I Am the Chosen King

by Helen Hollick

  She fingered the gold brooch that clasped her tunic at the shoulder, a pretty thing, patterned with flower-petal shapes and four lion-like beasts. She unpinned it and read aloud the inscription engraved to its underside:

  Aldgyð me ag:

  ag hyo Drihten

  Drihten hine awerie

  ðe me hire ætferie

  Bvton hyo me selle

  hire agenes willes

  Alditha owns me, may the Lord own her. May the Lord curse him who takes me from her, unless she but gives me by her own choice. Harold had presented it to her on the dawn of their first day together, as his own personal morning gift.

  Their wedding. A cold, bright-skied frosted day. She had walked beside Harold, flanked by her two brothers, to the Minster, the streets lined by the people of York. They had been pleased, shouting their greetings and blessings, showering the couple with snowdrops and yellow-dusted catkins, there being no other flower petals to strew in their path late in February. Her dress had been of yellow silk, her veil a pale blue, her shoes a darker hue. An expensive garment: it had been her mother’s wedding dress, had fitted as if made for her.

  She had been certain her mother had been beside her during the service, was sure she had smelt her flower-scented perfume. How pleased she would have been that her daughter, as soon as the marriage vows were exchanged, was to be crowned and anointed as Queen of England. Her father would have been pleased too, although his would have been the gloating of arrogance, of enjoying the prospect of a grandson becoming the next king. York—all the North, so they said—was equally delighted by the match. Her brothers had grinned throughout like inane barley-drunk peasants, and Harold had taken her hand and smiled gently upon her. Herself? She sighed, stretching her foot for it was beginning to tingle with pin-and-needle stabs. How had she felt that day, seven weeks ago in York? Happy? Content? She supposed, aye, she had, but in truth, she had felt very little. She liked Harold, he was a good and kind man, but she did not know him, and the memory of her first husband had still numbed her mind.

  They had not asked her whether she wanted to be Harold’s wife, his queen, had assumed she would agree to their proposals for alliance. As had her father when he had arranged her marriage to Gruffydd. At least Westminster was not so far to travel to as had been Wales! But then she had, despite the fear for her husband, much liked Wales, the place and the people. Did not much like Westminster.

  She had been nervous that night, after their marriage ceremony and feasting; she had thought then how foolish she was to be quaking with fear. A woman grown, mother of a child, bedded and used by Gruffydd of Wales. Yet she had gone to her marriage bed with Harold as if she were a shy and innocent maid. Gruffydd had taken his pleasure on her and fallen instantly asleep; she had felt nothing but discomfort when he had used her.

  Harold had been different, gentle and considerate, ensuring she received as well as gave pleasure. Before that wedding night, she had been unaware that a woman, too, could experience an exhilaration from the act of coupling. Gruffydd had been a man with a constant need to prove something, be it his ability and strength in battle or bed. Harold had nothing to prove, not to her or anyone else, unless you included his need to prove that he no longer thought of Edyth Swannhaels. Except he did think of her. Often. Especially now, when they were here at Westminster and she was so close, but a short ride away.

  Her family, Eadwine and Morkere, basked in the reflected glory of her being England’s crowned queen. The North had settled, accepting Harold and his promise to them, because of her. Even Nest was content—before she had fallen so ill this day. Alditha allowed herself a mother’s indulgent smile. On that wedding day Nest, too, had been dressed in her finest, the little girl’s excited delight infecting them all in the chamber where her mother had been dressing for the occasion.

  “Are you to wear a crown, Mama? Queens wear crowns, do they not?”

  “Aye, merched fach, Mam is to wear a crown.”

  “Am I to wear a crown too? I should like a crown. A silver one.”

  Alditha had told Harold of the exchange later, as they lay together, entwined, drifting between the throb of lovemaking and the tranquillity of sleep. He had laughed, a father’s appreciative chuckle at the innocence of children.

  “She shall have her crown, a silver circlet. I shall order one made, especially for her.”

