New Title 1

by Helen Hollick

  She somewhat sympathised with Edith, for it must be difficult to maintain the dignity required of a queen. As a farm-born girl, she readily accepted that finery was for holy days and feasting, that shorter gowns with practical-length sleeves, plain-spun woollen hose and stout leather boots were more suited to muddy farmyards, cow byres and pigsties.

  ‘What have you done with our little imp, by the way?’ Harold asked, looking around for his son. Goddwin was almost two years old, a scamp of a boy always into mischief.

  ‘He was here a moment ago,’ Edyth said anxiously, breaking free of Harold’s hold, her head turning, searching for him.

  ‘Over there!’ Harold pointed, his laughter rumbling yet again. ‘And talking of mud, just look at the boy!’

  The lad was busily stamping his feet in a deep puddle near the arched gateway that led out into the village high street.

  ‘That boy is an urchin!’ Edyth grumbled with a smile of maternal amusement as she ran to the child to rescue him and his boots before they were completely ruined.

  Goddwin was a fair-haired, blue-eyed rascal. A son that any father would burst his heart with pride for. Harold had so missed them both. Edyth could have gone with him into Kent, but she had declined, preferring to oversee the completion of their manor, built up there on the hill overlooking the village of Waltham and the wide panorama of the river valley. It was a special place, steeped in memories for both of them. A place well suited as a home to their children.

  Smiling, Harold followed her across the grass, took the protesting boy from her arms and tossed him high, making him squeal with delightful laughter.

  ‘Nay, lad, your mother does not want you all wet and muddied. Come, let me take you across to the river – look there is another ship coming upstream. I expect she has come all the way from Normandy, carrying more stone to build Papa’s church.’

  Settling Goddwin within one arm, Harold took hold of Edyth’s hand with the other and breathed in the fresh, invigorating smell of the September afternoon.

  All was peaceful in his earldom and he was home, back with his family, where he would remain, save for the brief visit to Edward’s Christmas Court, until next spring should recall him to his duties as a soldier. But that was a long way ahead yet.

  21

  Bosham – March 1047 Save for Edith and the first- and third-born sons, Swegn and Tostig, Earl Godwine’s family were gathered in their entirety at Bosham, his Sussex manor, prior to attending the Witan – the Council of Elders – at the King’s Easter Court. There was much to discuss, much to plan. That Edward’s grievances were mounting against Godwine was plainly evident, how to do something about it was not.

  Gyrth, aged seventeen and the next brother after Tostig, skimmed a stone across the placid surface of the sea, pleased that he successfully made it bounce at least four times. ‘I do not want to attend court anyway. I would rather stay here at Bosham.’ He used the local traditional dialect to pronounce the village’s name, Bozzum. ‘A lot of old men full of wind and their own importance, voicing opinionated bigotry. Who gives a damn?’

  Both his father and brother Harold stared at him, for opposing reasons: Harold was amused, Godwine annoyed.

  ‘Attending the King is a serious business, my boy,’ Godwine said gruffly. ‘As you will one day discover when you become earl. There are matters of state to discuss, laws to be made, charters to sign—’ He broke off with a growl as Gyrth laughed.

  ‘I was jesting, Father! I fully realise the importance. All the same, I am right about those who attend!’

  ‘Only some of them,’ Harold retorted indignantly. ‘I’m not bigoted, nor is Father.’

  ‘Ah, but you don’t enjoy attending court either, do you!’ That was Beorn, standing a few yards further down, skimming his own stones. ‘And some of us, Uncle Godwine, although already made earl, have no land of significance to be an effective earl over. I agree with Gyrth. I would rather stay here and enjoy the fishing and hunting.

  Selecting a handful of pebbles, Gyrth offered one to Harold’s son, Goddwin. It was the boy’s first visit to Bosham and the sea. He was fascinated by the scurry of waves and the reflected patterns on the restless sway of water. Liked, too, the smooth feel of the stones and how his uncle could make them so magically skip and bounce. He tried throwing one for himself but it fell down with a disappointing plop into the little breakers washing at his boots. Beorn came to retrieve it for him, squatted next to the boy and showed him how to hold the missile between his fingers.

