The Cunning of the Dove

by Alfred Duggan

  ‘You are within the special peace of the King, and not one of you will be harmed in any way. Tonight you must stay here. Tomorrow there will be a great deal of work for you, packing all the treasures of this hall. After that I suppose some of you will have to seek another mistress, though the Lady will still maintain a household befitting the mother of the King. Now be quiet and try to get some sleep.’

  Then he went on in another tone, as though talking to himself. I was close by, and could overhear him. ‘I haven’t a servant nearer than Gloucester. I could get a soldier to prepare my bed and disarm me, but I don’t like soldiers in my chamber. Otherwise there will be only my mother’s women, and that would never do. A woman summoned to the King’s chamber would expect the worst, and be disappointed when it didn’t happen to her. But the young men here are all greasy scullions.’

  ‘I can prepare your bed and disarm you, my lord,’ I called, too excited to realise my temerity.

  ‘I remember your face. You are the page who stayed at your post when the housecarles fled,’ the King answered with a smile. ‘You shall prepare my bed tonight.’

  I knelt to kiss the King’s hand, and a housecarle with an axe on his shoulder led me to the little room in which the King would sleep.

  I had never before prepared a bedchamber, for of course in the Lady’s household such work was the province of her women. I sat down to think what a King would want when he retired for the night, and then I decided that any sensible King would want what I would have wanted myself if I could have had my own way in everything; that is, very clean bedclothes and plenty of them, and before going to bed scented warm water for washing and clean warm towels for drying. Every cupboard in the hall was at my disposal, for the upper servants were penned in the kitchen. I helped myself to a new copper cauldron and filled it with clean water from the drinking-well. I raided the empty bedchamber of the mistress of the robes for linen and towels, and there I found a jar of sweet-smelling paste which I decided must be soap. I tried a little on my hands (for never before had I seen soap) and it seemed to work. I took a fine glowing brazier from a deserted guardroom, and set my clean water to heat by the furnace in the brewhouse. An hour later, when the King came in with two housecarles to guard him, the room looked cheerful and inviting.

  The King dismissed his guards and sank down on a stool. I had never before handled a mailshirt, but he showed me the fastenings most affably, and told me how to take off his shoes and hose. The nightshirt I had ready warming by the brazier turned out to be a feminine garment, with a great deal of frivolous embroidery; but he put it on, roaring with laughter, and said cheerfully: ‘Well, everything in this hall now belongs to me, and I suppose that includes the nightshirt of the mistress of the robes. I see her furred bedgown over there. Help me into it, and then hold the basin while I wash my hands and feet. This campaigning is great fun. It doesn’t matter what I look like so long as I am warm and comfortable. The housecarles can’t see me, and no one will be the wiser.’

  Even in women’s clothes he looked imposing and regal. In fact, now that I had leisure to inspect him closely, I saw that he was a striking figure of a man. In those days King Edward was not quite forty years old, but already his abundant hair had turned white. He wore his beard long, after the Danish fashion; but because it also was white, and trimmed to a neat point instead of spreading all over his breast, it made him look more like a holy image in a church than a savage Viking. But he was a benignant image, not a prophet of doom; his clean smooth skin was pink and glowing, and his mouth stretched into a happy smile. For the rest, he had the slender well-balanced figure of a good horseman. But the most striking thing about him, except for his benevolent face, was the grace of his long white hands, the tapering fingers so fine that the torchlight shone through them. He was proud of those beautiful hands, and of his beautiful hair; he took a long time to clean them and get them ready for the night.

  When he had finished washing he went over to his armour and fumbled about looking for something. He would not let me help him. Presently from inside his mailshirt he fished out a little image of St. Peter, and set it up on a stool. In after years I learned that he did not like anyone else to touch this image, which he always carried with him. When it was balanced upright to his satisfaction (the manikin of ivory was less than three inches high) he prostrated himself before it, spread his arms wide in the form of a cross, and began to mutter his prayers.

