Godiva

by Nerys Jones

  Once more it seemed as though they had no more questions for each other. Godiva stirred the cooking pot haphazardly, and Lovric stared round the kitchen as though making an inventory for his quartermaster. Then suddenly, despite his better judgement, he reached out for reassurance.

  ‘You didn’t really love that man, did you, Godiva? Not even for one second, not even when . . . ?’

  The impatience that Godiva had feared would ruin their meeting sprang to life.

  ‘Stop it, Lovric,’ she snapped. ‘You’ve no right. Not unless you tell me all about Estrith first.’

  For a man who wanted to win back his wife, Lovric was making a dog’s dinner of the conversation. He looked towards the cauldron and thought of saying something nice about the stew. But that would be ridiculous at such a serious moment. He thought next of saying something flattering about Godiva’s appearance. But she knew how she looked and she would laugh bitterly and get angry. He could think of nothing at all to say. In desperation, he got to his feet and threw off his cloak.

  ‘Come here,’ he said, his voice rough with tension.

  ‘No.’

  ‘For God’s sake, woman,’ he shouted as he sprang across the few feet of floor that separated them and pushed her arms behind her back. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘I never stopped loving you.’

  He forced a kiss on her mouth and she felt repelled. His beard was stale and rough. His lips lacked the soft youthfulness of the last man who had kissed her. But yet his lips clung to hers, and the longing in his mouth was greater than anything she had felt for years. Her heart echoed its answer: I almost died for lack of love. I want to be loved again. A warmth came into her kiss, a mere spark, but enough for him to know he could come home again. He picked her up in his arms, feeling her to be light and fragile as the leaves that were just beginning to fall, and carried her up the stairs, which creaked as they had done each time he mounted them, and then he laid her on the bed, pushed back her short hair and bathed her in his tears.

  Some time later, Lovric, contentedly chewing a hunk of fresh bread, took her hand. ‘I’ve got news, Godiva.’

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Yes, and Alfgar, too. Harry has been released from the cathedral.’

  ‘Thank God almighty.’

  ‘He is on his way north.’

  ‘North? To Siward? Not to us?’

  ‘To Edmund. Both boys volunteered to serve with Siward’s Scottish frontier soldiers, on condition they could serve together. I consented to this, but I said I wanted Harry home for Christmas. And Alfgar will be back as well.’

  ‘And you? Will you be here too, my love? Say yes, if only for a few weeks . . .’

  ‘I’ll be here too. But for more than a few weeks . . .’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes. At Christmas time I am going to invest Alfgar as Earl of Mercia. I’ve seen with my own eyes how well he is doing. Even some of the Irish leaders seem to like him now, and as for the Welsh, they are talking of inter-marriage even before he has children. The king has agreed. Alfgar’s days of disgrace are over. And my days of peace and comfort will begin.’

  ‘But why?’ Her joy gave way to alarm. ‘Aren’t you well?’

  ‘To all appearances. But when I was about to take ship and start waging war against Edward, I realized I no longer had the heart for it. Something had gone from me – that urge to fight enemies that I’ve had all my life. I could feel the absence of the fire in my belly. I thought I was sick and saw my physician, but he could find nothing wrong. He advised me, though, not to start a campaign in that state. “What state?” I asked him. “Broken, sir,” he said.’

  ‘Broken?’

  ‘My fighting days are over, Godiva. I think they ended when I ran away after quarrelling with you, ran away from all my own mistakes. If I had gone to war as I intended – if I had not learned of your troubles and come rushing back here – I would have died in battle. Edward’s soldiers would have killed me. He has forces at Cleley that can quickly go anywhere in the land and crush any army I could raise.’

  ‘I know. I’m glad you didn’t start an uprising. For a short while I thought it was the way forward, but I came to see it would be hopeless. What will happen now?’

  ‘England will be safe from invasion while Edward lives, though not afterwards. Our family is safe for the duration, too. That was your achievement.’

  ‘Not much of an achievement. Peace only for our short time.’

