Of the Ring of Earls (Conqueror Trilogy Book 1)

by Juliet Dymoke

  He thought no more of Judith – that was over and though he longed to see Maud and Alice, yet they were little, their lives scarcely begun and they could grow to womanhood without him. Ambition had gone too; the great earldom of Northumbria had brought him little pleasure and he relinquished all thought of ruling his lands again – just to live in the open once more would be enough. Slowly a new peace settled on him for some instinct seemed to tell him that release was near and he sat in his cell expectant, waiting.

  Hakon said to Thorkel, ‘Have you seen? He is changed, his eyes are brighter. He speaks of Croyland again.’

  ‘I know,’ Thorkel answered, but there was an odd expression on his face, ‘yet I fear for him. It is as if God is giving him strength for . . .’

  ‘No,’ Hakon cried sharply, ‘don’t say it – don’t! Oh, God, will we never go home again?’

  ‘We will all go home again – sometime,’ Thorkel was staring into the blue distance where a warm summer haze lay on the trees, ‘but how, we cannot tell. A man may go where he would in other ways than in the body.’

  ‘I don’t understand you.’ Hakon shook his head. Poets! he thought, they were not like other men. For all Thorkel could fight as well as any of them, he inhabited half the time a world of his own and to Hakon, who lived simply, tending the horses he loved, the Icelander only seemed to make life more complex. But they were wholly united now in their one anxiety and Thorkel put a hand on his shoulder and smiled a little.

  ‘Keep your hope alight, Hakon, you give strength to us all.’

  And Hakon flushed with pleasure, for his grief had been that he could do nothing for his lord.

  His sturdy partisanship communicated itself to them all and they began to talk more cheerfully of pardon and a message coming from the King before he must leave for Normandy.

  And on the eve of Whit Sunday when the bolts were drawn on the door, Waltheof himself turned with something like his old eagerness to see if at last the long awaited release had come.

  It was the Archbishop of Canterbury who stood there, his clothes powdered with dust from the dry roads, his face grey with fatigue and a grief that could not be hidden.

  ‘My lord . . . Waltheof rose eagerly. And then he stopped and for what seemed a long while they looked at each other with no words spoken.

  After the Archbishop had gone he sat on his pallet, not attempting to sleep. He had received the tidings with a strange calm as if he had known all along that William would never let him go, and they spoke quietly together of death and life, of God and heaven and man’s last end. Then Lanfranc had shriven him, blessed him and gone, promising to return in the morning with the Holy Sacrament, very early. The soldiers feared the townspeople might riot and attempt a rescue, Lanfranc said, and would be coming for him before the town was awake.

  So there was to be no time – no time to see Thorkel again, nor Richard, nor Hakon, for when they came tomorrow he would have taken the swan’s path, following his father and Osbeorn, Harold, Leofwine, Alfric, Ulf . . .

  By leaning on his elbow he could just see the sky and a few stars. It was a clear moonlight night, although he could not see the moon, and his countryman’s knowledge told him that it would be a fine day tomorrow. Ah, tomorrow would be that May day whose dusk he would not see, and he remembered talking of it on a winter’s night with Thorkel long ago in Durham. Had he known then, had some instinct told him that for him life must end in May, the time he loved above all? And now, sharply, his calm was broken and every nerve in his body throbbed in fearful anticipation.

  Of what use to talk of heaven? Heaven held no appeal for him, only earth and of earth England, and of England Ryhall with its pleasant woods and meadows, its quiet river and fields of new green corn. If he could only go home, only once more, if he could see his house, eat in his hall with Bors lying by the fire, sleep in his chamber, touch the shutters, feel the familiar things, smell the baking in the kitchens, hear Mass in the little church. Nothing remained of all that had been his but the white bearskin and he clutched it to him – under it he had been conceived and now it would cover him on his last night on earth and he buried his face in it as the only familiar thing left to him.

  Of the treachery, the betrayal, the very irony of it all, he could no longer think. Whatever had brought him to this point, it was this pinprick of time that mattered. Once he had been in grace – he knew it – but now, what use all the prayers of the last months for God had not heard him and he knew an inconceivable depth of spiritual darkness.

  ‘Christ! Christ, help me!’ He let the bearskin go and fell on his knees. The words, wrenched from him in anguish, brought no comfort, only a sudden memory of a painting on the wall of the church at Ryhall, picturing the garden of Gethsemane, the agony of the night spent there. Only the very fact that there was no relief, no comfort, nothing but unspeakable pain, gave him a sense of participation.

  Somewhere in the night the anguish and the darkness yielded to sleep and from this he awoke at dawn to see the Archbishop standing before him in surplice and stole, a chalice in his hand. A gleam of early sunlight striking some bright spear or helm in the courtyard was by a trick of light reflected through the narrow window and catching the gold of the chalice turned it to red-gilt fire. He knelt then and as he lifted his hands, palms together, the sudden light, the Host lying there as if burning with love, flung him at last headlong into those Arms which last night he had sought in vain. And the bitter grief of the dark hours was as if it had never been.