  ‘He hasn’t mastered the flick to his wrist yet,’ Gyrth decided, watching another unsuccessful attempt. He ruffled the boy’s fair hair.

  ‘Give him another year,’ Harold said with pride in his voice, ‘and he will beat both of you.’

  The natural harbour that created the inlet at Bosham had always been a favourite retreat for Harold, and he was delighted that his son seemed to have inherited his love of the place. When the tide washed out, the mud flats were criss-crossed by creeks and rivulets, the small boats left like landed fish, but with the tide in, especially on a sky-bright day such as this, the inlet appeared at its best.

  Over on the far shore cattle grazed in the lush, fertile meadows, the surrounding woods creating shelter from northerly winds and a plentiful supply of timber. Several of the village fishing boats had up-anchored and set sail on the previous ebb tide; they would return come the next flood with, they hoped, a good catch. Harold’s two youngest brothers, Leofwine and Wulfnoth, were busy with their own little boat inside the safety of Bosham Creek. Harold shifted the weight of his sleeping daughter to his other shoulder and waved at the two boys. Ah, to be like Leofwine, twelve again, with nothing more to worry about than the fitting of a new sail! The little girl snuffled but did not wake. Alfrytha had been born one year, almost to the day, after Goddwin. Unlike his robust and rosy health, she was a sickly child, prone to wheezing and coughs. Edyth thought the sea air might be of benefit to her, an acceptable excuse to come south into Sussex, though Edyth was close to her time of delivery of their third child.

  ‘I am for keeping our heads down and noses clean,’ Godwine suggested, returning to the subject of attending court. ‘Edward will, sooner or later, be needing our support for something or other that those two farting bigots, Siward and Leofric, will oppose.’ He half grinned at Gyrth. ‘Neither of them can handle a ship as well as myself or you, Harold, and now that Magnus has taken half of Denmark from your brother, Beorn, perhaps the King will realise the importance of sending help.’

  Engaged in wiping dribble from his daughter’s mouth, Harold was able to avoid making eye contact with Beorn and answering his father. Both he and his cousin fundamentally disagreed with Godwine. Edward would never change his mind and allow English ships to sail in aid of Denmark against Norway. It was too costly and too provocative. Edward jealously guarded his treasury and avoided any action that could provoke acts of hostility. Especially those that might endanger himself personally. No one, save perhaps his mother, would outright call the King a coward, but that was what his earls and nobles secretly thought. Edward preferred the safety and comfort of his palaces to the hazardous conditions of war.

  Added to that, anyone related to the Earl of Wessex could be left to drown as far as Edward was concerned. Godwine was hoping that this current tide of unprovoked hostility would be turned at the Easter Court and agreeable relationships resumed. Harold considered his father to be unrealistically optimistic.

  ‘Big boat. Look, Papa, big boat!’ Young Goddwin tugged at his father’s cloak to gain his attention, his chubby hand pointing excitedly seawards. There was indeed a sixty-oared sea-going keel making way in from the Chichester Channel, using the last of the incoming tide. She was a stranger, her sail was of pale blue, not the oxblood red of Godwine’s own vessels, but from her course her master was familiar with Bosham Creek. Until one quarter of a mile from the village the creek ran at over a fathom deep; from there in it shallowed. With Chidham Hard almost submerged a
t high tide on the west bank and another similar though not so deep sandbank on the Bosham side, navigation was a matter of local knowledge and great skill.

  ‘Are we expecting more company?’ Gyrth asked unemotionally. ‘Bad enough having that fusty bishop staying with us uninvited these last two days.’ He was referring to Stigand who was desperately hustling support for his possible elevation to the bishopric of Winchester. He had arrived at Bosham unannounced and uninvited, irritating the younger members of the family whose natural exuberance was curtailed by his dour presence.

  ‘We can be rid of Stigand,’ Beorn remarked, shading his eyes against the glare of sunlight to see the ship better. ‘All we need to say is that we categorically oppose his elevation. With Edward presently disagreeing with everything we even think, Stigand will be offered the position at once.’ They all joined in Beorn’s laughter.

