He beckoned for a servant to bring up a wineskin. The day had been long and hot. He offered the skin to William first, who shook his head. Will put the spout to his lips, drank, some of the liquid spilling down his tunic as his horse unexpectedly side-stepped.
Duke William bellowed with laughter. ‘By God, boy, are you so wet behind the ears that you cannot find your own mouth! It is the opening under your nose and above your chin. What a waste of a fine grape!’
Grinning, Will passed the skin back to his servant and brushed ineffectually at the spreading red stain. ‘No matter, my Lord.’ He chortled. ‘It will give me a good excuse to watch the laundress. They remove stains by covering them with sheep-fat soap and rubbing them against their bare thighs, did you know?’
William’s next guffaw was louder than the first. ‘My friend, I am not in the habit of wasting my time beside the laundry tubs!’
‘Oh, it is no waste of time, sir. I regard it as expanding my education.’
The party drew their horses to a halt at the crest of the hill, looking down along the wide beach that stretched mile upon mile along the coast. The sea, a lazy, uninspiring steel grey, ruffled against the shore. A fishing boat was making way into the estuary of the river Dives, the silver flash of her catch quivering in the laden baskets on her deck.
Watching the boat, Will tried to imagine the feel of the deck as it rose and fell against the motion of the sea.
‘What is it like, out on the sea?’ he mused.
‘Cold. Wet,’ the Duke answered. ‘Out there, the Channel Sea can be master or friend; frightening enough to scald the shit from your backside, or so exhilarating that you feel like shouting your immortality to the four winds.’
Will nodded, watching the gulls wheeling and screaming in their intricate patterns behind the frothing wake of the boat. Would he enjoy taking a ship out into those churning waters? He thought not, for his stomach had once tumbled with fear when crossing the Seine in wild weather.
‘England lies across there,’ the Duke said with precision. ‘A country rich in wealth but poor in ambition.’
‘What is it like?’ Will again enquired with interest. He knew little of England. That the king was named Edward and William’s aunt had been that same king’s mother. Beyond that only gossip. ‘They say the men wear their hair long, as a woman would, and that they are rowdy and prone to profanities, murder and drunkenness.’
William glanced away from the horizon where clouds were gathering. Rain? As well he had decided to hunt today, then. Mind, he would have ridden out anyway, whatever the weather. Mathilda was still in a disagreeable mood because of that damned boy’s tumble. William had barely spoken to her this past week – he ruled all of Normandy yet had no authority in his own household. Ah let her coddle the boy as the poxed English did their weakling children!
‘They wear their hair long, oui, and do not shave the upper lip. Prefer ale to fine wine, ride shaggy ponies and, more often than not, fight their battles on foot. They have no stone castles or fortresses, their churches and cathedrals are wooden built, but their forests are green and abundant with game, the land rich for the growing of corn and the grazing of livestock. English wool is of the best quality. Even for the poor, the wool trade can make a reasonable living.’ William stared out at that distant horizon. ‘England, Will, has much that I could put to a great deal of good use.’
Without William the Bastard as its duke, Normandy’s fledgling aristocracy would still have acquired status, land and wealth, but undoubtedly the duchy would have remained under the control of the French King. Under William’s ambitious leadership Normandy was poised on the brink of autonomy. Opportunity was there for those who sought to win power and prestige by the use of the sword; all they need do was commit their loyalty to their duke and his ambitions.
Those who rebelled against him fell rapidly by the wayside, starved of favour. His friends were becoming the great and noted Houses of the future. The trick was to bind their fealty. A man was more likely to remain loyal if his accumulated wealth were to stay within his own family, passing from the one generation to the next. William had diplomatically extended the granting of titles and, simultaneously, created hereditary rights. It was always possible for a dog to turn and bite his master, but if the dog was fondled occasionally, allowed to sleep by the hearth and fed well . . . The structure of a feudal society that was still, as yet, in a state of development, was, under William’s policy of securing loyalty, beginning to solidify. Serve William as sworn liegeman, receive in return his patronage and protection, and hold his land. The problem: Normandy was but a small corner of France and land was already in short supply. England’s acreage would solve the problem.
