I Am the Chosen King (53 page)

The door to the chamber opened, eyes turned, speech faded. Abbot Baldwin entered. He had no need to say anything, his expression told his message.

Archbishop Ealdred murmured a few words of prayer, joined by Stigand and other holy men. “Amen,” he said. Then he looked up, his eyes sweeping across the room.

“We are agreed then? The King commended his wife, our good Lady Edith, into the care of the Earl of Wessex. It is in my mind that by this he intended for Earl Harold to protect and reign over England.”

There came but one murmur of disapproval: from Morkere, new-made Earl of Northumbria.

“It is in
my
mind that Earl Harold, once crowned king, may go back on his word and restore his brother to favour. I have no intention of relinquishing my earldom.” He spoke plainly, but firmly. His brother, Eadwine, close at his side, nodded. Several thegns and nobles from the northern earldoms agreed also. A bishop too, Harold noticed. The representative of Durham, was frowning. No doubt once Morkere had chance to donate as many gifts as Tostig had, opinion there would dramatically change.

Harold stepped forward, offering his hand to Morkere. “My brother has become a jealous fool. I make no secret of the fact that I would rather have him back in England, where I can keep eye on him, but he will never return to Northumbria. You have my sworn word.”

Morkere did not take the proffered hand. “Is your word good, my Lord Earl? Did you not grant your word—your oath—that you would support William of Normandy in his claim for England?”

An uneasy silence. Harold smiled laconically. Morkere showed signs of becoming a good earl, a worthy man to hold Northumbria.

“That oath,” Harold said, “was taken under duress. I am under no obligation to keep it. I was given the choice of losing my honour or my life and freedom, and that of my men. There are oaths, and oaths, my friend.” He nudged his hand further forward, inviting Morkere to take it, still smiling. “I made that vow to William knowing full well that it was more dishonourable for a lord to endanger the lives of others than to pledge an oath with no intention of keeping it. I make this one to you with a view to the opposite.” Aware he had to give some other insurance to convince this rightfully suspicious young man, he added, “Within our traditional law there is no dishonour in breaking a promise to a man who is himself dishonourable. To those who are worthy ’tis different.” For a third time he offered his hand. “Take my word, Morkere, Tostig will not have Northumbria while I am able to prevent it. I give that unbreakable vow to a man I would call worthy to receive it.”

Morkere was tempted to look at his brother, seek his opinion, but did not. He was his own man, earl in his own right, with his own decisions to make—be they right or wrong.

Decisively, with a single, abrupt nod of his head, gazing steadily into Harold’s eyes, he set his broad hand into the other man’s. “I accept your pledge, my Lord of Wessex.” Corrected himself. “My Lord King.”

There was no need for Morkere to add anything further, for Harold understood the look that accompanied that acceptance from steady, unblinking eyes:
God protect you, though, should you break it.

Westminster

Standing flanked by the Archbishops Ealdred of York and Stigand of Canterbury, Harold struggled to retain his concentration. A combination of tiredness, excitement and unexpected nerves was getting the better of him. To his left, a slab of marble lay new-mortared into the floor before the altar. Harold stared down at it as the abbey echoed from the singing of the
Te deum laudamus
, the ceremony of acclamation. Beneath the slab rested Edward’s coffin and the shrouded body of the dead king.

But he is no longer king
, Harold thought, incredulously.
The people have been asked if they will accept me as their sovereign and they have acclaimed me so.
Ealdred’s explicit words reverberated in Harold’s mind: “The King, elected by the clergy and the people.”

The abbey of Saint Peter of Westminster, this sixth day of January in the year 1066, was as crowded now as it had been earlier in the day for Edward’s funeral—some of the populace who had trooped from London and neighbouring villages and hamlets, unwilling to give up a prized position on a bench, had remained stubbornly in their seats, drinking their skins of ale and chewing goat’s cheese and bread. A cold easterly wind raged outside, another reason to stay warm and dry within.

Reading in English from a schedule given him by the Archbishop, Harold solemnly declared the triple oath, his mind flirting with incongruous personal thoughts as Ealdred proceeded to give instruction and admonishment for his own good and for that of his people. Soon, he would ask Harold to make the promises to keep true peace within the Church of God and the whole dominion of his Christian people, to forbid rape and wrongful acts in every degree, and to ordain that justice and mercy should be observed in all legal judgments: the traditional preliminaries to the ceremony proper.

