by Justin Hill
‘Ravaging is always the price of weakness,’ Kendra said.
Godwin paused. He missed the meaning in Kendra’s words. ‘It is true. The fyrd needed to fight and loot and the Danes robbed us even of that. It was during the ravaging,’ Godwin said with a heavy sigh, ‘that Athelstan was wounded.’
Kendra looked at him now.
Godwin shrugged. ‘His horse shied from a burning house, he landed badly and the next morning he took ill.’
‘It’s a strange chance,’ Kendra said. ‘Athelstan dies and then your hall is burnt.’
Godwin shrugged. Such was the world: a spinning wheel of chance and ill and cruelties.
‘So Edmund is now heir?’
‘Well, certainly not Eadwig!’ Godwin laughed. ‘But Edward is fourteen now. The queen spent the whole time dressing him up in weapons and armour and parading him about the court, saying that he was almost a man.’
Godwin seemed strangely unaffected. But if it was so, it was because he was numb. Men he loved died too quickly. It made him wary of feeling for the pain it brought.
‘If there had been something I could have done, I would have done it. It was chance and a fire and a skittish horse. Athelstan took three days to die. He met his end bravely. He gathered us all round and spoke to us. He returned my father’s lands. He raised me up.’
‘Maybe he saw something in you that he admired.’
Godwin laughed at the idea but Kendra was serious, and Godwin laughed at her.
‘What would a prince admire in me?’
‘Much,’ she said, but he did not feel it.
‘No,’ he said, and lay down with the other men in an open area along the side of the barn. And slept.
Despite the gloom about Athelstan’s death, Ethelred was not short of sons and the mood in the country was good, for Swein was dead and the Danes had been driven off and there was peace in the land at last.
Swein’s family had a reputation for internecine fighting and they all hoped that Swein’s two sons would waste their strength in a vicious civil war and leave England in peace.
Peace. Prosperity. Hope. They were strange emotions, and men were not quite sure of what to do with them at first. They regarded them with curiosity and wonder, and for the first time that Godwin could remember, men began to look to the future. Beorn found a young girl from the bottom of the valley and rode to her father to ask to be betrothed. He tried not to smile, in case he frightened her. His cheeks were red, and his tongue licked the front of his teeth as he rubbed his hands together. Her father agreed to the marriage.
His betrothed had large breasts and fine haunches. He sat her on his knee on their wedding night, and when he was drunk he put his head back and laughed loudly, and then carried her off to the closet. He came out naked when he had done the deed, drank a horn of ale in one go, before he went back in and slammed the closet door behind him.
Godwin was laughing, but his mind was already turning to the work that needed to be done.
Kendra was not there the night of the wedding. She had started to keep to herself and it was Agnes who noticed, as she saw Kendra standing before the doorway to the brew-house: the shape of her stomach was unmistakable.
Agnes sat down and stood up, then sat back down again.
Kendra turned in confusion, saw the look in Agnes’s face.
‘You didn’t tell me,’ Agnes said.
Kendra folded her arms. She was not in the mood for being reproached.
‘Oh Kendra,’ Agnes said, ‘what will you do?’
Kendra shrugged. She looked away and bit her lip to focus the pain.
‘Does he know?’
‘Godwin?’
Agnes nodded. ‘About him?’
The orange-haired man.
‘No,’ Kendra said. ‘You must not tell him.’
Agnes didn’t understand.
‘He is one of Eadric’s men. If Godwin knew, he would try to take revenge.’
‘He will take revenge anyway,’ Agnes said.
‘Good. I shall be glad. But I am his father’s girl. If he knew, he would ride and Eadric would kill him.’
‘So what will you do?’
Kendra didn’t know. She had hoped to miscarry, but fortune had failed her.
‘There are herbs,’ Agnes said, ‘that could rid you of it.’
Kendra put her hand to her belly. She did not think she could do that, but then she thought of a red-haired babe and felt a wave of nausea rise.
