‘Oh, my love, none. No one has discovered it. Gunnhild, how I have longed for years … I never dared to hope …’ He pulled her close and whispered into her hair, ‘Just you, Gunnhild. Only you, I promise.’
‘Then?’ she said knowing full well that she could not help herself, understanding what they both desired. ‘I cannot help what I feel either. I have tried so hard, prayed and prayed, cursed the Devil for it, but I cannot help myself. I cannot, Niall.’
‘Nor I, Gunnhild. Come. Not here,’ he said. ‘It is better under the stars where the air is clean.’ He took her hand and led her out of the cramped hut. ‘This cannot be wrong. It is love,’ he murmured. ‘Love is not wrong. We are human. It is human to love no matter what the monks tell us … or the nuns.’ He scooped her into his arms, lifted her up and set her down on a bed of bracken and dried moss. She stood where he placed her.
‘Let me,’ he whispered into her hair. She could not resist him. He unloosened the lacings on the sides of her gown. Carefully, he drew it over her head and laid it aside. The first kiss they shared was soft and light. He found the hollow in her throat and kissed that. She clung to his arms. He drew off her linen undergown and laid that aside, too. She was in her short shift when he took her face in his hands and held it lovingly. This time his kiss was more penetrating and this time she slid down with him into the moss. Then she was fumbling with his clothing. He was kissing her breasts and stroking her quim. His penis was stiff in her hand.
Afterwards they lay in each other’s arms. The moon had dipped in the sky.
‘No one, no one must ever find us out,’ she said. ‘I shall be sent away.’
‘If Alan finds us out,’ he said, ‘my life will be forfeit.’
‘No confession,’ she whispered. ‘I cannot believe that God will punish us. I cannot believe in an angry God who would wish ill on us for this.’
‘Just a furious husband who must never know what has passed between us. If he does you will lose everything, Gunnhild.’ He kissed her hair and allowed it to trail through his fingers. ‘I have long loved you. I have wanted you but never allowed myself to believe that you might feel the same for me or that if you did we could dare come together.’
‘I do,’ she whispered. ‘I do love you.’
‘Then, we must return before we are missed so let us see if we can get back into the castle. It will be a challenge.’ He kissed her on her forehead, drew her close and said, ‘When we reach the edges of the wood we separate, Gunnhild, sweetest of swans, I think we know that if there is to be love between us, it must remain secret for both our sakes.’
Gunnhild rode back to the castle alone. The enormity of what she had done terrified her but she felt loved and she knew that, in turn, she now truly loved for the first time in her twenty-five summers. She moved her lips in a brief prayer as she rode. ‘St Brigit, intercede for me because what we have done tonight is love, mutual, and for ever, and I cannot stop it.’ The Devil had won the toss. Fortune had spun her wheel.
As she trotted along the lane she could hear the echoing of rambunctious merry-making in the field. Her mouth curved into a drowsy smile. Clearly her people intended to squeeze every pleasurable moment out of this night. She joined a group of her servants close to the gate house, entered the bailey amongst them and called for a boy to take Shadow to the stable. Ann came bustling towards her from the hall entrance. ‘Where have you been, my lady? Messengers came looking for you. I sent them into the big field.’
‘Where are they now?’ Gunnhild asked, looking around. ‘I was there. They cannot have looked hard enough.’
‘In the barn, sleeping. They have news of Count Alan. They say he expects to be here tomorrow.’ She walked inside with Gunnhild, through the disarray in the hall to the staircase that led up to the chambers above. ‘My lady, speak with them after Prime. You need your bed.’
Wearily Gunnhild climbed the staircase.
The following morning she slept through Prime, and only when it was almost noon did she venture into the hall. As she descended she observed that she was not alone in sleeping late. Scant effort had been made at clearing the mess from the night before. She looked about her at the wakening servants, all the time wondering where Niall was, if he had even returned to the castle keep.
