I Am the Chosen King (8 page)

“What is it?” Guy complained, reluctantly opening his eyes. “Rannulf? What are you doing here? God’s teeth, go find your own whore to lie with!” He began pulling the bed fur tighter around his chest, but Rannulf tugged it aside.

“My Lord! Guy! Something has happened—please, I beg of you, wake and listen to me!”

Guy pulled himself up to a sitting position and yawned extravagantly. The girl remained asleep, snoring gently. “Well?” de Brionne snapped. “Why are you here in my chamber, not amusing yourself in yours?”

Rannulf called forward a servant whose face was streaked as grey and fearful as his master’s. He carried a wooden, lidded box, which he set on the nearest table, then scuttled out of the room.

“I found this in my room a few moments since, at the foot of my bed. I had got up to use the piss pot.” Rannulf swallowed and took several breaths to calm himself. “I found this.”

Guy sat forward, tucking the flea-ridden fur around his nakedness for warmth. “A box. How interesting,” he said drily. Waited.

Again Rannulf swallowed, putting a hand over his mouth.

“And inside this box?” Guy drawled.

Without speaking Rannulf opened it, flicking the lid up quickly with one finger.

Shuffling from the bed, Guy peered inside. There were some red-stained, dirty pieces of something lying there. “What is it?” he asked, impatiently, his nose wrinkling from the putrid smell.

Rannulf worked his mouth but it took a while for the words to form. “Skin,” he said, with a quick, gagging breath. “It is skin. Human skin.”

Guy puckered his mouth in disgust and slammed the lid. “Some fool’s idea of a jest,” he said disdainfully. “I see no humour in it.”

“I…I think.” Rannulf was finding it difficult not to vomit. “I think it is to do with those body parts that they found at dawn yesterday. The parts nailed to the east gate? What was left of Robert, son of Roger de Montgomery, they think.” Rannulf hastily crossed himself.

Guy flapped his right hand dismissively. Supposition! He crossed the chamber, poured himself a generous goblet of wine, drank it down and lit another candle. Robert fitz Montgomery had been implicated in the murder of Osbern, William’s steward, a week or so ago. Damn fool had killed the steward, but not the Duke! So those gruesome pieces nailed to the gate—the bits that had been gelded and disembowelled—were rumoured to belong to Robert? That was fairly obvious. But to assume that the stuff in this box was from his body also? Nonsense!

He poured more wine, then thought to offer some to his friend. He turned and saw the younger man, open-mouthed in silent horror, pointing with a quivering finger at something beside Guy’s bed.

Guy raised the candle, its light casting quick-moving, elongated shadows across the low-ceilinged room.

Rannulf recognised what it was first. He bolted from the room, his hand over his mouth, vomit spewing from between his fingers.

The item sat on a square of cloth. Red cloth, embroidered with a golden leopard. William’s personal ducal emblem. On the cloth a severed head. The head of Robert fitz Montgomery. Robert, who had been well known to Guy and Rannulf, and all the others who plotted William the Bastard’s death. Robert, who last week had slain the steward Osbern in William’s bedchamber.

Guy stared at the eyeless, hacked and bloodied head. The meaning was plain. William knew who else was behind that blundered attempt at murder. And he could, if he so desired, punish them also.

Guy did not make it to the chamber pot. He spewed the contents of his stomach on to the timber floor at his feet.

Nazeing

Edyth stood at the edge of the small copse of trees, looking down into the valley. The river, swollen from winter snow-melt and recent rain, covered the flood plain, which glistened under the spring sunshine. Some of the fruit trees in the orchard were already breaking into leaf, their winter-bare branches bearing a distinct green bloom, and blossom was beginning to bud. A few more days of sunshine and the primroses would be clustered in their gay mass of yellow flowers under the elder and hawthorn hedgerows. The air was full of the sound of birds, exuberant in their courtship, busy with marking their territory and the building of nests. It would be nice to have the swifts, swallows and house martins back, raising their families under the eaves of the great barn, but it was too early, too cold, for them yet. Although today it was almost as warm as early summer.