  ‘Now that he has declared himself wholehearted for the King and turned his back on the Dowager Queen, without doubt he will get Winchester anyway,’ Godwine answered. He too narrowed his eyes to peer along the sea channel. His sight was not as sharp as it once had been. ‘There is no one else suitable; it is too rich a bishopric for Edward to risk putting in anyone who will not back him should Rome decide to poke her nose too far over our English Church boundary.’ Referring to the ship: ‘Can any of you make out her standard? Edward has a poor stomach for the Pope’s interferences, as much as the rest of us.’

  ‘Save for Champart,’ Beorn interjected quietly.

  ‘He does not count,’ Gyrth said with certainty. ‘He’s a Norman.’

  ‘He wants a bishopric for himself,’ Beorn answered. ‘Winchester would suit him nicely.’

  ‘Aye, but he does not suit the English. Even Leofric and Siward would object to his proposal.’

  ‘Which is why Stigand will get Winchester,’ Godwine concluded. ‘He must court the King’s earls, however, because he is too modest a man to assert himself for such a prestigious promotion.’ They all chuckled. Stigand was even more opinionated and presumptuous than Robert Champart.

  Harold, squinting, could make out a vague black shape across the square pendant fluttering from the head of the single mast. Was it a raven, or . . . ‘Bugger! It’s a black boar. Swegn has come home.’

  Reaction was mixed. Gyrth grinned – the younger boys idolised Swegn’s breathtaking rebelliousness and appreciated his bursts of ostentatious generosity. Godwine was relieved. They could sort out the unfortunate business of this wretched abbess woman at last, begin restoring the good name of the family. Beorn exchanged a wry look with Harold. Neither of them wanted to meet Swegn: Harold because he knew his brother would upset Edyth, Beorn because Swegn would argue over the land that Edward had confiscated and given him instead – that the King had done so deliberately, to set cousin against cousin, would be lost on Swegn.

  Harold held his hand out to his son. ‘Come on, boy, we had better get you back to your mother, she will be wanting to wash that dirt from your face and knees.’ Edyth would not be pleased at Swegn’s arrival. Her temper was understandably short these last few days, without the added frustration of being civil to a bastard like Swegn. Once the child was born she would feel better, no doubt, in her mind, spirit and body.

  Goddwin’s face puckered. ‘I want to see the big boat!’ he screamed, throwing himself down on the ground, pummelling it with fists and feet.

  ‘Not this boat, you don’t,’ Beorn answered for his cousin, bending down to lift the boy bodily by the waist. ‘This is a pirate ship carrying a captain who eats little boys like you for his breakfast.’

  By late afternoon, Godwine’s manor house was suffused with an atmosphere of sharp, barely held tempers. The bright sun of the morning had given way to rain clouds and a blustering wind, driving everyone within doors. Swegn and Beorn, as the younger man had mentally predicted, had quarrelled viciously within the first hour. Godwine’s patience had rapidly deteriorated once he realised his eldest son did not regret the embarrassment he had caused the family. Eadgifu herself was still attempting to stifle her tears at the hostility that now raged between Swegn and his father, and Gytha had sharply reprimanded her husband for upsetting the woman, which had enraged Godwine and embarrassed Eadgifu further. Matters were made worse by the baby that she carried in her arms.

  No one had been expecting a child. Worse, the boy had colic. His knees drawn up to his chest, his tiny fists bunched and mouth open, he screamed his discomfort throughout the heated family row. To add to the difficulties, Alfrytha was running a fever and Edyth’s baby had decided to initiate its entrance into the world.

  Swegn sat, his boots stretched leisurely towards the hearth fire. He would have preferred the privacy of his father’s chamber, but his mother had commandeered it for the birth of this wretched child. Every so often sounds emanated from that direction, or a woman bustled in or out for linen or water. He could not understand why there must be such a fuss. Animals just got on with it.

  Beorn sat opposite, whittling a new dagger handle; Godwine was hunched over a scrolled parchment, his nose bent close to the writing. Harold prowled the Hall, fiddling with the tapestries and shields covering the walls, trimming a smoking candle.

  His restless pacing irritated Swegn. ‘For the good Christ’s sake, man, sit down!’ he snapped as Harold passed within a few feet for the fourth time. ‘The woman’s only in childbirth.’