  ‘It’s the best we can get, and not to be despised. Men have always gone to war hoping to gain wealth and power for generations to come. Every bloodied sword is held up as a peacemaker. But how often does war produce lasting peace and prosperity? Defeated enemies don’t vanish from the Earth. They come back, reincarnated in their children and grandchildren. At least we have now, Eva, and it’s your doing. Your actions tilted the king’s power in our favour. You held your nerve like a warrior going into single combat, and you won. I am immensely proud of you.’

  ‘Tell that to Coventry. The people there think I’m dishonoured. They’re still muttering about revenge.’

  ‘I’ll show them, then. On Sunday we’ll walk together to St Mary’s. Wear your Sunday best and let everyone see that you are my wife and my queen.’

  She would look beautiful again? A bubble of laughter rose in her throat.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ Lovric asked, quickly on his dignity.

  ‘Myself. Superbia. How quickly she came back.’

  ‘A good thing too,’ said Lovric. ‘I have no patience with sulkers.’ That brought Milly to mind and he asked where she was.

  ‘She was always a grievance of a girl,’ he said after Godiva finished explaining. ‘I was wrong to keep her waiting so long for her wedding feast, but she’d have got into trouble anyway. She’s hot-tempered and sharp-tongued. A stay in a convent might do her good.’

  Godiva pressed her hands together and sighed. ‘There’s something I never understood. Why does Milly hate me so much? Was I too harsh? Unfair?’

  Lovric just grunted. ‘She’s still young. The baby will change her.’

  Godiva disagreed: childbirth could make Milly much worse. Silently she vowed that as soon as the most important matters were settled in Coventry she would get a monk to write a letter to Milly at Wilton. Then she winced – it was always like that for Milly. She never came first.

  As it happened, Lovric and Godiva had to wait until they could parade to church together, for the following Sunday a messenger arrived from the priory, saying that one of Lovric’s spies had arrived in the night, bearing news. As was customary, he was disguised as a monk and was waiting in a secret cell of the priory. Lovric, unwilling to take himself away from his big breakfast, demanded to know the nature of the news. The messenger glanced round nervously and then announced: ‘Queen Edith is imprisoned. Her brothers have gone into exile. Godwin is rampaging in the south.’ The man smiled with satisfaction, knowing that Lovric would now abandon his bacon chops and fly like a bolt of lightning to the priory.

  ‘Come with me, Godiva,’ Lovric said. ‘Whatever has happened to Edith, it took place around the time when I received Edward’s message of forgiveness. This has something to do with your penance.’

  ‘That bad joke . . .’

  ‘Whatever it really was, it appears to have been put to great use.’

  How beautiful the priory looked, thought Godiva, as she entered the familiar door and accustomed her eyes again to the shadows of the cloisters, and how peaceful and safe it felt to be here with Lovric and without Prior Edwin. Just then, around the corner came Cherub, his golden ringlets bobbing and a broom in his hand.

  ‘My lady,’ he gasped. ‘Sorry to be cleaning now. No one said you would be coming here . . .’

  ‘Are you well, Cherub?’

  ‘Better every day,’ he replied and ran off, as light and awkward as a storm-damaged angel, his splendid new feathers just growing in.

  The door to the secret cell where Lovric saw his spies was
already open, casting a bright pool of candlelight into the cloister. Godiva followed Lovric inside, looked round for the thin, sly man she expected to see, and then stopped in confusion as a tall, beautiful woman rose to greet them.

  ‘Greetings, Godiva. At last we meet properly,’ said Estrith Gudmanson.

  Seeing her clearly for the first time, Godiva realized she had no cause for jealousy. Estrith was beautiful, but she was also remote, as though something had happened that had closed her heart against others. If ever Lovric had loved her it was long ago, before that happened.

  Estrith poured them all some wine, and then, after a quick exchange of information with Lovric about several unrelated matters, she turned to Godiva.

  ‘The real reason I am here is to bring you information, Godiva. You need to know about what happened to you – that horrible penance – and why it happened. It was Robert de Champart’s idea that I come: he and the other prelates want to make their peace with you. They would apologize, but of course they are not able to.’ She paused and sipped her wine carefully. ‘Edward set traps for you, Godiva, many traps. But, you see, the traps he set for you were really meant to catch another.’

