by Nerys Jones
But the king was no archer, Lovric mused. He got up and began to pace the room noisily. Edward’s game was chess, a game at which he, Lovric, was a novice in comparison. All he could do now was watch out for the king’s next move. In contrast, he reflected, his marriage was no chess game. God be thanked, his wife was his partner, not his opponent, and certainly not a pawn in any game. He had to treat her accordingly – stop deceiving her, as Ivar had been quick to point out; talk to her frankly instead. Then she could choose thoughtfully what to do the next time they were apart from each other. It was only fair.
He stumbled over a small stool that stood in the shadows and cursed it. Godiva stirred and put her arm across the embroidered coverlet. Lovric picked up her hand and kissed the underside of her forearm, and kept kissing it until her eyes opened.
‘Hush! I know,’ he said. ‘There was no help for it. It was just an accident.’
‘Edith . . .’
‘Ignore that. She is less important than she thinks she is. The important thing is whether you should stay on with me, here in Winchester.’
‘I hate this place.’ She sat up and clasped his hands in hers. ‘But, Lovric, the king still has Harry. I need to comfort the boy and make good arrangements for him. His food, his bedding, his candles . . . I haven’t even started on these matters yet. No, I must stay.’
‘You have the right to make this choice, Eva. But if you stay, promise me you won’t go anywhere without me again. Do you promise?’
‘Of course.’
‘Eva, listen,’ he said abruptly. ‘Do you remember that you asked me whether I’d promised the king to bring you here? I avoided your question. The truth is, Edward commanded me to bring you, on pain of Alfgar’s life. I’m sorry, I deceived you.’
He looked so wretched, his shoulders so bowed with worries, that she sat up and put an arm round his neck and kissed him.
‘Whyever would Edward tell you to bring me here?’
‘Who knows? To see you suffer as you did in the prison, or to make Edith jealous. It could be any reason at all, depending on what fancy occupies his mind now. I’m not even sure if he remembers his command.’
‘Listen, Lovric. I’m not angry about this. You’ve always kept some things from me – for my own good, you say – and this wasn’t much of a deception. It changed nothing. I would have come with you anyway, once I knew Harry was being brought here as a captive.’
Lovric looked down at his hands.
‘We are apart so long, so often,’ she continued. ‘Gaps open up between us, and then there are misunderstandings. But we are happy when we can be together and nothing comes between us.’
We are happy because she is forbearing, he thought, and remembering how only moments ago he had despised her kindness as weakness and gullibility, he felt ashamed again. This would not do. He got up and paced round the room. He had to regain command of himself. And so did she.
‘Eva, if you were on a battlefield with me, I would tell you to get back up on your horse, brandish your sword and find your enemy. You need to confront Edith and face her down. Show her you don’t give a damn about this afternoon.’
‘How?’
‘Come with me tonight to the feast at the king’s castle. Edward will be satisfied if he sees you there – it’ll show him I am still obedient. And Edith will be furious.’
‘That’s not exactly brandishing a sword, is it? It would be a gesture and no more. And empty gestures are childish and trivial. I’d rather confront Edward and accuse him of lying about Alfgar to favour his Normans. I’d like to do that at the feast tonight.’
Her voice had suddenly grown cold and Lovric didn’t like it. She was right: he wanted her to make a gesture only, but no real attack on their enemies. He wanted her to remain soft, warm and waiting for him, not armed and fighting. And yet he knew she was good with the bow and the sword – Alfgar boasted how well he had taught her, and Odo joked that he’d follow her into combat any day. And no one could handle a horse better than she. He was keeping her in her place, or trying to, for his sake as well as hers. And he was failing, for even at home alone in Coventry, she was building up a town and an abbey, making money and gaining influence. And he? He was making play-war, feinting with gestures to parry Edward’s gestures. He felt weak and disgraceful.
She was looking away from him towards the fire. He stared at her searchingly, finding again in her face that disturbing vision that sometimes emerged from her beauty, of a more chiselled profile, a sterner brow, an older heroine – but not at all what he wanted in his bed and at his board. She turned towards him and for a moment a spasm of fear flew up his spine.
