Godiva

by Nerys Jones

  ‘Is that your final word?’

  ‘Yes. I will do any ordinary penance, but not this dreadful thing you have in mind.’

  ‘It must be the naked ride. Nothing else suits your offence.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Oh, my dear,’ he sighed. ‘Godiva, I did not want to confront you with this. But now, with this obstinacy of yours, I must. You see, I know. I’m afraid I must say the words. I know about your . . . adultery. Adultery! The filthiness of it – and with a man of your own household, a man of no rank. A churl by birth, so I’m told.’ His next words were almost inaudible as he choked with disgust. ‘Whatever would Lovric think of you?’

  Godiva struggled to get her breath as anger and regret almost overcame her.

  ‘You’re not going to deny it now, are you? I have good knowledge about your forest trysts.’

  ‘You should have said this sooner.’

  ‘But few women who claim to be good admit quickly to their adultery.’

  ‘Most people succumb quickly to blackmail.’

  ‘Godiva, I know you are angry. But now it is time to accept your fate. I suggest you pray. There are many chapels in Egg Ring. I will send nuns to attend you until you leave. They can conduct you to any chapel you want. The Virgin, I suppose. Or perhaps St Helena, the patron saint of adulterers. At any rate, you will be well cared for and allowed to rest before you begin your journey home tomorrow. Now, with regret, I must leave to see to other matters.’

  Edward gathered his robes round him, gleaming and rustling with the gold threads woven into the dark-red silk of the fabric. He had almost reached the small door that led to some other secret room when Godiva sprang forward.

  ‘Wait,’ she shouted. ‘One more question. What is the worst thing that Lovric has done to offend you? Tell me, because truly I do not know. He was not a man to talk in great depth about his concerns whilst at home.’

  ‘So it is said. I’m not so sure. I think you know a great deal about my kingdom, Godiva.’

  Terrified, she could think of nothing to say.

  ‘Well, let me refresh your memory. Beyond plotting against me at the Welsh borders, and up in the north with Siward and over in the Fens – apart from all this, Lovric is guilty of one great, overwhelming offence. He does not share my vision for the future of England. He may not even know what it is. But I will tell you. I see our future as a matter for Christendom. He would make treaties with heathens to the north, and with heretics in Wales and Ireland, while I want to crusade against them and crush them. He wants to be merely English; I want to be a ruler in the Holy Roman Empire, reborn, purified and up in arms against the infidel. He cannot take part in the rule of England unless he shares my views.’

  Edward stared into her face eagerly, expecting an excited response from her. But Godiva remained still, for one word had sprung to her mind and was burning there like a hot coal from the hearth: Normans. The kingdom of heaven was known to all Britons, but Christendom was a Norman vision. Edward’s dream was for England to be ruled by crusading Norman knights. There would be no place in it for the Anglo-Saxon earls and their descendants.

  ‘Believe in me, Godiva,’ he went on. ‘Trust me. If I inflict pain, it is only to create good. Become a part of my army in the fight against evil. Join in the Church Militant and look forward to rejoicing eternally in the Church Triumphant.’ He could see she would say no more. ‘Kiss me,’ he said.

  She began to kneel to kiss the huge ring on his finger.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Kiss my lips as Mary Magdalene kissed Christ.’

  She felt faint and reached out to steady herself against the wall, but Edward took hold of her arm, drawing her closer. Waves of fear and revulsion crashed against the walls that sustained her soul – duty, piety and the hope of redemption. She had not felt like this since childhood, when her grandmother’s corpse was laid out and the children of the family were led around the bier to behold the once-loved face, now cold and contorted, and each one had to kiss those waxen lips or face a beating for violating the sacred custom. Like her eight-year-old self, she forced her face upward, closed her eyes and let his mouth meet hers. It was a moist but motionless kiss, in which the tip of his tongue barely entered her mouth and sat there lifelessly, like the head of a loath tortoise. When it was over, Godiva felt a revulsion that went so deep she thought it must be touching that place which Edward wanted to revile and expose to public gaze.

