The Handfasted Wife

by Carol McGrath

  ‘No, but you must guard your conversation, Elditha. There are ears everywhere.’

  Only one person would have reported that particular conversation and twisted it into something she had clearly not intended. She did not wait to ask what he had heard. She lifted the latch, allowed it to crash down behind her and headed out into the cold courtyard alone. So Aldgyth had lied to her brother, Morcar, who had repeated the lie to Harold. It was the only explanation.

  That night God listened to their prayers. The following morning, Edith’s steward announced that the King would attend the Christmas festivities, and following that announcement a sense of levity returned to the court. Elditha pushed Aldgyth from her mind. She riffled through the gowns hung neatly on her clothing pole until, after much indecision, she selected a fine woollen overgown to wear. It was dyed a shade of green that complemented her eyes; its gold embroidery the richness of her heavy plaits. She owned a green mantle of the same wool and a curving brooch pin of gold studded with garnets, a present from Harold. He would be pleased to see her wear it. Although she chose to ignore his accusation, she could not but continue to notice his glances towards the one whom she suspected had tried to come between them.

  Determined to enjoy the Christmas festivities she sat in the bower and strummed on her harp. The girls and their cousins practised their dancing steps. Elditha showed them all a new dance with high leaps and swirls that turned as fast as the weather-cock spinning atop a church steeple on a windy day. She laughed when her sons came to the bower to tease them and tell jokes, relieved that the vigil was over. But, often, she felt a pair of pale blue eyes watching her when they dined in the hall. She sensed them following her from the shadows of the nave in the cathedral, where Aldgyth’s pasty countenance would suddenly appear from behind pillars. Most annoying of all was when that mousey head popped up smiling from the shirt she was embroidering, and which she seemed to thrust forward menacingly every time Elditha passed by.

  2

  Christmas 1065

  And King Edward came to Westminster towards midwinter, and had consecrated there that Minster which he himself built to the glory of God and St Peter and all God’s saints … and he passed away on the eve of Twelfth Night and was buried on Twelfth Night in the same Minster.

  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, January 1066, Worcester Manuscript, edited and translated by Michael Swanton

  Elditha peered into the hall on her way to the bower. It bustled with preparations. She clapped her hands with delight and sent her lady, Ursula, to fetch Gunnhild and Ulf and the nurse from their sleeping chamber so the children could see the fun. Servants rushed about the hall with baskets of greenery, table coverings, napkins, silver candlesticks and an enormous Yule log for the hearth. They hung the richest tapestries behind the dais. They decorated every spare wall space with wreaths of holly. They strewed the floor with fresh rushes and dried chamomile and set up trestles with linen cloth. Above in the gallery, musicians practised on drums, pipes and harps. In alcoves, skalds, the palace poets, rehearsed stories and fools tried out their antics on anyone who strayed their way.

  For a few minutes they watched, their excitement mounting, until Elditha said, ‘Enough for now. Your grandmother and sister will be in the church already.’ She urged the children away, fussing about their cloaks and then marching them outside into the frosty morning and along freshly swept pathways to the cathedral. They would not break their fast until they had given thanks to the one who had saved their Uncle Edward’s life.

  Harold burst into the bower after midday service anxious to escort his family into King Edward’s feasting hall. Elditha frowned and tried not to care as the women eyed him when he passed through. He smiled through long moustaches that were, this Christmas, tinged with grey. Her husband was still handsome despite his 40 years, utterly resplendent in a fine new woollen mantle and linen tunic of blue as deep as a summer sky. He paused and bowed before Aldgyth. Maids blushed and flustered around the woman tidying her gown and brushing her shoes. Harold lingered for a moment and whispered something, a compliment Elditha supposed, and then passed on to his own family. Gunnhild was waiting for Elditha to pin a small amethyst brooch on her cloak while Ulf danced up and down in new shoes, unable to stand still. Harold called a greeting to her, kissed his mother and helped her from her chair. Elditha glanced over at Aldgyth. She must rise above the sense of unease she felt in the presence of this younger woman. Jealousy was a shoddy feeling, and though Aldgyth was plain, her eyes small and set too close together, she did manage a regal bearing. Tonight in a red cloak with squirrel trimmings the northern widow looked impressive. Elditha took Ulf’s hand and gently pushed him onto a stool. She asked Ursula to use her comb on the boy’s hair but as she handed it over she felt a shadow descending, as if it had come from nowhere.

