I gave the yellow silk to an astonished footman and ordered a robe of green velvet, like the Welsh mountains in the spring. Blue was more becoming to me, but blue was Griffith’s favorite and I would not wear it for Harold.
Harold had ridden on to York, with his dear friend the Bishop Wulfstan, to appear before the Witan of Northumbria and ask their support. The banishment of Tostig had not quieted the troubles in the North; Morkere would be Earl over a turbulent and touchy people, quick to imagine slights and slow to forgive. Harold sought to appease them through promises of support as well as the pageant of a royal wedding.
“He flirts with wasps,” Edwin commented. “The Northmen have always had little regard for the South; they think the southerners are weak and lack virtue. That was one reason they gave Tostig so much trouble, and I doubt they will find warmth in their hearts for the Earl of Wessex, even with a crown upon his head.”
I thought to myself, You would desert his cause quickly enough as well, my brother, if the wind began to blow against him!
When all was—nearly—in readiness, Edwin sent word to York, and the date of my wedding and coronation as First Lady of England was announced to the people. No, I was not to be titled Queen; that is a fancy custom from the Continent, not in the Saxon tradition. Even the Irish use it, calling all their kings’ wives queens, but the Saxons rightly understand that while there may be many queens, there can be but one First Lady. It is one Saxon custom with which I am in entire agreement still.
To my surprise, the King had left behind a wedding gift for me. I had thought I would be carried to York in a litter piled with wolf furs, guarded as usual by a troop of housecarles. But this time I journeyed, not under guard, but with escort, and though the difference may seem slight, it was very meaningful to me. I rode a palfrey, handsome and smooth-gaited, and I carried his reins in my own hands. My escort rode with their eyes on the countryside instead of on me, a great improvement. The cold north wind that cut into my cheeks was sweet with a freedom I had not felt for many months, and I felt a reluctant gratitude to Harold for restoring my dignity.
Until I reminded myself that it was he who had taken it from me in the first place.
Nevertheless, I almost enjoyed the trip. I had requested that Gwladys be given a pony that she might ride beside me betimes, and that request was speedily granted—as were all my requests of late. It was a comfort to be able to chat with her in the Welsh tongue when the mood was on me.
“Soon you will be chief maid to the First Lady, Gwladys, and no doubt we will spend much time in the West Palace on Thorney Island. It is said to be very grand; will you like that?”
“I have seen many great houses by now, my lady. I daresay the King’s house will be the finest, but for a servant one is very like another. If you are pleased with it, so shall I be.” She gave a little sigh not caused by the rough gait of her pony. “It matters little; none of them are Wales.”
“You miss it as much as I do, don’t you?”
“I was born there, my lady!” she exclaimed, as if that gave her an especial love for the place that I could not feel! “My heart-home will always be in the mountains.”
I looked at the rolling fields on either side of us, their tender early greenness just breaking through the winter brown, and I knew that some folk thought them beautiful. “What was your home like, Gwladys?” I asked to pass the time.
“Oh, nothing so grand as yours, I vow! But it seemed good enough to me. I was born in a cottage at Llanberis, within sight of Snowdon itself.”
“Your father was a shepherd?”
“Not him! He was a bard when times were good and people in great houses made free with their favors, and a warrior when there was booty to be taken. His father before him had fished in Colwyn Bay, but my father had no liking for the sea. He always wanted to better himself, he did, and it was a grand thing for him when I was taken as a young girl to serve at Rhuddlan.”
Somehow I had never thought of Gwladys’s life before I knew her. Yet servants have a life out of our sight, do they not, and hopes and dreams we may never know. Here was another world right at my elbow, and I had never explored it.
“How old were you when you went to Rhuddlan?”
“I don’t know, my lady; we did not reckon our ages much in numbers. But it was long before I became a woman.”
“What could a small girl do in a great house?”
She smiled at my ignorance. “More than you think, my lady. I began by cleaning the garderobes and the privy house and caring for the ladies’ napkins.”
