Godiva (20 page)

When they reached the Palace, Aldred sent Godiva with a lay brother toward his private audience room with the promise he would be there in a moment, as soon as he changed from his street-dusty costume to a cleaner one. She was offered wine and water, both of which she declined. Beside the ecclesiastical throne—this one a small one, not the large formal one of the general receiving hall—there was only a small wooden stool. She did not want the stool and she could not have the throne, so she stood and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

She would query him with every doubt Leofric had raised. She would—sweetly, even lovingly—demand satisfaction, and she would get it from him, she could tell now, because he wanted so badly to be liked. She was very good at scratching that particular itch.

If she did not scratch it, Edward might. Aldred had not seemed to like Edward at the Council, but she might have misread that, and she certainly did not want Edward to lay claim to the affection of anyone she wanted for herself. Worcester was the largest minster in Mercia; Leofric required Worcester's loyalty. She would see to it, over the course of as leisurely an afternoon and evening meal as it took, that Leofric had it. She would charm Aldred to pieces.

Until the moment Edgiva finally arrived, or sent word, and then she would have to find a graceful way to excuse herself. Running into him had been both a complication and a boon.

She had been waiting, it seemed to her, for rather a long time in this boring little room, which was chilly and underlit. Just as she was beginning to feel uncomfortably confined, the door opened and Aldred entered hurriedly.

Godiva bowed her head, but with an apologetic smile he gestured her not to bother. “My lady, I am so sorry to have kept you waiting for me,” he said. “Something has happened and I am afraid I cannot speak with you now after all, I must attend to other business.”

“Oh,” Godiva said, her fantasy of winning him by bedazzlement instantly dampened. “May . . . I . . . return later and we may speak?”

He averted his gaze. “I would be happy to speak to you, my lady, but I am not sure when I shall be free, now. Perhaps if your ladyship wished to join us this evening for the Compline service, I might be able to speak to you just after? That should not pose a problem if you are staying as our guest.”

“. . . Certainly,” Godiva said, not sure what else to say in the moment. She did not want to stay here—she could not stay here, if Edgiva were at the other house. Hopefully Edgiva had already arrived and was waiting for her. How could she divide her attention, her presence, between the two?

And why was Aldred suddenly unavailable? Was it simply—as she knew Leofric would suggest—that he did not want to be held accountable for speaking to her about her dilemma at all? Hopefully not. Hopefully not.

“Please, Your Eminence, I do not wish to disturb your work,” she said, graciously. “I shall repair to Alfgar's house and collect my belongings and bring them back here.”
I'm not really going to do that,
she thought as the words came out of her mouth.
What excuse shall I give to explain my absence?
Later. Later. That was for later. She realized her mind was racing, she was so anxious about Edgiva.

“Thank you for understanding, daughter,” Aldred said, a note of nervousness in his voice.
Good,
thought Godiva,
you should be nervous about dismissing me. Let me have that much power over you still. I will not abuse the power, but I must know I have it, for Leofric's sake.

Somehow, with each of them dripping in obsequiousness, Godiva ended up outside the Palace gates, unattended. With a sigh of relief she turned back toward her lodgings and walked with all deliberate speed.

Edgiva still had not arrived.

B
y sundown Godiva was worried nearly to fits. She had not eaten; Druce, returning for dinner from the western gate, expressed concern. She was tempted to send him back along the road toward Leominster, but to further divide the traveling party was unwise, especially since she herself was now supposed to be in two places at once.

As the church bells were tolling the end of Vespers, at last, there was a rap on the door and the young son of the house announced himself.

“My lady, your men are here, and with them is a fearful-sick woman,” he said. “My father thinks she will be wanting wine and ale to fortify her.”

She felt a thrill of anxious relief, said a silent prayer of thanks to Saint Christopher, and rushed out to the stable.

Edgiva nearly collapsed from the saddle straight into her embrace. Druce gently lifted her under the shoulders, moved her slack body so that she lay across his arms, and carried her inside and up to the small room. One of the other men brought up a saddlebag laden with herbs—Edgiva never traveled without her medicine bundle.

In the room, Druce laid her gently on the hard cot and left them. The abbess seemed almost comatose. “You are well and safe now, friend,” Godiva said to her softly. She removed Edgiva's veil and wimple and ran a hand over her temple; she was very warm. “If you will tell me which of these herbs will best assist you to feel better, I will prepare it for you.”

“Nothing for this but mint and nettles,” Edgiva murmured, slightly singsong, almost to herself. Her eyes rolled in her head. “Sleep. I must offer God a psalm for my safety and the safety of the babe, and then sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep,” and then she was, in fact, asleep.

There was no going to the Bishop's Palace. She would send an excuse come morning. She sat watch over Edgiva that night, in that little room, amazed that they were in such an outrageous position. Godiva did not mind excitement, but Leofric did.

Edgiva's condition would make him dyspeptic.

Edgiva slept very deeply, crying out in nightmares twice. Godiva did not sleep at all.

