The Handfasted Wife Read online

  The prioress paused at the last set of pillars on the left side and lifted a hanging aside. A slither of amber light entered the chamber through a narrow rectangular window covered with oiled parchment. As they stood on the threshold, the two nuns of the previous night rose from stools by a cot and slipped past them like silent, moving shadows. Fragile, pale and still, Ursula lay against her pillow. Elditha leaned over her. She was cool and dry to Elditha’s touch, but when she opened her eyes and tried to smile, she began to cough.

  ‘We must pray and hope.’ The prioress turned to Elditha. ‘She is young and strong and she will recover,’ she added.

  If Ursula did not survive, Elditha knew that she could never forgive herself for bringing a girl with her on this journey, far from Edith’s protection. After the prioress left, she held Ursula’s hand until her friend fell into a deep sleep again. Later, as Ursula’s breathing eased, Elditha ventured out. Dragging her hood over her dirty, unveiled hair she hurried through drifting snow towards a long, low building with a tiled roof.

  She pushed opened the door and entered a hall that was lit with lanterns. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness after the bright outside world, she discerned a wall painting of St Margaret of Antioch, the convent’s patron saint. She was painted in beautiful colours standing beside a gorgeous dragon that was touched with gold. As she studied the painting and thought of Gunnhild’s pleasure on receiving the little statue of the Eastern saint, she became aware of the hum of voices. Dragging her eyes from the wall picture and peering deep into the room, she realised that they came from a long row of embroidery frames. Nuns were sitting before them in pairs along the length of the room working on tapestry. Sensing her presence, seeing her standing there on the threshold watching them, they glanced up. She backed out again.

  A nun rose and came towards her. ‘Wait. Don’t go. We are working on a tapestry of the Wedding at Cana for our prioress’s chamber. Would you care to join us?’ Elditha hesitated, mindful that she was intruding, but the same nun indicated the stool she had vacated.

  Elditha removed her cloak and mittens, took up a proffered needle and worked at a flower in her corner of the tapestry. The work was comforting and the tension she had not realised she was carrying in her began to ease. As she worked, she found that her shoulders and her back had relaxed. Rowing had caused them to ache and worry had made her feel tense. The nuns did not chatter like magpies as the women often did in the bower. Their serenity was soothing. Later, as a bell rang and the nuns tidied away their work, saying they must hurry to midday prayer, Elditha returned to the priory’s main building and saw the prioress approaching from the direction of the church.

  The prioress walked with her. ‘It is a cold day and we can drink a little warmed wine together,’ she said. ‘After Nonce let us eat dinner together in my chamber and then talk seated by the hall’s hearth.’

  * * *

  As they settled on stools by the hearth with cups of spiced wine in their hands, the prioress said, ‘Now, first I must tell you that early this morning Padar took monks back along the river. He will not come back here yet. He is arranging the next part of your journey.’ Elditha slowly sipped the wine. ‘This is, we pray, the last snowfall of the year,’ the prioress continued. ‘For a few days the track-ways into the hills will be difficult and, if it freezes, riding over them can be too, and Lady Ursula still needs to rest.’ She set her cup on a small table and smiled. ‘But I hear that you are a fine embroiderer, and perhaps here you will work alongside us. Otherwise these six weeks of Lent will feel heavy.’ She leaned forward and took Elditha’s hands in her own. ‘Would it be comforting for you who have lost so much to create something new, a personal piece? Your own tapestry – perhaps, a pillow covering or a small hanging?’

  She looked at the lovely embroidered cushions on the bench, in the chairs, the hangings on the white-washed walls. There was colour everywhere in this parlour. ‘It would be a pleasurable task,’ she said. ‘You are kind to protect us.’

  ‘The Godwins were kind to us too.’

  They discussed tapestry for much of what remained of the afternoon and later that evening as she sat in the hall under a sconce she began drawing with charcoal on linen. She delighted as her hands and imagination worked hard together and she felt pleased as her idea began to take shape.

