[Norman Conquest 01] Wolves in Armour (46 page)

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In honour of Queen Edith’s soiree Anne decided that Alan should attend at a professional barbershop for a proper shave and haircut, instructing him not to have his hair shaved at the back in the Norman fashion and over-riding Alan’s objection that this was done as a matter of practicality as the chain mail coif of the hauberk caught the hair that was not protected by the padded cap worn under the helmet. “You’re unlikely to do any fighting for some time and you aren’t such a baby that a few pulled hairs should make any difference to you,” she scoffed. “To have the back of your head shaved in the Norman fashion makes it obvious to all that you are a Frank. I think you’d look dashing with longer hair and a beard, in the Saxon style!”

Anne also wanted to wear the matching gold coloured clothing, but the freshly-shaved and barbered Alan felt it impolitic to appear too ostentatious on their first journey to the city, like country black-birds pretending to be peacocks. He felt they should stay in the background until they had developed good relations with the Norman barons, many of whom were in Normandy with King William. Even though Queen Edith was seen as a strong supporter of the new king and had assisted him in gaining the submission of the West Saxon lands immediately after Hastings, it may not be wise to have better relations with the English nobility than that of the Normans.

Logic won out and Anne wore a tight-fitting dress of mid-green velvet, low but not immodestly cut at the front, and a similar coloured and highly-embroidered shawl completed the obligatory covering of the hair- a fashion that Alan always found disappointing as it prevented Anne showing off her long and lustrous auburn hair. Alan wore a tunic of black linen embroidered with silver, a tooled black leather belt with silver buckle, plain black hose and boots, with his head uncovered, revealing his red hair flowed almost to his collar. As it was a social occasion he was unarmed other than the small knife at his belt that he would use for eating- indeed Anne with the larger seax knife that denoted her position as a freewoman was better armed than he was. Like all the guests they brought two armed retainers, who left their swords at the door and were shown into a separate Hall to await the pleasure of their betters.

Queen Edith’s townhouse on the Strand was very large. They arrived just after the appointed starting time of an hour before Compline and entered the house forecourt as the sun was setting behind Westminster Abbey. The house backed onto the Thames and being upstream of the city the water flowing past was clean and unpolluted. Ducks and swans swam close to the riverbank and children were splashing and playing at the water’s edge.

The Hall that the doorman showed them into was quite large without being overly so. It was thirty paces by forty, well lit with lamps attached to sconces and with fresh rushes on the floor. Several tables had been placed against one wall and chairs and benches lined the other walls. When they arrived there were about a dozen other guests present and Queen Edith was just entering through another door with an arm linked with Eadnoth, the Steward of her late husband, who was a tall and elderly man. The queen was of medium height, 38 years of age and still showed the beauty of her youth. She was soberly dressed in dark red, heavily embroidered with gold. Alan was glad that Anne had not worn her gold dress as it would not have done for a simple country girl to have outshone her noble host.

Alan noticed Chancellor Regenbald standing with a somewhat flashily-dressed dark-haired woman of about 40 on his arm, and a boldly-dressed man of about the same age with long blond hair and a flowing moustache. Presuming on his acquaintance with Regenbald, Alan walked across the Hall towards him with Anne at his side, hand on his arm, and he introduced her to Regenbald. The Chancellor in turned introduced the other woman as Aethelu, his current wife, and the man as Cynebeald, his son by his first marriage. He pointed out his daughter Swanhild, who was talking animatedly in an adjoining group and then took Alan and Anne to that group, made introductions and asked Swanhild to take care of them for the evening as they were new to the city and had few friends.

Swanhild, a tall blond and shapely woman of about thirty-five, took the duty in good cheer and she and Anne were soon chatting together like old friends as she introduced the couple around and made a point to introduce Anne to a number of young women of around Anne’s own age.