  ‘Unlike you, Brother, I happen to think much of my lass. She has not carried this babe well, I fear for her safety during her confinement.’

  ‘So you think I don’t care for Eadgifu?’ Swegn retaliated, tossing his head towards the side of the Hall where she sat nursing the child. ‘You are not the only whoreson capable of loving a woman, you know.’

  ‘Love? Lust would be nearer the mark.’

  Beorn raised his eyebrow to the low ceiling. Another storm coming.

  ‘Had you cared for Eadgifu,’ Harold continued, coming to a halt before Swegn and knocking his feet from the bricks of the hearth surround with his own foot, ‘you would never have abducted her, have subjected her to such humiliation.’

  Swegn rose lazily to stand before his brother. ‘She came willingly once she realised the warmth of my bed was preferable to the tight-arsed solemnity of that prison they call a nunnery. Before this damned babe came along Eadgifu was as full of lust as I.’ He turned away, murmured, ‘She’s not ice frigid like your little bitch.’

  Harold heard. Lurching forward, he grabbed hold of Swegn’s shoulder and hurled him backwards, his fist bunching ready to slam into his brother’s sneering face. Godwine and Beorn moved as quickly, the one to take hold of his eldest son, the other to clutch at his cousin’s arm. Others in the Hall looked up; several of Godwine’s and Harold’s housecarls getting to their feet, their hands going automatically to their dagger blades. Eadgifu, too, looked across at Swegn. Wondered, like so many times since last May, why she had agreed to stay with him.

  ‘No fighting!’ Beorn shouted. ‘Not at the birth of your child, Harold, it would bring bad luck.’

  ‘Aye.’ Harold breathed heavily. ‘Bad luck for my brother.’

  A scream came from above. Harold forced his hands and shoulders to relax, dragged his eyes from the door through which he so desperately wanted to go, to be with Edyth, helping her through her time of pain – but what could he do? She was about women’s business, where there was no place for a man. He snatched up his cloak from where it lay across a bench, swung it about his shoulders. ‘I’ll be in the stables should anyone want me.’

  The Hall settled again, the rapid flare of excitement over. Beorn collected up his whittling knife and the deer antler he was carving. ‘I have things I ought to do before the meal is served,’ he said, not having much care to stay in Swegn’s ill-willed company if Harold was not there.

  Setting his stool straight, Swegn sat, concentrating on the good taste of his wine. He had missed the pleasure of such fine stuff these past months. They had thought him to be in Fl
anders all this while, enjoying Count Baldwin’s court, but in fact he had been in Ireland. Cold, wet, rain-misted Ireland. The place was almost as inhospitable as Wales. He had regretted the impulse to take Eadgifu within a few weeks; it had seemed a good idea at the time, but once her belly had started swelling with the child and she could no longer be a bed-mate, he had tired of her.

  Godwine coughed, cleared his throat, almost as if he had read his thoughts. ‘What are you going to do with Eadgifu and the boy?’

  Swegn shrugged. What could he do? ‘I had intended to marry her, you know,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t find a priest willing to join us.’

  Clearing his throat again Godwine made no comment. Marriage made little difference: the girl had taken her vows as a nun; Swegn had abducted her. Nothing would alter the facts. In the eyes of the Church – and more important the King – he had committed the most dreadful of crimes. None too tactfully, Godwine reminded Swegn of it. ‘Edward has discharged your title and reclaimed your earldom, but has not declared you outlaw, ordered your exile. If you do not attend the Easter Court, you will also be stripped of all your personal land and wealth – I will be powerless to prevent it. Then what will you do? Live with them in poverty?’

  Swegn drained his goblet of wine. He had known he would receive a lecture – and his father wondered why he had not, until now, cared to come to Bosham? ‘I fully intend to see the King when I am ready, but I will not go down on my knees to beg forgiveness for something I have not done.’ Emphasising his point, he leant forward. ‘I had intended to wed Eadgifu all those years ago, when first I knew her, but because her father detested you I was not deemed good enough for her. She was sent into a nunnery, to finish out her years – God, what a waste of a good-looking woman that was! I am being punished for giving her a choice of the nunnery, or me. She chose me.’