The Last English King

by Julian Rathbone

  He called the clerk who had remained with the housecarls a spare twenty paces behind him.

  ‘Write me a note,’ he said, ‘bidding my lord bishop of London to come to me as soon as he can. I want him to say vespers with me and then consult privately on a matter of some importance.’

  He walked slowly back to his hall, stumbling more often now as the too familiar weariness descended upon him, head-bent and fingering beads at each one of which it was said he murmured the Paternoster and a new prayer to the Blessed Virgin, beginning Ave Maria - Hail Mary. The fact was though that he just fiddled with them when he was tired, irritated or anxious.

  He climbed the stairs again, pulled back the curtain, a fine tapestry depicting the laying of the footings for his abbey under his direction, with angels swooping above, and stretched himself out on his bed. Yes, he was weary in the afternoon, long before a man in good health should be, and his mouth had dried up with that damned thirst. There was a pitcher of water by the bed and a leather cup. He hoisted himself up again and drained it three times, although the water was brackish and carried the slightly musty taste it had picked up from standing too long in unglazed clay, but he felt better.

  In none of this did any of his servants attempt to interfere. Two decades ago their predecessors had learnt to come only when called for and had felt the force of his temper if they tried to pre-empt his wishes. The lesson had been passed on, though the King’s temper had become less wilful and fierce with age.

  Again he lay on the bed, and this time pulled a coverlet up to his chin, and, still meditating on the doctors’ diagnosis, thought back over the years, and as the visions and memories came he tossed and turned, and occasionally sucked his thumb, sometimes chewed on his knuckles to choke back a cry. Bitterness and anger were at the root, bitterness and anger against Godwin and the Godwinsons. Not to mention Edith, the old monster’s daughter.

  Chapter Twelve

  1042. Harthacanute, son of Canute, was a drunk, and died of a stroke while drinking. He left several possible successors to the throne. One, his half-brother, was Edward, later the Confessor. The other was also Edward, Edward the Atheling or Prince, the son of Edmund Ironside and grandson of Ethelred the Unready or Redeless -- he who would not take advice. Edward, later the Confessor, was actually Ethelred s son -- but by his second wife, Emma of Normandy. He, however, was there, in England, when Harthacanute died, and he was nearly forty years old; whereas the Atheling was in exile in Hungary, and still a stripling.

  Under English law the Witan, the supreme council of the land, was the final arbiter, and by custom chose not necessarily the most direct in line, but the candidate most suitable for the job. The succession remained unsettled through the winter of 1042-43. The Witan was dominated by two factions -- Godwin and his sons in the south and Siward and Leofric, Earls of Northumberland and Mercia, in the north. By getting their own personal choice on to the throne, each faction hoped to be rewarded with the lands and earldoms of the other.

  Godwin backed Edward, later the Confessor, but there was a snag. Eight years earlier, when Canute died, Godwin, who had ruled England in Canute’s name during Canute’s campaigns in Scandinavia, won the favour of Harold Harefoot, who was Canute’s eldest son and first heir, by blinding and causing the murder of Edward’s elder brother Alfred, thus clearing the way for Harefoot’s succession and brief reign. The murder of his elder brother was the first reason why Edward’s relations with the Godwins remained ambiguous at best.

  Since there was no king, and Winchester was the old capital of Wessex, and Godwin was Earl of Wessex, the mead-hall at Winchester was, in effect, Godwins hall. Edward, unattended, was kept waiting at the great door. It was cold, the ground like iron, horse-shit like brown stones, the frozen puddles sprinkled with fine snow. Above the palisade he could see the squat grey stone of the old minster. God, he thought, deserved something better and, when he was king, God would get something better. Either here or in London. He had, however, already learnt to admire and indeed be moved by the Winchester school of painting and illumination. It flowed, was real, had feeling. He’d commission something from them when it was in his power to do so, a full bible, something like that. Then, just as the cold was getting to him, the door behind opened.

  ‘Earl Godwin asks you to come in.’

  A lacquey? A servant? or a thegn? It was hard to tell with these English. In armour, yes, or garbed for a feast or a festival, the rich and powerful stood out all right - but day-to-day they slouched around in the same drab clothes, often grubby, that their servants wore.

