Peaceweaver

by Judith Arnopp

  Beneath the sun, in that great landscape of slaughter, we hesitated, afraid and not knowing which way to turn. Hand in hand, we scanned the bodies for a sign, a clue, that might indicate where Harold lay; compelled to discover him yet reluctant to do so …and then I saw it, a scrap of crumpled lace kerchief fluttering in the gentle breeze.

  Together we moved toward it and looked down upon a torso, no head, no limbs, no genitals, just a broad, muscled chest that had once been the vessel for Harold’s beating heart.

  The sun had dried the blood so that it lay thick, congealed in the once golden hair. Our feet slipping in gore we kneeled beside it and, taking the wine skin from her waist, Eadgytha began to wash the blood away. A thin scar, trailed like a road winding through a golden forest and, when I saw it, I sat back on my heels and knew how it felt to stop living.

  ‘It is Harold,’ we said in unison and, so deep was our sorrow that our tears could not fall.

  The Normans came, indifferent to our grief, and shouted at us, trying to make us understand. They asked if this was the body of the oath-breaker and, when we nodded, they pushed us out of the way and began to manhandle his remains.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Eadgytha cried, trying to shield the body from them, ‘you said you would give us the corpse.’

  ‘We tell a small lie,’ one of them said in bad Saxon, ‘the duke does not want the grave of the oath-breaker to become a shrine so he will be buried in obscurity.’

  I could not believe what I was hearing, had Normans truly so little honour? I could not comprehend the ignominy of refusing an anointed king a proper burial.

  ‘Wait,’ Eadgytha cried, ‘I will give you his weight in gold if you only let us have his body. We will inter him in secret and let none know where he lies …but, please, oh please, let us have him.’

  ‘Non, non,’ they replied, ‘our duke is waiting to see the body, it is for him to do with it as he pleases.’

  They picked him up and began to bear him away. I watched in detached horror as Eadgytha threw herself across Harold’s body and one of the Normans lay hands on her and threw her to the bloody ground.

  Later we saw the duke come to watch them bury him on the beach, beneath a simple cairn of stones, facing out to sea. The bastard laughed and spat.

  ‘Now the oathbreaker can guard the Saxon shore for all eternity.’

  The world seemed empty and silent, as if it held its breath in horror at the king’s passing. That night we began a long, sombre journey to Chester. On the way we passed smouldering settlements and holdings, devoid of life; even the sheep and pigs were gone, slaughtered to feed the ravaging army.

  The wayside was littered with the dead and so we sought the old pathways, trodden for generations before the Romans had brought better roads. A twisting, winding network that took us away from the main byways that the enemy travelled. England was silent. The nation hushed, no wind or rain and no birdsong, as though the country knelt in eloquent respect for the passing of its king.

  When it grew too dark to ride forward, we found shelter in an abandoned shepherd lodge, it was squalid, the floor of earth and the thatch of sod, but it was dry and warm. We huddled together about a miserly hearth, speaking little, all at a loss to understand how to carry on without our lord.

  Godwin killed a hare and we stripped its charred flesh and ate it, meagre though it was, burning our fingers and wiping them on our skirts. Then, after hours of silence, Godwin’s voice jolted us all from our private thoughts.

  ‘I cannot believe all are lost; there must be some who survive to fight again. There are your brothers, Edwin and Morcar, they are not slain. I could seek them out and join with them, we can form another army and drive the Normans from our land.’

  ‘How can we without Harold?’ My grief spat bitterly from cold lips, ‘Do you know where to look? Edwin was reported to be bringing men but he never arrived. For all we know he saw our cause was lost and betrayed us. He could be breaking bread with the enemy even now. He may be my brother but I’d not put it past him.’

  Anwen came clattering through the door, bringing in water from the well. She stopped at my words.

  ‘Lady.’ she cried, ‘do not speak so. You know that Edwin would do no so such thing. He may be a fool but he is no traitor. I’d lay down my life against his loyalty.’

