The thief peered through a crack in the barn door. He had noticed the lamplight seeping out over the snow. Through the slit he saw Lady Gunnhild, her bright hair curling loose about her mantle. The man she was kissing was not her husband and though her lover was in shadow the little man was sure it was Count Alan’s brother.
He departed as silently as he had arrived, dragging his sledge behind him keeping close to the buildings until he reached the hole in the wall. This information he would ferret away. One day it might be useful.
20
Summer 1086
‘Yet as the old books tell us, Tristram and Isolde were steadfast in their love.’
‘Tristram and Isolde’, The Death of King Arthur by Peter Ackroyd, 2011
Gunnhild glanced up from the book she was sharing with Maud. These moments alone with her daughter were special. Spring had come late again, cold and wet but there was new growth on the trees at last. The hedgerows were fat with hawthorn and the verges smothered with wildflowers. May arrived with the song of the cuckoo and the sparrows that rutted below in the herb garden. That morning, sun had shone through the castle’s arched windows so she had risen early and ordered that all the shutters be thrown open to let in its light.
She studied the page of her book, bound between deerskin-covered boards. The title, St Margaret of Antioch, was burned into the leather and painted in gold lettering that curled and waved as if it had its own rhythm. St Margaret smiled serenely from the opened page. The angel that Gunnhild had so delicately painted years earlier hovered above the saint’s head. Miniature shells decorated the margins interspersed with sea grasses. She loved this tiny illustration. She considered it her best work, perfection itself. She traced the figure with her finger. How this saint had suffered, endured imprisonment, tortures and death by the sword for her devotion to God. Gunnhild knew she could never live such a life; she had sinned. There was no help for her aching, desperate love for Niall, a love that ate into her soul and damned it.
Nine-year-old Maud stopped reading. She spoke Gunnhild’s own thought aloud as if she knew her mother’s mind. ‘How can we read about the purity of saints when you are not a good person, Mama …’ She trailed off, biting her lip.
Gunnhild reached out to Maud but the child pulled back her hand. This accusation hurt. It bore deep into her conscience. The chamber felt chill. Maud was about to say more, explain her rudeness perhaps, but she held back her words. Instead she stared at the wicker-worked cage hung by the shutters in which a small nightingale lived. The creature warbled, squawked and rattled the cage bars as if it felt Maud’s anger. It ruffled its orange feathers. It seemed to sigh at last and the air stilled. There was silence except for the everyday sounds beyond the chamber – those of chambermaids shouting, coffer lids shutting, a gardener banging the gate as he entered the herb beds below the window.
Gunnhild studied Maud closely. She could not know. They had been discreet, rarely visiting their oak tree refuge during the last summer before the worst winter in memory gripped, one even colder than the famine winter of two years previously. She tried to think back. It had been difficult to meet Niall in secret as she usually had to bring Ann with her. She left Ann in the village tending the sick, delivering gifts of cheese from their dairy, or to talk with villagers, whilst she rode on with Niall to collect oak galls for her inks, the excuse being that Niall would protect her from danger. Ann never questioned or criticised her mistress, nor as far as Gunnhild was aware did she say anything to Hubert. There had been only two assignations in the deserted bailey barn during the past dark winter. Fortuna had smiled on them as her wheel turned. Until now they had escaped discovery.
She bit her lip and said quietly, swallowing her concern, ‘Maud, what is wrong?’
‘Everything. My uncle sits closer to you at table than does my father and when I see my uncle’s hands around your waist after you climb off your mare’s back I do not like it. It is not seemly.’
It was true. Niall had become bold but Gunnhild smiled because the truth was simpler than she had at first realised. Maud was jealous. Gunnhild put the beautiful book aside. ‘I am sorry that you feel like that but, Maud, it is perfectly seemly that Niall helps me down from my horse and sits with me at table. Your father is always away protecting us from enemies, and your uncle helps us organise our estates here, so that one day when you marry you will bring a great dowry to your husband.’