  He followed the man up the central nave of the hall between the squared pillars of oak that supported the high roof. Much of the considerable space was dark, but warm. Small charcoal braziers were set at intervals all the way and right in the centre there was a much larger one - so hot that the iron basket glowed and Edward and his guide had to skirt it by several feet. Not only did the charcoal burn hot, it gave off no smoke. Charcoal, though principally used for metal smelting, was a luxury most could afford in England with its still abundant oak and alder forests. In Normandy, where metal smelting, particularly for the making of armour and the forging of weapons, was a far more important industry, Normans burnt wood, breathed smoke and stank of it. Edward had spent most of his life in Normandy, the guest of the Dukes, his mother’s nephews and cousins. In England, as Ethelred’s son, he was always a threat to Canute and his Danish dynasty. Consequently, by upbringing and inclination, Edward was more Norman than Saxon -- and remained so until the day he died.

  Thirty or so housecarls, most of them young, played dice, chequers, drank ale, and occasionally squabbled. Large dogs shifted about and scratched themselves. The air was heavy, foetid with heat, damp, and the smells of beer and mutton fat. Somewhere, someone strummed a harp, accompanying a melancholic though melodic lament played on a block-flute. Edward, out of habit, passed a cursory glance over the more youthful faces he could see, or lissom figures, but none caught his attention enough to make him want to pause. They all looked so grubby.

  At the far end of the hall ladder-like steps climbed to an upper chamber. The servant, whatever, motioned to them.

  Edward climbed the steps and pushed the tapestry aside. Tall and thin as he was he had to stoop to get beneath the lintel. The room he was now in was better lit than the hall below. The plastered walls were washed with plain white; there was also a small glazed window set beneath the gable. There was a lowish table in the middle on which stood simple clay jugs filled with mead and wine, a lot of broken bread, a couple of half-finished chicken carcases and a large cheese. There were bone-handled knives too, the single-edged seaxes the English favoured for pub-brawls or indeed anything less serious than a battle. The floorboards were covered with straw.

  Above the table and more or less in the middle Godwin slouched across an arm-chair, elbow on one arm, hand with forefinger against his chin, supporting his big head. His left hand fiddled with one of the knives, used the bone handle to tap quietly to the rhythm of the harp below. His dark hair was grizzled, his brows met above a nose which was just beginning to show signs of dissipation, his dark eyes were a touch blood-shot. But for the rest, at forty-two, his strong, thickset body and ruddy, scarred hands showed little sign of being beyond their prime.

  ‘Prince Edward. You know my sons. Sweyn, Harold, Leofwine. Tostig will be here shortly. Take a seat.’

  There was only one available, a four-legged stool, lower than the chairs. Edward sat on it, careful to show no awareness that he was being humiliated, intimidated even: after all, this man had murdered his brother. He looked over the devil’s cubs. Although he had been part of Harthacanute’s court for over a year, he had not seen them often, and conversed with them hardly at all. Tostig and Leofwine he had not even met. The Earls remained for the most part on their own estates, coming only to court for meetings of the Witan or to receive special commissions or demands from the King. And when they had been around it was not, after all, surprisi
ng that this lot had kept their distance.

  Edward looked at them now. Sweyn, twenty-two, dark like his father, but leaner, taller, handsome apart from a pock-marked face, the result of youthful eczema which even now the youngest, Leofwine, just fifteen years old, was suffering from. But there was a meanness about Sweyn, even a whiff of evil, a hint of hell. Leofwine, however, with his spots, was a youth, no more, not yet-fully formed in character or physique and so, to Edward, uninteresting.

  That left Harold, just nineteen years old. His hair was clean, well-groomed, dark brown but with red and gold lights in it: perhaps he took after his mother, Gyrtha, who was Danish, related by marriage to Canute. His eyes were greyish blue. From beneath dark brows they focused on Edward with an expression that was both cool yet interested, curious even. Edward judged him to be intelligent rather than merely cunning - and so perhaps the one most to be feared. Since there was not a hint of vulnerability in him, Edward felt not the slightest tremor of desire.