England. ‘I will never forget the debt I owe Normandy for the shelter and kindliness she gave me,’ Edward had said. He had promised to consider William as his heir. Part of the agreement had been for Edward to wed his sister – but that was immaterial now, for the King had not, after all, set aside his wife. There was some nonsense that a new king had to be elected by agreement, the most worthy man being chosen . . . William had discarded that trifling detail. He would be the most worthy when the time came.
The Duke gathered up his stallion’s reins, turned for home. The hunting had been good, now his belly announced that it was time for dinner and he fancied lying with his wife this night. She might be angry with him, but would not say no. No one said no to William once his mind was set.
He flipped his hand towards the English coast that lay somewhere beyond the cloud-grumbling horizon. ‘You may one day take that ship to England, Will, my friend. When Edward has gone to God and I am asked to take his throne.’
8
Budapest When the wind blew from the north the settlement froze with the cold. When it came from the south-west everything would dry and wither. This August had been hot, but the wind had stayed in the south-east and the occasional fall of refreshing rain had kept a greenness to the fields, the streams and rivers at a reasonable height. Last year, and the year before that, drought had scorched the thirsty crops and then torrential rain had washed away anything that had struggled to survive. Clouds were forming in heaped, lazy banks over towards the distant mountains. Ædward wondered if the summer storms were to come again this year, to destroy what little they had managed to grow in the spent soil.
One more year of bad harvest and the settlement would be finished. Already the old were weak and thin, the young malnourished. He rested his broad hands on the door lintel. What to do? What best to do?
Behind him within the house place, the sound of the loom weights clicking together distracted him a moment. Agatha enjoyed her weaving, but even the wool from the sheep had been of poor quality this shearing. Edgar was playing with the hound pups, evidently too close to his mother’s feet, for Ædward heard her sudden scolding and then movement as the lad ran out through the doorway, ducking under his father’s upheld arms, the pups tumbling in a litter of wagging tails and joyful barks along with him.
Ædward caught at his son’s shoulder as his skidded past, his hand grasping his tunic.
‘Now then, my mischievous lad, what have you been up to? Playing with your hounds near your mother’s loom again eh? Tsk, she’ll peel your backside one day!’
Edgar was four years old. He ought to be a chubby, well-grown, merry boy, but he was not. He was small and thin with a serious expression. His elder sisters, too, were both solemn-faced, slender girls. Slender? No, like their mother they were bone thin, lacking food to swell the flesh on arms, legs and face.
Ædward squatted before his son, staring into the boy’s blurred face. His sight was dimming; soon, he would lose what little vision he had. What could he do for his family then? Already it was hard to grow the crops, to hunt for game; to be ready with spear and sword when the riders came thundering over the plains on their shaggy ponies to plunder and kill what little there was.
‘Both my grandfather and father were kings, did you know that?’ he a
sked his son, who stood with his thumb in his mouth, staring back, blankly, at his father.
It frightened the boy when his papa began to talk of when he had been a child of almost the same age. Of when he and his brother had been huddled into a big dark boat and taken down a river called the Ouse, from somewhere called York. He knew neither of them, assuming they were other names for the river that ran beside the place his mama called Budapest. He had been there once and had not liked it much, for there were too many people and too much noise.
‘We had to escape, my brother and I, for the new king, Cnut, was intending to kill us. For many years we wandered from one place to another, seeking shelter where we could. Then we went to Kiev and found service for our spears beneath the grand prince – oh, I was almost a man grown then, no longer a lad, like you.’
Edgar’s eyes swivelled to the four hound pups who had found an old rag of some sort and were tearing and tossing it. He wanted to join in the game.