When the sun rose, Edgiva awoke, looking heartier than the evening before, and declared herself fit to move, provided they travel slowly. Godiva asked for a blanket, and Druce draped it over the saddle to give Edgiva some extra comfort.

Godiva sent the thane's son to Bishop Aldred with a message of regret, claiming an emergency required her to leave at once for Coventry. She was truly sorry not to question him about the ride, but her concern for Edgiva's well-being was too distracting.

T
hey were on the road shortly after Prime. The weather returned to that strange barren cloudiness, dry enough to keep the mud off the roads, even in places where there had been flooding from winter's thaw. Good for travelers, but not, she feared, for farmers. They traveled far more slowly than Godiva had anticipated, and Edgiva seemed too miserable to talk. So despite Godiva's impulse to chatter (as a way to pass the time, if nothing else), they said nothing. They did not talk about Sweyn, or the baby, save for Edgiva's reassuring Godiva it was well, or Godiva's impending humiliation. She could not even remember if she had mentioned any details of that to Edgiva yet.

They were on the road for days. Godiva lost count, in the mind-numbing boredom of it. The pleasing broad swells of countryside grew monotonous. The flowering bullace and mazzard flowers and even the bluebells and cow parsley and pink campions grew monotonous. The unchanging dry clouds above them grew monotonous. The bedrolls seemed harder and damper each night, the campfires smokier, the dried mutton tougher and stringier. Each morning the dew was heavier; the sounds of the men waking and then breaking camp were louder. They bought bread with fragments of coin from the villages along the route, but the quality of that too seemed to worsen with each bite. And through it all, Edgiva felt so ill she was barely conscious—but always it was she who urged them forward, whispering reassuringly to Godiva that this was normal, that the babe was fine. Godiva found herself thanking saints that she herself was barren. And she began at last to appreciate her shapeless, dull garments: they were comfortable to slouch in, and when she was too tired to care what she looked like, they could not wilt with her as her dazzling outfits did, as these were beyond wilting to start with.

After a couple of days, it was clear the men understood Edgiva's condition. When Godiva sensed they were discussing it among themselves, she waited until Edgiva had gone to once again relieve her stomach in some nearby bushes, and then reined her horse over toward the cluster of them.

“You understand, of course, that the abbess has a stomach bug,” she said with a charming, weighty smile.

“ 'Tis a big bug, my lady,” said Druce, “and only going to get bigger.” He looked at her, not defiantly, but firmly. She glared and tried to think how best to reply; he read something into her silence and added, “Best to hear that from us, now, when there is no place for gossip to spread, no?”

“Is that a threat?” she demanded, more hotly than she meant to, feeling her stomach clench. “Are you threatening to besmirch Mother's name?”

He reddened. “On the contrary, lady, forgive me—I am asking your guidance on how to prevent such a thing.”

“By not mentioning it. To anyone. I can trust you, yes?” She smiled tightly.

“My lady, her ailment will not conveniently abate at the gates of Coventry Manor. People will ask. Will ask
us
. What should we tell them?”

“Mother has a stomach bug,” Godiva repeated.

“Beg your indulgence, but nobody will believe it,” he said. “I have control over what I say, but not over what other people choose to believe.”

Godiva thought for a long moment. “We will sequester her as soon as we arrive. Only my personal attendant will ever see her, until she has recovered.”

Druce's eyes lit up with alarm. “You'd keep her sequestered for months?”

“This kind of stomach bug only lasts a few weeks,” said one of the other men, with the bored knowledge of a veteran.

“That is right,” Godiva said with cheerful firmness. “And then she shall recover and nothing further need be said of how plump and rosy she has become. How very obedient of you to understand.”

She reined her horse away and back toward Edgiva's mount, which was grazing near the bushes that screened her from them.

I
t seemed that they were on the road forever. Edgiva remained in a nearly trancelike state of discomfort, speaking only to insist they travel farther, writing tearfully into her codex every evening. Godiva would have deemed her behavior sulking, were it anyone but Edgiva; Edgiva did not, had not once ever in her life, sulked.

So what appeared to be sulking was of force something else, something more meditative and profound. She was sorting through her own confusion. She was not turning to Godiva for advice, which was a disappointment—Godiva had been so eager to actually be of use to her, for a change—but Godiva respected the state she was in. Indeed, she was a little afraid of it.

And finally, on a damp and cloudy—but not rainy—St. Edmund's day, they approached the tiny and contested town of Coventry.

Part 4

CHAPTER 20

Coventry

L
eofric had put a lookout on the manor walls, who trumpeted when he saw the riding party. The town—some eightscore including the population of both the manor and the monastery—thronged together in the small, still-grassy market green.

But closer than the green, on the gentle curving rise the hamlet couched in, stood Leofric beside his horse, with several housecarls in attendance, staring toward the west, toward the travelers. When he was in clear view, Godiva's party cantered the last length, as that was easier than trotting for Edgiva.

