I Am the Chosen King

by Helen Hollick

  Biting back an un-Christian word, Alditha wiped at frustrated tears that were threatening. Edyth? Damn, bloody Edyth! She would have noticed Harold’s illness before this, would not have allowed him to stay up so late talking with his brothers’ friends, would have brewed him herbs and tinctures. Oh, all the gods curse this wretched situation! Why in hell’s name had she met Harold that day beside the Severn river, when she was still but a girl? Why had her heart, from then, always lurched with a thrill of excitement whenever someone had mentioned his name? And then he had come into Wales and liberated her from that bastard tyrant she had been forced to call husband and lord, had taken her into England, where so often, after, she had seen him, watched him, A girl’s fancy she had thought. But it had proven more than that. When he had come to York as king, had taken her in marriage? She had not realised that such happiness existed.

  She again wrung cold water into the linen, laid it across his forehead. What in Thor’s fury was she to do? Edyth would know. Alditha squeezed her eyes tight shut, took several deep, calming breaths. Aye, Edyth would know, but Edyth was not here and was no longer his common wife.

  Quickly, before she changed her mind, she said, “I shall summon a litter and you shall be taken to Waltham. Edyth Swannhæls will know how to care for you. We shall say that you are journeying to your abbey to give thanks to God.”

  Harold stared at her, trying to read her thoughts. Had she really said that? Did she think so much of him that she was willing to send him to Edyth? It was going to be hard, the future, but he had to outface the difficulties. He could not, must not, allow himself to hurt this lass.

  “I promised I would not see her again, now that I am wed to you.” He attempted a laugh, the sound slurred by his stiffening jaw. “Despite the propaganda Normandy has attempted to spread about me, I am no oath breaker.”

  Putting a fingertip to his lips to silence him, Alditha answered him forthrightly. “I am your queen and wife, but Edyth remains your love. I have ever known that as the daughter of Ælfgar I would only be used as a means of securing an alliance. It was why I was married to Gruffydd. Why I am married to you. I at least know you are fond of me, and you offer me kindness and respect. Which is more than he ever did.” She took a shuddering breath, ploughed on. “I cannot, and do not, expect more from you. All I ask is that you do me no public dishonour, that whenever you go to Edyth, it will be with discretion.”

  With an effort—he was so damned tired—Harold patted the bed covers, gesturing for her to sit. He eased his arm around her, brought her body against his own. “That asking I will honour. I cannot deny that I shall always love Edyth, but I am growing to love you.” He brushed his fingertips against her cheek. “Let me sleep. Don’t wake me for a week and I shall be fine.” His smile was lopsided, his eyes drooping. At that moment, the weariness was so intense that he hardly cared if he never woke.

  He closed his eyes. Ah, by the God of mercy, this situation with these two women was not what he had wanted. The old king, Cnut, had had it the better, for he had ruled over two kingdoms separated by the entire North Sea, so could easily separate his first common-taken wife from the second legal one. One had been settled across the sea, the other, Emma, in England. A wise and fortunate man, Cnut.

  What if he were to attempt something similar? Eadwine and Morkere would welcome a tangible reminder that they were connected by blood and kinship to the crown—would most assuredly welcome a child born of their sister and the King within either of their earldoms. What if Alditha were to reside at York, for instance, rule the North in his name? He would be free to visit Edyth whenever he was in the South—autumn and winter, say—and reside at York for spring and summer. That way, too, he would have more control over the uncertainties of the North—and would reinforce his intention that Tostig was not, under any circumstances, going to have it given back. It was an idea worth pursuing—but after he had slept. He would think on it. Later.

  12

  Waltham Abbey

  Edyth Swannhæls sat within the September shadows of her husband’s abbey at Waltham. She was alone. Here at Waltham you could hear the silence of heaven if you discounted the noise of voices, rumbling carts and the braying and lowing of ass or ox filtering in from beyond the abbey wall. Earthly sounds, balancing this holy place.

