Godiva felt rather than saw her housecarls spreading out in a line behind her, getting ready to charge this insolent Norman.
“Go back to the castle,” she said to Sir Ralph, her voice cold and commanding. “I will discuss this with the earl.”
Sir Ralph’s eyes flickered, noting the barely-suppressed anger of the housecarls, axes held ready, knees bent to sprint forward before he could attempt to charge through and away, and there were probably too many, too close, for his ferromantic powers to turn their weapons aside. He looked as if he would say something, but instead he inclined his head with the slightest civility possible and turned his mount around.
“He needs killing,” said Aelfwyn quietly to Godiva, sunlight flashing from his axe-blade across his face, lighting up his narrowed eyes. “You want me to see to it, milady? I’ve a wooden spear for such as he, in my arms-chest. Good oak, fire-tempered.”
“No,” said Godiva. “He is a Christian, of a sort, and he is the earl’s man. No killing.”
Aelfwyn nodded, but did not respond. Godiva was fairly sure he would obey, but only for a few days. If Ralph wasn’t careful, he would meet an untimely end, and likely thus create even more problems. Godiva wanted to discover why Leofric was seemingly in Ralph’s power before she did anything to remove the Norman from Coventry, permanently or otherwise. And now there was the additional problem of making sure the bee-meadow remained the common property of the mothers of the town.
“Let us walk,” said Godiva. “Send someone back with the horses. I need to think.”
Aelfwyn signalled to the men who held the horses, and to the housecarls. Soon the small host was walking up the road, with Godiva alone in the middle, until one of her women quickened her pace to join her company.
“I fear there is more trouble, milady,” said Ceolwen, chief among Godiva’s handmaidens. A fifteen years older cousin, Ceolwen was a widow now, her husband killed in the last year fighting the Viking raiders from Ireland, and her sons and daughters were grown and married. She was very close to the countess, godmother to Godiva’s own son, and the two kept no secrets from each other.
“It seems so,” replied Godiva quietly, so only the two of them could hear. She frowned. “I have to make Leofric talk to me. There is perhaps some simple explanation for…for everything.”
“I doubt it is simple,” replied Ceolwen. “Back there…that Ralph smelled of something worse then iron magic.”
“Did he?” asked Godiva intently. She had little magic herself, and doubted most people who claimed to have greater powers, with a few exceptions. Ceolwen was one of them, for Godiva had seen her quell and send away a pack of wolves, and a great oak seemingly bend to speak to her, and though these things had happened in Godiva’s childhood, she had not forgotten.
“It is not himself, exactly,” said Ceolwen thoughtfully. “I think it is something he carries. Some object of forbidden sorcery.”
“Ferromancy is not forbidden,” said Godiva.
“It is not cold iron nor stone magic that he conceals,” said Ceolwen. “Something more malevolent, something from the deep shadows.”
“Something Bishop Osric can deal with?” asked Godiva, her frown lightening. This might be the opportunity she was looking for, if Ralph was found to be an evil sorcerer.
“I doubt it,” said Ceolwen regretfully. “I caught only the faintest scent, myself. The wind from the bee-meadow is sacred, it made whatever it is stir itself. I have not noticed it before, and I think Osric would not be able to tell if anything is amiss. He is not of the sharpest, and his power slight.”
“The dogs don’t like him,” added Godiva. “Ralph, I mean. I had thought it was because he kicks at them and is generally harsh, but it is likely he does that to hide whatever they scent.”
“Yes,” said Ceolwen. “The dogs would know.”
They were silent for a minute or two, both thinking.
“You had best go to the great oak at Awsley,” said Godiva. “I do not like to have that old hag looking into our court, but needs must. Ask her about Ralph and whatever he carries.”
“She may not choose to talk,” said Ceolwen carefully, who had a rather less orthodox opinion of the Wise Woman of Awsley and held her in much higher esteem than Godiva. “But of course I will go. What will you do?”
“First of all, talk to Leofric,” said Godiva. “In bed, tonight. This time, I will make him listen!”