What a horrible occupation for a little girl! I tried to imagine my daughter Nesta at six or seven, cleaning up foulness or toting stained menstrual napkins to the laundresses. “Surely that cannot be all you did!”
“Oh, no. As soon as I was big enough to. carry heavy things, I began to help in the scullery. One of the cooks taught me to speak in a proper way and behave myself in a lady’s company, and then Prince Griffith gave me to you. Since then I have wanted for nothing, and I believe the Prince sent a fine gift to my family, too. If I were to go home tomorrow, they would make me right welcome in Llanberis!”
I rode through Saxon countryside and thought Celtic thoughts. We all began in sameness, naked babes covered with blood, and no one could tell a prince from a servant. Yet each turned out so differently. Humble Gwladys, grateful for what she perceived to be her high station as my maid; Griffith and Harold and Tostig and so many others, pawns in a chess game of ambition; the farmers we passed, the porters who struggled behind us with the carts piled with my dowry chests; the bishops, in their war to extract favors from God; and me, with my futile woman’s rebellion—each one unique and different, center of a separate world. And who determines the outcome of each small life, the God of the Christians, the gods of the pagans, random chance, or … ourselves?
I rode for a long time in silence.
At Bedford we were joined by a large group of the thegns of Northumbria, come down to escort us into their territory and on to York. I was right glad to have their company in the gloom of the great forest of Nottingham; cottages were few and set far apart; and beneath the ancient trees was perpetual twilight.
When we reached the Derwent, the timbered bridge that stood across the river was found to be quite rotted in the center, and Osbert, who was once again captaining my escort at the King’s request, decided that nothing would do but we must ford the river.
So of course a goodly portion of my dowry chests got wet, and much of my wedding finery would reach York in a bedraggled state. I made a big noise about it that accomplished nothing and put a crimp in my otherwise pleasant relationship with Osbert. Men do not always understand what is really important to ladies.
The cold March wind abated somewhat as we neared the city of York. We slept our last night outside the city in the house of a cousin of the murdered Cospatric, and although we were treated courteously, it was easy to tell that hatred for the former Earl still ran hot. Harold had been crowned in the West Minster, but Tostig’s brother was not yet wholeheartedly accepted as King in Northumbria.
“That bastard Tostig was bleeding us to death with his endless taxes!” I heard in the Hall that night. “When our cousin from Bernicia spoke out against him he was foully murdered; his blood is still damp upon the ground of Thorney Island! And Bernicia was not the only area to suffer; all Northumbria was aswarm with the Earl’s spies, sniffing out hidden wealth and stealing it from us. We would have supported the Earl Tostig, had he been just, with our grain and our wood and our fighting men. But we will not accept the yoke of a tyrant! We are proud men here, not soft and fat like the thegns of Wessex, and if the new King abuses us we will break his plow-blade for him!”
Shouts of “Aye! Aye!” rang down the Hall. I wondered how Harold hoped to fuse all these separate men into one people. I owed Harold nothing, God knows, but I felt it would only be honorable for me to speak up for him in this hostile assembly.
“I am not yet wed t
o the King”—I addressed myself to our host, Sihtric—“but I would have you know that the word he has given me he has always kept. As Earl of Wessex he has much wealth already; he does not need to increase his personal fortune at your expense. It was his vote which sent Tostig to Flanders and rid you of him, and it was Harold who gave you Morkere as Earl in his stead. Morkere is not a Godwine but mine own brother, raised in the land between North and South, and I trust you will uphold the Northmen’s reputation for fairness and give him a chance to prove himself fit to govern.” I looked Sihtric square in the eye.
“Aye, my lady. Let no man say the Northumbrians cry before they are hurt.”
“Then you will withhold judgment on the King as well, until you see his mettle?”
Sihtric glanced round his Hall. I think he was not accustomed to having a woman speak publicly to him of these matters, but I had learned to be outspoken in the halls of Rhuddlan and was not likely to change my coat now. “Aye, my lady,” he said at last. “We will give King Harold a chance, you may assure him of that. You spoke out bravely for him, and that must mean he is worth something; we will wait to see.”
