I Am the Chosen King

by Helen Hollick

  When the serving girl, Fræda, had left the room she had pulled the door closed behind her, but the latch had not caught. A stray gust of wind trumpeting through the open Hall doors had buffeted against it and nudged it ajar, before running off to ruffle the wall tapestries.

  Ordinarily, it would not have mattered; indeed, Gytha often left the door open. On this day, however, while Edith Godwinesdaughter was tormenting herself out of all proportion with the cruelties of fate, Harold’s Edyth was seated not two yards from the chamber door in the public Hall, delightedly beating Gytha’s nephew, Beorn, at a game of tæfl, a board game she had played often with her father. She was immensely enjoying this particular match because Harold had bought her the set for her own yesterday. The checkered squares were made from ivory and jet with the playing pieces carved from horses’ teeth, the details on each “soldier” set with gold and minutely cut gems of sapphire and ruby. It was exquisite, while the game against Beorn, which she was winning, demanded all her skill.

  Beorn’s move. He sat well forward on his stool, concentration etched into his wrinkled frown. By Thor’s Hammer, the girl had outmanoeuvred him! As far as he could see, he was surrounded on four sides and captured. He lifted his hands in surrender. “I have never lost to a woman before, but as you are so strikingly beautiful, I’ll not hold that against you.”

  Edyth laughed and began setting the pieces in place for another game. “If it eases the pain of losing,” she jested, “I have never claimed victory over so handsome a young man before.”

  “What?” a voice boomed from behind her shoulder, “do you say this upstart who has monopolised you this past hour is more handsome than me? Shame on you, woman!” Harold, returning from checking his lame stallion, affectionately kissed Edyth’s cheek.

  “You, my Lord,” she answered, twisting her head to look at him, her eyes sparkling with merriment, “are over twenty years of age. You cannot claim to be a young man.”

  “Agh!” He clutched at his wounded heart. “Not only am I not handsome, I am also in my dotage!” He shooed Edyth off her stool, sat himself and pulled her down on to his knee.

  “How is the horse?” Beorn asked, making the first move of another game.

  “Oh, ’tis nothing serious, a swollen fetlock. Fool animal must have twisted it on the way home from Thorney yester-eve.” Some of the gaiety left Harold as he remembered the previous day and yet another confrontation with a fault-finding Edward, But who cared about Edward’s petty foibles when he had his dearest Edyth beside him?

  The Hall had been full of activity: servants hammering a loose trestle-table plank back into position; a woman singing as she vigorously swept the timber floor of the raised dais on which stood Godwine’s high table. But by a quirk of fate, a jest from the gods, for a moment the building fell quiet. The floor rushes whispered from a rustle of wind and from the private chamber shrilled Harold’s sister’s distressed voice: “And would it be so difficult for Harold to appease the King and take a daughter of Baldwin of Flanders—to return his slut, bag and baggage, back to the Nazeing midden hut whence she came?”

  Edyth blanched, her teeth biting hard into her bottom lip to stem a ragged cry. This was too much to bear! She ought to have stayed at home where she belonged. Her coming to London had created nothing but difficulties. Edith disliked her. The King disapproved of her, was furious with Harold and his father. Harold must be feeling a prize fool for bringing her here, but was too kind-hearted to admit it. What was he doing with her, a mere thegn’s daughter?

  She would not weep in public, not before Harold’s young cousin or the servants. They had all heard, of course, would be sneering behind her back, as Edith was. Nor would she weep in front of Harold. Edyth stood, brushing aside his hold. “I have a woman’s matter to attend,” she stated. She walked, with all the dignity she could summon, from the Hall, out into the blustering drizzle.

  The wind caught at her veil. She tore the thing from her head. Were she at home in Nazeing she would have run to the woods or to the field to bury her head in her pony’s mane. Edyth ran instead up to the walkway that strode along the top of the stronghold’s outer timber walls. Only the watchguards stood up there, and they would mind their own business.

  Harold took a few sharp, angry steps after her, then altered course and stormed into his mother’s chamber, slamming the door hard against the timber and plaster wall. His mother and sister looked up, startled. Gytha guessed instantly what had occurred, but her daughter’s ill temper only increased at the sight of her brother.

