Godiva

by Nerys Jones

  ‘Thank God you are back,’ he said at once, with more sincerity than she had ever before detected in his quivering voice.

  ‘Come in at once,’ he said, hurrying her inside. ‘Look over there. It is what you always wanted.’

  In the darkness of the priory it took Godiva a moment to make out the softly gleaming ark that stood on a pedestal of granite not far from the door.

  ‘That’s a feretory. How did you get it?’

  ‘I had it with me all along,’ he confessed, ‘but I didn’t want the work of polishing it until it was ready for use. And now it is!’

  ‘You mean you have the relic?’

  ‘I do. It’s in there already. Go and see!’

  Godiva went up to the feretory and peered inside. Here indeed were the long bones with their silver fittings that had for years been kept in obscurity in the old church of St Michael’s.

  ‘I went and spoke firmly to the priests of St Michael’s,’ Edwin went on, ‘and I told them exactly what you said. And they complied. It was like magic, dear sister.’

  ‘Well, I am immensely pleased, dear prior,’ Godiva replied. ‘Nevertheless, there are more pressing matters to talk about. They say you have been barring people from services, ever since I went away.’

  ‘But I explained to them,’ he said sadly. ‘I told them we had three or four cases of summer colds amongst the monks, and that if this got out amongst malnourished people they would succumb and die. Sometimes I believe the hardest problem God has put on Earth for us is to open the closed ears of those who will not listen.’

  Godiva felt like agreeing, but she was still suspicious of Edwin, who had blossomed into a conscientious prior just when she was away and unable to nag him.

  ‘Have you done anything for their hunger?’ she asked.

  ‘Of course, dearest lady. Every day we took half our bread and placed the loaves in covered dishes on a table near the door. Rain or shine they come at the hour when the loaves have cooled, and then take off like mice with pastry crumbs. Of course, it wasn’t nearly enough, as I’m sure you could see when they came out to greet you . . .’

  ‘I could not have asked more of you, Edwin,’ she said. ‘God seems to have moved your heart.’

  ‘God moves in mysterious ways,’ he agreed, and Godiva, sensing some irony on his part, raised her brows. But Edwin remained inscrutably virtuous.

  ‘I am glad. I need to work closely with you over the next few weeks. There is enmity arising between people. Soon they will get out the dolls and the bodkins and start hexing each other . . .’

  ‘And going to the forest to sacrifice.’

  ‘Then we must bring prayer to everyone.’

  He nodded agreement. ‘Some of the brothers have spoken of this recently. About half of them are strong young men who can go about in all weathers. We will see about this at once.’

  ‘Edwin, why are you so changed?’

  ‘I honestly do not know,’ he replied. ‘Except that, perhaps, I wanted to please you.’

  She smiled again and he tried not to flinch. What a fool she is, he thought, and how gullible. I put it right in her face – I am trying to please her. And she isn’t even asking herself: what for?

  Despite the midday hour, the market square was almost deserted when Godiva closed the priory door behind her. She looked back at St Mary’s and felt again the queasiness that Edwin always caused her. But it was an unease she could not afford in the present circumstances, and anyway she couldn’t justify it. He was doing everything she wanted and it was unfair to dislike him so much for petty matters such as his lisp, his pretentious turns of phrase and those pudgy fingers whose nails were always bitten down to the quick. Nevertheless the emptiness of the town square and the nearness of the prior’s sickly presence made her long for her own house in its enclosed yard, filled with people she liked. She looked around her, hoping to see Bret, but he was nowhere in view. He must have left for Cheylesmore already. Suddenly she longed to see his warm smile and be close to him again.

  When Godiva returned to the manor house she noticed that the little pony Bret had ridden into town was still out of the stable. She summoned a stable boy and asked about Bret’s whereabouts, but the boy only knew that huntsmen and foresters had come to the yard, looking for Godiva, and Bret had gone off with them into the woods. He couldn’t have gone far, she thought, not on that pony and not without changing into a leather jacket for protection against brambles and low branches. Godiva pulled on her own leather jacket and then headed down the bridle path towards the forest.