‘I shall not marry,’ Maud said angrily.
‘Marry you must, Maud, because Uncle Niall will inherit Castle Richmond should your father die.’
‘He will take our lands! That is why he is always here.’
‘Maud, that is the way wills are made. It is not his fault and it is certainly nothing to merit such an unkind comment’.
‘If I am to have a husband, my spouse could live here.’
‘You will live with your husband in another castle. He will be wealthy and maybe handsome, too. Now, Maud, I will hear no more unkind thoughts about your uncle. Your father is too often away. Your uncle is good to us both.’ She closed the book. ‘Enough of this talk for today. Go now, my sweet, and find Ailsa in the garden. Ann has marigolds to plant. Just think, by the time your papa returns from Normandy you will have things for him to eat from your own garden.’ Maud ventured a weak smile. Growing food was important to her. They had known hunger pangs that winter, though Gunnhild mused at how easily the memory of them slipped away when now there was plenty to eat from their garden and fresh game and mutton from the woods and hills. ‘We can read a little more tomorrow,’ she added.
Suddenly Maud’s green eyes brimmed with tears. ‘It is just that I have not seen my father since my name day. He has not even watched me ride Merleswein.’
‘I think we shall see your father very soon, before mid-summer in fact and when he returns you can ride into the woods with him for a picnic. We all can.’
After Maud tripped off, Gunnhild bit her lip and tears leaked from her eyes. There must be no more caresses, no more stolen kisses, knowing glances and no touching of hands below the folds of the linen trestle cloth at meal times.
A sob caught at her throat. They would burn for eternity because of their sin. Her own would be worse than his because, after all, Eve had tempted Adam and so she, too, had inherited the sinfulness of woman. What sort of nature did she possess that she had for years stolen away with her husband’s brother, flouting the laws of the Church, and behaving like a common leman? Looking sadly at the nightingale dozing on its perch, its small head buried in russet feathers, she said, ‘Little bird, our song is ended.’
Stirring herself, she crossed to the doorway and pulled her mantle from its peg. A moment later she was hurrying down the stairways and outside into the family chapel. Father Christopher was in the village outside the castle walls saying mass for a villein who was dying of a fever. She would be alone. Entering the still chapel she knew she must prostrate herself before God’s altar and this time pray for forgiveness.
It was her barrenness that had angered Alan more than anything else. She hurried by the font that had never once been used to baptise one of her own. A painting of heaven above, filled with singing angels, and hell below, decorated the chapel wall. She shuddered, and glancing up, realised that those ladders with tumbling devils ready with their spears and spitting fire could be her fate. Sobbing, she dropped on to her knees in front of the altar and prayed to St Brigit to intercede with God for his forgiveness. She muttered pater-nosters over and over. Whispering the Latin words, she realised that she could not remember when she had last poured her heart out to the saint with such humbleness.
That evening at supper she slipped quietly into her place beside Niall. When he leaned over to pass salt for her fish she whispered to him, ‘I must speak with you alone, Niall.’ His black eyes brightened but she could not meet his look and contemplated the lonely slice of salmon that sat on her plate marooned in a pale-coloured sauce. She poked at the limpid fish. ‘How was York?’ she as
ked loudly so others could hear.
A couple of yapping dogs chased about the hall. She watched them momentarily as they kicked up dust from the straw. It needed changing. They had been lax of late. Niall carefully laid his eating knife on the board, lifted a hunk of bread, chewed it for a bit, swallowed, took his cup, drank deeply, set it down on the table and, furrowing his dark brows, said in a voice much lower than her own had been, as if he wanted none to hear his news, ‘When Lord Alan returns, he will bring with him tax men, monks and scribes and goodness knows who else, mercenaries no doubt. The King intends to record all that my brother has in his possession.’ Niall drank deeply from his cup, before continuing, ‘And my own brother has helped the King organise a land survey of everything in the whole of England. They will hate this.’ Seeing her startled look he leaned closer and said in so low a voice that now she could hardly catch his words, ‘Yes, even you, my sweet, and me, too. We are all the King’s possessions.’