  ‘We are ready, my lord,’ she called to Harold. He was wearing a new belt, her gift to him. She had known that he would wear it, but it was not just the belt that she noticed. A new silver dagger hung from it, the hilt set with amber. She leaned forward and touched the stone. ‘I’ve never seen a piece of amber as large as a goose egg before. Where does this come from, Harold?’

  ‘Morcar, Lady Aldgyth’s brother – an offer of friendship.’ He looked away and would not meet her eyes.

  She said softly, so that Aldgyth could not hear, ‘Morcar shows you friendship? His sister ignores me.’

  ‘Morcar holds the north and he is grateful for that position. Come, my dear, no ill-will, today of all days. You too, Mother. Here’s your stick. We must not keep King Edward waiting.’

  Gytha raised a thin eyebrow. She touched Elditha’s arm and shook her head. ‘Don’t let Aldgyth upset you,’ she muttered to Elditha when Harold turned away and pushed Ulf and Gunnhild before them. ‘What must be, will be, Elditha.’ There was a chill in those muttered words but Elditha, undaunted, managed to offer Gytha her help.

  The old woman shook her head. ‘I have my stick and thankfully, my dear, my eyes.’

  Together they crossed the palace yard, walking slowly so that Gytha, who was stiff from the nights of prayer in the chill cathedral, could keep up. The King’s steward separated them at the opened door into the hall. Harold, Elditha and the Countess slid into their places at the high table, beside the empty chairs left for the King and Queen. The rest of the family were dispersed about the lower trestles that stretched down either side of a huge double hearth where an enormous Yule log blazed.

  Harold remarked, ‘Look at our sons just across from us here. We Godwins are well placed tonight.’

  No wonder Harold was pleased. All three of their older boys sat with their uncles and young Prince Edgar. Elditha now sought out their two daughters and little Ulf. They were seated far away, with distant aunts and female cousins.

  Trumpets sounded. The King’s bailiff tapped his staff. She looked towards the staircase at the back of the huge hall. Everyone stood as the snow-bearded old King appeared on the stairs, supported by his wife and surrounded by priests. He tottered down and shuffled towards his centrally placed chair at the high table. His own household followed in a procession. They waited until his personal steward helped him into his chair before they sought their own places.

  Elditha smiled as the Queen adjusted a cushion behind the King, and greeted Harold and her mother. She inclined her head momentarily to Elditha. Elditha nodded and looked at the King. He seemed not to recognise any of them. His eyes were pale and misted over like the insides of oyster shells. He who had once been good-sighted was now turning blind. There was another bustle as people relaxed back onto their benches. Side doors opened and a parade of cooks carried in great trays of food from the kitchens. Female servants poured wine and beer into cups. A boar’s head arrived. Venison, peacocks and small birds followed. Blackbirds and partridges, woodcocks, pheasants and geese were all carried to the King in a stately procession. He waved them away. As course followed course, Queen Edith attended to his every whim. She washed his fingers, arranged
his napkin, filled his drinking cup and mopped the dribbles from his beard. Elditha sadly noticed that he ate no more than the pickings of a thrush’s wing.

  Harold placed small portions of meat onto their shared silver plate but they ate slowly, without conversation. Elditha searched the board right and left for the red cloak and the headdress, the golden fillet studded with jewels and a veil of snowy linen. Then at last she saw Aldgyth’s plaits lie darkly against the red of her gown and mantle. She glanced sideways to see if Harold was watching Aldgyth too. Harold was not paying the widow any attention at all. He was speaking quietly to the King, whose response was limited to an odd grunt. Edith tried to persuade her husband to sip spiced wine from a silver-and-glass goblet, but he shook his head. Fools came to the table and told riddles and a storyteller began to strum his harp and recite an old tale. King Edward managed a weak smile but he looked tired and strained, as if it was all too much to bear.

  ‘He shouldn’t be here,’ she whispered to Harold. ‘Speak to him. Tell Edith if you can’t tell him. He is exhausted.’

