Naked (8 page)

“My lady,” he gasped.

A death rattle. I recognized it. There’d be no saving him. I took his bloodstained hand in mine. “Don’t try to speak.”

Still, he struggled on. “The Danes, my lady. The Danes.”

“Defeated.” As I said a prayer over him his face relaxed into repose.
“Requiescat in pace.
Rest in peace.” A sign of the cross.

Drawing on all my remaining energy I stood up and forced myself to address the men. “Saxons! Tend to our wounded. Bury the vanquished. Bring all those who are hurt to Coventry and come, too, those who have fought for honor this day, from Mercia and from the Middle Lands. We shall feast tonight!”

At my bidding, the Saxons started to lift our dead and injured men. Even undertaking this somber task, their overall mood remained jubilant. To speak of feasting at such a time was not in my nature, but my father had once told me it cured battle fever. The men continued to clap each other on the shoulders, with nods and cheers.

A sole man didn’t cheer. Lord Leofric stood apart. Sword gripped, he stared across at the retreating Danes and shook his head.

8

Then fled she to her inmost bower …

—Tennyson (1842):
Godiva

“You’re quiet, Lord Leofric.”

The Earl of Mercia stared at me, his expression brooding. Dressed in a dark tunic and cloak, his armor gone, he sat to my right at the high table but appeared to take no joy in the celebrations.

Below us, the long trestles brimmed with warriors and townsfolk. Up to two hundred could eat in the hall and there must have been close to that number tonight. Extra benches had been laid out, not for just the returning warriors, but for their relieved wives and families.

The sounds of mirth and merriment mingled with the smoke of the roast boar rotating on the spit above the main fire. Serving boys ran back and forth filling bowls with pottages of peas and barley, whole fish cooked in embers, baked eel, and platters of carrots, parsnips, and beans, herbed with thyme and dill. Each table held loaves of fresh round bread, pats of pale gold butter, hens’ eggs, and round cheeses as well as clay jugs of ale and mead.

Leofric’s throat contracted as he took a gulp of ale. “We celebrate too soon.”

Edmund was seated on my other side. “Thurkill has retreated.”

Leofric stared into his goblet. “For now.”

“I’m counting the days until that man is out of the Middle Lands and in distant Mercia.” Edmund breathed in my ear.

“Lord Leofric saved us,” I murmured, not wanting him to hear. Edmund’s constant complaining had begun to wear on my nerves like the throbbing of my wound. “We needed his forces today. Without the Mercians, I’ve no doubt Thurkill would have been victorious.”

Edmund scowled but he couldn’t deny it.

Beneath the bandage my arm twanged as I reached for the sparrow-hawk brooch attached to the breast of my tunic. Aine had clipped on the brooch after tending to the wound on my arm, anointing it with an herbal salve.

“Why you have to put yourself in danger I don’t know.” She tutted as if I were a child who’d tumbled in a bramble bush.

“You know why.”

I’d winced as she cleansed the ripped skin. If my men fought, I fought. What they had to bear, I bore. Their pain was my pain. Accompanied by Brother Aefic, I’d attended to the dying before going exhausted to my own bower.

Aine had made no answer as she’d released my hair from the tight battle coils and set to with a brush, turning my hair to soft waves of bronze that rippled down my back. Even though I’d lost my helmet, her neat handiwork hadn’t come loose.

Now the unruly strands tumbled over my shoulders, waving over my waist to curl just above my thighs. Pushing it from my forehead I rose to my feet. My tiredness had passed. The feasting cure for battle fever worked for fatigue, too.

“Friends! Warriors!” I called from the high table. “
Was hail!
”

“
Was hail!”
Horns and tankards were lifted in reply. Walburgha’s cheeks were red, Wilbert, scrubbed and appearing no worse for wear, beside her.

“This great day we have avenged the death of my parents, Lord Radulf and Lady Morwen.” My fingers tightened on the stem of my goblet. I still found it hard to say their names. “We have fought to defend the Middle Lands from the Danes. We have kept the honor of Coventry!”

“Aye! Coventry!” The cry went up amidst the rattling of wooden trenchers and the drumming of feet. The candles, jugs, and platters on the long tables juddered.

