My palfrey footshifted under me, disturbing my quiet emptiness. Harold rode up to me and laid a hand, not unkindly, on my arm. He looked along the strand where ships were tied up, his eyes swept the level green fields beyond and the pretty fringe of willows along the riverbank. “It is time to go on to the West Minster, madam,” he said.
“Yes,” I echoed, “it is time to go.”
THORNEY
WHEN KING EDWARD the Confessor built his beloved West Minster on Thorney Island, hard by the West Palace, he was using a location already sanctified by fire and blood. The Roman conquerors had built with stone upon the graveled part of the island where the footing was firmest. Legend had it that they were preceded there by ancient pagan rites, that the dark gods had been offered sacrifice on the mist-shrouded triangle between the Thames and the branches of the Tyburn.
By torchlight we came at last to the West Palace. A handsome timbered hall, it appeared similar, except in size, to the manor houses of the earls and more prosperous thegns. Beyond it loomed the stone abbey, the gardens and courtyards and clustered buildings into which Edward had poured his only kingly ambition. We forded the river at a place so shallow my skirts stayed dry; even those afoot needed hoist their garments no higher than their knees. “The Thames is silting up here,” Wulfstan told me, “and Thorney Island is joining the mainland. King Edward always considered it a foolish expenditure to build a bridge which would soon be unneeded, and so we always arrive at Thorney with wet feet.”
By the time we had been taken into the palace, I was so sick with weariness I did not even look around me. I longed only for Gwladys to put me to bed, or even lay me on a pallet in some dark corner. My very bones felt mushy with exhaustion.
Unfortunately, the vitality of strong men does not admit the frailty of women. Harold intended that we entertain immediately in the Feasting Hall, so a large meal and much drink was laid on straightway. I had no time to rest, only a few minutes alone with Gwladys to change my gown and brush my hair. At least I had a chance to remove that crown. Gwladys made mournful noises over the angry red groove it had worn in my forehead as she untwisted the locks of hair that had anchored it in place throughout the day. Doubtless the King thought I would appear before the court with the thing on my head, but I was determined to grind it underfoot rather than wear it again that day.
We returned to a festive scene. The Hall blazed with torches and an extravagance of candles. A high settle was arranged for the King, with a slightly lower one for me, both draped with swags of leaves and berries. Tables filled the center of the enormous room, and the wall was lined with mead benches beneath glowing tapestries. Gleemen circulated freely through the crush of nobles and courtiers, singing praises of the King and his Lady. I was scarcely seated when a bevy of young girls rushed up to me with a huge ale bowl. Shouts of “Wassail!” filled the hall.
Harold rose and lifted the great King Alfred’s drinking horn in toast. It was the moment he had dreamed of: King and Queen of England, together in their palace, cheered by their subjects. Around him on the walls hung tangible signs of his wealth and power: the Flemish tapestries, the many huge bronze shields and crossed swords. At our marriage in York his face had been closed, remote; in bed it was savage; on our journeys, preoccupied. Now and for the first time I saw the strong features transfigured with genuine happiness.
Why, he is handsome! I thought.
At once I heard a sigh breathed behind me by some girlish voice: “The King is so beautiful!”
As Saxon custom decreed, I led the maidens as we carried the ale bowl around the hall to serve Harold’s guests. Past tired, I put one foot ahead of the other and prayed I would not faint. One of Harold’s pages walked before me, and a herald announced in a silvery voice the name of each noble as we offered the bowl. There were more strange faces than familiar ones, but I tried to smile on all while wishing the lot of them would just go away.
Food, innumerable smoking torches, the smell of sweat and ale, a dreadful pain in my back—I looked marveling toward Harold. He appeared much as he had that morning, fresh and eager. No wonder the man had achieved the throne!
I do not recall how or when it ended; only sometime much later I realized we were abed in a quiet chamber and Harold was snoring beside me. The weight of unspent sleep lay heavy on me, sodden, fog-colored. Oh, blessed darkness, that lies like a healing ointment on eyes burned with smoke!
With dawn I began my life as resident First Lady. The duties were little different from those I had performed at Rhuddlan, although I no longer wore a massive iron ring of keys. The King’s steward was never far from me, and to him was entrusted the tiresome duty of locking and unlocking. Otherwise I was chatelaine of the West Palace, burdened with a thousand tasks a day. All that was done for the King’s pleasure must be supervised, and the servants, like all servitors in whatever household, required constant urging.
Thorney was constantly a-bustle with comings and goings; it was not uncommon for us to feed and bed a hundred guests a night. Butchers, cooks and yeomen began their labors long before cockcrow, preparing for the horde of messengers, petitioners and ambassadors to come.
A fortnight after our arrival, I was crossing the courtyard with Egbert and two porters on some errand when a wild clatter of hoofs sounded on the road. A moment later two men galloped at top speed into the yard, sawing their horses’ mouths cruelly as they reined them in. One I recognized as the King’s brother Leofwine; the other was the young replica of Harold himself.
