The Handfasted Wife Read online

  The Bishop shook his head and gulped loudly. ‘But, Countess, maybe just a little … The law is changing …’

  ‘Nonsense. William of Normandy has no business here. We are a town of women and townsfolk who mind their own lives. None of us will pay his illegal tax. Go and tell him that, Count.’

  Alain of Brittany’s complexion reddened. ‘You will regret this, Countess. The King carries the Pope’s authority.’ He addressed the Bishop. ‘Talk to her, Bishop Leofric. We will expect sense by morning, by Sext.’ He nodded to his companions. Ignoring the Countess, who was opening her mouth to protest, he turned on the heel of his leather boot and marched out, leading his clanking followers. The wolf pennant followed, fluttering as if trying to keep up with Count Alain’s stride. Elditha could not suppress a shudder as he clattered from the hall and Gytha called after him again, ‘Knight, tell him, no.’

  Later, as they were seated at supper, the door into the hall burst open. The sergeant of Gytha’s guard pushed the hall servants aside and marched straight up to where the Countess was seated. ‘They are placing a boom across the river beyond the port gate. No one can leave by that route. No boat will enter our harbour.’

  Gytha dropped her spoon. ‘We had until Sext tomorrow.’

  Of one accord the other women followed her lead and placed their spoons on the board. Elditha glanced down to where Thea sat at the end of the table fidgeting with her napkin. Her daughter’s hand was shaking. They were all of them afraid.

  The sergeant went on, ‘The King is raising a siege. No provisions will enter the town. No person can leave.’

  ‘How is he constructing it?’

  ‘He has requisitioned our ships. It is a strategy designed to bring the merchants over. They fear the loss of their livelihoods. Countess, King William is a patient spider. He will watch and wait.’

  ‘Then we shall stop that possibility. Has food from my stores gone to the monasteries yet?’

  The sergeant explained that food, clothing and pallets had all been taken to the refugees. They would have full stomachs for some days.

  ‘This may continue for longer than days. We must all eat less. Tomorrow I shall speak with the merchants whose ships the Normans are using. Let your men know that no one gives in to the Bastard. No one even considers surrender.’

  When her man had gone to set a watch on the town walls, Countess Gytha lifted her spoon and began to sup. At this signal her ladies followed and started to eat also.

  No sooner had Gytha commenced eating than she stopped. Again the women followed her example and placed their spoons on their napkins. She folded her hands and told her ladies in a clear voice that they must steel themselves for battle.

  Gytha reminded them that William was an expert at siege warfare. He had conquered cities that way in Brittany and Normandy. ‘No wonder London gave into him without resistance. Archbishop Stigand and the young Edgar saw siege weapons outside the town walls and rode out to meet the Duke. But if they had sat tight and outwaited William, help would have followed.’ She leaned on the table. ‘We are powerful and noble women. Ireland and Denmark will come to our aid. We can gamble for time. The thanes in the countryside will rise. Ladies, the outlaws of Mercia and Wessex will liberate us.’

  Elditha thought that Gytha was admirable. She should have led their armies at Senlac, not Harold. As a quiet descended, the women supped the cooling broth, each keeping her own counsel. Salted cod seasoned and flavoured with precious herbs followed their soup. They ate slowly, chewing carefully, as if this were their last supper.

  Gytha fiddled with her silver spoon. A smile hovered at the corners of her mouth as she looked at Elditha and said, ‘I suppose it is fortunate that you were not recognised by Count Alain. It just goes to show how we women become shadows in a corner.’

  Elditha replied, ‘Since I am a mere shadow, for now I remain safe.’ But she thought of what the Bastard could do to a town. All of them had heard tales of rape, cruelty and destruction. She had been inside his camp, but with no threat of rape to her and her women. They were nobility, not so different to Norman noblewomen. There had been others who were not treated so kindly. The whole of Europe was aware that Duke William was an attacker of castles as well as a builder of them. As she supped, she wondered who would carry knowledge of her into the Norman encampment outside Exeter’s eastern walls. Servants’ eyes would follow her as she moved from the hearth to the loom. Only too soon, King William would know that she too dwelled among the ladies of Exeter.

