‘It is suitable and becoming,’ the queen had said firmly.
Thea thought otherwise. It itched as if it contained a host of crawling creatures, though she knew it had been kept carefully in lavender and its seams were ruthlessly checked for lice by maids before she had her fitting for it.
As she had prepared for the ceremony, Elizaveta had explained that a Russian husband did not look upon his bride’s face until the third night of their wedding.
‘Even though Ambassador Igor is only standing in as the prince’s proxy?’
‘Thea, you must observe the Rus custom.’
Elizaveta held up a fine silk veil, so fine that, in fact, Thea was relieved when she realised that she could see through it. She smiled to herself thinking, surely if I can see through it, others might see my face.
Her maids discreetly withdrew into the shadows. Thea paused momentarily. Through her cobweb-fine veil, she observed the gathering of Danish noblemen and women waiting by the whetstone close to the hall entrance. Sweltering in the wretched gown, Thea stepped forward from the stairway. Flanked by Elizaveta and the king’s older daughters, Helene and Ragnhild, she walked sedately up the length of the hall, past the central hearth and took her place close to the nobility and the Danish princesses.
She felt the princesses glowering at her from behind closely drawn silk wimples. Only their cheeks, noses, chins and eyes showed. Thea knew well how Lady Fortune had smiled on her. She had escaped unmarked from the previous year’s attack of the little pox, except for a few tiny scars on her body.
Guttorm, the third princess, had remained sulky ever since Thea had returned from Søderup. Her petulance, on this betrothal day, Thea knew did not stem from the illness suffered by her sisters during the previous autumn. Godwin had not returned to Denmark from Ireland with Edmund during the spring sailing season.
Guttorm had said bitterly, ‘Lucky for you that your betrothal goes ahead. Your brother has not fulfilled his promise for our betrothal. It was part of my father’s agreement with our great-aunt.’
Thea had replied diplomatically, ‘Princess, I am sorry, too, that he has not returned with Edmund. Perhaps the Pope considered you too closely related.’
‘Pah! Others marry cousins twice removed.’
In contrast, Princess Gunnhild, who had passed some months at Søderup with Thea and Gudrun leaned forward and squeezed Thea’s hand.
‘Thank you,’ Thea whispered just in time.
King Sweyn snapped his fingers and the ceremony began. She took her place facing the Rus diplomat. A cleric unfolded a scroll tied with scarlet ribbons that hung damply in the heat, falling from the parchment’s seal like tired streamers. He pinned it to the small table with four glossy black stones.
Old Bishop Vilhelm, ready to witness the signing, leaned over the scroll and began to read in a low, mumbling voice. Thea strained to hear him, her curiosity aroused as to what treasures she was to bring with her to Russia.
She possessed a wealth of jewels, tapestries and a small collection of exquisitely decorated books from her father Harold’s collection about hawking. She would bring to Russia several bibles scribed in English and a jewel-covered gospel of St Mark that had once belonged to Grandmother Gytha. There was a hoard of silver and gold coin, valuable double-edged swords that long ago had been forged by the Franks and a collection of seaxes with handles carved from tusk, decorated with intricate patterns.
She would bring linen and woollen cloth and a collection of beautiful household items to her marriage. All were valued in Russia. Thea wondered who gave her these. She suspected it was Edmund who was now trading between Denmark, Flanders and Ireland in wool, linen and highly decorated metal utensils, walrus tusk combs, silver boxes engraved with intricate designs and beech wood coffers.
Thea rustled her stiff gown impatiently. There were no lands attached to her dowry settlement. She was a stateless and landless Saxon princess but now, like a phoenix greeting the sun, she must be raised out of exile to be reborn a new princess in the land of the Rus. In Russia she would find her new home. I want a home of my own, she thought as she waited for the bishop to give her the pen.
She leaned over the table and signed the betrothal document, writing her official name, Gita Godwinsdatter, Princess of the English, with a flourish. She stretched up and drew a relieved breath. The Rus called her Gita, not Gytha. She smiled to herself at this formality. She was neither Gita nor Gytha. To her family and friends, she would always be Thea.