  “You have ruined my prospects for marriage by being so inconsiderate—” but she got no further, for Harold was across the room, his hands gripping her shoulders.

  “Since the day of your birth you have been cosseted and indulged. In this, I am as much to blame as my mother, father and brothers, but there will be no more of it from this quarter, my girl! Do you hear, no more!” As he shouted, his hands, none too gently, shook her. “I will tell you this. Listen well. I have no intention of allying with Baldwin of Flanders. I love and admire Edyth, and I intend to hold her as mine until the day of my death—and aye, even beyond. She is my chosen woman, will be the mother of my children, and neither you, the King, nor the damned Pope in Rome will force us apart. Do I make myself clear?” He shook her once more, thrust her down on a stool and turned to his mother. Muscles, jaw and fists clenched, he exhaled several shuddering breaths and, reining in his temper, apologised to the Countess. “Forgive the manner of my entrance and my harsh words, my Lady Mother. My woman heard what was said here this day and it has upset her, as it has upset me also. I think it is time that my sister learnt a lesson in humility.”

  Edith was outraged. She flew to her feet and ran to her mother. “Are you going to allow him to speak to me like this? Say something to him, Mother! Order him to apologise at once!”

  Gytha had no hesitation. She would not tolerate fools or bullies; less still would she tolerate dishonour. Her hand came out and struck Edith across the cheek. “If anyone has brought shame on this house, then it is you by insulting a newcomer to our family who sleeps with my blessing beneath this roof. Perhaps it is your own arrogance that is turning the King against you, and nothing that my husband or your brother has done.”

  Edith, struck dumb, stared at her mother. She drew a breath, then turned on Harold. “You would not speak so were either of my brothers present! If Swegn or Tostig were here, they would have whipped you for your spitefully spoken words.”

  “But they are not here,” Harold declared pointedly. “Tostig mislikes my company and has gone to join Swegn. To learn how to be defeated by the Welsh.”

  “At least two of my brothers are doing their duty for England, not wasting their days and nights whoring with a commoner!”

  Harold folded his arms, his expression patronising, words acerbic. “Swegn,” he answered, “could find a whorehouse with his eyes bound. He must know his way around every brothel in the land. Tostig wouldn’t know what to do with either a whore or a Welshman.”

  Edith slapped him, hard, then fled the room.

  “That,” Harold reflected ruefully, as he rubbed his stinging jaw, “I did not do well.”

  “Which part?” Gytha asked neutrally.

  Harold shrugged, then offered her a weak, apologetic grin. “All of it?”

  Gytha touched her son’s cheek. “Love is a precious thing. Hold it and guard it well, while you may.” She sighed, closed her eyes briefly. “Marriage is no easy thing for a girl who has not the fortune of your Edyth, Harold. Where there is love a marriage is filled with spring blossom and happiness. Where the man takes with no intention of giving, there is naught but winter-bare branches and dark emptiness. Edward holds nothing for Edith, I suspect for no woman. He is using her in an attempt to control your father. As for love…” Gytha opened her hands, palms upward in a gesture of empty despair. “Edward has never known affection; where
will my daughter fit into his insular life?” Gytha shrugged, unable to answer her own question. “Tolerate your sister’s outbursts, Harold. They are wrong-footed, but her anger stems from fear of a lonely future without love or compassion.”

  Harold considered his mother’s words. Nodded once. He too shrugged in resignation. “I must find Edyth. She has not, I think, much enjoyed London. I will return to my duties in East Anglia as soon as I can, find for us a house place where we can be independent of court and, with respect to your good heart, Mother, of the jealousies that surround your offspring.” He bent forward, placed a light kiss on Gytha’s cheek and left the room.

  Gytha stood, twirling a loom weight between her fingers. Edith would be wed to Edward at some time in the future for he could not, no matter how much he wanted it, renege on this betrothal.

  She sighed. Godwine had visited Denmark on behalf of Cnut; she had been in her first flush of womanhood, he a handsome, strong-minded, strong-bodied Englishman. The passion that had stirred between them had ignited into a fervent love that remained as potent now as it had been then. When Godwine had left Denmark he had taken Gytha with him as his wife.

