Kings of the North

by Kings of the North (retail) (epub)

  Edmund turned to him. “You are a fool, then. I have nothing. No one supports me.”

  “I do,” Godwine said. Along his jaw the first downy red hairs of his beard sprouted. He had a wide, soft mouth. He said, “I brought some carls with me. Eight men, but good ones, I think.”

  Edmund had it in mind to send him off. But he had to start somewhere. The boy’s direct look lifted him. Maybe he wasn’t soft, so much as quick. Edmund said, “Well, then, I accept you.” Then something came to him.

  “What happened to Sigeferth’s new wife? Ealdgyth, I think her name was.”

  The boy’s face rumpled, puzzled. “The King had her thrown into a monastery.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “Yes – I – yes.”

  Edmund said, “Then I think we should go get her out. I have twenty men waiting on the road. Where are yours?”

  “I’ll bring them,” Godwine said. His face smoothed out at the idea of doing something, a good sign. He straightened, squaring his shoulders. “I’ll meet you at the gate.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ealdgyth could get into the monastery garden, if she stayed out of the way and no one saw her, but if anyone saw her, he sent her at once back to her cell. The garden was enclosed in the cloister, and she could find no way out. Her cell was in the middle of the north wall, where the sun never reached, and its walls were green with mold. She sat there, shivering in the dark, her chamber pot already smelly, waiting for someone to take care of her.

  Waiting for someone to come murder her.

  A crowd of strange men had rushed in on her, back in Oxford, laid hands on her like a piece of furniture and taken her here. She had no idea what had happened to her household; her laughing little maid, Urga; good old Syme, who stood guard. Those who took her were strangers, Normans. She could not understand their speech, and they were gone anyway almost as soon as they dumped her here. She had heard the key turn behind her in the door. Before her the dank little cell, a cot, a chest, the stink of mold.

  When a monk came, bringing her a jug of ale and a loaf, she had rushed at him, clung to him, her hands fisted in his cassock. “Tell me where I am. Where is my husband? Please—” He tore himself out of her grasp and fled.

  The door was old, and the lock out of true. With a little jiggling, she got it open. She went around the cloister, hiding in the corners, listening, and in this way she found out her husband was dead.

  She almost screamed. She was crouched behind a water barrel, close enough to hear two monks arguing about predestination on the one hand and a lay brother gossiping with the gardener on the other. Between talk of Saint Augustine she caught Morcar’s name on the gardener’s lips, and the lay brother laughed.

  “You see how the King deals with his enemies. Both of them dead in the same stroke.”

  She stuffed her hand into her mouth to shut herself up. Both of them. She struggled to find some way that could mean Morcar and anyone but his brother Sigeferth. She crept out from behind the barrel and fled back to the cell.

  She sat on the cot, bundled in the blanket, her arms around her knees, and thought, This is stupid. They will find me easily here. But she could not move. She laid her head on her knees and wept. She was alone. She would die and no one would even care.

  She had disliked Sigeferth before, dreaded his attentions. Now she longed for him, his braying laugh, even his big fat belly.

  Only the monk came that day, bringing her bread and cheese and ale and taking away her chamber pot and returning it. She heard the bells ring; she heard streams of feet slapping by outside, but no one came to take her to Mass. She could not pray. She had to get home, even to her father’s house, anywhere but here. Sigeferth must have done something wrong. She had done nothing. She would never do anything bad again. There was no one even to convince of this. They would kill her, surely, next.

  She stole out again and sat in the sun in the garden, and there she could pray at least. The gardener caught her and made her go back to the cell. She bundled herself up there, cold and hungry, waiting for the monk with her supper.

  Then the door opened, and strange men strode in and seized her.

  * * *

  Edmund said, “She does not belong here. Whatever the King says. The King had her husband murdered. What will happen to her here?”

  The abbot said, patiently, “She is in the King’s ward. I have no power to change that.”

  The door to his cell opened, and three men came in, the girl in their midst. She was slight as a twig, her eyes swimming with tears, and she was trembling all over. At the sight of her Edmund took a deep breath; she seemed so terrified and young. He faced the abbot again, making this short.

  “I am taking her out of here.”

  The abbot was an old man in a long white cassock, a silver crucifix hanging from his waist. He said, “She is in the King’s ward. Only he can decide about her.” But he turned to her, and his pale eyes softened. “My child, have faith.”

  The girl was staring at the floor, her shoulders hunched, clutching her cloak tight around her. Edmund saw the best way to declare against his father’s sin. “I will not wait to see what the King decides for her. God gives a wife into her husband’s hands, King or no King. I will marry her.”

  The old man’s head swung toward him, his eyes wide. “The King must—”

  “Tell the King what you wish. He is far away, and I am here now. Marry us.” Edmund put his hand out and took the girl’s hand. Her hand was cold and lay in his like a dead thing.

  The abbot looked them over, his mouth curled. His hands rubbed slowly palm against palm. He lifted his gaze and swept a look around the room at the men standing around and came up to face Edmund. Edmund drew the girl closer; she stumbled a little, as if she had no power of her own to move, and he had to hold her on her feet.

