The Swan-Daughter (The Daughters of Hastings) Page 8

  ‘The Earl came over here to see the King and throw himself on his mercy. The King took him back to England and instead of forgiving and setting him free he threw him into the gaol at Winchester. There he remains until his trial.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Last year Earl Roger armed and set off from the west to join together with de Gael in the Midlands and cut the country in two. They thought other English lords would come to their support but no one did. Earl Roger was captured and Earl Ralph fled back to his castle of Dol leaving his bride, Roger’s sister, Emma, to defend Norwich castle. She is a brave lady and Ralph does not deserve her.’

  They were now riding along the causeway some way in front of the rest of the column. Alan reined up and she slowed Shadow down, being careful to keep him on the firm track though the tide was retreating and a causeway to the monastery was opening. ‘So the rebellion was quashed in the end?’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Emma was allowed to go into exile. She is at Dol with her husband.’

  ‘What does this have to do with you?’

  ‘I need to know what is being planned at Dol. Earl Ralph’s lands border those ruled by my father. His wife owns a swathe of land in Brittany. The King hopes that I can bring him intelligence of Ralph de Gael’s movements. This was why we stopped at the castle of Bayeux. I had conversation with two of my Norman allies there who have lands here in the south and are concerned about Earl Ralph’s presence at Dol.’

  ‘If he hates the King he will not trust you,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Bretons suffered much after the rebellion. Earl Ralph brought most of the discontented Breton lords of Eastern England into the plot. They fought hard at Hastings for little reward, the poorest lands and no political power. Archbishop Lanfranc has a deep contempt for my people. He called the Bretons who joined Earl Ralph “dung”. After the rebellion was brought down and Earl Roger caught and imprisoned and Earl Ralph fled, the Bretons who had joined them were allowed safe conduct into exile if they left within thirty days. Many did and there is a nest of them in Dol with Earl Ralph plotting revenge. Those who stayed, mostly the rank and file, the mercenaries, those amongst them whom had shown great courage ten years before at Hastings, faced dreadful punishments.’

  ‘What punishments?’ she whispered hoarsely.

  He studied Gunnhild’s shocked countenance before continuing, ‘Many were blinded or had limbs cut off. And, before you ask, the English stayed out of the rebellion, apart from that foolish young Earl, the great Gospatrick’s son, Waltheof. And why was I not with the Bretons, Gunnhild? Because I am loyal to my cousin, King William. I was raised in Normandy and I know rebellions are useless against William. They will not succeed and will only bring more destruction to a land already suffering.’

  ‘Where were you?’ she asked, thinking of how he had been in England at the time of Aunt Edith’s funeral.

  He seemed to pull up his horse with a jolt. She deftly moved Shadow away, though not too close to the marshy land to the side of the trackway. She reined her horse in. Out in the marshes a heron took flight. For a moment they stopped, both watching its trajectory through the pale sky. It came down onto a raised tuft of grass amongst quicksands further on and bent its long beak into the mud. Alan glanced from the creature back to her, narrowed his eyes as if he was deciding how much he should tell her.

  ‘You are fishing like that bird,’ he said.

  ‘You can trust me.’

  ‘Can I? I see I must since I have a task for you. Listen carefully. I was with the King fighting in Maine at the time. When you saw me at your Aunt Edith’s funeral, we had just returned to England. Earl Ralph will view me as non-partisan.’ He flicked his whip lightly against his horse forcing him to step away from the dangerous side of the track where the tide seeped about the quicksand. ‘When he sees that my wife is King Harold’s daughter he might even be welcoming. After all, we shall visit Dol in peace. My men will hand over their weapons at his gate. He will try to seek information from me, though, indeed, I shall have none to give him.’ He took her reins in his hands and drew Shadow closer to his horse. He leaned over and said, ‘Gunnhild, you can help me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Befriend Emma.’

  She could not refuse though she disliked his subterfuge. She nodded her head. A moment later a great neighing further back along the column was followed by shouts of ‘Halt.’

  Gunnhild twisted her head around to see what caused the commotion. A baggage horse carrying bows and quivers had strayed off the pathway into the quicksand that straddled them on either side. Two men were trying to throw a rope out and over the animal’s neck but kept missing.

