‘Yes, I chose Leofric,’ my grandmother said. The firelight caught the glimmer of her needle as she sewed, her stitches becoming faster. ‘I didn’t want to, at first. But many Saxon women have done what I was called to do. You know the name such women are given, those who marry to end war, or to bring lands and loyalties together. They are the fripwebba. Peace weavers.’
‘Peace weavers.’ I repeated the word slowly. I’d heard of them, of course. Many a night we sat at high table in Coventry hall, listening to the gleeman. My grandmother liked to hear the tale of Beowulf and Queen Wealtheow, the first fripwebba.
My grandmother chuckled. ‘My marriage to Leofric was anything but peaceful.’
‘Because of the ride.’
‘Among other things. But who would want to marry a tame man?’
‘Why did he make you ride … naked?’ This time my voice hushed on the word, even though I knew the answer.
She was quiet for a moment, deep in thought, though she didn’t drop a stitch. ‘Because of the taxes. Leofric raised the heregild tax on the town of Coventry, to make up for funds Mercia had lost during the wars with the Danes. I knew these taxes would break my people, already threatened by famine. But Leofric would not listen. I begged him not impose the tax and to repeal the law. He refused. I persisted. I begged. Finally I declared that if he would revoke the tax I would ride in my shift as a penitent through the streets of Coventry.’
‘Wearing only your shift!’ I fingered the fine linen of my own shift beneath my tunic. It was thin, delicate. I would not like to ride in it. I preferred my leather leggings.
‘I never dreamt he would take me at my word, or that he would dare me to do worse. He commanded me to ride –’
‘Naked!’ I broke in.
Gammer laughed. ‘Now it was my turn to be daring. I refused to give in. Your grandfather underestimated me. I said yes to his terrible challenge. I vowed to do it. It would be no shame to me, I declared, to bring justice to the people of Coventry.’
I gripped my fingers together, tight as a weave. ‘Go on.’
My grandmother cast aside her sewing. ‘The day of the ride arrived. My clothing was removed and I was naked upon my horse, with only my long hair to cover me.’
I touched my own braids. They were dark, and thick, but they wouldn’t cover my body.
‘The bells struck and I began to ride.’ My grandmother’s face took on a faraway look, as if she were on horseback once more. ‘I forced myself to ride through the gates of the hall with my eyes half shut. When I opened them, to my astonishment, the main street wasn’t crowded as I’d expected. Instead, it was eerily empty. No voices were heard, jeering or laughing. Instead all I saw and heard as I approached were doors and shutters closing, as house by house, the people of Coventry turned their eyes away.’
‘In gratitude, they would not look upon the nakedness of their beloved Lady Godiva,’ I finished the tale as the townsfolk told it. ‘All except for Peeping Tom. He looked out his window.’
My grandmother smiled. A sad, almost sorrowful smile. ‘That’s the tale.’
Sometimes I sensed there was much more to the story, something she wasn’t telling me. But she wouldn’t say any more as she picked up her embroidery.
‘Enough weaving of tales, little Elf. It’s time for your sewing lesson.’
Fripwebba. Peaceweaver.
The word rang in my head as I laid the garland of sacred wedding herbs and flowers on my hair to wed my husband, Gruffydd ap Llewelyn of Wales. He was a contemporary of my father, Elfgar, who had inherited the Earldom of Mercia from my grandfather on his death, but had lost it at the behest of Godwin, the Wessex Earl.
My marriage brought a powerful ally for my father. It also made me a Queen, but it did not make me a woman in love.
I’d hoped it would be for me as it had been for my grandmother, that I would fall in love with my husband, as she did. That I would care for him so much that I would forgive him anything, even having me ride naked through the town.
But I did not grow to love Gruffydd. I loved our child, the only one who survived, the daughter we called Nest. I loved her with all the fierceness a mother can. But the love a woman has for a man, the love of tales and stories told at night by the gleeman, or over needle and thread around the fire, that I came to believe was mere myth.
I was wrong.
I knew his name, of course. My father had cursed it, often enough.
Harold Godwinson. An Earl, like my father. The second son of Godwin of Wessex, my father’s sworn enemy.
With my husband Gruffydd my father fought to regain his earldom by marching into England, sacking towns along the way. It was Harold Godwinson he fought, and won against, and lost, and won again.
Finally a peace treaty was arranged.
It was then I met him. It was then I knew.
I remember what I wore the night we met, in a hall on the border of England and Wales where the treaty was signed.
Moonstones, milky white. They crowned my head, laced my neck, clasped my sleeves. A silver trimmed tunic. I knew the stones suited my dark hair and pale skin. I wasn’t beautiful, my heavy eyebrows were too fierce for that.
He was tall. Handsome. Strong.
At high table he charmed all with his eloquence and ready jests. Almost all. He did not charm my father.
He barely glanced my way that night. I felt like a moth among the butterfly beauty of the court women with him. Gytha, his mother. Shrewd and still lovely. I sensed she would have enjoyed the company of my grandmother. Harold’s sister Edythe. Outspoken and domineering, yet straightforward in her manner. And the other Edith. Harold’s wife. Her name the same as mine. The one they called Swan Neck, for her grace. She was also known as Richenda: rich and fair. How can I describe such beauty? Golden. Glowing. Like something from a ballad, a tale. Barely real.
