‘Happy Christ’s Mass,’ Freya murmured under her breath, praying to God above that it would be.
The bastard Duke William was not a man to inspire merriment, or even ease, but it seemed his entourage might not be quite so forbidding and already she longed to see Count Heriot again.
CHAPTER THREE
23 December 1051 – evening
‘I hear there will be twenty minstrels – can you imagine, Freya – twenty! And jugglers and acrobats and jesters and storytellers. There will be over two hundred souls sitting down to dinner – well over – imagine! At Hereford we think it a fine feast if there are thirty guests. How will we all fit in?’
Freya laughed at her friend as she bounced around their pavilion. Wilf had been much the same and Lord Galan had taken him out to enjoy the entertainers who had sprung up all over the compound so that Freya could dress in peace. Alodie, however, had arrived within minutes of their departure and it was rarely peaceful with her around.
‘Oh do hurry up, Frey,’ Alodie urged now. ‘Laurent went off to meet some old friends from the duke’s guard and I am longing to be introduced to them.’
‘Why then did you not go with him?’
Alodie wrinkled her nose.
‘I would have done gladly but they were meeting in a tavern and Laurent said it would not be “seemly” for me.’
She spat out the word as if it were a poison and Freya laughed.
‘He is right, my sweet. They say at least twenty ships arrive up the Thames every day; who knows who will be abroad in the streets. We are safe here in the royal compound and you must take care, you know, in your condition.’
Alodie snorted but she was smiling now.
‘I cannot believe I’m going to have a child, Frey. I am going to be the best mother ever, truly I am, and Laurent will make a wonderful father. I’m so lucky.’
Alodie leaned in suddenly, nudging Freya so that her fingers slipped on the shoulder-brooch she was securing and the pin bit into her flesh.
‘Ouch!’ she protested. ‘What was that for?’
‘Perhaps that knight will be at dinner.’
‘Which knight?’
‘Which knight?! You don’t fool me, Freya, my sweet. Your cheeks are glowing like paddled lamb. The knight who swept you up into his lap earlier.’
‘It was not his lap,’ Freya protested, ‘but his saddle.’
‘His saddle! I see. So your legs weren’t tangled with his and his arm wasn’t round your waist and . . .’
‘Alodie, I’m betrothed!’
‘But not yet wed,’ Alodie countered with a wink, ‘and it’s Yuletide, Frey. Whilst there are berries on the mistletoe there are kisses to be had and with God’s blessing, so come on to the hall before they’re all gone!’
Freya shook her head but in truth she needed no second urging. She ran her comb through her hazel hair one last time and turned to the door flap. Her own mind had not quite dared to wander as far as mistletoe kisses but she could not help hoping that the handsome Heriot of Argences would be at dinner and that she might get to speak with him again – just to thank him, once more, for saving her from the lethal hooves of a Norman destrier.
The two girls all but ran across the compound. It was bitterly cold and they could not draw their thick cloaks close for their hands were taken in holding their skirts high above the uneven ground. The activity of setting up the courtiers’ pavilions had churned the ground into mud and, though it had frozen hard, some puddles had cracked beneath heavier treads than their own and neither of them wanted their new gowns stained before they even reached the hall.
There was a crowd at the great doors, waiting impatiently to have their names checked by the stern-faced officials, and even inside the hall the lords and ladies of England were pressed in so tight that it was hard to see how they would find anyone at all. Alodie fretted, pulling Freya through the crowd, seeking Laurent, but Freya was content just to look around her, for it was a magnificent sight.
The Westminster hall was old but its cracking timbers could barely be seen tonight for the rich swags of greenery hung along the walls and wound around the pillars. Entwined with ribbons and studded with painted wooden baubles, the hollies, firs and ivies shone in the myriad rush lights set carefully above them to avoid fire. Below them hung the polished and painted shields of all the men of the court and Freya picked out her own father’s chequered green and cream one, every bit as smart as the rest, and felt proud. They might live far out in the west, too near to the wild Welsh border for true comfort, and their dresses might not be as sharply fashionable as those of the ladies of Wessex, but their blood was as noble as any man’s here and they deserved their place at the Yule feast.