  Harold kept his word, something Gruffydd had never done, giving it to her a week and a day after the wedding, two days before they rode south, here to Westminster.

  There was a noise from down in the forecourt, people calling beyond the closed wooden shutters that covered the windows. She had thrown them open during the day, taken down the oiled parchment that had been stretched over the openings, to allow in the fresh air and small amount of sunshine. This chamber faced east, though, so the sun only lit the room through the morning. Harold’s chamber, the King’s room, set to the south, was far more pleasant, but Alditha was never summoned there, by day or night. She had a suspicion that Harold himself spent little time in the chamber that had once, not so long since, been Edward’s.

  She sat looking at the wall, thinking of nothing in particular, fleeting images of her childhood, her mother, father, brothers passing through her mind. Her hopes, fears. Her loneliness. The tapestry hanging within her direct line of sight was embroidered with dark, sombre colours, reds and browns: Christ suffering on the cross; the clouds of a brewing storm; behind, women weeping at His feet, Edith had chosen the decoration for this, the Queen’s chamber; her taste was very different from Alditha’s. Alditha would have chosen the parables, perhaps, or Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, joyous images, filled with light and vivid colour. The blueness of the Galilean sea, the green of palm leaves. Yellows, oranges…On impulse, she lunged to her feet, took hold of the tapestry with both hands and pulled, her frustration and years of disappointments funnelling into fury at the ugliness of the thing. The bound edge ripped and the tapestry fell, the broken hanging-frame knocking her down, the torn material covering her as if it were a tossed mantle. Her ensuing oath was passionate and explicit, though fortunately in Welsh.

  “I have no idea what you just bellowed, but I assume it meant something significant.” An amused smile wrinkling his lips, Harold bent and lifted the remnant, then held his hand out to assist his wife to her feet. “I did knock, but you can’t have heard,” he said as, her face blushing red, Alditha brushed dust and frayed threads from her gown. “Then I heard you shout.” He reached his hand forward, removed a cobweb from her hair. “Thought perhaps you were being attacked.” He raised his other hand, showed the dagger he held, slid it into the sheath at his waist. “Though I reckon your oath would be enough to scare away the fiercest of tapestries.”

  Embarrassed, Alditha mumbled an apology for ruining the wall hanging. “I merely wished to pull it down…”

  “You must be stronger than you thought—you are not descended from that mythical demigod Heracles, are you?”

  “I did not intend to tear it.” She risked a glance up at him, fearing that he would be angry with her, as Gruffydd would have been. He would have beaten her, most probably.

  To her wonder, Harold was laughing. “Shred all of them if you wish,” he said, waving his arm vaguely at the walls. “I always thought my sister’s taste rather too morbid. She was never like that as a child.” He walked towards another tapestry, peered at it, his expression puckering with distaste. He flicked a finger and a cloud of dust billowed out. “Does no one take these things down and beat them? Gods, there are more spiders and fleas in this horrendous thing than there are stitches!” Turning back to Alditha, he said, “Give orders to your women on the morrow that these are to be removed and burnt. Choose something that you like to replace them.” When a smile spread on her face, he added, “You ought to smile more often, it suits you better than that sombre frown that sits there most the while.”

  For a moment, nei
ther of them spoke, both uncertain what to say next, then words tumbled out together.

  “I came to see if you…”

  “I was about to go and…”

  They stopped, laughed together.

  “I am sorry, my Lord, I interrupted.”

  “No matter. I, er…” Harold felt stupid, as if he were a lad again, talking to the first woman he had taken to bed. How embarrassed he had been as he fumbled and fiddled, how patient she had been with him, and all for the price of a penny! “I came to ask if you would like to come and see the bearded star that has appeared in the sky.” He spoke quickly, words gushing in a torrent, but he slowed as he stepped towards her, his hand reaching out to touch her cheek and hair. “It is almost as bright as your eyes, but not, I think, as beautiful.”

