The Handfasted Wife

by Carol McGrath

Padar shouted back, ‘He is Ulf Haroldson.’ At last the guard stood aside for them to pass. As they rode through the great gate and into the palace yard, Margaret kicked away the soldier who had fondled her boots and now had dared to touch them again.

  The Provost turned to one of his canons and ordered, ‘Find the Queen’s steward.’ Seeing the monk hesitate, he bellowed, ‘Go at once!’ He waved his hand at the others. ‘And the rest of you to the minster. I shall follow.’

  The guards drew back to let the choir file out through the palace gate. The bystanders, mostly women and children, stood aside to let them pass. One woman cried out, ‘Tell them to have pity on us. Our sons died at Hastings.’ When the last canon was through, the guards all raised their spears and shouted at the crowd, ‘Go on to the Nuns’ Minster.’ The women stubbornly stood where they were until one of the guards repeated, ‘Go on. There’s nothing more here for you today.’

  Inside the palace courtyard everyone seemed to have a purpose – fetching wood, carrying milk pails, exercising horses. A pack of hounds barked as they squabbled over a bone. The keeper of the Queen’s falcons paraded about with a hooded bird perched on his leather glove and attached to his wrist by a chain. At last the Queen’s tall steward, Fitz-Wimach, came bustling through monks, servants, soldiers, horses and stable boys that thronged the yard.

  ‘Little Ulf.’ He laid a hand on Ulf’s head and turned to Padar. ‘So it really is you, Padar, teller of tales, and with King Harold’s son, and his nurse too, I see. At last something good has happened today. Come, come on into the hall.’ Shaking back his long white locks, he called two stable lads over to take charge of the steaming horses. He turned to Margaret, ‘You are courageous to bring the child to us in such terrible times. The Queen will be relieved to see the boy.’

  They waited in the hall close to a raised dais on which stood a great throne-like chair. A time candle placed on a table burned a quarter hour slowly away. Padar never spoke. Ulf clung to Margaret’s skirt and sucked his thumb. At last, Queen Edith glided into the hall, her voluminous veil floating around her and her dark clothes rustling as she walked. She stopped in front of the great throne-like chair. They fell to their knees. Margaret pushed Ulf forward.

  ‘God has spared this child from fire and sword,’ she whispered, awed by Queen Edith.

  ‘Rise,’ the stern-faced Queen said, ‘we have lost his father and his uncles. It is with thanks to the Queen of Heaven that this child is safe.’ She stretched out a jewelled hand. ‘Ulf, come here.’

  Ulf clung to Margaret’s cloak.

  ‘He is tired and frightened, Your Grace,’ Margaret said timidly, not daring to look into the Queen’s eyes. Instead, she focused on the enormous onyx pendant that hung on a gold chain below her dark-clad breast.

  ‘Why was the boy not with his mother?’

  ‘His mother is the Duke’s prisoner,’ Padar said.

  ‘Nonsense, she is no prisoner. A messenger rode to us from Duke William yesterday. The Countess Gytha and the Lady Elditha will ride to Winchester today.’

  ‘Will the Countess Gytha not accompany her sons’ funeral journey to Waltham, Your Grace?’ Padar asked boldly.

  ‘There will be no journey to Waltham, Padar. The journey is too dangerous, the roads thronged with fleeing people, brigands and thieves. The Duke has laid the King to rest on the seashore and our brothers also. The Duke has won the battle and I have no doubt that he will bring us many desired Christian and civilising ways. Crops will grow; the sun will rise each day and set in the evening. People will recover. You are a Godwin skald, so sing to them of godly ways and of the joys of the fields.’ She lifted her hand, summoned her ladies and addressed Margaret, ‘Come with me, my dear, and bring the child.’

  Ulf touched the Queen’s heavily ringed hand. ‘Aunt Edith?’ he said so quietly he could hardly be heard. She inclined her head towards him, and he asked, ‘Aunt Edith, why did the Duke bury my father’s body on the seashore?’

  She leaned down and said, ‘When times are more settled, your father will rest in his own abbey – your uncles also.’ Taking Ulf by the hand she hurried through the curtains to her chamber beyond the dais. Margaret began to follow. She stopped. What about Padar, would he find a sleeping space in this vast palace building? She turned back to speak, but Padar was hurrying off towards the great door they had just entered.