She let Alodie drag her into the centre of the hall where Edward’s men had set up a new-cut fir, almost as tall as the roof beams. Boys were balancing on their fathers’ shoulders to tie charms and pastries to the highest branches whilst smaller children eagerly did the same further down, making the whole tree come alive with colour. Guards had been set around, for the branches were close to the huge fire over which three fat boars were slowly turning on a long iron spit. Their skin had been spiced with festive rosemary and the hall was filled with the aromatic scent of their sweetly roasting flesh.
Freya’s stomach rumbled and she took the chance to snatch two cheese tarts from a passing tray. She offered one to Alodie but her friend had spotted her husband and was pressing eagerly towards him so, with a contented shrug, Freya ate them both.
‘Laurent!’ Alodie called.
‘Allie . . .’ Laurent turned and swept his flushed wife in against him, adding ‘and the lovely Freya.’
He tugged her into his other side and Freya blinked at this touch. Clearly Laurent and his friends had supped well of the tavern’s wares but now he was introducing her to the group of young men and there was no time to protest. As soon as she was discreetly able, she slipped Laurent’s hold and glanced around. His friends seemed pleasant men but, to her secret disappointment, Count Heriot was not amongst them.
A server appeared with a tray of beautiful glass goblets and was greeted by the men with a hearty cry of ‘Wassail!’ The drink was not, to Freya’s relief, the sickly apple brew from earlier but a dark wine spiced with rich flavours which smelled delicious, so she took a cup and raised it to her lips. The wine tasted every bit as good as it smelled and she savoured the heady taste across her tongue.
‘I hear tell that Earl Godwin is in Flanders,’ one of the men was saying, ‘with his son Torr’s father-in-law, Count Baldwin – Duchess Matilda’s father.’
All eyes turned to the door but the duchess was not yet arrived and tongues were loose.
‘Perhaps that’s why they are here?’ another said.
‘To negotiate the return of the Godwinsons?’ his friend scoffed.
‘Why would he do that when he has his pet abbot all but in charge of the English church?’
‘Maybe it’s to arrange for Torr’s . . . disposal?’ another suggested, voice low, and Freya’s heart turned over. She’d encountered Earl Torr at court gatherings before and found him arrogant and pretentious but she would not wish him ‘disposed of’.
‘Earl Harold Godwinson has sailed to Ireland, they say,’ the conversation rumbled on. ‘Preparing to invade with an army of wild men. I’ll wager that the duke is here to curry favour with King Edward before the Godwinsons power their way back into the court – and why not?! England is a fine country.’
Freya felt giddy with the illicit conversation and looked nervously around for escape but luckily Laurent, too, seemed fed up of it.
‘Shall we dance?’ he suggested.
He gestured to an open space behind them where a troupe of four acrobats were turning their last somersaults. At the edge of the rough circle, three musicians were stepping forward and now they lifted their instruments – a viol, a lute and a tiny wooden flute – and sent forth a merry trill of notes.
‘Oh yes!’ Alodie said,
clasping Laurent’s hands. ‘Let’s. Come on, Frey.’
Laurent’s friends all looked eagerly at Freya to partner them but, though she was pleased the treacherous talk had ended, she felt uncomfortable with these riotous soldiers.
‘I still have some wine to drink,’ she excused herself.
‘Drink it down,’ Laurent urged, demonstrating with his own goblet, but Freya shook her head.
‘You go ahead. I’ll join you shortly.’
Laurent rolled his eyes but couples were swiftly forming a set and he hastened to draw Alodie forward whilst there was still space. Freya watched as, bright in his blue and white tunic, he led his wife enthusiastically, if rather clumsily, through the steps set by the dance leader. She smiled to see it, then laughed outright as she spotted her brother joining the set with a pretty young lady on his arm.