After the exchange of rings was over, Thea sat on a padded winged chair close to the whetstone as the Danish and English nobles who had known and fought for her father presented her with gifts to take to her new land. None of these treasures was as important to her as the silver and sapphire betrothal ring that Prince Vladimir had sent to her. As her hand hovered above a bone-plated casket the swirling patterns on the broad silver band seemed to move of their own accord and its huge pale blue sapphire stone gleamed in the candlelight that flickered by her shoulder. She could not stop her mind wandering to the prince who had sent the ring. Was he really as handsome as Elizaveta said when she had helped her dress for the ceremony? Was he as Padar had described, kind and fair in his dealings with others? Would her prince find her to his taste, as beautiful as this precious ring which he had sent to her for their betrothal?
She concentrated on thanking the gift-givers who had presented her with such beautiful objects: an ivory-covered prayer book, a purse of uncut garnets, a crucifix with amber insets, bolts of cloth, wolf furs, sheepskins, a collection of carved spoons, skins, tapestries, and cushions for her comfort on the long journey deep into the Rus lands.
An unexpected gift arrived at her feet. She looked long at it, studied it, puzzled at it. This was a birthing chair with an embroidered foot rest. Since it came from the sulky Danish princesses who would never forgive this marriage, she felt a frown crease her forehead. She stood and walked slowly around it, admiring its craftsmanship, praising it but pondering it.
‘I think it a thoughtful gift,’ Thea said carefully to Ingegerd as Queen Elizaveta began ordering servants and guards to take the presents to a storeroom.
‘Wait!’ Edmund shouted. ‘There is another from my thanes.’
Everybody looked towards the entrance. A breeze blew into the hall as the heavy doors were pulled wide open by Edmund’s retainers and two English noblemen carried a litter through. They carefully lowered the litter onto the floor tiles.
‘My lady, we want to ensure your safe carriage when the dragon boats travel the great Rus rivers and must be carried overland between them. Look beyond the curtains,’ one of Edmund’s thanes said, clearly thrilled to do such a service to King Harold’s elder daughter.
She parted the heavy woollen curtains and peered inside. There on the great padded seat on which she would recline lay a silver fox bedspread. ‘Thank you, it is exquisite.’ The birthing chair forgotten, Thea embraced the two survivors of the Great Battle who presented it to her. ‘Come and visit me in the palace if you should find yourselves trading in Kiev. This silver fox will grace my bedchamber. It is far too beautiful to remain in a palanquin.’
Queen Elizaveta whispered in her ear, ‘You must now take your place at the top table.’
With the ambassador following just a step behind, Thea glided forward to sit in a place of honour at the table on the raised dais. The trestle table had been set as if by an enchantment, with silver platters and intricately carved spoons. Helped by a steward bearing a long staff, the court found their places. Edmund and his men were placed on the lower trestles with the princesses, Danish nobles, their wives, daughters and many of the priests of Roskilde, a handful of Rus diplomats and their retainers.
After King Sweyn and his queen joined Thea and the ambassador, course after course was served, placed before them by a dozen servers. There were pigeons in cream, chickens stuffed with eggs and nuts called walnuts from the south, hunks of boar, beef, various roasted birds and a salmon dressed i
n a sauce made with a fruit which Ambassador Igor said were called lemons. She tasted everything, discreetly lifting her veil aside so she could eat.
Musicians strummed harps. Long, lean dogs wearing glittering studded collars circled the trestles looking for scraps. Thea noticed that two of the king’s hawks sat placidly on perches by an un-shuttered window, jesses jingling, as their guardians fed them titbits. Every time the falconers paused feeding them, they looked as if they would take off from their perches and circle the hall or fly out of the window. She knew they would not since they were hooded and chained to their roosts.
King Sweyn leaned across her towards the Rus ambassador, ‘Ambassador Igor,’ he said. ‘Today is a great day for Denmark, another Rus alliance for us Danes.’ He stroked his white beard thoughtfully. ‘My ally, Pope Gregory, is reforming the Roman Church throughout Christendom, tightening our church practices, you know. He is putting a stop to intermarriage amongst great families but he will never object to this marriage. Even though my little cousin, Gita, as you Russians name her, is to unite with a prince of the Byzantine persuasion the Pope will be pleased because she is marrying out of her own blood. Her children’s blood will be fresh and untainted.’ He lifted his cup of Rhenish wine. ‘May our allegiance continue to flourish.’