  14

  And joyless is this place. Full often the absence of my Lord comes sharply to me.

  The Wife’s Lament , in A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse, edited and translated by Richard Hamer

  A few days later Elditha rode into Winchester at the head of a small procession of two wagons and Gytha’s guard. As they had tried to circle around burned and smoking villages she had sat on her horse, never smiling or weeping. Her concern was now for Ulf. It was too easy to lose a small child in a countryside turned upside down and inside out by war and, as they travelled to Winchester, she was haunted by images of wild beasts and marauding soldiers, each as dangerous as the other. Once inside the palace courtyard she slid from her horse, leaned against it and closed her eyes.

  Thea could not speak as she descended from her wagon. The horrors she had witnessed on the battlefield had struck her silent. Elditha opened her eyes again, reached out and wearily grasped her daughter’s hand. Gytha tossed her sheepskin covering aside and climbed down after Thea, refusing help, just using her stick to steady herself. When she reached the straw below, Elditha took her arm and guided her into the palace.

  Queen Edith came hurrying through the hall to embrace them. ‘Thank the Queen of Heaven that you are all of you safe. Come and sit close to the hearth.’

  When they had cups of spiced wine and bread to dip in it, Gytha shook her head. ‘We gave the Bastard the perfect opportunity. We were a divided family. Tostig was a traitor to this family. He encouraged the Norwegians to attack us in the north and that weakened our defences down here.’

  Edith placed a hand on her mother’s arm. ‘It was God’s will. Tostig should never have been sent into exile. That was our undoing.’ Edith looked over at the three ladies who sat quietly across the hearth, and again back to Elditha. ‘You abandoned your son for those women,’ she accused. ‘But I have news for you. Ulf is here with me. You are fortunate that he has lived to tell the tale. You should not have sent him into the woods with only a nurse to protect him.’

  Elditha’s breath caught in her throat. ‘I had little choice, Edith. He could yet be their prisoner. The Normans may not want a band of women now they have won the battle, but a boy hostage is another story. They would keep my son, just as they have kept your own brother, Edith. Do not question my decisions. And it clearly was the right choice since Margaret has brought Ulf safely to Winchester.’

  ‘By our Lady’s mercy, she did. The Godwin skald was with her.’

  Elditha felt her anger rise into a fury at Edith’s criticism at what she, herself, considered her wisdom in sending her son away from a raiding army. Surely the Dowager Queen was being unreasonably naïve? As the King’s son, Ulf would be a prize captive for the Norman Duke. Edith was being difficult. She jumped to her feet, allowing her emptied wine cup to crash onto the tiles where it broke into pieces. ‘I must see him.’

  ‘Your rooms are above the hall. I shall send him to you. He has been very afraid.’ The Queen’s voice was icy. She turned from Elditha to Thea to her mother and laid her slender jewelled hand on Gytha’s shoulder. ‘Mother, rest in my own apartment. We shall hold a vigil in the new minster for my brothers’ souls. Prayers will commence as darkness begins to fall.’ She snapped her fingers towards a corner of the vast hall where the servants hovered. One rushed across the hall with a torch flame streaming behind him. Others followed, floating over the gleaming tiled floor as if skating on ice. She said, ‘Elditha, take your daughter and maids and go.’

  Elditha said not another word. She couldn’t. Anger choked in her throat. She turned on her heel. It would be a relief to take refuge in her own roo
ms, away from the domineering Edith; a place where she could be alone with Thea and Ulf and her ladies. She reached out her hand and drew Thea to her side. ‘Come with me,’ she managed. She signalled to her ladies to follow her. Holding on to Thea’s hand she pulled her daughter along with her and followed one of Edith’s silent, grey-clad servants through shards of broken pottery towards stairs that climbed up the wall of the huge hall. As she reached the stairway she heard Edith shouting at her servants, ‘One of you, fetch a broom and clear up that mess.’