Wilf was flushed with his conquest but frowning in concentration at the unaccustomed jig. Several times he turned the poor girl the wrong way, colliding with other couples and creating chaos. No sooner had he at least half-accustomed himself to the dance than the minstrels picked out a new tune and he was plunged into confusion once more. Freya was still laughing when Alodie returned to her, panting.
‘It’s too much for me, Frey,’ she giggled, placing a hand over her stomach. ‘I’ve told Laurent to find a new partner.’
‘You have?’
‘Why not? Oh and look, he’s found Emeline.’
‘Emeline?’ Freya looked round and saw a girl whose sleek, dark looks matched up to her exotic name in every way. ‘Who is she?’
‘One of Duchess Matilda’s companions. She and Laurent spent some time in the same household in Normandy when they were young and he’s been looking forward to seeing her again.’
‘In Normandy?’ Freya queried, staring at the olive-skinned young lady. ‘She looks French?’
‘Oh she is, from somewhere far down in the south, but when her father died her mother remarried a Norman count and Emeline moved with her. Not that she stayed long. Word is she hated it so much that she begged her French godmother, Adele of Flanders, for a position as her daughter’s companion. Adele agreed and Emeline has been with Duchess Matilda ever since.’
‘Oh.’ Freya considered the young lady who’d dared beg favours of a Countess. ‘But why did she hate Normandy so much?’
Alodie shrugged.
‘According to Laurent it’s a horrid place where everyone fights all the time.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Well, not the villagers, obviously, but all the lords. When he and Emeline were children there were rebellions and sieges all over the duchy. Laurent says he only really remembers his father in chain mail, for neighbour was set against neighbour and you never knew when a raiding party might appear.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Alodie frowned. ‘I think it’s just how they are. Oh no, wait – it was because Duke William was just a boy so everyone was fighting for control of him.’
‘Of Duke William?’
Alodie giggled.
‘Hard to believe, isn’t it? Apparently he had to fight tooth and claw to keep his inheritance but Laurent says it’s much better now he’s a man and in full command. No one dare rebel against the Bastard any more.’
Freya remembered the dark-eyed duke high on his forbidding warhorse and could see why.
‘He seems a hard ruler.’
Alodie shrugged.
‘I guess he’s had to be. Laurent says that when he was just fourteen William’s protector was murdered in his bed. He was sleeping there to protect the young duke but they caught him unawares and William woke to find the man in his death throes, blood gushing out of his chest onto the sheets, and a dark figure slipping out of the door. Laurent says . . .’
But Freya put up a hand to stop her. It was Christ’s Mass – a time of joy – and she did not want to think of such dark things.
‘At least the duke survived,’ she said firmly.
‘And is here now – well, somewhere here.’
Alodie looked over to the shallow dais at the top end of the hall where the king and duke would dine together but it was empty. The rulers were apparently in ‘private conference’. No one knew what they were discussing but it seemed unlikely it was fond reminiscences. For all the talk of their kinship and shared time in Normandy, Edward was already a man of twenty-three when William had been born and he’d sailed for England just a few years after when Cnut’s son Harthacnut, Edward’s half-brother, had invited him over as his heir. Whatever time Edward and William might have spent together had not been in childish fun and games and this Yule visit was not so much a meeting of friends as of rulers. The thought of what that meant gnawed at Freya, even with so much to enjoy, but Alodie was easily distracted.
‘She dances well, that Emeline,’ she commented, pointing. ‘Look at her twirl!’
The girl was, indeed, light on her feet and Freya watched as Laurent handed her down the set. Sadly, however, her next partner was Wilf and the boy misjudged the distance so that his hand missed hers and she fell clumsily against him. Wilf flushed scarlet as he caught at her slim waist to steady her but she just laughed and tossed back her dark hair.
‘Your friend is very vigorous,’ she heard Emeline say to Wilf, glancing back at Laurent, but before Wilf could answer the sharp note of a trumpet cut across the hall.