The boy’s big brown horse was plunging about, full of fight though sweated from his hard ride. An equerry dodged around his flailing front feet, trying to catch the bridle so the youth could dismount with dignity. But the horse was overexcited and would not be calm, so at last the boy leaped off like an acrobat, landing on his feet with a careless laugh. “I must take the time to tame that beast someday,” he commented as he turned and made directly for the King’s private stair, Leofwine at his side.
I abandoned Egbert and hastened to the stables, for I knew Harold had gone there. I found him deep in conference with his saddler, but when he saw me he broke away and came to me.
“You are wild-eyed, Aldith; have you a bee in your skirt?”
I would not be baited; I merely told him of the new arrivals. It was the job of a page, but that way I would not have had the opportunity to ask the identity of the youth with my husband’s face.
Harold was not affronted by my curiosity. “He has my look because he is my son, Aldith, as I’m sure you already knew.”
“His mother … ?”
“Edith Swanneshals. Swan Neck. You know of her.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You need not fear for your dignity, Aldith; my mistress will not face you across the Feasting Hall. But her sons are mine, they bear my blood, and they will be well treated whenever they wish to visit me.” He spoke as if he expected me to protest, but for once I surprised him.
“I know that men have sons outside the marriage bed, my lord, and it does not bother me. In Wales they are quite civilized. about it; it is not considered an unnatural disgrace, my lord. Griffith had sons long before he wed me, and I accepted it. I only wanted to hear you own your sons with pride, as he did.”
Harold smiled. “Well spoken, Aldith. You behave with the dignity I sought in a First Lady.” Then, to my immense discomfiture, his eyes raked down my body and up again. “Of course,” he added, smiling in a different way, “dignity is not required in bed!”
Harold turned from me and strode off to seek his kin. I stared in rage at his leather-covered back. He had good qualities, I grudgingly admitted, but the bed would always be our battlefield. Dignity, indifference, coldness—these were my weapons against him and would remain so. If he wanted a hoyden, let him petition elsewhere. I would not surrender to him the Aldith of Griffith ap Llywelyn!
The Witan convened for its Easter session. The noble and learned, the powerful and greedy, assembled from all over the kingdom t
o sit in solemn conclave, passing judgment and making laws. During the latter part of Edward’s reign Harold had served almost as Vice-King, dictating so much policy that the members of the Witan were already accustomed to his authority.
As First Lady I was entitled by law to attend the Witenagemot if I wished, although my predecessors had bowed to custom and remained in womanly seclusion. But perhaps they lacked my curiosity. I donned a pompous wine red robe and took my place at the opening session.
When I told Harold I wished to attend he stared at me. “What interest can you have in laws, Aldith?”
“I understand Welsh law very well,” I told him sharply, “and if my life is now to be regulated by Saxon law and the pronouncements of the Witan, I would like to understand that too!”
So I went. And it was very interesting, a sort of controlled and long-running argument that shifted from subject to subject. To underline his strong base of clerical support, Harold convened the Witan in the new West Minster, and an impressive ceremony it was. Bishops, abbots, earls, crown stewards and landed nobles crowded the nave while the King and the senior officers of the Witan took the seats of honor before the chancel.
Almost the first order of business was the recognition and sanction of Harold’s marriage to me. All the members of the Witan agreed to it and saluted me with formal courtesy, even young Godwin, Harold’s son, who was attending as squire to Leofwine. I did note that he was the only squire so privileged.
But later on it developed that he had other business for the Witan to consider. It was Godwin (I wonder who chose that name for him, Harold or Edith Swan Neck?) who had brought news of foremost importance from the coast.
“Your Grace, I beg leave to address the Witan,” he said in a voice not yet firmly fixed in its bass register. Harold smiled at him benignly.
“Granted.”
“I bring news of the Norman William, son of Robert. A ship has come from Normandy bearing tidings of the Pope’s sanction of Duke William’s spurious claim to the crown of England!”
The Witan was thrown into an uproar, and many things were said that were shockingly improper in that sanctified house of God. Harold, who of course already knew of this from his private conversations with Godwin, sat silent on his High Seat and stared into some unseen distance. When at last a troubled order was restored, he rose and addressed the entire gemot in a calm voice.
“We have long known that Duke William intended to make our kingdom a province of Normandy. He is a resourceful man and a thorough one, so it is reasonable to assume he will use every means at his disposal to bring this about, and papal support is a mighty factor.”
“But, Your Grace!” exploded Adelhard, one of the King’s reeves. “Papal support would not be given without some strong evidence on the part of Duke William that he is entitled to make such a claim! There were many witnesses at King Edward’s deathbed who heard him put the kingdom in your keeping; how can the Norman outweight that?”
The buzz rose again in the crowd, but Harold silenced it with a wave of his hand. From the corner where I sat, half-hidden so that my female presence would not constantly offend the traditionalists, I saw Harold clench his jaw before he spoke. But that was the only sign he gave that his inner thoughts lacked serenity, and it would not have been visible from the front, anyway.
“When I was an enforced guest of Duke William,” he said, with heavy stress on that word “enforced,” “we spoke together many times of the possibilities of succession. By both frank and devious ways, he endeavored to win my agreement to support him in his blood claim to the crown. I told him that, as a cousin only of the royal line, he was not as entitled as—others—of better heritage and more intimate experience with the kingdom.