  ‘You could almost be a saint,’ he said, and then he released her head from the clasp of his hands and wafted out of the room into the darkness beyond.

  As soon as he was gone, two beautiful young nuns came to escort Godiva through a labyrinth of small passages to a chamber that was sumptuously appointed for the use of a lady. The dim light of day faded into the true dark of night as the nuns fed her, bathed her, and prayed with her. Godiva could not remember a time when she had been better cared for.

  She fell asleep easily at about dusk, but some time in the dead of night she sat up suddenly in bed. A horrifying clarity filled her mind, as though she had been awake for hours puzzling through recent events. The king, she felt certain, had tried to persuade Lovric to annul their marriage. Why else would Lovric have babbled on so senselessly about divorce during their quarrel? And when Lovric refused, Edward had cast doubts on Godiva’s loyalty, saying – lying – that she had already agreed to an annulment, agreed in the aisles and shadows of Winchester cathedral, agreed when she realized how the sin of incestuous marriage had spawned a corrupt son. She could almost see Edward’s face and hear the words he would have used as he made his case. He would have sounded regretful, even embarrassed; he would have lamented the great pity of it – that a noblewoman should so easily be persuaded to abandon her husband. But are not all women, especially beautiful women, weak and untrustworthy? What else should the earl expect? That Godiva would remain loyal?

  So it must have gone. And when Lovric had quarrelled so fiercely with her, it was his own anguish that had angered him, not her defiance.

  ‘Oh, my love,’ she murmured to the empty room, ‘you thought I was going to leave you. And I thought you had grown tired of me.’

  In fact, Lovric had indeed left her. He had not said he would divorce her, but neither had he stayed at her side. He had galloped away, leaving her to deal with Edward on her own – as the king knowingly pointed out. Lovric had cracked. The great warrior lost his nerve. To Godiva that seemed even more tragic than her own abandonment, for what would Lovric be without his soldier’s pride? Nothing. He would be nothing at all. She, abandoned and discarded, was still the woman she had always been. She sobbed with pity for her broken husband, until, rising like a monster from buried depths, her guilt joined forces with her sorrow and she vomited into a pot beside the bed. Oh God, how she regretted now that she had betrayed Lovric. Her husband’s infidelities – if they had really occurred – were inconsequential compared to her adultery with a man of her own household, and a man known to the king. And how well known? That was another blow. If it was Bret himself who had told someone about their secret meetings, carelessly boasting as men do, it would be too painful to think about it. Thank God that at least she had not touched him until after leaving Winchester, and Lovric could not possibly know about it.

  After a while, when she stopped crying, she started thinking about the atrociousness of the penance that Edward had demanded. It was to this that he wanted her agreement, far more than a divorce from Lovric. She wondered why the penance was so vicious. His humiliation of Gunnhildr was bland in comparison. Even his rejection of his wife’s bed had at least a fig-leaf of pious chastity masking its cruel intent. And then it came to her: if Lovric would not divorce his beloved wife even when told she was disloyal, what wouldn’t Godiva do rather than divorce her husband – also not wholly trustworthy, but also beloved? Anything. Edward must have guessed that she would do anything. Even this nightmarish ride. And so Unwed Ned, and Needy Eedy too, would be avenged. The galling vision of the
love of the earl and his wife, a married love that the king and queen professed to despise and would never know, would be wiped out of men’s minds and in its place there would be put a degrading image that would provoke obscene mirth.