  As the meal drew to its quiet close, Hilda remarked, ‘Mother, is it not best to negotiate this tax? Then they will ride away.’

  ‘No, my dear, they are here to stay. Our lands will be gifted to knights who agreed to fight for the Duke’s claim to England. They intend destroying our last sanctuary. Then it will be a castle. The Normans are as hungry for our land as their priests are for our souls.’ Gytha held the women’s attention with a hard look. ‘I hear that the Pope will impose penance on knights for all the souls they sent to Heaven on the day they butchered my sons. It is not just Elditha they want to wed with. It is all of you who are young enough for them and even those who are past child-bearing age.’ She waved her hand around the table. ‘And, of course, your compliance would allow the thieves to cloak their theft with a semblance of legality and the Pope could reduce their penance.’ Her eyes settled on Thea. ‘You will leave Exeter with your mother as soon as we can arrange it.’

  ‘No, Grandmother, I shall not leave without you.’

  ‘Girl,’ Gytha stood and raised her stick in a furious gesture, ‘you will go as soon as we find a way for you to pass through that army.’ With a jabbing gesture she pointed the stick towards the door, reminding everyone that there were four or five hundred soldiers encamped beyond the town gates. As if they needed reminding.

  Ursula piped up in a small voice, ‘We could ask the King for safe passage for Thea and Elditha.’

  Elditha touched Ursula’s arm. ‘Do you really think he’ll allow that?’

  Gytha said, ‘Of course not. Remember Winchester.’

  ‘Queen Edith handed him the keys to her town,’ Ursula said. ‘But we could negotiate …’

  ‘He won’t have my keys.’ Gytha speared a piece of cod and chewed it over and over at the back of her mouth since she was missing teeth from the front. She chewed as if she were chewing Ursula’s words. She spat a small bone onto her plate and announced, ‘Tonight we shall pray in the chapel. We must pray for deliverance.’

  Elditha found appropriate words to rally all their spirits. ‘Even as once he delivered David from Goliath, God will deliver us from the wolf at our door.’

  For two days, the King’s army waited for Countess Gytha’s response. A tent village had sprung up on the flats close to Exeter’s eastern walls. North of Exeter other villages were mercilessly burned to the ground, but not before the Conqueror requisitioned their grain stores and their salted meat to sustain his troops. Despite orders not to harm the women, many were raped. Elditha felt sickened by the stories that seeped into the town. Englishmen were killed in a variety of hideous ways – bludgeoned to death, strung up, stabbed. Every day smoke curled into the sky as hamlets smouldered, and the smell of burning thatch hung acrid in the sharp air. Any villeins who could escape did. Like hunted foxes they melted into the woods and hills west of the town. Still the women stood strong. They would not give in. And to Elditha’s relief, the townspeople were of the same mind. They looked to Countess Gytha and Elditha, the mother of King Harold’s children, for protection.

  * * *

  Later in the week, from high up on the town’s ancient walls, Alfred and Elditha watched as a priest fell onto his knees. Elditha said, ‘I recognise that monk. His name is Brother Francis. He betrayed us once and he will do so again.’ The enemy camp seemed to stretch for miles. It encroached on woodland to the east. Trees that once grew tall were now stunted. For a week William’s soldiers had been chopping them down, cutting back into the woods
for fuel to feed their encampment fires. Their tents moved onto the moor north of the town. To the south, the Exe flowed and its mouth seemed leagues off. There was no way in or out through the boom that guarded access to the sea. Across the river Norman soldiers were using the meadow as a practice ground. If the siege continued, the only possible route out of Exeter was by the river. The river gate led out onto a long wharf with warehouses. The Normans had not occupied that area contained within a safe crescent, which was also protected by the deep Exe that flowed close to the walls on each side of the stretch of wharfs.

  As she walked around the walls with Alfred, they checked that the men he now commanded had full quills of arrows. Approaching the north wall they saw Padar striding purposefully towards him.

  Padar hailed them. ‘What do they intend?’

