The Swan-Daughter (The Daughters of Hastings)

by Carol McGrath

  ‘See to it,’ Count Alan barked at a groom. ‘There must be a blacksmith here.’

  The groom nodded, ‘More than one, my lord Alan.’ The wiry man took Shadow’s reins and led the mare towards the upper stables.

  Alan grunted to Gunnhild and pointed to the watching guards. ‘I see we are expected. No secret arrival here.’

  Count Alan’s soldiers dismounted and with their helmets dangling from gloved hands gave their horses to the care of a band of eager stable boys who raced forwards to receive the reins. The soldiers followed Alan and Gunnhild through an arched doorway to an inner courtyard where they handed over their studded scabbards and sharpened swords to two waiting guards. The great keep door loomed up before them. Of a sudden it swung opened and Gunnhild saw Ralph de Gael looming out of the half-light, standing just beyond the shadowed threshold; beside him, Lady Emma. She was visibly with child.

  Ralph de Gael stepped forward. He was a bearded young man built like a bull, his dark hair shaggy like that of hounds employed to guard sheep pens from wolves. Gunnhild could not take her eyes off his mantle brooch-pin that was intricately cut with swirling patterns of Celtic design. Nor could she take her eyes from the man who wore it and who spoke to her in a mix of English and French.

  ‘La belle Gunnhild, fille du roi Harold, my lady Emma will see to your needs while you rest here …’ He turned to Alan. ‘Et avec Alain Rouge, mon cher ami, soyez bienvenus à mon château, bien, bien.’ He threw his arm about Alan’s shoulder. ‘Come, come, Emma and I have prepared a great welcome for you both.’

  Lady Emma stepped forward and offered them a silver bowl filled with water. Maids rushed to stand by their mistress and proffer linen cloths so that Gunnhild and Alan could bathe their hands and faces before entering the hall. Gunnhild glanced up and held out her hand for a towel. As she did, she saw how Earl Ralph stood back while all this was going on, but also how he watched Count Alan closely through narrowing eyes as Alan rinsed the dust of the road from his face and carefully dabbed the cloth about his beard. He does not trust my husband. Gunnhild dried her hands and thanked Lady Emma. But I have no doubt that my lord recognises this, too.

  He sent Alan’s men off to the kitchens except for Hubert whom Alan insisted stayed with them. The Earl led them through the hall towards the raised dais platform where a brazier glowed and a table was covered with fine linen napery. Gunnhild looked hungrily at the plates of food – cheeses, pies, breads and tarts. Then Earl Ralph ordered a servant to draw a heavy leather curtain across to separate this part of the hall from the greater hall. He dismissed his servants saying that he would see to his guests’ needs himself. When Earl Ralph placed them about the table Gunnhild found that she was sitting opposite him, beside Lady Emma whom she liked immediately. A comfortable sense of homeliness and intimacy pervaded the board and she began to relax. At first the conversation was neutral as they spoke of their journey from England, the storm and their visit to the Monastery of St Michel. Count Alan told them how Gunnhild had left the Abbey of Wilton to marry him and had refused to take vows or go into the household of Matilda of Mortain. He said that he was travelling into Brittany to introduce Gunnhild to his father at Dinan and to visit his own estates at Penthiévre.

  ‘So the King accepts your marriage?’ the Earl remarked with surprise, looking hard at Alan to his side. ‘You had permission to marry a princess of the Saxons? It is more than he gave me for Emma. It was my bride-ale feast at Exning in Cambridgeshire that started my troubles.’

  ‘He does not know yet, Ralph. He will, but he does not know yet,’ Alan said in an even tone as he took a slice of fish pie onto his dish and stabbed at it with his eating knife. ‘But this was no bride theft either. The lady consented.’ He smiled at Gunnhild. She lowered her eyes and said nothing.