“We of Coventry are grateful to the men of Mercia who fought so bravely with us, and to their lord.” Lord Leofric discomfited me with a sardonic smile before lifting his cup in reply. I faltered for a moment before continuing the toast. “Thurkill the Tall, the Danish terror, has been defeated! He will plague us no more!”

Now the cheers were fit to lift the rafters. “Mercia! Mercia! Coventry! Coventry!”

Seeking silence, I held up my goblet. “Lives have been lost, but they have not been lost in vain.” At this, many faces saddened. Like me, some had come to celebrate Coventry’s victory without the company of those they loved. My heart ached but I had to continue. Spirits needed to remain high. It would numb my people’s pain until they could face their grief. “We will not forget the fallen, but rejoice in our great victory: Saxons all!”

Amidst more cheering and drumming of feet, I’d just taken my seat again when Walburgha, clearly merry on mead, came up to the high table.

“My lady! The Mercians say they are greater tellers of riddles than the people of the Middle Lands!”

“Is that right, Walburgha?” I chuckled.

“What a thing to say!” Her hands on her hips, Walburgha puffed out her red cheeks. “My Wilbert is the greatest riddler there is.”

To my surprise Lord Leofric leaned toward her with a glimmer of a grin. “Perhaps there should be a challenge from the riddlers of Coventry to the riddlers of Mercia.”

“That’s it!” Walburgha cried. “A riddling challenge! Will you allow it, my lady?”

“Don’t allow it, Godiva,” Edmund muttered. “Don’t get too friendly with the Mercians.”

“It’s all right.” I smiled at Walburgha. “I’ll allow a riddling challenge.”

It would lighten some mournful hearts in the hall, I hoped. I stole a glance at Lord Leofric. There seemed no chance of lightening his mood, but perhaps he too imagined it would lift those of his men.

It didn’t lift Edmund’s. Tight-lipped he left the hall, a pitcher of water spilling on the table as he got up. It dripped onto my tunic. I wanted to run after him. But I couldn’t leave.

Bustling to the edge of the dais, Walburgha cried out so loud that even amidst all the hubbub she could be heard.

“Hear me, good folk! There’s to be a riddling challenge between Mercia and the Middle Lands!”

Applause and laughter broke out up and down the hall.

Walburgha beckoned to her husband. “Come now, Wilbert!”

Emptying his tankard at a gulp, Wilbert came forward to the sounds of cheers as he climbed the steps to the dais. He appeared slightly sheepish, but in strong accents he began to recite with comical gestures:

“I am a wondrous creature, a joy to women,

a help to neighbors; I harm none

of the city-dwellers, except for my killer.

My base is steep and high, I stand in a bed,

shaggy somewhere beneath. Sometimes ventures

the very beautiful daughter of a churl,

a maid proud in mind, so that she grabs hold of me,

rubs me to redness, ravages my head,

forces me into a fastness. Immediately she feels

my meeting, the one who confines me,

the curly-locked woman. Wet will be that eye.”

Wilbert guffawed. “So what’s the answer to the riddle? What am I, Mercians?”

In a huddle, the Mercian warriors consulted each other, laughing.

“Don’t you know the answer?” The Coventry blacksmith called out after a few minutes.

Appearing shamefaced, the Mercians shook their heads.

“Why, it’s an onion!” Wilbert shouted triumphantly.

“They don’t know their onions!” Walburgha shrieked. “They didn’t guess aright! Coventry has won this round!”

More good-natured laughter rang through the hall.

“Bring your best riddler forward, you Northern knaves!” Wilbert called.

After more discussion and laughter between the Mercian warriors, a man with long hair and the thickest arms I’d ever seen came forward. “I’ll riddle for Mercia,” he cried.

He leapt up, and taking his place on the dais next to Wilbert, intoned loudly:

“A young man came walking, to where he knew she

was standing in the corner, he stepped up from far away,

the hardy retainer, raised his own

garment up with his hands, thrust under her girdle

something stiff as she stood,

worked his will; they both quivered.

The noble one hastened, at times his able

servant was useful, but he tired

after a while, though stronger than her before,

weary of that work. There began to grow

under her girdle what good people often

adore in their core and acquire with coins.”