She was dressed for riding, wearing loose-fitting, heavy-spun linen breeches, thigh-length tunic and a long cloak, her fair hair tied back in a tight single braid. She was waiting, as impatient as her fidgeting pony, for Harold to come from the Hall. After lying abed so very long, and with the sun so bright and cheerful, he had wanted to be outside. Had asked if she would care to ride to Waltham with him.

The Earl had been so much better this last week. He remained pale and painfully thin, but he felt well enough, at last, to sit a horse—although only a quiet gelding, not his own stallion. To ride rather than suffer the discomfort and indignity of a litter had very much cheered his spirits. Edyth was pleased that he was almost healed, but her joy was tempered by more than a little inward pain. For when well again he would leave Nazeing and return to his other life overseeing East Anglia. Once he was gone she would, like as not, never see him again. He would forget this farmsteading that crowned the high ground above the village of Nazeing. At court, he would be among the women of the nobility, would not remember her. That was how it must be, for he was an earl and she only the daughter of a thegn. How she wished he need not leave! And then she would chide herself for being selfish. That would be wanting for him a life riddled with illness and pain, of days abed and nights of sweating fever.

Edyth had a suspicion that it was more than the sun-bright day that had prompted Harold to ask her to ride with him. He had something to tell her—she had known it these past three nights, for several times he had begun to talk to her, only to stop himself. He was trying to tell her in the gentlest way he could that he would soon be gone. Would there ever be a kind way of saying goodbye? It would be easier for him at the church perhaps; she could find comfort there in the quiet company of Christ and His mother. Edyth was almost tempted to unsaddle her pony, turn her loose in the field and go find some task or other that required doing—but what point in delaying the moment? The pain would sear whenever she learnt of his going.

For almost a month, now, he had been carried down twice weekly to the modest little church of Waltham Holy Cross, to pray before its sacred stone crucifix. Perhaps the healing power of the Cross would help her, too? The story of the Cross was an old and much loved one. Edyth’s father told it often and she in turn had related it to Harold as he lay ill in his bed. Mayhap it was her storytelling that had urged him to go to Waltham, when his strength had begun to return.

A carpenter of Somerset, so it was said, was once told in a dream to dig on the hill above his village. He ignored the dream at first, but each night it returned and so eventually he obeyed, and accompanied by the villagers went to the hill. After digging a great hole he found a marble slab broken in two and beneath it a stone crucifix, a book, a bell and a smaller cross. The lord of the village was a much loved man called Tovi the Proud, an official of King Cnut. Loading the treasures into a cart pulled by two oxen, Tovi decreed that the sacred items should be taken to a religious centre—but which one? The oxen refused to move until his modest estate at Waltham was mentioned, whereupon the cart began to trundle forward. And so the Cross was brought to the church in the hamlet of Waltham beside the Lea river in the shire of Essex. Tovi had the church rebuilt to house the relics and people came from far and near to see their wonder.

Earl Harold had benefited from his uncomfortable journeys to Waltham to pray—but although his strength was returning his left arm remained stiff and unusable, and that same side of his face drooped, the muscles slack and unresponsive, his mouth and lower lip twisting downward. The use of his arm, the apothecaries and doctors all agreed, would return in time, for he had feeling there in his fingertips. Time, however, was passing too slow.

Once Countess Gytha’s second son had been safe from death, she had returned to her own home, leaving Harold in Ælfthryth’s competent hands. And Edyth’s. “Take care of my son, young lady,” she had said to Edyth on the day she had left. “He has a fondness for you that will see him through his difficulty.”

Edyth’s pony, a chestnut roan of no more than twelve hands affectionately called Squirrel, nudged at her mistress’s shoulder, snatching at the reins in an attempt to crop greedily the sweet spring grass. Edyth reprimanded her sharply, her voice carrying across the cobbled yard and through the open doorway of the Hall.