Several times Harold felt the urge to run from the abbey, flee before it was too late. He was to be king, the first to be crowned in this abbey—by God’s good mercy could he do this thing? Edgar, the boy, was the heir and ætheling—but if he, a man grown, was filled with these doubts and anxieties, how would a lad of his age grapple with the enormity of the task ahead? Those doubts had almost overcome Harold in the early hours of yesterday morning as news came that Edward was dead. “Do I deserve to be elected king?” he had said to the Council. “I am a statesman, a warlord, but am I the stuff of kingship?”

“What is it you shirk from?” his brother Gyrth had asked. “Or do you fear those who will, undoubtedly, oppose you? The commitment to God and country? The responsibility?”

“I fear all those!” Harold had retorted emphatically. “I would be the greater fool were I not to.”

“Which is why you will make a good king,” Eadwine of Mercia had countered, offering his hand in friendship as Harold had to Morkere.

In the abbey, Harold jerked his attention back to the ceremony. Ealdred was again standing before him, anointing his head with chrism, the holiest oil known to the Church, and the anthem “They Anointed Solomon” lifted from the sweet, clear voices of the choir.

Trouble would come from Normandy over this. Could there be any doubting that unofficial word was already speeding on its way southwards? Officially, a letter would be sent by courier on the morrow, duly endorsed by the newly crowned and anointed king, greeting William and asking that the marriage arrangement be upheld, to unite Normandy and England in the union of kinship. Kinship? What stability or loyalty did kinship bring?

A brother. Tostig. How was he going to react to this day’s crowning? Harold could guess only too well. And his sister Edith, where did her loyalty lie? With a brother, certainly, but not with the one declared by the Council as king. She had refused to attend this ceremony, claiming it was too soon after Edward’s death. Harold admitted she was right there, for he too had protested, yesterday, against a kingmaking coming on the same day as a king’s burial. Edward had died in the early hours of the fifth day of January, was put into his grave on the morning of the sixth and his crown placed on the head of his successor that same afternoon.

“We wait until the next calling of the Council, then, do we?” the Council had responded with unanimous scorn. “Let England flounder like a beached whale, inviting our enemies to come through the wide open door to sample our ale and women?”

For too long already had earls been absent from their manors, thegns from their farm holdings, bishops and abbots from congregation and monastery. Council ought to have disbanded three days past, for the weather was turning bitter with cold. Snow would be coming soon.

Archbishop Ealdred had said boldly, “We must all of us leave Westminster on the morning after Edward is buried. We cannot wait until the next Council for a coronation. It would be better for you to claim your crown now. By Easter, who knows who else may come to try for the fit of it.”

Morkere had added, with his own brand of dry, Mercian-bred humorous pessimism, “Besides, we may not have time to think about a crowning later in the year, when we are busy fighting to keep your unanimously elected backside on the throne.”

To combine the laws of land and God together, the Church had created a liturgy for the investiture of the Regalia of Kingship. There were five items of holy symbolism: the ring, sword, crown, the sceptre and rod, given to the King with the blessings of the Mother of God, Saint Peter, prince of apostles and Saint Gregory the apostle of the English and all the saints.

“May God make you victorious and conqueror over your enemies; may He grant you peace and with the palm of victory lead you to His eternal kingdom. May God bless this, our chosen king, that he may rule like David and govern with the mildness of Solomon.”

And the abbey, which smelt of sawdust and mortar, incense and male sweat, was filled with the answering roar of acclaim, shouted from every lip and every heart as men came to their feet, three times lifting their arms in salute and their voices in endorsement:
Vivat Rex! Vivat Rex! Vivat Rex in aeternum!