  Richard de Rules, lying half-drugged by sleep, was roused early by a pounding on the door and he staggered to the window to look down into the narrow street.

  Athelais was awake now, pushing the hair from her face. ‘What is it? Oh, what is it?’ as the knocking became louder.

  ‘It is Hakon,’ Richard said. An icy fear gripped his stomach so that he turned dizzy with it. ‘He looks half wild.’

  He flung his tunic over his head and went hastily out of their chamber. His servant was already unbarring the door and Hakon pitched in, his face ashen and all blotched with tears.

  ‘It is over,’ he cried. ‘They have done it. I ran – all the way – up the hill. I saw . . .’ He lurched away from Richard back to the door and leaning against it was violently sick.

  ‘God!’ Richard said. ‘Oh, God!’ He went to Hakon and held his head. When the retching had ceased he brought him in again and sat him at tire table. Athelais had come in now and, trembling so much that she spilled it, she managed to pour water and bring it to Hakon.

  He drank, his teeth chattering against the little bowl and Richard asked hoarsely, ‘How – how could it be, and we not know of it?’

  ‘The Archbishop came – last night, I think – the King must have sent him with the warrant,’ his voice was choked with tears, ‘I went to find Outy this morning – it being Sunday when we usually . . .’ he broke off, a hand to his mouth. ‘Oh, Jesu!’

  ‘Go on,’ Richard said, ‘go on, for the love of God.’

  ‘We – went to the tower – the door was open – and for a moment I thought- – I thought they had let him go . . .’

  Athelais burst into tears and Richard put his arm about her, holding her tightly.

  Hakon went on, shaking as if he had an ague. ‘They – they said he had been taken to that hill, Winton’s they call it, high above the town – and we ran all the way. I – I thought we would never get there, but – he was still at his prayers. We meant to fight – rescue him – but there were so many soldiers.’

  If only we had tried sooner, Richard thought in an agony of remorse. Aloud he asked, ‘And he – how did he . . .’

  The tears were running wildly down Hakon’s face now. ‘He looked – I can’t tell you, but I shall never forget – he kept staring all round at the hills and the woods and . . .’ he gave up trying to find words to express what he had seen. ‘There were a few poor people there – men early about their business who had followed and he had given them his Earl’s robes.
Then he saw us – and he smiled at us as if he were at home and we just in from hunting. He asked us to say a Pater with him and I tried, but – I could not say “Thy will be done.” I shut my eyes and then – before he had finished – I heard the sound – when you whirl an axe in the air.’ He put his head down on the table and sobbed.

  Athelais had her face hidden against Richard’s shoulder and he held her to him, his other arm about Hakon. No tears came to relieve his own grief; instead he felt as though for very sorrow part of himself was diminishing, turning already to that dust to which he and all men must return. And in that first intolerable grief there was a further bitter sorrow, a shame that William his lord had done this thing.

  Yet above all something about the picture Hakon had given of that moment on Winton’s hill drew from him a pride and a love that exceeded even the friendship he had felt for the living man.

  Presently Hakon was quiet. He raised his head and said, ‘The odd thing was – afterwards – I, all of us, heard him say the last line of the prayer.’

  ‘Holy mother of God!’ Richard crossed himself. ‘Are you sure?’ And when Hakon nodded, he added, ‘Then God was surely with him.’

  ‘All the people were amazed,’ Hakon said, ‘the word had gone round and they are streaming out of the town now, up the hill, so many people – to pray him into heaven.’

  For a moment Richard could not speak, then he said, ‘We will go too,’ and because he was a practical man, he thought next of what he might do for his dead friend, and the care of his men seemed of first importance. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘On the hill. Thorkel was not there until afterwards – he came running – but it was too late.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  Hakon shivered. ‘He is sitting by the grave they are digging in the grass – I think he is crazed. He is singing a dirge, a burying song in his own tongue,’ a shudder ran through him, ‘I never heard the like of it.’

  ‘And Outy?’

  ‘I don’t know. When I came for you, he was gone – none of us knew what we were doing – but I thought he would come here.’

  Richard shook his head. ‘We must go out and look for him, poor fellow.’

  But they never found the old man. Late that afternoon two lads from the town went fishing in the little river Itchen and saw something floating and caught in the reeds by the bank. Parting the silvery green fronds of willow that overhung the water they pulled it clear and took from the river the body of Outy Grimkelson.

  EPILOGUE

  JULY 1076

  Now marshy Croyland boasts her patron’s tomb,

  Where, living, oft he came an honoured guest . . .

  Waltheof’s epitaph by Orderic Vitalis

  Brother Edric, sacristan of Croyland Abbey for more than twenty years, was tidying the altar after the early Mass when he heard the whine of the west door. Had they started coming already? All day long and every day for the past weeks the pad of feet had echoed in the church, even when the brethren were singing the office – from landowners and freemen and down to the meanest serf they came to kneel before the new tomb to pray for the soul of the man who lay beneath the stone. A fine tomb it would be, built and adorned by the Lord of Deeping and his lady, richly decorated, the mason still at work on the flowers and leaves that surrounded the canopy of stone. The alms box had been full last night and would be so again today, he shouldn’t wonder. And yesterday a man who had had an ulcer on his leg for a year or more prayed at the tomb and returned in the evening to say that the ulcer was healing fast. He showed his leg to the brothers and no one could deny it. A miracle, he called it, and Brother Edric thought perhaps that they might have another saint lying within the walls of Croyland. Saint or not, the Earl had been their greatest benefactor and it seemed that even in death he would still be so.