  He saw her coming from a grassy knoll on which he was sitting in the sunshine that had just broken through the clouds. He had sent the huntsmen away with thanks and the promise that he would tell Godiva the news himself: there were poachers at large in the forest, and some at least appeared to be townspeople, for their snares were often amateurish, maiming rather than killing, and leaving behind mangled animals with useless skins. After the huntsmen left, he took off his warm tunic and opened his shirt down to his waist. His pony was tied safely to a tree near a stream and was browsing tender leaves and sprigs. Bret smiled when he saw Godiva. Then he stepped into the pool of sunlight where she could see him, folded his arms and waited.

  At the sight of him she reigned in the pony and sat stock still in the saddle. She felt as a deer must feel as she sees the hunter and her soft, beating heart is stopped by the arrow made especially for her breast. The breathlessness hurt her lungs. The stinging in her fingers and toes made them feel like the tips of frozen limbs thawing too quickly by a winter’s fire. She looked away from him, wondering where she should go and what should she do. Then she called his name. He ran towards her and in moments she had swung down into his hands from the back of the pony. For the first time, they were utterly alone together.

  ‘Bret?’

  ‘Yes?’

  As usual he held back from her, so that she thought it was she who pulled his face towards her, and she who pressed his soft lips to hers. But in moments she knew he would not stop what she had started. Everything he did felt new, and the years rolled away as her body seemed to melt and her muscles grew limp, so limp that soon she was falling on her back and her clothes were on the grass, and Bret seemed to be everywhere, kissing her from her ears to her toes, and all the places in between, places that she did not know men liked to kiss so much and for so very long. This must be wrong, she thought. Lovric has never done this, nor did my first husband. How does he know about this? This is the place I keep for myself, to comfort me and help me sleep when I am on my own. No man’s tongue should find its way there, and yet there was no stopping its persistent, rippling touch. Without warning, the burning under her skin flowered suddenly into bright red, pulsing flame and she was lost to all thought. Only then, when he was sure that he had succeeded with her, did Bret do the usual, familiar thing that all men do, but coming after the misdeed that had gripped her whole being, it felt different, more complete than ever before and entirely unforgettable. He finished in mere moments and fell on to the grass beside her.

  ‘Forgive me, mistress.’

  ‘Mary and Jesus forgive us both,’ she answered, but there was no sign of contrition on her face, merely a smile at the corners of her mouth, and fringed eyelids that remained closed.

  She must have dozed for a few minutes, until she felt Bret kissing her ear again and running a hand along her inner thigh, upwards from her knee. She had forgotten what it was like to lie with such a young man – how quickly they recover and start again. She had forgotten, too, what the second time was like: it was to be his time now, a matter of rhythm and continuation, until her resistance faded and for the second time he succeeded with her.

  Neither slept after this. Bret wrapped her in his cloak and stroked her hair. He too looked contented now and she realized that she had never seen him look at ease until now. The angles of his face were softer and the green of his eyes so much darker that he could have faded into the forest background like a t
ree god.

  ‘Can you come here with me again?’ he asked.

  ‘Would we be safe from prying eyes?’

  ‘Yes. If we go there,’ he pointed at a narrow path that led over the knoll. ‘There is a bramble patch there that hides a pathway into a grove of oaks. It is beautiful in there, with cowslips and wild strawberries and dappled sunlight. I will take you there, for hours if you choose.’

  She kissed him, and yet again her legs seemed to part according to their own volition. This time, though, because he was almost satiated, he pulled her up to ride above him and let her take as long as she wanted until, exhausted, she fell off him on to the grass and laughed.

  ‘I feel eighteen again.’

  ‘So will you come here to me again?’

  ‘Yes. Again and again. So long as we can be secret and safe.’

  ‘We can. I’ll make sure of that.’

