I Am the Chosen King

by Helen Hollick

  Exasperated, Will heaved himself from his stool and fumbled for the scroll which lay among the floor rushes. “I assume that this great reluctance of yours is connected with the knowing of what is contained in this scroll?”

  “Oui.”

  “Which is…?” Fitz Osbern’s fingers clasped the letter.

  The messenger, a bearded, middle-aged man who, Fitz Osbern discerned, was in desperate need of a bath, scratched his nose. “Which is that, aye, the King of England is dead, and that Earl Harold of Wessex is crowned and anointed in his place.”

  Fitz Osbern’s grip tightened rigid around the parchment. Slowly, very slowly, he straightened. “Repeat that.”

  The messenger did so.

  Fitz Osbern, mouth open, breath stopped, walked back to his stool, feeling as if he were ploughing through knee-deep mud. He could almost imagine the words written on the scroll burning through. Someone would have to read them aloud to William. His indigestion paled into insignificance as a different kind of sickness rose into his throat.

  He nodded, once, very slowly at the messenger. “You may go. See my steward for payment.”

  Relieved, the man fled.

  ***

  Duke William sat very still. Only the slow, systematic rubbing of his thumb passing backwards and forwards across the back of his hand and the tight clench of his jaw indicated his fury. “Read it again,” he snapped.

  Fitz Osbern reluctantly complied. Duke William’s lips parted slightly, his nostrils flared. The thumb stopped moving.

  The chamber was not crowded, but all within exchanged furtive glances of apprehension. Both servant and knight alike knew to beware of their duke when a rage threatened.

  Duchess Mathilda, seated beside her husband, flicked a glance from the pale-faced Will fitz Osbern to her husband and moved to rest her hand on his arm. With irritation, he jerked away. The abrupt movement broke the stillness. He lurched to his feet. William was a tall man—in anger, his stature seemingly heightened.

  His words however, were low: “I knighted him. He swore homage as my vassal.”

  “Oui, my Lord.” Fitz Osbern allowed the scroll to roll upon itself.

  “He swore to speak for me to convince the English of my claim.”

  Again, fitz Osbern answered simply, “Oui.”

  William clenched his fists, the nails digging into the palms. “He swore. He took an oath before me.” The words were becoming slurred, spoken through that rigid jaw. He turned his head with a jerk, gazed at fitz Osbern. “He made no effort on my behalf? No attempt to speak for me?”

  “It seems not, my Lord. William of London has always proved to be reliable and accurate in his information.”

  Mathilda rose and put her hand over her husband’s fist, persuading the fingers to relax. Was surprised to find William’s hand was shaking.

  She too could not believe that what was written in that letter was the truth. Harold had seemed such a pleasant man, so benign—so honourable. She felt a blush tingle her face as she remembered him close to her, his laugh, those startling, vivacious blue eyes…Ashamed at that flurried erotic memory, Mathilda stifled the lurch that had knotted her stomach and peered up at her husband. “My Lord, you are a greater man than ever Harold will be—and is it not as well that we have discovered his true nature before committing our daughter further into his care?”

  Had William heard? He made no sign that he had. His anger was swamping him, penetrating his senses, thundering in his brain. He had been betrayed before, other men had sworn allegiance and reneged upon their oath. And other men had paid the price of their duplicity.

  “So. This is how an earl of England repays my kindness?” Resentment spewed from William’s mouth. “I could have left him to rot in Ponthieu, could have taken him for ransom for myself, but no! I welcomed him as a guest, I treated him as if he were one of my allies, offered him my confidence and my friendship—God’s breath…” William marched ten paces, turned and glared at the silent group of men and women. “I offered him the honour of becoming my son by marriage!” He lunged forward, scattering goblets, jugs and food bowls from a table, tipped the table itself. Struck out at a servant, clawed at a tapestry and ripped it from the wall. A few of the women screamed, men drew back, several dogs in the Hall began to bark.