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But Leofric wouldn’t listen. He left their marital bed in his nightshirt, blustering and bellowing that he could not stand another word, a strange cry when he had avoiding listening to any word beyond Ralph’s name. Godiva heard him shouting as he stomped across the hall, and out to the stables, calling for his grooms and housecarls to attend him, for he was away to his manor of Bercuswell where he would not be troubled by his woman.
Ceolwen passed the earl going out on her way in from her travels, and went to Godiva without taking off her cloak or boots.
“Leofric is afraid of something,” said Godiva. “I cannot tell whether it is for himself, or me, or for the children. Ralph holds a great power over him.”
“He does have something to fear,” said Ceolwen. “The Wise Woman of Awsley was amenable today. She looked in the water to see what she might of Ralph.”
“And?”
“She saw Ralph,” said Ceolwen, very slowly. “But that was not all.”
“What?” asked Godiva. “What do you mean?”
“She saw something of Leofric as well,” said Ceolwen. “Bound within whatever Ralph carries on that dark chain about his neck.”
“Something of Leofric?” asked Godiva, falteringly. “His soul?”
“The Wise Woman is not Christian, and she did not use that word,” replied Ceolwen. “But I think it is what she meant. She saw others as well, what she called the ‘bright shadows’ of perhaps half a dozen living men, clustered about whatever Ralph wears, caught like bees on tar-paper. He has captured them, somehow. This is why Leofric does his bidding.”
Godiva was entirely still for a moment, that shocked stillness of a warrior who has taken a wound and does not yet know it for what it is, whether a mortal blow or merely a cut to be shrugged off. Ceolwen began to reach out a hand to her, but pulled it back as Godiva drew a deep breath and spoke in measured tones.
“There is a mention of something like this in Saint Wulfstan’s Blessings and Maledictions,” she said. “Under “Maledictions”, of course. A soul-thief who lived in the time of Urakazaar of Babylon. He had some foul device, a cursed amulet that could take souls and imprison them within.”
“Yes,” said Ceolwen. “The Wise Woman called Ralph something I did not understand, a word from the little folk of long ago. She said it meant ‘creature who takes the light from others’.”
“He must be forced to release Leofric. And the others…I wonder…five other souls caught. If they are also earls or nobles of Ingland, and Ralph a Norman…but would even Duke William employ such a wicked stratagem? He is like to take the kingdom in any case.”
“Whether Ralph serves William or himself, the difficulty will be to force him to do anything,” said Ceolwen. “Nor can he be simply killed. The Wise Woman was straight on that. She said to kill him would strand the bright shadows of the others in some nether place. They would live on, but as mere husks, without joy or savour of any kind.”
“Likely he has other evil magic to protect him in any case,” said Godiva. “Saint Wulfstan categorised a creature of his type, as I have said, but he did not offer any remedy…did the Wise Woman offer any suggestion for how we might free Leofric?”
Ceolwen hesitated a moment before answering, a hesitation instantly noticed by Godiva.
“What?” she asked, a smile flickering across her care-worn face. “I take it is something you fear I will undertake, and think it too dangerous for me, so you plan to not tell me and do it yourself?”
Ceolwen laughed, caught out. “I had reso
lved to tell you,” she said. “I only thought for a moment I might turn you aside. In truth, I could not do what must be done in any case. It is for the leader of the women of Coventry, the singer to the bees. Or so the Wise Woman says.”
“Ah,” said Godiva quietly. “I think I understand. But surely that is only legend?”
“No. It is not simply legend. The tales speak truly of a great working of the old magic,” said Ceolwen.
“But I have no power, no skills of magic,” protested Godiva. “So how can that work?”
“You do not need power, nor arcane knowledge. The ritual itself is power,” answered Ceolwen. “And it can only be done by she who leads the singing to the bees.”
“And is the ritual as simple as the legend says?” asked Godiva. “To walk naked from the Mound of the Bee Field to the Bargain Stone in the market square?”
