He looked around almost incredulously and Mathilda slid closer.
‘You are glad to be home, Husband?’
For a moment Mathilda thought she saw a tear in his eye.
‘I think I have never been gladder.’
‘Your mother would have been so proud.’
‘She would. I hope she is looking down from heaven to see her bastard son acclaimed a king. Oh yes, Mathilda, it is good to be home.’ He looked all around again and Mathilda saw him draw in deep, gulping breaths of Norman air, almost as if he might drown for its lack. ‘Oh, and I have news for you – your cousin, Judith, who was sadly widowed by the oathbreaker . . .’
‘Yes,’ Mathilda prompted eagerly, for she had thought often of Judith and wondered how she fared alone in bleak St Omer.
‘She is to wed again, to a Lord Wulf of Bavaria in the German empire. He is, I hear tell, a quiet, kindly man with a great interest in art. He met Judith in Rome and when she became free he moved swiftly to claim her hand. She goes gladly, I am told.’
Mathilda’s heart swelled.
‘That is joyous news indeed, William, thank you. But who has told you this – your spies?’
‘My well-informed messengers, Wife,’ he corrected with a wink and now her bouncing husband was turning and exclaiming, ‘And look, here are my children, my wonderful princes and princesses,’ and to Mathilda’s great surprise, he dropped to his knees, his arms wide.
There was a breathtaking moment of hesitation and then Cecily, freed from La Trinité for this great occasion, stepped into his embrace and suddenly he was saying her name and holding her close as Maud and Constance squirmed in too. Eventually he stood, one smaller girl on each hip and Cecily close and now Rufus and Richard bundled into him as Robert stood more self-consciously to one side.
‘Robert!’ William said, somehow releasing a hand to shake his eldest son’s. ‘You have cared for Normandy well in my absence – she looks glorious.’ Mathilda heard a small catch in his voice and thought again that he might cry but he composed himself and looked around once more, his eyes roaming over the cheering crowds and up to the ducal palace on the hill above, before returning to his family. ‘And I hear I have a new daughter too?’
‘You do.’
Mathilda reached back to the wet-nurse, an older lady who had not approved of taking the baby out into the cold spring air and the rough crowds. Mathilda had defied her, insisting the girl must be there for her royal father’s homecoming, and she was glad now that she had. William put the other two down and took the baby tenderly in his arms where she looked so small and soft, cradled against his chainmail. He dropped a kiss on her pink forehead.
‘What have you called her, Wife?’
‘Adela.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘To honour my mother and her lost sister.’
‘Quite right – we should not forget our past.’ Mathilda raised an eyebrow at him but he just smiled again. ‘She came easily?’
‘Easily enough and in good time. She is healthy and well, William. We are blessed.’
He kissed her and she could not help but remember the harsh night right here, in Bonneville, after they had lost their first little Adela to Spanish fever and so nearly lost William too. Thank heavens he was home with her.
Hugh had come back briefly in January, bringing news of William’s glorious coronation, but had sailed again after less than two weeks, pleading anxiety for stabling of the warhorses he was busily rehousing in rich new pastures at somewhere called Leicester. He had taken Emeline with him and Mathilda had longed to go too but she’d still been recovering from the birth and, besides, Hugh had told her that William was planning this trip home and she had wanted to make everything ready for him.
‘I hope you have ordered a great feast, Mathilda,’ William said now, ‘and food and wine for all.’
‘Wine, William? It is Lent.’
He waved a careless hand as Raoul or Fitz might.
‘Not tonight. Tonight God forgives us our fast for he has granted us glory and we must honour that with joy.’
Mathilda nearly fell over. William had ever been rigorous about Lenten fasting, embracing its privations gladly as, in truth, they suited his own strict discipline better than the looser ease of the rest of the year. Until now.
‘I shall see to it, William,’ she stuttered, gesturing gratefully to Cecelia, who nodded and slipped off towards the fortress to issue orders to the kitchens and the cellars.