  The resentment I felt against my brothers was strong. I was so angered by their failure to support us that I would have felt better had they lain dead at Harold’s side.

  The horrors of the last few days surged in my mind and I could not shift them. The strain of the battle, the dreadfulness of seeing Harold fall and the discovery of the cruelly maimed body was scored permanently behind my eyes. And wherever I looked I saw them again. Images as clear as the paintings on a church wall.

  Eadgytha had not spoken for hours, throughout the ride remaining silent, eating little and drinking only enough to staunch the worst of her thirst. White-faced she moved like a woman in a trance and none of us could reach her.

  Suddenly she put down her cup making us jump with the suddenness of her movement.

  ‘We cannot leave him there,’ she announced, ‘buried forever in a kind of exile, far from his home and loved ones. It is not where he should be, Harold was a king, anointed by God.’

  ‘He wanted to lie at Waltham,’ I said, a memory stabbing me of the day he had asked me to lie there beside him

  ‘And so he shall,’ vowed Godwin, standing up so that his frame was silhouetted by the firelight. So determined was his expression that he could have been Harold. ‘I swear to you, ladies, on my father’s soul, that I shall return one day and take his body home to lay him where he wished to rest.’

  We all nodded but with little hope. That would be good day should it ever come but, in the strange unreal world we now inhabited, who knew what would come to pass.

  The trials of the last weeks had matured Godwin, turned him from boy to a man so that we all looked to him for leadership. He was suddenly noble despite the raggedness of his clothes and I thanked Christ that he was there.

  I suppose horror has a way of jolting one from adolescence. I, myself, felt aged, an aching crone in a burdensome body, although I had not yet seen one and twenty summers. Looking back on my girlhood that had been snatched away almost ten years ago, I felt I had lived a lifetime of insecurity since and God alone knew what would become of me now.

  It was a perilous road we followed. We knew that the enemy rode abroad, ravaging the land so we travelled stealthily, our mood sombre. The weather began to draw in, biting through our thin clothes and, as the nights drew in earlier and earlier each evening, we were forced to seek shelter before we had travelled but a score of miles.

  On occasion we passed families, cast from their homes and fleeing from Norman injustice into the forests. They told us tales of an England caught in the grip of terror but those we spoke to were not cowed, they swore to fight against the bastard’s rule, to burn the Normans in their beds until there was not one left alive. ‘Amen,’ we said, ‘Amen to that.’

  It was early November before the outline of the burgh of Chester stood against the darkening skyline. Our family fell upon us with tears, both grievous and glad. Maude had cared for them as if they were her own and they were warm and well fed but none of them had known if we were alive or dead.

  We were a sorry party, forlorn and bewildered at what had befallen us and, like everyone else in England, afraid of what would happen next.

  The Saxon tongues spoke of burnings and killings, of insurrection and a determined refusal to accept the Norman bastard as our king. Small factions fought back. We heard that in London, Edwin and Morcar, who to my relief remained loyal after all, had declared Edgar the Ætheling as rightful king, although he was not crowned.

  Godwin rode away to join them, promising that as soon as the opportunity arose, he would restore his father’s body in secret to the abbey church at Waltham. The farewells were tearful. I kissed him, his chin dimpling in a rue
ful smile as his eyes burned into mine. Eadgytha clung on to his arm, reluctant to lose the only man remaining to her.

  Only those who have risen high can fall as low as Eadgytha and I fell then. We were alone and without an influential friend in the world and in our meagre lodging that barely kept out the December cold, I gave birth, after much suffering to Harold’s twin sons.

  Eadgytha and Anwen, with the birthwaters still dampening their gowns, stood afterwards at the foot of my bed, each bearing a swaddled babe in their arms. They smiled ruefully; smiles full of ‘if only’ and the ‘might have been.’ And my own heart cleaved afresh when I beheld Harold’s boys; he would have been so proud.

  Eadgytha was sworn as God-mother to them when, in the stone cold chapel, we named the eldest Harold, and the second, born just twenty minutes later, we christened Wulf.