“You must also lay down a bunch of clover, an acorn, and a drop of blood new-pricked from a hawthorn branch. Then you may speak your lawgiving to anyone…or anything…and they must obey your rede.”
“That does not sound so difficult,” said Godiva. “Leofric will not like others to see my nakedness I suppose, but my housecarls can clear the road at least, blacken a few eyes—”
“It is not so straight a task,” said Ceolwen. “No man may see you at all, or the spell is broken.”
Godiva’s mouth quirked in momentary frustration, but her mind moved swiftly.
“No, not so straight a task,” she said. “But I think there is a way to do it, and we must do so with all speed, before Ralph hears of it. I need you to fetch Mother Halfgrim from the town.”
“Mother Halfgrim!” exclaimed Ceolwen. “Now? In the night? That cantankerous old reptile?”
“Yes,” said Godiva. “Tell her it is not the countess that needs her, but the Singer to the Bees. Before we are done, we will need many others too. There is a great deal to do.”
“I will fetch Mother Halfgrim then,” said Ceolwen, gathering up her kirtle to go. “I am eager to hear your thoughts, my lady!”
An hour later, Ceolwen returned with Mother Halfgrim, who strangely did not protest as she might be expected to do, in fact grumbling not at all. She was introduced into Godiva’s bedchamber, the two speaking for little more than ten minutes, before Mother Halfgrim emerged and returned to the town, a curious, previously unsuspected smile twisting up her toothless mouth.
Later, other women came, speaking Mother Halfgrim’s name to the sleepy housecarls, who scratched their heads and grumbled at this sudden flurry of midnight visitations, one likening it to a hive of bees all a-buzz over some invisible upset to the queen within.
Later still, a good hour before the dawn, Godiva called Aelfwyn to her, and explained what he and the other housecarls must do. He was aghast, and pulled at his moustaches, and blustered that she should not, must not, could not do as she intended. But Godiva spoke of Ralph and the thing he held, and the captive souls, and the captain quietened. At last he agreed to her commands, and went to rouse his men.
As the first small hint of the day began to show above the hills, Godiva went alone to the bee meadow. Along the way, she passed her housecarls, one by one, who were posted at fifty yard intervals, their backs to the road. They had already turned away the few folk who were about in the last dregs of the night, lawfully or not, save for those who were also following Godiva’s orders.
On the hill, the Countess of Coventry disrobed until she stood naked, her only adornment remaining a tortoiseshell comb. She pulled this free and let her long hair fall, without any attempt to twine it about herself in some show of modesty. Then she called out once, twice, three times to the bees, asking for their permission before walking down the hill to pick a good bunch of clover. She had marked an oak some ways back toward the town, which doubtless would provide the acorn, and there was a hawthorn bush close from which she would gently take a thorny branch.
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While Godiva picked her clover, back in the town a man no one had seen before came from an alley, smiling and rubbing his hands. He met a band of idlers by the market square who were meant to be assembling a stand but had not yet even begun to think of doing so. In the dim, pre-dawn light none noticed that their visitor did not cast a shadow.
“A rare day today,” laughed the fellow. “Not every day a common man sees a countess naked!”
“What’s that you say?” asked Alfred, sometime leader of his band of so-called workers. “A countess naked?”
“Sure as sure,” said the man, rubbing his hands again. “As pretty a noblewoman who ever walked the land. Your own Lady Godiva, she is to walk naked as a babe through the town to the Bargain Stone.”
All eyes went to the old, black stone that rose waist-high from the cobbles like some time-worn tooth, as in fact legend had it was, the tooth of the dragon of Wessex, now remembered only on the banner of the Godwin lords. It was where deals were sealed, buyer and seller signing or marking their mark on deed or bill laid upon the smoothed flat top of the ancient tooth, if tooth it was.
“Naked?” asked a man, licking his lips. “And what’s the earl to do to any man who looks upon her? Flay him alive, or put his eyes out?”
