I Am the Chosen King

by Helen Hollick

  For Edward himself, disillusionment with last September’s events had been complete. He had never really wanted to be king, to have all this responsibility thrust upon him—oh, he enjoyed the pomp and respect that went with it, the sumptuous regalia, the authority, but where was the loyalty that did not need to be bought? The friendship that came without condition? He had thought Champart his friend. He had loved Robert, with a love that had perhaps not been suitable for one man to give to another, but Robert had never shied away from the closeness that had grown between them. Now he realised why, of course. It had not been for love of Edward that Champart had encouraged their bond, but for his own greed and ambition. The hurt speared deep. Edward felt battered and used. Like a drum beaten to keep the time and pace for the whirl of the dance and then tossed aside, forgotten and useless when the skin had lost its tautness. More than the hurt, Edward recognised that he had been played for a gullible fool; his pride was damaged, far more difficult a thing to heal.

  Entertainment by jugglers and acrobats complemented the lavish feast, but once the bellies were full and the ale passed around, a cry went up for the songs. Hands thumped the tables with approval as the harper, smiling his acquiescence, settled beside the hearth to tune his instrument. He waited for silence before he began a narrative of the hero Beowulf and his fight with the lurid monster, Grendel.

  “And so the men led a carefree life and all was well,

  ’Til, with Hell in his mind,

  Grendel, grim and full with hate,

  Stalked the shadows: his malice made ripe for wickedness.”

  To the left hand of Edward’s high table sat Leofric, with his wife and eldest son Ælfgar, a man nursing a grievance as black as any held by that hideous monster of the harper’s tale. Ælfgar sat hunched, goblet between his hands, scowling along the table at the guests who sat to the far side of the King. The Godwines.

  “With the night came Grendel.

  In the Hall the nobles after feasting,

  Slept discharged from sorrow.

  Mad in rage Grendel struck quickly, a creature of evil and hate.

  Grim and greedy, unsparing and savage,

  He grasped thirty warriors and away he fled homeward,

  Glutted and bloody with the stain.”

  Ælfgar sympathised with the monster. To be taunted by the laughter of men who flaunted what they had beneath the noses of those who had been stripped of wealth and position because of them. Ælfgar’s fingers strayed to the hilt of his meat dagger. He had no other weapon, for it was forbidden to carry arms to table. Huh! He would need no weapon, he could do it as Grendel had, with his bare hands! His fingers could rip Harold’s throat, choke the laughter from Godwine’s age-withered windpipe…

  East Anglia had been granted him when Harold and his kin had been driven from England. He had worn the title until the Godwines had returned, curse them and all their seed! Without pause, Edward had bowed before their every demand, presenting his backside for them to kick. Godwine reinstated as Earl of Wessex; to Harold, East Anglia rebestowed. To thrust the dagger further into his guts, his own father Leofric had agreed to it. No one at court had supported Ælfgar. All they had wanted was an amicable peace. Amicable? Well it was not amicable to Ælfgar! He did not want this merry carousing or the telling of heroic tales. He wanted an earldom—Harold’s earldom.

  “Grim and greedy”—how that phrase suited Godwine and his brood of thieves! Aye, magpies perched on a branch, waiting to take all they could for their own!

  “Look at Wessex sitting there—it makes my flesh creep to watch him. Grendel himself would be more pleasant to behold than he squirming for favour.” Ælfgar muttered the abuse beneath his breath, but his father heard.

  “I have never personally liked Godwine,” he rasped in return, “but I respect him. Holding a position of authority takes more than the ability to wield axe and sword. When a man becomes a leader he needs diplomacy and tact. And to know when to keep his mouth shut.”

  “That is why Godwine and Harold are so successful, is it?” Ælfgar sneered.

  “Aye,” his father answered curtly. “That is why.”

  “…Grendel waged war with Hrothgar, the wrongs he did the King!

  He watched and waited,

  Walked nightlong through moorland mist.

  What man can know the mind of the demon and the damned?”

  ***

  “Godwine would know of that.” Ælfgar snapped disdainfully. “The wrongs he has done his king.”