  She had been so fortunate with Godwine; few women were able to wed the man they loved. Betrothals, for women of noble birth, were for the political and financial uniting of two families. Love rarely came into it. A man could take a concubine as a love-wife, the woman could only pray to God for a kind husband and an easy time in childbirth. It was a fortunate girl whose father found for her a good husband. Those who chose their own men, as had Gytha—and Edyth Swannhæls—were rare breeds. As parents Gytha and Earl Godwine could not guarantee Edith a satisfactory marriage, although the chance to become Queen of England would make many a girl content to ignore the occasional beating, the straying to another bed—or the frustrating indecisions of an over-pious, captious, mid-aged man who would perhaps have been more suited to wearing a tonsure than a crown. And the faults would not be all on Edward’s side. It was a hard thing for a mother to admit of her own and only daughter, but the child was disdainful and pretentious. “God in his Heaven help her keep hold on her sense,” she said beneath her breath, “when Edith becomes queen and realises the full extent of her power.”

  14

  Southwark

  Emma—a lady who had perfected the art of exact timing—reached Earl Godwine’s Southwark house as dusk was reluctantly giving way to the night. Her modest entourage drew to a weary halt in the courtyard, the riders as wind-blown as the horses, for the last few miles had been covered at a stout, bone-jarring trot.

  A chill mist seeped up from the Thames. London Bridge was wraithed in the shape-shifting whiteness, the top of the two portal towers standing like disembodied heads above the shrouded supporting pillars. The sounds of the city settling for the night emanated from across the river, echoing with a hollow, muffled eeriness. A bell tolled from somewhere, its single, tinny clang monotonously dour in the fading light; a dog barked, voices called. Emma’s hand-maiden shuddered as the horses turned in through the gateway, thankful that they were not to cross the river. She was tired, stiff and cold, wished she could be as strong in body and mind as her mistress. Very little flustered the Queen, she cared nothing for hidden shapes and evils that might lurk in the evening fog. Did not feel fear or cold, nothing disturbed her calm exterior—except perhaps having her possessions and land forcibly removed by her own son. Even then she had waited with patience through the long winter and the first few weeks of spring before beginning to rectify the matter.

  Godwine’s servants scrambled from various quarters, some wiping ale from their mouths, others hastily swallowing their supper; a man ran to take Emma’s horse by the bridle, another slithered to a halt to stand, astounded, before hurtling back inside his master’s Hall. A moment later Godwine himself appeared, fingers hastily tidying gravy residue from his moustache; he strode down the steps, professionally masking his own surprise; this visit had been unexpected, unannounced. Through his smile the Earl was rapidly deciding how to react—of course Emma was welcome, but what in Thor’s name would Edward say of it? Silently, Godwine swore. The last thing he needed was to antagonise the King further by offering a welcome to his deposed mother, but what could he do—turn her away into the night? If nothing else, the laws of hospitality forbade it.

  Emma had already dismounted. She smiled at Godwine with her eyes and mouth, a greeting that sprang from the heart. “My dear friend!” she exclaimed, coming forward with small, rapid strides to take his hands tight in her own. She kissed both his cheeks, her face suddenly looking tired and worried. “Forgive this intrusion—I had hoped to reach Westminster, but we have travelled slower than intended, and as you see it grows dark…” She vaguely waved her hand at the twilight. Godwine did not believe a word of the excuse, as she well knew. He only need look at the dark sweat on the horses’ necks and flanks to see they had been urged far from slowly, but who was an earl to question the word of a queen?

  Ah, will there ever again be such a fine and handsome woman? Godwine thought as he raised her hands to his lips.

  “It is time to end my son’s nonsense,” she announced blithely, as if her quarrel with Edward had been some mild family scrap. “I have lived long enough as a displaced, penniless widow. The condition bores me.”

  Unfortunately it did not, yet, bore Edward.