  The Earl let out a guffaw. ‘Then you should join me.’ He choked on a piece of bread which gave him a coughing and sneezing fit, recovered, wiped his nose with the napkin Emma passed over the table and declared, ‘Merde; that Norman Bastard is distributing the land we fought so hard for in such a manner that only he controls all.’ He cleared his throat again and wiped his mouth again. ‘Why, he is even giving a number of sheriffs from Harold’s brief year more power than his own Breton earls who offered him their fealty and who fought so hard for him at Hastings. All the English sheriffs have to do is prove their loyalty to him, that they did not take up arms on the field at Hastings and that they are efficient. William is wily as a fox. He wants to keep English laws, and have the English abbeys running well. That way he can have control. Then there are all these castles he has been building with huge barracks of soldiers occupying them at his own earls’ expense. You know what, he fears us Bretons, Alan.’ He suddenly stopped and looked at Gunnhild, clearly remembering that she was, in fact, King Harold’s daughter. ‘King Harold,’ he added, clearing his throat again and emphasising the kingly title with clarity. ‘King Harold was a great king and a noble leader of men.’

  She looked back at him firm and square and raised an eyebrow deliberately for effect. He ignored her and went on with his rant about King William’s injustice towards those who had fought for him in the great battle. ‘Your Honour of Richmond is not the best land in Yorkshire is it, Alan? Faugh! We, his earls and barons, are supposed to be in charge of our lands but our own lands are simply his leftovers, veru gallice, goose spit! I may have been created Earl of Norfolk but, with what I have, in truth I cannot afford my own knights; the same for Earl Roger. We are young men in our prime, good leaders, tough fighters and we are deprived of any real power.’ He thumped a fist on the table shaking wine from their cups. ‘ C’est un abus du confiance! We Bretons were better off under King Edward than we are under this king. This king is power-obsessed and church-hungry.’

  ‘And was not King Edward distributing power to favourites?’ Alan said.

  ‘He had the church appetite.’ Earl Ralph let out another guffaw. ‘But it was others who were power-hungry for him.’ He stopped, took up his eating knife and chopped at a piece of cheese. He glanced at Gunnhild.

  She looked down at her heaped plate. Her family naturally had been very powerful and rightly so as they had held the kingdom together. Her father took the crown of England after King Edward died with the approval of England’s earls and bishops. Earl Ralph’s father had been a staller, an administrator and he had been valued and rewarded by her father when he was Uncle Edward’s advisor. But he saw the way things lay and threw his lot in with the Conqueror once her father was crowned king. It was the same with Earl Roger, the other great Breton earl who had already placed a boot in England during Uncle Edward’s day. Gunnhild looked up at Ralph and studied him. She could not feel sympathy for him. He had betrayed her family. Earl Roger had betrayed them, too. As for young Earl Waltheof, the third noble in the plot, she could not really understand why he had become involved with the rebel earls. He had been well rewarded by the Conqueror for his loyalty.

  Ignoring Earl Ralph, she ate silently, pretending lack of interest. She was hungry and, after all, the fish pie was delicious.

  Earl Ralph, after his momentary pause, ran on, ‘I cannot accept that Mortain dared to besiege my wife in our castle at Norwich. Look at her. She is fragile, a flower, a beautiful woman and she stood up to him.’ He banged down his cup spilling his red wine again. It ran in a great puddle across the table. Gunnhild slapped down her napery on the rivulet of crimson that threatened to reach her side, before it dribbled onto her precious green silk gown. He raised his voice so he was almost shouting. ‘If a woman can hold her castle for three months until there is barely a thing left to eat and disease claims lives, why then I owe it to her to fight the Bastard in any way I can!’ He thumped the table again. ‘And you, Alan, you should be a true Breton, like your older brother Brian, and have nothing to do with him.’

  ‘Dangerous talk, Ralph. Brian does not care for the English or the Normans but remember he inherits the greatest part of our lands. I only have a small ca
stle in Brittany, a manor farm or two as well and no more.’ Ralph raised his brows at this lie. Alan noticed. ‘Yes, also a few other estates in Normandy, a house in Rouen, not great. There is, of course, the Honour of Richmond and some lands in East Anglia, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. My half-brother Alain-Niall has nothing. He serves me, loyal to the King, and he is loyal to me.’

  ‘Blah, you two Alans, kings’ men, both, and my heart saddens to know it, and both named so in case one of you died.’ He looked even more darkly across the board at Alan. ‘Listen, Alan Rouge, if my own wife can stand up to the Bastard so can you.’ He paused and then spat out his next words. ‘Are you prepared to fight for what your wife has lost?’

