New Title 1

by Helen Hollick

  Waltham Abbey ‘Mother? Why not come with me to see the foals? It is a beautiful evening, a pity to waste what promises to be the first fine sunset of spring.’ Algytha slid her arm around her mother’s waist and kissed her cheek, noting the pale thinness of her face, the tiredness of her eyes. Grief, the loss of a loved one. Would it have been easier for her mother to have accepted Harold’s leaving if he had died? Algytha caught her breath – no, not that. Do not, ever, think that!

  Edyth peeped at a small pot of water simmering over the cooking fire, grasped a handful of yellow flowers from the basket on the table and dropped them in. ‘I am making cusloppe tea for Gunnhild. With a little honey added, the poor child may sleep sounder this night. She has been so restless of late.’

  ‘She is excited about those pups coming soon; Silk has only a few days to go before her whelping.’

  ‘Aye, and the young lass does love that bitch so!’ Edyth smiled as a memory flooded her mind. ‘I once cared for a dog as much as she. We were inseparable, he and I.’ Hastily she gathered more flower heads, stirred them into the infusion, banished the memory of Thor from her mind. Her dog, her friend. His violent death . . . Harold.

  Algytha selected one of the leaves from the plant and nibbled at it. The cowslips and primroses had bloomed in abundance this spring, their flowers bringing a burst of yellow sunshine to hedgerow and meadow edge – an alternative sunshine to that which had been lacking in the sky these past cloud-dulled April days.

  Algytha put her hand under her mother’s elbow and eased her away from the fire. ‘Someone else can keep an eye on that infusion, Mother. You haven’t slept soundly either; a walk to the top of High Meadow will relax you. There are four foals; you know you enjoy watching them prance.’

  Undecided, Edyth looked from the steaming pot to the open doorway. The trill of evening birdsong filtered in, and the sweeping rays of golden sunlight highlighted the swirl and dance of floating dust. The evening outside beckoned, rich with pleasure.

  Removing the old square of patched linen from around her waist, Edyth smiled and nodded. Beside the door, she slipped her soft house-shoes from her feet and donned stouter hide boots. There would be puddles a-plenty, and mud between the gateways, but if this sun and boisterous drying wind continued for a few days the ground would soon lose its winter weariness.

  They passed through the huddle of trees in the apple orchard, scattering the chickens scratching for the last of the day’s grubs among the blossom that flecked the grass. The sun, a low ball of firered, was sinking towards the purple-dark ridge on the far side of the valley, the sky behind, the vivid, clear blue of early evening. With the wind fresh in their faces the two women, arm linked through arm, walked up the gentle sloping hill. Laughter rippled from the spinney ahead. The boys, Magnus and Ulf presumably, for Edmund had waved to his mother from the lower meadow, where the last of the bulge-bellied ewes were to lamb.

  As they passed through the new growth of rich, spring grass, their feet left a double silvered trail, for the dew was already descending. Reaching the hawthorn hedge, which showed a trace of white from the blossom that would soon be smothering it, Algytha pointed to a blackbird’s nest. The mother bird crouching on her eggs peeped out at them with her bright black eyes but never stirred.

  ‘Brave little bird!’ Algytha said. ‘How many mothers would sit so determined in the face of such a threat?’

  ‘I suppose it depends on the nature of the mother – look at the cuckoo bird, she abandons her children the instant the egg is laid.’

  Algytha gave her mother a loving squeeze. ‘Glad I am, then, that you are the hen blackbird, not the cuckoo.’

  Algytha lifted the latch of the gate, allowing her mother to pass through. The mares were grazing beneath the oak trees. They lifted their heads as the women approached, scenting whether there was cause for alarm. Algytha held out her palm, a shrivelled crab-apple from last autumn balanced there. The nearest mare, a pretty, blackmaned dun, took a tentative step forward and daintily took the morsel, her foal sheltering close to her offside, peering warily beneath her dam’s neck. Eager for titbits, the other three mares crowded in, one setting back her ears and squealing, kicking out at her neighbour’s dark-coated colt.

