The Handfasted Wife Page 5

  How like Padar to be suspicious. Elditha placed her arm protectively around Ursula. The fire blazed high. These were thanes, the men who held land from both herself and Harold and who protected and guarded them, trained warriors whose first loyalty was to fight for their lord. She had known these men for years, and their wives and ladies whom she had long kept by her side. These were the people whom she trusted. They would be her strength during the difficult months that lay ahead. ‘Tell us a story, Padar,’ she heard herself saying. That would distract those who glowered at the skald’s insulting jest. He laughed, strummed his harp and began to recite a part of the tale of the great warrior Beowulf; the best part, the fight with the monster. As he reached the end he stopped strumming and rose up and managed a growl.

  ‘“I had done no evil to him, but the furious demon wanted to force me and many others into a bag – but it was not to be. I got to my feet in a blind fury. It would take me too long to tell how I repaid the terror of the land for the lives he stole. And even though he got away to enjoy the pleasures of life for a while longer, his right hand stayed behind him in Heorot, evidence of his miserable overthrow as he dived into murk on the mere-bottom.”’

  His audience clapped and begged for more and he began a story of a silkie, a mermaid who shed her tail and lured fishermen from their wives. Ursula yawned. Elditha rose. ‘Time to rest. It will be a hard ride tomorrow,’ she said softly. ‘Take the pallet close to ours, Ursula.’

  As Elditha crept into Lord Athelwold’s great bed, with its soft feather mattress, beside her children, she fancied that she could live for ever in a wood, hidden from the world of palaces and kings. As she drifted into sleep she knew that just like the she-wolf who guarded her cubs she too would watch over her children’s destinies no matter what lay ahead of them.

  The next afternoon they rode out of the woods south-west of Canterbury and into the parkland surrounding Reredfelle. They entered Reredfelle itself through a palisade gate that lay wide open. That was not unusual at all, but there were no guards or farm workers in the yard and everywhere fences were broken and the barns were crumbling. She sent her servants to find firewood and to make what barns they could into a refuge for her wagons and horses. Then she led a procession of women and children into the hall. There, she took one look at the two shabbily dressed and surprised servants left to watch over Reredfelle’s hall and despaired. The hall was bitterly cold. She spoke sharply to them, and ordered them to build the hearth fire higher. Then they must show her cooks the kitchen house. Her ladies wrinkled their noses as they swept through the building and out through the side entrance at the back into the bower hall. On their return Ursula said brightly, ‘We can clean it up, my lady. The bower hall looks out towards the rising sun and we can sew there in the mornings.’

  Elditha cautioned Margaret to watch over Ulf and Gunnhild, who were chasing a skinny three-legged dog around the hall. She called her ladies to follow her and they climbed the narrow staircase to the upper chamber. They stood in a pool of green light by the windows that Earl Godwin had put into the wall of his sleeping chamber. Maud fingered the dust on the glass windows and recoiled. ‘As well there is another with shutters. You would suffocate in here in summer.’

  Elditha said, ‘It is beautiful. Vinegar and water will clean it up. And, you, Maud, must supervise the task. See to it.’ Maud obediently ran back through the antechamber and down the stairs to ask the cooks for a bucket of vinegar and water. Elditha insisted that her other two ladies follow her down and into the chambers behind the hall. She sneezed as dust rose off ancient chests but wiped away the cobwebs with her elbow and opened the lids. Some coffers were empty and would be useful for storage. She opened another lid, drew out an ancient linen garment, coughed as dust spiralled out of it, threw it back in and slammed down the lid. They must see if these things were worth mending. But no sooner had she the thought than it blew away from her. There was so much more to do.

  The chambers needed sweeping and the white-painted walls that were grey with dirt must be washed down. She chose Freya, another of her ladies, to supervise that, saying, ‘These will be for the children and their nurse.’ She wanted it clean by nightfall, she added. The woman nodded and hurried off to find servants to help with the task.