I loathed her on sight.
The next day we spoke alone.
He sought me out. I knew it. He knew I knew.
We stood apart, the air between us like a pulling tide.
‘You’re married,’ he said.
‘So are you,’ I said.
‘But you will not be married forever.’ He leaned in. His breath branded the tender place beneath my ear. ‘Then you will be mine.’
When I became a widow I waited. I sat by the window and stitched my embroidery, watching the castle gates.
I did not believe he would come for me.
Yet still I waited.
He came.
Harold took me in his arms. ‘Now we are both free.’
‘What of Richenda?’ I gasped, when I came up for air, when his lips had searched mine with a longing as fierce as my own. Hard, needing, knowing
‘What of your wife?’
The other Edith. Her beauty had haunted me. Thinking of her, with him.
He shrugged. ‘Our marriage was a handfast. It can be set aside.’
I frowned, stepped back. ‘You would break your oath?’
‘Oaths are made to be broken,’ he said. ‘Any man who would be King knows that.’
‘Is that what you want?’ I asked. ‘To be King?’
‘I want to marry you.’ He pulled me closer. ‘We will have a Christian wedding.’
Such a wedding would be recognized in the eyes of the clergy, in the eyes of God. Many of the clergy, I knew, did not believe Harold and the other Edith’s marriage to be a valid, Christian one. ‘Surely Richenda will protest.’
His jaw set. ‘She will not complain. She has turned holy woman.’
I pushed away my uneasiness at the way he seemed to cast her off without a care.
Beautiful. Rich. Now holy, too.
It made me loathe her even more.
We were married at Yuletide.
Some thought it a marriage of convenience, or politica
l gain. I was a peace weaver again, bringing Wales, Mercia and England together through my marriage.
Fate had woven a different thread into my wedding gown.
I wed the man I loved.
On our wedding night I released my hair. It floated over my naked body in black tendrils. It was long enough to cover me now.
He wrapped a strand of it around his finger. ‘Edith. My wife.’
‘I dislike that you’ve said that before to another woman. You have too many Ediths,’ I retorted sharply, to disguise the beating of my heart. ‘Your sister. The wife we now call your mistress. I will not be one among many.’
Richenda had remained at court, disconcerting me whenever I met her blue gaze. Calm, watchful. She made no complaints at her alliance – for I now refused to call it a marriage – with Harold being over. They had children together, it was true, but they would still be recognized as Harold’s.
He drew me closer with a twist of my hair. ‘You could never be one among many. But you’re right. There are too many Ediths. Do you have no other name?’
I started to shake my head, then I said, ‘There is one. A pet name my grandmother Godiva called me, as a child.’
‘What is it?’
‘My father was Elfgar as you know. So my grandmother called me little Elf.’
‘Elf.’ His laugh became deep, turned husky as his hands roamed over my body beneath the waves of my hair. ‘‘A spirit. A nymph. But you feel real.’
My hands on him. Learning the secrets of his body.
‘So do you,’ I whispered, and drew him to the bed.
Soon I was a Queen again, as well as a wife. In January 1066, at the behest of the Witan council, Harold was crowned King of England.
Anger at the news came fast from Normandy, where Duke William declared his greater right to the English throne. He’d begun to build warships, it was reported, seven hundred of them, ready to invade and claim what was his.
‘Let the pretender come.’ Harold raged. ‘I’ll beat him back from England’s shores.’
Duke William also claimed that Harold had sworn fealty to him in Bayeux, when they were both in Normandy, and that Harold had vowed to uphold William’s claim.
Anxiously I linked my fingers together. ‘It’s said you swore on holy relics. Is it true?’
Harold cursed. ‘I was William’s hostage. I had to escape.’
He hadn’t answered my question. Disturbed, I remembered how easily he had set aside Richenda, the other Edith.
‘Oaths are made to be broken,’ he’d told me. ‘Any man who would be King knows that.’
Now, he was King.
A ghost of wind. A breath of air.
That’s what changed our course. Or rather, William’s course, for his ships were stranded for months, unable to attack England’s shores.
Some said it was the work of vengeful spirits, some said it was the hand of God.
Harold waited for William on a coastal isle, ready to repel the Norman forces.
But the ghost lingered too long.
Harold ran out of provisions and abandoned his defence.
The wind changed. The Normans attacked.
Our lives unravelled.
‘No!’ I sobbed as I clung to him. ‘I won’t leave you!’
‘Edith.’ He stroked my hair.
Tears streamed down my face. ‘Let me stay with you. Let me fight with you. I can’t leave you. I won’t.’
‘You’re with child,’ he said gently. ‘You must be protected. How can I fight this battle if you are not safe?’
Still my tears streamed. I sobbed, shrieked, I who was usually so strong. It was as if all restraint had left me. All that was left was fear.
‘No. No.’