  ‘No apples if you are going to squabble!’ Edyth admonished, rubbing a chestnut mare’s white-starred forehead. The dun mare’s filly put her nose forward, sniffing delicately at Edyth’s unfamiliar smell – and then, without warning, skittered away, head ducking as she bucked and cavorted. That set the other foals into a whirl of similar antics, the four of them hurtling into a gallop across the meadow.

  When the titbits were finished, Edyth suggested they walk on to the crest of the hill. The sun had dipped almost beneath the horizon, and the sky was flooding with streaks of gold and purple, its glory reflected on the gold cross atop the nest of Waltham Abbey and in the meandering expanse of the river, its winter-risen depth still covering the meadow plains to either side. At least this year the floods had not come as they had last. As they watched, a hawk hung, poised, against the gold-painted sky, stationary except for quivering wings. He plunged, suddenly, and was gone.

  With a curious frown, her finger pointing to the purpling sky, Algytha said, ‘What is that? Look, there, that star! How bright it is

  – it looks as if it is trailing a stream of hair behind it, blowing loose in the wind!’

  Squinting to see more clearly, Edyth looked to where her daughter pointed. ‘I have seen such trailing stars before,’ she said, ‘but never one as wonderful as this – it is like a dragon crossing the sky!’

  ‘Where has it come from? Do you think it carries a meaning?’

  Edyth gestured a hand motion of uncertainty. ‘Your father always said that a star falling to earth was the track of Our Lady Mother’s tears, weeping for a departed soul, but this is not such a star. It is not tumbling, but riding the sky-wind.’

  ‘Perhaps it is for a birth, then? Something like the star that sailed the heavens when our Lord Christ came to be born on earth?’ There was a questioning note in Algytha’s voice, and a slight hesitancy. The star, brightening as the sky darkened behind it, was beautiful, but mysterious and a little frightening.

  ‘Perhaps it is sent for the coming of a king.’ Edyth’s answer was almost a whisper. The strange star shone yet brighter, more brilliant, hanging low in the south-western quarter of the sky, above where London clustered beside the Thames river. London and Westminster.

  He was there, at Westminster Palace, had returned for the Easter Council. The first Easter that he had been in England and not with her. Was his new wife with him, Edyth wondered? Was she yet with child? She stared at the shining star, blinked away tears that misted her vision. A star for a new king. For Harold, King of England. Or for a child that the woman, his taken wife Alditha, might be carrying for him?

  The first tear shimmered down her cheek, followed by another and another. She had tried to set aside these feelings of jealousy and anguish, tried so very hard. But how did you begin to forget a man who had been there through most of your life, as friend, husband and lover? Forget the father of your children? Begin to accept that now he lay through each night beside the warmth of another woman?

  Algytha, nineteen years old, a woman herself, although one who had not yet been touched by the intimacy of love, settled her embracing arms around her mother, her cheek, also damp with tears, resting against hers. And above, as the sky faded from a darkening blue to night black, the comet blazed in a glory of radiant silver, seen by all who looked up to the spatter of stars, dimmed against its magnificence.

  6

  Westminster Queen Edith might have been content with the dull colours and the crucifixion theme of the tapestries covering her chamber walls within the palace at Westminster, but Alditha hated them. They were morbid and depressing, like so much of this dark-shadowed palace. Perhaps it was the lingering memory of Edward’s death or her own lethargy that made the place so melancholy? Whatever, she felt
alone and miserable. Her daughter, Nest, had been mithering all day, intermittent tears between bouts of rage – by late afternoon Alditha had had enough of her, had slapped her legs and ordered the seven-year-old girl’s nurse to put her to bed. And now she felt guilty, for the child was running a fever, her face and back covered in the white-spotted blisters of a childhood illness. The poor lass must have been unwell for most of the morning and no one had listened to her discomfort. As her mother she ought to have realised.

  Alditha rubbed at her forehead; a headache was starting. She wanted to scream, shout – weep with despair. Instead, she sat before the hearth fire, her legs tucked beneath her. They were all sniggering at her; behind her back she could imagine their clucking words.

  ‘Calls herself a mother, didn’t even realise the wee lass was carryin’ the spots.’

  Aye, an’ ’er with all ’er airs an’ graces!’

  She should not care what the serving women said of her – nor the wives of nobles and lords, but God help her, she did! Cared so much that the pain of their dislike hurt like a knife twisting into her heart.