The ambassador lifted his cup and smiled at Thea. ‘Krasivee Dama, beautiful lady, our prince is fortunate.’
He is indeed, Thea thought to herself, not just because she was beautiful as people often remarked, but because she was educated and could read and write and she would understand matters of state in her new country once she mastered their language.
Two musicians clashed cymbals together. Thea started. One blew loudly on his bagpipes and another began to play a fast swirling tune on a flute. The noise of music invited shouts for refills of Rhenish wine in cups and drinking horns. Any further conversation was challenged by male bellowing and female laughter. Sound gushed upwards and outwards around the trestles like steam from the earth’s depths bursting through the floor rushes from below the hall’s foundations. Sweyn raised his drinking vessel to the ambassador again. Likewise, the ambassador raised his cup to acknowledge Sweyn’s toast.
Later, as the servants carried out pastries and fruits, the uproar around the trestles subsided as guests seized them. King Sweyn took the opportunity to resume his previous conversation. He leaned across Thea and reminded the Rus diplomat that his cousin, Gita of the English, was of noble blood, a Saxon princess. He reminded the ambassador that it had taken the Bastard King of England years to get permission from Pope Alexander to remain married to Matilda of Flanders whom every king considered to be of high birth, pious and beautiful, tiny, non-threatening and a complacent wife to the undeserving Duke William. ‘And they were fifth cousins.’ Sweyn stretched his velvet-covered arm along the back of Thea’s chair, patted her shoulder and said that Thea was every bit as religious, modest and devout as Matilda of Flanders.
What nonsense, pious and beautiful? How could he praise that dwarf, the bastard king’s wife? How dare he compare them? Did he not know that the wife of William of Normandy was a harridan who had had her bared backside paddled by the cruel duke in front of his nobles when she had refused to marry him, that Duke William had dragged Matilda by her plait through the Flanders mud, and that she was a great joke amongst the English ladies? The story had run through Thea’s family like a cornfield on fire. Perhaps it was a widespread rumour!
Once tamed by that Bastard, so the entertaining tale went, Matilda would have none other than Duke William to husband. He will never tame any of our women in such a manner, she angrily thought to herself, well if that is the truth.
King Sweyn ran on, ‘Ambassador, you will inform the prince that my cousin must remain Catholic, loyal to my friend Pope Gregory in Rome.’
The ambassador sharply replied. ‘That is for the lady’s conscience, Sire’
And not if my prince’s religion is better. Thea glared at King Sweyn.
A troupe of actors bustled about the trestles. Sweyn shoved back his great chair. He stood steadily and waved his arms about, insisting that his court ceased their noise and watch. He gestured to the actors to set up their props in the central open space in the hall. Sinking into his chair, he leaned forward and rested his large face and white beard on his folded great paws.
Thea felt relief when Sweyn’s attention shifted away from her to the play. She watched as the play unfolded. The drama was a favourite story of how a magician who, for a handsome fee, charms the moon from the sky and brings a clay image of cupid to life to win a rich woman’s favours for his client. He succeeded, but the prince concerned might have accomplished his love quest by simply giving a pure white gelding to the lady as a gift. The actors spoke in rhyme and elaborated on the theme of wooing and betrothal. They ended the piece by leading a pretty white foal wearing a decorated bridle, its mane plaited with ribbons, around the hall.
As the colourful cavalcade paraded past the dais, Thea found herself smiling at the characters, a shifty-looking play magician, the lack-lustre prince, fat cupid, a golden-clad dwarf, equipped with a tiny bow and arrow, and finally the lady riding the foal, who was a boy disguised as a rich lady with false red-gold hair and who wore a disdainful countenance.
‘One should not mock magicians,’ remarked the ambassador quietly. Thea wondered at his words, but moments later, she noticed Sweyn’s eye roving from one court lady to another to rest on a rosy-cheeked young lady. She felt uncomfortable for the queen who was intently watching Sweyn from her place further along the trestle.