  Harold shook his head. ‘He likes the storyteller. This time Edith knows best.’

  Elditha was sure that the King was worse than his physicians were prepared to admit. ‘I must say something to Edith, even if you do not. This is cruel.’

  ‘Don’t you dare utter a word.’

  Course followed course and servers came and went. The hall grew steamy. Mantles were cast aside. Servers returned and held aloft a pastry model of the palace decorated with confections and nuts. King Edward croaked at his wife to break off a honeyed turret for him. Raising his shaky hand, he nibbled at a corner. He tried to speak, but suddenly his mouth twisted and contorted, so that not a word came from it. His left arm jerked out and the piece of pastry flew up and then dropped onto his wife’s lap. He began to slump, falling forward past her, onto the table, where he clutched at the cloth with claw-like hands, bringing silver plates clattering down and glassware tumbling. Red wine splashed onto the rushes. Harold leapt to his feet. Edith cried out. The storyteller ceased strumming. The steward and the royal physician raced to the King’s side. Edith and Harold raised him into his chair again. The physician listened to the King’s chest through a horn and held a small mirror to his mouth, raised his head and proclaimed, ‘He lives. The King lives. Carry him to his chamber.’

  I knew it, Elditha thought. He has not recovered, not at all. Retainers cleared a pathway. The steward, the physician and courtiers lifted the frail old man up the staircase, through the wide gallery above the hall, vanishing into the apartments above. Queen Edith raised her hand and bade the storyteller to continue. She asked Harold to accompany her. They followed the King’s physicians and courtiers up the staircase.

  She heard Gytha’s voice say as if it was sliding through a thickening mist, ‘Elditha. We cannot stay now.’ For a moment she could not move, nor did words form in her mouth. She felt imprisoned, as though sewn into a shroud. This was it. England would be adrift and the locusts would descend. And what now? She felt danger sliding closer and closer to them, towards Harold and herself. Did she not want this? Before, as Harold rose to become the first earl in England she had enjoyed the importance she and their children had, but something worried her now – something she could not quite grasp. She glanced down the hall. Seeing Aldgyth studying her again through those pale little eyes, Elditha signalled to her ladies. When Ursula hurried to her, she sent the girl to gather up her younger children, and with them by her side – confused but obedient – she swept from the hall and returned to her own apartment.

  In the freezing courtyards around the palace, groups of young nobles gathered in tight knots waiting for news. In the galleries, by the curtains of private chambers and on staircases up into the towers, Elditha observed bishops and earls muttering. One thought hung on everyone’s mind. Who would be fit to rule if the King died; local earl or foreign atheling? Not Harold, she prayed on her knees on the hard, icy pavements of the abbey’s many alcoves, prostrating herself before the abbey’s multitude of saints. Not my husband.

  Days passed and it seemed to her that the King lingered, his soul suspended as if hovering on a lightly feathered angel’s wing. Harold consulted with physicians. He comforted the Queen or became entrenched in the council room where he reported on the King’s progress. He never returned to his own chamber but remained close to King Edward. Elditha quietly embroidered and waited patiently for news.

  On the day before Epiphany Gytha tapped her way along the gallery to Elditha’s chamber. Leaning on her jewelled, hooded walking stick, she requested thread of gold from Elditha for the new tapestry. As she hunted it out from the box in her chair Gytha suddenly said, ‘The corpse serpent is gnawing at the roots of Yggdrasil.’

  ‘Edward is finally dying?’

  Gytha lowered her voice. ‘His spinners have ceased their spinning. He will not last out the night.’

  ‘In time, the serpent arrives at the tree of life for us all,’ Elditha said gently.

  She heard before morning that the corpse serpent slid into the room that very night as the King was sleeping. His spinners had spun their last. Harold came to her and took her hands. ‘It is over, Elditha. Now all is to change.’ She did not need to ask him what was changing because the changes had been happening since the morning she had ridden on Eglantine to ThorneyIsland. A king was dying and a plain young widow waited in the shadows to take Harold from her. She asked him how the King had died. Harold sank into a chair, buried his head in his arms for a moment, then raised his head and said, ‘He was just a dying old man; he had become a great fetid stench that lurked beneath the smell of wax and unguents.’