  Knowing no one else would attempt to calm him, Mathilda intervened, her hands grasping his flailing arms. She was so small against him, her head barely reached his chest. She gripped tighter, shaking him. There were more than a few in that Hall who secretly admired the woman’s bravery. “It is done. The thing is finished. Forget him, forget England.”

  William stared down at his wife, his expression a vice of hatred.

  “Forget him? Forget England?” he said ominously. “On the day I wed you, I promised that you would not think of me as an illiterate barbarian, I promised that I would prove to you my worth and my strength, that I would give you a crown.”

  Interrupting him, Mathilda declared, “There is no need to prove anything to me, I have all I could wish for. A husband who is loyal to me, who has given me handsome sons and beautiful daughters.”

  Her words did not penetrate his mind. “I vowed that I would make you my queen. And queen, madam, you will be.” He pulled away from her, swung towards fitz Osbern. “So, this English whoreson wishes to challenge my intention, does he? Then let it be so. We shall see who is more determined, I will not be made to look the fool. I want England and I shall have it.”

  ***

  A long-legged, lank-bodied, spot-faced youth entered the solar, seeking the Duchess, his mother. Robert’s tunic had a jagged tear down the front, ripped by a blunted sword while practising on the tourney field with other boys of the court. He wanted her to mend it immediately. There were serving girls a-plenty who could have stitched it for him, but he wished to boast to her that he had toppled the boy responsible and given him a sound thrashing. That the lad had been three years his junior and considerably shorter, Robert would not be mentioning. William’s eldest had no sense of fair play, even less of honour. Why would he require either? He was the Duke’s heir, at thirteen he could do as he pleased.

  To his annoyance, he found no one in the upper-floor room apart from Agatha, his sister. The emptiness was unusual for this hour of the afternoon.

  “Where is Mama?” he asked tersely.

  “Cloistered with our father and Will fitz Osbern. Papa is in a rage and Mama has been weeping.” Agatha closed the Bible that she had been attempting to read. Her mother had tried to teach her the shapes of the alphabet, but it was such hard work remembering how they were all to sound when strung together into the written word. She wondered whether learning to read English would be as difficult as Latin. Not that she would have the chance, not now.

  “Are we at war again, then?” Robert asked, without great interest. He strolled to his father’s chair beside the hearth fire, seated himself cross-legged upon its padded cushion, Agatha frowned. Their father would be cross were he to discover Robert sitting there.

  “Has some bugger of a comte reneged against our bloody father?” he continued. “I suppose he will be leaving Rouen with the army soon. I hope so—but Mama is always so unhappy when Papa is away.” The boy could not understand why this should be, for he was delighted whenever his father was absent. When he was at court, Mathilda had little time for her children—for Robert. With William gone, he would have her more to himself again. He reached out for the bowl of dried fruit beside the chair.

  “A messenger came from Angleterre,” Agatha said. “Papa is most angry.”

  Robert tossed a raisin in the air, caught it in his mouth. Chewed, swallowed. When was he not? William was always angry, most often at something his eldest son had, or had not, done. Robert hated him. Would, on the day that William did not come back from making war, be delighted. “So what has happened?” he asked, only half curious
.

  “King Edward has died.” Agatha said, matter-of-factly. “Earl Harold has been anointed king in his stead.”

  “What?” Robert untwined his legs, lurched from the chair. “You mean that innocuous Englishman has defied our father outright?”

  Astonished at her brother’s whoop of excitement, Agatha frowned. “’Tis nothing to celebrate! There will be far-reaching complications.” That was word for word what her mother had said not half an hour since, when Agatha’s own face had lit up on hearing the news. “Father is considering war with England, Mama is distraught, the court is in disarray—did you not notice the bustle on your way up here?”

  “Well, well! So all the while Harold was playing his own private game of constable and thief. While our father was thinking he had cornered all the playing pieces, Harold had a second army in reserve.” Robert’s delighted grin broadened. How wonderful, someone had bested his father! “I always thought Harold had more sense than Papa credited him with.”