  Both boys, to our shared delight and sorrow, are cut in their father’s exact image. Their blond hair is the same shade and their eyes shine as brightly blue as the summer sky.

  The Hereafter

  Chester –1070

  It is four years since my sons were born. Four years in which the conqueror has ravaged all England, laying waste vast areas of the country and punishing all who will not surrender to his rule.

  Saxon landowners are no more, we are reduced to lowly things and the country is divided as spoils for William’s supporters. Violence and hatred simmers and the Saxon people are churlish and edgy.

  Now, the conqueror has come to Chester to wreak his hatred and Edgytha and I must go elsewhere. Idwal and Maredudd are ten and eleven summers now although it seems but yesterday they were swaddled in my arms. I sent them, for safety, over the dyke into Wales to the court of their uncle Bleddyn where they are training to be fighting men. I plan to join them there, to introduce their new twin half-brothers and reunite them with their sister, Nesta.

  My Nest is eight summers now and growing into a beauty, unfashionably dark like her father and with skin like the purest snow. In Gwynedd we will make ourselves a proper home, raise her in the Welsh way and find her a good husband. Perhaps, when her brothers have regained their own status in Wales, they can raise an army to aid Harold and Wulf in their quest for the English throne.

  There is nothing in my life now but my children and, as Eadgytha and I sit, knee to knee before the fire and the children tumble in play, there comes a rapid knocking on the door.

  We all jump, exchanging anxious glances. We get no callers here. Anwen takes a poker and creeps to stand by the door while Eadgytha and I grab the children and cower in the darkened corner, afraid that we are discovered.

  ‘Mother,’ comes a whispered voice, ‘it is I. Open the door.’

  Anwen does so and Godwin creeps in, smiling in sheepish delight upon us. It is long since we have seen him and he is some inches taller and with a full man’s beard upon his chin. My heart wrenches as he strides, so like his father, across the room to hug his mother. Then he turns to me to leave a kiss upon my wrist.

  Scant news has filtered through to us here in Chester but we know that Godwin has not been idle. Two years ago he raised an Irish force and attacked Bristol but was driven back and, just last year, he raided the West Country, rallying men to his standard. His army cut a swathe across the land until the Norman forces overwhelmed them and forced them back across the sea.

  Since then we have had no word and can scarce believe he is here with us, when we had thought him lost. ‘Godwin.’ Eadgytha sobs, overcome and Godwin hushes her,

  ‘Do not weep Mother, he says, ‘look, I have brought Edmund home.’

  And, in the doorway stands Eadgytha’s second son, whom we had all thought slain on Senlache Ridge, and she falls upon him too, finding a fresh supply of tears.

  Anwen slaughters our last hen and we celebrate, ignoring the shrivelled status of our family that had once been the highest in the land. When we are settled and our bellies full, Godwin leans back with his jug of ale and begins his tale.

  ‘I have been everywhere, Ladies. Norway, London, Ireland, the West Country and, wherever I go, I recruit men who will fight our cause when the day comes. And it will come, we will vanquish the Norman’s though it takes the rest of our lives.’

  We smile but say little; we women are tired of fighting and happy just to savour the look of him as the firelight seeks out the brightness of his hair. Edmund is smaller than his brother in every way, a shade less fair, a shade less handsome and retentive in contrast to Godwin’s volubility.

  ‘We are returning to Ireland soon, where King Diarmait has promised us more aid. Tis money we need most, all our followers are in the same boat as we and have barely a coin in their pockets.’

  I remember the goodly hoard that Harold had buried at Thorney and Gleawanceaster before leaving for his last battle but I do not tell Godwin of them for fear he will venture into danger to retrieve it.

  I am weary of unrest and long for the life I have always dreamed of. I crave peace like a drunkard craves his wine. Even if tis only to scratch a living in a woodland cott. Edmund catches my eye and smiles at me warmly, the last of the Godwinsons to accept me and, looking about the shrunken circle of my family, our faces shiny in the firelight, I feel certain that Harold is looking down from his heavenly seat and thinking it good.

