‘What is it you are trying to say?’ Gytha dipped her ear close to Edward’s lips, ignoring the foulness of his breath. ‘Edith, do be silent, he is trying to speak. I think it is important.’
Edith’s breath caught in her throat. The succession – was he trying to tell them who should come after him? The Council had asked her several times, had been discussing it discreetly between themselves since Christmas Eve – hah! No doubt before then also! Like scavengers they had descended on Westminster, ghoulish and curious, anxious to curry favour with whomever they were to elect as the next king. Edith closed her eyes. Oh, Tostig ought to be here! He ought to be promoting his cause, demonstrating his worth, his ability, not sitting across the sea somewhere buying ships and planning a war against the very people who could, if persuaded, give her what she wanted.
‘Abbey?’ Gytha queried, unaware of her daughter’s anguish. ‘You are concerned about your abbey?’
Edith swore under her breath, a word that her mother would have been shocked to hear had she spoken it aloud. His abbey? Was that all the old dotard could think of?
Tears were beginning to trickle from Edward’s sunken and bruised eyes. His abbey. He had so wanted to be buried in his abbey.
The memories of her own husband dying were all too vivid in Gytha’s mind. How she missed him, even after all these years. It was not loneliness, for she had good-hearted people around her – servants, friends, family. No, it was the little things that she missed: the exchange of a glance that only they understood; the sharing of laughter or tears, of secrets, hopes and fears; the comfort of his strong arms around her; his occasional bursts of flurried temper, and the sheepish appeal for forgiveness.
Edith, poor child, would not miss Edward for any of those things. Without love, what was there to miss? There would be nothing, only the emptiness of what might have been.
‘I think, my dear,’ she said to her daughter, ‘that he is concerned for his abbey.’
At first when Gytha had arrived at Westminster, halfway through the month, Edith had been delighted. She so desperately wanted someone to empathise with her bounding fear of the future as a widow. Gytha had sat with her, wept for Tostig’s exile, agreed that Harold ought to have fought harder to help him, but that had only been on the first day and had, Edith soon discovered, been to calm her down. None of those words had been true, not after Gytha had spoken to Harold and heard his power-grubbing version of those disastrous events at Oxford. She might have known that their mother would take his side. Harold had always been Gytha’s favourite. These weeks on, she wished her mother would take her meddling interferences and go home.
‘What of the damned place? Is my future not more important?’
Gytha bit back an impatient retort, reminding herself, yet again, that distress did so play tricks upon the common sense. ‘Of course it is, my dear, but has no one thought to reassure him that the consecration is to take place on the morrow?’
Edith hesitated. Had he been told? She tossed her head, irritable; of course he had. The ceremony had been arranged days ago, before Christmas Eve, it was one of the first things Harold had done on reaching Westminster from his manor at Waltham. She remembered, unbidden, her brother’s scathing words: ‘Could you not take a moment from your own selfish preoccupations to organise the service of consecration for him?’
She had been too busy sorting out her approaching widowhood. There was so much to do and no one reliable to help her! Documents to be read and signed, letters to be written, plans to be made – part of the royal treasury to be discreetly removed to Winchester. Oh, everything had changed from how she had expected it to be! Edward was to have died gloriously and bravely. Swiftly, with none of this lingering that gave men time to conjecture. And Tostig was to have been by his side, to receive the King’s blessing.
Much had angered Harold that day, she now recalled. He had arrived at Westminster in a temper, had imperiously taken command. By what right had he censured any further removal of gold from the treasury? She was Queen, she had every right to do so.
Edith shut her eyes. How her head drummed. Harold had taken control over almost everything, from what was served by the kitchens to what was written on a royal charter. Acting as if he were king in Edward’s place. He was second-in-command, it was true, but second beneath the sovereign. She was Queen, she was sovereign, yet had he consulted her? Damn him, damn his efficiency, his authority, his ability! Damn the fact that he had been right over the matter of the abbey.
To justify her negligence she said, ‘Edward will not be well enough to attend the service, so I do not see how it matters.’