The servers passed by them with dishes, a salad of greens and another with purple carrots dressed with vinegar. They served pigs trotters and hunks of pork. Good times had returned. Her empty pantries were thankfully filling up with food. Another servant hovered behind her with a flagon of watered beer. She thought as she waited for him to move on. This is not good news. It could bring about a new rebellion. ‘My lady?’ the servant said. ‘Will you drink?’ Absently she held out her cup to be filled. Ann called over from her place beside Maud, ‘Lady Gunnhild, are you ill? Your face is ashen.’
There was the thump of plates and rattle of eating knives. ‘I am well, never better,’ she replied evenly. She turned back to Niall. ‘When are they coming?’
‘Soon,’ he said. ‘The worst of it is that once the word goes around the countryside this castle will need to be fortified again, and if there is an attack on us, Alan must return with an army.’
‘How am I to feed all these people when there is just enough for us, the guard we already maintain, and the servants?’
‘Simply you must find a way. Send the fishermen out. We can hunt deer in the woods.’
‘It will never be enough. We won’t have bread. The mills at Bedale and Brampton can hardly feed us all here.’
She had heard Alan speak before of how the King was planning a survey. Alan had said at Easter that just as he was getting rich the King wanted to know how much tax he could raise from the lands cared for by all his tenants-in-chief. He intended a survey of every corner of England. The King had decided on it during his Christmas court which he had held in Gloucester and which Alan had attended, yet again spending the season in a royal household without her. King William was organised in a way that her father, King Harold, would have disliked. There was tax in the old days but more men were free then, and women, too. Many heiresses ran their own estates in those days. Now there was always an appointed guardian watching over them. ‘Is it to be thorough?’ she said aloud.
‘Yes. The villagers will resent the counting of sheep, the measuring of their lands, the questions and the numbering of everything they own, the marching over their fields full of newly growing wheat and barley, the labelling of their scant possessions, all of this, but it will be exact. I fear for everybody. This accounting of everything will bring new misery here just as the villagers and cotters and sokesmen are recovering from the famines of past winters.’
‘How many visitors must I expect after Saturday?
‘A goodly number I believe; scribes and judges and the chief investigator and their retainers.’
‘I see. There is much to prepare.’ She studied the translucent fish in its congealing sauce for a moment. Then she looked into his worried eyes. ‘What can we do?’
He gave her a weak smile. ‘Nothing, there is nothing we can do. Just pray that the taxes are not overly vicious. The clerks won’t be here before Saturday.’ His eyes grew warmer. ‘We could ride into the woods tomorrow to find you oak galls for your inks. It will be good to be out in the air.’
She drew in a breath. The necessity of parting with him was tearing at her fragile heart. She said carefully, ‘Niall, there is no need any more. Bishop Robert from St Cuthbert has sent me a gift of inks.’ Laying down her eating knife, she picked up her napkin and dabbed at her mouth. Her eyes were swimming with tears. ‘If you will excuse me, Niall, I must go. I need to see to one of the servant girls who burned her hand this morning.’
She detected surprise in his voice when he said, ‘Surely the wise woman can see to this?’
‘No,’ she said softly, ‘I shall.’ Her voice was breaking like her heart.
Although it was very difficult she bowed her head to him, took her leave, and walked to the staircase, never glancing back, feeling his eyes following her. She made her way to the private door she had used that morning. A path wound around the side of the castle past the chapel to the courtyard. She hurried towards the infirmary. The medicine chest she had once kept on the dais had been replaced by a low building, a small hospital for wounded soldiers and in here there were shelves of salves and the makings of healing possets.
