Of the Ring of Earls (Conqueror Trilogy Book 1)

by Juliet Dymoke

  And the very gentleness of the tone drew a flood of words from Waltheof that he could no longer restrain. ‘All my life I have loved the woods and the open sky above me and now by straining my chains I can just see one triangle of cloud out of that narrow slit. Always I have had the freedom to ride where I willed and now – now I cannot walk ten paces.’

  ‘My child, my child,’ the Abbot repeated, clasping his hands together, and not all his strict training in the religious life, nor all his asceticism could prevent the tears filling his eyes, ‘only spiritual freedom can release you here.’

  ‘I know – and I strive after it but it is hard to reconcile oneself to death with only half life lived. It is one thing to die in battle – I faced the possibility at nineteen but there is honour in that and none in this.’ He glanced up at the Abbot. ‘I pray for resignation, I pray all the time, and sometimes I think peace has come, that I am forgiven for the wrong I have done – and then I remember Ryhall, and Maud, Hakon and the rest, and peace has gone again. It seems hard that Roger who is guilty should fare better than I who am not.’ He tried to smile but the smile was crooked. ‘I try not to think of that either. I can only do penance for my own sins. Yet my body rebels – it cries out for activity and sometimes I think I cannot stand it one more hour.’

  He knew his voice was breaking now, his strength of will giving way as it had not done all these weary weeks. All his body ached today, his muscles twitching in a manner they now had so that it had become a grim physical battle to subdue the need for movement. ‘I think – I think I would rather be dead than live all my life in prison. Do you remember Ansgar? Ten years he has been imprisoned in Normandy. I would go mad. Now, after such a little time I want to claw my way out, I want light and air and freedom, I want to be at Ryhall, to ride in my forest, visit my manors, take the boat over to Croyland, go where I will . . .’

  He had his head in his hands, his fingers twisted in his hair in an endeavour to control his sobs, but they were tearing from him at last.

  Ulfcytel sat still, the knuckles white on his clasped hands, waiting until the storm of tears should ease a little. Eventually with as much calm as he could muster he said, ‘Dear son, keep your mind on Our Lord and His sufferings and yours will seem light. He rides gently enough whom God’s grace carries.’

  The words fell quietly in the dark cell and Waltheof leaned back against the wall, exhausted, emotionally drained by his weeping. As always Ulfcytel seemed to know what to say, to bring peace with him as another man might bring alms, and when the guard opened the door and called the Abbot away, he was able to kneel for his blessing with comparative calm.

  The next day was Sunday, the milestone of the week, when Thorkel came and together they sat talking mostly of the old days, of the time when Harold was King and Leofwine came often to Ryhall. They recalled old jests and past exploits, they talked of hunting expeditions, of the year when the river had overflowed and water came to the door of the hall, of another summer when Waltheof had found a mate for Bors and she had produced a fine litter of pups who had kept the whole hall amused with their antics. But when evening came he said suddenly, ‘If William should pardon me I think I would take the cowl at Croyland. I doubt if there would be any other choice open to me.’

  Thorkel was standing near the narrow window to get a breath of the evening air. ‘For a man with your sword arm there would always be a life to be had in some king’s army.’

  ‘Perhaps, but William will not let me go quite free, that I know. Do you remember, Odo said men would use my name – as a rallying call. But no one would use it if I were within Croyland’s walls.’

  Thorkel shifted uneasily. ‘Perhaps not, but – that death in life! Not for you, minn hari.’

  ‘It would not be so to me, not now after all that has happened,’ but, Waltheof glanced up at his companion, ‘what of you, my friend? If I should be left shut up here, or sent to Croyland, what would you do? Would you come to Croyland too?’ He smiled a little.

  Thorkel said, ‘I am a scald and will be so all my life. I could not submit to the tonsure and yet,’ he turned his large pale blue eyes on his lord, ‘as long as we both live, I am your man and where you are I must be, somehow. Perhaps Ulfcytel would let me ferry the boat across to the abbey!’

  Waltheof laughed. ‘And sing to your passengers into the bargain.’ His smile faded. ‘My dear friend, I can offer you nothing now.’

  ‘That,’ .Thorkel said, ‘is the last consideration.’

  ‘And what if – if they carry out the sentence?’

  The Icelander swung away from the window. ‘They will not – they cannot,’ he spoke as if such a possibility did violence to his very existence. ‘I do not believe the King will do it, not now. It is two months since the trial.’

  ‘You have not answered me,’ Waltheof said wistfully, ‘I would like to know . . .’

  Thorkel sat down on the pallet beside him. ‘I cannot tell you, for I cannot think of it. Bear with me, minn hari. No man has ever been to me what you are.’

  Outy came in then with supper which they always shared on Sunday night. There was hot meat and a pasty, and good ale and the three of them made a play of eating as if they were at home. For Waltheof this was rich fare compared to the food he ate during the week, and when they had gone the next six days stretched endlessly before him until Sunday should come again.

