New Title 1

by Helen Hollick

  ‘Get my clothes, woman!’ he bellowed, tugging leather gambeson on over his undertunic, cursing as he searched for his left boot. Ednyved his seneschal burst into the room. ‘Sir – the English have come upon us! Christ alone in His Heaven knows how the Earl of Wessex has managed it – he surely could not have heard of Ælfgar any length of time before us; we only heard the day before yesterday. I have ordered the men to the ramparts—’

  ‘Curse the sodding men – get a crew on to my ship!’

  ‘But we can make a fight of this! Harold appears to have only a few hundred men. If we can hold him off—’

  ‘If? What if we cannot? Have you looked out of that window, man? The settlement is burning, the rampart walls will be next – or the gateway. A few hundred men? Jesu wept, what chance have we if Harold should get inside? What chance have I?’ Gruffydd buckled on his baldric, slid his sword into its sheath. ‘I have no desire to dangle from a roof beam or be taken in chains to Edward.’ Brusquely he shouldered Ednyved from his path, ran through the door and started down the steps, Alditha behind him.

  She caught hold of his arm, bringing him to an abrupt halt, her expression dark. ‘So you are to flee? Running like a hunted hare. What of us, my Lord? Of your men, of me and your daughter? Are you to leave us here to die?’

  Gruffydd prised her fingers from his arm. ‘Only your modesty is in danger from Earl Harold, but once he discovers how ice-hard you are in bed he’ll soon leave you be.’ He turned and ran on, out into the daylight, across the courtyard and through the water-door to Rhuddlan’s river-wharf, Alditha’s contempt ringing in his ears.

  ‘You ball-less son of a heathen bitch! You cowardly dog turd!’

  His own ship could not be made ready, too heavy in its ornamentation, too close moored to the river bank. He leapt for a trader’s vessel, already making sail at the first warning of attack, stood in the bows as the craft was taken to safety by the current, which, by his great fortune, was at full ebb. He left behind his fleet and his fighting men. Barely an arrow or spear was hurled against Earl Harold’s Englishmen; instead, the gates of Rhuddlan were opened to him.

  Alditha waited, proud, on the highest of the Hall’s timber steps. With her, Ednyved, leaning heavily on his staff. Behind her a woman coddled a whimpering child, wrapped well in blankets.

  Harold dismounted, handed the reins of his stallion to his captain and stood a brief moment regarding the lady, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword.

  The geese in their pen were cackling and honking; overhead, a rabble of seagulls squabbled. The people of Rhuddlan, fighting men and their women, servants, craftsmen, the entire community of a stronghold, stood in silence apart from a few muffled coughs and the monotonous tears of a child. In turn, they steadily regarded the tall Englishman.

  Sweeping the lady a bow, Harold mounted the steps, took her hand and laid his lips to its smoothness, his eyes not leaving hers. ‘I offer you condolences for the death of your father,’ he said, ‘though if you cared for him as little as your brothers, you will not require sympathy.’ Added, ‘I would ask why it is that the Lady of Wales greets me, not her husband, Prince Gruffydd.’

  ‘The Lady greets you because her miserable husband is running like a whipped hound with his tail tucked behind his shrivelled manhood. Regrettably, you have missed the pleasure of his snivelling company.’

  Ednyved stepped forward, bowed, introduced himself. ‘I would ask for the safe keeping of those within this stronghold. We offered you no resistance, we ask for your guarantee of protection.’

  ‘You have it. No man, woman or child will be mistreated for I have no quarrel with the people of Wales, only with their coxcomb prince. I would have the place immediately cleared, however, for my men have orders to take what trophies they wish and fire everything remaining that will burn. Should Gruffydd return, all he will find of Rhuddlan is ash and smoke.’

  His housecarls, ranged on tired horses behind him, raised their war spears and axes with a shout of victory, then began to dismount and search through house place, bothy and barn for whatever there might be of value.

  ‘And me?’ Alditha asked as Harold’s men pushed past her to ransack the Hall. ‘What do you intend to do with me and my daughter? She is ill, would you leave us with no roof over our heads and the frost so cold in the ground?’