  Godwin, his voice deep and a touch rasping, was speaking.

  ‘Let’s get to the nub. You want to be king.’

  Edward took a breath, forced himself to keep calm, sound in control. He even managed a shrug and a sort of laugh.

  ‘I have to be king,’ he said. ‘If I am not, I shall have to go back into exile. But Normandy is closed to me, at least until William is secure. I could join the Atheling in Hungary, I suppose. Though I doubt we’d get on. But I have come to like this country and would prefer to stay.’

  ‘Could you stay and not be king?’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘You did with Harthacanute.’

  Edward shrugged.

  ‘I was his prisoner,’ he said. ‘And he would have found a way of . . . dealing with me as soon as he took me for a danger.’

  Godwin sighed and shifted in his seat.

  ‘So,’ he repeated, ‘you would be king.’

  He leaned forward, stabbed a piece of cheese with his seax, placed it on a crust of bread, chewed on it, belched, drank from his cup, looked up over it.

  ‘And how are you going to arrange that?’ he asked.

  Edward felt a small surge of confidence. It dawned on him that these gangsters were the ones who were selling, laying out their stall - no matter how much they tried to make it appear otherwise, that was the case. They needed him at least as much as he needed them. Indeed, if he chose to go into exile they could well be in - and here Edward, English as he was, remembered in his head to use the Anglo-Saxon word -- shit.

  ‘God will find a way,’ he murmured, with a serenity that was not entirely assumed.

  Harold suddenly found reason to glance down at the hands laced in front of him. Godwin and Sweyn looked confused. Godwin placed the pommel of his knife abruptly on the table without letting go of the haft, his eyes rose, focused on something beyond Edwards head, and then went blank.

  ‘God,’ he growled, ‘has fuck-all to do with it.’

  Silence. A dog yapped, kicked perhaps by a bored housecarl, the harp and the flute played on. And then suddenly stopped. Those in the upper room heard a high laugh, feet on the stairs and the curtain was pulled back.

  The most beautiful young man Edward had ever seen posed on the threshold and then came in, letting the curtain swing to behind him.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Dad,’ and he slapped Godwin on the shoulder. ‘And you must be Prince Edward, or should I say . . . Sire,’ and he bowed neatly from his waist.

  Tostig was twenty-one years old. He had long hair the colour of ripe wheat tied back with a hinged gold clip or amulet so the body of it fell down his back. Unlike the others he was dressed with some style in a short blue cloak fastened on the right shoulder with an old-fashioned dragon brooch, the dragon contorted into an abstract pattern, gold with garnet inlay. His jerkin was crimson wool, belted with studded leather to show a marked waist. The clasp was as ornate as his brooch. His thighs were strong but rounded, in fine woollen leggings, his hands were strong too but with long, expressive fingers. All in all his body promised the suppleness of a hazel bough. But it was his face . . . the face of a mischievous angel, high-browed, straight-nosed, with angel lips that turned up at the corners promising perpetually an unrealized grin which already lit wide-spaced eyes. These shifted from green to topaz depending on the light. His cheeks were flushed a little with the cold, indeed you could smell its freshness still on him.

  ‘I have a new Barbary colt, a roan, just brought up from Southampton; God, he’s magnificent, I just had to see him. Forgive me . . .’ his eyes shone round the room, lit on Edward. I know you will.

  The Prince’s tongue flickered between his lips and he dropped his head in something more than a nod, less than a bow.

  ‘Well,’ Tostig went on, ‘you managed without me. All settled?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Godwin snapped.

  ‘Oh come!’ He dropped to his haunches by Edward’s side, put one hand on the table, the other on Edward’s knee. ‘King, exile, or die. Yes? Of course you’d rather be king. But until you are king you have no army, no support, no following, no one is bound to you by oaths, you can’t stir without support.’

  Without rising, his head swung to face his father across the table.

  ‘And you, sir. If you don’t get Edward’s arse on the throne then old Siward and Leofric,’ he glanced back at Edward, put on a northern accent, ‘our friends from oop North,’ turned back to his father, ‘will get in a Dane or a Norseman, someone with old Canute’s blood in him, and you know what they’ll claim for reward when it’s all settled? Do I have to tell you?’