There would be a scramble but a welcome one for no one would be sorry to drop their fast, especially on their duke’s orders. The cheering grew even wilder.
‘It is a joy to celebrate with my own people,’ William roared, leaping onto a crate to address the crowd.
His eyes strayed briefly down the jetty where Mathilda saw a group of stiff-backed Saxons huddled with Fulk standing over them like a colossus. William’s messengers had told her he was bringing some key lords with him ‘to share the celebrations of our union’ but the surly faces on the men – more prisoners, she saw now, than guests – did not suggest that they saw this as anything worth celebrating. She stepped back a little from the rocking crowd to see them more clearly.
The one in archbishop’s robes must be Stigand, apparently the first cleric to submit to William at the end of last year. He, at least, looked relaxed and interested in the scenes before him. At his side, however, a lanky youth, all limbs, was glaring out from beneath greasy, overlong hair and Mathilda assumed he must be Edgar, the ‘aetheling’, the one whose father Mabel may or may not have poisoned. She’d felt sorry for him back then but he was not now being at all gracious in defeat.
Beyond were two tall men, still young but fierce-looking. They were both watching William intently, their bodies rigid as if poised to spring and their faces dark with the knowledge that to do so would be death. These must be the northern earls Edwin and Morcar, brothers to the upstart girl who had been briefly queen and was now fled somewhere leaving her throne for Mathilda. They did not look happy about it and as Mathilda turned back to William, bouncing on the crate as merrily as if he’d drunk half a jug of Bordeaux, she saw suddenly how hard it must have been – must, indeed, still be – in England.
The news at this end had been largely positive, reports of victory after victory. True, the first information that London had not submitted after the great battle had been a blow but after that it had been a run of submissions – Romney, Dover, Canterbury. Then places she had not heard of – Wallingford, Berkhamsted. William, finding his way into London barred, had circled the capital, putting up a ring of castles so that the towns all submitted as he went. It was only a matter of time, the messengers had assured her, before London itself gave way and at last, in December, as ice blew across Normandy, it had. Edgar had bowed the knee to William, the northern earls shortly after, and her husband had ridden into Westminster in triumph.
Triumph, yes, that’s definitely what they had told her and Mathilda, fresh from her eighth childbed, had pictured Westminster as she’d seen it back in ’51, trying to add in Edward’s new abbey and palace, apparently so like Jumièges that it was a natural home for William. She’d imagined her husband riding in full regalia and people lining the streets as they’d done when they had visited together.
She wasn’t stupid. She hadn’t imagined wild joy, but definitely curiosity, respect, acknowledgment. Had it not been that way? Had the coronation not, after all, been glorious? Now she came to think of it, there had been some mention of a fire, of disorder. She felt a sudden protective rush of sadness for her solemn husband, desperate to do his best for the new country of which he was so proud. Was William giddy here at Bonneville as much with relief as joy?
She pushed back through the crowd and stood beneath William, suddenly desperate to be with him. She tapped on his foot and he looked down from the crate, smiled, and then bent and took both her hands in his, hoisting her up at his side as easily as if she were little Constance.
‘It has been hard, William?’
she whispered.
He dipped his head to press his face into the softness of her neck.
‘Hard,’ he confirmed, so quietly she only just heard it. ‘But it is done. England is ours and I am home.’
‘Surely England is home now too?’ she asked, but he was distracted by a question from the crowd and she got no answer.
It was a grand feast that night and the next and the next as William and Mathilda moved through Normandy in a victory parade that culminated in an Easter feast at Fécamp, the like of which no man had ever seen in Normandy. People flooded in from all over the duchy – lords and ladies in pavilions packed so tight against each other they looked almost like one vast, rainbow tent; visiting dignitaries keen to bend the knee to the rising powerforce in Europe; common people, sleeping in the streets to gain a position closest to the new king and queen; and traders and artisans from all over Europe, looking to profit from the ebullience of a nation.