  ‘I would wager there is suitable shelter within a day’s walk of here, madam,’ Harold answered, ‘but you will have no fear of muddying your skirts. You will be mounted upon one of those fine horses that I see being led from your husband’s stable and escorted with all courtesy back to England. King Edward and your brothers, I am sure, will welcome you.’

  Alditha stared at the Earl in defiance, said, hardly believing her own words, ‘I thank you for the offer of one of my own horses, but if these good Welsh people must walk, then I shall walk with them. I have no desire to return with you into England.’ What possessed her? She had no wish to remain with that coward of a husband a moment longer than necessary . . . yet she shared the heart of the people of Wales, could not turn her back on them.

  Harold responded with a half-grin. ‘I am afraid it is not a choice I offer you. This is but a brief raid on Gruffydd’s pride. I intend, soon, to take all of Wales from him. I cannot leave you for Gruffydd to use as hostage against those of us in England who care for you.’

  Alditha tossed her head. ‘Do you then care for me, my Lord? When last we met I was but a child. Now I am a woman grown with a child of my own.’ She was indeed a woman, one of beauty; was wasted here beneath these cloud-shadowed mountains. Needed a better man than Gruffydd to share her bed. Harold felt his manhood stir, his throat run dry . . . were it not for Edyth, or that this darkhaired siren still had a legal husband . . .

  ‘I could serve you the better here in Wales,’ she said. ‘With my own hand I will cut out that bastard’s heart if he should dare come within close range of my dagger blade.’

  Harold did not doubt her, but still he took her back to England.

  18

  North Wales – May 1063 Through the tedious grey of rain-laden winter months, Harold had set his mind to plan his conquest of Wales, strategy, options and tactics preoccupying his thoughts. That burning of Gruffydd’s ships and property at Rhuddlan had only been a sting in the tail for the Welsh prince; this time, when Harold was ready to take an army across the border, the spear must bite mortally deep. For one or other of them, there would be no second chance.

  Tactics. Strategy. Constant, restless thoughts that had isolated his waking hours and invaded his sleep. Sleep that soon became clogged by red-misted dreams of battle and death. Muddled dreams where Harold wandered alone and confused on high, snow-clad mountains or found himself trapped by men pushing and crushing, their faces ugly, voices screaming for blood to be spilt. Death was there in the blades of red-stained swords. And with death, the woman. Always, somewhere in each recurring dream, the woman had been there, sometimes with a child straddling her hips, more often alone, but ever silent, no gasp or cry leaving her lips as she watched him die at the hands of those men that crowded so close.

  As the hedgerows blossomed with the white-frothed, heavy scent of the hawthorn, Harold was ready and eager to enter Wales. The King was equally enthusiastic, for this time there was no doubting that Gruffydd would be defeated. It would deplete his treasury to finance a war, but the reward at the end of it would surely outweigh the expense. Wales would be his to command as he willed, the first English king to bring the Welsh under total English rule. Aye, he well liked the idea.

  And Edyth? Though she said nothing, Edyth knew the meaning of Harold’s dreams. She did not doubt that one way or another he would not be coming back to her. The stars wheeled in the sky, the sun chased the moon and the seasons turned. Babes were born and men died. Everything must evolve and grow. Nothing could ever remain static, for life – the world – would stagnate and begin to smell foul. For eighteen years had she been wife to Harold, her love for him never wa
vering, her need never diminishing. Six surviving children had she borne him: Goddwin, the eldest, nine months the younger than her marriage, now a man grown with a wife and soonto-be-born babe of his own. Her last-born, Gunnhild, a girl of four years, Edmund and Magnus on the verge of growing up; Algytha, fifteen, ready to become a woman.

  Wales had changed Harold; he had become single-minded. Determination to see an end to Gruffydd seared through him as if a dagger wound had penetrated his heart, stifling his good sense like a mould growing upon rotting fruit.

  What would be harder to endure, Edyth wondered, as Harold mounted his stallion and rode out beneath the gate arch of their manor, a hand lifted in farewell: news that he had fallen in battle or that he had fulfilled his promise to that dark-eyed, half-Welsh woman?

  Oh, Edyth knew who was the woman in those dreams. She had lain with Harold through those restless nights of winter, her arms clasped tight around him as he sweated and tossed through the night. Had heard the name that his sleep had whispered: Alditha.

