Godiva

by Nerys Jones

  ‘Good sir!’ Godiva replied, too taken aback to make appropriate conversation.

  ‘May I offer you my protection to the door of the cathedral?’ Bret responded with complete composure, ignoring Godiva’s embarrassment.

  ‘Not necessary!’ Godric interrupted.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Godiva replied, and at that Bret took Godric’s place at Godiva’s right side, leaving the chaplain to walk before them, swinging his staff angrily and repeating maledictus est to himself in a low growl.

  Bret did not take Godiva’s arm as her priest was permitted to. He merely walked so close to her side that his arm brushed against hers. The group of soldiers who had been with him now found their voices again and could be heard talking loudly, joking and occasionally laughing. Godric turned to glare at them, and for the first time noticed that they all wore over their chain-mail armour a white tunic emblazoned with the motif of a red cross. Devotees of St George, the patron saint of professional, mercenary soldiers, he knew, and wondered what they might be doing so far south as Winchester. He scowled at them and from their sudden silence knew they had been commenting on Godiva and her huntsman.

  ‘How do you find Winchester?’ Godiva asked Bret, keeping her eyes away from his.

  ‘Well, lady,’ Bret answered. ‘I have made my donation at the shrine of St Swithun and heard the sound of a great organ for the first time. It is just as men describe it – a sound that seems to have come from the days of the creation of the world. But still, all your men of Coventry look forward to going home. There’s nothing like a summer’s day in the forest.’

  ‘Yes. I look forward to that, too,’ she replied as naturally as she could. ‘I must come to the hunting lodge by the West Orchard and inspect our bridle paths. It’s a long time since I did that. Who is there now?’

  ‘John, the chief forester. My lodge is deeper in the forest.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, unable to think what else to say about the forest and thereby put off parting from Bret.

  Sensing he was about to be dismissed, he dropped to one knee in the new Norman fashion and took hold of her hand and kissed it. To everyone watching it looked like a normal gesture of politeness – formal, stylised and elegant when performed by a man as lithe as Bret. But to Godiva it was no such thing. It was the first time she had felt his lips. It was a disastrous kiss, a catastrophe of skin and nerves, blood and heart. She might as well have been standing naked at the cathedral steps for all that she could prevent the world from seeing what she was feeling. Her heart was throbbing in her throat and not a single syllable of sense came out of her mouth.

  Godric sprang to her rescue. ‘Off with you now, good sir,’ he said gruffly. ‘Mistress needs to be at her prayers. And then she must hurry back to your master, Earl Lovric.’

  Bret gave Godric a courteous little nod of acknowledgement, relieved that the chaplain had not been more openly rude, and walked off. As he went, Godiva’s eyes followed him, unable to prevent herself from imagining his body beneath his clothing to be supple, smooth and strong, and longing so much to feel his kiss again that even his slight list seemed to be part of the essence of what made him magical. Suddenly, as she still watched, Bret stopped, accosted by an old monk. They talked only briefly, as though the monk were a pilgrim asking for directions, and then Bret disappeared, leaving Godiva feeling that the life had drained out of her.

  ‘Well, lady, unless you wish me to pray with you, I will leave you now,’ Godric said, in frosty tones such as Godiva had never heard from the placid priest before. Godiva ignored him. She had done nothing wrong and he could think what he liked, sinful fellow that he was.

  ‘Good priest,’ she replied tartly. ‘I will pray alone, for both of us.’ Then she disappeared into the shadows of the vestibule at the mouth of the cathedral.

  But her hopes for peace and solitude were dashed when she entered the nave. First it was the low buzz of prayer and conversation that she noticed, and the scudding and dragging of many feet and robes in motion, but then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the dim light, she saw them: the masses of sick pilgrims who had come in from the precinct, and with them, keeping them in order, the cathedral canons, deacons, vergers and others who worked here, and the many monks whose home was in the cloisters and the Benedictine city attached to the cathedral. These people, filling the nave and in constant motion, made it look more like a place of business than a retreat for tired souls seeking solace. This was what it meant to have a successful saint’s cult in a big cathedral – indeed, this is how she would like Coventry to become one day, though inevitably on a smaller scale. Peace and prayer, she realized, would not be found here, in the central part of the cathedral, but off in some remote recess at the side.