  Only the memory of Thorkel’s words remained to warm him and lying in the dark under the bearskin, his mind went back to the night before his wedding when Thorkel had resigned his place as the recipient of his most intimate confidences. But it was Thorkel who had remained loyal to that place and Judith who had not wanted it. He turned his face into the straw pallet, determined not to think of her, to dwell only on friendship, but when he slept it was to dream of Rouen and he awoke in the noisome darkness crying her name.

  * * *

  Returning to London Abbot Ulfcytel waited on the King’s Chamberlain with the result that Richard went immediately to William to request that he might ride to Winchester to see the captive Earl.

  William gave it and then as Richard opened his mouth to speak further, he added sharply, ‘Do not ask for his life yet again. I am urged this way and that and my own mind is not made up.’

  ‘Beau sire,’ Richard said in desperation, ‘I owe him mine twice over, how should I not plead for his?’

  ‘And what did he owe me?’ William retorted grimly. ‘I tell you he is a danger to the realm – for what he is and who he is.’ He saw the expression on his Chamberlain’s face and began to walk up and down, his purple mantle swaying about him. ‘Richard my friend, responsibility is a terrible thing. I have borne the burden of it all my life, which is why I am as I am, and the peace of a nation lies on my shoulders. Remember that.’

  Watching him, Richard felt pity for him, for he saw that for once the King was undecided, for once influenced by emotion, and in all the years before he had never seen him so. He wondered how long the uncertainty would go on, how long Waltheof would be kept thus, held between life and death. It seemed unbearably cruel and yet it kept hope alive.

  That evening he was on his way to supper in the hall when his page came running to him to say that there was a lay sister in the small solar attached to his bedchamber.

  ‘A nun?’ he queried in surprise for he could not imagine whom it might be.

  ‘Aye, lord, and I think she has travelled a long way for her habit is much stained.’

  He went back up the stairs rather wearily, his mind too concerned over Waltheof to wish to be bothered with other affairs.

  In the solar a woman was standing with her back to the door, a still figure in the habit of the Benedictines.

  ‘Lady?’ As he spoke, she turned and he saw to his utter astonishment that it was Athelais who looked out at him from under the enclosing veil. She was pale and strained, her eyes tired from lack of sleep, but at first he saw none of that, only the heavy folds of the habit.

  ‘No,�
� he said, harshly, ‘no, you cannot have thrown your life away – thus.’ He strode across the room and caught her hands. ‘Tell me it is not true.’ and all the time knew that if it was he had been the worst fool in Christendom.

  But she shook her head. ‘Oh no, it was just that – it was safer for me to travel like this. I came alone with Hakon.’ Relief swept over him and he became aware then that she was trembling, that he was still holding her hands tightly. He made her sit on a stool and poured wine for her.

  ‘There, drink that, child. You are tired out. Now tell me why you are here and why it was safer for you to dress like this.’

  She sipped a little of the wine and some colour returned to her cheeks. ‘I did not know where else to go.’

  He stood very still, the flagon in his hand. ‘Tell me . . .’ She put the cup down carefully. ‘The Countess had plans for me that – oh, Messire de Rules, she is acting as if the Earl were – as if she rules his lands already. I do not know how I have borne these last weeks, truly I do not. When I think of what she has done,’ she broke off and swift tears spilled down her cheeks. ‘How could she betray him? He loved her so much.’

  ‘Too much,’ Richard said in a low voice, ‘but go on.’

  ‘She wanted to give me in marriage to Ivo of Taillebois.’ For a moment the old Athelais reappeared and she brushed away the tears impatiently, a wealth of scorn and indignation in her voice. ‘That man! I would rather live a nun all my life than be wife to such as he is. She said with the Earl in prison she had the right to give my hand. Ivo was always at Northampton and she wanted him to have my dowry – I heard them planning it.’ She lifted her head and looked directly at him. ‘I knew then that I could not stay, not even for the children. Ivo is a devil.’

  He saw her eyes darken with some unpleasant memory and felt a swift spurt of anger. ‘Did he dare to touch you? If so, by God . . .’

  She hesitated, ‘No – at least – no, it was nothing.’

  ‘I’ll shed his blood for this,’ Richard said and was surprised at the fury in his own voice. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I asked Hakon to help me. He fetched horses and early one morning a few days ago we rode to Ely. There the sisters lent me this habit – I thought no one would question me if I wore their dress, and I was afraid Ivo might come after me. Hakon is below. He had gone home to see all was well with his wife and the children, now he wants to go back to Winchester. He cannot keep from the Earl.’

  ‘And you?’ he asked quietly. A spring of long forgotten desire was rising within him, lifting the depression, the stern loneliness in which he had lived of late. She was sitting bolt upright in the enveloping draperies and he had a sudden desire to take them from her, fling them away.

  ‘The nuns at Ely say I may enter their order,’ she said in a small voice.

  ‘And do you want to do that?’ He knew he sounded harsh, but it was fear that made him so.

  She did not meet his eyes, but she shook her head. ‘I do not want to – I have no vocation, but if there is nothing else . . .’ her words trailed off.

  He bent down and taking her hands, drew her to her feet. ‘I swore,’ he said unsteadily, ‘I swore not to ask you again, that you would have to come to me . . .’