  Having finished the altar Brother Edric retreated down the steps and genuflected. He saw then that his Abbot was still sitting in his stall, unmoving. The Abbot, he thought, was much changed, an old man now. Sometimes he hardly seemed to hear what one said, he forgot to answer questions and barely ate enough to keep life in his body. Brother Edric sighed, thinking of the years before the Normans had come, when their little house had prospered, when the Abbot was vigorous and upright and the Earl had sat in their schoolroom learning his lessons – a fine boy he had been, with thick fair hair and those deep-set grey eyes knowing nothing of guile or deceit. It was sad to be old, Edric thought, but sadder still not to have the chance to be old at all.

  He walked towards the sacristy door, silent in his sandalled feet and paused, offering to hold the door open for his Abbot, but the latter shook his head.

  When he had gone Ulfcytel sat on alone. The sound of feet did not cease as men and women came up the side aisle of the church to kneel by the tomb which was flanked on the other side by the chancel, a place of honour for their Earl, and he pondered on the love that brought them from far afield to cross the river to his island abbey.

  On hearing the horrifying news he had travelled instantly to London and there encountered a distracted Judith. He had never seen her other than composed but she looked half out of her mind, her hair unbound, her face ravaged. He realised suddenly that she had never thought her uncle would allow the death sentence to be carried out because it had never been done in Normandy – in her pride and greed for power she had planned to be rid of the husband she no longer desired, whose goodness was a constant reproach to her, but she had thought William would merely banish him or send him to the cloister. Now her remorse was as great as had been her selfishness before. Perhaps, Ulfcytel thought, she understood at last something of the worth of the man she had sacrificed.

  Together he and she had gone to the King and begged that the body of the Earl might be taken from its nameless grave and brought home to Croyland, to the abbey church he had loved where he himself would wish to lie.

  William had been in the courtyard, in the very act of mounting to ride for the coast and the ship to take him home to Normandy for the rest of the year. He had listened in silence and then looked directly at the Abbot. ‘In all my life,’ he said harshly, ‘I have never before sent a man to death other than in war. I did it to preserve England’s peace – but I think I have destroyed my own. Your request is granted.’

  And he had swung himself into the saddle and ridden away under the gateway without a backward glance. That decision, Ulfcytel thought, would haunt the Conqueror for the rest of his life.

  He persuaded Judith to return to Northampton and himself went to Winchester and on Winton’s hill with the aid of Richard de Rules, Thorkel Skallason and Hakon Osbert- son, he took the Earl from his unhallowed grave. And there he received the shock that had almost turned his senses, that caused Brother Edric to be so concerned over him – – for the Earl’s corpse was as fresh and sweet as if he still lived, his head, incredibly, re-united to his body and only a thin red line marking where the axe had fallen.

  Ulfcytel had cried out at that, remembering Leofric’s dream all those years before, and he had fallen on his knees, rocking himself to and fro. He did not remember much of the journey home after that – only that all the way people came out to follow the cortege.

  So the Earl was borne home through the warm summer countryside bright with flowers, tended by those who had loved him in life and mourned by the common people who had lost their hero. It seemed as if the whole of England reverberated with shock at the carrying out of what must ever be a doubtful sentence, and still they came to do him one last honour. Ulfcytel listened to the steps, his lips repeating the words over and over again – ‘Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis . . .

  A woman had come into the church by a side door and entering the chancel knelt away from the pilgrims on the inner side of the tomb. She set a silken pall on it but this slid to the ground. She laid it on again, but again it fell. She tried a third time and the same thing happened.

  A voice spoke from the shadows. �
��You turned from him while he lived, now in death he rejects your gift, he wants nothing from you.’

  She turned and saw Thorkel Skallason standing there, his arms folded, his eyes fixed sternly on her, the lank fair hair greying now, his face pale, the old scar dark on his cheek. She cried out, ‘I did not know – I did not think he would die – -I will atone, I will do anything . . . And she collapsed on the floor, weeping, her head against the tomb.

  Thorkel said, ‘If you spent the rest of your life on your knees you could not wipe out the evil you have done.’

  Judith pushed the veil distractedly from her face and gazed imploringly up to him. ‘Forgive me – I thought the King would let him be a monk – forgive me . . .’

  For a moment Thorkel did not answer. He was looking at the tomb, the expression in his eyes impossible to read. At last he said, ‘As I am a Christian man and as I hope for forgiveness myself I will try to pardon you before I die, but not now – not yet.’

  He left her there on the floor, broken and weeping, and went out into the sunshine. He had seen what he had waited to see – the vindication of his lord and the remorse of the woman who more than any other bore the guilt of his death. Now was the time for him to travel on, a landless man as he had always been and always would be until he too lay in the earth.