  23

  March 1067

  Elditha sketched a house with flames pouring from its windows and roof and a woman and child in flight. Skeins of fine, brightly coloured tapestry wool nestled in a wide basket, from which she selected colours, carefully choosing crimson, ochre, green, an indigo blue, brown and black. Next she placed stools on either side of her frame, and moved from one to the other as she slipped her needle in and out of the panel.

  As Elditha concentrated, small, fat clouds of her own exhaled breath ghosted before her in the cold air. When she tried to stretch her fingers they were numb. She blew on them before continuing to work her needle. Noticing her discomfort, the nun closest to her rummaged in a basket and found a pair of woollen mittens with the fingers cut away. She tapped Elditha’s shoulder, ‘Wear these,’ she said. ‘They help.’

  Later, as the room warmed up and movement was easier, the nuns wandered over to admire her work. They asked her why her small embroidery depicted a house that was burning. She explained, ‘The prioress suggested that I re-create my husband’s coronation. A coronation tells the story of great men, but this is the story of a woman’s suffering.’

  The nuns made approving noises and persuaded her to tell them her story. In the closeness of this company of women, Elditha felt a healing spirit envelop her. She understood the attractions presented by a cloistered life and that she must help Ursula to it. She would speak with the prioress.

  As had been predicted the weather began to improve. Elditha realised that Ursula was recovering. She had visited Ursula every day and although no nursing was necessary – just rest and the quiet of the cloisters where Ursula sat if the sun shone – as the days passed she could see that as Ursula grew stronger she wanted to stay secluded within the nunnery. She was not surprised when Ursula confided in her as they sat sewing together by the hearth in the infirmary.

  ‘I wish to remain,’ she said to Elditha. ‘Can you allow me to stay here?’ Elditha held her close and said, ‘I have already spoken to the prioress. I shall miss you, but of course you must remain here – at least until I can return.’

  As the last week of Lent approached, Padar rode into the courtyard, saying that they should be on their way. He led Elditha into the yard. ‘I hear that Ursula will stop here and in time take her vows. You will miss her. I shall miss her. I loved her, my lady.’ There were tears in his dark eyes.

  ‘I thought you did, Padar.’ Elditha reached out a hand and touched his arm in sympathy, but did not dwell on his declaration. ‘Good to see you wearing that red cloak again. And your hair has grown too.’

  ‘Ah well, our horses are ready and stabled,’ he said brightly. ‘Yours is Homer, a black midnight stallion. Can you ride such a beast? I mean, are you able to handle a stallion?’

  ‘I think I can handle this Homer. I like his name. And yours is?’ she said.

  He laughed and said breezily, ‘Hercules. It took me a week to find a horse merchant. I had to go far to the north, but the horse dealer was away. I waited. It was worth it. When he returned, he arrived with these creatures.’

  ‘So, where did they come from?’

  ‘The horses had been in the great battle and had bolted. They were christened by the men who stole them. They drove them out of Norman reach. And they answer to their names.’ He ushered Elditha into the stable. She exclaimed at the magnificent mounts. Homer nuzzled at her hand when she gave him a stumpy yellow carrot. When they were leaving the barn, Padar said, ‘They must guard Ursula well. She must never be discovered. We must completely disappear. There can be no trail.’

  After Vespers, as the setting sun filled the infirmary’s high windows with rosy li
ght, Elditha and the prioress visited Ursula. She was still delicate and slept in the infirmary. When she was totally recovered she wanted to work there.

  When Elditha explained that Padar had returned and it was time to leave, Ursula simply said to the prioress, ‘My lady Prioress, will you permit me to make my vows soon?’

  The prioress smiled. ‘Permission is granted, Ursula. You are welcome here. We have a great need of embroiderers and healers, as you can see.’

  Elditha leaned over and kissed her friend’s forehead. ‘Dear Ursula, I shall include you in my prayers, every day until we meet again.’ She held Ursula’s hand longer. As the night gathered she said it was time to part. ‘Ursula,’ Elditha said, ‘I have left the tapestry panel for you to finish.’

  ‘I shall complete it,’ Ursula said after a moment of silence.