Over Sihtric’s shoulder I saw Osbert, standing in formal salute by the door to the private chambers where I would sleep. My eyes met his, and I think he, ever so slightly, nodded his chin in a tiny salute.
At the hour of prime we departed for York. We entered the city through the southern gate, and Archbishop Eldred himself met us with an array of bishops and clerics in gold-threaded robes. The city was dressed with all the trappings of pageantry—feasting, music, day and night merrymaking on every street and Harold’s personal standard of the Fighting Man hung outside the shops.
My brother Edwin was on the road shortly behind us with his own extensive retinue of Mercians, but for the first time in my life I outranked him. The Archbishop walked with our party, and I believe some of the lesser bishops remained at the gate to watch for the great Earl of Mercia.
We were escorted to a sizable house, which was now my brother Morkere’s property, and met according to protocol by the new Earl of Northumbria himself. Earldom had not deepened Morkere’s voice, but I was surprised to see that it had quieted some of the hungers in his eyes. There was a limit to ambition, then. For some.
“Well come, sister!” He grabbed both my cold hands in his and planted a damp kiss on my cheek. “We have been mightily busy getting all in readiness for this event, and I hope you will overlook …” He waved his hand about him, already very much the grand host begging his guests’ indulgence for nonexistent flaws in his hospitality.
“I am sure all will be satisfactory, my lord,” I assured him. Already my eyes were flickering about, starved for the sight of certain small faces. “The children!” I reminded him. “Are they here?”
“Your children? Oh. Yes, I believe they are—but they are staying with the King, on the other side of the city. I am certain you will see them soon.”
My heart went into my hose. My children were a treat promised me too often; I had almost quit believing in them. And now there would be yet another wait. “Morkere! Can’t you arrange to have them brought here? It would give me such pleasure to have a few days to get acquainted with them again before I am wed!”
Harold’s captain, Osbert, materialized at my shoulder. “I will fetch them to you myself, my lady,” he said in his quietest voice. “I go this hour to make my report to His Grace, and I am sure that he will let me bring them back with me. I will give him my personal assurance that you will remain eager to do your sovereign’s bidding.”
“Why, thank you, Captain!” I extended my hand for Osbert to kiss and sent him on his way.
“You have won an ally in the King’s camp,” observed Morkere, quick to note such things.
“I feel I cannot afford any enemies, brother.”
I was in my chamber with a passel of seamstresses and the head laundress, trying to repair the damage done to my wardrobe by its bath in the Derwent, when I heard the shouting of treble voices in the Hall. I flung my lapful aside and fair flew to meet them.
“Madam, madam!” cried Llywelyn, running toward me. Taller now, and so beautiful, his father’s face laughing up into mine! Rhodri forgot what little dignity he may have acquired and shouted “Mama!” as he flung himself into my arms. I dropped to my knees and hugged both of them against me in an ecstasy of relief, smelling the fresh, cold air in their curls and striving not to cry. How big they were grown; what changes the year had wrought!
“There is one more waiting to be kissed, my lady,” said Osbert’s voice above me. I looked up and raised my arms for Nesta.
Baby no more, Griffith’s daughter was a tiny little girl, as lovely as the legendary princess for whom she was named. In her face I saw nothing of myself, nothing of her father, only a beauty that was uniquely hers. I stared at her, quite in awe of what I had produced.
“She is a flower,” breathed Osbert.
“Will you guard her for me always, Captain?” I asked him as I hugged her. “May I commend my daughter to your care?”
If I had not known it to be impossible, I might have thought the shine in the eyes of the burly Saxon warrior was caused by tears. “I will guard her with my soul, my lady,” he intoned reverently, “and bless you for the honor!”
And so, with a lightened heart, I prepared to meet Harold in York Minster. The wedding was no more sought by me now than before, but my hours were so gladdened by my children’s company that all things seemed bearable.