The chatter ceased instantly. The music trailed off on the scrape of a bow and all faces turned to the dais as King Edward entered in a purple robe trimmed with gold, his regal crown atop his fading hair. Duke William was just a step behind and in a dark green tunic, sparsely decorated; he seemed to Freya like a bulky shadow to the forty-six-year-old English king. Her eyes, however, strayed instantly from the duke for his guard was lining up behind him and there, dead centre, stood Count Heriot of Argences.
Her breath caught. He was dressed, like his fellows, in a dark red tunic edged with deep golden yellow and emblazoned at the breast with the two leopards of Normandy. The guards were clearly designed to look the same – to stand as representatives of ducal status, not as individuals – but for Freya, Heriot stood out instantly, not for his stature but for a quiet allure that tugged at her insides as if a fishing line were caught between them.
She put her hand to the cross at her heart, as she had when the singing children had moved her around the Chelsea oak earlier, but the pull of this man was not the same pure emotion – rather a headier rush, like the fumes of the wassail cup. King Edward was speaking words of welcome to the Yule court but they washed over Freya like an ebb tide as she watched Heriot. He stood rigid, one hand at his sword, but his eyes roamed the hall and suddenly they fixed on her. To her delight she saw a smile tug at his lips and light up his eyes and it was all she could do to keep her feet firm on the rush-strewn floor and not run past the dark duke to his side. He had looked for her, she consoled herself, and he would surely be free later to seek her out, perhaps even to dance.
‘Lord Osbern’ a spiky voice said in her head, catching like a burr on her conscience, but she brushed it away. Lord Osbern was content with his cattle in Leominster and would not be harmed by her conversations, even with a handsome Norman knight. Besides, Duke William was only here for five days and what, even with the magic of Christ’s Mass, could possibly happen in such a short span?
CHAPTER FOUR
24 December 1051
Freya drifted out of a blissful sleep, half dreams, half memories of the night before, to the clatter of trestle tables, the muted calls of traders up early to grab the best spots in the marketplace, and the groans of her brother. Wilf was hunched over the water-pail, retching miserably. Suppressing a smile, Freya rose and went to him.
‘Not feeling well, Wilf?’
Her brother groaned again and muttered something about bad ale.
‘Too much ale,’ Freya said crisply but she rubbed his back all the same. ‘You’ll be better when it’s all out and you’ve broken your fast.’
Wi
lf retched again and Freya stood hastily back. Grabbing her cloak from the hook by the door flap, she untied the tent laces to peer out.
‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘Oh look, Wilf, it’s snowing!’
Her brother raised his head, then slowly got to his feet and joined her.
‘So it is,’ he agreed and then, clad only in his shirt and trousers, with his boots loose around his ankles, he stepped out.
‘Wilf!’ Freya protested but he turned his head to the skies so that the snow fell on his face and caught in his blonde curls.
‘So beautifully cool,’ he said, drawing in a deep breath and releasing it on a cloud of steam that sent flakes dancing above him. ‘I feel better already. Come out, Frey – come dance with me.’
‘Dance with you?’
She laughed but the word sparked a delicious thrill inside her as she recalled the few steps she had finally shared with Heriot last night. William had kept his guards irritatingly close for most of the evening and made his disapproval of the light English jigs very clear, so dancing had been limited until he had thankfully retired, and the court had leaped into life. Heriot had been due to attend on the duke in his bedchamber but had assured Freya that William would be some time in the chapel first and they had seized the chance to step into each other’s arms.
Their time together had been all too short but it had lit up Freya’s evening as much as the children’s baubles had lit up the tree. Heriot had held her so firmly and yet with such gentleness. They had talked as if they’d known each other all their lives and danced as if they were in each other’s shoes. As the last notes had died away, his fingers had whispered across her back as if they could not believe their fortune and she had felt their wonderful imprint on her skin all night long.
Now the memories set her alive again and, shoving her feet in her own boots, she allowed Wilf to drag her outside. The snow was new, only a light sprinkling on the ground, like the chaff around a millstone, but it was falling fast now. Once the court rose a hundred clumping feet would churn it into slush between the pavilions but for now it was fresh and clean and all theirs.
The Christmas Court Page 3