The Conquest

by Elizabeth Chadwick

  His words fell on deaf ears, Goldwin looked straight through him, then turned his back and walked away. 'Come, Ailith,' he commanded.

  She dared not defy him. With a single, frightened glance at Aubert's shocked face, she followed Goldwin into the house, leaving Aubert standing alone amid the ruins of her vegetable plot.

  'I'll find custom without his help,' Goldwin muttered through his teeth as Wulfhild served them with bacon pottage and Ailith unlaced her bodice to feed the baby. 'He lied to us, betrayed our trust. God's eyes, I'd rather do business with that red-haired horse-warrior than I would with Aubert de Remy. Wine-merchant, hah! To think of all the occasions he sat at our board listening to our conversation, and all the time he was gleaning information for William of Normandy. And then he has the gall to expect me to remain his friend!'

  'I believe he is sorry,' Ailith murmured, trying to be fair. 'Perhaps he had no choice.' Harold did not want to wake up. She blew gently on his face. He grimaced, half-opened his eyes, took one attempt at her nipple, enough to make her milk drip, then returned to sleep. He had scarcely fed all day, indeed had scarcely woken up. She laid the palm of her hand against his little body, but he did not appear to have a fever. Perhaps in the morning she would ask Hulda to have a look at him.

  'He can be as sorry as he likes,' Goldwin grunted. 'I have called him nithing and nithing he will remain. And from now on, you will have no more ado with that wife of his either.'

  Ailith bit her lip in dismay. 'Aubert used you once,' she said. 'Now it is your turn to use him. He can find clients for you, rich Normans. Surely it is foolish to turn your back on what he can offer.'

  'No!' Goldwin snapped. 'I will hear no more on the subject. Let that be an end to it!'

  Ailith bowed her head over the baby and swallowed her exasperation. She knew Goldwin could be a stubborn ass when the mood was upon him, and trying to make him change his mind would only cause him to dig in his heels as hard as he could to the detriment of all common sense. She would hold her tongue today in the interests of using it tomorrow.

  'I did not expect to find him so altered.' Aubert hunched over the desultory fire burning in the central hearth and rubbed his hands together. 'So bitter and angry when before he was so good-humoured and steady.'

  'There have been a few changes since then,' Rolf observed wryly, glancing up from the piece of harness he was repairing. 'And he must have his pride. Don't worry about it, I'll bring him round.'

  Aubert threw a kindling twig at him. 'How, by letting your destrier trample his garden?' he said acidly.

  'The garden is his wife's domain, and her temper calmed when I spoke her fair and sweetened my words with a recompense of silver.' Rolf chuckled. 'If you thought her husband was angry, you should have seen her when I arrived in their garth. Dear Jesu, she was chasing Sleipnir with a besom, and she looked magnificent! I thought for a moment she was going to set about me as well. I half-wish she had,' he added wistfully.

  Aubert glanced at him sharply. 'Duke William says that he will hang any soldier caught molesting the Londoners' women, and he will make no exception for rank.'

  'Peace, Aubert, I did but jest,' Rolf said with amused irritation. 'I thought she was handsome, but I was admiring her the way I would admire a horse.'

  'You mean you wondered what she was like to ride?' Aubert said archly.

  Rolf shrugged. 'It went no further than a mild curiosity. I've no desire to fetch up a gelding. There are mares aplenty to mount in London without me chasing one that is not for sale.' Finished with the harness, he set it to one side. Not that he intended scouring London for a woman. He would happen on one soon enough, as he had happened on Gifu in Dover and Milburga in Winchester. He poured wine from the nearby pitcher into his cup. Although his face betrayed nothing to Aubert, the thought of Ailith was still on his mind. He was remembering her assaulting Sleipnir with the besom. The way her eyes had flashed, the gleam of her blond braids, the thrust of her jaw. Thinking back now, she reminded him of the huscarl who had died beside him on Senlac field. The warrior's axe lay among his baggage. Rolf had slicked it with oil and wrapped it in waxed linen to prevent the head from rusting. When the time came to claim his lands, he would hang the weapon on the wall of his new home as a trophy and a talisman.

  Outside the door, a dog barked loudly in warning, and as Rolf and Aubert reached instinctively for their weapons, Rolf's watchman entered the house, followed by a young man dressed in a plain tunic and cloak. He proved to be a lay worker from St Aethelburga's whom the abbess had sent with a message for Aubert.

