New Title 1

by Helen Hollick

  ‘My dear,’ she said, reaching her hand forward to take Alditha’s within her own. ‘You are still so pale. Come! You will walk with my brother Harold, I am certain he can bring a smile to your cheeks.’

  With a single, almost careless nod of assent at his sister, Harold held out his arm for the lady, noting her dipped head and blush as she took it.

  The two demure sisters, Margaret and Christine, walked, hands folded within their long sleeves, behind the Earl of Wessex. At seventeen and fifteen, these two daughters of Ædward the Exile had grown into pleasing young women, the youngest the image of her mother Agatha, who had passed into heaven less than a year after their father had so ill-fatedly died on arriving in London. Both had expressed a desire to dedicate themselves to God, although as their guardian Edward had made other plans for Margaret. A promise of considering giving her hand to Malcolm of Scotland had been a sure way for Earl Tostig to tame the Scots’ lust for border warfare. Their twelve-year-old brother Edgar, the ætheling, once outside in the courtyard, made off at a run with Harold’s sons Magnus and Edmund, whooping and hollering. The children loved to explore the building site – though they often annoyed the workmen, taking full advantage of the knowledge that no one would dare protest at their squawking nuisance.

  The King took great pleasure in having the younger folk around his court, their laughter a contrast to the sombre faces of his councillors and lords. There would be over-much sobriety, he often declared, were it not for their gaiety. Edith would agree with him, though never did she forget that were it not for his own refusal of intimacy, her children would be among those who romped together like inexhaustible hound pups.

  ‘So, my Lady,’ Harold said as he strolled with Alditha, ‘I am ordered by the Queen to make you laugh. What would you prefer? That I tumble a few acrobats or shall I recount an inane jest? I know several. I could perhaps sing. My cracked voice would raise a smile to the most solemn of faces.’

  ‘I thank you, but I am well content.’

  ‘The Queen does not think so.’

  The Queen, Alditha thought, can go boil her arrogant, interfering

  head in oil. Said aloud, ‘The Queen is most sweet. She has personally ensured that my every comfort has been attended to.’

  Harold guffawed. ‘It is entirely possible that you are the only living person to refer to my sister as “sweet”. Our own mother would describe her more as sour vinegar; and if she is interested in your welfare then I assume it is because she has some private motive.’ Harold guided Alditha around a pile of horse dung. They could hear Edward ahead, his high-pitched voice berating those responsible for not sweeping the courtyard.

  ‘Oh, she has a motive,’ Alditha answered, glancing sideways at the man beside her. ‘She is decided to find me a husband more suitable than the one I had before.’

  ‘That ought not be too difficult! Gruffydd was a toad. We can surely find you a frog or a tadpole.’

  When Alditha did not smile, Harold bent his head closer to hers and said with exaggerated seriousness, ‘It was a jest. You are supposed to laugh.’

  ‘Why? It was not amusing.’

  ‘No, but women are obliged to flatter the male ego by politely acknowledging our attempts at wit.’

  ‘We are more likely to laugh at your absurdities.’

  The quick retort came with a hint of a smile; Harold caught it, raised a finger. ‘There, you see, already I have pleased the Queen. You have smiled.’

  ‘I assure you it was not intentional.’

  ‘No matter whether ’twas or not. A smile well suits you.’

  A pinkness grazed Alditha’s cheeks at the flattery. She had spoken only half the truth when she had told him that she was content. What was contentment for a young widow? She was of noble birth, with her own land and entitlement. Her brother Eadwine was Earl of Mercia, a county that had once been a kingdom in its own right. Marriage with her was of potential value to any man who sought a means to step on to the dais of power. Her future consisted of but two choices: marry a man she would probably despise, or enter a nunnery. Neither would be of her own, freewilled choosing, but a woman such as she did not have the luxury of free will or choice. She despaired of the shallowness of Edward’s court, the gossip, the blatant pushing and shoving to reach a higher rung on the hierarchical ladder. The hypocrisy of it all!

  An improvement on living as wife to Gruffydd ap Llewelyn, however.