Elizaveta had not loved her first husband Harald of Norway. The Norwegian king had been greedy and cruel, but her real complaint was he had elevated his concubine, a woman of noble lineage, above her as if she, Elizaveta, the Queen of Norway, was already a dead wife. Thea reflected, I hope my prince does not treat me this way. Her own mother had been set aside by her father for a new political marriage after he was chosen by the nobles to be King of England after King Edward died.
‘If Harald could have set me aside for his mistress he would have. Can you imagine how I felt, Thea?’ Elizaveta had confided as they prepared for Thea’s betrothal, touching Thea’s lips with cochineal, even though no one would see her mouth today under her veil. ‘Harald of Norway was a brute, and his manners at table, by the Holy Mother, are not worth remembering. He was uncouth.’
Thea watched Elizaveta watching Sweyn. Elizaveta did not deserve a repetition of such treatment from her new husband, a man who was known to have fathered daughters and sons by his many concubines.
Thea’s attention eventually returned to the Rus ambassador seated by her side. Ambassador Igor was an old, stooped man who wore the customary Rus embroidered felt hat trimmed with fur.
‘I hear the winters in Novgorod are bitter,’ she said, not able to think of anything else to say, wishing that Gudrun and Padar were seated with her at the dais table tonight. She peered along the tables. She could not see them. They were lost amongst the servants who thronged the lowest uncovered trestles. ‘I shall be glad to travel north in the spring,’ she said, though she wished she could travel before winter set in. After all, Padar had travelled late in autumn.
‘Princess, you will find our homes comfortable, your chambers warm and snow in winter a beautiful sight to behold as if God, Himself, had taken up a painter’s brush to cleanse the land and paint it anew.’ He waved his arms emphatically as if he, too, was painting the land with God’s paint brush. He had spoken to her in English, and she felt touched. She hoped he would live long and remain close to her household, though that was unlikely, given his advanced years.
She smiled. Clearly encouraged, he ran on, ‘I wish you much happiness. Prince Vladimir is admired amongst the Rus people. He is courageous and honourable.’
‘So everyone tells me,’ she said quietly.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed the Danish king lean forward, ale cup in hand, slowly raising it to his lips as he stu
died yet another lady who sat near his older daughters. In the time it took for a dancer to twirl, his eyes roved back to the dark-haired, rosy-cheeked girl. To her surprise, she saw that Edmund was studying the pretty girl too. He was asking her to dance with him and the king was glaring at Edmund!
‘Princess Gita, our country is unsettled.’
‘What? How?’
‘Our grand prince, Iziaslav of Kiev, Prince Vladimir’s uncle, is exiled in Poland. Kiev is unsafe. Even Novgorod, with its impenetrable kremlin fortress, is not safe these days. His cousin, a sorcerer they say, was prisoner in Kiev. With the help of merchants who felt threatened by Steppe tribes the sorcerer prince usurped Prince Iziaslav in the spring. This evil magician threatens the peace of our lands from Pereiaslavl in the south to Polotsk, which is a fortress north of Novgorod. Our three princes, Iziaslav, Sviatoslav and Prince Vsevolod, are determined to protect Novgorod and Kiev.’ The ambassador speared a tiny sweetmeat with his knife and daintily nibbled it.
‘What is the cousin called?’ Thea asked, now curious and determined to commit to memory all these complicated names.
‘He is named Prince Vsevslav. Just call him the magician. Everyone else does.’ The ambassador laid down his eating knife, dabbed his mouth with his napkin and began to tell Thea the history.
Servants passed by their table with pastry coffins filled with cream. Thea nodded her head and accepted one. Musicians struck up with flutes and small drums.
The ambassador continued his story. ‘Ask your harp-player, Padar, about him. He heard all about it in Novgorod last winter. He was there when tribes from the south attacked Kiev. Our enemies, certain untrustworthy nobles, whom we call boyars in our land, released the sorcerer and set him up as their prince instead.’
‘The nobles had such power?’
‘Yes, they do have powers on our councils. And remember this prince was of royal blood and many thought he should have been elected as Grand Prince of Kiev, not Iziaslav. His father had been the eldest of the princely brothers but he died before he could inherit Kiev. Iziaslav was the senior prince.’
The Betrothed Sister Page 13
