She gestured to the gloriously rosy sky beyond the window opening.
‘Coloured with promise?’ he repeated, half in disdain, half in hope. Then suddenly he remembered something. ‘The oath! Harold swore the oath?’
‘He did, William.’
‘And then . . . ? I don’t remember. Why don’t I remember? Was I drunk?’
He looked at her incredulously and she shook her head.
‘Would that you had been. You’ve been ill, William, so very ill. It was like Adela. We thought we’d lost you. I had to call Mabel.’
‘Mabel?’ William pushed her gently back to look down at her. ‘You must have been worried.’
‘I was. Oh God, William, I was, though maybe she is not as bad as I feared. Not that Mabel is important right now.’ She clutched at his arms. ‘I love you. You do know that?’
‘I love you more.’
‘You do not.’
‘It’s the truth, Mathilda.’
‘No. It isn’t. You’re wrong. And I’m sorry if you thought that and I admit – if we must be truthful – that at times I maybe thought so too, but I was wrong as well.’
‘It doesn’t matter, Mathilda. You are worth more than me anyway.’
‘No!’ Mathilda hit at his chest and he flinched. ‘Oh Lord, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you? Are you well?’
‘Quite well. I’m not such a wreck yet that a titch like you can hurt me. Though I might lie back a little.’
She helped him settle on his pillows, tucking the pretty blue-green blanket over him and hovering until she was sure he was not relapsing.
‘You must listen now. You are worth more than most, William, and certainly more than me, for I am vain and selfish and frivolous.’
‘Frivolous maybe, but you are a woman – you are meant to be so. Life would be altogether too dull without.’
‘William, be serious.’
She could not believe she was talking to him like this. He had been so still and then so delirious. Was it really possible he was on the mend, or was she dreaming? She reached out to prod him.
‘Ow!’
Not dreaming then.
‘The point is, William, that there is not a person in the world who would not benefit from knowing you, nor a title you do not deserve.’
‘Including King of England?’
‘Definitely,’ she asserted then winced at the memory of her treacherous dance with the Saxon.
‘Mathilda? What is it?’
‘Truthfully?’
‘Of course.’
‘It is bad.’ He just waited. She gulped. ‘I told Harold that . . . that he would make a good king.’
He looked at her from his pillows, puzzled.
‘He probably would.’
‘But is that not disloyal of me?’
‘I know not. Did you say you would back him?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Then it is not disloyal.’
‘Oh, William! Will I ever understand you?’
‘I am very simple. And Harold, you know, could be king even if he has no royal blood but I’m not sure if he would last. He wins hearts easily, far more easily than I for he is all charm, but has he the steel to rule? He is too impetuous, I fear – he sees the fight before him, not the bigger picture. He is the same at tafel. He could beat me if only he would hold his nerve.’
‘Tafel, William? This is not a game.’
‘You think not? Nay, you are right, but it must still be played with skill. Harold is all heart, Mathilda, but is his mind sharp enough? He is best at someone’s right hand and I pray to God that he will be at mine for I like the man, truly I do. Oh, God, I am tired.’
‘I’m not surprised. Shall I leave you?’
‘Please don’t. I’m sorry you did not feel you could tell me. I tell you everything.’
‘You don’t.’
‘What?’ She clamped her lips shut. ‘Mathilda, what have I not told you?’
‘You did not tell me that you knew of my . . . my entanglement with Lord Brihtric.’
‘Brihtric? But you were a girl, Mathilda, and it was before I met you. It did not concern me. All girls have such weaknesses – look at Emeline.’
‘It was not like Emeline. A dance or two, no more.’
In truth, it had been far more, she could see that now, for the pretty ease of her time with the loose-limbed Saxon had hooked into her heart and kept her from giving it fully to her dear husband.
‘I must learn to dance,’ he said, as if seeing into her mind.
She grabbed at his hands.
‘No, you must not. It is not important.’
‘It is to you, so it is to me. I have been lax. It is not like me but I will learn.’
He half rose, as if he might take a turn immediately, and Mathilda put a firm hand on his chest.
‘Not right now you will not. You must get better.’
‘In bed?’
‘Yes.’
‘With you?’
‘I will stay of course, but not like that.’
‘Shame.’
She looked at him, astonished; he truly was strong.
‘You will improve very soon I’m sure,’ she said.
‘I will if you are my lure.’
‘Oh, William.’ She curled against him and this time, praise God, his arm tightened around her shoulders. ‘Why are you never unfaithful to me?’
‘What a question, Mathilda! It is very simple. It takes no great control or denial – I simply do not want anyone else.’
‘I am very lucky. I would have you always with me, you know; this dread night has shown me that.’
‘You did not know before?’
‘I was not sure enough. Goodness, William, how do you speak truth all the time? It is most uncomfortable.’
‘It is best.’
‘It is. Your dear mother told me once that it is dissembling that will lead to trouble and perhaps she was right.’
Mathilda shifted unhappily and glanced longingly towards the window through which she could see the early sun glinting promisingly across the pale sea.
‘There is more, Mathilda?’
She swallowed and forced herself to look back at him.
