midst of your guard and his feet hanging down like two dirty socks, sir.’

  ‘And Cenric?’

  ‘He and Bret exchanged horses. Cenric’s stallion prefers to have the stirrups off.’

  Lovric nodded amiably at Bret.

  ‘Earl Siward instructs me to tell Earl Lovric, sir,’ the captain of the guard went on. ‘The king commands that the Earl of Mercia and the lady go at once, on arrival in the city, to Winchester prison, sir.’

  Lovric, knowing the captain was watching him for any twitch of fear, remained motionless.

  ‘The king,’ the captain continued, ‘has said that you are to be permitted an interview there, sir, in the prison. With Lord Alfgar.’

 
Godiva had been sitting silently all this while, preoccupied and confused by the sudden fast beating of her heart at the sight of Bret so near by. As though bitten by a snake, she swivelled in her saddle.

  ‘Prison! Why isn’t Alfgar in the king’s quarters? What does this mean, Lovric?’

  It usually meant only one thing: that the prisoner would be tortured to extract information, and then either blinded and castrated or hanged like a thief. Edward rarely used his prisons for anything else. Anyone he meant to spare was exiled at once. Lovric knew this and so did his men, and now he saw them all staring at him, sullen, anxious and looking for leadership.

  ‘It means I must talk with the king as soon as possible.’ Then he leaned over to Godiva and in a whisper told her to get ready for fast riding, adding, ‘If Alfgar has been harmed, I will raise the fyrd all over Mercia and go to war against the king.’

  Their arrival in Winchester a few hours later lacked all the usual pageantry that accompanied a nobleman’s entry with his retinue into a walled royal town. They reached the approaches of the city under cover of darkness, and were stopped at a good distance before the city wall by a heavily armed officer who brusquely ordered Lovric’s guard to hand over their weapons and go to the housecarls’ quarters near the south wall. King’s men now surrounded Lovric, Godiva, Agatha and Father Godric, and marched them off on foot as though they were under arrest. Godiva noticed that Agatha was trembling and had started to cry.

  ‘Not one tear!’ she snapped at the girl. ‘You represent me. Make Father Godric pray with you quietly.’

  Shuddering with fear, Godric began to stutter out the paternoster, so quietly that it did nothing to calm Agatha’s apprehension. Only Godiva’s stern glances did that.