  'Your lady wife has begun her labour. The Abbess asks that you come with all haste.'

  'Is there something wrong?' Aubert sheathed his knife and reached for his cloak.

  'I do not know, sir. The Abbess just said I was to fetch you.' The young man sniffed, sniffed again, and drew his cuff across his nose. His hands were red with cold.

  'God grant you a healthy wife and child,' Rolf said as Aubert took his sword and went to the door which showed a narrow rectangle of late afternoon dusk. 'It would be auspicious if Felice were to be delivered on the day of our Duke's crowning.'

  Aubert smiled, but the gesture was no more than a meaningless expansion of his lips as he ducked out into the cold.

  Rolf thought that he had never seen the merchant look so worried. He tried to recall if he had been similarly distressed over Arlette when she had borne their first child, a stillborn son. He thought not, but then he had been able to immerse himself in the stud. He realised guiltily that since leaving Normandy, Arlette and Gisele had scarcely crossed his mind. Sometimes when he had been cold and wet and hungry on the circuitous six-week march from Hastings to London, he had remembered the roaring fire in the hearth at Brize-sur-Risle, the dainty glazed cups full of mulled cider, Arlette's little curd cakes that were gone in one bite and tasted like heaven, the minstrel plucking his crwth and singing of glory. On those occasions, he had been seized by nostalgia, but never homesickness, and his feelings were for Brize-sur-Risle in its entirety, not his slender, silver-haired wife.

  When he returned to Normandy, he would take her an English tapestry for their chamber wall and some new tableware for the dais. That was sure to please her. Having dealt with his guilt to his own satisfaction, Rolf put Arlette from his thoughts.

  CHAPTER 15

  For nine months, sleeping and waking, Felice had lived with fear. Sometimes it affected her but mildly, a nagging anxiety she could almost forget. On other occasions it became pure terror that winkled her out from every crevice in which she tried to hide. Now, with each contraction it pounced on her, mauled her until she screamed with terror and pain, then let her go. But she knew that in the end, she would be devoured.

  'Make it go away!' she wept to the nuns and frantically clutched her eaglestone. 'Oh please make it go away! Holy Mary, Blessed Virgin, help me!'

  The nuns did their utmost to soothe her. They rubbed her swollen belly with herbal oils, they loosened her hair so that no knots would bind the babe in her womb. They gave her a calming tisane to drink, but she was so tense that it had no visible effect. The Abbess, a woman who was as pragmatic as she was compassionate, sent for Aubert and took Felice to task.

  'You must calm yourself,' she said sternly. 'The bag of water has not yet broken, and when it does, you will need your strength to push.'

  'Ave Maria, gratia plenia,' Felice whispered. Her brown gaze sought the aumbry and pleaded with the plaster statue of the Virgin presiding over her ordeal. Beneath her thighs the thick layer of bedstraw chafed her skin. The nuns had put it there the previous night when she had complained of low back ache. They said that it was to absorb the blood and fluids which would leak from her body as labour progressed. Ever since then, a vision of her life drip-dripping away had whetted the teeth of the predatory fear. She was going to die, she knew it. And when she was dead, one of the nuns would take a knife and rip open her belly to see if they could save her child.

  Aubert arrived and
was ushered into the birthing chamber. Usually men were allowed nowhere near such a sanctum, but the nuns were becoming desperate. Felice's screams had been heard throughout the convent until she had lost her voice.

  'Aubert!' Felice pushed herself up on the mound of pillows. 'Aubert, I'm dying, aren't I? That's why they've sent for you!'

  Removing his cloak and cap, Aubert sat on the bed and took her in his arms. 'If you were dying, they would have sent for a priest first,' he reassured. 'They summoned me because the Abbess thought it was the only way to calm you down.'

  'But it hurts so! I don't like it, and it's getting worse!' Felice quivered in his embrace. The fierceness of another contraction tore through her loins and she gripped him, digging her nails into the soft wool of his tunic. 'I'm so frightened!' she gasped.