  Alan remained quiet for a moment. The candle flames flickered. Earl Ralph refilled Alan’s cup and then his own. Alan finally said, his tone measured, ‘I shall regain her lands, but there are no ambitions on my part to wear a crown. She will be as a peace-weaver uniting mine and hers. She, too, will be a loyal wife to me and honourable and I hope she will give me a son for Richmond.’

  Gunnhild swallowed. She quickly sent a prayer to St Brigit that she could rise to these expectations.

  Ralph narrowed his eyes. ‘And do not think to take Dol, Alan. I have allies in many places. You will see. Take that information back to your king.’ Alan glared and began to rise from the table. ‘Sit down, man, you are in my castle. No harm will come to you here.’ Alan sat down again, though he looked uneasy as Earl Ralph refilled his cup.

  Emma folded her napkin and placed it on the table. ‘Gunnhild, come with me up to the solar.’ Seeing a question on Gunnhild’s face, she explained, ‘My bower is above the hall. We call it the solar because it catches the sunlight. Come and see it for yourself. We can send for a dish of stewed pears with cream and I have a jug of honeyed wine to accompany it.’ She rose decorously gathering her wide skirts about her with the confidence of a mother cat and pointed to a doorway behind the dais. Gunnhild stood, relieved to get away from the table where she could see there would be a tense discussion before Alan sought his rest. She nodded. Emma placed a slim hand on her arm. ‘There is a chamber there where you and your maid can sleep tonight and beside it another for Count Alan.’ She smiled at Ann who had risen to follow Gunnhild. ‘Perhaps she can make it comfortable whilst we get to know each other.’

  Ann hurried behind the hall to prepare their sleeping places as Gunnhild gathered her cloak about her ready to follow Emma. As she slipped away from the table, Alan was saying, ‘It was not a forgivable rebellion, Ralph, not when you invited the Danes to sail to our coasts to invade us. You must try to make peace as best you can. Even with help from Anjou or Flanders you will not ever be safe, not here in Dol or anywhere else.’ Gunnhild did not stop to hear more but hurried after Emma up a narrow, very rickety wooden stairway positioned conveniently to the side of the dais.

  As she came off the stairway on to a short platform and entered the brightly decorated solar, she gasped at how beautiful this room was, with its fall of tapestries and carpets on the floor. The uncomfortable tension apparent in the hall fell away from her as she looked around the chamber. Embroideries covered the planked walls with hawking scenes and flowers. Emma’s bed was curtained with embroidered linen hangings. For a moment Gunnhild thought sadly of Reredfelle. Although she had lived there only a few months, her mother had made it beautiful and now it was gone. What a brief moment we have in time, she thought to herself. A hall of great beauty may be here today but if there is an attack or a siege it can become ashes on the morrow.

  ‘Look about you, Gunnhild,’ Emma broke into her thoughts. ‘Look at everything here. Do not hesitate to touch whatever you wish to see closer.’

  Gunnhild crossed the rush-matted floor to a table of light wood. A looking-mirror of polished silver, several combs and dainty little painted pots with cosmetics and salves covered its surface. She lifted a bone comb to examine the tendrils of leaves and gilly-flowers carved into its surface. She replaced it and when she glanced up, Emma was smiling at her. Gunnhild’s wide eyes scanned the room once more. Bolts of dyed linen casually lay on chairs. Floor baskets spilled braiding in colours of yellow, red and varying hues of green. For a moment she yearned for beautiful things of her own. She shrugged the longing away. Alan had promised that they would come to her, and she would insist that he kept his word. She must be patient.

  Emma said quietly, ‘I am with child and we are cutting and stitching two new gowns for my pregnancy. They must have laces at the side that I can let out as I grow even bigger.’ She paused, took a breath and added, ‘I hope my first is a girl so that she can remain untouched by war and grow into a companion for me.’ Then she swept the cloth from two of the chairs and told Gunnhild to sit by the window where she could watch the sun set.

  Gunnhild was glad to be close to the opened shutters, away from the stuffy dais where conversation had grown uncomfortably intense. They sat companionably for a while, watching the sun tumble towards the sea in a great orange disk until it set far beyond the castle palisade. Leaning over the sill to watch the land below the castle, she exclaimed with delight on seeing tiny figures seated on a wagon driven by an ox slowly cross the landscape. She watched them move towards the miniature village that grew like a long piece of rope from the bailey gates.