  Godiva therefore left the nave and started walking under the low pointed arches of one of the aisles. But even this was congested and she found herself moving forward in what seemed like a procession, though where it was going was hard to tell. Chapels opened up all along the aisle, offering the opportunity to make devotions to a favourite saint, but every one of them seemed as full as the aisle itself. Here and there she glimpsed plaques set into the stone slabs of the floor, and nearby the solemn carved sarcophagus of some royal or episcopal person – members of the ruling line of the West Saxon royal house, she knew, and also, because they had accepted Christ, Canute and other recent Danish kings.

  Suddenly she found she was alongside the Lady Chapel, the main chapel for the veneration of the Virgin. This was not behind the high altar as it usually was, and so, surprised and pleased, she pushed her way in amongst the crowd that was jostling to buy tapers and to kneel briefly on the hard floor and pray. As she worked her way towards the altar, a small side-entrance came into view. Through this she could see another chapel, which seemed from its tapestry depicting the crucifixion to be for the veneration of Mary, Mother of Sorrows. This, she knew, was where she wanted to be, praying to the mater dolorosa on behalf of her beloved young son. But a locked and gilded gate barred the entrance and Godiva had to content herself with standing beside it and murmuring Ave Maria as others elbowed past, determined to place a lighted incense stick before the altar of Mary in Glory. Her eyes were shut and so she did not see who opened the gilded gate. All she knew was that a voice whispered that if she wanted to come in, she should enter quickly so that the gate could be shut behind her at once. The speaker, in black robes, presented only his back to her view and then he was gone. As Godiva stepped forward into the chapel she found she had entered a treasury of jewel-encrusted silver altar plate, silk-woven tapestries, thick gold candlesticks and intricately carved wood. Some incense she had never encountered before – a compound of frankincense and rose, she thought – suffused the air and added to the atmosphere of heavenly richness. Entranced, she stared straight at the main altar for a few minutes, and only after saying another prayer did she become aware that yet another chapel lay behind the altar of Mary of Sorrows. And from there came the sound of music. Someone, it seemed, was playing very softly on a small organ, a miniature of the huge instrument that had recently been installed beside the cathedral’s high altar. The faintness of the melody seemed like a plea for privacy, a demand for solitude at prayer and contemplation, and answered to her needs perfectly. Despite the mysteriousness of the labyrinth of chapels, and the gate that was now locked behind her, she stepped forward without hesitation, drawn hypnotically on by the music into the peace that it seemed to promise.

  Inside it was almost completely dark. The music was coming from behind another door, which was shut, and through small cracks in it came faint glimmers of light. Godiva looked around and found it impossible to tell what kind of chapel this might be. It could have been devotional, with an altar to one of the lesser-known aspects of the Virgin or her mother; or it could have been a chantry, where mass was offered for the soul of a rich donor; but it seemed so small and secluded that it might even be a confessional. She groped around and found what seemed to be a pew, a very small one tha
t would hold only three or four people. Then she sat down, closed her eyes and let the music carry her away.

  It seemed that this heavenly interlude lasted for a long time, though perhaps it was no more than five minutes. Then, rather as one smells rain even before the sky clouds over, she became aware of a presence somewhere in the dark behind her. The realization stole upon her for no apparent reason, for whoever might be there was utterly still and silent. And yet, once aware of the presence, she could no longer hear the music, or retain any sense of the peace that had so gently embraced her since she had entered this secluded chamber. It had gone completely, as though she had never felt it, and in its place came an engulfing fear that began to suck the air from the room. She turned abruptly and surprised herself by calling out loudly, ‘Who is there?’ The only answer was a deep sigh from the darkest corner of the room.