  Finally, Elditha delegated the task of cleaning out the bower hall to Ursula, who said she loved the old bower hall already and that by tomorrow they would be able to set up their looms. Elditha then summoned the hall servants and ordered every hearth bench washed down and fresh rushes and dried lavender spread on the hall’s hard-packed earth and lime floor.

  Two house-ceorls lugged Godwin’s bed down the staircase to the chamber behind the curtain where the children would sleep. Once Elditha had overseen her maids sweep and wash the floors and walls, she installed her own bed in the upper chamber in its place. She hung her cloaks on pegs, cleaned out two old chests and placed linen in them. Soon, the plain garments that she wore daily hung from the rafters. The maids folded others into a coffer, secreting plump linen bags filled with dried fennel among them to keep moths away. When she was alone, she unpacked the contents of her saddle-bag. She looked up into the roof, climbed onto her mattress, reached up and placed the bone-plated silver box containing her treasures carefully beside her shoe collection on a wide rafter above her bed. Harold’s sapphires were protected, concealed under a christening gown, with her ivory statuettes. She touched the tiny silver key that hung on a thin chain nestled between her breasts. The gleaming blue stones were her safety net, just in case. Just in case what? The words echoed in her mind. Just in case, just in case, but she couldn’t think why she had such a presentiment.

  During the weeks that followed, Elditha’s thanes rode into the village and persuaded the villagers to return to the estate. When she sent to Canterbury to the monastery of St Augustine for an over-seer, the monks obliged and gave her an experienced reeve of their own. Guthlac, her new man, persuaded the villagers to plough the great fields and encouraged them to plant their own gardens. The villagers came back to the estate because it was their duty, but they also came because Elditha promised them rewards. She called a meeting in the hall, and sitting in old Godwin’s great oak chair, she announced, ‘This year, there will be a bountiful harvest. If you work hard, your families will eat well, and until crops grow, I shall purchase grain to feed you all.’

  As if they did not believe her, they melted away like sullen though obedient hounds back to their hovels. Though they knew their place in the order of things, they could still feel resentment at an overlord who was a woman. A week later, the promised grain arrived and the result was that they worked harder. Under Guthlac’s direction, the villagers set up hen coops and cleaned out the dairy. Her cooks organised kitchens and stores. The roof thatch was repaired and the hall’s interior and exterior walls were freshly white-washed, until not a trace of lichen clung to them. A painter came from Hastings and touched up the hunting birds that decorated the outside walls. He painted their feathers and beaks in bright yellow, red, green, touches of deep blues and precious black. They became her symbol of prosperity, and a beacon to anyone who rode out of the wood into Reredfelle.

  As the household settled into a daily rhythm the children roamed around their new home exploring, and inventing games. They skated on the frozen pond with sharpened bones tied to their shoes; indulged by the milking maids, they drank cups of warm milk from the dairy whenever they pleased; they disappeared for hours into camps they created in the hay barn. Gunnhild and Ulf appeared to forget that their father was now the king and she wanted to forget him entirely too, but she could not. Memories would creep up on her at unexpected moments, a look from Gunnhild whose cornflower eyes resembled Harold’s own or Ulf’s ability to climb trees, more daring every time. Although Ulf’s face resembled her face, her hair, her eyes and her height – slim and tall already for a five-year-old – he would be physically strong and he was adventurous like his father. Then, there was another reminder. It c
rept in one night in the guise of a long-tailed star that appeared in the heavens, glowering down at them, ominously hanging above them for weeks.

  On the evening that it first appeared, Mass was held as usual in the estate’s decaying chapel by Father Egbert, the village priest. After Vespers, Elditha sent her children off with Margaret and Ursula for their supper while she lingered by the herb garden, pushing back weeds and poking at the ground with a stick. The time had come to clear this wilderness and grow new plants, parsley here, rosemary there, sage, fennel, thyme and rose: always her favourite. Night still dropped early and as darkness gathered and the stars appeared, she was at the orchard gate. She stood still and stared up at the heavens. The stars appeared brighter than was usual. There were those that she knew and loved, those that could be angels’ haloes. She caught her breath and looked harder. One star appeared even brighter than the others and seemed to be growing a long colourful extremity.

