He heaved himself up, his face thunderous. ‘That ruby is priceless. I cannot believe you would sell off such a gift. Worse, I should think that you have been cheated.’ He clenched his fists above the covers, and she saw no sympathy in his face. She could not bring the ruby back. What was done was done. ‘My father must not find out.’ He sank back into the pillows, clasping his hands behind his head and looking up towards Adam and Eve. ‘How could you? Who knows of it?’
‘No one, none except Ann and Hubert know what I sold. I offered the jeweller my sapphire cloak pin but he wanted the ruby. I should have given him my grandmother’s cross, too, and maybe he would not have chosen the ruby.’ She felt tears well up at the back of her eyes. She would not cry. She said quietly, her voice still hardly more than a whisper, ‘There is enough silver left to pay most of our penance.’
‘Gunnhild, no penance should cost a Penthiévre ruby. That ruby belonged to my mother’s house. My father must think highly of you if he gave you it, and you, Gunnhild, disrespected that gift. Go to sleep for I am too exhausted for this tonight. I wish to hear none of it again, nor must you ever speak of it to anyone.’ He turned on his side away from her. ‘Do you understand, Gunnhild, you have disappointed me.’
‘It was mine, my lord, since he gave it to me,’ she said to his stiffening back.
‘Let us not argue that point now. I shall have much to say about possessions and who owns them another time.’
Gunnhild bit her lip until the acrid taste of blood hit her tongue. She had been foolish thinking she could do as she had wished.
‘I am sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘I am truly sorry.’ He never answered her.
13
‘Coral suspended from the neck is good.’
‘On the Regime for a Woman giving Birth’, from The Trotula, ed. and trans. by Monica H. Green, 2002 (dates from the 12th century)
Alan never spoke of the ruby again that Christmastide. The preparations for the festivities between Christ’s Day and Twelfth Night passed without further argument and although Gunnhild seethed inwardly, with supreme self-discipline she managed to remain smiling and pleasant, even when on the day following his return Alan summoned Agenhart up to the castle hall.
He greeted her in the antechamber where logs blazed in the wall hearth. He seated her on a low stool and offered her a cup of hippocras and little cakes. Gunnhild bent over a piece of sewing, struggling because her belly was constantly in the way. At least she was seated in the cushioned armed chair closer to the hearth than Agenhart on her stool. After she gave Agenhart her condolences she sipped her warmed wine in silence, allowing her needle to slip through a long piece of linen, pretending great concentration.
Alan spoke of ordinary things, Agenhart’s comforts, both of her children, not singling out Dorgen as an object of particular interest. Then he said, ‘Agenhart, you must stay with us for the feasting week, though I know you feel much sorrow. It will help to lighten your heart. I would not think of you alone in the hunting manor at this sorrowful time.’ He stood, reached for her, drew her up to him and kissed her on both cheeks. Gunnhild stiffened and looked closer at the linen in her lap, but her hands shook with annoyance. He went on, ‘I shall send a sleigh for your mother and the children and whatever clothing you will need. My knight will bring them safely into the castle. I shall not hear any argument.’ To Gunnhild’s chagrin he hugged Agenhart closer to his breast, saying, ‘Welcome, welcome, my lady, you will be amongst friends.’ The woman was no lady, thought Gunnhild uncharitably. She was a servant.
To Gunnhild’s relief, when they were all seated together at the high table that evening, the subject of Agenhart’s future was raised. She knew what Alan would say but would Agenhart agree? She must because there would be no future for her here, not once Alan returned to the war. When Alan made his suggestion, Agenhart sat looking into the middle distance seemingly with no interest in his generous plan. Gunnhild held her breath until she was near to choking on the bread she could not swallow. Finally Agenhart turned her huge eyes on Alan, smiled her usual doleful smile and agreed to set off for his father’s house at Dinan after Epiphany.
‘Count Eudo will provide you with your own house at my expense, of course. I shall send a letter to him as soon as the roads are passable. Cook for him on feast days. That is all he will desire.’
‘Thank you, my lord,’ Agenhart replied. ‘You are generous. I would like to return to Dinan and if Brieuc’s mother can accompany me she will care for my household.’ She turned to Gunnhild. ‘My lady, I thank you also. You are kind.’ She looked at Gunnhild’s enormous stomach. ‘I am skilled with medicine. When you are near your time, send for me.’