Sharply Gytha retorted, ‘It matters a great much to your husband.’ Really, the child was insufferable! Gytha again tempted Edward with a small spoonful of broth. He swallowed, a lopsided smile crimping his lips in a grotesque expression of gratitude. Tomorrow she had said. He could manage until tomorrow.
Countess Gytha patted his hand, realising he was trying to thank her. The pity of old age, she thought. Are the ones who die quickly in battle more fortunate than those of us who must wait and endure?
The abbey of Westminster was far from completed. The two western towers stood at half-height and at that end of the nave the roof needed tiling, the windows glazing. The unfinished work, however, was distant from the sanctuary and altar beyond the transept and could be screened. They would have to carry Edward by litter and ensure the ceremony was as brief as possible.
Edward’s head had drooped. A snore reverberated in his nose. Gytha gave the bowl to the servant and bade him take it away. It was cold, anyway, unappetising.
‘Have you heard from Tostig?’ she asked Edith, automatically wiping the incessant trickle of spittle from Edward’s chin with a linen cloth. The thing was soiled; she tossed it to the floor, demanding something clean be fetched.
‘Why would I have heard from Tostig?’ her daughter answered with a false bravado that immediately proved that she lied.
‘I wondered merely if Judith was well. It must be hard for her, this worry.’
‘What has she got to worry about?’ Edith retorted with indignation. ‘She is not about to be widowed! She isn’t about to lose everything she has worked for, for twenty years!’
The callousness struck Gytha with almost a physical force. Was there no compassion in her daughter? Could she truly not see beyond the effect for her own self? ‘Judith has as much to lose as you, Edith – in fact, I would say more. The uncertainty of exile can be far worse than anything you will ever encounter.’
‘My husband is dying and I shall lose my crown. Judith has a husband and hope for the future. Once Tostig returns to claim what is rightfully his with the ships he is commissioning, Judith will be reinstated as a countess – I can never again be Queen!’
‘So, you have received word from Tostig. He plans to invade?’
‘Yes!’ Edith snapped her confirmation. ‘Did Father merely shrug and accept his earldom being wrongfully stolen from him? Was he content to accept exile? I think not, Madam! Tostig wants what is his and will fight to his last breath to get it, as our father did.’
Countess Gytha walked swiftly to stand before her daughter, her irritation giving way to quickened anger. ‘Your father went into exile to avoid bloodshed, came back with the intention of, as far as he was able, securing his earldom peacefully. He did not want to fight against his king, nor, daughter, was he a man of dishonour.’ She nodded her head once, curtly, and left the room.
Why had sense, she wondered, been so poorly distributed between the children she had birthed?
11
Westminster Before the last of the light faded from the wet December day, the twenty-seventh of that month, a tiler had managed to climb up the height of the scaffolding to place a golden weathercock in position upon the roof of Edward’s proud Westminster Abbey. Only from the west, from below the choir and from the outside, did the place resemble a building site. On the morrow, they would enter through the north door, s
ee only the splendoured newness of the eastern end.
Harold stood alone facing the cloth-draped, bare altar. No candlestick, no salver or crucifix, nothing would adorn this holiest of places until the consecration and blessing. There was no sanctity within this wondrous building, nothing save the emptiness of space, height, of soaring walls, pillars and arches. With night beyond the tiers of narrow windows, the darkness crowded close, only the lantern in his hand and the few candles that burnt in wall sconces creating dim islanded pools of cheerful yellow brightness.
Yet there was a presence here. What, who, Harold could not decide. Nothing sinister, not a feeling of being spied upon, no, just a comfortable awareness of not being alone. Something, some faintechoed shadow of expectancy of waiting. God perhaps? Harold wondered. Was He already here, waiting to be formally welcomed into His house?
The Earl of Wessex walked slowly towards the first in a row of wooden benches placed across the nave in readiness for the morrow. Tomorrow, there would be people here, many people. Tomorrow, too, the articles of Holy Church would be blessed and placed upon the altar, the choir filled with song, prayers offered and accepted by God – and God himself would no longer be a distant tingle of breath, a whispered promise, a sigh upon the wind. Harold’s footsteps echoed on the stone floor. Left. Right. Tap. Tap. The sound reverberated through the chancel arches, down into the nave, through the enclosure of the choir. Bouncing off the walls, flying up to those rafters that soared high, as high as heaven.