  ‘They may be waiting for their siege weapons,’ Alfred replied.

  ‘No sign of any yet?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Padar said, ‘Their patrols go out all the time. They are breaking down resistance. They did the same outside London after the Battle of Senlac Ridge. They harassed villages and waited for resistance to break. They did not need to wait long.’

  ‘If they push into the woods west of the Exe they may find the forge …’ Alfred began to say.

  ‘They won’t find aught but a blacksmith’s forge,’ Padar replied. ‘We would know if the abbey had come to harm. There is as yet no smoke rising out of the trees to the west.’

  ‘Not yet.’ Alfred shrugged. ‘But don’t you think that it is all too calm?’

  ‘Do not be deceived. The Norman bastards are waiting. They have food and patience. They’ll attack when we are low.’

  ‘We could run out of food within weeks.’ Alfred’s tone was bleak.

  ‘Maybe so, but we can negotiate a better settlement if we wait.’

  ‘It is not their way to settle kindly,’ Elditha said. ‘They take what they can.’

  They climbed off the walls into Gytha’s garden, where a robin hopped through the trees pecking at the cold empty earth. Elditha left them and continued back to the hall. Padar said, ‘Alfred, if we can hold out for a short time our princes will sail into Exmouth with a great army.’

  ‘They know already?’ Alfred was surprised.

  ‘I sent messengers out when they first appeared.’

  ‘How do we know that they have reached the coast?’

  ‘Trust me, Alfred, the ship we sailed into Hood Bay will be landing in Dublin’s Wood Quay even as we speak.’

  ‘It’s no good. Gertrude is not safe.’

  ‘God will keep her safe.’

  They had walked in a circle and now they climbed to the wall again by the orchard steps. Alfred shrugged and glanced down past the hall to Gytha’s chapel. ‘Well then, let us pray that God protects us all.’

  37

  Afternoon and Evening

  That afternoon, as Elditha helped Gytha across the icy yard towards the storehouse, Gytha told her that throughout the autumn she had weighed grain cautiously for her own use and her bakers had used barley mixed with wheat in their bread, but she had always allowed the poor generous gifts of food. She had regularly sent loaves to the monasteries inside the town walls to be redistributed to those who would otherwise starve. Elditha pointed out that if the siege held there would have to be an even more carefully managed distribution of alms.

  ‘Aldric normally looks after the stores, but he is up on the walls,’ Gytha said.

  Elditha replied, ‘Never mind, we can manage it.’ When they reached the storehouse, she pushed the key into the lock and turned it. It was well greased and opened easily. She pulled the heavy door wider, saying, ‘We can reduce the alms and our share too.’ Inside she could not see anything at first. Eventually her eyes adjusted to the dimness and she was able to count sacks of grain. A little later she called out to Gytha, ‘I think that there is enough to take us through until spring, but we must eat less bread if it is to last longer.’

  Gytha considered. ‘We can break our fast with a small cupful of buttermilk and half the portion of the bread we have been eating. We can have a pottage for dinner and for supper we can eat porridge.’

  Elditha came out. ‘But the children and old must have extra milk while the cows produce. And, Gytha, you also need to drink milk,’ she protested.

  ‘There are others frailer than I.’ Gytha shook her head and pointed her stick at the hay barn. ‘I suppose when the hay runs out we must eat the cows.’

  ‘I think that is still a while off. But we must each have a little cheese. There is enough cheese hung in the dairy for the household as well as the guard. There are dried apples, barrels of them in the orchard shed. I looked yesterday.’

  ‘Good, tell the cooks that my ladies will have spiced apples this evening, a treat.’

  Elditha closed the store door and locked it. ‘That will cheer them,’ she said, as she secured the key onto her belt. She helped Gytha cross back over the yard. ‘The women could have a cup of wine or mead in the evenings. There is a good supply laid down in the kitchen cellar. Do you think that the Normans can poison our wells?’

  ‘There is much they can do, but poisoning wells they cannot. The town wells are too deep. Nonetheless, if it rains we must collect the runoff in vats, just in case.’