  ‘Truly, my Lord Earl,’ she said, ‘I am content, and if it pleases you and the Queen, than I shall smile more often.’

  Pleased at achieving his mission, Harold squeezed her cool fingers, his face shadowing into a frown as he caught a glimpse of his eldest son’s glowering expression.

  Goddwin stared with intense hostility at his father, his unblinking eyes challenging Harold to declare an interest in the half-Welsh woman. He could not see why his father was so drawn to her – huh, that was not true. No man whose pizzle was in working order could deny her beauty. Her dark hair, heart-shaped face, willow-thin figure and the way the light danced in her eyes . . . jealousy, an evil goblin that so easily wormed its way into the soul and mouldered there. He adored his mother, could not understand or accept what Edyth had always expected: that one day Harold would take another wife into his bed.

  He had not wanted to come to court with his father; there was much to do on the estate that Harold had granted him as a wedding gift. That roan colt was ready for breaking to harness and the chestnut mare who had experienced difficulty with her first foaling needed careful watching. Goddwin preferred horses to people. People always expected too much of you: witty conversation, merry jigging to dance tunes, interest in their personal problems. Horses wanted only to please, to be fed, watered and groomed, to have their feet regularly trimmed; horses never held a grudge or made prejudiced judgement. You knew where you were with horses.

  Harold met that jealous stare head on, lifted a questioning eyebrow, to which Goddwin ducked his head. They had quarrelled so often of late, father and son. Since Harold had brought this woman out of Wales, in fact. The Welshman’s Whore, the court called her behind her back, save for two nights past when Goddwin had overheard an inebriated conversation conducted by two men of Edward’s household. Harold’s whore, they had said, cackling in that suggestive, crude way. Harold’s whore.

  Angry, Goddwin turned abruptly away from the gaggle of men and women around the King. Let them prattle about his damned abbey. Goddwin would have none of it. Fortunately, Edward did not see him go.

  The ground ascended gently from the palace, slowing Edward’s initial exuberant pace and bringing the breath puffing into his lungs. Perhaps it was his increasing age that made the slope seem the steeper? Next birthing day he would be sixty years of age and they told him often that he ought to take more rest. Piffling nonsense! He might be missing a few teeth and his sight be more blurred than once it had been, his hearing not so sharp, but he could still sit a horse and gallop with the rest of those young whelps when a stag was running. And his mind was alert, his bladder and bowels controlled; he was not yet the dotard they claimed him to be.

  Ahead of the party, the east end of his abbey stood in all its splendour, a vast, soaring structure of Reigate stone, the sun’s rays striking down through the wind-hustled clouds, highlighting the lantern tower as if God Himself were pointing out its wonder.

  The square, lead-roofed tower stood six storeys high, rearing into the sky above the crossed section of north and south transepts, the army of surrounding roof turrets standing like a cluster of guardian sentries. The tiled roofing, above apse, transepts and upper part of the nave, had been set in place as soon as the walls had risen to keep the stone and timber structures below dry. Once the rain was kept out, work had progressed rapidly.

  From this eastern approach the holy place looked almost complete, for as was traditional with cathedral and abbey constructions, building ranged from east to west. The height of the northern transept, immediately ahead of the royal part
y, successfully hid the slower progress to the western end – which consisted of the halfbuilt northern wall of the nave, one tower flanking the western entrance completed but for its roof and its potential twin standing as a single storey of stonework. There was still much to be done.

  They stood a moment, the group of onlookers, heads tipped back, gaping up at the great height of the tower, marvelling at the diminutive figures of men clambering over and along the higglepiggle of scaffolding, not one of them seemingly concerned about the distance down to the ground. For many of those watching – save for those fortunate few who had made pilgrimage to Rome, or visited the grand new cathedrals that were springing up all over France and Italy – this was the tallest building they had ever seen. It was certainly impressive.

  Edward entered through the cavern in the north transept that would, one day, be the northern entrance door and proudly led his audience into another world.