Gunnhild bit back her retort. Agenhart was glowing, slim, fair and beautiful, whereas she had grown large and weary. She was tired of this pregnancy and longed for her child to be born. And when her time came she needed midwives, not the hocus pocus of a wise woman of the woods, and certainly not Agenhart. She replied evenly, ‘Thank you, Agenhart. I hope there will be no such need to bring you back here all the way from Dinan.’
Throughout the remainder of the twelve days of Christmas, Agenhart’s little family were long-faced, visibly saddened by their great loss, spending endless hours in the chapel in prayer for Bruiec’s soul’s safe passage to heaven. Alan granted the family a chamber in the bailey hall and Agenhart busied herself, when she was not in church, in the kitchen overseeing the cooks whom she had trained during Alan’s absence. Gunnhild admitted that her rival was helpful during the feasting time, and observed how she was greatly admired by the cook who had returned with Alan from the wars. Had he not a young wife already he surely would have offered for the beautiful Agenhart.
The season passed peacefully. Much time was spent in the chapel with sombre candlelit prayer for those who had not returned from Dol. Alan did not communicate more than was necessary with Gunnhild, nor did he show Agenhart particular favour. Gunnhild felt his displeasure. He was often terse and long-faced and so, thinking of her own family and her own losses of years before, she was reticent to ask him the one question that played on her mind as they prayed for the souls of those soldiers lost to Alan. What about those souls lost to her – her father, her brother Magnus, the other two brothers she hardly knew, her mother, her sister and Ulf, her childhood playmate. Christmas always brought back memories of the year her uncle had died and her father was crowned king. Where was Ulf now? Surely Alan could discover her brother’s whereabouts? But the opportunity to ask this favour never presented itself. She remained in disgrace because of the sale of a jewel, and she knew that it must wait until his mood improved.
On the morning she was due to depart, Alan summoned Agenhart to the antechamber for a talk about Dorgen’s future. ‘Agenhart,’ Alan began. ‘I would like Dorgen to remain at Penthiévre and travel with us to England when we return to my lands there.’
Agenhart’s face revealed her hurt at this suggestion. Her eyes swam with tears. ‘No, I would keep him with me. She will not give him a mother’s love,’ she said softly. Glancing sideways, she looked up at Gunnhild, stood on her toes and whispered into her ear so low that Dorgen and his sister did not hear, ‘You do know who his father is?’ Her almond-shaped eyes slid towards Dorgen, who was playing with his sister and a puppy by the hearth. Soft though it was, it was a brutal remark.
Gunnhild replied just as quietly and with a sense of loyalty to Alan that she did not really feel, ‘Yes, Agenhart. I do know it and I still wish to raise Dorgen with our own children. He will become a page when he is old enough. One day he will be a knight. Do you not want what is good for his future? I promise you that I shall care for Dorgen as if he were my own son.’ She stretched out and tentatively took Agenhart’s hand. ‘It would make us both content and we shall make Dorgen happy.’
For the first time in days, Alan smiled at her but Agenhart pulled her hand from Gunnhild’s. At this Alan’s brow darkened towards Agenhart. Gunnhild quickly withdrew her offer of friendship co
ncealing her hands under draping sleeves that tailed down each side of her great belly hanging as if they were tired, wilting vines. Agenhart turned to the hearth and called her small son over. Reluctantly he left the puppy with his sister and came to his mother’s side.
In a hesitant manner, Agenhart said, ‘Dorgen, this is your choice.’ She blinked away her tears, stopped speaking as she swallowed. In a calmer voice she continued, ‘Would you like to stay here with Count Alan and the Lady Gunnhild and have the opportunity to visit new lands?’
The child looked from Count Alan to his mother. ‘I would stay in the castle, Mother,’ he said solemnly. ‘I want to learn to be a knight like Count Alan.’
Alan laughed. ‘There is your answer, Agenhart.’ He knelt down to his son. ‘Little Dorgen, now that you have no father, you must see me as your father.’