  The harper had reached a pause in the narrative, laid his palm on the humming strings of his harp to still its voice, and the Hall was silent. Save for Ælfgar’s ill-mannered remark.

  Eyes turned to Leofric’s son, who reddened, but stared back defiantly. The silence hung like an icicle suspended over an overhang of rock.

  “And what mean you by that?” Earl Godwine asked placidly. Despite eating so little, the pain of indigestion had returned.

  “I speak only what comes to mind. That you sit so at ease, without conscience, beside the brother of one you once had murdered.”

  Gasps, a bench scraped back, several of Godwine’s personal housecarls coming ominously to their feet. Countess Gytha put her hand to her mouth; Harold’s fists clenched. But for all those who were shocked and angered by Ælfgar’s accusation, there were more than one or two who discreetly nodded their heads in agreement.

  Godwine sipped his wine, letting the red warmness trickle down his throat, allowing his heartbeat to steady from the erratic lurching thud that seared through his chest. “I have said before and I say again, I am innocent of that ancient mischief. I took the boy Alfred prisoner, I agree. It was I who misguidedly placed him in the hands of Cnut’s son—had I known how grievously he was there to be treated, I would not have done so.”

  “So you again insist that you had naught to do with his murder?”

  “I do.” The tightness in his chest was becoming worse; he would need ask Gytha for some mint leaves to chew.

  Edward was becoming flustered, uncertain how to control this swift up-rush of anger. He did not want quarrelling at his table; Ælfgar ought be reprimanded, yet he had never been able to accept Godwine’s denial of his part in that heinous death. He waved his hand at the harper, signalling him to begin the next part of the tale, but Ælfgar, wine muzzying his better judgement, retorted, “How easy it is to proclaim words of protest when there is no one to refute them. I wonder if the prince, Alfred, would agree with you, were his spirit here?”

  “As God is my witness.” Godwine declared with sudden impatience, “I am innocent of this lie!” He thumped the table with his palm, lurching upright—and the pain tore through his chest, arms and jaw as if a spear had been thrust direct through him. He doubled over, clutching at the agony, his lips contorting, breath gasping.

  Harold and Gytha were immediately on their feet, the woman’s arms going about her husband’s shoulders as he collapsed, dragging the linen cloth with him, bowls of nuts and dried fruits, goblets and tankards of wine and ale tumbling to the floor. A scream left her lips. Edward, his own heart racing with the suddenness of it all, shouted for his physician to be summoned; someone handed wine to Harold who put it to his father’s lips, someone else kicked aside the debris and the dogs who had run in, hoping to scavenge for scraps.

  “Does he live?” Edyth took Godwine’s hand in her own, began trying to rub warmth into its creeping coldness. Harold had ripped open the lacings of his father’s tunic. Tearing the cloth, he laid his ear against the scant grey hairs on the white skin, listened, then touched his fingers to the side of his father’s throat, below the jaw. There was nothing—but then he felt a faint, irregular beat. “Yes,” he said, with a quick breath. “Yes, he lives!”

  Tears trickled over Gytha’s cheeks as they carried Godwine away to the comfort of his bed, her eldest living son’s strong arms
supporting her as she followed. Her only daughter remained with the King; her face was white but she had chosen her path and on it she must remain.

  The harper did not resume his tale of Beowulf. There was no place for songs, not now. The Hall was subdued; a few men took leave of their king and withdrew, others sat quiet or talked in hushed voice.

  Edward sat erect in his high-backed chair, rigid and still. He felt sick, his head swam, his stomach churned. “As God is my witness, I am innocent,” Godwine had said—and had been struck down no sooner had the words flown from his lips…My God, Edward thought, Godwine lied; all these years, he has lied to me. He looked at Ælfgar, saw the same thought resting on his face.

  Edith caught the brief look of comprehension that passed between them. Had her father lied about the murder of Edward’s younger brother? Had God issued swift punishment, or was it all a coincidence? Whatever, she could not risk losing her new-found stability; she must act, and act now, for her own security. For her own future. Whatever happened to her father, whether he died or lived, he was finished as a trusted earl of the King. Deliberately, she took Edward’s hand within her own and spoke soft, so only he might hear. “Your brother lies in peace at last, my Lord. God has provided us with the truth.”

