The Wind From Hastings

by Morgan Llywelyn

  An eerie green light lay upon the land. In the sky, just above the horizon, a thing like a star blazed, but it was no star! It was more like a flaming dragon with three immensely long tails, lashing fire across the heavens!

  At the sight of the thing many of the servants, and some of the brave nobles as well, dropped to their knees and hid their eyes. After my first shocked sight of the awful light, I made the sign of the cross on my bosom and invoked the name of Jesus in terror, fearing that the world was ending even as I watched.

  The King stood at my side. He did not cower or hide his eyes, but I heard him say hoarsely “Holy Mother of God!” and I knew he did not mean it as a profanity.

  Later, men said that they saw all sorts of signs and portents in that April sky and always believed they had interpreted them rightly. But I know that that night none of us dared put a name to the thing or guess its purpose; we stared in awe and fear at God’s firey sword slashing across the sky and waited like dumb animals for it to strike us dead.

  Drifting on the night wind upriver came the sounds of Londontown, and the voice of the city that night was a moan and a wailing. We saw the glow of great fires being lit as the people tried to drive away the beast that hung above them, but it was to no purpose. It rose steadily through the sky, so slowly that we could not see its movement, but could only guess it from the change in its position in relation to the horizon.

  Supper was forgotten; children were not put to bed that night. All the inhabitants of Thorney Island crowded into the palace courtyard, seeking safety in each other. Lowly porters huddled against pedigreed aristocrats and were not pushed away.

  At last the King shook off the monster’s spell sufficiently to summon his priests and bid them lead prayers in the minster. King Edward had died only eight days after the chancel was consecrated, and it would be years before the church could be completed as he had planned it; that night the men of God prayed for protection and forgiveness even as God’s own baleful fiery eyes stared down at them through the still unroofed nave.

  The world did not end. As a chill dawn wind rose to set us shivering, the weight of sleep became greater than the weight of fear, and one by one we abandoned our vigil. The King still stood in the courtyard when at last I excused myself and went to bed. I remember him yet, standing a head taller than the other men, with his face turned up to the sky and his hands hanging loosely at his sides.

  “It is not something I can fight with my fists or my ax, Aldith,” he said to me before I left him there. “All I can do is wait. God will act out His will in His own time.”

  I fell asleep before my head touched the bed, and when I awoke it was full day. A wave of relief washed over me; the terrible night had ended, we were undestroyed ! Whatever that ghastly symbol was, it had not harmed us!

  But then Gwladys came to dress me, and I saw her eyes abnormally large with fear. “It is still there, Your Grace.”

  “The three-tailed star? How can a star be shining in the daytime?”

  She shook her head and pulled her shawl over it, as if in mourning. “I know not, but there it is!”

  Incredibly, she was right! It was well past the hour of prime, the sun was high above the horizon, and yet we could all see the phenomenon still blazing above us, rising infinitesimally higher with each hour. Harold came to me, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep.

  “The scholars say it is a thing called a comet, a star broken loose from its moorings and flying through the sky.”

  “Will it fall on us?”

  “No one can tell me, Aldith; there is a limit to what scholars know. Even Wulfstan is frightened of the thing and considers it an omen, but whether for good or evil he cannot say.”

  For a whole week our lives were a little unreal, bathed always in the eerie glow of the unnatural star as it slowly crossed the heavens. People would lose track of their conversations and break off speaking in midsentence as their eyes turned helplessly upward; dogs bayed and howled continually, and milk soured in the dairy.

  But it never fell on us. At last, though we could not get used to it, we were able to pick up the thread of our lives somewhat and go on. Soothsayers began to arrive on Thorney Island in droves, each anxious to interpret God’s sign for the King in return for gold or favors.

  “I dare not listen to them,” I heard Harold confess to Leofwine. “If the thing is a major sign it is either for good fortune or bad, and good fortune for one side would be bad for the other. None can tell me which way the die will fall, and I do not want to be influenced by mere opinion. War is coming—we all know it—and we can consider no outcome but victory. Send them away, all these self-appointed prophets, and let us make our own arrangements with God.”

  Harold had not been one to spend excessive time on his knees, thinking that his predecessor had done enough of that for two kings, but as long as the comet could be seen he devoted a goodly amount of the day to prayer. I think he hoped that God could be persuaded to show him a further sign, some proof that the comet foretold destruction for those who would try to seize England, but no such sign was given him.

  At last the sky was clear again, and the shaken people began belatedly to prepare for May Day.

  THE ISLE OF WIGHT

  OH, MAY DAY was gorgeous that year! The people were wild with relief when the fiery dragon left the sky, and they planned such celebrations as had never been seen before. Poles were set up everywhere. Every flower, both wild and tame, was torn from its root and woven into a garland or thrust into a maiden’s bosom. I never heard so much song or saw so many ale bowls, even at the drunken revelry that follows a wedding.

  We all felt as if we had somehow escaped a dire calamity, rescued from disaster by a special blessing richly deserved. England went a little wild that May Day.