Gunnhild swallowed a monstrous breath and thought her heart would stop beating but Dorgen was still a child and Alan had promised that he would be no threat to their own children. Gunnhild studied Agenhart closely. A curl of chestnut hair had escaped from behind her wimple and lay provocatively on her cheek. Agenhart smiled with a generous mouth, though her almond-shaped eyes remained cold. She would remarry, for she was actually very beautiful when she bothered to smile. Gunnhild leaned down to the child and said, ‘Dorgen, give your bundle to Mistress Ann and she will take you to the chamber where you will sleep.’
Ann had hovered close to Gunnhild throughout the interview and now the child took a step towards her. She embraced the boy and took his bundle. Alan said to Dorgen, ‘It is near our own bedchamber and there will be someone to sleep with you until you are older. Ann will take you to this lady and if you are not happy with your nurse we shall find you another.’
‘And Madam?’ the boy said looking at Gunnhild. ‘Will she care for me, too?’
‘Yes,’ Gunnhild said softly. ‘Of course, Dorgen, I shall care for you and,’ she looked over at Agenhart, ‘your mother will have news of you. I can write to her. And you must learn to write also.’
‘And read,’ Dorgen said.
‘I shall teach you.’
Later that morning, Agenhart departed on a covered cart. Her mother-in-law and her small daughter sat tucked under thick white furs beside her. The wagon was driven by a loyal servant who had secreted about his person a letter to Count Eudo and a purse of silver, Alan’s parting gift to Agenhart. If Agenhart was heartbroken at losing her husband and son, she never betrayed her feelings. She sat proudly, like a princess of legend, wrapped in a new felt-lined mantle of warm red wool. Gunnhild observed that Alan’s mistress never looked back at the small group that stood by the bailey gate waving her goodbye.
As January passed Dorgen rarely spoke of his mother. The little boy held wool for Gunnhild as she spun. He asked her to show him how to make letters. She promised him that after her baby was born she would teach him to read and write. She liked to see him laugh when he played. The kitten grew fat with the treats he slipped to the creature which he affectionately christened Smoke. He liked his nurse, a Norman widow named Amelia, who spoke Breton and who immediately proceeded to improve the boy’s poor French. Alan took him to Hubert down in the bailey and Hubert began to teach him to ride a small Breton pony. He made him a wooden sword and shield and taught him fighting moves with them. Occasionally Alan took him out riding beyond the castle palisade but never into the forest which had once been his home and where another family had quickly replaced Brieuc and Agenhart.
During January, Alan rode to Rouen. He found the dwarf-like merchant and returned with the ruby. ‘Rubies are rare. He was still negotiating a price for it. His bishop story was a lie. This, Gunnhild, has cost me a fortune. If I had not threatened him with the King’s displeasure and prosecution for cheating my wife of that which she had no right to sell, I would have lost it. You will never sell anything without my permission again. Do you hear?’ His face grew florid with anger and his eyes burned deep into her own with a fury she had not countenanced in him before, even in his most enraged moments. ‘Do you hear me?’ he repeated when she did not reply. ‘All your jewels will be put in my strongbox for safe keeping.’
She said, ‘Yes, I do hear, and I do not like what I am hearing. The Penthiévre jewels you may have, but my cloak pin from my aunt, my gold chain and sapphire cross you will not take from me, nor the trinkets I have purchased from the merchants who pass our way.’ Her hand instinctively went to the cross that lay under the neck of her gown.
‘I hope my father never hears of this,’ he said and with those words he turned his back on her. She heard his armour, which he had not removed on entering her bower, clank down the staircase. As she listened to his retreat she could not help but feel mutinous.
Ann muttered something under her breath at the departing noise. ‘I always took him for a heated man, my pet, too much heat, too dry,’ she said comfortingly. ‘Still waters flow silently until they are ruffled; then men like him are not so still. They are used to having their way and they know how to rub salt into others’ wounds. He ought to have more sense than to upset a wife gone almost to her term. Come now, sweet lady, put your feet up on this stool and I shall make you a honey posset.’
Gunnhild felt better as Ann fussed about her. She was simply too tired to protest, too exhausted to feel more than passing resentment towards Alan.