  The door to the organ room opened and Godiva spun round in the pew. The organ was surrounded by dozens of candles and the room was filled with a light softer than daylight but almost as strong. Against this backdrop a short monk appeared in black silhouette, his arms stretched before him and holding aloft a big, ornate crucifix that Godiva knew she had seen before. The monk, she realized, was the man who was with the king in prison, when Alfgar had been there. According to Alfgar, he was known as Father Francis, the king’s secret confessor. Others called him the Saxon traitor-priest.

  ‘Godiva.’

  The voice seemed to come from behind the monk, who was still standing motionless at the threshold to the little room, still holding the crucifix aloft. Godiva stared so hard at the organ room, trying to discover who had called to her, that she barely noticed, low on the floor at the monk’s feet, something that appeared to be little more than a bundle of black cloth. Then this obscure figure spoke to her.

  ‘Come here, my child. Come and pray with me.’

  A long white hand reached up to her, its jewelled fingers glistening in the candle light.

  ‘Come down on the floor and pray with me in the dust of which we are all made, and to which we so quickly return.’

  ‘Your majesty!’ she whispered, unable to move.

  ‘Not majesty, except on Earth, but your brother in Christ eternal. Come, Godiva.’

  As she approached hesitantly, he signalled with his hand for her to fall to her knees beside him. Edward then began to say the Lord’s Prayer. Godiva accompanied him, but her thoughts were not on prayer at all, though that is what she had longed for and in just such a place as this. But not like this; not in fear. Not one godly thought occupied her mind: all she could think of was whether she could find her way back through the maze of chapels and side-chapels and get out quickly into the daylight and the streets of the town.

  But this was not to be, for no sooner had Edward reached the end of the prayer in Latin than he began it again in English. ‘Faeder ure, ddu dde eart on heofonum,’ he prayed as slowly as possible, drawing out each word as though to emphasize the purity of his Saxon enunciation, notwithstanding his many Norman manners and habits. While this was going on, the deacon who had played the organ came into the room and started to drape the monk, Father Francis, in a long white chasuble, over which he placed the richest stole that Godiva had ever seen round a priest’s neck. Then he hurried around at the altar, placing on it with great care the chalice for the wine and the pyx for the consecrated bread.

  With a shock, Godiva realized they were going to celebrate a mass. She groaned inwardly. She had only wanted to sit and pray, ‘Veni, Sancte Spiritus’ and then contemplate a holy image. That was what she did in Coventry and it was what she liked most. But now she was faced with the immensely long mass, only fragments of which she could translate into English and even less of which she understood theologically. Worse still, it was obviously going to be a low mass, lacking music, and there would be nothing to listen to but the voices of the monk and his server, droning on unintelligibly for well over an hour. But she was trapped, and would have to make a good show of gratitude for what everyone would say was an extraordinary honour – a private mass with the king.

  As the service began Father Francis and the server, who were busy declaring the celebrants’ desire to approach the altar of God, had their backs turned to Edward and Godiva. The king took this opportunity to settle with her in the small pew, placing a kneeling cushion before her, and encouraging her with smiles and nods to be seated. Not wishing to offend, she took the cushion and then her seat beside the king. Edward gave a long sigh and Godiva turned to try to smile politely at him, only to find that the king’s often snide countenance was quite transformed. A kindly warmth had descended on him, seeming to lift his brows, pulling all the muscles into place and imparting to his face an appearance of composure, blended curiously with extreme youth. To Godiva he looked like a boy who has suddenly been made happy after some episode of bitter misery. For just a second she felt like reassuring him about whatever had saddened him. But then, perplexed, she thought better of it. She looked back at the monk and the server and, noticing they had now begun the general confession of sins, decided she would concentrate on the mass and try to ignore Edward. But that soon proved impossible, for at every mention of sins and sinners, of delicta and pecatores, Edward gave one of his sighs – sighs of contentment, it seemed, or satisfaction – and then, rather shockingly, thought Godiva, when they came to the kyrie, Edward joined in himself, beseeching the Father and the Son for mercy in tones that suggested relish rather than remorse.