  Edith sent her chests of clothing, gifts of combs and jewels. Her servants hung tapestries on the walls of Elditha’s chambers, tended the charcoal braziers and struggled up the stairway with enormous tubs, buckets of hot water and soap, blankets, pallets, clean linen and strewing herbs, chamomile and rosemary, to throw among the floor rushes. It was a kindness and Elditha was grateful for it, although she pointed out to Edith, when the Queen bustled into her chamber with a new cloak for her, that it was a luxury to have such comforts when so many others were desperate and hungry.

  ‘My dear, we must show the invader that we are neither impoverished nor are we waiting for his charity!’ was Edith’s supercilious response. ‘We must survive and survive well.’ Then she swept away from Elditha’s chamber, followed by her dark-cloaked women.

  Thea began to speak again. She told Ulf stories and amused him by teaching him how to use a needle and thread, and to embroider. With nimble fingers he created a small tapestry depicting a dove. A tutor came to her palace rooms and Ulf resumed his learning of Latin grammar. Reluctant to allow him out of her sight, Elditha kept him close. She managed to get through the day by devoting herself to Thea and Ulf, walking with them in the palace garden, collecting acorns and showing them how to make them into little figures, but night after night she grieved for the warrior husband who had been twice taken so cruelly from her. She wept at the horrific memories of his naked body that had been broken and separated from his head. She tried to revisit the days of their youth, but the memory of his death was too raw and too bloody and too recent to recollect his image as it had once been.

  Margaret returned her casket to her. It was a small comfort. Wondering at how a small box could survive a fire, she placed it by her bed where she could see it as she moved around the chamber, as she fell asleep at night and as she awakened each morning. Occasionally she unlocked it and removed the contents one by one, the ivory figures of saints, the sapphires which had been her Christmas gift from Harold, the tiny christening garment and below that the mandrake root which she wrapped in tightly knotted linen.

  She remembered the months at Reredfelle until it was too painful to remember. One by one, she slowly returned each small possession to the casket again. She had lost everything else in the fire that had consumed her hall. They were only possessions, she told herself. Yet it was a small miracle that this casket had survived, a reminder of what she had lost and the man she had loved, the father of her children. Gradually an idea formed in her mind. As soon as it was possible to travel, she would take Ulf into safe-keeping to Ireland, to his brothers, to where he would grow up with them to avenge his father’s murder. Gunnhild was safe in Wilton, but Gytha spoke of Exeter. That was it. Gytha must take Thea south to safety in her dower town.

  15

  He [William] sent to Winchester and ordered the chief men of the city to pay tribute to him as others were doing… she [Queen Edith] yielding, ordered them to take what was demanded. And in this way she and they lived in peace.

  The Carmen de Hastingae Proelio, attributed to Guy, Bishop of Amiens, 1068, edited and translated by Catherine Morton and Hope Muntz

  Elditha never spoke of her plan. It was too dangerous to leave Winchester yet. The roads were full of fleeing people and dangerous, and to execute such a plan she needed help. She did not trust Edith to give it to her. Edith surrounded herself with Norman priests and even some of her women were of Norman origin. As the month passed Elditha determined to be of use to others less fortunate than she and also to find out a way to quietly leave the town. Since there was no help within the palace she would see what help there was to be found outside it. The Nuns’ Minster close by had an infirmary where those who had been wounded or were ill were permitted rest. When Ulf was with his tutor and Thea was attending Gytha, she took her three ladies to the infirmary, where they mixed salves to soothe wounds, and potions to send those who were disturbed to sleep. They made powder from the precious mandrake root, shaving off tiny pieces, using just a little at a time and only in extreme cases. Elditha returned it, wrapped protectively in soft linen cloth, to her casket every evening. While listening to others who had suffered loss, she grew stronger.

  More and more refugees trailed into the town, to where bakers still baked, to where there were vegetables to buy and pigs and sheep were slaughtered. The townspeople lived in fear, daily expecting an invasion of Norman troops. News crept in. Kent fell, Sussex and Hampshire; and Duke William was riding south again towards Winchester. That did not surprise Elditha as the town was England’s second royal stronghold and here Queen Edith possessed a vast treasury.

  ‘Margaret,’ Elditha said after the nurse had put Ulf to bed one evening, and Thea was ensconced with her grandmother in Edith’s private apartments. ‘It is time to search for Padar.’ Margaret had told her how he had found them in the woods after the fire and brought them safely into the town, then disappeared. But that was not unusual.