  I knelt upright in a corner, where I could keep my eye on him, and said my own prayers under my breath; because that seemed what good manners demanded of me. But he went on for very much longer than I had expected, and by the time he had finished I was dozing on my knees.

  At last he climbed into bed. When I saw he was settled I walked quietly to the door. But I was still ignorant of the etiquette of the royal bedchamber. He called after me, in a pleasant voice:

  ‘Don’t go away, my boy. Let me see, what’s your name? Ah, Edgar, of course. A King must remember names, it’s most important. But a King may never sleep alone, either. Someone might creep in here and cut my throat, and then my whole following would be under suspicion. I haven’t been a King very long, you know, and I must keep the rules laid down by my predecessors. You will sleep on the floor of my chamber, to raise the alarm if anyone intrudes or to fetch me anything I may want in the night. Go and collect some sheepskins to sleep on; you will find them scattered all over the place. Make yourself comfortable on the floor, but don’t undress in case I should want you to go out on an errand.’

  With a couple of sheepskins I made myself a couch at the foot of the King’s bed. After the day’s excitement I was very tired; but I could not go to sleep, for the King would not stop talking.

  He was not talking to me, but rather to the world in general. This, I discovered later, was a habit of his. He often spoke his thoughts aloud, not caring who might overhear them; especially at night he would run over the events of the past day. I suppose this was how he examined his conscience.

  Now he seemed to be arguing with himself, or rather accusing himself.

  ‘Crowned seven months ago, and the first time I ride in arms it is to plunder my own mother. That will look bad, whatever the dress my Councillors put on it. But then it is misleading to think in cut-and-dried categories; every case is a special case. The Lady of England is not an ordinary mother. In fact she is scarcely my mother at all; she is so busy being the widow of King Canute that she has no time to think of her children. And I am her son by the husband she despised – the husband who had the bad manners to run away after he was beaten, instead of dying like a gentleman on a lost field. All Normans despise failure, and a failure who can plausibly be accused of cowardice is best forgotten by any Norman princess.’

  After a pause he went on again. ‘For twenty-five years she forgot me. I was a fugitive in Normandy, going in daily terror of Danish assassins, while she lived softly as the wife of the Danish pirate who had conquered England. I must not think of her as my mother. I must think of what the King should do for the welfare of his people … Yes, that’s all very well. A King must sometimes do discreditable deeds for the good of his country. In that case a virtuous man should not consent to be made King. But I didn’t want to be King, and when the time came I took a deal of persuading … No, that won’t do. When I came to my brother’s court I knew that Hardicanute intended to make me his heir. Unless I was willing to be King of the English I should have stayed in Normandy. But if I had stayed as a private man in Normandy sooner or later the Danes would have murdered me. Any Danish King would see me as a menace. It’s nice to know that now I am safe.’

  I was afraid to listen to these secrets of state. I coughed, to remind the King that I could overhear him.

  There was silence for a moment, but before I could get to sleep the voice began again.

  ‘When I accepted the crown I did no wrong, that’s certain; though a really virtuous man would have refused it. But that’s not the point. As King, am I justified
in seizing the treasures of my mother? On the whole, I think I am justified. She didn’t want me to be King, and I can’t blame her for that. But once I had been chosen she should have respected the decision of the Council. I suppose she genuinely loved Canute, and hoped to carry out his wishes even after his death. Again, there’s nothing wrong in that. She can’t be blamed for disliking the memory of my father; everyone is agreed on the incompetence of King Ethelred. So if I punish her I do wrong.… But to take from her the treasure of King Canute is not to punish her; that treasure belongs to the King now reigning, myself, Canute’s heir. I’m pretty sure she was using the money to help my rivals, Sweyn or Magnus or perhaps both of them. If I let things slide, a time will come when I have to wage open war against her. So what I have done today is really the best solution. I have her money. No one has been accused of plotting, but the plots will cease. Very well. Now I can sleep.’