She sighed. All this disorder must be put to rights before Alan returned. She approached Edward, the gangly slate-headed steward who was shouting at servants to clear away the debris of soiled cloths heaped in corners. As she crossed the hall to him she trod on filthy rushes and knocked into benches that lay askew. Hounds were racing in front of her, barking and brawling over left-over scraps. She was snappy with tiredness. She felt irritation as she side-stepped a band of castle cats that prowled about the overturned benches and slid into the way of kitchen boys. The boys were balancing swaying piles of dirty wooden cups that they had started to remove from the tables.
‘I told you to clear it all last night.’ She heard her steward complaining at the boys as he kicked away one of the dogs running ahead of her. ‘But no, you leave the job half-finished and run off into the fields.’
It was always so after a feast. The only difference this time was that Count Alan would be furious if he arrived on a saint’s day into a hall that held such chaos and to a delayed dinner.
‘No one here breaks their fast until the mess is cleared and the hall put to rights,’ shouted her steward. The rest of the servants adjusted clothing that was half off and half on and scuttled to their tasks. He spun around unaware of her advance and yelled after a group of maids, ‘Clear this dirty hall straw and refresh it.’ They ran to do his bidding.
Gunnhild stopped walking, thinking she should leave him to it and return to the quiet of her chamber. She needed to be alone, to reflect on the previous night. She desperately wanted to return in her imagination to the woodland glade, rather than to wait in Richmond’s great hall for Alan’s return. Nor did she wish to dutifully attend endless chapel services by Alan’s side later that day when all she desired was to be with his brother.
The steward spun around and finally noticed her standing lost in her thoughts. He broke into them with a firm tone, ‘My lady, Count Alan will expect order here.’ He pointed his long rod at two men crouched over a hunk of left-over bread and cheese. ‘Those messengers say he will be here by Vespers.’
‘Then, Edwin,’ Gunnhild said with a conviction she certainly did not feel, ‘we shall all be prepared for him.’ She crossed herself and said calmly, ‘For now, I intend to break my fast and I shall then oversee the setting of the table for an evening repast of herb pottage, fish and barley cakes. After I have greeted those men, I shall insist that the cooks are ready again.’
Pushing the memory of last night into the recesses of her mind she hardened her resolve not to let her guard down. If she was to see Niall again as her lover she must dissemble. She turned away from Edwin and hurried towards the bench where the men were sitting watching her approach. She took a deep breath, steeled herself to face them, prepared to show them courtesy.
Alan rode into Richmond after sunset. She need not have concerned herself because by the time he thundered up the stairs to seek her out, everything was returned to order and she was seated at her needlework. In and out of the linen cloth, her fingers flew making neat stitches on the shirt she was embroidering for him, in and out as if those same fingers wished to flee from everything he was. He was Alan who locked away her jewels, who blamed her for childlessness, who had a mistress in Dinan and who had wanted her for her mother’s estates.
18
November 1083
‘Rest assured that I will be your knight for the remainder of my life.’
‘Tristram and Isolde’, The Death of King Arthur by Peter Ackroyd, 2011
Alan did not remain long in Richmond that summer. Within two weeks he had ridden south to be with the King and to advise him on military tactics in France. Odo of Bayeux was arrested under secular law as the Earl of Kent, a traitor because
he had overreached his ambition. He supported the King’s son against his father. It was even whispered that he aimed at the very top, to be the Pope himself. The King’s son, Robert, had rebelled against his father again and so Alan was again with the King in Normandy.
Gunnhild and Niall snatched whatever brief moments they could in the forest. During these short expeditions Gunnhild felt elusive happiness again as she glowed within the forbidden, secret circle of Niall’s love. In the Hall they were distant and polite to each other, recognising that their romance was as fragile as the spider webs that hung thickly on the hedgerows that autumn. Christmastide passed. Another summer flew by and still their love remained secret.
The year turned through its seasons. Early in November of 1083 Queen Matilda died of a mysterious illness that had gripped her during the summer. When Alan returned that autumn, Gunnhild wondered if her romance was a dream, invisible to all. She and Niall had been lovers for over a year and if there was talk it never reached her ears.
Late in November Niall sat with Alan in the private room behind the great hall, poring over a document concerning a new land entitlement, a place they called Middleton, close to the other lands Alan was accumulating around his Honour of Richmond.