‘My brother died fighting for the prince, but I was fortunate enough to meet with your mother, the daughter of another prince, the brother of the Emperor of Germany. I married her and by and by, when my fighting days were over because of my failing sight, we came to live here, to farm this fickle valley.’
‘Oh, for the sake of God, Ædward, look at those damned dogs!’ Agatha had come from within doors and realised at once what it was the dogs were playing with. She ran forward, shooing with her hands, lunging for what had been her husband’s only decent cloak. ‘You sit there repeating those endless old stories and let the whelps shred your only good cloak! Ædward, I despair of you and this wretched place!’ Suddenly she was crumpled to the ground, her face buried in the chewed rag, sobbing.
Ædward went to her and set his arm around her heaving shoulders. ‘Your discontent has grown each day since that messenger arrived. I am thinking that perhaps we ought to pay heed to the offer he brought us.’
Agatha looked up, wiping at her tears with the back of her hand. She was twenty-five years old and felt as if she were fifty. Her husband was not much her senior, thirty-six years, yet he too looked like an old man. The wind did that to you, of course, this persistent wind that weathered soil, tree and skin alike.
‘I do not know if we should accept your kindred’s offer of returning to England. We know nothing of Edward, of any of them. England shunned you. She lifted not a finger to help – until now. All of a sudden you are invited to return because there is no one else of the royal line? Can we believe that as the truth?’ She lifted Ædward’s hands, pressed her lips against his wrinkled knuckles. ‘What use would you be to them, husband? You have not fought in more than ten years, you cannot see the spear you hold in your hand, to make no mention of the target you aim for. For all it pains me to say it, they will never deem you worthy of anything once they meet with you.’
Ædward turned his hands over to hold her fingers firm within his own. ‘Then you would rather stay here, in this wilderness, to die?’
She lowered her gaze, closed her eyes, shook her head. No.
‘I have been thinking much on it. For me, no, there is nothing that I can give England, nor little that Edward can offer me in return, except for one thing. Hope. Hope for a better future for our two daughters and our son.’
‘He is a child, they will not want him.’ Agatha snatched her hands away and lunged to her feet, throwing the ruined cloak to the dogs who waited, tails wagging, a few yards away, Edgar squatting with them, his arms tight around the black and tan bitch.
Moving to grasp at Agatha’s shadowy figure, Ædward missed his first attempt, caught hold of her arm at the second.
‘Do you not see? They need to find a man to be king after Edward. He is not old, he may live for many years yet – long enough for our son to grow. They have indicated that they are willing to offer us any form of safe conduct that we request – all we need do is stand firm for what we need for ourselves: an agreement of noble marriage for Margaret our eldest and the title of ætheling to pass to my son. For Edgar, Agatha, we must go to England. For Edgar, not for me.’
‘But, fool of a man, they will not take him without you.’
‘Of course not, but they do not know what they are getting with me. Unless we tell them, how will they know?’
At last a smile wavered at the corners of Agatha’s lips. She put her hand to Ædward’s chest, patting her agreement. ‘Anything’, she said, ‘would be better than remaining here.’
Edgar buried his head into the soft fur of his favourite bitch. He did not understand much of what his father and mother had said this day, or during the past two, since that man had come with word from this town called England. It was bigger than Budapest, they had said. If he did not like Budapest, then he would not, he supposed, like England. Nor did he like this talk of going to see a king. This king in England had tried to kill his father and had set him in a dark boat that had been pushed out into a river. Edgar did not think he would like a king who tried to murder children.
9
Gloucestershire The day was bright and warm, the air suffused with the scents and sounds of a drowsy summer: warm earth, the sweet, heady smell of hay, pollen and clover; lazy bees about their plundering of nectar; cattle lowing in the water meadows; ewes calling to their growing lambs.
An idyllic day, except the King was in a belligerent temper and everyone else was sick of being camped here beside the ferry at Aust on the bank of the river Severn.