  Godiva’s hand suddenly trembled and she put down her wine. ‘I thought all along that something else was on Edward’s mind – that he wanted something else. The penance was part of some game I couldn’t fathom.’

  ‘Yes. There was a game going on at court – a game of pious posturing in which everyone competed in holiness, self-denial and militant Christian fervour. Edith played this game to the hilt.’

  ‘I remember that very well.’

  ‘And as I told Lovric in Winchester, the bishops were at it, too. They were on a ferocious campaign to force people like you to renounce their marriages.’

  ‘Edward tried to persuade me, at Egg Ring. But I told him it was nonsense: every noblewoman in England is married to her first or second cousin.’

  ‘Then think what riches would fall into the hands of the king and the Church if even a quarter of these land-owning ladies annulled their marriages and entered convents. The amount that came Robert de Champart’s way when that woman from Kent agreed to leave her husband – it was staggering. I still haven’t finished counting it all. Well, Edith was the bishops’ greatest ally in the annulment campaign, and she astonished Edward with her mastery of the prohibited degrees and the various schemes for reckoning kinship. Now – listen carefully, Godiva – when you went to Egg Ring, Edith was staying nearby at Grafton manor. The night after you went back to Coventry she hosted a small, celebratory feast at Grafton for the king and several bishops. I accompanied Robert, and I was the only other woman there. At the dinner Edith could talk of little else but the debauchery of your sons and the wrongfulness of your marriage. After your penance – whose details she withheld – she said you would suffer extreme shame and be in low spirits. At this point Robert sat up and paid attention. He asked what care would be given to the health of your soul during this difficult time. Edith said Edward had already thought about this. Edward looked at her, said nothing and let her carry on. “Yes,” said Edith, “the Abbess of Barking has been instructed to send a group of high-born nuns to take care of Godiva.” Robert looked round the room, smiled at everyone and predicted that these lady-nuns would whisk you off into luxurious seclusion at Barking Abbey and pamper you in every way until you lost all remaining interest in your manor, your town, your priory and your husband – all of which were hard work and disappointment. Everyone laughed at that.’

  ‘But, Estrith – no nuns came from Barking. A monstrous woman came here from Evesham, but she had nothing to do with the king.’

  ‘Exactly. Nothing happened. After Robert made his comment, the king grew quiet and thoughtful. Then he stood up, raised his glass and declared a toast. “To the lady of Coventry, Godiva.”

  ‘What?’

  ‘Those very words. A nervous silence fell on everyone as Edward raised his glass and slowly sipped his wine. “This woman’s sweet and humble acceptance of my penance affects me deeply,” he said, and then he sat down. Edith went white and the entire roomful of bishops and clerics remained speechless. The king was going into one of his about-faces, when no one could guess what he would say next. Everyone waited. Edward then addressed Edith, praising you, extolling your piety, your courage and, in great detail, your ravishing beauty, and the beauty of your soul. And then he talked about your goodness to the people of Coventry, and how they could not possibly have a better lord than Godiva. He even said it was regrettable that you did not have royal blood, for then you could have married into the ruling line of England when you were young and fertile. “She is the same age as I am,” he said, staring at Edith’s bosom – which, as you know, Godiva, is as flat as a Shrove Tuesday pancake – “and if only had fate permitted it, she would have borne me sons such as a king could be proud of.” Well, at this point Edith realized that Edward had been leading her on for weeks, until she had made it obvious to everyone how much she hoped to see you off to a convent and pass your estates to her favourite brothers. That night, at Grafton, she was lured into showing her hand. Edward, meanwhile, had concealed his. She felt like a fool, and with that reference to you as an ideal royal bride she felt mortally insulted. She jumped up from the table, stormed around the room ranting and railing, until finally Edward, wearied, told the servants to bring him the chess board. He pointed at her queen and said, ‘Checkmate.’ Edith went mad then. She screamed that they had both – king and queen – intended your penance as a hoax, and that while she wanted your lands (yes, that was true, she admitted recklessly), he, the king, had wanted the penance so as to obtain the only gratification of which he is capable: sinning with his eyes.’