  Yes, perhaps. But Godiva was calming down now, and as she thought more coolly about the royal pair, it seemed that love was of no importance to either. Power, land, armies, keeping their crowns: that was all that mattered. Oh, and piety, of course. How could she forget that? That piety of theirs was the true bond between them – a glue as strong as the love for which most married people hoped. Edith was the perfect Christian wife, renouncing sexual pleasure, abandoning hope of children, submissive (as St Paul told all women they should be) to the will of her husband, as long as that will aspired to the eternal, fleshless life promised to those saved by Christ crucified. And yet Edith was not known for submissiveness. No, according to Lovric, she was regarded in court as a tough young woman, one who took difficulties and turned them into advantages. Godiva recalled the story of the newly married Edith greeting a priest in court with a kiss, and being upbraided by a bishop for unseemly contact with consecrated male flesh. Did Edith retire and sulk? No. That very night she circulated hawk-eyed amongst Edward’s guests, on the lookout for similar lapses, no matter how small, and swooping down on some of the noblest women in England to excoriate them and preach chastity. Her reputation was then sealed as a master of the art of the feint, for Edith’s blows entailed no risks to her, encased as she was in the armour of piety, but left her opponents off balance and vulnerable. Godiva could attest to that herself. But who was Edith’s opponent now, and who her allies, as each childless year passed? Godiva ruminated: in the end she would turn against her husband, and seek alliances in her own family. Hadn’t Lovric said there were rumours she was seeking lands for her brothers? Well then, the royal marriage was not as well glued as all that piety might suggest. Who then was Godiva’s own chief enemy? Who was behind this horrible penance? Edward or Edith?

  Dear God, how she missed Lovric! She realized now that it wasn’t really true that they didn’t talk much to each other. Undoubtedly he was reticent about his military affairs, but they had talked through very many problems over the years, and she had come to take that for granted. It was she herself, saying over and over, ‘You never talk to me, Lovric’, that had convinced her of his reluctance to communicate. If he were here now, what would he say? He would remind her, probably, of Godwin’s warnings, remind her that the king was a ghoul of a man, quite capable of imposing the naked ride on a married woman of normal modesty. That was the sort of thing a man like Edward might want to do. And yet, that was not her personal view of Edward. It was not his manner. It seemed excessive, too openly sexual. She could think of nothing similar being done to any other of his victims. There was something more behind Edward’s wish to force this particular penance upon her, but she could wring no more sense out of what she knew of the matter. The naked ride, in essence, remained an enigma.

  A sleepless night lay ahead of her and she tried to make herself as comfortable as possible in the luxurious bed to weather the storms of worry and speculation that were sure to besiege her for hours. But as she nestled in the silky sheets she heard a slight sound coming from near the closed door. She got up and put her ear to it and listened carefully.

  ‘Sh!’ someone breathed. ‘Don’t be afraid. It’s me, Bret. Please, let me in.’ He must be insane, she thought, to come to her in this place. As quietly as she could, she untwisted the withy that tied the door knob to the post and slowly, trying to prevent it creaking, opened the door.

  ‘What do you want?’

  Bret was taken aback by her tone. ‘To see you, to hold you . . .’ he started, but with rather less of his usual confidence.

  ‘Bret,’ she began, about to rebuke him for risking her good name and his own life. But her confidence in him had gone, and she was unwilling to confide in him. Let him find out for himself that the king knew of their secret love. If love it was. ‘Bret,’ she resumed sternly. ‘I cannot be alone with you again. Never. My husband is in danger and I am full of remorse that I betrayed him with you.’

  ‘What danger?’ he asked, as if he had every right to know.

  ‘These are private matters, between husband and wife,’ she said coldly.

  He took hold of her arm and squeezed it a bit too tightly.

  ‘I don’t believe you. You still want me, I know you do.’

  He crushed her in his arms and bit the side of her neck passionately. Then he kissed her as deeply and as long as he had ever done. But she stood in his embrace, so stiff and fearful that he knew at once the spell was broken and his hold on her was over.

  He stepped away and pushed her to arm’s length, thinking how much he would relish giving her something to really fear. Godiva stared at him and noticed his expression changing as he assessed her, the room and the situation. As clouds of murderous hatred gathered in his eyes, she put her fist to her mouth to stifle the scream that rose in her throat. Suddenly he lunged forward to pull off her nightgown.

  ‘No,’ she whispered fiercely, pushing him with both arms.

  For answer Bret seized her arms, pushed her back towards the bed and pulled the nightgown up to her shoulders. He had one hand over her mouth while the other pulled at his own clothing. But Godiva wrenched herself out of his grasp and snatched a torch that was still burning in a wall bracket. Pushing the torch into his face, she hissed at him, ‘You’ll die for this. They’ll cut off your balls and put out your eyes.’