  “It is a pagan festival!” exclaimed Wulfstan, pretending to be insulted when I coquetted with him and asked if he would dance at the palace Maypole. (Some two hours hence I saw him, tonsured head agleam with sweat and a pretty girl on either arm, dancing as frisky a measure as the Morris dancers! It is my personal opinion that men of God have as much reason to be joyous as anyone else—more, mayhap, if they are as blessed as they think they are.)

  When I found myself rather too tightly in the strong arms of Harold’s handsome younger brother, Earl Gyrth, as we spun madly to the music, I allowed myself to enjoy my womanhood as I had not for a long time. I flirted openly, I lowered my lids and looked up at him through my lashes, I bit my lips red and pouted them sweetly. When I caught him looking at them and moistening his own with his tongue, I giggled like a girl.

  “You are a feast for a man, my lady!” he told me warmly. “Does my brother appreciate you properly?”

  “Is any woman ever fully appreciated?” I laughed up at him.

  “A woman like you—perhaps not. Methinks it would take several men, working in turns!”

  I bubbled with laughter, some caused by too much mead and some by too little dignity that night. “Are you applying to take a turn, my lord?”

  His face sobered suddenly, and the arms that held me seemed harder than before. “Is there a position open?” he asked, with no laughter at all in his voice.

  Until then I had been enjoying the game, a game I had not allowed myself since I fell in love with Griffith. But I thought Gyrth knew it was just that, a game; I did not dream he might take it seriously!

  “Nay, sir!” I told him, still making myself laugh as I tried to maneuver some space between our bodies. “But if the position were open, I vow you would have first call on it!”

  To my discomfiture, he would not match my banter. And his grip did not loosen. “So the King is not victorious in all things, eh, sister? He has not totally tamed you to heel, I see! But I have some talents he lacks, madam; all the gifts were not given to Harold! Perhaps I could arrange a little private demonstration … ?” He began to pull me toward the shadows, away from the revealing light of the giant bonfires that now held back the night. I glimpsed o
ther figures entwined in dark places, and the embraces were fast losing their innocence.

  “Please, my lord!” I did not want to fight him openly and make a scene, but I was beginning to realize that he was drunk and excited almost past the point of caring. I looked wildly around for help.

  “The Earl seems to have misjudged his capacity for ale,” said a voice in the darkness. Osbert, faithful Osbert, reached over my shoulder from behind and put his big hand right around Gyrth’s throat. I saw the fingers tighten and Gyrth’s face grow red, the eyes bulging. In a few short moments my brother-in-law went limp from lack of air and crumpled to the ground as Osbert released him.

  We stood together, looking down. “It is odd how drink takes some men,” said Osbert in an innocent voice. “They imagine things that never happened, and sometimes they faint away like giddy women.”

  He bent down and hoisted the unconscious man to his shoulder like a sack of meal. Then he straightened and smiled broadly at me. “He will waken in the morning with a head like a burst pumpkin and a badly fuddled memory, my lady. But I think you will have no trouble with him after this.”

  Osbert was right.

  But Gyrth was not Harold’s only brother who coveted the King’s possessions and power. Even as we danced in the palace at Thorney, Tostig was busy in Flanders, preparing an invasion fleet to sail against the King.

  Unknowing, Harold had gone to Waltham, to the minster of the Holy Cross, his gift to the Church that had been consecrated six years past. Since the advent of the star with tails, Harold had been much involved with God, and he gave me to believe his trip to Waltham was for the purpose of supplicating that most powerful of allies. But the Earl Gyrth, who was still with us and seemed to be harboring a smoldering though unspoken grudge, gave another name to the trip.

  “He has gone to visit the Swan Neck!” Gyrth was quick to announce in the King’s absence. And although I did not feel a drop of loving blood in my heart for Harold Godwine, I was startled to find the poison of jealousy coursing through my veins!

  “What makes you think so, my lord? Did he tell you that?”

  “He did not need to tell me, Your Grace,” Gyrth said smugly. “Years ago he gave her a parcel of land near that spot, that he might combine God’s business with a man’s pleasure. He is very good at arranging things for his own benefit, is the King!” And I saw that Gyrth was much amused at my situation.

  I was determined to say nothing of it to the King when he returned. Why should I? His romantic involvements were nothing to me! Yet the thing gnawed at my vitals like a ravening wolf, and I found to my anger that I thought of little else!

  “I will not give him the satisfaction of thinking I am jealous of him!” I said firmly to Gwladys as she put on my hose.

  “Of course not, my lady,” she replied.

  “He can have a concubine in every cathedral, it makes no difference!”

  “It makes no difference,” Gwladys echoed.

  “I preserve my virtue for him, but of course there is no reason why it should work the other way round!”

  “No reason at all, my lady. Men are different. Besides, you have told me often and often there is no love between you.”

  “None! I could not possibly love the King; he is as different from Griffith as peas from plums. And quit scratching my legs with your ragged nails, you clumsy woman!” I lashed out at her with my foot, almost knocking her off-balance as she knelt in front of me.

  “I do not understand why you have become so exasperating of late, Gwladys!”

  “No, my lady,” she said calmly.

  Then the King returned, looking as innocent as a man who had spent his days and nights in prayer and fasting. But before the sweat was dry on his horse—and before I could ask him questions it were better not to ask—another and more sweated horse was in the palace stables. Riding hard from the south, a courier had come with news of a fleet sailing up the coast.