July was the name the monks gave to the seventh month, but in the country folk still called it Maedmonath, the month of the flowering meadows. That July was still and hot and uneventful. Godwin wasted no time in setting out the marks in the earth for a new raftered hall, larger than any men about had seen, with wide gables and steep eaves.
Workmen came, staked out the floor plan and started digging the holes into which the great wall timbers would be set. There were twenty great columns, and rooms within rooms, and enough space to sleep a hundred retainers. The size of the hall amazed people and it was like the day when Godwin was a boy and Wulfnoth had brought the great copper bell to the village chapel. Men came from three valleys away to marvel at what Godwin planned.
Mikelhal, they named it, even before it had been raised to the sky, the Great Hall.
Edmund and his royal retinue arrived at Contone late one evening as the sky slowly paled and the clouds began to darken. The men were dusty and thirsty. They drained the place of buttermilk and started on the ale before the oatcakes could be baked.
Everyone came to see Edmund Atheling. He was shorter than Kendra had imagined, but he had a roguish smile and he was a well-built youth, with a blond moustache and locks hanging down to his shoulders, in the manner of the Danes.
‘So, brigands burnt Wulfnoth’s hall,’ he said, and he strode to where Godwin had set his new foundations.
It was on higher ground than the old, and the frame had already been raised and blessed by the priest. The journeymen were now plastering the wattle with a double layer of daub: a mix of sand and muck and straw.
‘You’ll rival the king’s own,’ Edmund teased, but he liked Godwin’s ambition. ‘I shall send the best carvers from Wincestre,’ he said. ‘Let them carve the pillars for you. Why, this shall be the finest hall in all Sudsexe! And if the hunting is half as good as you promised, we shall be regular visitors here.’
That evening Kendra carried the mead bowl and it was clear that the prince was as smitten as a daisy. His eyes followed her around the room, and when they were all deep into their ale, he leant in towards Godwin and said, ‘Who is that girl?’
‘She was with my father,’ Godwin said.
‘Was she indeed?’
‘You should hear her sing,’ Godwin said. ‘Kendra!’ he called out, ‘I’ve been telling Prince Edmund what a fine singer you are.’
It was the first time Godwin had addressed her so directly, and Kendra paused before she answered. ‘Have you?’
‘Yes. Honour us, lady,’ Edmund said.
Kendra smiled at Edmund and her eyes turned to him as she sang, and Godwin was jealous.
‘She’s a fine lass,’ Edmund slurred, and Godwin agreed.
He laughed at himself and ignored the voice that whispered in his head, but when bedtime came Godwin looked for Kendra but she was nowhere to be seen, and his jealousy flared.
But there was Edmund, passed out, alone, among his retainers. Godwin had never seen a more welcome sight.
He stumbled out into the night and pissed into the darkness, looked around for her, as if he thought she might be sitting and staring at the stars. When he tried the latch of the women’s bowyer, he found the door had been bolted.
‘Kendra,’ he slurred. ‘Kendra, it is Godwin.’
He knocked and called in a gently rising voice, but there was no answer, and the door remained locked and silent. He fell into his bed and slept like a stone.
Loose skirts could no longer hide Kendra’s condition and the very ne
xt morning Agnes took her by the arm and led her to one side.
‘It is the Devil’s bastard inside you,’ she said. ‘No man will want you if you give birth to a bastard. The bastard of one of Eadric’s men, no less.’
She gave Kendra a brew of green water that stank of dandelion.
‘Drink it!’
Kendra looked at the bowl, held her nose and tilted downed it in one go.
‘And the dregs,’ Agnes said.
Kendra grimaced as she finished the last drops.
Agnes looked at her as if she expected the bleeding to start there and then.
‘How do you feel?’
‘Sick,’ Kendra said.
‘Good,’ she said, and gave her another.
Next morning Godwin came to the brew house. Agnes opened the door and he was a little surprised not to see Kendra.
‘I am leaving,’ he said.
‘So suddenly?’
He nodded. ‘Edmund wants me to go with him to meet the worthies of Sudsexe. Where is Kendra?’
‘She’s sleeping,’ Agnes said.
‘Ah, well, bid her farewell.’