  ‘What if they tunnel under the walls?’ Elditha said.

  ‘It is possible, but if they try, we will be waiting for them.’

  Elditha kept her fears to herself as she brought Gytha into the warmth of the hall. She settled Gytha by the hearth where a maid removed her boots and began to rub her cold feet with a towel. Elditha placed Gytha’s work basket close to her chair and made her way out again, this time carrying a basket. She needed to be alone for a bit, to think, and more practically, to seek out mistletoe berries from the orchard for a salve.

  On her way she stopped into the kitchen to tell the cook to collect apples for their supper from the store. As she looked around the yard outside, she noticed that the yard servants were pretending to do tasks they did not have. Two youths were replacing a wheel on a cart that might soon be chopped for firewood and a boy was grooming a horse that did not need grooming. It was the same with them all. The women all dropped spindles and embroidered as if with busy hands they could obliterate the looming threat beyond the walls.

  As she pushed open the gate into the orchard, her thoughts turned to the daily alms they sent out to the poor. Every day they loaded a wagon with vats of porridge and salted cod. Protected by a guard Ursula travelled with it through icy lanes to the town’s religious houses. The poor and ill survived reasonably well for now, but if the siege went on for months, what then? In a few weeks Lent would be upon them. They must brace themselves for the bleakness of the season of self-denial. This Lent Bishop Leofric must declare that everyone could eat what they had – even flesh, if fish, fruit, nuts or greens were not to be had. And when the winter cold spent itself out, they should plant every spare patch of soil in the town with wheat, cabbages and onions; every garden, orchard and all the common places where pigs and hens rooted, must be coaxed into production.

  The days were quiet but once night fell, the shouting began. Arrow fire and screams followed as Gytha’s men poured pitch on the enemy below. The previous night, when Elditha had opened her shutters and peered out, she had seen the glow of a fire in the north tower. She could smell the pitch now as she hurried through the orchard. She lifted her basket of mistletoe and opened the small gate into the garden. The soothing salve she intended to make from the fat translucent berries would soon be needed. William’s patience would quickly run its course.

  That evening, as the women sat around the bower hearth with wine and bowls of apple stew, Gytha remarked, ‘At least we are warmer here than those bastards out beyond our walls are in their tents.’

  ‘I hope they freeze,’ Thea said, reaching her hands toward the fire.

  ‘They will not suffer as the refugees in the woods are suf
fering,’ Lady Margaret pointedly added.

  Thea tossed plaits that shone red-gold in the firelight and said, ‘The silvatii will care for the fleeing villagers. They have shelters, food hidden away and weapons. I know. I have seen them. Their men came to Alfred looking for arrow heads.’

  ‘Then, niece, why do they not fight the enemy?’ Hilda said.

  Elditha laid down her cup. ‘Sister, William has an army that is easily 300 mounted knights, and foot soldiers as well. We have fewer than 200 fighters, many of whom are youths with slings.’ She folded her hands. ‘The silvatii are outnumbered.’ She paused and took a breath. ‘But what do you think of this idea? I was wondering if they could bring us seeds to plant, if one or two of them could swim through the boom?’

  ‘We must send messengers to parley with the silvatii,’ Lady Margaret suggested.

  Gytha banged her stick dismissively against the trestle leg. ‘Parley, seed, what nonsense; they cannot defeat that army. The siege will be over by summer one way or another. Now, gather yourselves, ladies. It is time for prayer. Wrap warm.’ She glanced at Thea’s uncovered plaits. ‘A veil, Thea; we may be captives but that is no reason to be careless.’

  ‘Yes, Grandmother.’ Thea lifted her veil from the bench and secured it over her plaits.

  The women all collected their cloaks from pegs. Followed by their maids they walked into the night. Before she allowed Thea to go, Elditha tugged at Thea’s cloak hood saying, ‘Your grandmother is right. I want to see you wear a veil, even in the bower.’

  ‘There is no one to see me here.’

  ‘Even so, Thea, you should set an example to the other girls. Off you go. I want to look at Ella’s puppies first.’