Alan noted something peculiar about the group. There were women of all ages from 16 to 60 and many men over 40. Other than two or three young clerics in their distinctive monk’s garb and tonsures, there were barely a handful of men of fighting age. As he chatted with them he found that most of these few had been wounded at Stamford Bridge, or had otherwise been fortunate enough to miss the battle of Hastings by being overseas or on the western border fighting the Welsh. There were probably two women for every man present.

The side-tables had been filled with plates of finger-food. Eggs stuffed with fish roe; smoked salmon on toast; pickled herring on rye-bread; mini-mushroom pastries; quiche; pork pies; chicken pasties; small sausage rolls; small meat pies; sage and parsley tarts; mushrooms stuffed with cheese; Lorenz pies with minced meat, pine nuts, currents and cottage cheese gilded with gold leaf. This was the first time that either Alan or Anne had eaten gold. Available sauces in separate jugs were melted spiced cheese sauce, carmeline sauce, garlic with walnuts and onions, jaunce, mustard and several types of chutney.

A separate table carried platters of small cakes, various sweet fruit tarts, custard tarts, fried almond pastries with honey and half a dozen different fried or baked pastries coated with sugar. There were platters of a dozen types of cheeses from soft Brie, Neufchatel, Roquefort, Gorgonzola and Emmenthal to the harder cheeses including Cheddar, Cheshire, Parmigiano and Romano.

The guests helped themselves, placing the morsels of food on small wooden plates and eating with their fingers as they chatted. Most of the ladies were drinking mead or fruit juices, either alcoholic or non- alcoholic, or sweet white wine. The men drank either pints of ale or cups of fine red wines from the Loire or Bordeaux. Harp and lute players were quietly playing music in the background.

Eventually Regenbald collected Alan and Anne and took them to the small group where Queen Edith was sitting with half a dozen others and introduced them.

“Anne, my dear, so nice to meet you!” said the Queen. “We so rarely see new faces these days. Such a beautiful and, if I hear correctly, literate young lady. And Sir Alan, I do believe you are the first Norman to attend one of my soirees. It’s so hard to find a Norman noble who is literate and not totally consumed by making war!”

“It’s a hard life to train to be a knight, Your Grace,” replied Alan. “Training as a warrior begins at eight years of age and leaves little time for learning social graces or book learning. I had a more diverse childhood and adolescence before I became a soldier, and I’m glad finally to have the time to read almost as much as I would like. I must say that I prefer the iambic meter of Greek poetry to the alliterative of English poetry. In some of the English poetry I have read, which is not a great deal, I have found the story hard to follow. The Dream of the Rood for example, where I found the second part, where the Cross tells its own story, was difficult to plod through. Andreas is a good, enjoyable story and well-told. I’ve only recently started to study English poetry of course.”

“You read English? That must be unique amongst your nobles,” said Edith with a tilt of her head.

“And he writes it, as well of course Latin and French, and also Attic Greek,” added Anne. “Alan has his own library and has been giving me books as presents.”

“I would love the opportunity to learn Arabic and read some of their great works, particularly on medical sciences, but that would take years and require me to travel to the distant lands of the Moors. Now with the responsibilities of wife and land that is no longer possible,” said Alan wistfully.

“And your marriage. Presumably arranged by your lord?” asked the Queen.

Alan took Anne’s small hand in his and replied, “No, it is a love match. I found an injured creature in my forest and took her home to cure. I fell in love immediately, but it took some time and effort for her to make her choice. She’s not the most biddable of women,” he concluded with a quick look at her out of the corner of his eye.

“Ah, yes, the Battle of Wivenhoe. My thegn at Wix, Adamnan, has told me about that, although he was not present of course. From what I hear 400 untrained fyrdmen under your leadership defeated 800 trained Danish warriors with minimal casualties to themselves, and you invoked God to rain fire from the skies to destroy your enemies. And then you let the thegns of the Hundred receive the head-money from the sale of the slaves, while at the same time rescuing hundreds of English captives from a life of slavery. The sort of thing that poems and sagas are written about!” said the Queen.