  She ought to go to her bed, for she was tired, but she wanted to take one last look at Nest before retiring, and Harold might come. Doubtful, but he might. He had been in London all day, for it was the folkmoot, when the people met at the hustings beside the Cathedral of Saint Paul to discuss the business and laws of the city. He had ridden in, not an hour since, as dusk was falling over the river Thames, would need to eat, then finish the government tasks of the day; he would be tired. Too tired to come to her bedchamber.

  She fingered the gold brooch that clasped her tunic at the shoulder, a pretty thing, patterned with flower-petal shapes and four lion-like beasts. She unpinned it and read aloud the inscription engraved to its underside:

  Aldgy ´ me ag: age hyo Drihten Drihten hine awerie ´e me hire ætferie Bvton hyo me selle hire agenes willes

  Alditha owns me, may the Lord own her. May the Lord curse him who takes me from her, unless she but gives me by her own choice. Harold had presented it to her on the dawn of their first day together, as his own personal morning gift.

  Their wedding. A cold, bright-skied frosted day. She had walked beside Harold, flanked by her two brothers, to the Minster, the streets lined by the people of York. They had been pleased, shouting their greetings and blessings, showering the couple with snowdrops and yellow-dusted catkins, there being no other flower petals to strew in their path late in February. Her dress had been of yellow silk, her veil a pale blue, her shoes a darker hue. An expensive garment: it had been her mother’s wedding dress, had fitted as if made for her.

  She had been certain her mother had been beside her during the service, was sure she had smelt her flower-scented perfume. How pleased she would have been that her daughter, as soon as the marriage vows were exchanged, was to be crowned and anointed as Queen of England. Her father would have been pleased too, although his would have been the gloating of arrogance, of enjoying the prospect of a grandson becoming the next king. York – all the North, so they said – was equally delighted by the match. Her brothers had grinned throughout like inane barley-drunk peasants, and Harold had taken her hand and smiled gently upon her. Herself? She sighed, stretching her foot for it was beginning to tingle with pin-and-needle stabs. How had she felt that day, seven weeks ago in York? Happy? Content? She supposed, aye, she had, but in truth, she had felt very little. She liked Harold, he was a good and kind man, but she did not know him, and the memory of her first husband had still numbed her mind.

  They had not asked her whether she wanted to be Harold’s wife, his queen, had assumed she would agree to their proposals for alliance. As had her father when he had arranged her marriage to Gruffydd. At least Westminster was not so far to travel to as had been Wales! But then she had, despite the fear for her husband, much liked Wales, the place and the people. Did not much like Westminster.

  She had been nervous that night, after their marriage ceremony and feasting; she had thought then how foolish she was to be quaking with fear. A woman grown, mother of a child, bedded and used by Gruffydd of Wales. Yet she had gone to her marriage bed with Harold as if she were a shy and innocent maid. Gruffydd had taken his pleasure on her and fallen instantly asleep; she had felt nothing but discomfort when he had used her.

  Harold had been different, gentle and considerate, ensuring she received as well as gave pleasure. Before that wedding night, she had been unaware that a woman, too, could experience an exhilaration from the act of coupling. Gruffydd had been a man with a constant need to prove something, be it his ability and strength in battle or bed. Harold had nothing to prove, not to her or anyone else, unless you included his need to prove that he no longer thought of Edyth Swannhaels. Except he did think of her. Often. Especially now, when they were here at Westminster and she was so close, but a short ride away.

  Her family, Eadwine and Morkere, basked in the reflected glory of her being England’s crowned queen. The North had settled, accepting Harold and his promise to them, because of her. Even Nest was content – before she had fallen so ill this day. Alditha allowed herself a mother’s indulgent smile. On that wedding day Nest, too, had been dressed in her finest, the little girl’s excited delight infecting them all in the chamber where her mother had been dressing for the occasion.

  ‘Are you to wear a crown, Mama? Queens wear crowns, do they not?’

  ‘Aye, merched fach, Mam is to wear a crown.’

  ‘Am I to wear a crown too? I should like a crown. A silver one.’

  Alditha had told Harold of the exchange later, as they lay together, entwined, drifting between the throb of lovemaking and the tranquillity of sleep. He had laughed, a father’s appreciative chuckle at the innocence of children.