  ‘Don’t go in,’ she heard Hubert yell out. ‘Don’t step off the path.’ Everyone had halted. Horrified they watched the horse as slowly it was eaten by the mud, its weight weighing it down so heavily that it was sinking fast. The other animals, mares, stallions and a couple of hounds that ran along beside them had begun neighing and barking in collective dismay, their bridle bells and collars ringing. Ann was standing on the edge of the quicksand beside Hubert. Count Alan told Gunnhild not to move Shadow until he returned. Keeping his own horse, Thunder, well away from the quicksand he rode back through his men to where the dying horse was submerged almost to its neck. He took a bow from Hubert, set an arrow into it and fired it. With a howling shriek the horse reared its neck as if to receive the arrow. As it did its head dropped. It fell back into the watery sands.

  ‘Move on,’ Count Alan ordered. ‘And you, woman, get back up behind Hubert,’ he yelled at Ann. ‘Do not dismount again until we are safely over that drawbridge and behind those walls.’ He pointed in the direction of the monastery citadel. He handed the bow and quiver back to Hubert and without another word turned Thunder’s head round towards the front of the column. When he reached Gunnhild he said, ‘There was nothing else I could do. The dolts were about to step into the sands to pull him back. Weapons and horses can be replaced. Good soldiers cannot.’ His face was stony. He waved them forward and they moved on slowly, their column growing quiet now that the cacophony of barking and neighing had died down.

  ‘Even the hounds have more sense than to go into that sand,’ he remarked as the monastery walls grew larger.

  She shuddered and they rode the rest of the way up to the monastery in silence.

  7

  ‘The archangel loved heights. Standing on the summit of the tower that crowned his church, wings upspread, sword uplifted, the devil crawling beneath, and the cock, symbol of eternal vigilance, perched on his mailed foot, Saint Michael held a place of his own in heaven and on earth …’

  Henry Adams, Mont Saint-Michel and Chartres, 2004

  Gunnhild and Ann shared a tiny chamber in the monastery. Alan slept in a guest dormitory with his men. Two days passed and there was no messenger from Dol. Awaking after Ann each morning, she would hear a howling wind rattling the shutters. The wind’s whistling was frightening at night but when she opened the shutters to behold the view beyond she felt elated. The sea stretched out for miles, but suddenly it would come racing in, swallowing up the sands around the monastery and cutting off the causeway. As it went out again it left behind menacing patches of devouring sands, those that dragged a man down through them before he could finish saying his pater-noster.

  On the third day, she lifted a little book of poems the abbot had sent for her consideration. He had explained in the refectory on the previous afternoon that the work undertaken in his scriptorium was of a nature both secular and religious. He said that he understood that she was a skilled artist herself. She had looked down at her bowl, too modest to reply. Then, after she had broken her fast that morning a messenger from the abbot had arrived at her chamber door with this beautifully illustrated book for her perusal. He told the monk to tell her that this would entertain her during their delay. So, since the day was calm, Gunnhild decided that she would examine the small volume in the monastery herb garden.

  She
prowled around the pathways with the little book secured in a linen sack, searching for a bench. At last she found one and, sinking on to a stone seat close to a stumpy oak where she could hear seagulls calling, could smell herbs growing around her and feel the sun’s warmth on her face, she slipped the treasure from the linen bag, opened it randomly and began to examine the illustrations. In the picture she paused over, a tiny cloaked man with curling locks stood by a tower that seemed oddly smaller than him, his arm raised as he looked out to sea. A miniature boat bobbed on white wavy lines that represented the waves.

  She scrutinised the writing on the opposite page. This was the story of a knight, Tristan, who brought a great gift to Cornwall, a beautiful lady from the kingdom of Ireland whom his king would marry. The poem was scribed in French and not Church Latin. Even so, she had to work to decipher the French. She read the words ‘But the knight and the princess fell in love.’

  She stopped reading it. Jackdaws rustled about the branches of the tree above her bench and began chattering loudly. The sun was in her eyes but she saw that a cloaked man had pushed in through the shadowed arched door. As he came from shadow out into the sunlight she saw that it was Alan himself and felt her face broaden into a smile.

