‘That is what I think of your veils, sister-in-law. Now have the girls' possessions packed. I am taking them back to Scotland in the morning.’
Eadgyth, hardly knowing why she did so, burst into tears and her father put an arm about her shoulders. ‘Tush girl, there’s no need for tears. You will soon be home. Now hurry, we ride at dawn.’
He took not the slightest notice of Christina’s angry protest and stalked out of the cloister to the guest house where he and his attendants, served with trembling hands by lay sisters, promptly ate and drank their way through a week’s supplies.
On the journey to Scotland Eadgyth scarcely knew whether she were the most happy or miserable. She was thankful to be out of the abbey, away from her aunt’s perpetual nagging, but she was also going further from Henry, further from any contact with the Countess Maud. Yet she could not be wholly cast down. Henry, she thought sensibly, would reach her wherever she was when he thought the time was right, and in the meantime she was free, riding in the fresh summer air, the fields rich with corn, the woods shaded with thick foliage, the streams sparkling and gay with yellow flowers, the birds singing so that every day her spirits rose. She was young and she was free and life had become, once more, bright with hope. It was as well, just then, that she did not know how long and how wearily she would have to tend that hope.
On the third day of the journey, her father broke some news to her that shattered her joy.
He waited for her palfrey to catch up with his great destrier and then said, bluntly and without preamble. ‘I’ve a mind to wed you to Count Alan of Richmond. He’s a powerful man and wealthy and he owns much land not far from our borders. An alliance with him would keep the Earl of Northumbria in check.’
She did not know what to say. The events of the last few days had crowded so upon one another that she was not prepared for this proposal. She hardly knew Count Alan, but either good or bad, he was not for her. She simply did not believe there could be any man for her but one. However she dared not say this to her father, nor threaten to disobey him. Glancing at his strong face, seeing the set of his jaw, the thrust of his red beard, his great square hands on the reins, she knew he could break her and her heart sank. If it came to a battle of wills she could not fight him. All she could do was to use guile and pray for time. She smiled, surprised how easily she could dissemble, and merely begged him not to arrange a betrothal yet as she was over young.
‘Young?’ Malcolm gave his great bellowing laugh. ‘God’s blood, girl you’re near fifteen. You should be betrothed by now.’
‘Only wait then, my lord, until we are home, until I see my mother.’
His anger with Rufus, with Christina, gone now that he was on the road to Scotland and had thumbed his nose at them by removing his daughters, he answered amiably enough that it would be proper to do so.
Eadgyth gave a great sigh of relief.
‘Do you not like Count Alan?’ Mary whispered curiously. ‘Do you recall, we met him when we stayed at Richmond on the way down?’
‘He was well enough,’ Eadgyth whispered back, ‘But I do not want him.’
‘You will have to do what our father says,’ Mary told her prosaically, ‘and had best forget the Norman prince.’
Eadgyth lifted her whip and gave Mary a stinging blow across the knuckles. ‘Be quiet, stupid. I told you never to speak of him.’
Mary sucked her fingers, tears starting in her eyes, and after a moment her sister said, ‘I am sorry I hurt you, but I am afraid – oh, Mary, I am afraid.’
Early in the New Year the Prioress of Romsey was standing in the open space between church and abbey gates in the act of counting the tally of ale barrels when she saw an unexpected procession approaching. At the head of it rode her brother, Edgar Atheling, and behind him, huddled against the bitter wind, were the two Princesses, Eadgyth and Mary and their young brother, David, followed by a number of attendants, all of whom she had thought far away in Scotland.
Edgar swung himself down and kissed his sister.
Christina turned her cheek to him, holding him by the shoulders. The little affection that there was left in her arid nature was reserved solely for this brother. ‘Dear Edgar. What are you doing here – and with our nieces and David? What has happened?’
Edgar glanced at his young charges, David staring about him with a mixture of curiosity and uncertainty, the two girls pale and cold, their mantles wrapped about them. Mary had cried most of the way down, while Eadgyth after her first bitter storm of weeping, had been silent, withdrawn, her childhood over. He was a kind man and fond of the children, and he had found the long journey, the shared grief, wearing on his nerves.
‘Send them in to get warm,’ he said, ‘and I will tell you.’ Christina nodded, and told Sister Aldyth to take them to the kitchen and warm some milk for them. Then she led her brother to her parlour and poured wine for him.
Edgar swung off his mantle and held his hands to the blaze before he answered.
‘Well?’ The Prioress queried in her habitual manner. She was itching with curiosity. ‘Will you not speak?’
Edgar sat down on a stool. ‘Malcolm is dead.’
‘Dead? But how?’
‘When he got back to Scotland he led a raid into Northumbria, but Robert of Mowbray was waiting for him near Alnwick and Malcolm walked into an ambush. Mowbray’s men slew him though they might have taken him alive. It is a bloody part of England. Sometimes I think no good can come in that wild land, for all it was once St. Cuthbert’s. When old King William marched there and Earl Waltheof stood against him the soil was drenched with our blood.’