  Aubert pulled a face. 'So am I when I see you like this. Felice, beloved, you cannot go into a battle believing that you will lose it. How would we have fared if Duke William had given up at Hastings? You must fight. Do as the nuns tell you, they are wise. I'll be here, I promise – if not beside you, then right outside the door.' He kissed her temple and her cheek, the trembling corner of her mouth.

  As if from a great distance Felice heard his words. The strength of his arms around her gave them emphasis and a little of the darkness cleared from her mind. 'Help me, Aubert,' she whispered. 'Dear Jesu, help me.'

  With Harold cradled in one arm, a pitcher of mead in the other, Ailith went down to the forge. She was worried about the baby. Although his eyes were open, they were dull, and every time he expelled air from his lungs, it was with a wheezy little grunt. Nor had he fed that morning and her breasts were bulging with the discomfort of excess milk. Hulda had promised to come and look at him, but not until later in the day because she was attending a birth.

  Ailith heard the sound of Goldwin's gruff laughter. She pushed open the forge door with her shoulder and her husband turned his head when he saw her enter. So did the tall, red-haired Norman Rolf de Brize. Ailith felt a stab of irritation, and a queasy sensation only just short of fear turned within her stomach. De Brize inclined his head. He was leaning against Goldwin's workbench, watching Goldwin fashion mail rivets from coils of iron wire.

  'Look, Aili, I've acquired a new apprentice,' Goldwin jerked his head at Rolf.

  She wondered how the Norman had succeeded in worming his way into Goldwin's good auspices so rapidly. The man did not even speak English, and Goldwin's French was atrocious. She inclined her head stiffly to de Brize and set the pitcher of ale down on the workbench. 'I am sorry, we have no wine,' she said without really meaning it.

  'No matter, I'm learning to like ale,' the Norman replied with a smile. 'Your husband has sold me a mail coif and promised me a new helm.'

  Here, in the small, cramped forge, the Norman's vigour was almost indecent. Ailith moved closer to Goldwin, seeking sanctuary. 'Norman business?' she said a trifle sarcastically to her husband. 'A coif and a helm?'

  Goldwin cleared his throat and his complexion darkened. 'I would have been stupid not to accept what he offered me for my services. I made the coif for a Saxon thegn who never returned from Stamford Bridge. It's been lying in the workshop for two months now; the Norman is welcome to it. I thought that you wanted me to collaborate?'

  Ailith glanced at de Brize from beneath lowered lids. He was watching her with scarcely veiled amusement in his greenish eyes. 'I do,' she said. 'I was just surprised, that's all.' She turned to leave, but Goldwin stopped her and lifted the waddled baby out of her arms.

  'This is my son,' he said proudly to Rolf. 'One day all this will be his. I will teach him everything that I know, and he will become the greatest weapon smith in England.'

  Reluctantly Ailith translated Goldwin's boast. Harold wailed weakly and at the sound of his cry, milk began to leak from her overflowing breasts and stain her gown. She saw de Brize stare, and the forge became even smaller so that there was no room for Goldwin or the baby in its confines, just herself and the red-haired Norman. Her breathing quickened, her heart thumped in panic against her ribs and she knew that if she did not escape, she would be crushed. Snatching the baby from Goldwin's arms, she muttered an excuse about burning stew and fled the forge.

  The men looked at each other and both of them suddenly smiled in rueful, masculine companionship. 'Women!' snorted Goldwin, shaking his head.

  Felice sat upon the birthing stool, her legs splayed, her face contorted in agony as she strove to push the baby from her womb into the world. For two full days she had been in labour, but it was only in the last few hours that the bag of water had broken and the baby had begun to descend down the birth passage. The pain had been relentless, but she was so exhausted now that she was beyond fear or caring. 'I don't want to die,' had become 'Let me die, let me have peace!'

  'Push!' cried Sister Winfred fiercely. Before becoming a nun, she had borne six children of her own and had the most experience of midwifery. 'Your womb is tiring. You must push for your life, and the life of your child!'

  'I can't!' Felice sobbed, then cried out sharply as the nun slapped her.

  'Of course you can. Would you deny your husband his son!'

  Felice bit her lip and closed her eyes.

  'Come now, you are almost there, you must not give up!'

  Felice had always prided herself on her indispensable skills as a wife, and one of those skills was producing a living child. If Ailith could do it, then so could she. Drawing a deep breath, she bore down.