  He backed away, and shook his head as though he had just woken from a bad dream: her high rank and this royal fortress protected her from him. But had she been a woman of no importance, alone beneath a forest tree, he would have raped and sodomized her, bitten, beaten and finally strangled her. He dropped his bloodshot eyes, knowing they had given him away. She was right, it was over. He should go to his own bed. At the door he paused and looked back at her. The violence in his face had died away as quickly as it had arrived, and he looked once more like a handsome young man with whom any woman could easily fall in love. Godiva hesitated, and then she turned her back on him, whispering, ‘Go in peace, Bret.’

  In the morning light, outside the embankment of Egg Ring, the world was stirring. Godiva, dressed once more in riding clothes, found herself waiting in fine drizzle for her men to assemble. Their horses had already been brought from the stables, properly groomed and rested, and there was no reason for the men to be this late. Just as she was starting to lose her temper they all arrived at once, with the reason for their delay immediately visible. Bret was wearing a bandage round one side of his face and his jacket was torn.

  ‘He came into our tent in bad shape,’ Arne said. ‘We patched him up and he’ll be able to stay in his saddle. But not at a gallop, I reckon.’

  ‘What happened?’ Godiva asked with an affectation of mild concern.

  Bret noticed she was taking care to conceal her anger, and wondered if this meant she might forgive him.

  ‘It was my fault,’ he said carefully. ‘I was curious about Egg Ring. I’d gone prowling around and some of the guard caught me. They knocked me about, but they let me go. I’m sorry, lady. It was stupid of me.’

  An icicle of new distrust pierced Godiva’s heart and she stared at Bret with such displeasure that he turned away towards Arne and the other men.

  At this moment the guards turned up, distracting everyone from Bret’s misadventures. The blindfolds appeared again and everyone except Godiva prepared for the discomfort of several miles of sightless riding until they reached the farmstead where the hoods would be taken off. Indeed, if the men from Coventry wondered about anything during their dark journey, it was not about Bret, but Godiva. She said nothing for its entire duration. Nor did she grow more talkative during the rest of the journey, and they were left to their own speculations. What had happened at Egg Ring? What would she say to the people at home about the reason for her visit? She would hav
e to say something, or tongues would wag. And yet she gave no sign. Nor did she send one of the men ahead at full gallop to announce her imminent arrival at Cheylesmore manor.

  And so, because there was no forewarning, there was no one there to greet her and she entered the yard of her manor house like one who has been released from prison and wants only to lie down in private and hide her face away. This is wrong, Arne thought. People will draw conclusions and take fright. He looked at Bret, but Bret avoided his eyes. There is something wrong there too, Arne concluded. As soon as they had stabled the horses, he set off to find Odo and tell him: something is afoot. We must be on guard. Godiva’s troubles are far from over.

  Fourteen

  Despite the late hour Agatha prepared a bath for Godiva, and sat with her, gently soaping her tired back and limbs.

  ‘Too much riding be bad for you, lady,’ she said accusingly.

  ‘Did you do as I told you?’ Godiva asked wearily. ‘How’s your galloping coming along?’

  ‘Good enough, they say, for you never to go off again on your own with no maid, like you just did. That weren’t right for a lady . . .’

  ‘There were young nuns at Egg Ring.’

  ‘You went to Egg Ring?’ Agatha repeated, looking horrified. ‘You told us Grafton manor. People say such terrible things about Egg Ring. There be ghosts there, and a dark dungeon . . .’

  ‘As I said, I was well tended by young nuns. Forget about my doings, Agatha; they are none of your business. Tell me about the estate, and the town. And your mother. How have you been getting on?’

  ‘As well as always. At least she never thinks to raise her hand at me no more. Her tongue – well, that be a different matter.’

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ said Godiva.

  ‘You did already,’ Agatha replied. ‘She can’t change, mistress. She don’t mean no harm, and anyway she ain’t got no false front. At least you can trust Bertha.’ Godiva looked at her questioningly, but Agatha would say no more about the object of her distrust.