  She gazed at the altar cloth, the fine silver psalter and candlesticks, the golden crucifix; then across to the carved, walrus-ivory reliquary caskets. All Harold’s generous donations. He had, by their giving, been assured of a place by God’s side, the Abbot had told him. Edyth smiled at the memory of Harold’s answer, that if eternal salvation was so easily bought, then heaven must be filled by arrogant and pompous aristocrats and rich merchantmen. Many of whom he despised intensely.

  The Church was so happy to receive expensive gifts. What, she wondered, had happened to the principle of poverty and humility? It was most certainly not a requisite for those who resided in Rome. Surely it could not be right that a wealthy man could do wrong but still be blessed, while a man of humble means, but with a clear conscience, had no chance of seeing heaven? Rome. She regretted thinking of Rome. The Pope, Alexander, was saying that a man ought only to have one, Christian-taken wife and that a husband must remain faithful to that one woman alone. She tilted her head, staring up at the vaulted beams spanning the high roof. The ideals of Rome were all very well, but England had always gone her own way—Rome was too far distant in mileage and awareness to control how things were done in England.

  Rome. Duke William had sent his eloquent liegeman Lanfranc to Rome to plead the case for his domination of England. She counted the Norman exaggerations on her fingers. One, pleading holy crusade to mask ambitious greed; two, declaring that her Harold had broken a sworn oath; and three, that Stigand of Canterbury, who had crowned Harold, was guilty of simony, having received his archbishop’s pallium from the hands of a now disgraced Pope, making the coronation invalid. All inaccurate. The oath Harold had over and again declared not binding, because it had been exacted from him by intimidation. Stigand had been blessed by a pope who, although later replaced, had at the time been considered as holy as this present wealth collector, Alexander, who had not thought it behoved him to discredit or remove Stigand before now—and besides, it had been Ealdred who had crowned Harold, not Stigand. Politics of convenience. Half-truths and manipulations.

  Harold ought to send a representative to Rome to rebut the false charges made by Normandy. Not that Alexander would listen. Not unless the messenger was accompanied by a chest of gold, double in weight to the one Lanfranc had, no doubt, taken with him. Nor would she have a chance to suggest it to the King.

  The King. Her feelings for Harold were so confused. Sad that they would no longer share their lives together. Fearful that she would endure old age alone. Envious of Alditha. Resentful. Proud, so very, fiercely, proud that he had been acclaimed as the most throneworthy of all men in England. Incongruously, she found it interesting that there could be so many emotions all tumbling at once within her head.

  The door at the western transept opened, creaking on its hinges. Footsteps: a man’s. She turned to see who had entered. Her son, Goddwin, was walking down the central aisle. He was so much like his father. Even down to the slight roll in his gait. His expression was serious as he genuflected to the altar, then sat beside her.

  “A messenger from Westminster has come to the manor. My brothers sent word to find you.”

  Edyth’s mouth ran suddenly dry, her body froze. What was wrong? Oh, God’s good grace, what had happened? “What, what is it?” she stammered.

  Goddwin did not answer at once. He stared, as his mother had, at the altar…“My father’s brother, Tostig, and the Hardrada from Norway have together entered the Humber; were, when urgent word was sent south from Earl Eadwine, running with the tide up the Ouse river.”

  Tostig. Determined to take back Northumbria.

  “So,” she
breathed, her initial panic that something else had happened, something terrible, fading. Yet once the reaction had eased she realised the implications. This news was, perhaps, worse than Harold falling ill or having an accident. It is war, then,” she said. “Your father will be going north to meet him.” She crossed herself, a prayer for his safety darting through her mind.

  Were she a man she would be running for her horse, making ready to go with him. She looked at her son, at the way he sat beside her, so quiet, his hands resting in his lap, head erect, staring in front of him.