  Edward, confused and quite carried away by the young man’s energy and lightness could scarcely shake his head, but Godwin knew, though Tostig, crowing like a cock, provided the answer . . .

  ‘Why, their reward will be Wessex . . . East Anglia . . . Kent . . . the Thames-side shires ... do I have to go on?’

  ‘Can we stop you?’ Sweyn at last spoke or rather grunted.

  ‘Oh, let’s have it all out in the open. Much better, don’t you think . . . Sire?’ He flashed a mocking smile up at Edward. His teeth were white and even.

  They all looked at each other, lopsided grins appeared on the faces of Godwin and the three Godwinsons, then they shrugged, waited.

  ‘Much better,’ Edward said at last, ‘much better.’

  Godwin again let out a long sigh, this time of relief.

  ‘Leofwine,’ he said and waved towards the jugs and cups, ‘do the honours.’

  They drank but still eyed each other suspiciously over the rims of their cups.

  ‘Oh what a lot of grumpy old men you are,’ cried Tostig. ‘Look, just get a couple of clerks in, draw up a document of intent and then we can all have a good time. Meanwhile I’m going back to my Barbary roan . . . he’s sort of sorrel with very fetching white patches and as skittish as a kitten . . .’ He paused on the threshold. ‘Edward, I know you’re a fine horseman, that you love hunting, wouldn’t you like to come and see him?’

  Edward stood, Godwin waved a hand of acquiescence. He and his sons waited, heard the clatter of steps on the stairs, then, moments later, the thump of the great door at the far end of the hall. Then:

  ‘I think that went off very well,’ murmured Harold, and slowly at first all four began to laugh, building up a huge storm of laughter, knocking jugs and cups about as they clung to each other in paroxysms of laughter.

  Through it Godwin managed to splutter: ‘Cockqueans, fuck-ing cockqueans! That I should father such a cockquean!’

  Chapter Thirteen

  When they arrived the colt, a two-year-old, unbroken and skittish, was nuzzling at a bucket of corn held by a groom. As soon as Tostig and Edward leant on the top poles, the colt’s head came up, knocking the groom in the stomach and sending him arse over tip, and the bucket spinning over the frozen ground. He then backed off, eyes rolling, showing the whites, bucking and neighing.

  ‘Well, he’s a pretty boy, but he’s got to learn to behave
. . .’

  Tostig swung himself over the fence, picked up a long raw-hide whip the groom had taken into the corral with him, and advanced on the colt which backed off again, pawing at the ground, snorting, showing its teeth. Tostig felt a firm hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Let me,’ Edward murmured. ‘You go and sit on the fence for a moment. Take the whip with you.’

  Face flushed and with some impatience, Tostig did as he was told. It had been his intention to impress this mild, middle-aged man for whom he had no real respect at all, with his bravery, firmness and mastery. He had it in mind that Edward’s particular taste might be for correction, it was often the way with devout, ascetic people, and that he might be aroused at the sight of Tostig giving his new colt a good hiding. But above all he knew he had to please the future king, and that meant doing as he was told.

  Edward began a slow walk round the ring. The colt shied, stood still, shied again, snorted, shook his tail. Already his movements lacked conviction. Edward moved slowly, keeping always level with the colt’s shoulder and angling his body slightly away from him. In that position he was a presence in the corner of the colt’s left eye and, because of his stance, one that did not threaten.

  After three or four turns Edward increased the length of his stride but still kept his body and head angled away from the colt, which now stopped and let him pass. It stood still for a moment, as though weighing up this new situation, but then as Edward straightened his body its own head dropped a little and it began to follow him. Within twenty minutes Edward had his left arm over the colt’s neck and was allowing it to nibble a carrot the groom had given him out of his right hand. Then he climbed back over the fence.

  ‘That’s enough for today,’ he said in a voice that was not harsh but expected to be obeyed. ‘Tomorrow we’ll get a neck-halter on him and the day after a saddle. You’ll be able to ride him within a week.’

  Tostig eased himself off the top pole and landed a foot in front of him. He took Edward’s face in his hands and kissed him briskly on the lips.