  “It flies the flags of Flanders, Your Grace,” the flushfaced boy stammered to his King, “and the standard of Northumbria. The pennons are the House of Godwine.”

  Harold swore with the mouth of a man who has not recently set foot inside a minster. “Tostig!”

  “Aye, Your Grace, that is what they think on the coast. He has not yet put boats ashore in Sussex, but they are all afraid down there; they think he is forerunner to an invasion from Normandy.”

  “It would be like Tostig to throw his lot with William. In his desire to get revenge on me, he would rather give the crown of England to the Norman than see it on my head. Damn the man! When he was a child he was rash and reckless; now he is a fool!”

  He called all his counselors to him; there was nothing for it but to assemble the fyrd along the coast and destroy Tostig and his fleet.

  “I will lead them myself,” Harold announced.

  “He is your brother,” Ansgar the marshal suggested tactfully. “Perhaps it would be better to send another against him … ?”

  “If he were my dog and he were rabid, I would put him down myself and not send my friends to face him. I thank you for the thought, Ansgar, but I needs must tend to this matter myself. We prepare straightway for Sandwich!”

  The preparations for war were significantly different from those for a royal progress. It was marvelous to see how much the King considered superfluous when there was a battle to be fought and time was precious. By nightfall his couriers were well on their way south, alerting the thegns of the need to assemble men, and a fully provisioned battle force was camped on the high ground of the island, to march at dawn.

  Harold headed for Sandwich and the Kentish coast, where the Channel was narrow. As it fell out, Tostig, was there before him, putting some of his troops ashore and harrying the land cruelly. Homes were burned, food and valuables taken, and some few good shiremen killed. As the English fyrd drew near him, however, Tostig put his ships to sea again and sailed northward, apparently unwilling to face his enraged brother in open combat.

  Harold turned south then, marching along the coast the way the raiders had come, giving aid and raising troops as he went. Tostig had first been sighted off the Isle of Wight, so the King made for that island, determined to camp there in expectation of the greater invasion force he felt sure would follow.

  We spent some anxious days at Thorney until we received word that there had been no actual fighting. Gyrth and Leofwine had gone with the King, to my relief, as had his strapping son. So I was left to queen it about Thorney in prideful peace, giving such orders as I deemed necessary and with no man to say me nay.

  I did not worry about him. I did not worry one moment about Harold Godwine, as I reminded Gwladys sharply when she stupidly accused me of being preoccupied.

  The King had decided to set up his summer headquarters on the Isle of Wight, where he could best oversee the preparations for defense against Normandy. For it was clear that Tostig had sailed not from Flanders itself, of course, but from a Norman port. Harold intended to have the entire and rarely collected might of the English fyrd drawn up along our southern coast, with a powerful navy riding at anchor in the Channel; all the weight of England must sink southward to threaten the invaders with a solid wall of massed spears and determined men.

  When his camp was firmly established, the King sent word to London that I was to be brought to him.

  I was somewhat shocked. “He bids me join him in danger?” I asked Osbert.

  “His Grace would not send for you if there were any danger, my lady, I am certain of that. But he is prepared to hold out forever in that place if necessary. No doubt he wants to conduct the business of the court with as much normalcy as possible, and that would include having the First Lady by his side.”

  I was vastly reluctant, but I had little choice. The children were not included in the King’s summons, so I gladly left them in the safekeeping of the palace guard, far removed from the threat of war. It felt like leaving the own safe core of my being behind.

  With Osbert as my
personal bodyguard (is it not ironic, Griffith?) and a detachment of housecarles, I traveled with Gwladys and my necessary ladies-in-waiting across the London Bridge and southwest through Sussex to Chichester. I did not look up as we crossed the bridge, and I did not look toward Arundel as we neared Chichester.

  A deputation of the King’s men met us in that city and accompanied us to the Isle of Wight. The island had been turned into a complete military base; the King allowed himself little luxury on this outpost of his kingdom. We had a house much less grand than the West Palace. In truth, it was a scantily chinked timber cottage with only slight pretensions toward being a hall, and if it had not been early summer, the winds that blew through its walls would have been very unpleasant.

  I had to remind myself sharply that I had not wanted to be First Lady of England. I must not regret the lack of a luxury I had not sought in the first place!

  The King came to the dock himself to meet our boat, and I saw straightway that he was thinner, the lines etched deeper around his eyes. “It was good of you to come, Aldith,” he said, taking both my hands in his.

  “I came because I was commanded!” I reminded him tartly.

  He ignored the thrust. “It is a time for massing one’s resources, my lady. I would summon every strength I have for this confrontation.”

  I raised my brows at him. “You consider me one of your ‘strengths,’ my Lord?”

  He almost, but not quite, smiled. “You are a strength I have not yet tapped, Aldith.”

  The words I did not want to say warred with my good sense and won. They forced themselves from my lips. “What about that woman who lives near Waltham Holy Cross and raises your children, Harold? Is she another of your resources?”

  The warmth vanished completely from his eyes. “That is beneath you, madam.”