  ‘She shall have her crown, a silver circlet. I shall order one made, especially for her.’

  Harold kept his word, something Gruffydd had never done, giving it to her a week and a day after the wedding, two days before they rode south, here to Westminster.

  There was a noise from down in the forecourt, people calling beyond the closed wooden shutters that covered the windows. She had thrown them open during the day, taken down the oiled parchment that had been stretched over the openings, to allow in the fresh air and small amount of sunshine. This chamber faced east, though, so the sun only lit the room through the morning. Harold’s chamber, the King’s room, set to the south, was far more pleasant, but Alditha was never summoned there, by day or night. She had a suspicion that Harold himself spent little time in the chamber that had once, not so long since, been Edward’s.

  She sat looking at the wall, thinking of nothing in particular, fleeting images of her childhood, her mother, father, brothers passing through her mind. Her hopes, fears. Her loneliness. The tapestry hanging within her direct line of sight was embroidered with dark, sombre colours, reds and browns: Christ suffering on the cross; the clouds of a brewing storm; behind, women weeping at His feet. Edith had chosen the decoration for this, the Queen’s chamber; her taste was very different from Alditha’s. Alditha would have chosen the parables, perhaps, or Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, joyous images, filled with light and vivid colour. The blueness of the Galilean sea, the green of palm leaves. Yellows, oranges . . . On impulse, she lunged to her feet, took hold of the tapestry with both hands and pulled, her frustration and years of disappointments funnelling into fury at the ugliness of the thing. The bound edge ripped and the tapestry fell, the broken hanging-frame knocking her down, the torn material covering her as if it were a tossed mantle. Her ensuing oath was passionate and explicit, though fortunately in Welsh.

  ‘I have no idea what you just bellowed, but I assume it meant something significant.’ An amused smile wrinkling his lips, Harold bent and lifted the remnant, then held his hand out to assist his wife to her feet. ‘I did knock, but you can’t have heard,’ he said as, her face blushing red, Alditha brushed dust and frayed threads from her gown. ‘Then I heard you shout.’ He
reached his hand forward, removed a cobweb from her hair. ‘Thought perhaps you were being attacked.’ He raised his other hand, showed the dagger he held, slid it into the sheath at his waist. ‘Though I reckon your oath would be enough to scare away the fiercest of tapestries.’

  Embarrassed, Alditha mumbled an apology for ruining the wall hanging. ‘I merely wished to pull it down . . .’

  ‘You must be stronger than you thought – you are not descended from that mythical demigod Heracles, are you?’

  ‘I did not intend to tear it.’ She risked a glance up at him, fearing that he would be angry with her, as Gruffydd would have been. He would have beaten her, most probably.

  To her wonder, Harold was laughing. ‘Shred all of them if you wish,’ he said, waving his arm vaguely at the walls. ‘I always thought my sister’s taste rather too morbid. She was never like that as a child.’ He walked towards another tapestry, peered at it, his expression puckering with distaste. He flicked a finger and a cloud of dust billowed out. ‘Does no one take these things down and beat them? Gods, there are more spiders and fleas in this horrendous thing than there are stitches!’ Turning back to Alditha, he said, ‘Give orders to your women on the morrow that these are to be removed and burnt. Choose something that you like to replace them.’ When a smile spread on her face, he added, ‘You ought to smile more often, it suits you better than that sombre frown that sits there most the while.’

  For a moment, neither of them spoke, both uncertain what to say next, then words tumbled out together.

  ‘I came to see if you . . .’

  ‘I was about to go and . . .’

  They stopped, laughed together.

  ‘I am sorry, my Lord, I interrupted.’

  ‘No matter. I, er . . .’ Harold felt stupid, as if he were a lad again, talking to the first woman he had taken to bed. How embarrassed he had been as he fumbled and fiddled, how patient she had been with him, and all for the price of a penny! ‘I came to ask if you would like to come and see the bearded star that has appeared in the sky.’ He spoke quickly, words gushing in a torrent, but he slowed as he stepped towards her, his hand reaching out to touch her cheek and hair. ‘It is almost as bright as your eyes, but not, I think, as beautiful.’