  She had last seen him at dinner time on the previous day. Since they had arrived he had attended every service in the monastery church and had insisted that his men do likewise. She and Ann attended also, but the church was large and they chose to remain at the back, slipping back to their cell before the services ended. At other times Alan was in conference with the monastery’s abbot.

  He approached her slowly carrying a long box in his big hands as carefully as if it were a present for Our Lord in the stable at Bethlehem. ‘I have something for you,’ he said as he sat down beside her. ‘It is a gift from the monastery to King Harold’s daughter.’

  ‘The abbot has already been too kind.’ She closed the book and Alan placed the long box between them and told her to open it. Laying her book aside, she carefully lifted the box on to her knee. She bent down and smelled it. ‘Sycamore wood.’

  He nodded. ‘Open it.’

  She lifted the lid to peer inside, gasped and raised her hands, allowing the box to slip forward from her lap. He quickly reached out, caught it and placed it securely back on to her knees. She wrapped both of her hands around it. ‘I never thought to possess such things again,’ she said, her eyes flickering along a row of small glass pots. She balanced the box carefully on her knees, lifted up a tiny vessel, pulled out the stopper that sealed it, sniffed it and held the ink pot up to the light. It was filled with a shadowy dark green ink the colour of yew. She examined the other five containers. They held blue ink as deep as the sky on a perfect day, a red ink, the shade of a dense, blazing sunset, ochre, the colour of earth, then a black paint as dark as a crow’s coat and, best of all, precious gold with which to delicately touch capital letters and allow their decoration to reflect beauty.

  She replaced these pots with great care and lifted brushes one by one from a gully that was carved into the seat of the box to hold them. Each was headed with a fine feather. She looked into the hollow again. There was a pen sharpened to a point which she could use for plain letters. She looked up and gasped, ‘My lord, this gift is a fabulous thing. It is really for me to keep?’

  ‘Yes, the abbot was astounded when I told him that you could write, draw and decorate letters. You must wrap it in leather cloths and carry it to my lands with great care. It will not be easily replaced. I have bought you sheets of vellum, not many as there is little to spare here, but maybe there is enough for you to make a small book of your own, perhaps one like this.’ He lifted the small book from the bench and opened it carefully. He glanced up at her, his forehead creasing into a frown. ‘What is this book, Gunnhild?’

  ‘The abbot gave it to me to read.’

  ‘These poems are certainly not suitable.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Alan turned the little book over and said, ‘They are ballads. Some call them lays. I had heard that there is a monk here who has taken commissions from as far south as Spain. They are writing poems in the south, love poems. The monk says that one day the idea will wend its way throughout all the courts of Europe and such verse will civilise us all. I see he writes in French not Latin.’ Alan snorted and set the small book down again. ‘It is against Church teaching. The abbot here is a good man but he is lax. You will not write such poems. I prefer you, Gunnhild, to write of Genesis and of Adam and Eve and original sin. It will be a suitable project to occupy you in my absence … until you have children to occupy your days … I shall be away often.’

  She considered for a moment. This was exactly how she wanted to pass her days, though not writing the biblical story of a woman’s sin. That she would not do. Aloud she said, ‘In that case, I shall make stories of the saints, Alan.’

  ‘And so you must, Gunnhild.’ He smiled his approval. He rubbed his hands together. ‘Now, my dear, I have other news. We are to proceed to Dol tomorrow. We set out early when the tide is safely out beyond the sands and the route clear. I want no more accidents. If we ride around the coast we should arrive before Vespers.’ He stood up, stretched and rubbed his neck. ‘We shall celebrate Easter with the people at Dol. My men hope for a good table there. Beans, lentils and fish at Lent weaken a soldier. They complain even though I tell them that the Lenten diet clears the mind and purifies the soul.’

  ‘If we are to set out tomorrow I must send a letter to Wilton. Would there be anyone to take it?’

  ‘Yes, use one of the vellum sheets and I shall seal it for you and give it to the abbot. If no one from here sails to England this side of Easter, I have no doubt that your letter can be delivered later.’

  A bell was ringing from the church with echoes that reverberated around the Mont. ‘The Annunciation Masses,’ she remarked and returned the book to the linen sack. ‘My lord, there are services here all the time.’