Gunnhild looked down at her outline of St Cecilia, her mother’s name-day saint, who had dedicated her life to music. She had made the saint resemble her mother as she had last seen her, hair that was golden gathered into a knot behind her long neck. She tried to lose herself in the beauty of the small figure. This page would be bordered with golden harps and white swans.
Alan was speaking again. Her fingers were icy and she shivered in her mantle even though it was thickly lined with rabbit fur. It was so cold that the fire only warmed a semi-circle directly before it. She found herself listening to Alan and Niall’s discussion.
Alan started up from the document he was studying. ‘Richmond is in capable hands. Good steward, competent reeve and yourself, Niall, when you and Hubert are not taking troops north. I may be gone all of the winter.’ He added that he would set out for Normandy the following day so he could reach Caen in time for Queen Matilda’s funeral.
Gunnhild started. Of course Alan must be part of the funeral cortege, but she, though she was all but estranged from him, was his wife. She said with her voice cutting through the crisp air, ‘Ought I not to return to Normandy to honour the Queen?’ She set the drawing on a small table, folded her hands into her lap and waited patiently for his reply.
She had but a heartbeat to wait for it. He turned to her and said acidly, ‘You, Gunnhild, why would I want you there? You lost me a son. Your place is here with our daughter.’ He was saying what he had long thought and had not voiced until he had given up hope that she would bear him another child.
‘Why, because I am the daughter of a king and as you well know Dorgen’s death was none of my fault. I cared for him, too,’ she retorted bitterly.
‘Then it is more the pity that you cannot provide me with another to take his place.’ He turned his back to her and busied himself with the scroll, closely scrutinising its contents. She was of less importance than a land agreement.
Niall glanced at her sympathetically but dared not intrude between them. ‘I will take good care of Gunnhild and Maud in your absence, Brother. I love them both dearly.’
Alan looked up, stroked his beard thoughtfully and said one terse word, ‘Good.’
She watched him from behind her drawing board, feeling anger bubble up inside her as Alan stabbed a finger at the vellum weighted by stones on the table. ‘You must see that this pays, Niall. There can be six plough lands here.’ He peered more closely. ‘Ah, I see it belonged to Kari.’
‘Kari?’ Niall said, his black head close to Alan’s red head.
‘Kari was an outlaw, Brother, long dead, during the great rebellion. His son is an overseer in charge of one of the five villagers there. Watch him. He is named Uhtred. Remember that name. He may have been a child then but he is a man now, and lucky for him that the King’s men spared him.’
‘Not many left in that village to work the fields.’
‘Make them work all the harder. Set Alfled to drive them.’
Gunnhild grimaced. Alan had hardened towards his tenants. This was not the way he had been when they had first come to Richmond. Then, he had felt that the King and Bishop Odo had alienated the peasants. Though tough in many ways, he had done much to help their villages’ recovery. She puzzled at the harsh line he was now taking. Alfled, the reeve, was a hard man. He would show no mercy.
‘So I am to remain here this winter, not to go up to Scotland, Alan?’ Niall said.
‘This estate and its manors cannot be left to the care of women and mercenaries.’
‘When can we expect you again?’
‘I shall visit our father this Christmastide.’ Alan shrugged. ‘He is old, ill. God could snatch him from us sooner than the winter snows melt. You must go to him when I return here. Spring, by Eastertide.’
The log in the fire hissed and burst into a flame. Gunnhild turned to it and stretched out her cold hands. She could not care any more about Alan’s concerns. ‘So be it then,’ she heard Niall say with an edge to his voice. ‘We all carry out your wishes here. I shall visit our father in the spring.’
If Alan recognised Niall’s sarcasm he chose to ignore it. He rolled up the parchment, tied it with a thin red cord, placed it in an oak chest, locked the barrel lock securely and put the key back on the ring that hung from his belt. He strode to the door and shouted into the hall for lady’s fingers and hippocras. Both arrived moments later. He came over to her, looked down at her without any emotion, no word of missing her or needing her help, just, ‘This winter I shall be away for months. You must see that all the church services are observed here and in the villages. I do not want to return to laxity. No matter how cold it gets, remember we are a Christian people.’ He looked closely at her old cloak. ‘You need a new mantle this winter. It will be bitter. The cloak must be of triple-lined wool.’ That at least was considerate so she forced a smile.