Harold sat, enthroned, enrobed, his expression a look of almost childlike wonder. He saw a sea, an ocean of faces, all with their right arms raised, mouths open acclaiming him. Long live the King! His brothers Leofwine and Gyrth—his nephew, Hakon, so delighted to be home in England among his kindred. The Earls Eadwine and Morkere; ealdormen of the Council; men of the Holy Church. His friends, housecarls, thegns. To one side, his mother Countess Gytha, sated with pride and pleasure. Beside her, his sons, his daughters. Goddwin, Edmund, Magnus, Ulf, Algytha and Gunnhild. The boys with great moon-full grins, hands raised, chins jutting, shouting
Vivat Rex
!

And Edyth. His heart ached to run forward, gather her to him, wipe from her cheek that glistening tear that he could see, trailing silver. She was smiling, shouting as loud as the rest of them, shutting out the pain within her as the door closed, finally, on the years, those good, loving years, that they had shared as man and wife.

Rouen

The messenger refused to hand the letter sent from England to the Duke personally. Instead, he sought fitz Osbern.

“But this is for Duke William. Why have you brought it to me, man?” Fitz Osbern was irritated. Naught had gone right this day—before leaving his bed he had quarrelled with his wife, then he had discovered his favourite hound had been in a fight during the night, sustaining a torn ear and tooth-gouged neck. Added to that, indigestion was burning in his chest and now this fool was standing there hopping from foot to foot, proffering a parchment that was meant for the Duke. As if he did not have enough of his own correspondence to see to this day!

At least the messenger was honest in his reply. “Sir, I bring it to you because it contains bad news. I have no intention of being on the receiving end of his temper.”

William fitz Osbern sat at his table, maps and letters spread before him, a quill pen leaning from the ink well, shavings from other trimmed quills brushed into a neat pile. He had stared at the scrolled parchment in his hand. It was from William, Bishop of London. He sighed. There was so much to do and so little time in which to accomplish it. Norman administration would be easier were the Duke able to attend to the reading of charters and letters himself, and if the whole system were not so complicated. The recording of taxable land in England, for example, was much more organised, with everything meticulously written down and recorded in one set book within each shire.

“If it is about King Edward’s health, then we are already aware that he is failing. The Duke is expecting to hear that he is dead.” Will handed the scroll back to the messenger. “You have my assurance that he will not bark at you for that.” Mint leaves would be good for his bubbling stomach. Perhaps he ought to send a servant to fetch some.

The messenger took a step backwards, emphatically refusing to take the document. “’Tis not the bark that concerns me, my Lord. ’Tis the sharp-toothed bite!”

Fitz Osbern suppressed a belch. “For the sake of God, man, you have been paid to deliver a message to Duke William. Do so.” Fitz Osbern tossed the scroll at the man, who made no attempt to catch it.

“Nay, sir, ’tis not my place to disagree with you, but I were commissioned to fetch this to Normandy as soon as might be possible. That, sir, I have done. No one said anything about taking it direct to the Duke himself.”

Exasperated, Will heaved himself from his stool and fumbled for the scroll which lay among the floor rushes. “I assume that this great reluctance of yours is connected with the knowing of what is contained in this scroll?”

“
Oui
.”

“Which is…?” Fitz Osbern’s fingers clasped the letter.

The messenger, a bearded, middle-aged man who, Fitz Osbern discerned, was in desperate need of a bath, scratched his nose. “Which is that, aye, the King of England is dead, and that Earl Harold of Wessex is crowned and anointed in his place.”

Fitz Osbern’s grip tightened rigid around the parchment. Slowly, very slowly, he straightened. “Repeat that.”

The messenger did so.

Fitz Osbern, mouth open, breath stopped, walked back to his stool, feeling as if he were ploughing through knee-deep mud. He could almost imagine the words written on the scroll burning through. Someone would have to read them aloud to William. His indigestion paled into insignificance as a different kind of sickness rose into his throat.

He nodded, once, very slowly at the messenger. “You may go. See my steward for payment.”

Relieved, the man fled.

***

Duke William sat very still. Only the slow, systematic rubbing of his thumb passing backwards and forwards across the back of his hand and the tight clench of his jaw indicated his fury. “Read it again,” he snapped.

Fitz Osbern reluctantly complied. Duke William’s lips parted slightly, his nostrils flared. The thumb stopped moving.

The chamber was not crowded, but all within exchanged furtive glances of apprehension. Both servant and knight alike knew to beware of their duke when a rage threatened.