‘One thing more, though you may of course know it already.’
‘Know what? Come, my Mora, no more secrets, please. Know what?’
She ran a hand down his chest and sent the words after it.
‘That I was at Alençon.’
‘Alençon? No, I did not know that.’ She felt a flurry of pride that she had at least kept this from him but now he was shifting over, turning with a wince to look at her and all felt difficult again. ‘Where, Mathilda? And when?’
She drew in a shaky breath. She did not want to speak of it but she must. It was time. No more secrets.
‘I was in the trees, William. I’d come to tell you I was with child. It was foolish I suppose but you’d been at siege for so long and I thought the news might cheer you.’ She looked at him but he did not speak, just nodded her on. ‘We arrived just as your men were storming the city, so Roger said we had to stay back.’
‘Roger de Beaumont?’
‘Don’t be angry with him, William. I made him take me and he got me away as soon as he could but not before . . . before . . .’
‘You saw the men, the townsfolk?’ She nodded dumbly and saw his eyes fill with sorrow. ‘I am sorry for it. So many times I have thought over that, Mathilda. I was a madman that day.’
‘You did not look mad.’
‘Madness takes many forms. Mine was cold and hard like an ice-ball in my heart.’
‘Because they disrespected you?’
‘Because they disrespected my mother; because they thought her circumstances in life worth turning into ugly, thoughtless taunts; because they thought that doing so would crush me.’
‘Did it, William?’ she whispered.
He looked at her and she saw a tear in the edge of his dark eye, glinting like an Indian di
amond against the silver lights in his pupil.
‘A little,’ he whispered back, then cleared his throat. ‘And I could not have that. I am Duke of Normandy, Mathilda – I cannot be crushed. It is good for no one.’
‘Is that, then, why you cannot trust? Why, as Hugh once said, you always expect to be stabbed in the back?’ He paled and she felt instantly terrible. ‘It matters not,’ she said hastily but he reached out and touched her lips into silence.
‘It matters a great deal and I am sorry I have not told you before. I thought it was my own cross to bear.’ He paused looking into the bed-hangings as if they might leap up and twist around him, then he took her hand and grasped it hard.
‘I was fourteen, old enough to sleep alone, save that I was a duke and needed protection, so Lord Osbern, Fitz’s father, was always at my side. Not that he protected me that night, nor I him. Our enemies came in the darkest hour, Mathilda. Came all the way into the bedchamber but I did not wake. Can you believe it? I was old enough to have a sword beneath my pillow but not to draw it in time, though I have not made that mistake since.’
‘You sleep little, Husband.’
‘Some nights I barely sleep at all but at least I have you now. Watching you sleep is rest enough.’
‘Oh, William, I’m sorry. What happened?’
He gathered himself.
‘What do you think? They stabbed him. They stabbed him in the darkness, so I know not to this day if they intended to take him or me. The first I knew of it was my own name on his lips, the warning drowning in his dear blood. And then the light came, Mathilda – a jumble of panicked torches and candles. And that’s when I saw the true nature of treachery. I looked at my Lord Osbern’s body, ripped apart in the centre so violently that I could see his still heart nestling uselessly within his cracked ribcage, and I found out – a man’s enemies do not just want him gone, but hollowed out, emptied, made void. It has been hard, I fear, to trust anyone since.’
There was nothing to say. Mathilda felt lost in the pity of him carrying this weight around all this time. No wonder he and Fitz were close if they were bonded by this terrible grief.
‘Thank you,’ she said eventually. ‘I think, perhaps, I understand you a little better now.’
He laughed softly.
‘Oh, Mathilda, it does not take a shared past to know each other but a shared future. You have always understood me, for you are like me.’
That again. She looked at her husband, strangely vulnerable on his pillows, and forced herself to think about it. William was ambitious, as was she. He was quick to make decisions and strong in acting upon them, as was she. He was curious about the world and keen to take a part in shaping it, as was she. She was like him and she’d been a fool to deny it all these years, to be ashamed to be the same as him. Judith had seen it. Fitz knew it and William of course, William had seen it from the start. Only she had been blind, chasing notions of sweet-tuned romance.
‘We are partners, William.’
He smiled.
‘We are, though I did not know before I found you that I needed such a thing. I thought I could do it alone but I was wrong. I could hold Normandy’s enemies at bay but I could not grow her as we have grown her together. And without you I definitely could not . . .’
‘Rule England? Well, you do not have to, for I am here. I will always be here, and we will rule England together.’
‘And rule her well.’
‘As well as we are able.’
‘And as they will let us.’
She stared at him. It was a chilling thought but not one for now. He was pale and there were still high spots of colour on his cheeks.
‘You must rest,’ she said firmly, ‘and I must go and tell all of Normandy that her prayers are answered and you are well again.’
‘All of Normandy?’
‘Of course. She loves you, William, as I love you. Now, rest. I will go and pray.’