‘That is past history,’ Christina said impatiently. Fond as she was of Edgar his slowness and his way of wandering off into reminiscences irritated her. ‘Go on, what happened then?’ Edgar lifted his head and looked at her, setting down the cup before he answered, as if it was not seemly that he speak of what he must with a wine cup in his hands. ‘We bore his body home and our sister Margaret – she looked on his corpse and gave a great cry, and from that day she sickened. She has been dead these past six weeks.’
Christina gave a low gasp and crossed herself. ‘Jesu, have mercy on her soul. Did she then love him so much?’
‘It would seem so.’
‘That great bull of a man and she so gentle?’
Edgar sighed. ‘You could not find two more strangely yoked in a marriage bed, but there was love there.’ He drank again, feeling the wine warm his chilled bones. The cold seemed to get into his joints now and he felt weary, worn with grief and anxiety. ‘But that was not the end of it. Our nephew Edward was killed with the King, so Alexander should have had the throne, but Malcolm’s brother drove him out and seized the crown.’
Christina’s frown deepened. ‘Did no one challenge his right?’ ‘He is a man and has many followers – how could a mere lad contest that?’ He sighed. ‘How could I contest William of Normandy’s claim, so long ago?’
There he was reminiscing again, Christina thought annoyedly. ‘So Donald has usurped the throne?’
‘Aye, and Alexander has gone into the hills with his brother Edgar, to wait to fight another day. But Eadgyth and Mary and David are too young to hide and run and live in caves. That is why I brought them to you.’ He looked up at his sister. She seemed so stem, so implacable and he wondered where in her lay the love that Christ had commanded from His servants. ‘They are lonely and afraid, deprived of both mother and father at one blow. Be kind to them, Christina.’
She held herself tensely. ‘I will care for them, but I tell you, brother, if I am to have charge of the girls it is best they should remain here permanently.’
He stood up and went to the window. Outside the courtyard was empty, a quiet over the place on this winter afternoon. It all seemed grey and cold and without colour. Some, he thought, could spend their lives happily in such places, finding peace in the round of prayer and work, but not his nieces. He sighed. ‘Perhaps, but do not force them, especially not
Eadgyth. David I will take with me to court when I have seen the King. He is only a child, but he can serve in my household, or perhaps he might go to Earl Simon. Well, I must ride to Winchester.’
He bent to kiss her. Her cheek was cold and he felt inadequate, unable to reach her, to touch her heart and bring warmth to the pale controlled face. Why was she so different from Margaret, his other lately dead sister? Yet he knew she cared for him, perhaps even more than Margaret had.
‘Come again when you can,’ she said. ‘In the meantime do not fret. Our nieces will do well enough under my care.
’
He left her and went out into the fading afternoon, a tired man who had not been able to grasp his hour when it had come and had since never been other than on the edge of great affairs.
Christina watched him go and then went in search of her nieces. She found them in the kitchen, where Sister Aldyth had given them fresh bread and hot milk. They stood together and in Eadgyth’s face at least was reflected her wretchedness at being once more within the abbey walls.
Christina had her arms full of black garments. ‘Take these,’ she said, ‘and dress yourselves as holy sisters again. It is more fitting.’
And suddenly Eadgyth, who all the way from Scotland had been torn with inward grief for her gentle, loving mother and her terrifying but affectionate father felt as if this was the last and final wound, as if her aunt had thrust a sword point into the quivering pain she had already endured.
She seized the robes and flung them from her and tore the veil across. ‘I will not wear them. Never, never!’
Christina was stiff with annoyance. ‘Do as you are told, girl.’
‘I will not.’
For a moment they faced each other and it was as if old Edmund Ironside lived again in both grand-daughter and great grand-daughter, two conflicting wills inherited from that iron man.
Then the Prioress said, ‘You are a foolish, disobedient girl but you are my sister’s child and I will not beat you as you deserve. You will wear the robes because I will not have you despoiled. Your soul shall go to God unsmirched by the lust of any man, let alone a Norman.’
Eadgyth felt the blood throb in a vein in her forehead. ‘Not every Norman is evil or lustful. And there are many now, born in England, who desire Saxon brides in holy marriage to make us all one people.’
‘So! ’ Christina gave a shrill laugh. ‘That is it. You look for a man to take you to his bed and you do not care who he may be – you, born of the line of Cerdic!’
Eadgyth’s tears were burning her eyes now. ‘No, no . . .’
‘Well, it shall not be,’ Christina snapped. ‘You will stay here and take the vows and keep your purity.’ Her pale eyes lit with a cold intense passion. ‘Men!’ she spat out the word. ‘I will keep you from their evil lechery.’
And for the first time Eadgyth saw her aunt for what she was, a warped, thwarted women, eaten with desire for the very thing she condemned. With the cruelty of the very young she hit back, using the only weapon she had.
‘I swear, by the Cross of Our Lord if you will, that I will never be a nun. I will marry and bear children and not be a barren, bitter woman as you are.’
Christina’s breath hissed. She drew back her hand and slapped her niece hard across the face.