Duchess Mathilda, seated beside her husband, flicked a glance from the pale-faced Will fitz Osbern to her husband and moved to rest her hand on his arm. With irritation, he jerked away. The abrupt movement broke the stillness. He lurched to his feet. William was a tall man—in anger, his stature seemingly heightened.

His words however, were low: “I knighted him. He swore homage as my vassal.”

“
Oui
, my Lord.” Fitz Osbern allowed the scroll to roll upon itself.

“He swore to speak for me to convince the English of my claim.”

Again, fitz Osbern answered simply, “
Oui
.”

William clenched his fists, the nails digging into the palms. “He swore. He took an oath before me.” The words were becoming slurred, spoken through that rigid jaw. He turned his head with a jerk, gazed at fitz Osbern. “He made no effort on my behalf? No attempt to speak for me?”

“It seems not, my Lord. William of London has always proved to be reliable and accurate in his information.”

Mathilda rose and put her hand over her husband’s fist, persuading the fingers to relax. Was surprised to find William’s hand was shaking.

She too could not believe that what was written in that letter was the truth. Harold had seemed such a pleasant man, so benign—so honourable. She felt a blush tingle her face as she remembered him close to her, his laugh, those startling, vivacious blue eyes…Ashamed at that flurried erotic memory, Mathilda stifled the lurch that had knotted her stomach and peered up at her husband. “My Lord, you are a greater man than ever Harold will be—and is it not as well that we have discovered his true nature before committing our daughter further into his care?”

Had William heard? He made no sign that he had. His anger was swamping him, penetrating his senses, thundering in his brain. He had been betrayed before, other men had sworn allegiance and reneged upon their oath. And other men had paid the price of their duplicity.

“So. This is how an earl of England repays my kindness?” Resentment spewed from William’s mouth. “I could have left him to rot in Ponthieu, could have taken him for ransom for myself, but no! I welcomed him as a guest, I treated him as if he were one of my allies, offered him my confidence and my friendship—God’s breath…” William marched ten paces, turned and glared at the silent group of men and women. “I offered him the honour of becoming my son by marriage!” He lunged forward, scattering goblets, jugs and food bowls from a table, tipped the table itself. Struck out at a servant, clawed at a tapestry and ripped it from the wall. A few of the women screamed, men drew back, several dogs in the Hall began to bark.

Knowing no one else would attempt to calm him, Mathilda intervened, her hands grasping his flailing arms. She was so small against him, her head barely reached his chest. She gripped tighter, shaking him. There were more than a few in that Hall who secretly admired the woman’s bravery. “It is done. The thing is finished. Forget him, forget England.”

William stared down at his wife, his expression a vice of hatred.

“Forget him? Forget England?” he said ominously. “On the day I wed you, I promised that you would not think of me as an illiterate barbarian, I promised that I would prove to you my worth and my strength, that I would give you a crown.”

Interrupting him, Mathilda declared, “There is no need to prove anything to me, I have all I could wish for. A husband who is loyal to me, who has given me handsome sons and beautiful daughters.”

Her words did not penetrate his mind. “I vowed that I would make you my queen. And queen, madam, you will be.” He pulled away from her, swung towards fitz Osbern. “So, this English whoreson wishes to challenge my intention, does he? Then let it be so. We shall see who is more determined, I will not be made to look the fool. I want England and I shall have it.”

***

A long-legged, lank-bodied, spot-faced youth entered the solar, seeking the Duchess, his mother. Robert’s tunic had a jagged tear down the front, ripped by a blunted sword while practising on the tourney field with other boys of the court. He wanted her to mend it immediately. There were serving girls a-plenty who could have stitched it for him, but he wished to boast to her that he had toppled the boy responsible and given him a sound thrashing. That the lad had been three years his junior and considerably shorter, Robert would not be mentioning. William’s eldest had no sense of fair play, even less of honour. Why would he require either? He was the Duke’s heir, at thirteen he could do as he pleased.

To his annoyance, he found no one in the upper-floor room apart from Agatha, his sister. The emptiness was unusual for this hour of the afternoon.

“Where is Mama?” he asked tersely.