“When I left Normandy, William had no illusions that I thought him best fitted for the Crown.
“However, Godwin tells me that he has sworn to the Pope that I gave him my vow of support and agreed not to stand in his way.”
The buzz rose to an angry roar again. Harold stood quietly through it, his eyes fixed on nothing but that inner vision of his own. In my own mind I was turning over his words.
“Then he is trying to gain the kingdom by a perjured claim!” cried an outraged abbot from the Chilterns.
“Duke William defies the wrath of God!” Stigand thundered, to be certain God heard of it.
There seemed to be no doubt that William would try to press his claim by force of arms. The Witan immediately gave the King its total support in the raising of both naval and land forces greater than any that had been put together in the kingdom before. Each of the earls, my brother Edwin speaking for both himself and Morkere, swore that every able-bodied shireman under his control would be summoned to defend the country.
There was almost an air of jubilation about what amounted to an undeclared war against Normandy. Even the clerics did not bemoan the possible spillage of blood, but vied with one another in their enthusiasm to support this noble defense of the country. Each man seemed to see it as a chance for some kind of glory.
I watched them as I would watch beetles swarming out from under a rock. Where would the glory be, I thought, if your heads were cleaved from your bodies? And I saw again my Griffith’s blood rising in a red fountain from his severed neck.
Sickened, I rose and left the minster.
That night in the rare privacy afforded by our bed I asked Harold the question which had occurred to me as he addressed the gemot. “My lord, I heard you say that Duke William tried to make you swear him your support. But I did not hear you actually say you had never done so.”
The huge body next to mine froze into stone. I do not think he even breathed for a moment. Then he said, very carefully, “I did not lie to the other members of the Witan, Aldith. I am the King; I do not lie to my council.”
“But you allowed them to believe you gave no oath to William.”
“What makes you think I did?”
“You did not say you did not.”
He was very still again. When he spoke at last, there was respect in his voice. “You have too much mind for a woman, my lady. You hear what is not said, and that is often the most important thing. I wonder how many of the others heard it, too.”
“It does not matter to them; they have chosen what they wish to believe. But as I am your wife I need to know the extent of your honor, Harold Godwine. Tell me.”
I took a great chance that he would be angry with me, but he was not. The voice that answered me was tired, but full of relief as at a confessional.
“I promised William what was necessary in order to win my release from him and get back here. I felt it better to sacrifice my honor by making a false oath than to sacrifice my country by leaving her in the hands of incompetents. If I had refused to give William what he sought, he would have kept me there, helpless to protect this land, while he carried out his intentions anyway.”
A weary sigh escaped him, one of the few times I ever heard such a thing from Harold. “Now Aldith, think you that I have unforgivably compromised my honor—and yours as my Lady?”
There was a tone of sincerity in his question that told me he had asked himself that same question more than once. It had the pain of an old wound, never quite scabbed over.
I answered him as honestly as I knew. “My lord, I think you did what had to be done. You chose what you saw to be the welfare of this land over your personal honor, and that choice does not dishonor you.”
The King reached out in the darkness and touched me; not my body, in the customary way; just my hand. For the first time since I had married him he took it in his and clasped our fingers together. So we lay, side by side, staring up into blackness. “I pray you are right, Aldith,” he said. “But I wonder. Dying, King Edward prophesied that England would be conquered as a punishment for the sins of those in high places. The others thought he meant them; I have always secretly thought he meant my perjured oath to Duke William.”
“But he did not know of it, did he?”
“He was not told, no, but a man at the gates of Heaven may see things the rest of us do not. Perhaps he did know; how can I be sure?”
“He asked you to care for the kingdom!”
Harold would not take comfort. “The Crown rests this day on a lie, Aldith. Will all my land be punished for the sin on my conscience? Should I have chosen virtue over expediency?” Then he asked me a very strange thing. “What would your Welsh Prince have done, Aldith?”
He asked me seeking the truth, and I could not spare him, though God knows I wanted to in that bitter moment. “Griffith held his word sacred above all things,” I whispered, miserable.
We did not speak again that night, and Harold did not let go my hand.
Next day, geld-writs were made by the King’s chancellery, listing the payments to be levied for the hiring and equipping of the army, the Saxon fyrd. The districts which lay along the coast were ordered to prepare ships for the Crown’s service; word was sent to every province to arm itself and make ready.
As the earls with the longest distance to travel, Edwin and Morkere set out for their respective seats even before the Witenagemot was adjourned. The remainder of its business, though important, was considered secondary to the task of assembling their thegns and raising an army. I bade my brothers farewell with no greater emotion than I had welcomed them, but I was somewhat pleased to note that they seemed a little less anxious to go out and kill people than some of their peers. Morkere expressed it rather plaintively: “I have not yet taken a wife, Edyth! I’m not ready to go to war and be killed!”
On the evening of the day the Witenagemot was adjourned, the festival of the Greater Litany, an awesome symbol like a warning of disaster was written by God’s hand across the sky. Even as we assembled for the evening meal, a strange light filtered through the windows of the West Palace, so that we left our smoking meat and rushed out-of-doors to see.
The Wind From Hastings Page 16