“It wasn’t quite like that, Your Grace. Numbers were nearly even. I had been training the fyrdmen from my own estates and they were quite useful by then. And we had the advantage of surprise and ambush.”

“And fire?” asked Eadnoth.

“And fire,” confirmed Anne. Neither she nor Alan elaborated. That was an advantage that they wanted to keep to themselves in case of future need.

“And now he has become the champion of the poor oppressed English thegn and freeman, opposing the tyranny of corrupt officials including the earl of East Anglia!” interjected Regenbald, who then went on to explain the reason for Alan’s current journey to London.

“That will hardly make you popular with the Normans,” commented the Queen.

“Well, technically all three are English,” replied Alan.

“Technically, my foot! Two are French and you’ve pointed out the abuse that Normans all over the south of England are engaging in. You intend to follow this through?” demanded the Queen.

“With a formal complaint to the Curia Regis when the king returns, if necessary,” replied Alan. “But I doubt that will be necessary. I expect the complaints will be resolved as ‘administrative errors’ by junior officials within the next few weeks and one or two minions may be punished as examples. If it means that these three officials, and those in the other shires, take their duties more seriously and are less outrageous in their abuses, I’ll have achieved what I set out to do. I may be unpopular with the Normans, but I doubt that anything will come of it. I certainly don’t expect any thanks from King William.”

After a pause the Queen said, “I envy you your love match. It’s something that few achieve, especially nobles- and you are now of the nobility. In Edward’s time you would have been called a King’s Thegn. My own marriage was a loveless thing. Edward married me when I was 16 and Edward was 42. The Witengemot insisted that the king marry and produce an heir and deemed me, the daughter of Godwin, the strongest and best of the earls, as most suitable.

“The English, or at least the people of Wessex, wanted and still want a king who can claim descent from the great King Alfred. All his descents were killed or went into exile when Cnut became king. Edward was the son of Ethelred and went into exile in Normandy. His brother Alfred returned to England in 1036 after the death of Cnut, but was blinded and soon died. That is a deed oft ascribed to my father, but it was done by others at the behest of the sons of Cnut.

“My father arranged the return of Edward in ’41 and when Harthacanute died Edward was crowned. That was two years before our marriage. Edward was a quiet, pious and kindly man, but quite erratic- with no liking for war and little aptitude for administration. After 25 years of exile in Normandy he was at least half-Norman and had many Norman ways and friends, which didn’t endear him to my father or the people. He had little interest in ruling and effectively my father ran the country, except for the year when he was forced into exile and Edward sent me to the abbey of Wherwell. Godwin returned a year later and died soon after in ’53, when Harold took over the administration of the kingdom.

“Duke William visited in ’51 when t duke was 23 years of age, while my family was in exile. The line of Alfred was weak and the few princes had died young with no children, except another Edward, a son of Edmund Ironside. He was sent into exile and had a son Edgar, the current Aetheling. When it became obvious there would be no heir from my union with Edward, the Witengemot searched and found Edward, known as ‘The Exile’ and persuaded him to return to England from Hungary- and I understand it took some considerable persuasion as he saw himself as Hungarian. Like most of his line he died young, leaving Edgar the sole remaining prince of the line of Alfred. Edward took the boy in and treated him as his natural heir. However, Edward was very quick with his promises of who he intended should succeed him, giving them to all and sundry.

“The current situation is the fault of my late husband’s refusal to bed me and produce heirs, because of his hatred of my father. I was willing enough, out of duty not love, but he preferred celibacy to security of the realm. Had we had a son soon after we were married, he would now be 22 or so and would have been elected last year as king instead of Harold. Harold was not of the royal blood and would not have been chosen had there been any other realistic choice- the Aetheling was just 13. Indeed the Norman invasion would not have occurred as the alleged promise of kingship would never have been made. Edward was weak, lax and easily manipulated, more concerned about the state of his soul than the state of his kingdom.