  The abbot said some words in Latin, made the sign of the cross. He said, “Edmund Aetheling, do you marry this woman, Ealdgyth?”

  “Yes,” Edmund said.

  “Who bestows her?”

  Edmund said, “Godwine,” and the young man stepped forward.

  “Do you bestow this woman on Edmund Aetheling?”

  “I do,” Godwine said.

  “Then you are married,” the abbot said. “God bless you.” Edmund looked over the girl’s head at Godwine. “All right. Let’s go.”

  * * *

  They gave her a mild little mule to ride and plunged off across the country. She was not a good rider and struggled to stay on, to keep up. Every time they stopped, she looked all around her, at the broad fields, the rolling green hills, and she breathed deeply, amazed to be outside again.

  Someone had come for her. Someone cared about her.

  They were riding off again. Men rode on either side of her, but not the man who had rescued her. He went in the lead, as he should.

  But he never even looked at her. As they went on, and she grew more and more tired, she began to think he didn’t really care about her at all. She began to wonder if she had just given up one captor for another.

  * * *

  They stopped before sundown at a farmstead, where Edmund’s name got them in. The men all crowded into the hall, but they had a bower for the girl in the back, the farmer’s wife having lately died.

  They tended their horses, and Edmund saw his men fed. Godwine came up to him. Edmund liked him; he had done everything Edmund asked without question. They were all tired, and most of the men had already gone in, but Godwine was still looking for orders. He was stronger than he looked, as if a soft husk were wearing away under the pressure of necessity.

  Edmund said, “We should leave early. We can reach Derby by tomorrow if we leave early.”

  “What do you think the King will do when he hears of this?”

  “I don’t know,” Edmund said. “Choke on it, I hope.” That reminded him of the girl. “Go to sleep, Godwine,” he said. “You did two days’ work in one today.” He laid his hand on the boy’s sho
ulder.

  He went out of the hall. The dark was coming, the western sky a banner of red and pale blue. Circling around behind the hall he went to the bower, to make sure the girl was safe.

  The door was open. Candlelight shone through it. He went to the threshold and looked in. On the far side of the little room she spun toward him, watchful, and backed a step away, putting a stool between them.

  He looked around, seeing she was alone. He said, “I’m sorry for this. When we get where we’re going I will find some women to attend you. Have you eaten anything?”

  “Yes,” she said. Her hands rose, the fingertips together. Her eyes widened. “Where are we going?”

  “To Lark Hill, outside Derby,” he said. “They will take us in there, for your sake. Where you were married.” It occurred to him he had never heard her voice before, light and high and tinged with her northern accent. He said, “Do you want to go somewhere else?”

  She stiffened. Her eyes fixed on his. Her voice came suddenly stronger. “Don’t pretend to me. I will go wherever I am taken. No one asks me what I want. My father gave me to my lord Sigeferth, and he – never asked me. I will do what I am told.” Her tongue slid over her lower lip. She said, “I am sorry. That was rude. You have saved my life.” She turned away from him, her head bent.

  Edmund stared at her, astonished. Even in the candlelight, he saw the flush of her cheek, so she herself thought she had been bold. She was slim, but with a woman’s body. What she had said about Sigeferth nudged at the edge of his mind. Until he came here he had not thought of her as more than a pawn in the game with his father.

  He said, “Lady, tell me what you wish of me.”

  She lifted her head, her small chin set. “You should not wear a coat of mail to visit a woman’s bower.”

  He looked down; he had forgotten, as usual, that he was wearing the mail coat. “I beg your pardon,” he said, and turned and left.

  * * *

  They went on the next day through the first rocky rises of the hills and came in the late afternoon to Lark Hill. There, as Edmund had foreseen, the people had heard of their lord’s death; some had run away, but most had stayed, loyal and uncertain. When he came, with Sigeferth’s widow as his wife, they were glad enough to take them in. They even raised a little, tremulous cheer. He wondered how long that would last.

  There were no fighting men. Morcar’s carls had all gone with him to Oxford; they were all dead. Edmund made sure everyone in the hall knew this. He set Godwine to putting their men out to keep watch. The girl he sent off to another bower. He himself went around and spoke to Morcar’s chief stewards here, giving them orders, so that they submitted to him without even realizing it.

  Before sundown he was sure of his hold on the place. Everyone here knew him now, and all called him lord. In the hall where he would sleep among his men, he took off his mail. Godwine saw him doing this and came up to help him.

  Edmund slid out of the clinking shirt. The boy grunted under the weight. “It’s heavy.” He hoisted it by the shoulders. “May I try it?”

  “Go ahead,” Edmund said. He took off the thick padding he wore beneath the mail, stiff and still damp with sweat. From his pack he got a long red coat, which he wore only at court, and shook out the creases and dust.

  Godwine had wrestled himself into the mail. His head emerged from the neck, and he straightened, hauling on the sides to get the shoulders right, pushing himself up against the weight of the iron. “God’s breath,” he said. “I don’t think I can walk.”

  “You get used to it,” Edmund said. He put on the red coat and found a belt.

  Godwine’s eyes sharpened. “Where are you going?”