  He looked at her sternly. ‘Yes, and the Annunciation Mass is one we must attend together, kneeling side by side.’

  Gunnhild scooped up her box of pens and inks, and scrambled to her feet. ‘Ann will attend me. Do you realise that she is angry with you for shouting at her on the path the other day?’

  Alan folded his arms. His eyes darkened and she imagined too that his beard stiffened. ‘Maybe so. I have no room for women on campaign. She is Hubert’s woman. He has rescued her from what he says was a miserable situation. Ann is widowed and a burden on her family, Hubert tells me. ’ She felt him studying her and then to her relief saw a semblance of a smile follow. ‘But if you will have her as your house-keeper, then I can allow Hubert to marry her when we are safely in Brittany.’ She nodded her agreement, but before she could speak he went on, ‘I shall send you the vellum. Write your letter but do not take too long over it.’ He lifted the linen sack from the bench. ‘I shall restore this to the monk who wrote it. It is not suitable for my wife.’

  She felt disappointed at the loss of the little book, and, for the first time since her marriage, she felt a hint of despair. ‘I shall be brief in my letter and to the point.’

  They separated at the garden gate. He leaned down and lightly placed a kiss on her cheek. ‘Pity it’s a saint’s day,’ he remarked with meaning. ‘Now take the box back to your chamber, fetch Ann and meet me outside the chapel. Be quick about it.’ The bells began to ring again as they came to the low door leading into the guest house where she was lodged.

  She made no reply and turning her back hurried through the doorway, clutching the precious box of inks to her chest.

  The following day was bright and clear. As they rode out, a gentle breeze brushed Gunnhild’s face and she determined to enjoy the day’s ride since now her conscience was clear. She had delivered her letter into the abbot’s keeping. They rode past the quicksand and retraced the route they had followed to Mont St Michel. As Gunnhild twisted round in her saddle and stared back, she thought the monastery a
place of extraordinary beauty, a serene group of tiled roofs and pinnacles where the roosting jackdaws now looked like specks of black against the grey stone, and white gulls careered about pinnacles like a tiny angelic host.

  The greater group of Alan’s men separated from them and rode off towards Dinan. With Hubert, Ann and six of the best soldiers with them for protection, Alan and Gunnhild followed the twisting coastal trackways into Brittany. They paused at noon to eat bread and cheese and drink cider from the leather flasks which the monks of St Michael had provided on their departure. The abbot had promised Gunnhild that when two of his monks journeyed to Winchester for Whitsun they would carry the letter for the abbess of Wilton with them. Count Alan had sealed it with his personal seal, one that declared his family motto, ‘Live in Harmony,’ and placed it into the abbot’s hands with a letter of his own. ‘Of course, I have written to King William declaring that I have wed Gunnhild Godwinsdatter who, by her own free will, has united with me,’ he told the abbot, before turning to Gunnhild. ‘I reminded the King that since he had previously sought my union with your family and that this was in fact a pleasing and suitable union, we both beg forgiveness for our haste and we humbly desire his blessing.’

  The kindly abbot raised his brush-like eyebrows and blessed them both, but added before they left, ‘Guard your back at Dol, my friends. You are entering a viper’s nest.’

  Gunnhild prayed to her name-day saint that they would not remain for more than a few nights in Ralph de Gael’s fortress.

  Late in the afternoon, they clattered over Dol’s drawbridge and into a bailey which was filled with restless activity and strident noise. The whole yard echoed with soldiers’ yells and servants’ shouts. They wove through people hurrying about tasks: unloading carts, carrying pails, and groups of watchful men who lounged by the bailey walls polishing weapons. As sharpened swords gleamed in the afternoon sunlight, Gunnhild felt their owners’ eyes follow them as they rode past to cross a second drawbridge that led them up the slope of the castle mound. There they met bands of fierce-looking soldiers making their way back down the hill. They dismounted in the courtyard outside Dol’s great battlemented keep where eager stable boys ran forward to take charge of Thunder and Shadow. Count Alan ordered them to rub down the animals and care for them as well they would their own lord’s beasts. Shadow was filthy with sweating flanks and her white left forefoot needed a new shoe.