  Gruffydd ap Llewelyn had overreached himself. He had made the mistake of all who wanted too much for themselves and took it without regard for others. There were those in Deheubarth who resented the killing of his rival, Gryffydd ap Rhydderch, and not a few ambitious kindred, men pleased to accept the opportunity to be rid of him – even at the high price of bowing the knee to the representative of an English king. It had ever been a weakness of the Celtic peoples, their inclination to fight among themselves, rather than unite against a common enemy. Earl Harold of Wessex took full advantage of it as he sailed his fleet of ships along the rugged southern coast of Wales where he landed, encountering only token gestures of defiance from the Welsh who had no desire to shed blood for Gruffydd, a man who had fled with a sheathed sword from attack. The Welsh respected a warrior, scorned a man who pissed himself as he ran. Those who nursed a grudge against the North welcomed Harold as his longships beached on the shore; others needed convincing with sharpened blades. Harold made war in the time-honoured method of Saxon, Viking, Irish – and Welsh – alike. Ravage the land and plunder for valuables until the victim found it cheaper to agree to a treaty rather than be ruined. Treaties, after all, could always, when it suited, be broken. An economy was not so easily rebuilt.

  Tactics. Strategy. Therein lay the vulnerability of the disunited Welsh. No tactics or strategy. Their warriors were brave and skilled, but their leaders did not look beyond the winning of each single battle. Harold did: he had planned throughout those long dark days of winter. This was what all those hours of training as a boy and young man had been for. This also was the blossoming of a natural talent as a commander of men.

  With his own men raised from Wessex, augmented by those of his brothers Gyrth’s and Leofwine’s southern earldoms, he set Wales scurrying by campaigning from the sea, while Tostig marched over the border from Chester, driving the land-folk before him, leaving nothing but destruction in his wake. The Welsh, caught between the two brothers and the inhospitality of the mountains, had nowhere left to flee.

  July was drawing to a close when, as planned, Harold joined with Tostig near the stronghold of Caer yn Arfon on the Gwynedd coast, with his army, several thousand strong, overlooked by the majestic sweep of the mountains of Eryri, the Snow Mountains. The Welsh had already decided their course. Tostig had come through the high passes and winding valleys, the sails of Harold’s dragon-prowed warships filled the horizon. They did not want the English destroying their land, nor did they trust Gruffydd to stand and make a fight of things. A man who could show his spine to an enemy once could as easily bare his back again. The solution was simple.

  On the fifth day of August, two months after Harold and his brother began their combined harrying of Wales, Gruffydd was slain by his own people and his head presented in surrender to the Earl of Wessex.

  Whether Gruffydd’s two half-brothers had a personal hand in his ending Harold did not ask. Better, perhaps, not to know. Both of them laid down their swords at Harold’s feet and swore an oath to the Earl of Wessex, paying homage as vassals to the English King, surrendering hostages to ensure continued peace. Over and finished, as simply as that.

  Harold ensured Wales would remain divided – and therefore impotent – by slicing her administration back into pieces, north divided from south, coast from mountain, split into small areas each with one leader who must kneel to Harold. The fighting would continue, the agreements would be broken – but not yet with England. For a while the Welsh would be too busy bickering among themselves, each clawing back what he thought was his above another’s, to bother the English on the eastern banks of the river Severn.

  Word was sent ahead and they were all there at Winchester to welcome the two brothers and the army home. In triumph they entered the town, parading their hostages and plunder before the cheering townsfolk. The King waited on the steps of his palace, his queen and clerics beside him, with the younger Godwinessons and Eadwine and Morkere, sons of Ælfgar, to welcome home the warrior heroes.

  Only one woman noticed the change in the Earl of Wessex. Edyth, waiting with his mother to the left of the King, knew that the man she had loved for what seemed all her life, her Harold, was not the same man who had ridden away from her at the manor that sun-dappled morning in late May. Acknowledging the crowd as they cheered and tossed rose petals before his side-stepping stallion, leaning down to kiss the young women who ran to touch his hand or knee, he was more self-assured, more ambitious, and, alarmingly, more ruthless in his determination to do what he felt was right, regardless of the opinion of others.