  She looked up at him, so thankful to be here and with him that no shred of pride was left in her. Why had she not seen from the beginning what manner of man he was?

  ‘That is why I have come – as I should have done so long ago. Only I was afraid it might be too late, that you might not wish it now . . .’

  ‘And I that I was the last man you wanted.’ Suddenly he began to laugh. He took the veil from her head and threw it on the floor, releasing her hair so that it fell on her shoulders. ‘Never let me see you dressed thus again. You have given me a great fright, my foolish girl. Aye, foolish as I have been. Ah, Athelais, why did we waste so much time?’

  He held wide his arms and as she came into them she saw at last how he looked when he was happy, the blue eyes smiling, the lean hard lines of his face relaxed, and when he set his mouth to hers it was as if the wasted years had never separated them.

  For a long while neither spoke, and then Athelais leaned her head against his shoulder. ‘I am so happy and yet – it does not seem right that we should be so when he – he lies in Winchester prison.’

  He looked over her head at the curtained doorway out of which they were free to walk whenever they willed. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but he wished us to wed. I have the King’s permission to visit him, so I will ask William if we may wed at once and go together. I do not think he will refuse me.’

  ‘I would give anything to see him,’ she said wistfully and for an instant Richard held her from him.

  ‘Once I thought you cared for him and that was why . . .

  ‘I have always loved him,’ she said simply. ‘When I was very young perhaps I did dream that he might wed me, but that was long ago and I soon learned that he would never be other than my guardian, my cousin. And once you had come to Deeping . . .’

  He smiled. ‘How you hated me then!’

  ‘At first I did,’ she admitted, ‘and I don’t know when hate turned to love, any more than I know when Judith’s love turned to hate.’ And she took his face in her hands, aware for the first time how it had haunted her, kept her lonely and aloof from all other men, and in that moment he knew that, whatever he might be, he was the man she wanted.

  ‘Come,’ he said, ‘we must find lodgings for you,’ he glanced at the heavy habit, ‘and get rid of that. Tomorrow we will go together to the King.’

  ‘And the Earl?’ she asked, holding his hand tightly. ‘Will he pardon the Earl?’

  ‘No one knows,’ Richard replied grimly, ‘not even William himself.’

  * * *

  He had lost count of the days but he thought it must be the Friday or Saturday before the feast of Pentecost. At first he had carefully scratched the passing days on the stone wall, but lately he had forgotten, for it no longer mattered. Time had ceased to have any meaning.

  He felt utterly weary now, the longing for movement had become a pain, an ache in every limb so that his body seemed to have no more life in it and was only a burden. And while he prayed for some sort of release, he was uncaring as to what it might be. Even his prayers were muddled now. He repeated the Psalms he knew so well but often they ran one into the other and he forgot the words – only with David he cried out again and again, ‘My soul cleaves to the dust, restore life to me . . .’

  God was the only reality left in this hideous place and he had begun to inhabit a strange borderland halfway between heaven and earth. When visitors came it was as if he was separated from them by a great gulf.

  Wulfstan came and then the gulf was smaller for Wulfstan was a saint as all men knew; but when Richard and Athelais came, much as he rejoiced to see them wed, it took an effort to talk naturally of their marriage and of Deeping.

  The court was at Winchester for Easter and one or two old friends were permitted to see him, but again he found it an effort to talk to them. Only with Thorkel was there no barrier, no gulf to cross for Thorkel had come with him into this grey limbo where there was so little substance.

  Towards Whitsun Richard returned on the King’s affairs and lodged himself and Athelais in a little house in the town; Hakon joined them for it seemed that Richard had taken charge, accepted responsibility for the Earl’s hearth- men and it was he who kept Hakon from more than one hare-brained scheme to rescue his lord which would only have landed him in prison beside his Earl.

  ‘Wait a little,’ Richard advised, ‘the King must pardon him.’ And to Waltheof he said, ‘William is going to Normandy soon after the Whitsun Mass. My friend, I do truly believe he has now put all thought of ordering the sentence from his mind. We will have you away from here before the summer is out. And the Archbishop says you have more than earned your freedom by your penances. He told the King so. It will not, it cannot, be long now.’

  Spring was t
urning to summer and through the slit window Waltheof saw the sun reflected more often than before. He realised one morning that it was May time and at once he was thrown from the calm of nothingness back into a living, pulsating desire to be free again. He thought of the meadows deep with buttercups, the may blossom scenting all the air, the promise of growth everywhere, all the lush greenness of the new leaves, until he grew sick and weary with longing. The hay would be standing in his big meadow at Ryhall, soon to be cut and bound, and with the thought of the new crops rising, hope began to live again, side by side with the pain. He began to dream of Croyland once more, of taking the vows there and living under Ulfcytel’s wise rule. It would be good to sit sometimes with a rod in one’s hand, to see the rain on the water and the fish rising, to do simple things like tending cattle and harvesting vegetables from the garden; above all to sing the offices in the great church and spend one’s life close to the things of God.