  ‘My lady, look at it!’ She started and looked around her to see where this disembodied voice had come from. She saw the skald, Padar, leaning on the newly mended wattle fence farther along. He was gazing upwards, his hand shading his eyes. She glanced up again and saw that the long-tailed star flew across the night sky like a dragon spitting silver flames.

  ‘What is it, do you think, Padar? It’s not an angel. Maybe it is some creature that unseen sails over us from one end of the Earth to the other.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, my lady. Perhaps there are, as some might think, other worlds up there woven through the air between the heavens and the Earth we know. In any case, it is an evil omen. You should come away from it now.’

  Elditha followed Padar back through the garden and across the swath towards the hall’s warmth. The skald often talked of things that were best not to dwell on. He filled their minds with stories of creatures called dog-heads, ungodly monsters which dwelled in houses and villages just like their own, spoke and talked as did human-kind but were evil – representations of the Devil himself. And though he laughed and said they were only notions, nonetheless many of her people believed in them. He told his stories by firelight, striking fear deep into her people’s hearts, yet sometimes she had to laugh at the absurdity of his tales of men who married two-tailed mermaids. As they approached the hall’s entrance a crowd had gathered to watch the sky. Osgod announced, ‘Mark this, my friends, it is a warning. There will be trouble in King Harold’s kingdom.’

  She stopped the thane’s talk. ‘That is nonsense, Osgod,’ she said sharply and swept past them inside the hall. She told her maids that she would take supper alone that night, in her antechamber. She did not want to listen to them discuss that star.

  She tried not to think of the strange dragon-spitting star that hung in the night sky. Villagers frowned at it. The house-ceorls were edgy and sharpened their weapons; as if that would protect them from a dragon star. As the month passed and the long-tailed star continued to reign above Reredfelle, she wondered if it could, in truth, foreshadow a terrible change in the kingdom and in their lives. At night, alone in her great bed, she knew sure as the seasons’ turnings, that Harold had forsaken them. She had not heard a word from him. He had abandoned them and ridden north, simply leaving instructions that she was to have a great household for Reredfelle. Gytha and Edith had been solicitous, bringing her tapestries, sewing threads, linens. And they never spoke of that woman in her presence. At Westminster the older boys had spent evenings playing chess in her chambers and her daughters had danced for her, stitched with her, packed travelling coffers with her and accompanied her to services. At Westminster the new court had treated her with reverence, because she was the mother of the King’s sons, but she knew a court to be fickle; they would switch loyalties as quickly as threading a needle. As for their sons, by now they would be preparing to make their journey to Ireland.

  4

  Here is the remedy, how you may better your land, if it will not grow well or if some harmful thing has been done to it by a sorcerer or by a poisoner.

  A Field Remedy Ritual in Karen Louise Jolly, Popular Religion in Late Saxon England

  ‘The people would like you, my lady, to scatter the first seeds into the ground,’ Guthlac said as they settled down to discuss the estate’s accounts in her antechamber.

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘What does Father Egbert say?’ she asked, carefully, as she peered at the neat writing in Guthlac’s accounting book.

  These old ways were not approved of by the Church. She knew the ceremony well, had often watched it but there were those who thought that her soul would be in mortal danger if she took part in one. Nonsense! Her soul could not possibly be in danger just because she prayed and placed a loaf of bread blessed by a priest along with a cellar of salt, the herb of fennel, powder of incense and soft ash soap into the earth to cleanse the soil and encourage crops to grow.

  ‘Father Egbert will be in charge, he says,’ Guthlac persisted. ‘My lady, it would be a way to win the villagers to us. They are frightened of that star in the night sky. If you bless our land the crops will be fruitful and there will be no famine. That is what they are saying.’ He hesitated before adding, ‘And, of course, Lady Elditha, you are the mother of King Harold’s children and that matters to them.’