Everyone wanted to talk to Godwin, seeing how close he was to the king’s eldest living son, and Godwin never knew he had so many men who were related, however distantly, to his kin. After the meeting in Sudsexe, there was another meeting, and then Edmund learnt that the queen was holding a great Lammas Day Feast to mark Edward’s coming of age.
‘She’s a bitch,’ Edmund said. ‘But we can play her game. How about we ride west and visit all the great men? Will you come with me?’ he asked.
‘Of course,’ Godwin said, but he really wanted to be back home. He wanted to see the seasons change, and the woods fill with the golden light of autumn. He wanted to ride without care through the landscape of his youth.
A while later he said to Edmund, ‘I have a better idea. How about we go to the queen’s feast ourselves? She will not be able to refuse you, and what better way of stealing her thunder?’
So they rode to Exonia, where the queen greeted them with exaggerated pomp while her eyes flamed with fury.
The feast was a great success for Edmund and Godwin, and they took advantage of the occasion to visit all the great families of the far west. They crossed Dertemora, and the vast, heaving hills of Defenascir, which rolled away into the blue horizon, till they reached the meandering Tamar Valley and looked across the twists and turns into Cornwalia.
It was a handsome and sheltered valley, the dark green leaves just starting to dry and turn to yellow. Great flocks of migrating birds began to gather in the air and Edmund was delighted.
‘There is excellent hunting here,’ he said. ‘We are just in time.’
Godwin had left men in charge of the hall’s construction and promised to send word whenever he could, but news came irregularly. The manor was like a living thing; time healed it of the wounds that the reavers had caused. Lives went on. The seasons did not stop; the routines kept them all moving steadily forward. The harvest was brought in. Men married and died, children were born, and after Yuletide Kendra gave birth to a red-haired boy.
She suckled him with an odd mix of emotions, while Agnes stood over her and fretted.
‘He looks well,’ Agnes said. Her disappointment was palpable. ‘Shall I take him away?’
Kendra nodded. Her gaze lingered on the red hair as the baby was wrapped tight in the swaddling cloth. Agnes picked him up and could not resist stroking his little nose as she paused at the door, babe in her arm, and looked back at Kendra.
‘Rest!’ she instructed. ‘Sleep. I will be back before morning.’
‘Where are you taking him?’ Kendra said, but Agnes was gone and the door creaked shut. Kendra lay still but her stomach ached.
Next morning Agnes returned with cold on her skin and dew on her eyebrows and her whiskery cheeks and upper lip.
‘He’s gone,’ she said. ‘He has a good home. Don’t you fret yourself.’
Godwin did not come home for there was so much to do, and Edmund was a driven man, preparing for the day when Ethelred died. Godwin sat on fine benches all across the country. He drank good wine and ale; listened to fabulous tales; sat shoulder to shoulder with great men; saw the most beautiful girls that England offered; and yet his thoughts turned more and more to Contone, and Kendra.
When he did finally come home it was an unexpected visit. The new hall had been raised, but the roof had not yet been laid across the rafters and the building site had a bleak and deserted air. Godwin looked at it, a lone figure on horseback. The new hall was surrounded by the tents of the carvers who had come in to replace the timber-cutters.
Godwin tethered the horse to a post, swung casually down and strode towards the hall doorway, where the boards opened on to a raw timber-framed structure of wattle and daub walls with a high gabled roof. It was bright and airy. Dry sawdust covered the floor, scented with oak and elm timbers.
The foreman wiped the grime from his hands as he went to greet him.
‘You must be Lord Godwin,’ he said. ‘I knew your father. In fact I think I met you when I worked on his boat. You or your brother. You were just a nipper then.’
Godwin laughed. He remembered the day well. ‘It was me,’ he said and looked up at the roof. ‘So this is like boat-building?’
‘Ah,’ the man said, and craned his neck, ‘just like it, only upside down.’
They walked around and the man watched Godwin’s reaction to all that he saw.
Godwin seemed pleased. ‘And is all well?’
The man sniffed and looked at his work and sniffed in a manner that said, Yes, all very well indeed.