Harold stood inside, patiently allowing his body servant to adjust his cloak pin. He found it frustrating that so many tasks had to be done for him: his cloak fastened, his clothes laced, meat cut. He had not realised how essential the use of two hands were until he had lost the use of one of them. With the half of his mouth that worked efficiently he smiled at Ælfthryth. “I will take care of your daughter, Mistress Ælfthryth,” he said. “For all her youth—or perhaps because of it—she is pleasant company. It is her laughter and agreeable chatter that has kept me from despair these past months.”

“She is a daughter to be proud of. I would not have harm come to her.” Ælfthryth’s answer carried a hint of maternal warning, protective of childhood innocence.

Harold waved his servant aside, stepped closer to his hostess and took her fingers within his sound right hand. “Lady, you need have no fear for your daughter with me.” He looked at the stiff fingers of his useless arm and shrugged. “I cannot personally defend her from wolves or thieves, but equally”—he grinned, making a jest of his misfortune—“I cannot take advantage of her!” He glanced at his feet, surprised to find that he felt a sudden rush of embarrassment. “I shall talk to your husband this evening but at this moment it is to you I speak, not him.” Clearing his throat, Harold rushed on in one quick breath before courage should fail him. “I am aware that Edyth…admires me. At first I was too ill to notice or care, and then I began to find it flattering and amusing. But, Lady, these past weeks I have felt myself growing more fond of her.” He sought Ælfthryth’s eyes, held them to emphasise his sincerity. “I am almost healed of my illness and soon I must take my leave of your good care and kind hospitality. There is but one thing I regret. I am loath to leave behind your daughter.”

Ælfthryth answered quickly and with concern. Too many men in positions of authority were eager to take advantage of a virgin maid. Ælfthryth had not judged Harold to be such a man, but what if she were wrong? “My Lord, for all that you are the second son of Godwine and earl in your own right, I would not have my child ill-used.”

“Lady,” Harold responded instantly, “you have my assurance that I would never ill-use Edyth.” He kissed her fingers and took a step backwards. He had said enough; before he spoke more he ought go to Waltham and pray again before the Holy Cross. Be certain in his own mind that the path he was about to take was the right one.

***

The church had been damp and cold inside, for the sun had not warmed through the split trunks and wattle that formed the walls. They had knelt together before the altar, Edyth and Harold, had prayed a while, then Harold had touched the stone cross reverently and sent one of his men to find Father Osbert.

“I am to leave for London in two days,” Harold, emerging from the church, announced to Edyth as the elderly priest bustled forward to greet them. “But there are a few things I must attend to before I depart.”

Edyth stood a pace or two behind Harold, shrouded in the deep shadows of the porch. She bit her lip to stem the tears that welled in her eyes. So soon? Was he to leave her so soon?

“I have found the quiet of your church a healing balm for my aching spirit these past weeks, Father,” Harold said to the priest. “Yet I notice it is in grave need of repair, I intend to reward you and the good villagers of Waltham for your care and kind hearts and, in so doing, I will also give thanks to God for my recovery, which, while not yet complete, is almost so.”

Osbert was unashamedly beaming. It had been an honour to tend a man such as Harold, but a reward, a gift to the church, had not been expected. What would he offer? Gold plate, silver candlesticks? The roof desperately needed mending and the timber of the north wall was mildewed and rotten. Heavy rain caused such problems…his mouth, however, dropped wide in astonishment as Harold continued.

“I intend to provide funding for a new and larger church to be built here, an abbey, in fact, with adequate grounds and lands for a monastery, complete with provision for the secular education of those wishing for a life devoted to God.” Harold held out his hand to Osbert who had fallen to his knees, urging him back to his feet. “I will recommend to the King that you be named first abbot of Waltham Abbey, my good friend.”

Osbert could not help himself: tears of joy slithered from his eyes. He had prayed for a miracle to repair his humble little church—and now it was to be rebuilt, enlarged…What a glory to God Waltham would become!