Great roars of hilarity ensued as the Mercian riddler finished. I’d been unable to retain a giggle of my own. The man’s gestures had been even more comical than Wilbert’s.

“What say you, folk of Coventry?” the Mercian riddler called. “Do you know the answer?”

“’Course we do!” Walburgha shouted instantly. “Just give us a minute.”

“But the answer’s easy.” Wilbert broke in. “It’s a butter churn!”

With obvious reluctance the Mercian riddler nodded. Uproar broke out among the townsfolk of Coventry.

“We’ve won the challenge!” Walburgha beamed with delight. She waved a scolding finger at the Mercian riddler. “You’ll have to pay the price!”

“What’s the price?” he asked, taken aback.

“We should make you take a penitent’s ride through the streets for the shame of such poor riddling!”

From the high table I thought it fit to intervene. “That’s a bit harsh, Walburgha!”

Wilbert seized a jug of ale. Froth foamed as he thrust it toward the Mercian. “Drink this then! It will improve your riddling!”

To the sounds of counting and more laughter the Mercian riddler swigged the ale.

“The penitent’s ride?” Leofric enquired.

“Do you not know of it? It’s a new Christian custom. For penance, those who would take shame upon themselves walk or ride through the streets in only their shift.”

He raised a brow. “In only their shift?”

My cheeks must have colored scarlet. The saucy riddles hadn’t made the heat rise to my face but to my consternation the merest lift of Lord Leofric’s eyebrow did. Seeking refuge in my goblet of ale I judged it safer not to reply.

As he leaned toward me again my heart quickened.

“How is your arm?”

I remembered his gentleness when he’d touched me on the battlefield. “It’s better. Aine has put some herbal salve on it. It will soon be healed, I’m sure.”

“You’re in no pain?”

A tendril of hair fell over my shoulder as I shook my head. I didn’t know what gripped me, but it wasn’t pain. “No.”

“Make sure you get some rest.” He stood, making my body aware of the height and strength of his, before he bowed. “It grows late. I’ll bid you good night … Godiva.”

With a swirl of his cloak he left the hall.

*   *   *

The night air blew cool as I lifted my face to the dark sky. Soon spring would arrive, but still a chill wind blew across from the eastern coast. Only a few stars could be seen through the clouds, but I could make out the moon in the bright shape of a crescent.

My skin remained warm long after Lord Leofric left the noisy hall. My appetite gone, I’d toyed with some barley pudding and apples, but my energy had diminished and my wound begun to ache. Soon I, too, made my excuses, though most of the revelers remained behind. The sounds of their laughter and a song being struck up to the ripple of harp strings echoed behind me as I made my way across the empty courtyard to my bower.

My weakened arm twanged. Aine had wanted to suspend it in a rope sling, but I hadn’t wanted to. Now I wished I had. It would take weeks for the deep cut to be fully healed, and then I would need to build the muscles up again. Again the memory came to me of how tenderly Leofric had touched me when he realized I’d been hurt. Again, that strange swooping sensation in my belly and a weakness in my knees. It must be battle weariness and fatigue, the effects of too much ale. In the morning I would be myself again.

Outside my bower I stopped and glanced into the darkness. For a moment, I had the strangest sensation of being watched. Yet I could see no one. Usually there would be a few men clustered in the courtyard, playing dice or sitting around a small fire. Tonight, all were in the hall.

The bower door stood ajar. Pausing on the ball of my foot, I skimmed another wary peek over my shoulder. It must be the remnants of the day’s fighting, I explained my disquiet to myself, but all my senses remained on alert. The door creaked as I eased it open with two fingers. Puzzled, I craned my neck and peered in, my palm resting on the wood, my body poised, still half outside. The room lay in darkness. No candles were lit, and only a shaft of the crescent moon shone through the window, splashing onto the rushes.

Why was the bower empty? Aine had waited to help me to bed since I was a small child, no matter how late I stayed in the hall, or how many times I told her I could tend to myself. Even the fireplace appeared to be cold.

The hairs on my neck stood up as I sought my sword but came up empty. Uncloaked, unarmed, I’d gone to feast.

A tentative tiptoe forward. Another. “Aine?”

The cold metal of a blade slammed flat against my neck as he came up behind me before I could scream. “Don’t move.”