Raoul d’Amiens came riding in with Queen Anne herself at his side, full of praise for William’s endeavour and assurances of France’s support. Mathilda saw William near burst with pride as he addressed Anne, one royal to another, assuring her that he had promised friendship to France as a new duke of just seven years old and that he would always stand by that.
‘Loyalty is steadfast,’ she heard him say from out of the darker reaches of their shared past. ‘It chooses its allegiance and holds to it. It does not sway on the lightest of breezes.’ It was so very true, however tainted it had seemed when she’d first heard him roar it at the rebellious townsfolk of Alençon. But they were out of those shadows now and need surely fear no more rebellion. Normandy was happy, everyone cried fealty to William, Fécamp was a whirl of colour and noise, and William lapped it all up.
On Easter morning Mathilda woke to find him at the window opening, still naked, looking out into the yard where already the noise of a thousand people breakfasting was rippling across the soft air.
‘A fine sight,’ she said, admiring the muscles in his back, the neat triangle down to his still trim waist, and the taut buttocks below.
He looked over and smiled gently.
‘I was made my father’s heir here,’ he said, ‘on Easter day 1035 – thirty-two years ago, Mathilda. I was seven years old and I thought it all a fine game. I saw only the fancy clothes and the feast I was to stay up late for and the new sword. Above all, the new sword. Little did I know, Mathilda, how often in the years ahead I would have to wield it.’
‘Or how successfully you would do so.’
He came back across to the bed, sitting down on the edge.
‘I may have to wield it more yet, my love.’
She looked into his eyes, all darkness.
‘You are afraid?’
‘The best things come from fear.’
She shook her head.
‘No, William. The best things may be won by overcoming fear, but they are best once the fear is gone. The best things come from joy and having you back with me is joy indeed.’
‘Being back is joy.’
‘Then let’s make the most of it.’
‘Oh, we will.’ William smiled suddenly, a dangerously mischievous smile, and his eyes became pure silver.
‘William?’
‘What?’
‘You are plotting. What are you plotting?’
‘Plotting? Nothing, Wife.’
‘You are. You look wicked.’
‘Do I?’ He rose and grabbed his tunic. ‘Good. Now, come along, it is time to dress, my sweet one. We have church shortly and, though I would not mind it one bit, the people might be a little surprised if you processed to the altar in God’s own finery.’
And with that he bounced to the door, leaving Mathilda to stare incredulously after her newly mercurial husband. She called quickly for Cecelia. She would need help dressing this morning for she intended to wear her wedding dress, the one he had surprised her with on her first ever night in Normandy. Wearing the indulgently rich fabric had made her feel like a duchess from the first moment she’d stepped out in it and now she wanted it to make her feel like a queen. Fitting into the gown, fifteen years and eight children after that first time, proved something of a challenge but luckily Cecelia’s hasty stitches on her wedding day were there to unpick and William’s broad smile when he saw her was all the reward she needed for the breath-squeezing grip of the laces.
‘Very appropriate,’ he said approvingly. ‘Very appropriate indeed.’
‘Appropriate?’
She’d been hoping for beautiful or even, maybe, slim, but he just grinned at her and offered his hand to escort her out to greet the court. All through the service he kept looking knowingly her way. All through the procession around Fécamp, for the people gathered in their thousands, and all through course after endless course of the Easter feast, he hugged his secret teasingly until she was almost helpless with curiosity.
And then, as the last of the wild boar was sucked from peoples’ fingers with contented sighs, a fanfare sounded and two chefs came in from the far doors, proudly carrying a huge platter between them. They moved up the hall to ‘ooh’s of appreciation. Mathilda strained forward but not until they drew close to the top table could she see the beautiful pastry – an intertwined WM, dripping with nuts and honey and crowned top and bottom with gold leaf.
‘You can scarce tell which is which!’ she exclaimed.