  As he sat up, a hare that had been watching them stood up on its hind legs in the grass, blinked, leaped a few times and bounded off. It was soon followed by a deer and her fawn. For all Bret’s promise of secrecy, the forest seethed with life. Care would indeed be required, he reflected, for trouble not to land in his lap.

  The barge came up the River Sherbourne from the landing station near Butt Field in Allesley and docked in Coventry at eight in the evening. Godiva and Agatha, Father Godric, Bret and others of the hall-men, the town crier and the town headman and the innkeeper, Prior Edwin and some of his monks, were all assembled on the muddy banks of the river, ready to assess the success of the meeting with the grain merchants of Bristol. Odo jumped ashore first, and from the unhappy look on his face it seemed that matters had not gone as he wished.

  ‘We’ve got as much as we can load on this one barge,’ he said, ‘but we didn’t get enough to load the mules. We’ve left them and some muleteers down in Butt Field as there’s another delivery coming in four days’ time. Early oats and new cheese next time from Wales. That there is wheat flour from Ireland,’ he said, pointing at the bags that were being unloaded off the barge.

  ‘How much money do you have left?’ Godiva wanted to know.

  ‘Over a half,’ he said, handing several bags of silver to Godiva. ‘The prices are not too bad. Lots of merchants coming up the Severn now, so there be competition between them. The problem is the supply. No one has the means to get heavy loads to places like Coventry. Reckon we’ll have to make many trips to Butt Field until we’ve filled our barns up. We’ll be more busy than poor, lady.’

  Poor: the word clanged like a death-knell in Godiva’s mind. She had never been poor in her life. Indeed for years she had actually been rich. Yet poor is what she would be before this famine was over. Poor for years perhaps. It was a strange, light feeling, as though she had divested herself of a heavy burden. Or perhaps it was adultery that made her feel like this: she had shed her virtue as well as her money and now she felt as light and insubstantial as a leaf. At the moment it made her feel powerful, as though immune to demands and fears. But how she would feel tomorrow, or next year, she had no idea. She shook her head to dismiss her futile thoughts.

  ‘Let us go to the town cross,’ she said, ‘and begin the distribution.’

  Torches flamed all round the market square, even though it was not yet fully dark, for the one thing everyone feared was that some deception would occur as the flour was being distributed. Fighting would then break out, which Godiva, in Lovric’s absence, would not be able to suppress quickly. The few armed men at her disposal were all seated high up on war stallions to patrol the crowd that was forming rapidly in answer to the crier’s announcement that the grain had arrived. Each horseman carried, as well as the usual arms, a whip with which to beat back rioters. As they walked their horses through the crowd, the hungry people looked up at them with a mixture of resentment and gratitude, for they too needed order now.

  On Godiva’s instructions, Prior Edwin opened the occasion with a prayer and a psalm sung by the monks, and then a short admonition that everyone should be mindful of his neighbour’s want and of the merciful Lady Godiva’s great love and care for them.

  ‘And now,’ said Godiva, brandishing a sharp knife, ‘I will open the first sack. I will give every mother enough flour to make a small loaf for each child in the family and a big loaf for each adult. When I have finished with the mothers, I will feed those men who have no families. If you have no bags to carry flour you can use mine. This is intended to feed you until tomorrow night. By then we will have filled the town barns and made a reckoning of how much we have, how to dole it out and how long it will last.’

  The women, knowing perfectly well the size of each other’s families, quickly formed an orderly line that shuffled patiently forward as Godiva, helped by Agatha, dug ever deeper into the floury bags and shared out quantities of the light, life-giving substance into the hemp sacks that most people had brought with them. The single men, coming last, were less well provided for and needed to be given containers. These Godiva filled with their rations, plus a little extra flour, for it was amongst these that neglect and poverty seemed at their worst. By the time it was over she and Agatha were tired and sweating, dusted with flour and hungry.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she said to the thinning crowd. ‘We will meet here again tomorrow, before sunset.’

  ‘God bless you, lady,’ someone shouted.

  ‘And God bless the good folk of the manor,’ shouted someone else. ‘Coventry ain’t going to forget this night, not ever.’