We are still together, I said in my heart to my husband. While I live, I will cherish the lives we created together, my Griffith, and you will always live in them. Harold Godwine will pay for having killed you by raising your children as his wards. The King of England himself will protect the family of Griffith ap Llywelyn!
YORK MINSTER
MY CHAMBERS SEEMED to be continually aswarm with people—more tiring women than I could possibly need, pages and squires and maids and courtiers whose names I did not even know. They made the children fretful, so I took Gwladys by the sleeve and asked her to have a word with my brother.
“Which brother, my lady? Earl Edwin or Earl Morkere? They are both in the Great Hall, I think.”
“It really matters not, they are alike as the feet of a toad. Just say that I am tired of all this buzz about me and would prefer to have some peace to enjoy the children.”
Gwladys trotted off on her errand, but she was soon back. “The Earl Edwin bids me tell you that you must grow used to it, for the King’s wife is never left alone.”
Here I was again, having my life run according to someone else’s custom! “I will not have it! I am used to some privacy. Even at Arundel I did not have to dwell constantly in a room full of people!”
“I will see what I can do, my lady,” said Gwladys with an air of resignation. But the crowd was never thinned much.
At Rhuddlan, the only sound in our chamber at night was his breathing, and mine.
The weather worsened. The days dawned cold and cloudy, with a bitter wind blowing down on us from Scotland. People dressed in the heaviest clothes they owned, and in my overcrowded chamber I was painfully aware of the odors of too many folk closeted together.
Then came a morning when the wind died down, the sun shone warm, and people stood packed together in the streets like birds in a pie.
It was the wedding day of the King of England.
Gwladys and the tiring women began working on me before cockcrow, as soon as I finished my morning prayers. First came a full bath, accomplished while I stood shivering and naked in a metal tub as an endless parade of servants carried leathern buckets of heated water to be poured over my body. I alternated between scorching and freezing. Bathing is, I think, a custom for the summer months, a pleasant dalliance in fern-fringed pools. But not in drafty, stone-floored halls in March!
At last Gwladys pronounced my tortures at an end, and a herbalist brought baskets of sweet-scented plants to rub my body dry. Then I w
as rubbed all over again, with scented oils, exotic and rare. Only when every inch of my skin was glowing pink and excessively perfumed did they begin to dress me.
Two shifts went on first: one of fine silk, next to my skin, and a glittering overshift of cloth of gold. Next the heavy green velvet cotte, and around my waist a girdle of gold and rubies, sent by the King. Now that I was warm again I could take some interest in the process; the girdle was exactly the span of my waist, and I wondered how Harold had come by it.
My hose were of wool, white and very soft. Shoes of buttery kidskin had been dyed to match my gown.
A heady scent of cinnamon rose from the folds of the velvet as my body heated it, vying with the odors of the perfumes until my head spun. When I was clothed, Gwladys arranged my hair. I could hardly appear in the flowing tresses of a maiden, so it was plaited and coiled into two huge rolls, then fastened in gold nets over my ears. There was one part of me that would be warm in the March wind!
My face had been treated with masks of almond paste and honey, and my lips were rubbed with the lees of red wine. A massive collar of pearls replaced the gold Celtic torque I customarily wore; a cloak of forest green velvet lined with red squirrel was fastened around my shoulders. I was ready to go to the York Minster.
Attended by a vast retinue, our party walked and rode through the streets of the city. I was in an open litter, that all might see my face and any smiles I chose to give them, so I was generous in that regard. Crowds pressed upon us, laughing and toasting me with cups of ale. Though it was not yet midday, the people of York were more than a little drunk already. My soon-to-be subjects had, perhaps, more to celebrate than I.
Archbishop Eldred greeted me on the steps of the York Minster, a magnificent poem in stone that dwarfed the buildings around it. On his arm, with my brothers at either side, I entered the cathedral to meet Harold.
The Wind From Hastings Page 13