The inhabitants of the few dwellings that clustered around the church had crowded round; now their cheering turned to excited chatter as Harold mounted his gelding, A monastery would bring trade, travellers and pilgrims—before them, workmen, masons, builders, smiths, carpenters and craftsmen. Waltham was a poor village; the erection of a great abbey would transfer it into a town of wealth and worth. Hands reached out to touch Harold, cries of “Bless you!” echoed after him as he nudged his horse forward.

“That was well done, my Lord.” Thorfinn, one of his housecarls, remarked. “An abbey here will be most fitting.”

“What think you, Edyth?” Harold asked, twisting in his saddle to see the girl following on her roan pony. “There will be disruption to this peaceful spot, of course. Stone to be brought from abroad—Caen, in Normandy, I understand provides the best—there will be many people here for many years. An abbey, of the size I envisage, cannot be built in a matter of months.”

“It will bring great joy to the villagers, my Lord,” Edyth answered, attempting to put enthusiasm behind her words.

Harold reined in his gelding to keep pace with her. “Will it bring joy to you, my little one?” he asked quietly.

“Oh.” Edyth attempted a smile. “Anew house of God can, surely, bring nothing but joy.”

Chewing his lip, Harold nodded, then tactfully changed the subject. “It is such a fine day—I have no desire to ride homewards yet. Let us follow down river a while.”

They rode companionably in silence along the lane, threading their way through an encroachment of new spring growth until Harold reined in beside a track that led off through the trees to their left. “To where does this lead?” he asked.

Controlling the unhappy tightness in her throat, Edyth answered with the brightest voice that she could raise, hoped that he would not hear its falseness: “This is Mott Street; it climbs up to a crest of high land that overlooks the valley.”

Cocking his head to one side, Harold inspected the grassed track, just wide enough for a single horse to pass. There were several fresh-made deer slots in the mud. “I have noticed that the deer are plentiful in this forest of Waltham, perhaps I ought to consider building myself a suitable hunting lodge near my new abbey—but far enough to be distant from the noise and disruption of building, eh?” He deliberately put a question into his voice to make her look up and answer. She looked so sad, so lost.

“Aside from a few cottages scattered along the ridge, there is nothing up this lane.” Edyth managed a pale smile. “It is a good place to ride if you seek the solitude of peace and privacy.” She looked down at her hands curled around the reins. Looked up again to meet his eyes, her smile more confident. “I would be glad to share it with you.”

It was, as she had said, a steep climb up through the crowding trees. The horses, hot in the remains of their winter coats, were puffing and sweating as they finally ducked through a canopy of branches and splashed through one of the numerous streams that tumbled down the hill. A panoramic view of the valley, lit by golden sunlight, was spread below, the grey trails of smoke from the houses at Waltham visible against the cloudless sky. Squatting at the centre of the village, the little church with its thatch roof and wattle walls was huddled amid its cluster of outbuildings. Many fields were already ploughed, on others grazed cattle, sheep and geese. The song of swans’ wings whished overhead, causing Harold, Edyth and the two housecarls to look up. Three of the great white birds skimmed the treetops, heading for the river which meandered sedately through the lush green of the winter-flooded water meadows.

“Boats will come up there.” Harold said, pointing to the wide ribbon of water. “Boats from London and the Thames river, laden with their cargo to build my abbey.” He dismounted, tossed the reins to Thorfinn and went to lift Edyth from Squirrel. He found it awkward using only the one arm, but she put her hands on his shoulders, and she was so light that he needed only to put one arm around her waist to steady her as she kicked her feet free of the stirrups and jumped down from the saddle.

“Have you ever followed the river down to London?” he asked, guessing that she had not. “It is but a handful of miles, you know.”

She shook her head. London? Would she ever see a wondrous place like London?

He kept his hand on her waist as he walked her away from the men towards the trees that ran behind them along the hump of the ridge. A deer trail rambled through the woods and although it was muddy, Harold suggested they follow it a while. “If we tread quietly we may see a doe, or perhaps an early-born fawn.”