  As the sun dropped into the sea beyond the land, Emma called for candles and for a maid to stow her bolts of cloth away into a coffer. At her command her ladies seemed to appear from the room’s farthest shadows as if their only purpose was to dance attendance on their mistress, and as candle tapers lit up the room, Gunnhild realised that there was another chamber beyond the solar. This was where the women had been seated busy with their needlework and spinning.

  ‘I like being so high above the ground,’ Gunnhild said.

  ‘Castle keeps like these have three, even four floors. My lord sleeps in the chamber above mine close to the roof so if there is danger he can get quickly above and see all around us. We are on the second floor here. I chose it because of the view. Above my lord’s sleeping chamber the roof is guarded with thick battlements and a guard remains on duty all around, all the time. These are dangerous days.’ She studied Gunnhild meaningfully. Gunnhild met her look steadily.

  ‘I understand now why the soldiers in the bailey looked menacingly at us,’ Gunnhild confided.

  ‘They are prepared for attack and any stranger entering the bailey with an armed guard makes them wonder if there is an army outside waiting to destroy us.’

  ‘I understand,’ Gunnhild replied, though she did not like the thought that they were constantly surrounded by a military cohort that presumably resented their presence in Earl Ralph’s castle.

  Emma chattered on describing the castle. ‘Below my hall there are stores and a great kitchen. And you came over the bridge from the bailey. It is another place where we have placed a guard. Gunnhild, this place is a fortress, a much stronger castle than Norwich ever will be.’

  At the word fortress, Gunnhild shuddered. Now she felt as cold as the sea that lashed the coast beyond the castle. She was supposed to discover Earl Ralph’s intentions through conversation with his wife but it seemed to her that Emma had already had sensed her mission. It clearly was why she was saying so pointedly that Dol could not be penetrated. Gunnhild concentrated hard on not feeling fearful.

  She said, ‘Do you ever wish to return to Norwich, Lady Emma?’

  Emma looked at her curiously and shook her head. No, never.’

  She called for hippocras, a sweet honey wine which Gunnhild loved, for sweet pastries and the dish of stewed pears. Removing her head covering, Emma remarked that there was no need to wear a wimple in the company of women and Gunnhild saw that she wore her chestnut hair in a coil at the nape of her neck. It was held in place with a pin that was identical to the one that her husband wore on his mantle. They were clearly in love with each other.

  Relieved to be on such companionable terms, Gunnhild removed her fillet and veil. E
mma smiled a very warm and genuine smile. ‘Why, Gunnhild, you are your mother’s daughter, though I think I remember Elditha was a little taller than you.’

  ‘You remember my mother?’

  ‘Yes, and I remember you at King Edward’s Christmas feast ten years ago. I was sixteen and my father was seeking a husband for me. The King died and then that year became all about war. My father sent me into safety to our estates in Brittany. Betrothal was discussed but it came to nothing. The nobleman he chose was …’ she paused. ‘Well, never mind, it came to nothing.’ She laughed. ‘Yes, well, I must tell you since my father’s choice was, in fact, Godwine, your own brother. I stayed here until my father died. Then my brother called me back to England and decided to wed me to his friend. It was at my wedding feast that they planned their rebellion.’

  Emma touched Gunnhild’s arm. ‘I have no taste for war, Gunnhild, but I am loyal to my lord. He is a good and loving husband.’ As she said this Gunnhild wondered how the hardened, dark, and angry Ralph de Gael could ever be a gentle husband.

  Emma clasped Gunnhild’s hands and held them tightly. ‘This is my home. I shall be very happy to stay in Brittany if Alan can make peace between King William and my husband. If only he can get my brother released from his dungeon and seek forgiveness for that foolish young earl who lingers in a prison cell in Winchester. If he cannot, then I fear for our future. Ralph will seek help from the King’s enemies, from either the French court or from the House of Anjou or both.’ She loosened her grip on Gunnhild’s hands and placed her hands protectively over her stomach, as if in doing so she was hiding her unborn child from their enemies. ‘If that happens there will be war.’