  Edward patted the cool hand that held his. “God will witness the truth. At the end, He will be the judge of all.”

  ***

  For three days Earl Godwine of Wessex lingered, unconscious of his pain, unaware that his wife sat, throughout, at his side without sleep or food or respite from grief. Harold and Edyth, Tostig and Judith, Leofwine and Gyrth watched and waited with her.

  His daughter did not come, nor did the King, and only those men who had loved Godwine in life shed tears when, on the fifteenth day of April in the year 1053, the Earl was taken to God.

  The Countess Gytha had him buried in the Minster at Winchester, within sight of the tombs of Cnut and his queen, Emma, whom Godwine had served without question. If any had been responsible for the wicked death of that young man Alfred, it had been she, not Godwine.

  Unanimous support from the Council gave Godwine’s son Harold responsibility of Wessex, while to balance the scales, Ælfgar, son of Leofric of Mercia, to his great pleasure, had East Anglia restored to him.

  The King was indifferent to the decision-making. It had been Godwine he despised. Was it because the man had been so close in friendship with his mother and had shown no glimmer of affection for himself as boy or man grown? Or because of the rumours and implications of Alfred’s death? Edward did not know the reason, did not care to analyse it.

  Swegn too he had hated. The man had been a braggart and a liar. They were, both of them, gone to plead their case with God. Who would, most assuredly, judge them.

  Harold was a Godwine, but a pleasant enough man, not arrogant or assuming like his father, nor brash and boastful as his brother. Edward had no objection to his promotion. As for Edith…well, it seemed he had to have a wife and it had been Champart who had so disliked her, he told himself.

  Edward, always one to lay blame at the feet of another, could see only what he wanted to see.

  42

  Waltham Abbey

  The chamber slumbered in quiet contentment after the children had been persuaded to their beds. Edyth bent to pick up their scattered toys, decided the servants could tidy away on the morrow, for now, all she wanted was to sit and take the weight off her aching feet, legs and back. Children were delightful, but Goddwin, Algytha, Edmund and even Magnus at nearly two years of age possessed more energy than both she and Harold combined. She put her hand to the seven-month bulge that was to be her sixth-born child, smiled.

  “Is he kicking?” Harold asked. He lay full length along the bed, atop the furs and full dressed, save for his boots that were tossed, discarded, to the floor.

  “No, but she is fidgeting,” Edyth answered with a bright, homely smile. “Insisting on playing as boisterously as the others, I think.”

  Harold laughed, swung himself from the bed. He had joined in heartily with the children’s games this past hour, crawling across the floor on hands and knees, giving them rides on his back or bouncing them on his shoulders. He ached!

  “They are excited,” he said. The nativity is always a time of adventure for children.” He cast his eyes around the chamber at the hanging garlands of ivy and evergreens, the bright contrast of the red holly berries. The Hall below this, their private room, was decorated more magnificently still. The yule log was already in the hearth for its ceremonial lighting on the morrow; caskets and barrels of wine and ale brought in from the stores, the cooking pits prepared, the cattle, pigs and fowl slaughtered and butchered. He crossed the room on stockinged feet to circle his arms around Edyth, bring her as close as her bulk would allow. Birthing was a dangerous time for any woman. Harold never failed to worry when her labour came nearer, but as Edyth said, after that first birth, her children had all come out into the world without difficulty. “I have always welcomed the Christmas festival and the birthing of a new year. Putting the old behind, looking forward to new beginnings.” And there was much to set aside from this last year, so many changes to accept in place.

  “Christmas?” Edyth queried with a snort of impatience. “Christmas means winter. Short, dark, cold days and bitter winds. Chilled fingers and toes, rain and snow. Bellyache from overeating…and the pleasure of attending court.”