  The square tower was borne over the crossing by an elaborate array of unobtrusive stone arches, like the branches of a gigantic oak supporting the canopy above. Spiralling stairs reached up inside, set in artistic symmetry against plain walls that rose to the carved beams of the roof. Windows, set at especial angles, allowed in wide shafts of sunlight that harboured a myriad of floating, dancing particles of dust.

  It was a beautiful church. Uncluttered by unnecessary ornamentation, its clean lines gave an overpowering sense of length and height, a continuity of unbroken space stretching from one end to the other that, when finished, would cover more than 330 feet in length. The nave would support six double bays per side – two longer than the cathedral of Jumièges. Arches, each resting on plain cylindrical columns below a triforium stage with a gallery surrounding the vaulted aisles, and above that, the clerestory shadowed below the eaves. Further windows pierced the solidity of the lower walls, bringing light cascading down into the enclosed space. The abbey of Westminster was to be long and high, but there would be no gloom within. God’s house, lit by God’s hand.

  Allowing sufficient pause for gasps and a crackle of admiring applause, Edward passed the raised steps that would lead to the main altar and thrust out his arm to indicate an open space. ‘Here’, he said extravagantly, ‘is where I shall be laid to rest. Close to the bosom of God, where I shall sleep in peace within the sanctity of this glorious place.’

  His audience nodded; no one dared comment that the abbey of Westminster was, at this moment, anything but a place of peace.

  So much movement and noise! All bustle and business. Men swarming like worker ants; carriers of wood, stone, water and lime, men recruited locally and paid by the day. Skilled craftsmen were as numerous as the labourers. Carpenters, masons, stonecutters; those who mixed the mortar, their essential task demanding huge concentration. A building was, after all, only as strong as the mortar that bound it together. Mixed poor, and a wall would crumble as the rain washed and seeped and the wind buffeted. Somewhere within the network of ladders, pulleys, ramps, cranes, hoisting gear and treadmills, the architects were overseeing the transferral of the design on paper into reality.

  Hammering, sawing, the squeal of rope on wood as hoists took the enormous blocks of stone from ground level up to the heights of the roof; the indignant bellowing of oxen, the roar of the blacksmiths’ bellows. Grunts and shouts, the overall swell of talk and laughter, grumbling and half-muttered swearing. The tramp of feet echoing on hollow ramp, the chink of chisel on stone, rumble of heavy-burdened wheels and the screech of metal against metal. The squeak of wheels as a man lumbered past with a laden handcart, sweat standing out on his face, biceps bulging.

  And through it all, the swirl of grit, wood-chips and shavings. White stone dust on the floor, hanging in the air; layers deep along grooved edges of pillars and columns, of steps and crevices, on the sills of the windows. Dust that settled across the shoulders and in the hair of the working men.

  Edward noticed a tall, stockily built man with a shock of flamered hair standing in the centre of the nave, his back to the party, head bent over a sheaf of plans. The King called out as he hurried forward, ushering Leofwine with him: ‘Leofsi! Leofsi! Duddesson! Come, Leofwine, you must talk with my master mason – Leofsi is a wonder with stone!’

  Alditha had wandered away from Harold, was ambling down the aisled arcade of the semi-completed nave, looking up in awe at the row of arched window openings. The King had told her that every opening was to be filled with glass; some were to have small panes of coloured glass that would send ripples of colour over the stone floor when the sun shone through, like a rainbow dancing within doors. She did not see the abandoned coil of rope. Her foot caught, she tripped, falling forward on to her knees with a startled cry – and Harold was there at her side, too late to stop her fall, but quick enough to break its full impact. She glanced up, saw his concern, his smile. Smiled back. ‘How clumsy of me,’ she said, allowing him to help her to stand. ‘I was studying the windows. It will look so beautiful when it is all finished. Like I imagine heaven to be.’

  ‘Without the rubble and the noise, I trust? ’Tis difficult to imagine the monks singing among this shouting and banging. Are you hurt?’