“Cloistered with our father and Will fitz Osbern. Papa is in a rage and Mama has been weeping.” Agatha closed the Bible that she had been attempting to read. Her mother had tried to teach her the shapes of the alphabet, but it was such hard work remembering how they were all to sound when strung together into the written word. She wondered whether learning to read English would be as difficult as Latin. Not that she would have the chance, not now.

“Are we at war again, then?” Robert asked, without great interest. He strolled to his father’s chair beside the hearth fire, seated himself cross-legged upon its padded cushion, Agatha frowned. Their father would be cross were he to discover Robert sitting there.

“Has some bugger of a comte reneged against our bloody father?” he continued. “I suppose he will be leaving Rouen with the army soon. I hope so—but Mama is always so unhappy when Papa is away.” The boy could not understand why this should be, for he was delighted whenever his father was absent. When he was at court, Mathilda had little time for her children—for Robert. With William gone, he would have her more to himself again. He reached out for the bowl of dried fruit beside the chair.

“A messenger came from
Angleterre
,” Agatha said. “Papa is most angry.”

Robert tossed a raisin in the air, caught it in his mouth. Chewed, swallowed. When was he not? William was always angry, most often at something his eldest son had, or had not, done. Robert hated him. Would, on the day that William did not come back from making war, be delighted. “So what has happened?” he asked, only half curious.

“King Edward has died.” Agatha said, matter-of-factly. “Earl Harold has been anointed king in his stead.”

“What?” Robert untwined his legs, lurched from the chair. “You mean that innocuous Englishman has defied our father outright?”

Astonished at her brother’s whoop of excitement, Agatha frowned. “’Tis nothing to celebrate! There will be far-reaching complications.” That was word for word what her mother had said not half an hour since, when Agatha’s own face had lit up on hearing the news. “Father is considering war with England, Mama is distraught, the court is in disarray—did you not notice the bustle on your way up here?”

“Well, well! So all the while Harold was playing his own private game of constable and thief. While our father was thinking he had cornered all the playing pieces, Harold had a second army in reserve.” Robert’s delighted grin broadened. How wonderful, someone had bested his father! “I always thought Harold had more sense than Papa credited him with.”

“Oh, you did, did you? Then you must be a better judge of men than I have given you credit for.”

Robert spun round, his face blanching. His father stood in the doorway, his great size filling the space. William strode over to his son, Robert resisting the temptation to step back a pace although he would have done so had the wall not been so close behind.

“As you seem to know so much more than I, perhaps you had best talk with my vassals into pledging their support for a war against England. Do you think you could do that? Hah, boy!” William spat the last, jabbing his face forward into Robert’s own, his hands coming out to fasten on the lad’s tunic neck-band.

Whimpering, Robert, of a sudden, desperately needed to empty his bladder.

William shook him roughly, then tossed him aside as if he were a rat with a broken neck. “Get out!”

Robert ran, fear cramping in his throat, tears stinging his eyes. He fled to the kennels, where he knew he would be left alone. God’s teeth, he hated his father!

Agatha pressed herself into a window recess. She had liked Harold, with his quiet calming voice, his gentle teasing. He had been kind to her. She would not be wife to him now, Mama had said, in a curiously taut, angered voice. Listening to the rise and fall of conversation—the frequent outbursts of blasphemous oaths from her father—Agatha had tried to understand what was happening.

A letter was to be sent immediately to England, demanding that Harold relinquish the crown; a similar missive was to go to the Pope in Rome, protesting at Harold’s usurpation; and then Papa was to order ships to be built, and for all his vassals to pledge their support of an invasion of England. Agatha was not much the wiser. She thought her father had liked Harold, that was why he had pledged her to him. What difference did it make if the kind Englishman wore a crown and not he?

Agatha breathed on the rough texture of the window parchment, watching the droplets of moisture form and trickle downwards. No doubt things would happen as they usually did: her father would besiege a few castles in England and kill any man who persisted in opposing him. She wondered whether her father would allow Harold to remain king once he had defeated England. If she could not be a nun she would have quite liked to have been a queen and worn a crown.

But what did a twelve-year-old girl know of the intricacies of war and invasion? Of victory and conquest?