Wine and water would be sprinkled over the altar while blessings were intoned and the chanting of the Benedictine monks echoed clear and sweet beneath the high vaulted roof. The perfume of incense would permeate through the odour of new-cut stone, timber, mortar and sawdust. As the Christian is baptised and confirmed by water and oil, so the altar of Saint Peter would, on the morrow, be dedicated to the Lord by anointing.
The hand of God would touch Edward’s abbey, but the King himself would not be there to witness the final glory. Edward was too ill to leave his bed, was, beyond doubt, nearing death. Outside in the darkness, the drizzle of rain beat its tedious rhythm on roof and rutted mud alike. Harold sat, wearily leant his forearms across his knees. The quiet, he had thought, might help to sort out his wild-running thoughts. He chewed his lip, tapped the pads of his thumbs together. His idea was not working.
A side door opened and a novice monk, unaware of Harold’s presence, entered and began dowsing the candles. The hour was late and until God dwelt here in His house, economy ordained the saving of tallow. The lad started as he noticed the Earl sitting there, and stammered an apology.
Harold smiled and rose to his feet. ‘Nay, ’tis I who must beg forgiveness, I ought not to be tarrying here. I came but to see for myself that all was ready. The morrow will be a day long remembered.’
The boy nodded that aye, it would.
Walking back to the north door, Harold paused, staring out at the rain. He would have to cross to the palace soon, seek his chamber, the warmth of his bed. Edyth was awaiting him, but he was unwilling to go to her, to ask for her quiet love, her gentle comfort. This one night, out of all those they had shared together, he did not know how he could face her. She would probably be already sleeping, for the hour was late. Most in the palace would have sought their beds, save those few of importance – the two Earls Eadwine and Morkere and Archbishops Stigand and Ealdred, who would perhaps have remained discussing matters of state between themselves, finishing the jugs of wine and tankards of ale that half an hour or so ago Harold had been sampling with them. He looked across the winter darkness to the palace complex. A crack of light showed through one of the closed shutters of the King’s upper-floor chamber, then flickered as a shadow moved beyond. His doctor, no doubt.
It would not be the Queen, for she had gone to bed to nurse her angry tears almost as evening had fallen. She had spoken few words to Harold this Christmas – all of them harsh and uncompromising accusation. He snorted disdain. Did she care about Edward? Had she ever cared? Edyth had said this morning that his sister was hiding behind her fear, that were she to think about the King, then the reality of her coming loss would be too much to bear. Instead, she was wallowing in grief for their brother Tostig. Harold had not disillusioned Edyth by telling her that he knew his sister better. She grieved for the impending loss of her sovereign status, for the fact that Tostig had let her down – and she blamed everyone for their joint downfall save herself and Tostig. He sympathised with her, but Edith could not remain Queen. Her calculated greed, placed so implacably above the good of England and its peoples, had made that an impossibility.
Edyth was not asleep. She sat on a cushion before the floor brazier, her feet and legs curled beneath her, a bed fur thrown over her shoulders to give extra warmth. She had been combing her hair, but she had ceased, was sitting, staring into the red glow of the charcoal, her mind miles distant.
From the first she had expected that one day she would lose Harold to another wife. Yet as the years of happiness had rolled by and their love had solidified, she had, despite chiding herself for it, become half convinced that perhaps her assumption had been wrong. That he did not require a noble-born woman to consolidate his position. But that depended on Edgar becoming king after Edward.
Strange that although they had known Edward was old, that death would come upon him sooner rather than later, now that it was here, how much had they all been taken by surprise. The court was numbed and shocked, finding the inevitable difficult to comprehend.
Would she now grow old with Harold? Would they become greyhaired together, sitting reminiscing beside the fire in the winter years? Or was that for this other woman, the one he must take as wife?
Cold, Edyth bundled the fur tighter. Edgar could not be king, he was only thirteen, too young. She closed her eyes, shunned the thoughts that crowded her brain so insistently. Perhaps it would not be so bad if she could share him? If he did not entirely set her aside?
A tear, part sadness, tiredness and hopelessness, slithered down her cheek. She did not want to share him, but then, neither could she bear to lose him completely.