“Earl’s gone a-hunting, and none can gainsay the lady,” said the man. “She walks alone, without her housecarls. Wait but an hour and you’ll see her treasures, as will any man who cares to look.”
“How do you—” Alfred began to ask, but the stranger was gone into the darkness, nimbly stepping between the first early rays of the sun, going elsewhere to spread his news.
“I’ll not watch,” said Begran firmly. “This sounds to be women’s business, best left alone. I remember my old mum—”
His words were lost in jeers and catcalls, led by Alfred, who had caught the stranger’s glee.
“You can close your eyes, old Begran, old gelding,” he cried, slapping him on the back. “But we are true men and we will gaze upon any beauty that offers herself, and…and aye, more too, should she cast her own eyes back!”
There was a muttering at this, and others beside Begran slunk away. But soon enough the word spread, and more men came to the square, asking if it were true that the countess herself was walking naked to the stone, and if she was, where would be best to see all that they cared to see. Small scuffles broke out over vantage points, men trying to climb on top of stalls, and others dragging them down, scuffles made worse by the absence of the town constables who were nowhere to be seen, nor the Under-Sheriff and his men, nor the housecarls of the earl.
The greatest crowd gathered at the eastern side of the market square, where the road ran in, for it would be here that the countess would first be seen. Men jostled and pitched their elbows wide, maintaining their chosen spots, shouting and hitting as the smaller and more slippery eased between them.
All this ceased as the cry went up.
“Here she comes!”
A figure hard to see with the rising sun behind her was walking up the road. The crowd of men surged forward, then inexplicably faltered and slowed, those behind roaring with frustration until they too fell silent.
Behind the first figure there were more. And not only on the main road, but coming in from the alleys on every side, walking slowly toward the square. Dozens of naked women, nay, hundreds of naked women, and the one in the lead was not the naked body of a winsome countess, but the leathery, age- and sun-worn shape of Mother Halfgrim, leader of the laundresses, those fierce, take-no-prisoner women who could crack a man’s skull with a laundry pole as easy as lift a great tub of wet clothes to their shoulders, and they were all behind her, and they were not alone.
“That’s my old mum,” said a suddenly deeply worried voice among the crowd, the harbinger of many, many other cries.
“My wife!”
“My daughters!”
“My grandmam and her sister!”
“Old Aunt Alys!”
“The ale-wife from the Oxen!”
“Oh! Oh! The lepers from Holy Cross!”
The women walked on silently, the men turning about in confusion, many shielding their eyes and looking down of their own accord, others being forced to do so as husbands and fathers and brothers and sons pulled down other mens’ hats or hoods, or slapped them in the neck.
Mother Halfgrim stopped a few paces away from the now silent crowd of cowed and ashamed menfolk.
“Go home!” she cried, fierce as ever. “Go home and do not look out, do not look out until a woman says you may! Any who look will rue it for whatever few days remain to them thereafter! ”
No one moved, until Mother Halfgrim suddenly clapped her hands and shouted.
“Go!”
At that the men broke like a rabble charged by knights, and fled back through the square, the women in the alleys parting to let them through.
Mother Halfgrim began to walk again, and the women followed. All the women, of town and castle and from villages for leagues around, all naked and marching for the square. Thousands of women, young and old and in between, and amongst them, perhaps a hundred paces behind Mother Halfgrim, walked Lady Godiva, with a smile upon her face.
The smile grew broader as the great crowd of women swirled about the market square, and Godiva weaved between them, drawing ever closer to the bargain stone, the dragon tooth. The tallest and broadest women walked with her, against the chance that some man still dared to look, but they saw none, and Godiva felt no cheating gaze, as she was sure she would.
At last, she came to the stone. The women drew close as Godiva knelt and laid the heather and the acorn upon the flat, and then with the prick of a hawthorn, added a drop of her own bright red blood. She felt a strange thrill rush through her as the blood fell on the stone, a quickening of something she had never known, a sense that she was now a part of some great and terrible power that had wakened at her call.
Cranky Ladies of History Page 3