  Flustered, uncertain, Alditha half pulled away from him, glancing around the room for her cloak. “I was about to go and see my daughter. She is unwell. She is running a fever, has itching spots on her body.”

  Harold nodded. “I was told. I have already been to see her. Her nurse gave her a mild sleeping draught and she is sound asleep. She is healthy, and with good nursing should soon recover. All of my children suffered a dosing of the white spots.”

  Puzzled, Alditha stopped, her cloak half tossed around her shoulders. “You have seen her? But why, my Lord? She is not your child but the daughter of a Welshman.”

  Taking the cloak, Harold fastened it about her, then rested his hands on her shoulders. “She is also the daughter of my wife and my queen.” He dipped his head, his lips close to hers, pausing to find the right words. “I will not mistreat you, as Gruffydd did, nor will I intentionally hurt you. You are my wife and—” Again he paused. He ought say, “and I love you,” but he could not insult her with a lie—he thought too much of her for that. “I am heart-fond of you.”

  She wanted to ask, “Fond? What of Edyth? What of the woman you do love?” But she said nothing, for Alditha was no fool. If a woman had a husband who treated her with kindness and respect, what more could she ask? Few women possessed even that. To hold a man’s love for as long as Edyth Swannhæls had was a rarity.

  Harold read her silence, was aware she must think often of that other woman of his. That night when he had lain first with her—and felt the intensity of pleasure as her lithe and supple body had responded to his caress—he had murmured a name into her hair. It had not been Alditha that he had whispered though, but Edyth.

  “I cannot say that I will not, ever, go to Waltham Manor again, but this I will promise. I will not visit Edyth while you are resident here at Westminster. I will not embarrass, or compromise, either of you in that way.”

  Alditha touched the tips of her fingers to his lips. His hair was beginning to silver at the temples and the moustache that drooped to either side of his mouth bore the first grizzle of age. Yet his eyes were as blue as speedwells, and his smile did not just touch the corners of his lips, but came through those eyes, direct from his heart. It was that, above all else, that made him so different from her first husband, from so many men. His smile was genuine.

  “I expect no promises of you, my Lord. No woman can of her husband, but I would ask you one thing.” Her heart was starting to pound. Dare she ask? Would he think ill of her? Think her wanton and immoral?

  He lifted his hand, palm open. “Ask.”

  “I was sitting here earlier, thinking that you must have a special love for Edyth, as you have been with her so long.”

  He answered quietly, with the truth. “Aye, that I have.”

  She looked deep into his eyes, wondered at her own daring as she said, quickly before her courage failed her, “I know you will never love me with your heart, as you do her, but could you, would you…” She turned away abruptly, so that he would not see the flush of red crimson her cheeks. “Would you teach me how I may love you, with the intimacy of my body?”

  Harold walked around her, lifted her face and set his lips light against hers. “You do not need teaching, sweetheart, you have it there already. It needs liberating from its cage, that is all.”

  “But can you unlock the door?”

  “I have the key, right here.”

  They forgot about the comet that was racing across the heavens. For that night, at least, Harold also forgot about the news he had received that his brother Tostig was waiting to attack England. Forgot William of Normandy, riding furious to each of his apathetic lords and nobles to persuade them to join his cause. Almost forgot, for that one moment during the height of their passion, Edyth.

  7

  Dives-sur-Mer

  Shells scrunched beneath William’s boots as he crossed the wide, flat stretch of sand, his long stride taking him rapidly nearer the group of men standing, hands shading their eyes, watching as the ship was manhandled towards the sea. The vessel was slowly lumbering along a series of wooden rollers laid beneath its keel; a few more yards and its bow would be touching the first shallow ripples of the Channel Sea. Another ship completed. One more to add to the Duke’s impressive fleet.

  One of the men watching turned at the sound of his footsteps, William fitz Osbern’s expression breaking into a welcoming smile as he recognised his duke. “Good day, my Lord!” he called. “Is she not a beauty? And there are almost one hundred like her, moored in safety along the river.”