  ‘Wait! One thing more,’ she said as they were about to depart. ‘I’m opening my forests for hunting. But proper hunting, not careless trapping. I have reserved one stretch of the woods for my own needs and no one may enter there. Bret and the other huntsmen will show you where you can go. You will find wild pig, deer and rabbit, as well as mushrooms, berries, fiddleheads, and whatever else you want. Good eating to you all!’

  Then Godiva and her people set out to return to the manor, leaving behind them a slowly dispersing crowd of thankful, relieved townspeople, all of whom would soon be at their hearths making unleavened bread as fast as they possibly could. By chance, it seemed, Godiva’s horse fell into step alongside Bret’s and she turned to ask his opinion of the evening’s events.

  ‘The food relief was quick and orderly,’ he said, ‘and they like the sound of your voice. If you were a man you would make a good commander. I would salute you and follow you into battle.’

  Their eyes met for a moment. Luckily, Agatha and Father Godric were preoccupied with an argument that had flared up between them, and everyone else was tired and looking at the road home. Still, thought Bret, I must be more careful. She might be in love with me, and that will make her careless. And I, God help me, must feel nothing whatsoever for her.

  Eleven

  The next few days passed in a delirium of activity as Godiva and the people of the manor continued their efforts to purchase more grain and distribute it fairly, to patrol the roads to ensure that infected cattle did not pass into the lordship, and to keep an eye on the forests so that the townspeople, now licensed to hunt at will, did not wreak havoc on the wild animals at their mercy.

  But no matter how tired she was, Godiva would put on her sword belt and leave the manor every afternoon when the finger on the sundial touched five, and ride down the bridle path into that part of the forest from which everyone else was now prohibited, until she came to the knoll on which she had first seen Bret waiting alone for her. Here she would stop and tie her horse to a branch of a willow that stood on the banks of a stream, and then set out on foot along the slender deer track that led to the shaded oak glade where Bret sat, whittling a piece of wood and waiting for the sound of a twig snapping under her foot or a rabbit scurrying away from her soft tread. Every time she entered the clearing he would sweep her up and carry her to where his cloak lay spread out on a dry, grassy slope, strewn with flowers and scented so sweetly that it seemed they were in their own chamber, in a tower of their own castle, in a kin
gdom of which he was king and she was queen.

  Bret, though, was worried. Whether because of exhaustion brought on by the current crisis, or the long summer of troubles that had preceded it, or whether Godiva had simply grown recklessly indifferent to her overbearing husband, she was too unconcerned about the secrecy of their meetings. She had taken only one step to preserve it, and that was to ban others from entering this part of the woods. But hunger bred lawlessness, and without guards at the trail heads, intruders were sure to show up soon. Then, too, she rode off every day in the wrong direction – if what she was doing, as she claimed, was going to bathe in that pool she liked so much. Her maid, Agatha, was a sharp-eyed little thing. She must have realized something was amiss by now. And Father Godric must be wondering why he could never find her at early evening prayers in the manor any more. She was lucky that the old housekeeper they called ‘the corgi’, and that bitchy daughter, Milly, had been confined for a while. But they’d be on their feet again soon and watching her. The odds were mounting against keeping their meetings secret, and Bret didn’t like it.

  One afternoon, while he was still in the early stages of making love with gentle kisses and light movements of his hands, he drew back sharply and turned his head to the side.

  ‘There’s someone nearby,’ he whispered and, signalling her to stay still and quiet, he got to his feet and picked his way stealthily towards a broad oak, where he leaned against the trunk, listening carefully. A few seconds later he let out a loud whoop and went crashing through the undergrowth towards the far side of the glade. Godiva could hear shouts and curses, but could not distinguish any voices. In a few minutes he was back, his hose torn by the brambles and a nettle rash beginning to rise in scarlet blotches on his hands.

  ‘It was that little bastard, Tom the tanner’s son. Same one as spied on you and your maid when you swam in the pool together.’

  ‘How much could he see?’