‘I’ve been meaning to say this for some time, Lovric, but I hesitated because you don’t like me to interfere with your affairs. From everything you’ve said over the last two years – since we lost Hereford – it seems to me you should declare war on Edward. You and the other two earls. This cold, uncertain peace is nothing but a torment for everyone. What do you have to lose?’
It was the opening he knew he should take. Tell her plainly that this was his plan, and that it was already in motion. But he couldn’t. They would have to talk for days on end about all the details, the dangers and unforeseeable factors. And what would he gain from that? Nothing but endless worry that she might let slip some crucial piece of knowledge; or worse, that she would come under suspicion before she could reach safety, and be captured and tortured. It didn’t bear thinking about.
‘No, Eva. There must not be civil war in England. Not ever, if possible.’
‘Better that than a Norman conquest.’
‘It won’t come to that. Anyway, we’ll talk about this again, I promise,’ he said, half-believing himself. ‘But as for now, we should take a small meal before we begin to dress for the night. It will be late before we eat again, and I doubt that our entertainment will take our minds off our hunger. Edward says we will be treated to choral music sung by monks, and readings from the Psalms throughout the evening. Don’t expect to laugh much. But look your best: make Edith of Wessex red-hot with envy. You will feel better, believe me.’
‘There’s only one thing that will do that.’
‘Harry. Yes, I know.’
The king’s castle, being built of heavy timber and surrounded by a deep ditch, was far less grand and modern in appearance than the cathedral, and certainly less beautiful. And yet in the fading twilight of the summer evening, as it blazed with militant welcome and scores of torches illumined the lawn before the great gate, it possessed a grim beauty of its own. Here the king’s relatives, thegns, bishops and foreign guests, and the few great ladies who attended such occasions, assembled before going in formal procession through the entrance. Despite Edward’s great love for the monastic life, the castle conveyed a clear impression of its overwhelming importance in matters of state. This was the place where the leading generals and their lieutenants would come together peaceably to talk over food and drink with the king and his advisers. It was the soldiers’ world, the world of those who fought all the time, just as the cathedral was the domain of those who prayed ceaselessly. Its location in the southwest of the town, just within the walls, enhanced its military atmosphere, for in this quarter of the town the disarmed retainers of the lords and bishops were lodged, and here they strolled around in the evenings, taunting and eyeing each other menacingly.
Late in the evening Godiva and Lovric approached the castle through a gauntlet of young soldiers. Lovric looked around, hoping to see the faces of his own men of Mercia, and for a moment thought he glimpsed Bret amongst a group of armed king’s men. But then he was gone and Lovric doubted that it was Bret after all. Once more, he resented the feeling of powerlessness that he had on the streets of Winchester and wanted to hurry into the castle and go straight to the great hall where the feast would take place. But protocol forbade such haste. Lovric and Godiva had to stand around and cool their heels like everyone else and wait for the heralds to sort them out in order of rank.
Once the long line of worthies had been chivvied into place, the guests could proceed to enter the castle, but this procession too went at a slow and stately pace, for everyone had to pass before the careful gaze of the door-wardens, whose duty was the detection of impersonators and gatecrashers.
As they lingered near the front of the emerging line of guests, Lovric saw many faces that he knew, and a few that he had hoped never to see again.
‘That group of men, all talking to each other and with their backs to everyone else, who are they?’ Godiva asked.
‘King’s thegns, all of them,’ he whispered. ‘They were present at the cathedral today when the charters were confirmed, all signing, though I’m sure half of them can’t write a word other than their own name. The big one with the long red hair is Ordgar. He was Ealdorman of Devon under King Canute, and now he’s on his way up in Edward’s favour. His brother is over there, also with long hair. They are good men. But that one,’ he said, indicating with a tip of his head a burly, short man who was talking with Ordgar, ‘that one is Orc. Greedy, and none too clever about it. He won’t last much longer in the inner circle. The others are – let’s see – Karl, Osgot Clapa and Thored, all Danes, but all men committed to Edward’s rule. The rest are Saxons: there’s Odda of Deerhurst, a kinsman of Edward, and Ordwulf, Beorhtric and the three Alfs. That’s Aelfweard, Aelfgar and Aelfstan, all Wessex men of course, and all sensitive about any favours bestowed on Normans.’