Alerted by a sound at the door, she hastily scrubbed at the trail of moisture, set a welcoming smile to her lips, and turned to watch Harold enter their chamber. She scrabbled to her feet, her hands helping to remove his cloak. ‘Look at you, man, you are wet through! Get those boots and garments off before you catch your death of cold. The bed’s been aired with hot bricks. Get you between the covers. Tsk! What have you been doing – dancing in the puddles?’
‘If I had known you were so keen to get me undressed and into bed, I would not have lingered so long.’ Harold laughed. He stopped her fingers tugging at a rain-soaked knot in the lacings of his tunic and enfolded them within his own. That small laugh faded. He studied her face, her eyes, her hair. He so loved everything about her. Her fair hair was beginning to streak with lines of silver, but her eyes sparked as intensely blue as they had that first day he had seen her, flush-faced, embarrassed but defiant, within her father’s Hall. He set his hands to either side of her face, tilted her mouth up to his own and put his lips tenderly against hers, his kiss lingering only a moment.
A lamp glowed from the table, the brazier showed red-fired charcoal from within its grate. The heavy, draped wool curtains were drawn three sides around the bed, the wooden shutters tight closed across the windows.
It had to be said. He could put this thing from him for another hour, for the duration of the night, but to what end? It would still be there, come morning, and somehow he did not want to say this thing in the cold impersonal light of day. This was for them to share in private. There would be enough doing in public these next days, weeks, to satisfy a lifetime.
He said matter-of-factly, ‘I have been asked whether I would be willing to be considered for election as king.’ He drew in a steadying breath. Was it then so easy, after all, to make a decision? These thoughts that had rolled and battered in his mind since he had talke
d with – listened to – those four men in Archbishop Ealdred’s chamber. The indecision, the uncertainty – the rush of excitement. And now his answer had come, without him realising it. The accepting of what he must, what he wanted to, do. ‘I am willing. After Edward, if the full Council agree to elect me, I will be king.’
The wick of the lamp was burning low, it would gutter soon; more charcoal ought to be put on the fire. The rain pattered outside, cascading from overflowing gutters, spattering against the closed shutters, drumming on the roof shingles. Ordinary things, ordinary sounds. Nothing in the room had altered, moved or changed shape, yet for Edyth the whole world had just leapt upwards and come down again, subtly, indistinctly, shadow-shifted different.
She licked her lips, lifted her eyes to look into his. Of all the ways to lose him – to a woman, to battle – it was to happen because of a crown. She was to lose him to a more demanding companion than ever a wife would have been. Was to lose him to England.
Her chin tilted, her shoulders set straight, she said, wondering at her composure, ‘The Council will be fools if they cannot see the worth of such a man as you. I give you my blessing and my loyalty and ask only the one thing of you.’ She paused momentarily, a mere heartbeat, to steady her pounding, breaking heart. ‘I ask that you choose a woman worthy to be your queen.’
Harold made to speak, to protest, but she silenced his words by putting her fingertips to his lips. ‘Nay, do not deny the truth of what will be. There will be debate, perhaps argument and disagreement, but the Council will elect you, for as all of us in England know, there is no one else to follow Edward at this moment. You will need a queen, a woman with kindred with whom a new-crowned king must ally.’ Again she paused, looked briefly down at the wisps of acrid smoke that trailed from the lamp. Then she stretched up and kissed him. ‘I ask only that you and she be happy, and that you rule well.’
With a small moan, Harold pulled her to him, enfolded her in his arms. He felt as if he were two separate people. One, a man who had been offered the greatest power, the highest accolade. He could not deny that he wanted it. To be in supreme command, to answer to no man, to have his every aye or nay instantly obeyed . . . but then there was his other self, the man who loved this woman who was so desperately trying to hide her tears. A man who wanted only the laughter of his family, the comfort of his home, the pleasure of being a part of the turn of the seasons on his estate. Ploughing, sowing, harvest. The endless renewal of life. There would be no more of his manor at Waltham Abbey, for he would reside at Westminster, Gloucester, Oxford or Winchester – any and all of the royal manors in between. There would be no more of Edyth.
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