She kissed him and slid out to find Fitz and Fulk and Mabel and all the others but at the door she looked back and saw William, her dear William, staring at the ceiling, his eyes darting about as if watching his own thoughts and she remembered what Fitz had said – ‘he never rests’. Maybe that, like so much else today, was true. Or maybe once he was king it would be different. She prayed so, for he was a good man. Theirs was not a romance, perhaps, not a soft, giddy, giggling love, but a hard, real, truthful one, solid as a rock. And that, she knew at last, was worth so much more.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Caen, December 1065
‘I prostrate myself humbly before you, Duke William.’
‘Humbly?!’ Judith flinched as William looked down at Torr, no longer an earl but an exile. ‘I do not believe, Torr, that you have ever done anything humbly in your life.’
‘I have seen the error of my ways, Lord Duke.’
‘You have been shown the error of your ways, Torr. It is not the same thing.’
Torr shifted uncomfortably and Judith watched, wishing she could feel sorry for him but not finding it within herself after the last months of horror. She had told her husband not to come to Normandy, had told him William would not welcome them, but he had not listened. He never listened any more, not since the rebels had cast him – and her – out of Northumbria. She shivered and tried to keep her mind in the present.
The fortress at Caen was sumptuously decorated, she noted. Mathilda had obviously been busy, for the drapes and tapestries were new and there was even fabric upon the floor. It must be cushioning Torr’s knees, but only a little. Still William kept him there and still Judith watched, one arm around Karl, now a strong eleven year old, and the other holding three-year-old Skylar on her hip. Tostig had tried hard to have this second boy named for himself, then suggested Baldwin and even Godwin but Judith had insisted on another solid Northumbrian name. She had never truly been a part of any family but this, her own, and she’d wanted to start it anew. She wanted that still.
‘I told you, Torr, when you were last here – what did I tell you?’ William was talking to Torr as simply as to a child, which was probably fair.
‘You told me, Duke William, that if I swore allegiance to you as England’s next king before King Edward’s death, you would promise me Wessex – so here I am, ready to swear.’
William held up a single finger.
‘Very kind of you, Torr, and good attempt but, no, I did not say “before King Edward’s death”. I asked for your oath there and then and you chose not to give it. That was your right, as I also said, but I insisted – insisted, Torr – that you were not to ask again. Did you not think I meant it?’
‘Circumstances change, Lord Duke.’
‘But allegiance should not.’
‘I can help you, truly. I have much to offer.’
William strolled casually around Torr.
‘Like what?’
Judith glanced to Mathilda, sat neatly on her grand seat behind William, and felt guilty. Here she was scorning Torr for trying to change sides but had she not done the same? Had she not turned her back on her cousin and friend, been rude to her, wished her ill, and all out of what – petty jealousy? She deserved this humiliation as much as Torr.
‘Like what?’ William pressed.
‘Like ships, Lord Duke.’
‘From where?’
‘I have money.’
‘Gained, I gather, from the lords of the north – the ones who threw you out of your own earldom for bleeding them dry.’
‘Money all the same,’ Torr said boldly.
‘I have money enough, Torr. What else?’
‘My family’s influence.’
‘Your family who presided over the trial that saw you driven from England?’
‘That was just Harold,’ Torr spat.
‘Harold, the Earl of Wessex and King Edward’s most trusted advisor?’
‘Harold who will be king.’ William sucked in his breath and Judith saw Torr’s shoulders straighten as he sensed William’s inte
rest. ‘They are calling him “sub regulus” in England, you know. It means . . .’
‘I know what it means, but who are calling him “under-king”?’
‘It is on charters. I have seen them.’
Judith watched as Mathilda went to William’s side, clasping his arm as tenderly as if they were newlyweds. William looked to her and they whispered something close together, then he turned back to Torr.
‘This is good news, Torr, for Harold is sworn to me and I will have need of a sub regulus when the time comes.’
Torr laughed, a hard, sharp bark of derision that made William’s guards go for their swords. The rasp of blades leaving scabbards echoed around the hall and Judith flinched and drew her sons closer. Her husband, however, stood slowly, deliberately, and looked straight at William.
‘You know less than you think of England, Duke William, or maybe choose to avoid your own knowledge. Harold is saying his oath to you was false – made under duress. All Saxons talk of him as the next king and even now he will be marrying.’
‘Marrying?’
‘You have not heard? Oh dear, William, your spies grow lax.’
‘Marrying whom?’
‘I want Wessex.’
‘I know you do. You will not get it from me.’
‘Because you promised it to Harold? How sweet. You say what you mean, William, and that’s very honourable but sadly it blinds you to the reality that other men do not. Not everyone plays the game straight, you know. Harold is not your friend; indeed Harold is your greatest enemy.’
‘Marrying whom, Torr?’
Torr looked round as William’s men drew closer and thankfully chose not to defy him further.
‘Edyth of Mercia, widow of King Griffin of Wales and sister to Edwin, Earl of Mercia, and Morcar, newly Earl of Northumbria.’
‘Your replacement?’
‘My replacement, maybe, but a danger to you too.’
William seemed to consider this and Judith felt a shudder of dread. She had told Torr that this mission to William would be a waste of time but she hadn’t realised until this moment how much she had relied on that being so. She was fed up of power-games. Mathilda used to tease her when they were younger about wanting a quiet life but was that really such a poor goal?
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