In the last week of January a messenger rode in from King William. Peace had been drawn up between him and Earl Ralph. The King was retiring to Rouen to make ready for a new campaign against Philip of France. He ordered Count Alan to return to England to secure his castle at Richmond and report on Lanfranc’s and Bishop Odo’s care for his kingdom.
‘So we are returning to England at last.’ Gunnhild laid her pen down on her table and glanced up from her work on St Margaret’s white mantle.
‘You will give birth soon. You must remain in your chambers. I forbid you to leave this keep before you are churched,’ he said grimly.
‘How long will I wait here?’
‘That depends. I shall send for you, and for my son. My sons, both of them.’
She replied in a gentle voice, ‘You will miss our daughter’s birth?’
‘You are so sure we are to have a daughter?’ He laughed. ‘Well if it is a girl I want you to call her Matilda after the queen and for my sister, Matilda, who married a Norman with English lands.’
‘I had thought of Edith for my aunt.’
‘It would be diplomatic to name our first daughter Matilda. We can call her Maud if you like.’
‘Then Maud she must be. When will you depart, my lord?’
‘In a few days. There are things I must do first.’
‘I shall ask Ann to pack your travelling coffer,’ she said thinking of the well-worn leather chest that was tucked into a recess near the door to their chamber. She had been storing baby swaddling there. It would have to be emptied. She smiled now, bemused. Alan might not like the scent of rose petals she had scattered amongst them.
‘And Gunnhild, whilst I am away, you are not to sell anything else, not without my permission. I have taken the most valuable of your jewels and locked them in my strong-box and I shall keep the key with me.’
She looked down at her enormous belly and said, ‘I cannot not sell any more of the family jewels since there are none here to sell, but I do have a request.’
His mouth pursed and his rufus beard seemed to twitch. ‘Not more expense?’
‘No, what I ask will not cost. I want news of Ulf, my lord, my brother who was taken into Normandy eleven years since.’
‘I know nothing of Ulf except that he is being raised at court where he will learn to become a good Norman. Do not ask me again. He has a new family now, the King’s family in Falaise.’
He was harsh. She turned away from him and lifted her finest miniver-tipped brush. Alan had trampled like a war horse all over her feelings, first her jewels and then her love for a lost brother, her concerns dismissed as if they were of
no consequence. She added a touch of scarlet ink to the blood stains on St Margaret’s shift.
He said, ‘Before I set off to Rouen, the other task I must do is to send for Niall.’ He rapped his fingers on her table. ‘He has been spending enough time touring my estates in Normandy. He will come to England. I shall need him to help me with Richmond. If we do not have a son, Gunnhild, Niall is my heir should I die first, which is likely since he is a decade younger than I; nearer your age as a matter of fact. He had a wife who died in childbirth, her first pregnancy.’ Gunnhild shuddered. He ignored her visible anxiety and went on, ‘And they lived in England on one of my estates but after she died he had no heart for England and returned to Dinan. On campaign at Dol he expressed a wish to return to Yorkshire. He is a sound leader of men. I can trust him to manage the garrison at Castle Richmond since I shall often be with the King.’
‘Is he coming here?’ Gunnhild looked up at him. ‘And remember that you are fortunate, Alan, to know your brother.’
Alan glared. He refuses to understand. He just said, ‘No, but Niall will accompany me over the Narrow Sea.’ He pulled on his boots and disappeared out into the hall. From a distance she heard him calling for Brother Gregory to pen a message for Niall. She could have done this for him had he asked but he had not. As she put away her own work she felt a twinge grip her belly. She stood clutching the winged chair by the hearth and breathed deeply.
Leaving the air of bitter disappointment behind, she slowly went into the hall to look for Ann. The servants must make ready her chamber for her lying in.
Their quarrel passed and with its passing her anger towards Alan faded. She could not easily change a man such as he, one she was discovering was determined to dominate her. Such are men, she thought, such is a wife’s lot. She was about to give birth. She must not allow bitterness to taint it or worry to make it difficult. On St Brigit’s Day they celebrated Gunnhild’s birthday. She was nineteen years old. Alan gave her a coral necklace saying it would protect her during her lying in. She held up the string. It had a silver clasp and little shells fashioned from silver amongst the pieces of coral. ‘Thank you. I shall treasure it, Alan.’
The Swan-Daughter (The Daughters of Hastings) Page 16