Eadgyth stumbled and caught at the door for support as Mary gave a little scream. Her cheek was scarlet where her aunt’s fingers had caught it. Then she turned and ran from the kitchen, out into the cloister where it was silent and dark now that the daylight had died. There she collapsed at the feet of the stone Rood that stood by the church door, sobbing and crying, ‘Jesu, have mercy! Mary, help me! ’
And at the same time the Prioress went to kneel in her stall in the church, her thin fingers knotted together, words tumbling from her. ‘I did it for them, Lord. They are yours, their chastity is yours. Oh Lord, protect us poor women from the evil of lust. There is so much evil, so much corruption and men are too strong for us. God, have mercy! Mary, pray for us – our bodies must be untouched, temples for the Holy Spirit . . .’
And all the while the stone Virgin held up her small Son before Christina’s eyes, as if to give the lie to her twisted, anguished prayer.
CHAPTER 3
Herbert of Challot, Canon of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, prided himself on the table he kept. He was not a clever man and having reached late middle age without distinguishing himself or gaining preferment in the Church, made up for his lack by creating a reputation as a man in whose house the intellectuals of Paris might be found. The talk flowed for the most part over his head, but he did not mind as long as brilliant men enhanced his gatherings. Indeed so successful was he that he was known quite undeservedly throughout France as a renowned scholar and patron of the arts and the sure sign of advancement in any young man’s career was an invitation to dine with Canon Herbert.
He was round and chubby with a pink face, soft blue eyes and a balding head, and he presided over his table like a cherub over newly-won souls. When he heard of the arrival in Paris of any man of standing he immediately issued an invitation, and in fairness to him, even his enemies agreed he cared nothing for money or for the wealth of his guests – only, as spiteful tongues added, for the cleverness he himself did not possess. In his youth he had sat in the schools under the famous Berengar of Tours but it had only done him good in that he could say he had been there.
On a wet winter’s day he had gathered at the table a doctor of philosophy, William of Champeaux; Canon Sylvanus of the cathedral who also taught in the schools; the Abbot of St. Denis, most famous of French foundations, and the exiled Atheling, Henry of Normandy, who might be banished and from the look of him lacking ready money, but who was still nevertheless a prince and one with the reputation of being a man of letters. The Canon had welcomed him effusively with his attendant chaplain and one knight. The only other guest was a man dressed in the plain brown gown of a pilgrim; he was from Cherbourg, the son of an old friend of Canon Herbert’s and was on his way to the shrine of St. James of Compostella.
At first the Canon was a little disappointed in his guests for William of Champeaux had been lecturing since six o’clock this morning and wanted his dinner; he was an old man and hungry, his beard fell into his bowl and dripped gravy on to the Canon’s clean white cloth and he slopped wine down the front of his black gown.
The Abbot talked gravely with Herluin of La Barre and as for the Prince, who was supposed to have a keen and amusing wit, he ignored Canon Sylvanus sitting next to him, seemed not to care what dish he ate from and plied Arnulf of Cherbourg with questions as to the state of Normandy. At first Arnulf answered impersonally, drawing a sad picture of the state of affairs in the duchy.
‘There is disorder everywhere and no man is safe on the public highway. The King’s barons exact taxes beyond our means and as for the Duke’s men, they will murder to get their way on the land he still holds.’
Tight-lipped, Henry asked, ‘Does the Duke have no control over them?’
‘None that anyone can see. And he has given away so much to greedy men that some say he has but one tunic to his name.’
‘Then he is in the same case as myself and without the cause I have.’ He gave a short rueful laugh. ‘How can he have dissipated all our father’s wealth?’
‘God knows, my lord. Money pours through his hands with no check – yet there is great suffering among the poorer sort of people. I tell you, Count Henry, the days of your father, harsh though he was at times, were better by far. And,’ Arnulf forgot the company they were in and burst out, ‘We of the Cotentin think only of your return. Nothing is as it was when you ruled us.’
His food pushed aside, Henry spoke in a low tense voice, his normal guard over himself lapsing for one brief moment. ‘And better days will come back, I swear it by the death of my mother. If I can but get one corner of Norman soil I will make a beginning.’
There was a silence at the table. The talk had suddenly become per
sonal and tense. Sylvanus turned to stare at the Norman prince, the Abbot pursed his lips thoughtfully, and the old philosopher, his hand half way to his mouth, paused before continuing to eat; absorbed he might appear but he missed nothing.
Then Canon Herbert said blandly, ‘Pray, my lord, take some more of this roast duck. The sauce is particularly . . .’
The Abbot interrupted him without ceremony. He was a man of considerable influence who liked to have his finger in most pies. He asked smoothly, ‘A beginning for what?’
For a moment Henry felt impatient, as if it was a foolish question, but he did not underestimate the Abbot’s intelligence and answered with care. ‘I have seen enough of adversity to know that men need an iron hand to rule them. My brother Robert has proved that too-easy dealing with powerful barons is no way to ensure peace, nor in the end is it what men want.’
The Abbot considered for a moment. ‘What does the Archbishop of Canterbury think of the present state of things? For all he has left Normandy, I think his opinion counts more than ever.’
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