Strolling along the horse lines, Harold tugged an alder twig from a tree and began idly stripping the leaves, playing that childish game: she loves me, she loves me not . . . From the far bank a fish leapt for a fly, leaving the spread of ripple rings. His eye caught the brief flurry of bright blue as a kingfisher darted through the darker shadow of trees.
She loves me not. He sighed, tossed the bare branch aside and went over to his own horse, a new and spirited dark dun stallion who, yesterday, had gashed his fetlock. With an hour or so to spare while Edward attended his toilet, Harold thought he might as well tend it. As good a way as any to pass this first half of the morning.
The Welsh problem had come to a head in June. When the Bishop of Hereford had died, he had been replaced by Leofgar, a man devoted to God but also a capable warrior. Many disapproved of his habit of wearing a moustache when it was generally accepted that clerics went clean-shaven, but for the nervous population of Hereford he appeared the ideal choice. A pity that his enthusiasm won the better of his judgement. Eleven weeks after his consecration, he led an army impetuously into Wales. Outnumbered, he and his men had been annihilated at Glasbury on Wye.
Campaigning against these damned Welsh provoked one disaster after another. Edward had not the treasury, or the men, to waste on pointless campaigns. Settlement was the only alternative.
Truce with Ælfgar was simple to conclude, for his father was mortally ill. Soon, another earl would be required for Mercia and the honour, unusually premature, was offered to Ælfgar. For now he was to have Anglia returned to him, Harold’s brothers, Gyrth and Leofwine, being willing temporarily to step down from their award of joint custodianship, given them at Ælfgar’s exile until the vacancy became available again. Gruffydd, too, could see the sense of accepting the offer of border lands and estates without the need to fight for them. Of course, he would renege on the agreement at some time or another, but such were peace treaties: give a little, take a little; smile and offer pleasantries; ignore what would happen a few more miles down the track. If peace could be claimed for a month or a year then something had been achieved. The problem came with the petty pride of a prince and a king, neither of whom would give ground. One of them had to step on to the ferry and go to the other to exchange the embrace of peace. Both of them were arguing that the other ought to be the one to cross.
Edward had decided to appear at his best when Gruffydd disembarked from the ferry on to this, the English side of the Severn. His earls agreed that trimming beards or shaving, having a haircut and we
aring of fine apparel was indeed suitable, but going to the extent of bathing, even given that the weather was pleasantly hot, seemed a little excessive. Not that Harold was averse to submerging himself in a tub of hot water, but he preferred to do so within doors and preferably with Edyth there to scrub his back and share in the additional intimate delights. To bathe in a tub in a tent, with tepid water, did not seem worthwhile.
Harold had named the horse Beowulf, after the warrior of the saga. He stood just below fourteen and a half hands with a deep chest, a bold eye, quick intelligence and great stamina and speed: all the best characteristics of Harold’s Wessex stud. Stroking the horse’s velvet-soft muzzle, Harold fed him a titbit of a stale bread crust and picked up the injured hoof. Already the cut was scabbed over; it would be healed in no time. Satisfied, Harold turned to make his way back to the royal tent and saw a young woman leaning with casual curiosity against the trunk of an ash tree.
‘He is a fine stallion,’ she said boldly, indicating the horse. ‘I would wager he has Welsh blood in him?’
Harold walked casually towards her, suddenly recognising her. ‘And how’, he asked with a trickle of amusement, ‘would you know of the breeding of ponies, and the characteristics of the Welsh breed in particular? Do they teach such things to the daughters of English exiles, then, within Gruffydd’s court?’
Ælfgar’s daughter, Alditha, pushed herself from the tree. She was slender and tall, only a few inches shorter than Harold, with eyes as dark as a well’s deep pool. She was fifteen years of age, balanced on the verge of womanhood.
‘Prince Gruffydd had no need to teach me,’ she retorted with a toss of her black hair, the two braids, each as thick as Harold’s wrist, bouncing against her shoulders and maturing breasts. The gesture reminded Harold of his stallion: alert and impatient. Beautiful.
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