  “Only one hundred?” William snapped gruffly. “There ought be double that. Treble. What are these imbecile shipwrights doing? Make them work harder.”

  Fitz Osbern repressed a sigh as William stalked on past, heading for the ponderously moving ship. The intensity of this moon-mad venture was playing heavy upon the Duke’s temper and everyone else’s patience. Not an even-tempered man at the best of times, William was daily becoming ever more impossible to tolerate with equanimity. The sheer logistics of this enterprise were already overwhelming—and as yet, they had not mustered sufficient to invade a kingdom across the sea.

  Will gazed along the almost infinite length of sand. The estuary ran across golden sandbanks, the land low here but rising to a modest headland, beneath which a fishing village huddled, before sweeping into the wide bay of Honfleur. Duke William had chosen this river and stretch of coast because it was sheltered from persistent sea winds and conveniently close to Caen, so he could keep an eye on progress.

  Within a single handful of weeks, these beaches would begin to fill with tents and men; soon they would be swamped by latrine detritus and smoke curls from hearth fires would stain the blue sky. The coast would be denuded of game and timber. En outre a glut of bastard-born children would appear in nine months’ time. Sufficient grain was already being laboriously transferred to the huge temporary barns, but men always liked their meat if they could get it. Both of the four- and two-legged kind.

  The first of the horses had already been turned loose to graze in the Dives valley; at least they would not require feeding, not while the spring grass was lush and fresh. The ships were arriving too, sent with their cargoes of timber—to build more ships—of grain, other supplies, weapons, armour. Delivered early by those few barons and nobles who unswervingly supported William in this venture. Bishop Odo of Bayeux had fulfilled his quota of one hundred seaworthy vessels, William d’Everux eighty, Robert d’Eu sixty, Robert, comte de Mortain one hundred and twenty. Will fitz Osbern’s own submission of sixty deep-draughted craft, each capable of transporting ten horses…and more would be coming. Clinker-built sea-going cargo and trade ships designed for sturdiness and stability rather than speed and manoeuvrability, powered by sail, not oar. Ships from wealthy men like Walter Gifford, Hugh d’Avranches, Hugh de Montfort. Eight hundred such craft were, they estimated, needed. Eight hundred. Will ran his hand through his short-cropped hair, whistling silently. Eight hundred. Half accounted for through the muster, the rest to be built. Already the seasoned timber was almost all used, they would be needing to cut and use green wood, unsuitable for
building for it would warp and twist…but then, they would not be requiring the ships after they had reached England. The sailing, for most of them, would be one way.

  “Where is this poxed Englishman you say you have caught last evening?” Duke William’s abrupt question roused Will from his thoughts. They had captured an English cur-son, spying on the number of these vessels, on the preparations for invasion.

  “We have him safely chained, over in one of the smith’s forges. He will not give his name or his business here, though he has been thoroughly questioned.”

  Changing direction, Duke William strode purposefully towards the clutter of shacks and bothies, from where came the rhythmic sound of hammering. The master shipwright oversaw the cutting and fitting of the timbers for each ship. But so many others, with their different skills were crucial to the construction. Blacksmiths, carpenters, the prowwright, who performed the most difficult and vital task—connecting the lines fore and aft, taking especial care where keel and strakes met stem and stern. Four masters and the manual labourers…twelve men for each ship.

  Fitz Osbern indicated the back of one of the bothies where a man, chained at wrists and ankles, squatted. He looked up as the Duke approached and kicked his thigh. Blood had dried above his left eye and cheek, where bruising was already darkening to purple and black. His lips were swollen, his long hair matted, his tunic ripped and stained with more blood.

  “So you will not tell us your name?” William stood with legs wide, seemingly relaxed and uninterested. “Well, I have no desire to hear it. It’s enough to know you are English scum. But I do wish to know what you have learnt from spying on my shipbuilders. What you were going to tell Earl Harold when you returned to England.”