Just as she rounded the corner the first horsemen were galloping through the gatehouse. She stopped short. Stable boys appeared from the barn, racing across the paving stones to help with mounts and to catch and steady the rumbling carts that rattled in after the riders. The strangers were dismounting. She had no choice but to step forward to greet them.
A narrow-faced, silver-haired man in a black cloak and a tunic and hose the colour of damsons bustled forward to meet her. ‘I see the Lady Gunnhild has had warning of our coming. We are here on the King’s business.’
She stared at him before saying, ‘You know who I am, but who are you who is here on King William’s business, and what precisely is his business?’ Gunnhild drew herself tall, trying to appear every bit her father’s daughter, by rights a princess. She looked beyond him to the group of dark-clad men who were descending from the carts. Severity washed off them in waves and with it a cold authority that was meant to be felt by all who encountered them.
‘These are my clerks,’ the man said testily as she studied them one by one. ‘I am Edward d’Arcy. I am here to make accounts for the King’s new geld-tax.’ His eyes narrowed, becoming slits in his lined face. His lofty disposition was not to be trifled with.
‘There is table and board for you and your clerks inside the hall,’ she said chillily and gestured towards the great oak door that led in from the yard. ‘Go in and join the table. I will see to you later.’ She was about to show them her back. She did not give a fat fig for what he thought of her, and began to turn towards the infirmary building when behind her she heard the great hall door dragged open. She spun around. Niall exited followed by Edwin their steward, a band of servants and several men at arms.
On seeing that Edward d’Arcy was with the visitors, Niall ordered the servants back inside to make ready beds in empty chambers high up in the keep. He went back in briefly himself and she could hear him calling to the others to refresh the table.
Moments later he returned. Sir Edward was waiting patiently. Gunnhild stood beside him, this time not sure whether to rudely move away, or remain as lady of the castle.
‘Welcome, Sir Edward,’ Niall said evenly. ‘We did not expect you before Saturday. Come, eat and after you are rested we can discuss your business here.’ Niall’s brow creased as he ushered the knight and his stern clerks before him into the hall. He looked back at her and dropped his voice. ‘Send Ann to that girl. Tonight you must act the lady of this castle, even if it is distasteful to you. Please be helpful, Gunnhild. We must not antagonise them.’
Gunnhild bristled but followed the last clerk into the hall and told them to sit wherever they could find a space on benches which already were emptying. Word had spread about the survey faster than an adder could pounce. Her people wanted none of these strangers. She sent maids for bowls of water so the visitors could wash their faces and hands and Ann to the infirmary in her stead. For a moment all
felt chaotic, a great fuss. She indicated Ann’s empty chair to Sir Edward. Finger bowls, bread trenchers, fresh food and drink appeared and silently the clerks began to eat, munching with eyes darting around suspiciously, no doubt thinking that one of her sullen servants would stick a knife in as fast as filleting a fish.
She made a brave pretence of eating the food that had further congealed on her plate but quickly laid down her eating knife. Nothing was palatable now, nothing. She made strained conversation with Sir Edward, asking him about his journey, and where he had been before Richmond. Niall smiled generously at her and as the meal concluded she won her paltry reward. He suggested that their guests visit the chapel before retiring for the night. Summoning Father Christopher he said to Sir Edward, ‘My lady must see to her household. She will speak with you in the morning after Lauds.’
She had done her duty well.
Before they departed for the chapel she inquired how long the survey would take. Sir Edward frowned. ‘That depends, my lady. We may be here some time.’
‘I see, Sir Edward. In that event, I hope you will be comfortable. We have suffered famine here and my people are only now beginning to recover. They cannot afford King William’s new geld-tax.’
‘They must. The whole kingdom will accept it and that is the long and short of it.’ Sir Edward sniffed. ‘No doubt these Saxons can survive. They are a hardy race.’
Gunnhild bit back a bitter retort. How dare this interfering clerk insult them? ‘Are there soldiers following in your train?’
The Swan-Daughter (The Daughters of Hastings) Page 22