‘Exactly,’ William agreed, rising at her side. ‘I am not king because I won the battle or subdued the lords or built a tower in the middle of London, Mathilda, not in my heart. I am king because you are queen, and you are queen because I am king. We owe it to each other.’
Her eyes filled with tears.
‘And we will enjoy it with each other,’ she told him, ‘and do it justice with each other.’
‘We will.’
He reached down to wipe away her tears and for a moment the hall faded away and it was just the two of them, on the crest of a wave they had been riding for so long, looking out into a new future.
‘This was your surprise, William?’ she asked.
‘This?’ His eyes sparkled once more. ‘No. No, not this.’
‘Then . . . ?’
‘Roger!’
La Barbe bobbed up, limping still but in a rather stylish way and with his moustache curled up at one side and down at the other in a wicked parody of himself. Mathilda laughed to see it but then he gestured to the back of the hall and with a flash, a great curtain was pulled back to reveal a troupe of minstrels maybe twenty strong. Mathilda gaped and looked to Raoul, sat along the table with Queen Anne, but he was just as surprised as her.
‘I brought them with me from England,’ William told her, his grin now almost splitting his face apart. ‘They like dancing there, Mathilda, like it very much.’
‘I remember,’ she whispered, seeing again the riotous entertainments of ’51, glimpsed out of the corner of her envious eyes as she was forced to retire with William to pray for the promise that Edward had finally given them and that now, at last, had come good. Her feet twitched.
‘You would like to dance?’
She hesitated. The entwined WM was still before her, the honey-coating sparkling in the rush lights.
‘No. No, I will stay with you and . . .’
‘You would like to dance?’
She caught his tone and looking up saw he was holding out his hand and moving towards the edge of the dais. Her heart filled up as if someone had poured a bucketful of love straight into it.
‘With you?’
He shrugged, suddenly, beautifully self-conscious.
‘I have been practising, Mathilda.’
Of course he had.
‘Then I would love to.’
She put her hand in his and he led her forward as the chefs scrambled out of their way, and the minstrels struck a chord, and the whole Norman court rose around the edges of the great hall and watched them step out together.
Mathilda saw Cecelia, h
ands clasped delightedly; Roger, his arm around Della as they looked on like benevolent parents; and Fulk, his big hand holding Mabel’s slim one, ready to join them. She thought of Hugh and Emeline, setting their Norman horses to grass in England, rich with a strain of Italian blood from their previous travels together. She thought of Odo, the world’s most unlikely bishop and now lord of all Kent; and of Fitz, loyal, good-hearted Fitz who had skidded up to greet her for the first ever time and was now holding the regency of the most ancient land in Christendom on their behalf. She looked to her children, a beautiful clutch of seven whose future she and William had surely just secured forever, and the love in her heart tipped over, unsettling her balance so that she fell gratefully into the strong, steady, constant hold of her husband, William – king to her queen.
She closed her eyes and felt the insistent thud of his heart against her heart, the light turn of the reel lifting her high onto her richly slippered toes, the sweeping assurance of the strongest of arms. He had practised and now he excelled, as he always excelled.
‘You are too good for me, my lady.’
The words whispered across her cheek like butterflies, trailing blushes.
‘I am not,’ she insisted, for it was true.
Yes, she was Lady Mathilda, eldest daughter of the great Count Baldwin and aunt of King Phillipe of France, but he was Duke William, son of the founding line of Normandy and of a woman of true nobility. Yes, she was Lady Mathilda, once destined for a great match, linking Flanders with an advantageous land, but he was the man who had offered her that match and she could never thank God enough for her hard-soft husband, now King of England.
‘You dance well, William.’
He smiled at that and his fingers tightened certainly around her own. He lifted her closer to his broad chest and then, with a low laugh that laced deliciously through the feast-smoked air, spun her until her royal blood pulsed against her skin as if trying to escape and her own laughter burst from her lips in heady joy. This was better even than being queen and she knew she could dance forever with this man.
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