  Godwine was not sure how to answer her tactfully. He returned the genial smile, spread his hands and said candidly, “I am not entirely in favour with the King myself at this moment, my Lady. Perhaps I am not the best person to champion a cause?” He snorted amusement. “Indeed, if I knew how to do that I would not be in such a predicament myself!”

  Laughing at the absurdity of their mutual situation, Emma slid her arm through Godwine’s. “I will think of something that might aid the both of us,” she said. “Now, escort me to Hall. I would rather discuss my ungrateful whelp with good food inside my belly and a cup of wine in my hand.”

  Seated at Godwine’s high table, her hands cleansed, her gown changed and a meal inside her, Emma was already recovering from the weariness she had masked so carefully, a weariness that had overtaken her, these last months, in both body and mind. Although she never let her feelings become visible, the winter had taken a savage toll on her reserves of strength. While not in her dotage, at five and fifty she was no longer a young woman. Left by Edward’s spite with no means of support or income, she had slimmed down her household to the barest essential servants—how many unfortunate souls had she been forced to dismiss! All the more for Edward’s conscience to bear. Good people set to the streets for a king’s whim, curse him! While she would have wintered at Winchester anyway, the thought of being nigh on a prisoner there haunted her. Oh, she was permitted to travel—but where would she have gone? Her wealth, her properties and estates had been withdrawn from her, all she had at her disposal was this modest entourage and virtually the clothes she stood in. No one who wished to retain the King’s favour would offer her shelter or assistance—who would willingly support a woman with neither influence, wealth, land, nor status? Even if that woman was still, by law and by God’s anointing, the legal Queen of England? Only Godwine, perhaps, would take that risk, yet he too was sailing up a shallow creek against the tide.

  Being without income, property or power did not mean being without eyes and ears, however, and Emma, despite her need dramatically to reduce her daily expenditure, had maintained her informers. There were some things she counted as essential, a network of spies being one of them. She knew that Leofric of Mercia was currying Edward’s approval by being robust in his collection of the taxes—and that his wife had quarrelled bitterly with him about it. That Siward had been squabbling, to the point of battle, with Scotland over the ill-defined border with Northumbria. Knew of Godwine’s disfavour and that Harold had been close to death.

  There were two new faces, unknown to her, at Godwine’s table: Harold
’s hand-fast wife and a robust and cheerful young Danish man, Beorn, nephew of Godwine’s wife. He appeared a good-natured lad, who had led the talk of the morrow’s river tourney through most of the excellent meal, boasting that his craft would beat Edward’s chosen crew. He and Harold had exchanged ribald jests on the topic until Harold had declared: “You give your best effort to win, cousin. To my mind, Edward does not deserve my gift of such a fine-built Lea craft.”

  Ah, Emma thought, so the rumour of disagreement between Harold and my son is also true. God’s patience, was there anyone in this realm whom Edward had not recently insulted?

  That the promise of marriage with Edith was faltering did not surprise Emma in the least. Had Edward wanted a wife he would have allied himself with some Norman family of worth years since. As far as Emma had discovered he was not interested in the intimate comforts offered by women. There had been a few doxies in his youth, when his body had first ripened into maturity, and he had shared a bed for three months with Alys, the daughter of a minor Norman count, until forced to leave the unsettled atmosphere of the new boy duke’s court. Emma had no ideas—nor interest—in what had happened to the girl; the only thing that mattered was that she had not borne a child, living or dead. Either she was at fault or Edward was not master of his own manhood. The truth of that would be seen at some suitable date after his wedding night. If Edward ever managed to agree a wedding night.

  She surveyed her prospective daughter-in-law surreptitiously. Edith was plain, but acceptable. Fair-haired with a clean, unpocked complexion. A pity that such a disgruntled scowl seemed so tightly etched there…Large hips, flat belly, a firm breast. A girl ripe for breeding. God’s teeth, but Edward was a fool! If he reneged on this betrothal he would lose the respect of every nobleman in the kingdom. Edward? King? Oh aye, king of oath-breakers! And what was he intending to do about the small matter of acquiring an heir? Conjure a son from mid-air? Pray that a child would be conceived from a virgin’s womb? She had assuredly bred a simpleton!