  He cleared his throat. “I…” He released his breath in a rush of uncertainty. “I have decided that I shall be riding with him.” He spoke quickly, stopping his mother saying anything, objecting, attempting to make him change his mind. “I have been a fool these past years, nurturing childish passions of envy and jealousy. There is no room for such stupidity within a family.” He turned his head to regard Edyth, who had made no attempt to speak. “Tostig has shown me that. I will not allow my father to go to war against his own kindred without the support of his son.”

  She slid her hand over his, squeezed it, once. “You will be taking Edmund with you?” How could she say that so calmly, she wondered?

  Goddwin nodded. His eldest brother had been insistent upon it. “And Magnus,” he admitted. “We shall all three go north.” At Edyth’s stifled gasp he added, “Magnus is but fifteen. He will not fight, but I cannot stop him from riding with us.”

  Tightening her grip on his hand, Edyth fought down the rise of nausea that was cloying her throat and the scream that was there with it. No, that he could not, no more than could she.

  13

  Westminster

  Alditha could understand none of it. “He is your brother.”

  “Your father went against your grandfather—’tis not much different.”

  “But that was a family quarrel. My father rode into Wales in a temper because he could not get his own way. A temper that soon cooled once he realised his action was leading him nowhere except along a stonier path.”

  Holding hard to his patience, for there was much to do, Harold glanced up from the map he was studying and looked at his wife. Her eyes seemed bigger, her mouth wider, for despite carrying the child she had lost weight. Worry and stress. These months had not been easy for her. Harold snorted to himself: these years. She had been trundled from pillar to post, never treated with the devotion that she deserved.

  When he came back, when all this was sorted out, he would have the time to put that right. He would indeed send her to rule the North—a double chance to prove to Morkere and his brother, to the northern land-folk, that he was determined to fight his own brother in order to keep the peace and the laws of his kingdom. That a king’s sworn word would not be broken.

  “This, too, my love, is a family quarrel, one that has spread wider than the boundaries of normal sense. Jealousy is a dangerous weapon if allowed to grow out of proportion.”

  Crossing the bed-chamber—Harold was in her room, for it seemed the only place where he could find the blessed sanctuary of peace this busy day—she gazed at the map spread over her small dressing table. He had cleared it of the pots and phials, the brushes and combs, the precious silvered mirror. They all lay in a discarded heap atop the bed covers.

  “This is your intended route? The North Road, direct to York?” she asked, tracing the inked line of the road with her fingernail. It did not seem so long, two hundred or so miles, drawn thus on a parchment map. When she had travelled south from York as Harold’s new wife, it had taken the royal entourage almost four weeks to reach London. Admittedly, their progress had been slowed by the crowds that had come to greet them, and they had rested for several days at Nottingham and Leicester. Nor had that been the more direct route, but even so, an army marching could take all of two weeks to reach York.

  Reading the thoughts by the expression crinkling over her face, Harold explained, “We shall all be mounted. I take no infantry.” He pointed from London to York. “I hope to traverse the distance in seven or eight days at the most.”

  Her eyes widened. Could that be done? She opened her mouth to ask it, remembered Harold’s swift attack on Wales after her father had died and closed it again. Observed instead, “Tostig will not be expecting that.” As Gruffydd had not expected it.

  He leant forward and brushed his lips briefly against hers. “No, he will not.” He paused, studied the map again, before adding, “The messengers have given me an estimate of almost three hundred ships.” He resolutely turned his thoughts from the niggling horror that he might have to order his own brother hanged if he was not killed in battle. Too much to hope that he would see sense and turn aside from this venture. “We may face several thousand men. Hardrada will undoubtedly leave a rearguard for the fleet.” Harold wondered whether Alditha was interested in the details—Edyth would have been—and to his pleasure found that aye, she was.

  “My brothers have raised a defence, I assume?” she asked. “Have called out the fyrds of Northumbria and Mercia?”

  “That they have. Let us pray to God that they have already sent these seascum running back to their ships, as they did at their first attempt.”

  He lifted the map and rolled it. This day was the eighteenth of September. They were to leave London at dawn on the morrow. He was impatient to be mounted and going. If only they knew what was happening up there, how things were going—had gone.