  “Aye, well, all that too.” He darted a quick, boyish grin at her, his mouth slightly lopsided, the only residue of the illness that had stricken him so long ago. “I enjoy being with my family, Christmas or no.” He kissed her forehead. “I enjoy being with you. Especially when we are alone,” he added mischievously, kissing her again, more firmly.

  She responded as always, her mouth parting. His smell of leather and horse and wine was familiar and comforting, his muscular body reassuring. Protective. Everything was so safe when Harold was nearby. His hands wandered from her enlarged waist to her breasts, caressing her neck and face, pulling her closer, his mouth more insistent.

  “They say you must be gentle with a woman who is with child,” Edyth reminded him as he began unlacing her gown.

  “I am always gentle. With any woman,” he answered with a hint of indignation.

  She pulled back, her palms going to his chest. “Oh, yes? You have made love with many women then, have you?”

  Harold bent and lifted her, swinging her up into his arms with ease. His body was lean and strong, his arms and shoulders well muscled, the skin still bearing a light tan from the summer sun and the autumn winds. He carried her to their bed, set her down and methodically began unlacing the remaining ties to her gown and the shift beneath.

  “Only one or two women,” he answered her at last, before removing his own clothing, discarding it haphazardly on the floor. “Only one in particular, though.”

  ***

  Waking, with the pleasurable sensation of her naked body nestled warm and close to his own, Harold lay listening to the sounds of a stirring household. Someone was singing a carol, the girl’s pleasing voice ruined by the old mule braying for his breakfast; clatter came from the kitchens as the cooks began preparing for the first meal of the day and the evening ahead of feasting. A robin sang from the oak tree where Harold had built the elder children a lookout platform—from up there, they could see along this whole stretch of the valley. The shining white newness of the rising walls of his abbey at Waltham, the meadows below the purple grey of the ridged hills and the wide, meandering ribbon that was the river. He would miss all this if they were to move into the manor at Bosham. A grander estate but the home of childhood. This manor belonged to his adult life, a testament to his own happiness. He had purchased the land, discussed the design, observed its building. Edyth had furnished it, made it their home. Bosham was for the harvesting of Gytha’s memories, not for his.

  Harold brushed his han
d tenderly against Edyth’s cheek as she stirred from sleep. “Willow-bud?” He touched her hair, allowing a strand of its sun-gold length to trickle through his fingers. “I am thinking that I do not want to leave here. That I do not welcome the thought of residing at Bosham.”

  Clinging to the last fragments of sleep, Edyth snuggled her head into his shoulder. So much had changed for him, for her, since Easter. To take up the mantle of the most powerful man in all England below the King was no easy task. Edyth knew Harold appreciated the honour of being made Earl of Wessex, for he was full of pride in his country and its people. He accepted those responsibilities that fell to him, but still he doubted his ability to mix diplomacy with authority as carefully as had his father. Edward was no easy man to contend with. Although he had mellowed since Godwine’s death, his inattentiveness and distraction from government was markedly increased. Content to leave decisions to his earls and Council, the brunt of the work fell on Harold’s overburdened shoulders.

  “Do you not think that you ought be in Wessex?” she asked tactfully, while suppressing the jiggle of delight. The manor was her home, the place of her children’s birth and growing, of her love with Harold. Bosham would be the place for his wife when one day he took one.

  “I will need to spend some time there, but I am as much in London these days as I am in Wessex. Here, with you, I can forget the King and his inconsistencies, my sister and her brazen autocracy.”

  Edyth gave a non-committal sigh. The Queen’s problem was a simple one to fathom, harder to solve. “She needs a child to care for.”

  Harold snorted. “Edith now panders to Edward’s every whim. He behaves more like a child every day. He shows no care of interest in law or government, for matters of court or state. His only interests are how the scent is lying and how high are the walls of his damned abbey!” Harold’s feelings for Edward were ambivalent. As a man—a neighbour perhaps—they could have shared the pleasures of the chase and a farmer’s concern for the turn of the seasons. But as a king Edward was frustratingly simple-minded. He was a follower, not a leader. Had there been anyone else as choice of king, he would never have been crowned. Like it or not, however, he was an anointed king, blessed by the hand of God—outside murder, only God could remove him.