  “Hang that up when you’re done,” Edmund said. He went out of the hall and around to Ealdgyth’s bower.

  * * *

  The door was open, again. The sun had not yet gone down, and the warm light spilled into the little room. She was alone still. He stopped in the doorway and said, “Why do you leave the door open?”

  “I never want a door shut on me again,” she said. She stood in the middle of the room; she did not back away from him.

  He said, “We can find some of the local girls to wait on you. Do you have friends anywhere here?”

  Tears bloomed suddenly in her eyes. She twisted, turning away from him, hiding her face. “I want Urga. I want Syme—” She put her hand up to her eyes. He stood in the threshold, not knowing what to do, looking everywhere else. Then finally she said, “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” he said, turning toward her again, glad the tears were over. “It’s very sad. I’m sorry too.”

  She faced him again, her chin wobbling. She was so young, he thought. She straightened herself; he was minded of Godwine, standing up under the weight of the mail. She said, “Why did you do this?”

  He slid his hands behind him. He said, “I will defy my father, however I can.”

  “Then not for my sake.”

  He said, “I saw you at your wedding. You looked afraid. I could not leave you to the King.”

  She shut her eyes and crossed herself. “I am grateful to you, then. And for bringing me here. I am – happiest here.” She gave him a slight look and turned away.

  There was a little silence. “I shall take my leave,” he said, disappointed.

  She turned toward him again. “No, come sit down.”

  Their eyes met. He swallowed, excited. This was another kind of game, in which she set the rules. His hands at his sides, he came into the bower and sat on the stool by the bed.

  She said, “I don’t want to be alone. Stay with me. I have nightmares.” She put her hands to her face. “They burst in on me, then I heard my husband was dead. I thought any moment they would kill me too.”

  He said, “I would say you are safe here, my lady, but there is nowhere safe, really.”

  “So I have learned.”

  She got up and moved around the room, putting out some of the candles; she poured water into a basin and washed her face. He realized she was getting ready to go to sleep. He swallowed again. He did not look at the bed. She turned, a cup in her hand.

  “I will have a drink of this cider before I go to rest,” she said. “Will you?”

  “Yes,” he said. The word came out like something he had to hawk up from his throat. “Thank you.”

  She brought him the cup. He held it in both hands. She was so close he could smell the scents of her body. He said, “The abbot took your side also. He could have made it much harder. I had no wish to attack the monastery.” He sipped the heady drink.

  “It’s a good idea, don’t you think, to go along with what’s going to happen anyway.”

  He laughed. Their eyes met again, just a glance, and a shock went through him. They were married, after all, an unintended consequence of snapping his fingers in his father’s face. He drank more cider.

  She said, “Will the King come?” She sat down on the bed, so near their knees almost touched.

  Edmund stared at her thigh, curving the stuff of her gown. “I don’t know. From here, though, I am in a good position; I can watch the whole south – the King in Winchester and Thorkel in East Anglia – and I can move wherever I want.”

  She put her cup down, stood again, and began to fold back the coverlet on the bed. Edmund jerked his gaze toward the door, putting the back of his head to her. Maybe he should have thought this over more. She brought the last candle to the bedside and put it down. He heard the crinkle of the rushes in the mattress as she slid down onto the bed and every nerve in his body quivered.

  “There are servants in the hall I know,” she said. “They will attend me until we know what became of my old household. Do you think – What do you think could have happened to them?”

  Edmund said, “I will find out. They were in Oxford?”

  “At Morcar’s house.”

  Edmund gave a little shake of his head. But ordinary people might have escaped, like mice, hiding in holes. He said, “I will find
out.”

  She sighed. She was lying down, just behind him, her body inches from him. Her knees softly rounding the bedclothes. Between her knees, the hollow. She reached out and pinched the candle.

  In the abrupt descent of darkness he almost seized her. He mastered himself. This was her game, he thought, and better that way. He could wait. Give her that power, since she had asked for it.

  She said, “You need not sit up all night. Come lie down on top of the cover.”

  He turned toward her. Faintly in the dark he could make out her shape in the bed. He ached with expectations. Let her lead him. Delicious, how she led him on. He went carefully around and lay down on the other side, as far from her as he could, with the heavy coverlet between them. In the dark they lay quiet a moment.

  She said, “Do you rebel against the King for my husband’s sake?”

  “No,” he said. “For England’s sake. They were murdered because of my rebellion.”

  “Edmund, what do you want, then?”

  He lay still, breathless. His head felt light. He said, “For you to say my name again. You have never said it before.”

  “Edmund,” she said, and laughed. “Is that all it takes? Edmund. Edmund.”

  He said nothing. In the dark her hand grazed his face, and he started from head to foot. She laid her hand against his cheek. She said, “Will you come under the covers, my husband?” He slid out of his coat and in beside her.

  * * *

  He had been right to come here. In the morning the commander of the garrison in Derby rode in with thirty men behind him and swore himself Edmund’s man; he was Morcar’s cousin. In the day after that others appeared, a steady stream of kindred and bound men. Edmund met them in the hall, and they talked reverently of Morcar and Sigeferth and the evils of the King, and every night he lay rejoicing in the arms of Sigeferth’s wife.