  Elditha decided to make a gift to St Margaret’s Priory. Miraculously, she still possessed the sapphires that Harold had given her. Then, she thought of something else. ‘Ursula, I wonder if my gift has reached Gunnhild. I worry that I should not have sent it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Something Padar said. He does not know about it – that I sent that gift, I mean. I just pray that Gunnhild never reveals how she came by it.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘There must be no trail, Ursula. The nuns here must keep you hidden if our enemies ever come here.’

  ‘I pray they will not.’ Ursula shuddered.

  ‘I suspect that I may have been foolish to send a gift to my daughter. It was just that I did not want her to think that her mother had forgotten her.’

  24

  Wilton Abbey

  March 1067

  In the spring William went across the sea to Normandy and took with him Archbishop Stigand, and Aethelnoth, abbot in Glastonbury, and Prince Edgar, and Earl Edwin, and Earl Morcar, and Earl Waltheof and many good men of England. And Bishop Odo and Earl William were left behind here and they built castles widely throughout this nation, and oppressed the wretched people.

  The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles , 1067, Worcester Manuscript, edited and translated by Michael Swanton

  Edith could not understand how Elditha could disappear so completely, despite her thorough search between Winchester and Exeter. Count Alain was in the west, in Gloucester, where he was settling strife in the outlands that bordered the Severn and Wales. He had not discovered Elditha’s whereabouts either.

  On a snowy day during Lent, Queen Edith packed everything of personal value, her jewels and her many linen chests. She set out for Wilton with her ladies, five Norman scribes, the faithful Fitz-Wimach and a small guard. Secluded behind Wilton’s walls she could forget Norman soldiers with their distasteful habits and bullying manners. In Wilton Abbey she could continue her great work in peace; scholars would come to consult with her and, under her guidance, the embroidery workshops would thrive.

  By the third week of March she was settled. She attended service twice a day and for the rest of the time she directed her scribes and supervised her embroiderers. The peaceful murmur of prayer hummed soothingly through Wilton Abbey’s church. After the paternosters ended, the girls from the embroiderers’ school looked up simultaneously with serenity on their countenances. Their voices had rung out, beautifully and clearly as the new crystal box in the chancel that contained St Edith’s relics. At the abbess’s nod, the nuns began to file from the church, followed by the novices, and finally, the girls. The abbey had given an education to many daughters of the English nobility; girls sent here to learn the skills they needed in order to equip them for their lives as wives, mothers and as embroiderers. Naturally, before the great battle, the abbess had hoped that a small number of the chosen would remain devoted to God’s service, bringing valuable gifts to the abbey rather than to husbands. This was changing. Now they came as refugees escaping marriages.

  Edith let her sharp eye glide over them. The girls appeared neat and tidy. Their plaits peeped below simple linen veils; their gowns were sober in colour with plain twisted belts, from which hung simple work purses holding needles and scissors. Not a speck of mud was to be seen on their mantles, and their silver cloak pins were like the girls themselves, beautiful in their simplicity.

  A new girl walked alongside her niece Gunnhild, a girl who seemed poorer than the others. Her cloak was spotless but, as Edith observed, it was well-worn and her cloak pin contained no embellishment – no enamelled bird or beast. Edith’s eye paused. Although the fillet the girl wore today conformed to sober colours, the embroidery on it displayed an unusual pattern of intricate spirals. This charity case, Eleanor of Oxford, was an embroiderer of great talent, much spoken of by the abbess. The girl could work with intricate knot designs and even draw those difficult patterns. Of course, that explained the interesting embroidery on her fillet.

  Edith hurried away from them through the cloisters, ignoring the slippery snow that lay on the pathways. As they followed their mistress, her dark-cloaked women could barely keep up. Letters from Gytha awaited her attention. She wondered how these could come from Exeter with seals unopened by Norman spies. One was intended for Gunnhild. If Gytha had sent yet another request for Gunnhild to depart from Wilton for Exeter, she had already decided that Gunnhild would refuse to go.