  Only Edyth noticed how he had dismounted and walked, almost before acknowledging his king, straight to the Lady Alditha. He had taken her hand and removed Gruffydd’s wedding band from her finger. Had lifted from its basket the head of a prince of Wales and presented it to her as gruesome fulfilment of his promise. Only Edyth had noticed how his eyes had lingered that moment too long on Alditha’s.

  Only Edyth, for no one else cared enough to notice, saw that more had happened to Harold, Earl of Wessex, than the mere conquering of Wales.

  19

  Westminster – June 1064 A restlessness that had been consuming Harold since his success in Wales spread and took root within him like a black canker.

  England was at peace. Malcolm of Scotland had reneged on his treaty of homage, raiding over the borders into Northumbria, but Tostig had handled the situation with diplomatic negotiation, and had signed a new treaty. Mind, there were some in Northumbria, the older warriors, who grumbled that he ought have attacked in return, taught Scotland a lesson as Siward would have done. They were the men who held no liking for the King’s favourite though, the ones who would stir trouble whenever excuse was offered them.

  As Harold had intended, Wales was too occupied with internal wrangling between her fledgling princes to turn an eye towards England. Norway and Denmark were busy also, with their seesawing political arguments. Apart from seasonal pirate raids – an ongoing hazard for any coastal village or river-accessible settlement

  – peace had wafted over the whole country like a pleasant, hayscented summer. Except there was no peace for Harold’s spirit. The new-awakened lure of adventure, action and excitement bucked within him. He was bored by the routine inactivity of Edward’s court.

  Although a chill breeze was blowing off the river Thames – the wind often became more inclement with the flood tide – Edward insisted on personally inspecting the rising grandeur that was his abbey and expected those at court to accompany him.

  Leofwine, Harold’s younger brother, arriving at Westminster, had been invited to visit the building site almost before he had risen from his knee on greeting the King.

  ‘But you must see my abbey!’ Edward declared. In his enthusiasm, he leapt to his feet. ‘It is now more splendid than ever I had imagined it would be. Come, let me have my cloak fetched, I shall show you straightway!’

  ‘We shall all go!’ Edith trilled as she ensured Edward’s
cloak was tucked around his body and his cap fitted snug over his silvered hair, and, ‘Do you want your gloves, my dear? You know how your hands chap from the cold.’ Treating him more as an ageing father, Edith had found her niche as the dutiful wife who looked to his every daily need, tending his apparel, cutting his meat, warming hands and feet, rubbing salves into his aching knees.

  Edward contentedly basked in her various attentions; it was all he had ever wanted, someone to mother him. He patted her arm, smiled an aimless, distant acknowledgement, talking all the while to Leofwine. ‘You will be most surprised at how far the work has progressed – why, it actually begins to look like an abbey at last! You younger ones, you must come also,’ Edward added, waving his arm at the children. ‘The fresh air will put colour in your faces.’ He threaded his arm companionably through Leofwine’s. ‘We have been having problems with the labourers: every so often they decide to stop work for one trivial reason or another – the ramps are too steep and slippery, the conditions too wet. Yet I am paying them good wages, they get hot food once a day and I provide a Christian burial for those unfortunates who, through their own carelessness, meet with accidents. Only the other day a man stupidly stood right under a hoist – the rope had frayed and the stone that was being lifted . . . well, he was crushed instantly. Dear Leofwine, you should have heard the wailing from his widow! We told her it was his own fault for standing where he did; I gave her a penny from my own purse, that seemed to satisfy her.’ Edward, talking rapidly, stepped through the doorway and out into the sunlight.

  Edith, her own cloak secured, ushered the younger children before her, smiling at the Lady Alditha who had made ready with the rest of the assembly. She was a quiet creature, obviously ill at ease at court, but then, few had made her welcome, unable to forget her father’s outrageous acts of treason, or the fact that she had been married to a heathen Welshman. On several occasions Edith had overheard the women whispering between themselves about it – she refused to be drawn into ignorant conversations, but privately she did wonder if it was true what they said about a Welshman’s manhood, that it was . . . Edith frowned, or was that a Jewish man...? She flushed. Whatever, she ought not be thinking of such details.