  I myself slept fitfully and uneasily. Probably the King had forgotten that there was anyone in the room to overhear his soliloquy. When he saw me in the morning he might decide that the easiest way to keep his secrets would be to have me killed at once. Kings are very terrible folk.

  But if I were spared I would not betray his confidence. I felt no scruple about leaving the service of the Lady. I believed what the King had said to himself: the Lady was planning to bring back the Danish Kings, even after the extinction of the direct line of Canute. There were men in England who would welcome the return of Danish rule, but Danish pirates had ruined my grandfather.

  Very early in the morning the King woke, and ordered me to put him in a warm bedgown so that he could go along the passage to hear his first Mass. I knew that later in the day he would attend High Mass in the Old Minster, for that is what every great lord does when he comes to Winchester. Until then I did not know that King Edward always heard a short Mass in private before beginning the work of the day. He said nothing to me about his spoken meditations of the night, and of course I did not remind him of them. When he came back from Mass I dressed him in the armour he had worn when he first arrived, and he went off to meet his Earls. After tidying the little chamber I wandered off to the kitchen, for I had eaten nothing since dinner on the previous day.

  I did not know what would become of me. The Lady’s household would be dispersed, and anyway I did not care to continue in the service of a mistress who had plotted to bring back the Danish Kings. My father was now so poor that there would be nothing for me at home. I wondered whether some minster might take me in as a servant; I have no vocation for the hard life of religion, but I feel at ease in the company of monks and among them I would not be bothered by women. On that gloomy November morning the kitchen was full of frightened servants; everyone was wondering what to do next, and in the confusion it was impossible to make sensible plans.

  About midday the army prepared to ride, and to my great surprise the King sent for me. He was already mounted when a housecarle fetched me to stand before his horse. In his mail he looked very stern, sitting his tall stallion in the warlike foreign fashion; for he had been trained to fight on horseback as Frenchmen do. But I could see a friendly smile lurking in the bushy white beard.

  ‘Hallo, young Edgar,’ he said pleasantly. ‘You didn’t gossip in the kitchen about what I said to myself as I was going to sleep last night. My men were near you, and I know that for a fact. I am looking for a young man of your stamp. Not long ago a page of mine was killed out boarhunting, and his place is still vacant. Would you like to come to court, and take your turn in the bedchamber with the others? In the daytime you would help to look after my robes, under the orders of the head chamberlain. In case there’s anyone depending on you I shall give you a year’s wages in advance. But you must make up your mind quickly, for we leave now.’

  So it was that in my seventeenth year I entered the service of Edward, King of the English; and I remained at his court, always close to his person, until he died.

  2. Edward the King

  The King was a practical man, who knew how his people lived. Nowadays his admirers forget that side of his nature, but to his dependants it was very noticeable. Some great men have been great for so long that they forget the framework of poverty in which most of the human race must conduct its affairs. They will send a man to carry a message to Scotland or Rome, or take a craftsman away from his shop to make something in a great hall, forgetting that such a man may have no money at all, even though he eats well every day. Of course there will be a very handsome reward when the work has been accomplished; but the inferior must face the unpleasant task of screwing an advance of pay from some tightfisted steward before he can begin. King Edward himself had been short of money as a young exile in Normandy. He did not forget that someone in Winchester might be counting on help even from a poor page.

  The generous present he gave me on the day I entered his household was called an advance on wages; though at the next Christmas I got my full wages in addition. Before I left Winchester I was able to hand on the money to my father; he used it to buy good leather, and he was soon once again a prosperous cordwainer. But then my mother died, worn out by the hardships of that hungry winter. To me, my mother was my family. I called on my father whenever the court came to Winchester, until he died about ten years later; but I was not eager to see him, any more than he was eager to see me. Now that my mother was dead I felt myself alone in the world, no longer bound by family ties.