  ‘My lady, he may be in the woods again by now, but I’ll try to find out.’

  Margaret’s search took her to both the minsters, to bake-houses and taverns and eventually to workshops belonging to the goldsmiths, because she had heard a rumour that the Godwin skald had been seen with a master coiner. She found the coiner but the skald had disappeared.

  ‘Just as we suspected, the coiner says that Padar the skald is with the men of the wood.’

  Elditha had heard that a resistance movement had grown up in woods around the town – outlaws who lived in camps hidden among the trees. People called them silvatii. One of their warriors, who had been injured by a Norman raiding party, was brought into the Nuns’ Minster with a fever. Elditha suggested to the abbess that she tend the man’s injuries. There was salve of rue boiled in old wine she could try. She busied herself around the man, set his broken arm in a splint and, when his fever lessened, she lost no time trying to find out more about Padar. Yes, the skald came and went from the camps.

  ‘Tell Queen Edith that we can hold out if Duke William tries to take this town,’ he told her.

  She repeated his message to Edith, but the Queen did not want to know. She banned the rebels from entering the town and condemned any who helped their resistance. After the edict, the abbess sent the warrior out of the Nuns’ Minster. Then, Duke William himself arrived at the East Gate of Winchester demanding the keys to the town. Now there was no opportunity to look for Padar. To Elditha’s horror, Edith handed her town over as if she intended co-operation all along. In one short November day, Duke William’s soldiers occupied the palace and took control of the treasury.

  No one felt safe with Norman troops patrolling the streets. Townspeople predicted that soon the Normans would build a castle within the town walls and that their homes would be knocked down to make room for it. Soldiers marched about the town in a threatening manner, carrying long shields with fierce beasts and chevrons painted on them and bearing great swords. The Royal Mint was closed. Goldsmiths hid their gold by slipping away with it at night, taking to the rivers. Townsmen disappeared after dark to join the resistance, as Padar had done. Women feared for their honour. Husbands feared for their lives.

  Elditha kept away from the hall and ordered servants to carry up their meals, using the outside staircase that led down into a garden. Her fear was for Thea and Ulf. She was frightened to allow either of them out of her sight and she never left her rooms. Finally, the day Elditha had feared all that week came with a knock on the door. She tentatively opened it and
peeped around to see one of Edith’s messengers behind it. He looked scared as a startled hare. ‘My lady, the Queen requests your presence. I am to wait.’ He waited on after she shut the door in his face. She pulled it open again to see him still shuddering behind it. This time she said she was coming. Even Edith’s servants were afraid.

  She ordered Margaret, Maud, Ursula and Freya to watch over Thea and Ulf, to bolt the door and not allow anyone in after she left. She pulled her mantle from its peg and followed the messenger down the stairs into the hall and then back through a long passage to Edith’s antechamber.

  The room was lit with expensive candles. Edith sat on a stiff, upright chair by a shuttered window, wearing a plain linen wimple that made her face look pinched, her voluminous sleeves trailing the ground. Duke William occupied her comfortable two-armed, throne-like chair, reclining with his long legs sprawled in front of him. He did not even rise as Elditha entered. Instead, waving towards a bench opposite, he grunted, ‘Sit.’ If she refused her legs might give way so she sank uncomfortably onto it. What did he want from her? He had taken everything already; her house and her people, and he had murdered the father of her children. He turned to Queen Edith and broke the silence by announcing that he would leave one of his knights, William Fitz-Osbern to organise the garrison in Winchester. In return for her loyalty to him, he added, she could keep her personal possessions, her lands and her treasure. He studied Elditha for a moment. ‘I shall need a hostage, of course.’

  She started. She was worthless as a hostage. But her children were royal; surely not her children! Her hands shook.

  She heard Edith say in a glacial tone, ‘Which of us do you intend to take, my Lord Duke? We are a household of women. Our men are slaughtered, and the rest may perish when you attack London.’

  He leaned towards Edith. ‘A monk tells us that King Harold’s son is among you. I have not seen the child.’ He drew back and stared at Elditha. ‘Nonetheless, others confirm the monk’s story, so the boy will travel with my army. He has a brave nurse, I hear it said. She may travel with him, and there is that loyal monk.’