  ‘Father would have liked this,’ Edmund says, as if reading my thoughts, and we all murmur our agreement, nodding our heads and smiling. Eadgytha stretches out her hands to the flames, happy to be with her sons again.

  ‘Tis strange to think how we all disliked each other at the beginning,’ she says, ‘but now, Eadgyth, you are my foremost friend; you have become the sister I never had. I shall miss you when we part.’

  Reaching for her hand, I clasp it.

  ‘Tis not forever, Eadgytha, when young Harold has won his throne, I will call you back to court where you will take your rightful place as the mother of the king’s siblings and we shall all live in right royal state.’

  As if in response to his name, in the corner young Harold stirs on the straw mattress that he shares with Wulf and I rise to quiet him. I turn him onto his side and the familiar touch of my hand soothes him and he soon sleeps again.

  When I stand up I find that Godwin has followed me and we move together, away from the slumbering children. ‘You look well, Eadgyth, it does my heart glad.’

  ‘Tis but the flush of youth,’ I reply, ‘It has been a sore time and inside, I am far beyond my years.’

  ‘As am I,’ he grins and I remember, with a start, that he is of an age with me, just four and twenty summers.

  ‘What do you plan to do next?’ he asks and I shrug, looking up at him.

  ‘We return to Wales. I was happy there once and I would like to be with Idwal and Maredudd as they grow to manhood and, when she is of an age, I would seek one good enough for my daughter to wed. A Welshman or a Saxon, I do not want her staying here to join with a Norman for they treat their women poorly.’

  ‘That is why the priories are overflowing with novice nuns. My sister Gytha is safe in Denmark and set to make a fine match, did Mother tell you? She is to wed the Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia.’

  Impressed at her good fortune, I nod.

  ‘I wish her well.’ I murmur, waiting for him to continue,

  ‘and Gunnhild is happy in her convent and Magnus, my brother, has entered orders also. He is not cut out for the life of a layman and Father always said he was possessed of a brilliant mind.’

  I smile, remembering the crippled boy with a fascination for weapons.

  Opening the back door we see that the moon throws down its silvery light, beautifying the midden and the barn. A fox slinks, soft foot across the yard in search of chickens and we watch him sniffing hopefully at the corner of the empty roost.

  ‘How things change,’ I say, ‘how strange that, even when all is lost, we can still find beauty in simple things.’

  He stands behind me with his hands upon my shoulders, both of us looking up at the sky.
A sky that reminds me of the night that Harold returned from Normandy and asked me to be his wife.

  ‘Resilience is what keeps us all from madness,’ Godwin says, ‘if we didn’t have the power to heal, to move on and overcome our grief, the human race would not survive.’

  I turn, twisting in his grip to look up at him,.

  ‘You are very profound this evening, Godwin,’ I laugh and he rubs his nose and confesses he is quoting his brother, Magnus’ philosophy. We are laughing together softly, when he sobers and, suddenly speaking urgently, says,

  ‘All is not lost, Eadgyth. Don’t go back to Wales; come to Ireland …with me.’

  I am surprised and yet, not surprised. I ponder his offer for a while and feel a gentle tremor where my heart once was. It seems I have been here before, as though I have waited all my life to hear him speak those words. He is so tall and earnest that I know I can love him. I am sore tempted, but the memory of another stepson pledging his self to me stirs and I remember all the sorrow that love brought with it.

  I thrust temptation away. I need to forge my own path and decide upon the direction of my own feet. Steeling myself, I make my reply.

  ‘I cannot Godwin, not yet, although ‘twould be a fine thing. I must help my sons win back their properties and status, both in Wales and in England. And you, Godwin, you must keep on fighting too. For the sake of your father’s memory you must return to Ireland and live to do battle again.’

  He opens his mouth to speak but I place my finger on his lips.

  ‘Hush,’ I say, ‘speak no more of this now, but perhaps one day, when our work is done, you will travel into Wales and find me and, who knows, when all the strife is finally over, we may then begin to salvage something from our broken lives.

  Author’s Note