A few men glanced up and nodded as Godwin strode along the carvings. ‘It looks very well indeed,’ he said.
‘And we’ll be done by winter,’ the foreman told him.
‘Good,’ Godwin said. ‘Yes, it must be done by next Christmastide. I will throw a great feast. You and your men are welcome to come.’
Through the sound of adze and saw, and the plank-splitting hammer, Godwin heard a woman’s voice. He turned to the doorway and saw Kendra. She looked thinner and paler than he remembered, and yet more womanly, as if there were a fuller curve to her hips and breasts.
She saw his silhouette and for a moment she thought she was looking at Wulfnoth as he was in his younger days. Then the man turned and it was Godwin.
He smiled and held out a hand. ‘Greetings,’ he said. ‘You look quite the lady of the manor.’
Kendra put her hands to the keys hanging at her belt.
‘Greetings,’ she said. ‘It is long since we saw you here. What news?’
Godwin let out a groan. He had had enough of news and gossip and speculation.
‘Too much to tell,’ he said. ‘But the hall is looking fine.’
They walked outside to admire the workmanship. It was the largest hall in the Downs, larger even than the alderman’s hall at Cicestre. Once they had completed a full circuit, there was a pause. Godwin had done what he had come for, but he wasn’t quite ready to leave. He felt a little odd, being here without Edmund or the company of many young men.
Kendra watched with a smile on her face.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked.
‘I am.’
‘Come, I have some fresh-brewed ale inside. Agnes’s finest.’
They sat and drank and Godwin put his feet up on the brew-house table and his shoulders relaxed. He sat there as evening fell.
‘You should be off,’ Kendra said, ‘if you want to get to Wincestre before dark.’
Godwin smiled. ‘I think Edmund can do without me. And I do not think I would make it by nightfall.’
There was a lengthy pause.
‘So,’ he said, ‘tell me what has been happening this year.’
Kendra felt Agnes throw her a warning look, but she kept her eyes on Godwin.
‘Well,’ she said, and retold the year’s happenings without mention of her child.
G
odwin kept his feet up on the table and watched Kendra. She sat with a candle at her shoulder that threw a stark yellow light across her face. It had been a long time since he had been with a girl and as he watched her he felt a new kind of yearning: as much familial as it was sexual. He was drawn towards her; but the strength of his desire made him hesitant.
‘You seem happy here,’ he said.
‘I am.’
‘If any of the workmen gives you trouble, you must tell me, understand?’
‘Thank you, Godwin,’ Kendra said.
Agnes made herself scarce. The two were alone. They sat and talked until they ran out of things to say. Godwin was almost too attracted to her to speak of his feelings. The more charged the air between them, the more trivial their conversation. It petered out into the small details of the manor. They fell silent.
The silence grew. Godwin saw the fire reflected in her eyes, the shimmer of flames on her black hair and the rosy glow on her white cheeks. His mouth went dry as he watched her sit and look into the flames.
Godwin reached suddenly across and took hold of her hand. His fingers were rough with calluses. Hers were as smooth as calfskin.
‘You’re drunk,’ she said.
‘I am,’ he said.
She pulled her hand away. ‘I cannot,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘Godwin,’ she said and let out a great sigh. ‘I wish I could, but I cannot.’
Godwin was not used to this. ‘Am I beneath you?’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Is it because of my father?’
‘No,’ she said.
‘Then why?’
‘People will talk,’ she said.
‘I do not care.’
‘No. You don’t understand.’
Godwin knelt at her feet. He was young and passionate and determined to understand.
She kept her eyes on him. ‘When the men came …’ Kendra began, then looked away and almost changed her mind. ‘No, the reavers.’ She paused, and that pause said a lot.
‘Tell me,’ he said. His voice was light and gentle.
‘Well,’ Kendra said. She was wary of telling, for the truth was a sharp blade. ‘The red-haired man …’ She paused again. ‘There was a child.’ She looked to see his reaction. ‘It lived. As far as I know.’ Godwin stroked her shoulder. ‘Agnes took it away.’