Flustered, uncertain, Alditha half pulled away from him, glancing around the room for her cloak. ‘I was about to go and see my daughter. She is unwell. She is running a fever, has itching spots on her body.’
Harold nodded. ‘I was told. I have already been to see her. Her nurse gave her a mild sleeping draught and she is sound asleep. She is healthy, and with good nursing should soon recover. All of my children suffered a dosing of the white spots.’
Puzzled, Alditha stopped, her cloak half tossed around her shoulders. ‘You have seen her? But why, my Lord? She is not your child but the daughter of a Welshman.’
Taking the cloak, Harold fastened it about her, then rested his hands on her shoulders. ‘She is also the daughter of my wife and my queen.’ He dipped his head, his lips close to hers, pausing to find the right words. ‘I will not mistreat you, as Gruffydd did, nor will I intentionally hurt you. You are my wife and – ’ Again he paused. He ought say, ‘and I love you’, but he could not insult her with a lie – he thought too much of her for that. ‘I am heart-fond of you.’
She wanted to ask, ‘Fond? What of Edyth? What of the woman you do love?, but she said nothing, for Alditha was no fool. If a woman had a husband who treated her with kindness and respect, what more could she ask? Few women possessed even that. To hold a man’s love for as long as Edyth Swannhæls had was a rarity.
Harold read her silence, was aware she must think often of that other woman of his. That night when he had lain first with her – and felt the intensity of pleasure as her lithe and supple body had responded to his caress – he had murmured a name into her hair. It had not been Alditha that he had whispered though, but Edyth.
‘I cannot say that I will not, ever, go to Waltham Manor again, but this I will promise. I will not visit Edyth while you are resident here at Westminster. I will not embarrass, or compromise, either of you in that way.’
Alditha touched the tips of her fingers to his lips. His hair was beginning to silver at the temples and the moustache that drooped to either side of his mouth bore the first grizzle of age. Yet his eyes were as blue as speedwells, and his smile did not just touch the corners of his lips, but came through those eyes, direct from his heart. It was that, above all else, that made him so different from her first husband, from so many men. His smile was genuine.
‘I expect no promises of you, my Lord. No woman can of her husband, but I would ask you one thing.’ Her heart was starting to pound. Dare she ask? Would he think ill of her? Think her wanton and immoral?
He lifted his hand, palm open. ‘Ask.’
‘I was sitting here earlier, thinking that you must have a special love for Edyth, as you have been with her so long.’
He answered quietly, with the truth. ‘Aye, that I have.’
She looked deep into his eyes, wondered at her own daring as she said, quickly before her courage failed her, ‘I know you will never love me with your heart, as you do her, but could you, would you . . .’ She turned away abruptly, so that he would not see the flush of red crimson her cheeks. ‘Would you teach me how I may love you, with the intimacy of my body?’
Harold walked around her, lifted her face and set his lips light against hers. ‘You do not need teaching, sweetheart, you have it there already. It needs liberating from its cage, that is all.’
‘But can you unlock the door?’
‘I have the key, right here.’
They forgot about the comet that was racing across the heavens. For that night, at least, Harold also forgot about the news he had received that his brother Tostig was waiting to attack England. Forgot William of Normandy, riding furious to each of his apathetic lords and nobles to persuade them to join his cause. Almost forgot, for that one moment during the height of their passion, Edyth.
7
Dives-sur-Mer Shells scrunched beneath William’s boots as he crossed the wide, flat stretch of sand, his long stride taking him rapidly nearer the group of men standing, hands shading their eyes, watching as the ship was manhandled towards the sea. The vessel was slowly lumbering along a series of wooden rollers laid beneath its keel; a few more yards and its bow would be touching the first shallow ripples of the Channel Sea. Another ship completed. One more to add to the Duke’s impressive fleet.
One of the men watching turned at the sound of his footsteps, William fitz Osbern’s expression breaking into a welcoming smile as he recognised his duke. ‘Good day, my Lord!’ he called. ‘Is she not a beauty? And there are almost one hundred like her, moored in safety along the river.’