‘Are there any Normans here tonight?’
‘Not many. Edward is trying to reassure the House of Godwin that it will not be supplanted soon by men of Normandy. But over there, amongst those clerics, that man in the beautiful robes is Robert de Champart, Bishop of Jumie`ges. He came over from Normandy with Edward, who trusts him completely.’
‘Robert de Champart – that woman Estrith’s patron?’
‘And lover. Yes.’
The line of guests had now acquired proper form and it seemed they might soon start the entrance procession into the castle, when a commotion broke out amongst the heralds and orderlies standing at the far end of the line.
‘Let me go forward! Forward, I say!’ A strong female voice, heavily enriched with Danish vowels, rang out above the hum of the crowd. ‘I am invited, and even if I am not, I have every right to be here. My children’s grandmother was Edith, daughter of King Ethelred. She was a sister of King Edward . . .’
‘Half-sister,’ someone shouted.
Someone else said, ‘Let her be. She’s the only laugh we’ll get tonight.’
‘And my mother was sister to King Canute,’ the woman roared. ‘And my father was King of the Wends and ruled the North Sea . . .’
‘Pirate-king,’ yelled the first heckler.
‘In any case, I was invited by the king,’ she shouted again. ‘Go and find out, you idle dogs!’
The senior door-warden disappeared inside the castle and came back out quickly.
‘Humble apologies, great lady. Your place is at the head of the table, just before Earl Lovric of Mercia, and his lady, Godiva.’ He paused. ‘And your children are also kindly invited to the feast.’
At this Gunnhildr came storming up the line to take her place before Lovric. She was a big, dull blonde, much burdened with Baltic jewellery, and seemed to have faded greatly with the years, so grey was her visage. But now she was incandescent with unquenched rage. She stopped in front of Godiva, her eyes blazing.
‘And who are you?’ she demanded. ‘Yes, yes, I know who your husband is. But who are you? Why are you here? Who are your father and brothers, and what lands do they hold? Where are your own lands?’
‘Coventry. And many other parts of Warwickshire and the midlands of England,’ Godiva replied calmly, slight amusement showing at her mouth. ‘My brother is Thorkell, Sheriff of Leicester . . .’
‘Is that all? Well, we,’ said Gunnhildr, pointing at her two terrified little boys, ‘all have royal blood. And that is why I come before your husband in the line tonight.’ That said, she raised her imposing chin and looked past them to survey the other guests in the line, all of whom dropped their gaze as her eyes locked with theirs.
Lovric groaned inwardly; this woman was to be his chief dinner companion tonight. He could already feel his stomach acid flowing towards the patch where it hurt like fire. But there was no help for it. The line was moving forward, with Gunnhildr leading the way.
All went smoothly at first. The king’s guests lined up soberly beside the vast, long, dining table and the narrow cushioned benches that ran alongside it. Once they were in their places the royal trumpeters announced the king’s entrance, and all eyes turned to take in the sight of King Edward, processing slowly towards his ceremonial seat on a dais at the far end of the hall. Smiling and nodding benignly, he rustled forward slowly in his silks, giving all his guests an opportunity to examine every extraordinary inch of his robes. He was wearing tonight an ankle-length gown of dark blue, over which there sat a shorter tunic of undyed silk, richly patterned with roundels encircling pairs of panthers and griffins, all arranged in rows with pairs of hawks and doves between them. The tunic was closed by a row of gold toggles the size of acorns, and drawn in at the waist with a broad brocaded belt whose fringed ends, embroidered with fleurs-de-lis, fell to below his knees. He wore the tunic over a dazzling white silk shirt, whose hemlines at his neck and again at his wrists were finished with gold embroidery. And even though the banquet tonight was not of great state importance, he wore on his head a light replica of his coronation crown and carried in his hand a full-size copy of his sceptre. So splendid, and so very tall was Edward, that few noticed his queen walking beside him, draped in pale swathes of bland silk and drawing no attention away from the radiance of his majesty, whose ceremonial clothes she had herself embroidered.