  She turned away at that reminder. Still, if they wanted a field blessing she would oblige. No harm could come of it and maybe, as Guthlac pointed out, much good. She touched his sleeve and said, ‘When would you wish it, Guthlac?’

  ‘On Friday?’

  On Friday morning, Elditha wrapped herself in her mantle against the brisk March wind and wore her hair in two thick, golden plaits. Followed by her whole household, she rode out to the fields. She climbed down from Eglantine’s back and handed the reins to Padar. He looked at her suspiciously and said that he would wait with the horses. As she marched into the meadow she could see that Father Egbert carried a prayer book and Guthlac was standing by a garlanded plough holding a linen sack. They were surrounded by villagers. When she reached them, she knelt, whispered a short prayer, rose, then said that she was ready to begin.

  Father Egbert raised his right arm in blessing. Today, she represented older beliefs and he the love of Christ and the holy saints. Together they would bind both into one. As he chanted prayers she repeated his words. That was what she knew she must do – follow his lead. She lifted her arms and the wide sleeves of her green gown fell back. Her blue cloak and her pale veil flew behind her in streaming pennants. She raised her head to the heavens and her long plaits swung free of her veil, bright against the green of her gown, but there was no time to push them back. She began to call out the ancient wyrd, an age-old chant:

  ‘I may this charm by the gift of the Lord open with my teeth.

  Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.’

  She stretched out her arms towards the earth and then the sky as Father Egbert followed this with the Benedicte and the Magnificat and two Pater Nosters over a plough that was strung with winter greenery and plaits of barley. As the prayers ended Elditha looked ahead and noticed that a strange figure – a skinny, dark Benedictine monk – was watching her from a sycamore tree. He was standing apart from the villagers. There was something she recognised as disgust on his face. He clutched a satchel close to his chest. She observed him for a moment. His lips were moving. She was sure of it: he was praying. Guthlac nudged her and pointed down. She took the things he had drawn from his sack and dropped all four objects into a prepared hole in the earth. The reeve nudged her again. ‘My lady,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Your blessing.’ She began to chant the words that were always spoken before the planting:

  ‘Tall shafts, bright crops,

  And broad barley crops

  And white wheat crops.’

  Guthlac handed her the bread. She knelt, her pale, thick plaits swinging over the ground and placed the loaf into the hole. It had been kneaded with milk and holy water and earlier had been blessed by Father Egbert. Nestling beside the stalk of
dried fennel, the squishy soap, salt from the Reredfelle cellar and incense from the Lady Chapel it would lie under the first furrow. As she rose again she felt her eyes drawn back to the sycamore tree. The strange monk was still there, standing as if he were joined to the tree, holding his satchel in one hand and wiping perspiration away with his sleeve. She turned to ask Father Egbert if she needed to do more, say more. He shook his head. She looked back and the figure had gone.

  Gathering her cloak around her, followed by her servants, she marched back over the field to where Padar was guarding the horses. She climbed onto Eglantine and cantered to a gap in the hedge. Moments later she was back on the track that edged the great field, with her band of servants and ladies around her. She kept turning her mare from side to side as she glanced backwards but the stranger had vanished. The villagers – men and women – were dragging ploughs from the hedgerow. Oxen were brought forward, their necks garlanded with straw. She turned Eglantine towards Reredfelle, pleased at the sight. Today her people had acknowledged her as their lady. That evening all who came into her hall would eat well and drink beer. It was Lent and they would dine simply on fish and pastries, savoury breads and eggs, pease pottage and honey cakes, but they would nonetheless eat well.

  She was dabbing her face with a damp towel when a servant came bustling into her bower hall saying, ‘My lady, there is a monk from Canterbury asking for you.’ She dropped the towel into the basin of rose-scented water and lifted a linen drying cloth. ‘I am on my way,’ she said. Her ladies were peeking up from their work with concerned and inquisitive eyes. ‘Curiosity caught out the cat,’ she said. ‘Carry on with your spinning. You will find out soon enough.’