He held me by the forearms. His eyes, fierce with love. ‘Edith. My Elf. I beg you. Go to sanctuary with the other women of the court. Go now.’
He fell in battle. I knew it before I reached the safety of the convent walls. I knew it before we said good-bye. As if I had always known it. As if our every embrace had been farewell.
Later, two clerics came to the convent where we were clustered like fine-feathered hens.
We did not know them. One bowed to me. The other did not.
‘Lady.’ I noticed the one who spoke gave me no regal title. ‘The Duke of Normandy has sent for your husband’s body to be removed from the battle field.’
No regal title for Harold, either.
‘What’s this?’ His sister Edythe pushed forward. ‘Are we allowed no burial for our King?’
‘I offered the weight of my son’s body in gold,’ said Gytha, his mother. ‘Name your price. More gold? I can pay it.’
‘William wants no gold, and no shrine made for the King. And …’ The cleric who had bowed hesitated, glanced at me, and moved close to Edythe. He whispered in her ear.
She paled and crossed herself.
Pain knifed through me.
‘What is it?’ I clutched my belly in terror. ‘Tell me!’
‘They cannot identify the King’s body.’ Edythe’s voice was a scrape, another twist of the knife. ‘The arrow pierced his eye. After that, he was mutilated. He … he is in pieces.’
The room spun to blackness.
When I awoke I was on the stone floor, the women around me.
I struggled to sit.
‘Why have you come to tell women such news?’ Edythe demanded, furious.
‘The Duke wants the body identified.’
‘Then have his knights do so.’
‘It must be his wife.’ The cleric who had refused to bow gave a sneer.
‘There’s only one part of him left intact.’
Again the room spun, but this time I managed to remain sitting upright.
Edythe rushed at the cleric, her hand raised.
Gytha pulled her back, just in time.
The more courteous cleric coughed. ‘There are marks only his wife would know.’
Holding down the bile I tried to stagger to my feet, only to collapse once more to the floor.
‘You must not do it,’ cried Harold’s mother.
Edythe held me down as again I tried to rise. ‘You cannot risk the babe!’
A quiet voice came from the corner. ‘I will do it.’
She came to the centre of the room. Her beauty lit the dimness like a candle, even in the homespun linen gown she now favoured, with its band of Virgin blue around the hem.
‘Not you!’ Again I struggled to stand, even as more pain sent my belly roiling. ‘I am his wife. Not you!’
Her smile twisted with pity. ‘Neither of us are wife now.’
At another pain in my belly I buckled. It was as if my stomach had been pierced by an arrow too, so sharp was the pain. Yet I got to my feet, shaking off Edythe’s hands.
‘A stitch, nothing more.’ I clutched my side. ‘I will find him. Mend him. I must.’
‘You cannot go, Edith,’ Gytha’s voice shook. ‘I will not allow it.’
‘It must be done,’ said the cleric. ‘And quickly.’
Richenda came closer. ‘I will take a priest.’
‘I can accompany you,’ the kind cleric said to her.
I took a step. Then another, that almost felled me. Finally, gasping for breath, I nodded.
It was hours before she returned.
When she came back the hem of her skirt was no longer blue.
Caked in mud. In bone. In blood. In gore.
Red.
He came to me in a dream. Empty sockets gushing with blood. I awoke with a stifled scream, clawing at my own face, my cheeks wet with tears.
Would the hideous visions never leave me? Surely the pain in my heart was a fatal wound that would soon take me from this world to be with him in the next. But the days dragged on, t
he sky as grey as the gown I wore. My eyes could not bear colour. Not green. Not yellow. Not red. The stone grey walls of my nun’s cell suited me. I rarely left it. I managed to eat, for the sake of the babe, but the food too was grey, its taste of ashes and stone.
It was in my cell my grandmother found me.
‘Edith.’
I turned my face from the wall.
Gammer. What are you doing here?’
She frowned at my grey dress, my grey tone.
She drew up the wooden bench beside the bed where I lay. She wore no grey or black. The hem of her gown richly embroidered with flowers, day’s eyes, rosemary and celandine, so finely sewn they must have been by her own hand. Glints of gold caught the gold that still threaded her hair, so bright that the rest shone silver.
‘Why do you think I’m here? I sent word for you to come to me. I still have my lands in Coventry.’
‘The Normans have left something then. The great conquerors.’
‘Yes, I still have my home,’ she said. ‘But the Normans will have conquered indeed if my hall is no refuge for those I love.’
Tears welled in my eyes as she stroked my hand. ‘Edith. Edith. You are losing the battle.’
‘It’s already been lost.’ My voice was a raven’s caw.
‘No.’ Her face was fierce now, beautiful. ‘You must be brave. You are a Saxon, whose women do not give up. Have I not always taught you to keep the Saxon way? Don’t you remember the tales I told you, the stories of heroes, men and women both, in days gone by? I told you those stories for a reason.’
‘What good are stories? Old wives’ tales.’ I scoffed, even though I knew it would hurt her.
Instead she smiled. ‘Stories are what last in the end. Don’t you understand that yet? They’re as real as love or courage or honour or kindness. Though we can’t see these things, they are all that matter.’
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