  “Oh, you did, did you? Then you must be a better judge of men than I have given you credit for.”

  Robert spun round, his face blanching. His father stood in the doorway, his great size filling the space. William strode over to his son, Robert resisting the temptation to step back a pace although he would have done so had the wall not been so close behind.

  “As you seem to know so much more than I, perhaps you had best talk with my vassals into pledging their support for a war against England. Do you think you could do that? Hah, boy!” William spat the last, jabbing his face forward into Robert’s own, his hands coming out to fasten on the lad’s tunic neck-band.

  Whimpering, Robert, of a sudden, desperately needed to empty his bladder.

  William shook him roughly, then tossed him aside as if he were a rat with a broken neck. “Get out!”

  Robert ran, fear cramping in his throat, tears stinging his eyes. He fled to the kennels, where he knew he would be left alone. God’s teeth, he hated his father!

  Agatha pressed herself into a window recess. She had liked Harold, with his quiet calming voice, his gentle teasing. He had been kind to her. She would not be wife to him now, Mama had said, in a curiously taut, angered voice. Listening to the rise and fall of conversation—the frequent outbursts of blasphemous oaths from her father—Agatha had tried to understand what was happening.

  A letter was to be sent immediately to England, demanding that Harold relinquish the crown; a similar missive was to go to the Pope in Rome, protesting at Harold’s usurpation; and then Papa was to order ships to be built, and for all his vassals to pledge their support of an invasion of England. Agatha was not much the wiser. She thought her father had liked Harold, that was why he had pledged her to him. What difference did it make if the kind Englishman wore a crown and not he?

  Agatha breathed on the rough texture of the window parchment, watching the droplets of moisture form and trickle downwards. No doubt things would happen as they usually did: her father would besiege a few castles in England and kill any man who persisted in opposing him. She wondered whether her father would allow Harold to remain king once he had defeated England. If she could not be a nun she would have quite liked to have been a queen and worn a crown.

  But what did a twelve-year-old girl know of the intricacies of war and invasion? Of victory and conquest?

  4

  York

  There were, it seemed to Harold in those first tentative weeks of kingship, not sufficient hours in a day to complete all that was so suddenly and urgently expected of him. He thought that under Edward he had acquired a grasp of government and administrative decision-making—but he soon discovered that his expertise was minimal. So much to be done. So much to learn! Rarely did he seek his bed before midnight—to be up and about again by the sixth hour of the morning. Throughout January and into the early days of February, Harold could almost believe that England as a whole—and beyond—was queuing at the gateway of Westminster Palace to speak to the new king.

  Exhaustion was creeping up on him; and as ever when his body was overtaxed, the signs of his old illness surreptitiously re-emerged. His fingers would stiffen, his jaw sag, slurring his speech as the hour grew late and tiredness increased. He longed for the chance to hunt, to fish, to relax, but there was never a respite.

  Writs, grants, appointments. All lands held in trust in the King’s name to be scrutinised, confirmed or withdrawn at his discretion—from a single-held hide of farmland to the vast acreages of the earldoms. So soon into his reign there was little he wanted to alter. Nobles and lords—and a few women—who had loyally served Edward were confirmed in their landlordship. There was no cause to doubt their constancy, at least not yet. In those few, very few, cases where questions were raised the landholding was passed to another of Harold’s choice. For the earls he made no change except in one area. Northampton and Huntingdonshire had been held by Tostig, but had not been transferred by Edward to Morkere. To reinforce his directive that Tostig would not be reinstated, Harold passed that small portion as a new, separate earldom and awarded it to Waltheof, the young son of Earl Siward, to be held in trust for him by Morkere until he came of age. He hoped that would please the Northerners—and it did, but it was not so easy to convince them of his long-term intent.

  Northumbria, it soon became apparent, was not over-anxious to embrace another son of Godwine. Had it not already been shown that Wessex had no consideration for the North? How many southern kings had put the interests and concerns of the people of the North as their priority? What would make this new-crowned king any different—and aye, him a Godwine along with it. He had taken their side against Tostig when outright rebellion had threatened—but for whose benefit? For the North’s? Nay, ’twas only to prevent a costly war for the South. Earl Morkere was liked and welcomed, but he was more than likely soon to be proved the fool in trusting a southern Godwinesson to look to the North’s interests.