  ‘No, just a little shaken.’ Why was she being pleasant to him? Why was she smiling, her heart fluttering? Foolishness! She must not let herself fall in love with this rugged-featured, strong-muscled man with eyes as tranquil as a mountain pool washed by moonlight. But for the love of God, how could she bear being married instead to some fat-bellied old man, or an untried beardless youth?

  She half turned her back and raised her skirt. Her stocking was torn and a dribble of blood trickled from a cut to her knee. She dropped the hem of her gown, busied herself with brushing off the dust and setting her veil straight. She was not a woman who dwelt on the unfairness of life. From birth the roll of the die was weighted against a woman, so why make the hardship worse? If the taste was bitter, swallow it down quickly and make the most of the honey whenever it happened along.

  Gruffydd had been delighted to acquire Alditha for his own, but saw no deeper than her unblemished skin and the curves of her body. Beyond using her in his bed, he had barely noticed her. Few women expected ought else from a husband, but the hope, the dream that love might come, was always there.

  Harold took her arm, bringing her back to the present with a startled jolt, and suggested they could take the opportunity to steal away. Edward was halfway along the length of the nave, would not see them leave.

  ‘I suggest we seek your maid, get that knee cleansed and salved.’

  Alditha blushed. He had noticed, then, must have also seen her torn stocking. She had heard from the whispers at court – there were always whispers, some kindly, most not – that Harold rarely missed much detail concerning a maiden.

  Goddwin Haroldsson was skulking in what would become the cloisters. He watched, angry, as his father escorted Alditha back towards the palace, their arms linked, his father’s head bent attentive.

  It was not right! Was not fair! His father already had one woman to love, what need had he of another? While he, Goddwin, was saddled with a sour-faced complaining sow! He walked with a quick, purposeful stride towards the stables, called for his horse, mounted and set off at a fast trot. Both his father and the King would be furious when they discovered that he had left Westminster without permission, but his stomach was full of court. He was going home.

  Linking his fingers and stretching his arms above his shoulders, Harold eased the ache of a long day from tired muscles. ‘My eldest son is, I think, somewhat annoyed with me.’

  ‘Lose a game, gain a game. Our sister is delighted. You have brought a glow into the face of the Welshman’s widow.’ Leofwine lay on the bed, his long, lean body taking up the entire length. He still wore his boots. ‘Edith has plans for you, mark my meaning, big brother! She has never been content to let a man lie where it pleases him.’

  Harold scowled. ‘I have resisted her attempts to marry me off to some wealthy hag all these
years.’ The scowl broke into a more amused expression. ‘She was so certain I would tire of Edyth Swannhæls, cannot forgive that I have disappointed her and would do anything to entice me into a marriage she approved of.’

  Leofwine folded his hands behind his head and grinned mischievously. ‘So you are not attracted to a certain dark-haired widow-woman then?’

  ‘Of course I bloody am! I’d lay her tonight if I were not Earl of Wessex with my honour to uphold – and she were not the sister of Eadwine, Earl of Mercia!’

  Reaching out for the tankard of ale that stood on the table beside the bed, Leofwine saluted his brother with it. ‘So Goddwin does have ground for jealousy!’

  Harold conceded the point. ‘Why do you think I’m so damned embarrassed about what to do with his behaviour!’ He was intrigued by Alditha, was attracted to her . . . perhaps if he did not have Edyth, he would have courted her, but as it was, Goddwin’s fears for his father making a fool of himself and his mother being hurt were unfounded. At this moment there was no one to challenge his status of authority as Earl of Wessex, second-in-command to the King; he had no need to seek new kin to assure his position. Tostig ruled in the North, outside Mercia, Gyrth and Leofwine controlled between them much of the rest of England. When Edward passed to God the situation might alter; then, to keep their place, the family Godwinesson might be forced to tie the loose ends, bind a few stubbornly independent hearts to them. All of which could depend on whom the Council chose as the next king – young Edgar was the attested ætheling and he had two as yet unmarried sisters. One of whom Harold might well need to use as security. Besides, he might have a man’s natural desire for a comely woman, but he still loved Edyth.