  It would be much easier to learn that Tostig had already surrendered? Or been killed. Ducking the responsibility and shuffling around the consequences, aye, but so much damned easier!

  ***

  They left London, under the protection of Earl Leofwine and the boy Edgar, in the early hours of the morning. Others joined the King’s housecarls, the warrior elite, as they rode north. The experienced and the battle-scarred; the young with their swords new-oiled, spears new-shafted. Earl Gyrth came from East Anglia with his fyrd; Evesham Abbey and the Abbot Ælfwine of Ramsey readily sent the fighting men of their estates. Godric, thegn of Pagelsham in Essex, added forty of his best men to the column of horsemen…and Harold’s own three sons, Goddwin, Edmund and Magnus. Harold had openly admonished young Magnus’s determination, but had then ruffled the lad’s unruly fair hair and sent him to ride with the baggage boys. “Mind you earn your keep, lad,” he had ordered sternly. “No one comes along for the joy of the ride. You can groom my horses and clean the mud from my boots.”

  Magnus had grinned back at him. “Most willingly, Sir!”

  “And for me? What do you wish for me to do, Father?”

  It had been the first evening, camp had been set—a makeshift one; they stopped only for a few hours to give the horses a chance to graze and doze. There would be little sleep for the men. There had been no opportunity to talk before then, for the pace Harold set was a steady jogtrot and, as they rode, messengers had been continually clustered around the King, coming and going at a gallop.

  Goddwin asked his question, staring direct at Harold across the blaze of the campfire, one man to another. The shadowlight of the flames illuminated his father’s face: the high forehead, the straight nose, jutting chin. Goddwin was almost as tall as his father, but not as broad-shouldered; his eyes were a shade darker. He sat, resting his hand on the sword Harold had given him for his sixteenth birthing day. A fine weapon, well-crafted, with a clean blade that could bite the wind. He had not yet had the chance to use it beyond the practice field.

  Considering how to answer, Harold chose to tell the truth of it. “As your father I would ask you to mount your horse and go home before we smell and taste the salt of spilt blood, our own and theirs. To take your brothers with you.” He raised an eyebrow and began to stretch out his hand above the smoke scutter of the fire. “But as your King, I ask you to ride beside me, to fight”—he paused, grinned—“where I can keep a damned watchful eye over you!”

&n
bsp; He thrust his hand further forward, clasped it, palm to wrist, with his eldest, first-born son.

  “Strange,” Goddwin said, his own white-toothed grin matching that of his father, “but that is exactly what my mother ordered me to do for you!”

  Word of foreign ships in the Humber river had spread throughout the Middle Lands of England with the speed of a rushing wind. Men waited for the sound of the war horns: alert, ready, weapons set beside the doorplace, hauberks, war caps and byrnies checked for damage. Horses shod, bridle and saddle to hand. When the summons came, they rode out in ones and twos, met with others on the war trail, becoming four, eight, ten, twenty…came to swell the great army of men on their sturdy war ponies, heads and manes tossing, bridles jingling.

  Miles passed beneath their shod hooves. Rest for an hour during the noon of the day and then on again. Halt at dusk, the mounts watered and fed on a ration of good corn, allowed to graze; a few hours of snatched sleep for their riders, on again before the midnight hour came. And all the while, more and more men came up on to the North Road that had first been built by the red-crested legions of Rome.

  In places the surface was worn, potholes needed tending, the occasional collapsed bank or choked drainage ditch causing ankle-deep muck, but the English system of maintenance was long established and efficiently organised. Each town, each village was responsible for the upkeep of a designated section of the King’s highway, with heavy fines to pay if the work was not attended to.

  There was one blessing: the fyrd of Middle England had not been called for duty most of the summer, as they had in the South, where the patrols had been set in case William had come. Many a man, in addition to Harold himself, considered the irony of it. Ready and waiting for William to land in the South, only to march northwards, in the end, to meet Tostig and Hardrada.