  She sent her women off to the embroidery workshop where they were stitching a new tapestry to adorn her receiving chamber. When the last of her ladies had lifted a box of silver thread and had disappeared through the door into the cloisters, Edith unlocked her scroll chest, withdrew the letters and examined them. She separated the scrolls and broke open the seal on the letter to Gunnhild. She glanced through her mother’s writing. Gytha had always used an exquisite older script, where the letter “w” was written as a “p”, and though this was a fine script, Gytha’s writing was unclear, as if written in haste. Edith peered closer at it and read:

  Many of our noblewomen have gathered in my burgh of Exeter, in particular, your aunts and your cousins, therefore, Gunnhild, I shall send an escort to carry you south.

  Edith read the final sentence aloud. ‘I want to ensure that you will remain protected from any who might wish you harm.’ Edith sniffed haughtily and laid the letter aside. Where could be safer than an abbey? She broke the seal on her own letter. Here, she discovered a further explanation:

  Alain of Brittany, on the authority of Duke William, came into my burgh last week, terrifying the townspeople and causing my ladies anxiety. He demanded that I give up the Lady Elditha. This knight claims that he is betrothed to her. And, there is worse. I discover that my grandson, Ulf, has been taken into Normandy. You will send me Gunnhild at once, and then you must treat with the usurper for my grandson’s immediate release. He is a child. Moreover, where is Lady Elditha since she is not in my keeping?

  Edith set the letter aside. Had Elditha married as she had promised, Ulf would be released, Gunnhild would have a father and Thea would be assured of an opportunity to marry well. And, had Thea remained in Winchester, she might have married Count Alain to protect her mother’s holdings and lands, keeping all that they would lose safe.

  Edith sighed and locked the scrolls in her chest. Today there would be drawing lessons for the girls in the design workshop. Gunnhild would be there. She pulled her cloak down from a peg, wrapped herself in it and exchanged her shoes for boots.

  When she entered the workshop, two craftsmen – both monks – were busy creating patterns at a long bench close to the window, their shoulders bent forwards so that the light slipped over them and onto the parchment. One was designing a border pattern. He had begun to erase a part of the drawing with a piece of bread. She paused by the bench as he lifted his charcoal stick and began to redo the image.

  ‘Brother, what are you drawing?’

  ‘A ship, my lady. Alas, it refuses to conform, since I need enough space above it for a pair of doves, and on either side two angels. The ship’s size is not right.’

  ‘Ah, Brother Martin, you are a perfectionist.’ Edith l
eaned closer. Her eye was drawn to the central design. Here, the Queen of Heaven was seated on a throne; on one side of her a church entrance, not unlike the entrance to the church at Wilton, but on her other the cartoonist had drawn an arch with steps leading up towards the ship. With ease, Queen Edith’s eye was now pulled in through the entrance to the central figure and then out through the archway and up the steps. She glanced below it. The lower border was already completed. There three devils were tugging two humans through tangled acanthus leaves. She looked more closely and nodded her approval.

  ‘The border is overly repetitive, my lady,’ the monk said. ‘The lower borders of all three sections are similar – too many devils, too many acanthus leaves.’

  ‘Truth is stressed through familiarity, Brother Martin,’ she replied, and edged her way along the bench to where the second monk had just completed his section. As Edith gained his workplace, he leaned down and swatted away the workshop cat that was attempting to crawl about her boots.

  She moved on past the monk, and, barely touching the parchment cartoon with her long pointing finger, she approved here, suggested a change there, another leaf or flower or an additional horned creature that was waiting to prey on man. She crossed the room to where the drawing for the central panel was now being transferred to linen. The fabric had been stretched taut on a wooden frame and a third monk was blowing pounce through the hundreds of tiny holes pricked in the parchment, transferring the design onto the material.

  The craftsman stopped working when he saw her and said, ‘If you seek out Gunnhild she is drawing. We are proud of her accomplishment.’ He waved towards a table at the end of the barn-like room.

  ‘Is that so?’ Edith asked frowning. She observed that Gunnhild and Eleanor were working by sconce light, absorbed by an object on the table. Unaware that Edith was watching, Gunnhild slid it into a new position and bent her head over her work.