‘Only one hundred?’ William snapped gruffly. ‘There ought be double that. Treble. What are these imbecile shipwrights doing? Make them work harder.’
Fitz Osbern repressed a sigh as William stalked on past, heading for the ponderously moving ship. The intensity of this moon-mad venture was playing heavy upon the Duke’s temper and everyone else’s patience. Not an even-tempered man at the best of times, William was daily becoming ever more impossible to tolerate with equanimity. The sheer logistics of this enterprise were already overwhelming – and as yet, they had not mustered sufficient to invade a kingdom across the sea.
Will gazed along the almost infinite length of sand. The estuary ran across golden sandbanks, the land low here but rising to a modest headland, beneath which a fishing village huddled, before sweeping into the wide bay of Honfleur. Duke William had chosen this river and stretch of coast because it was sheltered from persistent sea winds and conveniently close to Caen, so he could keep an eye on progress.
Within a single handful of weeks, these beaches would begin to fill with tents and men; soon they would be swamped by latrine detritus and smoke curls from hearth fires would stain the blue sky. The coast would be denuded of game and timber. En outre a glut of bastard-born children would appear in nine months’ time. Sufficient grain was already being laboriously transferred to the huge temporary barns, but men always liked their meat if they could get it. Both of the four- and two-legged kind.
The first of the horses had already been turned loose to graze in the Dives valley; at least they would not require feeding, not while the spring grass was lush and fresh. The ships were arriving too, sent with their cargoes of timber – to build more ships – of grain, other supplies, weapons, armour. Delivered early by those few barons and nobles who unswervingly supported William in this venture. Bishop Odo of Bayeux had fulfilled his quota of one hundred seaworthy vessels, William d’Everux eighty, Robert d’Eu sixty, Robert, comte de Mortain one hundred and twenty. Will fitz Osbern’s own submission of sixty deep-draughted craft, each capable of transporting ten horses . . . and more would be coming. Clinker-built sea-going cargo and trade ships designed for sturdiness and stability rather than speed and manoeuvrability, powered by sail, not oar. Ships from wealthy men like Walter Gifford, Hugh d’Avranches, Hugh de Montfort. Eight hundred such craft were, they estimated, needed. Eight hundred. Will ran his hand through his short-cropped hair, whistling silently. Eight hundred. Half accounted for through the muster, the rest to be built. Already the seasoned timber was almost all used, they would be needing to cut and use green wood, unsuitable for building for it would warp and twist . . . but then, they would not be requiring the ships after they had reached England. The sailing, for most of them, would be one way.
‘Where is this poxed Englishman you say you have caught last evening?’ Duke William’s abrupt question roused Will from his thoughts. They had captured an English cur-son, spying on the number of these vessels, on the preparations for invasion.
‘We have him safely chained, over in one of the smith’s forges. He will not give his name or his business here, though he has been thoroughly questioned.’
Changing direction, Duke William strode purposefully towards the clutter of shacks and bothies, from where came the rhythmic sound of hammering. The master shipwright oversaw the cutting and fitting of the timbers for each ship. But so many others, with their different skills were crucial to the construction. Blacksmiths,
carpenters, the prowwright, who performed the most difficult and vital task – connecting the lines fore and aft, taking especial care where keel and strakes met stem and stern. Four masters and the manual labourers . . . twelve men for each ship.
Fitz Osbern indicated the back of one of the bothies where a man, chained at wrists and ankles, squatted. He looked up as the Duke approached and kicked his thigh. Blood had dried above his left eye and cheek, where bruising was already darkening to purple and black. His lips were swollen, his long hair matted, his tunic ripped and stained with more blood.
‘So you will not tell us your name?’ William stood with legs wide, seemingly relaxed and uninterested. ‘Well, I have no desire to hear it. It’s enough to know you are English scum. But I do wish to know what you have learnt from spying on my shipbuilders. What you were going to tell Earl Harold when you returned to England.’
The captive regarded the man standing before him with a blank expression. That he was the Duke was obvious by his stance, dress and air of authority; that the Englishman understood no word of French as apparently obvious.