‘Thank you, my lord.’ She calmly put away her charcoal and parchment into a small chest by the window and returned to her chair. As she bit into her lady’s finger she thought of the dark cloud that had descended over their marriage, even darker now because of her relationship with Niall.
19
Winter 1086
Niall was hanging around the doorway into the barn, his eyes casting quick sidelong glances across the freezing yard. She saw him duck back as she hurried over snow, its softness absorbing the sound of her boots. The darkness had hidden her as she had climbed from her bed, pulled her overgown over her night shift and then her hose and thick boots and thrice-woollen mantle. Hurrying down the stairways, avoiding the solar where her ladies slept soundly and the sleeping hall, she left by the back door and took a track down the hill into the bailey. Had the weather not been so bitter she would have been discovered. No patrols ventured anywhere; it was not necessary to make rounds on such a cold night. She slipped through the door which he had pushed half closed when he knew that she was approaching.
Moments later she was in his arms. It had been weeks. For two years they had met when they could, secretly and with a stealth she did not know was possible. For two years they had seen Alan rarely. Count Eudo had died during Niall’s visit the previous spring. This winter past had been particularly difficult with two long months of confinement inside the castle keep. Wolves howled outside at night and the Richmond garrison went hungry. They brought desperate families from outlying places on the fells into the castle. It was not wise to leave Richmond’s strong walls and venture out into the frozen dales. Dangerous times had returned again and, with the weather so cold, the hungry to feed, she had not had a moment to herself.
‘My love,’ he said softly. He pulled back her hood and was whispering into her hair. ‘I sit by you at table. I watch you lift a morsel to your lips and wish that I was that piece of br
ead. I look but I dare not touch.’
‘Niall, everyone is hungry. Do not speak this way. I am hungry. Maud is suffering. All the children are hungry. There is famine everywhere.’
He opened his palm and she saw that in it he held a fat dried fig.
‘By Christus, where did that come from? I have not seen such a fruit for months.’
‘I have more from a merchant who crossed the snow with them yesterday. I shall bring a small barrel of them up to the keep tomorrow and you shall have them stewed in honey for your supper.’ He popped the dry purple fruit back into a pouch and laid it down on the straw. He offered her his flask.
‘What if someone was to come?’ she said as she sipped from it. Warmth coursed through her blood. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Tonight! No one but us here, and the wolves beyond the walls.’
He fetched a lighted lantern from the depths of the empty barn and set it close. He threw a skin on the ground and they sat on it as if they were peasants. He took a loaf of dry bread from a satchel and broke it. She took half of it and ate greedily. He held her close and stroked her hair. ‘If only it could be different. My brother does not deserve you. Yet, there is nothing we can do but snatch moments like this. And pray that no one sees us.’
‘But tonight no one is out,’ she sighed, almost content.
‘We are safe.’ He slid his hands beneath her mantle, drew her to him and kissed her, a long lingering kiss. It would be all she could keep of him for now, but she had desperately wanted it. She wanted the memory of it to linger with her through the deep cold of winter; for who knew when it would be possible for her to escape from the keep again.
As they kissed they did not see the shadow that crossed in front of the barn, the thief who had like them realised that a guard on the castle would be lax and who had found a secret way into the bailey across the frozen moat; a thief who stole cheese from the dairy when they thought the barrel lock was secure; a sneak in the night who disappeared back through a hole in the castle wall concealed by a scraggy bush, one that was only big enough for a small man. This was a creature of the night who came from Uhtred’s village desperate for food and wood and who was able to slip in and out of small places taking away only a little at a time of the scant stores needed to feed Richmond’s hungry garrison. If they were hungry, he was hungrier.
The Swan-Daughter (The Daughters of Hastings) Page 21