  My home was the court, and the King was my father and mother. The household was really quite small, and the King knew us as individuals; that is to say, he knew the dozen or so young men who waited on him personally. Cooks and scullions were always changing, unless they happened to live permanently in some particular royal hall; whereas the court was always on the move. The housecarles of the bodyguard lived in a different world, which the King never tried to enter; the host of cleaning women were of course gathered from the neighbourhood wherever we might be stopping. So that out of the hundreds, if not thousands, of his subjects who every day surrounded the King the little group of young men who looked after his bedchamber, under the orders of the senior chamberlain, were the only ones in constant attendance. The King knew us as well as if we had been his kinsmen, and treated us with friendly familiarity. He often reminded us that for more than twenty years he had lived in Normandy as a private man, with little prospect of ever reaching the throne of the English. In public, among his Earls and his clergy, he behaved as a great King should behave; in his bedchamber he was not indeed one of us, but we regarded him as a loved and venerated father.

  His days followed a regular routine, which made life easy for his personal servants. Early in the morning he went privately to a short Mass, usually said by one of his Norman chaplains. For this he kept no state, and he did not like it if strangers came out of mere curiosity; though a Christian cannot be turned away from Mass offered in a consecrated chapel, so that newcomers who did not know the ropes sometimes seized this opportunity for an attempt at a private audience. We courtiers soon learned that it was useless to ask a favour at this time, for invariably it would be refused; though it was said that King Edward in refusing a request was more gracious and kindly than other lords when they grant one.

  After his first Mass the King was dressed in his royal robes. He then proceeded in full state to confer with his Council. At mid-morning he went with his Councillors to hear a sung Mass, in a great minster if the court lay near one. This was most emphatically a public occasion; the best time to approach him with a petition was as he entered or left the church. After Mass there would be more official business if necessary; but as soon as he had finished with urgent affairs the King would dine, the sooner the better. He never ate anything in the morning except a little bread, so that by dinner-time he would be hungry. But it was even more important that the end of dinner marked the end of the official day. While he sat at the high table envoys or messengers might be publicly received, and there was always a good deal of informal business dur
ing the meal, since his Councillors dined with him. After dinner work was laid aside.

  We would be waiting for him in his chamber, and he would hurry to get out of his robes and into his riding dress. Then, until dark, he would go hunting. If the weather was too foul or frosty for riding it made no difference; the King would still dress for hunting, but instead of going out and perhaps laming a good horse he would visit his hawks in the mews. He knew a great deal about the training of hawks, and supervised his falconers more thoroughly than is usual among great lords. His great ambition was to man an Iceland gerfalcon from start to finish, and I am sure he could have done it as well as any professional falconer. But while the eyes of the untrained hawk are sealed her trainer must be with her all the time, to comfort her when strange man-made noises upset her sensitive nerves; and a wild gerfalcon among the Councillors at the high table would be too much of a distraction.

  I have heard the King say that the conventional description of a peaceful country is all very well in its way, a land where a maiden may travel unmolested with her bosom full of gold; but that a Kingdom whose ruler had the leisure to man a hawk would be something very like Paradise.

  In the evening the King supped in state, and dealt with any urgent business that had come up during the day. After supper he was once more private, and sat talking in a little room with a few chosen companions. These companions were clerks, but they had been chosen for their wide reading rather than for their holiness; the King wanted to talk about books, he did not seek spiritual edification.

  In his daily round there was no place for women. Even the necessary sewing-maids and laundresses were kept at a distance.

  During those opening years of the reign the King’s indifference to women caused a certain amount of gossip. Two theories were especially popular. One was that a mishap out riding had made him a eunuch, the other that he was inclined to sodomy. These were mere uninstructed rumours. A glance at the King’s flowing beard and neat athletic waist proved him no eunuch. As to the second theory, the King certainly liked to surround himself with handsome young men; but I am sure he was completely innocent. In some ways he knew very little about the wickedness of the world, and probably he had only a very vague idea of what the Church means when she condemns the sin of sodomy. He was careful to avoid even the appearance of scandal; if he had guessed that his habits might be misunderstood he would have lived in a different fashion.