William narrowed his eyes, glaring at the chained man – and then, with unexpected speed, lashed out with his fist, striking hard at the Englishman’s stomach, sending his breath woofing in pain from between bruised lips. ‘Do you think I am a fool, English turd? I know that you understand my language. You would not be here to spy on my movements if you did not.’
William hunkered down. With one hand he gripped the man’s cheeks, squeezing the battered flesh. ‘Your oath-breaking lord wishes to know how many ships I have, n’est-ce pas? How many men I will be mustering – how soon I will be ready to sail for England and remove the whoreson from Edward’s throne? You wish to know? I will tell you! Tell you all, because I want you to return to England. I want that bastard liar to know that I am making ready, that I will be coming for him, and for England.’
For a long while, William squatted there, his eyes boring into the Englishman, recounting his proposed number of ships and men. The man listened, stored the information in his memory, wondering, at the same time, how much of what William boasted was fact, and how much exaggeration. This he did know, however, that many ships were being built, that a vast fleet was being assembled. That William’s intent, however fanciful, however impossible, was becoming real.
Stooping to pass below the low entrance to the bothy, William went back out into the sunlight, lifted his head and took a deep breath of salt air. The day was warm and pleasant, the wind fresh. ‘I shall inspect the moored vessels, I think,’ he announced, beckoning fitz Osbern to walk with him in the direction of the river. ‘Ensure that worthless rag in there is taken to England on the next tide. I want him left somewhere where he can reach London with ease. Harold is to hear what I am doing as soon as may be. I want him to worry, to lose sleep at night, knowing that I am making ready.’ Abruptly the Duke’s eyebrows creased into a frown of anger. ‘Have you heard news of that idiot husband of my wife’s sister?’
Fitz Osbern nodded, bracing himself mentally for another torrent of vehement outrage. Earl Tostig of Northumbria, another accursed, double-dealing Englishman – but then, it seemed all the English were scum, not to be trusted.
Word had come that he had reneged on his agreement with Baldwin of Flanders, his father-in-law – William’s father-in-law. Through the winter the exiled Englishman, with his handful of followers and his wife, had sheltered beneath Baldwin’s protective roof. They were brothers by law, William and Tostig, and William had sent sympathetic messages, promising to help Tostig in his plight, had endorsed Count Baldwin’s supply of almost fifty ships for Tostig to command.
‘Help me fight Harold,’ William had said, ‘and I will restore Northumbria to you when England is mine.’ Brothers by law, united by marriage.
Huh! If a man could go against the brother of his blood, then why expect him to remain loyal to a brother by marriage? Tostig had readily taken his ships from Flanders and sailed, not for Normandy and the muster point at Dives, but direct for England.
Tostig, as much a cheating toad-spawn as Harold. Tostig, whose own grubby hands were stretching for that same crown.
‘He plundered the Island of Wight, sailed eastwards, harrying the coast and there met with Danish allies.’ Duke William spat into the sand, growled, ‘He has now amassed a fleet of sixty ships. Ships that he agreed to bring to my invasion fleet!’ All these difficulties that were twining round his ankles like rampant tangling weeds. Ships, so slowly built; weaponry to be crafted; men to muster; horses to obtain. The majority of the aristocracy and élite yet to persuade into supporting him.
Fitz Osbern had done all he could since the winter – riding in person from one estate to another, persuading, cajoling, threatening where necessary. Ah, there were more than one or two debts that had been called in these past months! And as many more reminders of misdemeanours that had conveniently been re-remembered.
So, they thought their duke a fool, a dream-chaser, did they? These hearth-gazing, barrel-bellied Norman cowards! An invasion of England to claim a crown was an impossibility, was it? What did they know! Their Viking ancestors had almost overrun all England once, had claimed a good portion for their own – would have taken all of it, had their leaders possessed the military genius of their present duke. Did his barons and nobles not realise that they could not disagree with his decisions? That they had no choice in this undertaking – that it was not advisable to say no to William?