  For another hour Felice struggled to deliver her child, and at last, Sister Winfred cried that the head was there, that one more effort would see the baby born. Hearing the hope in the nun's voice, Felice clenched her teeth and bore down with the last of her strength. An infant's indignant wail filled the room.

  'Just listen to the lungs on him!' declared Sister Winfred, smiling broadly as she lifted a thrashing, bawling baby from between his mother's bloody thighs.

  'A boy!' Felice panted triumphantly, and raised herself against the bolster to look at him. 'I knew it would be a boy! Let me hold him!'

  Smiling broadly, Sister Winfred cut the cord, wrapped the child in a towel and gave him to his mother. Then she took another towel to staunch the blood that was trickling from Felice's womb. The linen reddened all too rapidly. A frowning Sister Winfred summoned another nun to help her and sent a third to fetch the grains of black rye from the infirmary.

  Ailith stared numbly at the swaddled little body lying on her bed. The baby's forehead glistened where the priest had anointed it with holy oil. His eyes were closed and he looked as though he were only asleep. Two hours ago he had ceased to breathe and time for Ailith had stopped too. She would not allow him to be dead. If she prayed hard enough for a miracle perhaps he would open his eyes and look at her. Had not Jesus restored Lazarus to life?

  She touched the baby's cold, soft skin. 'Harold,' she whispered softly, 'Harold.'

  'Aili, he is gone, come away.'

  She felt Goldwin's hand on her shoulder and heard the hoarse grief in his voice. He had been beside her when Harold died. In her mind she could still hear the drawn-out groan of anguish he had uttered and see the despair in his eyes. Initially, she too had wept and wailed, clinging to Goldwin, but after the first storm had passed, she had discovered the welcome numbness of disbelief. There was still milk in her breasts and fresh swaddling bands warming near the fire. Her baby was only sleeping.

  'I cannot leave him,' she said distantly without looking round. 'What if he wakes up and I am not here?'

  'He is not going to wake up ever again.' Goldwin's voice cracked. 'Jesu, Aili, don't you see?' He tried to draw her away from the bed, but she resisted him.

  'I am his mother, I will not yield him to the soil!' she said determinedly. 'Go if you must, but I will sit here until he rouses.'

  'Aili, he's dead!'

  The word rang brutally around the room and threatened her numb cocoon. She stared obdurately at the baby's still form and gripped her ha
nds together.

  'I cannot bear it!' Goldwin choked and flung out of the room. She heard him descending the loft ladder, his voice downstairs, harsh with grief, and then silence. She did not know for how long she sat. For her, like Harold, time had no meaning. Sigrid brought her a bowl of gruel and replenished the small portable brazier with fresh lumps of charcoal.

  Hulda came visiting and removed the bowl of gruel, now cold, from the coffer. She sat beside Ailith for a long time, holding her hand, saying nothing, but at last she gently broached the subject of Harold's burial.

  'But he's not dead.' Ailith's voice quavered.

  'No-one who lives in the love of our dear Lord Jesus Christ is ever dead,' Hulda said gently, 'but he has no need of his earthly body. Ailith, you have to let him go. You have a husband who is as sorely wounded and frightened as you. Seek him out. Take comfort in each other.'

  'I do not know where he is.'

  'When he returns then. I will sit with you in vigil until he comes.'

  Hulda's firm, sensible tone, the compassion in her eyes, reached across the barrier of Ailith's defensive numbness. And when Hulda said softly, with tears in her old eyes, 'Poor little mite,' Ailith's composure shattered, and she flung herself down on the bed beside the dead baby and wept and wept.

  Hulda let her cry, knowing it was the best thing she could do, and tip-toed to the loft opening to tell Wulfhild to find Goldwin.

  Rolf's best tunic had emerged somewhat crumpled from his baggage, but it did not matter. Only the all-important gold-embroidered hem would show beneath his quilted gambeson and mail shirt. He dragged a comb through his hair, cupped his jaw to satisfy himself that he had made a smooth enough job of shaving his stubble, and tucking his helm under his arm, went outside to his horse.

  Aubert was already mounted and waiting, but then the merchant had not had to spend time donning armour and weapons. Indeed, Rolf knew that Aubert had not been to bed at all, and apart from a change of tunic and a rapid sprucing, had made very little preparation for the coronation of Duke William at Westminster.