  ‘What about Edith?’

  ‘Edith held his feet and caressed them. Archbishop Stigand was muttering prayers. Then just as it seemed that if he would never speak again, his lips began to move.’ Harold took a long deep breath. ‘It was the strangest thing. Edward’s voice as clear as the ringing of Angelus bells; he cried out, “England will enter a terrible time.”’

  ‘What did he mean?’ Elditha whispered. She shuddered. Edward had been, in truth, an obsessive and quite unpleasant old man. Rumour had it that he had never slept with Edith and that he admired young men, or perhaps, since there was no evidence of that, he was a virgin.

  ‘I said, “What is this, Your Grace?” The Queen kissed his forehead and he opened his eyes. He looked straight at Edith and stretched out his right hand, touched my arm and said to me, “I place my kingdom into your care.” And that was it, Elditha. After that, he said not another word. But don’t you see, he has given me the kingdom and we all know that any wish spoken by a dying king must be granted.’

  ‘So does this mean you are to be king?’

  ‘If the Council says so then, it seems that I am, and Elditha, not a word of this to anyone. There is too much to do, to arrange.’ Harold snatched a cup of wine from her, gulped it back, shook his unkempt head and rose to his feet. He dropped a perfunctory kiss on her forehead and hurried out into the darkening evening. Bewildered, she sank into the chair that was still warm from Harold, lifted her mending, then put it down and called for Ursula. ‘Bring me my mantle and my boots. I need air.’

  ‘Do you wish for company?’ she heard Ursula’s small voice saying.

  Elditha shook her head. ‘Not tonight. Go and rest. King Edward is dead. The morning will be busy. You and Margaret must keep the children hushed, and we must all pray for his soul.’

  Around midnight, Elditha picked her way through grim mourners kneeling in huddled groups around the hall, chanting prayers. She climbed the staircase to the gallery and slipped into an empty alcove. She flung open the shutters of a window overlooking the river. A full moon glowed and the water below reflected stars, appearing as if it was filled with shoals of silver fish. Smoke from riverside huts twisted upwards into the night. As she leaned on the sill, Elditha wondered if the King’s soul had already sped into the heavens. She listened to the lapping water, the cr
ies of mourners and the chanting of prayers until these sounds faded into the background. Closing the shutters again she thought that she could hear voices close by. She followed the wall to where the leather hanging concealed the entrance to the King’s antechamber. Leaning her ear against it, she could hear Harold and Edith talking. Their voices rising, they weren’t just talking. They were arguing.

  ‘Edward sent for Edgar’s family. You fetched them back from Hungary yourself. We adopted the boy after his father died.’

  ‘Sister, you heard Edward give the kingdom into my care. A dying king’s wish is sanctified and must be obeyed. Morcar and Edwin will not have that child for king.’

  ‘But, brother, Edward meant that you were to care for the kingdom in Edgar’s name.’

  ‘Archbishop Sigand does not agree. Tomorrow Edward will be interred. I shall be crowned king.’

  ‘Then, I shall retire to my convent at Wilton.’

  ‘No, you were Edward’s queen and tomorrow you will show them all that you support my kingship.’

  ‘And who will be your queen, brother? Aldgyth of Mercia? You have been plotting this for weeks.’

  Elditha clutched the folds of her mantle, turned on her heel and fled back along the corridor. She rushed into her apartment. There was no sign of her women. She sat alone in the dark as the candles burned low. There, as bells cried out through the long night for the safety of Edward’s soul, she brooded over what she had overheard. Next to Harold, Morcar and Edwin were the most powerful earls in the kingdom. She understood it all now: the looks, the snubs, the snide whispering as she passed.

  When the charcoal dimmed in the brazier she climbed into the empty space that had been their bed here for 17 years and, heartsore, sobbed angrily into the pillows. He would betray their love for a kingdom. And he had not returned to their chamber since Christmas night. This was not the way it should be. Before the Christmas feast they had made love. Before King Edward had died they had been a family. As morning dawned fear paralysed her, but she could do nothing; not yet. She was not to be queen – but what about their children? Would they be princesses and their sons, athelings, heirs to the throne?