As the envious guests remained standing, servants hurried to fill the tankards with beer and the goblets with wine, performing the role of the lady of the hall, a role that Queen Edith would not lower herself to play at this stage in the feast. Then a hush descended on the crowd as the king’s chief steward stepped into the centre of the room and raised the old hunting horn to sound the call that would commence the feast. It was an eerie, thrilling sound, one that reminded everyone how often kings and thegns had met and feasted in this place before, and how many steps had led to those who were present being here tonight, to be honoured and affirmed, while some rival skulked at home or lay in a poor grave.
The trumpet fell silent and loud chatter started up as everyone sat down and greeted those next to them. Large wooden platters were placed before the guests, each one resting on a big flat square of bread, where the night’s spills of gravy, grease, wine and beer would collect and soak into the bread, so that when it arrived next morning in the mouths of the poor, the crumbs from the king’s table would taste of the feast on which the rich had dined.
Immediately afterwards the serving dishes and bowls appeared, some so large they were borne by three servants, one at each handle and a third fishing out whatever choice pieces a guest demanded. Godiva, because of Gunnhildr’s loud voice, was unable to converse with Lovric, or with the man on her right, because he was drunk already and in danger of vomiting soon. She concentrated therefore on the long meal that lay ahead of her. She started with a pastry pie stuffed with larks’ tongues, and then progressed quickly to slices of beef served with white bread, carrots and cabbage, mustard and horseradish. She gave the pork chops and chicken breasts that followed less attention, but all around her men were eating with undiminished appetite as dish followed dish, and whether delicate and luxurious like the oyster paste and the preserved quail’s eggs, or coarse and common like the pigs’ trotters and ox tails, everything was consumed with equal gusto. The only thing amiss, though no one seemed to care, was that the king wasn’t eating at all. As for the queen, she merely picked fastidiously at her food and stared with unconcealed disgust at the earthliness of all around her. Edward too stared at those before him, but with a l
ook of distant amusement and curiosity, as though the real feast for him was the sight of those he saw sitting before him and what might happen to them in the course of the evening.
At last, as the chewing slowed down and people began to talk more, Edward rose to his feet. The steward called for attention and then the king cleared his throat, smiled and turned to Gunnhildr.
‘Dear lady,’ he said, ‘kindly step forward.’
‘Me?’ asked Gunnhildr disbelievingly.
‘Yes. Beloved Gunnhildr. You. Come now, don’t be shy. Step forward.’
The room grew silent quickly as people murmured, pointing out to each other how the corpulent Gunnhildr was struggling to swing her legs over the bench and get out of her place at the table. Lovric got up to help her and saw that Gunnhildr’s brashness had vanished.
‘And the children,’ said Edward. ‘Let them stand before me too, that we may see them clearly.’
Gunnhildr froze, but then she found her voice and called the two little boys, who came forward happily, mistaking this attention as a sign of kindness to come.
‘I hear you dance well, Gunnhildr, and sing too.’
She shook her head in mute protest, but Edward clapped his hands and a flautist appeared, accompanied by a drummer. They started playing a fast dance that was almost a jig and Edward clapped along with them.
‘Now dance, all three of you,’ he said.
None of them knew any steps to such music, and Gunnhildr had to improvise and tell the boys what to do. In minutes they were stumbling and tripping her, while she pretended to smile and enjoy herself as she broke into a sweat and turned red.
‘Enough!’ the king announced. ‘You disappoint me, Gunnhildr. You dance like a Russian bear. Try now to sing.’