  After this, though, he fell silent, for the following sections of the mass, the Gloria and the Nicene Creed, were about praise and dogma, and made little mention of sin at all. She glanced sideways at him and thought that he seemed as bored as she was. More surprisingly, he did not react strongly to what came afterwards – the offering of the wine and the bread, with all the sacred words that went with that. This was the one part of the mass that Godiva fully appreciated, for this was the ‘sacrifice’ that would give her eternal and purified life after death. How or why, she was unsure, but it was enough to believe in this promise, the most amazing gift that anyone could offer.

  Her spirits continued to rise as the service moved towards the Marian prayers that brought low mass to its unsung end. First came Ave Maria, followed at once by the even lovelier Salve Regina, to Godiva’s mind the perfect prayer: ‘mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.’ Though she had prayed to Freya and the Great Goddess to conceive, it was to the Virgin with this prayer that she had turned when one of her children failed to survive his birth. She knew too that this would be the prayer she would say at her husband’s death-bed and on her own. But Edward was not much moved by this, the climax of the end of the mass. It was over now and he got to his feet as Father Francis and the server cleared away the mass vessels and departed. Godiva tidied her cloak and wondered what she should say in parting. Edward, however, seemed in no hurry to let her go. He looked down at her with utmost tenderness, kissed the side of her cheek and took her hand.

  ‘Dear, beloved lady,’ he said softly and earnestly. ‘How long I have waited for the opportunity to share the sacrifice of the mass with you, and to feel the sin lift for a moment from your beautiful shoulders. To have you with me, here in Winchester at last, is more than I had hoped for. I asked your husband two years ago to bring you here, but he refused. You may have noticed that I was not happy at the time of the investiture of your priory. You did notice, didn’t you?’

  Godiva, surprised at this explanation, nodded mutely.

  ‘You see, the occasion was spoiled for me. Your achievement in bringing a Benedictine priory to a dark and wooded corner of my realm – I was moved, I was impressed, I wanted to embrace you. But I knew too that you needed to be shriven, as we all do – purified of your sin at a place where the Holy Spirit is at its strongest. You needed to receive the blessed sacrament here at Winchester in the au
ra of St Swithun. And your man,’ he spat out the word contemptuously, ‘forbade it. Yet, now, he has yielded. The Lord works wonders.’

  ‘He . . . we . . . yielded because we were worried about our children, sire,’ Godiva said, more bluntly than she intended. ‘You had them in your possession. We came here to try to get them out of prison. We remain here, as you know, still waiting to learn about Harry.’

  ‘Have no fears about Harry,’ Edward replied. ‘He is well. It is the prison of the sick soul you must worry about, Godiva.’ As Edward spoke, his finger caressed the back of her neck like a loose feather falling to Earth.

  Godiva shuddered. ‘My soul, and the souls of my family – we are not especially sick, sire,’ she said. ‘We pray, give alms to the poor, make confession. When we sin, we acknowledge it and repent.’

  ‘You are wrong, beloved,’ Edward said passionately. ‘Sin is inherent. It is a stain that is never washed away. It is the animal that rises within us, strong and hearty, night and day, wanting to kill, eat, despoil, defile and, above all else, propagate its own kind. The mass only averts God’s anger and God’s loathing of us. Christ’s death on the cross was terrible because God’s revulsion at us is so immense. So do not make the mistake of thinking that when you have taken communion, you are truly cleansed. You remain in your animal filth, though you have won God’s pardon for a short while after the mass, because you have participated in the sacrifice of His son by eating of His purifying body and drinking His cleansing blood.’

  ‘I see,’ said Godiva, suddenly dejected. ‘It appears, then, that I have been mistaken, sire. For years, I found praying and contemplation and the giving of alms to be good and purifying.’

  ‘I know,’ said Edward pityingly. ‘Some accused you of worldly ambition when you built your new priory, but I always said it was spiritual, not worldly, pride that was your fault. You think you are good. You think you understand God’s ways. But you do not. You have a long road ahead of you, Godiva, before God will be able to bear to look at you in your vile nakedness.’