  Rumour was a powerful tool for the stirring of mistrust. How long, men asked each other over a jug of ale in the taverns, or while haggling for a bargain in the marketplace, before this king waits for us to drop our guard? How long before we again find that bastard, Tostig, strutting his arrogance through the streets of York?

  Verbal reassurance from Harold, spread by messengers chosen to infiltrate those areas where the whisperings were loudest and harshest, failed. As mid-February approached the discordant rumblings grew more persistent; a strong wind of blustering opinion was blowing up into a gale.

  Once the administrative details at Westminster had been tended as well as he could, Harold took the decision to visit York. Better to get out and do rather than brood, wait and hope.

  Without doubt Tostig would soon raise a following from somewhere abroad; an attempted invasion would come. In Tostig’s place, Harold would do no different. The justifiably wary Northerners needed his reassurance. Before he left London, Harold signed the charter proclaiming the provost of Abingdon to be promoted as abbot and issued orders that all else of importance was to be forwarded to York. He had ideas a-plenty for reform but they could wait. The North, the stability and safety of the kingdom, held priority. Also, riding northwards held another advantage personal to Harold: it gave him a chance to draw breath and to think—a luxury that, since Edward’s death, he had not been able to entertain.

  Although cold, the weather was dry and Harold’s party of mounted men made good progress, for the road—where once the red-crested Roman armies had marched—was well maintained. They had been on the road northwards from Peterborough for no more than an hour, and their mounts were fresh and eager. Lincoln was to be their next major stop, where they would rest two or three days, Harold taking opportunity to receive homage and hear local appeals for justice, as he had at Royston, Huntingdon and Peterborough. He deliberately travelled with a small entourage to demonstrate his peaceful intent. A few housecarls only accompanied him, with his clerks and co
urt officials. Beside him rode Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester, a respected man suited as a mediator, should, as was likely, one be necessary.

  “There are those who are natural leaders, and those who are more fitted to following.” His father had told him that on the day he had been appointed Earl of East Anglia. A lifetime ago!

  What else had he advised, that Easter day twenty-three years ago? Words that had been applicable as earl, but were become more poignant now, in this unanticipated high position. “In a position of power,” his father had said, “you very soon discover who are your friends and whom you can trust—or not. It is unfortunate that it is the “nots” who cause the most pain, come slower to the fore and are harder to unmask.” As earl, Harold had eventually discovered the men who had courted favour with him for their own gain; as king, more were slithering from beneath the stones, like worms and slugs on a rain-damp day.

  And the most meaningful advice? Harold checked his stallion as the animal stumbled over uneven ground, ran his hand soothingly down the arched crest. Nothing could totally prepare an honest man for power until the responsibility of it came. Harold was grateful for the wisdom, but regretted his father not being with him. How does a man who thought he had already reached the limits of his ability prepare for the ultimate test of kingship? The people of England—accepting and cheering him as his entourage passed by their farmsteadings and hamlets—would be the ones to suffer if he should get things wrong.

  The uncertainties had been there at the outset, when Council had asked this thing of him, but they had been overtaken by a quick breath of excitement, a gleam of wonderment, the gathering speed of unreality. It was too late to undo what had been done, but the doubts were crowding back, pushing and shoving from every direction. Again Harold stroked his hand along his stallion’s neck. Aye, he had found the chance to think, but were there not too many thoughts that he had deliberately set to one safe side? Could he carry the burden of this crown? Why had he not taken an easier option, agreed to be regent over Edgar? The accountability, the blame would then soon pass to the boy—nay, that was fool’s thinking! He had become king because the armies of England would not follow a boy into battle. Because Edgar could never outface Tostig when he tried for his earldom, nor William when he eventually tried for the throne.