  ‘Good God. She said that in public?’

  ‘It gets worse. Edward didn’t answer her. He merely shook his head sorrowfully and looked at Father Francis as though to say: see what I have to put up with? The unspeakable coarseness of this Godwin girl. The silence grew until Edith could bear it no more. “Scopman!” she screamed at him. “Watchman! Masturbator!” But she had gone too far now. There was muttering amongst the bishops and much throat-clearing, and then Robert got up and he and I took her by the hand and led her away, cursing and sobbing. She spent the night under lock and key, and the next day Edward expelled her from court. She is imprisoned now in Winchester.’

  Godiva let out a deep sigh, as though she had been holding some part of her breath ever since she saw the king in Winchester cathedral. ‘Now I understand my penance,’ she breathed.

  ‘Yes, it was the bait that lured Edith on until she thought she had won. When she realized she had been deceived, her piety dissolved right under the noses of the bishops. She is destroyed, perhaps forever.’

  ‘But I still do not understand the king,’ Godiva said. ‘His piety seemed so deep and sincere that I had come to believe in it. I can’t believe that everything he said about sin and repentance was no more than a posture to disguise his intentions.’

  ‘Sincerity?’ Lovric exclaimed. ‘No one will ever know this king’s mind. Nor whether he means to hand his crown to one of his Norman kin, or keep them living in false hope of gaining England. For the moment, though, it is clear that I and my house are no longer the chosen enemy. It is Godwin and his children who occupy that position now. I am glad.’

  The next morning Godiva called Agatha to her chamber.

  ‘I understand Bret’s money was returned to you?’ she asked. Agatha nodded. ‘And Lovric says you and Wulf went to the forest last night.’ Agatha blushed and nodded. ‘Do you want to marry?’

  ‘Yes, but Wulf have no money, and we ain’t got nowhere to live.’

  ‘A churl’s farm on the London Road is falling into my hands because there are no heirs. Bret’s money should just about cover the cost of the freehold. What do you say?’

  Agatha was stunned. ‘Go away from here, mistress? Have I offended too much?’

  ‘No, but this summer you grew out of bei
ng a serving girl. It is time for you to have your own house and man and, God willing, your own children.’

  ‘Thank you, mistress, for thinking of me. You are right, it is time. I ain’t no virgin no more, and Bertha going knock the living daylights out of me if I end up like Miss Milly.’ Despite the unintended insult, Godiva smiled. ‘But I’m going to sore miss the manor and all the folks here,’ Agatha continued. ‘It be lonely, out in your own house and garden.’

  ‘And there’s something else to consider. There is a stream running along this farm’s border. It is where Bret was found dead.’

  ‘Who told you, mistress?’ Agatha gasped.

  ‘The earl. His scouts said they thought the king sent knights from Cleley to kill Bret. And he guessed that the king had sent him here to me in the first place. He was able to piece together the rest of it.’

  Agatha examined Godiva’s face, with its softening lines and reviving beauty. There was no expression there: one might have thought that Bret had never existed. Nor was there any trace of shame: the earl and his wife had made their peace with past disloyalty.

  After she had dried her eyes and wiped her nose, Agatha left to continue her chores. Godiva sat by the table for a few minutes, wondering who she would train to replace her. She was so deep in thought that she did not hear the sounds of shouting and running feet until Bertha flung the door open and cried out, ‘Help, lady! Come quick.’

  Godiva ran to her front door, and immediately collided with Tom the tanner’s son, who threw his arms round her, wailing, ‘Sanctuary, sanctuary.’ Behind him followed a gang of townspeople, all shaking their fists and sticks, and cursing. They stopped in confusion when they saw Godiva before them, pointing her sword.

  ‘Sorry, we be trespassing,’ said the innkeeper, inching away.

  ‘We had to catch the little bastard before he get out of town,’ said the tinsmith. ‘Even his father don’t want him no more. Ask him, mistress.’

  Godiva pulled Tom out from behind her skirts and looked at him. He had a fresh bruise coming up on one eye, and the other was already closed from a punch he must have received last night. He could not stand up straight.