He was going to England with an army, and he was going to claim his right, no matter how long it took, how much blood was shed. Or how many bastards shrugged and pretended to become suddenly deaf, ailing or poor of purse.
‘Mayhap Tostig will slay Harold of England. Have you considered that possibility, my Lord?’ Fitz Osbern said, almost trotting to keep pace with his duke’s impatient stride.
‘I doubt it,’ William retorted. ‘Tostig Godwinesson likes to boast that he can afford quality breeches, but has no potency in the balls concealed beneath.’ Abruptly, William stopped, watching as the new-launched ship made her way around the estuary and into the shelter of the river. She handled well, a good craft.
‘Summon my barons to a third Council. Caen, early June. I think we must finalise the details of my conquest. They must all attend, excuses will not be accepted – my wife’s cathedral of la Trinité will be ready for consecration, we shall incorporate that into the occasion.’ He stalked off to intercept one of the master shipwrights. ‘See to it, Will. I’ll leave the arrangements to you. Anyone not attending will be tried for treason.’
Will fitz Osbern massaged his salt-rimed chin and cheeks with his hand. See to it! Had he not enough to see to? If this cursed obsession of William’s ever came to anything more than craftsmen hammering at planks of wood and strips of metal, then the credit should go to himself for the organisation of it all. Will shook his head. It would not, though. Those who did all the work and worrying were never recognised once the fighting was over. He snorted disdainfully. The credit? Huh, the ones who deserved the credit were normally the first to die.
8
Caen The service of dedication in mid-June of the convent abbey of la Trinité, Caen, was beautiful, moving enough to bring tears to Duchess Mathilda’s eyes. At least, she told herself that her tears were for joy at the completion of her abbey – a splendid contribution to the city her husband was creating here at Caen, a building to equal his own monastery of Saint-Etienne. Her abbey, though, she thought, was more beautiful, being built of lightercoloured stone, with higher and wider windows and situated in a more elevated position. Saint-Etienne, she considered, was too masculine a place, sombre in both construction and atmosphere, a place for the warrior, the nobleman, the administrator. Her feminine abbey made you feel gay and light of spirit, made you want to lift your voice in the singing of hymns. Except, today, she did not feel any of these things.
As another tear wound a path down her cheek she brushed it aside, tried, yet ag
ain, to restrain her eyes from wandering towards the little girl sitting beside the Abbess. Cecily. Six years old, a cherub of a child with fair, curling hair and wide, summer-blue eyes. Dimple-cheeked . . . her dearest daughter, little Cecily.
Mathilda studied the words of her Bible, open on her lap. It was an honour to give the child to the nunnery, to the service of God. An honour for herself and the girl. One day, Cecily would, no doubt, become Abbess of la Trinité – what more could a mother pledge to God as an offering of dedication and love? As a plea for His protection?
She stole a furtive glance at William, sitting straight-backed and serious on the men’s side of the aisle. He would not notice if all their children were sent to live within abbeys. She sighed. But then, he had noticed nothing these last months, not if it were night or day, wet or warm. Nothing concerned him save this damned obsession with England.
They all said that the planning of this invasion was close to the ravings of a madman. They being the nobles – her own father one among them. None had said as much in public, of course, but private whispers had a habit of leaking out. Damn the fools! Perhaps, had they amicably trotted after him along this insane path William would have dropped the idea, but no, because they opposed him, he now had an even greater point to prove. To Harold of England and to those who doubted his integrity and ability. Jesu Christ, if he but knew that Mathilda agreed with those nobles . . . she filled her lungs, straightened her back, lifted her chin to listen with more attention to the intonation of the blessing. Humour him, agree, enthuse . . . hope he would change his mind. The surest way to drive William into a forthright gallop was to stamp your foot and say non.
He could not force any one of them to join in a venture outside his own territory; support in this must come voluntarily or from mercenary payment. During February and March she had dared to hope that William might be forced to abandon his plan, to satisfy himself with piling every curse under God’s heaven on Harold and England. No one wanted to waste his life or livelihood on a project that did not have a bent spear against a leather shield’s chance of being successful.
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