The veiled sun was behind them, and as they came closer, Godiva saw Leofric freeze for a moment, and then take a stiff step or two toward them, before stopping abruptly. He pointed toward the riding party. The housecarls echoed his movements. They all looked suddenly confused, or agitated. Leofric had not known she would be bringing Edgiva with her; obviously, that explained his change of mood.

No, it did not. There was something more. Somebody shouted, but Godiva could not make out the words. As they approached and drew rein, her gaze was distracted by the population of Coventry swarming, sudden but cautious, around the outlying town buildings, creeping collectively closer to witness their lady's homecoming, anxiously muttering among themselves. When her eye returned to Leofric, she found him staring at Edgiva, his mouth slack with amazement. She had never seen him slack-jawed, and she had never known him to be speechless. He was speechless now.

“Greetings, husband,” she said, making herself sound cheerful despite exhaustion. “We have returned safely, and have brought a beloved friend to visit for a while.”

The look on his face did not change, but the color of his skin began to darken. His brows began to knit. He was angry—and yet still so shocked he could not speak. The townsfolk's muttering died away.

“The abbess is fatigued from our long journey, and so I request that we dispense with formal homecomings, or at least delay them until later, that she may enter the manor and instantly rest,” Godiva said.

He kept staring. The housecarls were staring. The villagers were staring. The monks were staring. The manor servants were staring. Not one person so much as whispered to another.

“You,” Leofric finally said, in a husky voice, to Edgiva. “Mother. What make you here?”

“I have come to visit,” Edgiva said. She looked as if she might be sick again. “At the invitation and urging of your lady wife. Why look you so amazed at that?” Her voice grew frail, and real fear crept into it. “May I not visit? Am I not welcome here?”

Her voice broke the spell of silence; the villagers and monks and servants—but not the housecarls—all began to whisper to one another, as if on cue, and most of the women in the crowd crossed themselves.

“Silence!” Leofric shouted, without taking his stare from Edgiva.

Silence.

“Husband, what's the matter?”

His eyes still on Edgiva, Leofric informed them: “We have just received notice, over the past day, from the Bishop of Worcester, and the Bishop of Hereford, and Leominster Abbey, and His Majesty. These notices alarmed me, for they had to do with events at Leominster, where I knew my wife had been. I am relieved to see my wife returning safely. But I am confused that she has brought with her Mother Edgiva, who—as half the kingdom has been informed—was forcefully abducted by Sweyn Godwinson to Hereford.”

Edgiva now looked as astonished as Leofric had moments earlier.

“Godiva, shall I assume you followed them to Hereford and wrested Edgiva from Sweyn's lascivious grasp? And if so, dare I ask what you did to convince him to let her go?”

“No, no, I . . .” And here Godiva too could not speak for a moment. “She never went to Hereford. She left straight from the abbey gates and headed here to Coventry.”

“There were
witnesses,
Godiva,” Leofric said, angry, although he kept his voice too contained to be heard by the villagers. “Stop concocting tales; that will not help you now.”

“How could there be witnesses? She did not go to Hereford,” she insisted. “I will swear that on the Holy Writ. She went straight to Worcester and I met her there, and she has not been out of my sight since.”

A confused pause.

“You
met
her there?” he echoed sternly.

“I rode with Sweyn to Hereford to make sure he would not pursue her, and then . . .” Godiva let it trail off. She suddenly felt light-headed and was glad for the warmth of her drab mantle and tunics.

“Mother Mary,” said Leofric, sounding pained.

“Who would ever think
I
might be mistaken for an abbess?” Godiva said with a nervous laugh, trying to make light of it. Which was a dreadful mistake. “Is not that the embodiment of irony?”

“Who claims it?” asked Edgiva. She was pale and a sweat had broken out over her face. “Who claims they saw Earl Sweyn abduct me?”

Leofric shook his head. “The witnesses are not named, it is written only that there were both villagers and residents of the abbey, looking over the walls.”

“I removed all of my jewelry and gave it to Edgiva,” the countess said. “The intention was to keep her from looking like a nun. It did not occur to me that without the jewelry, I myself would look like one.” '

Leofric's face reddened with anger. “I should have known you had a hand in this.”

“I was trying to
help,
” Godiva said. “Sweyn
had
come to take her. I
prevented
that. There is a very unfortunate rumor about now, but it is
wrong
. We need only announce the truth to set the record straight.”

“The record will still say that he showed up and demanded me,” said Edgiva quietly. “And that is your doing too.”

“What?” Leofric kept his voice low but his face was turning purple.

“You did not know? She wrote to him and told him to abduct me.”

“That is not true!” Godiva protested.

Leofric was so outraged his wife could see the veins on his neck even from horseback.

“Why did you have to bring her here?” he demanded through clenched teeth. “Why did she leave the abbey? And why exactly did she depart at the same moment that you did? It must have been at the same moment, the same
heartbeat,
or there could not have been this confusion.”

That he was willing to do this in front of the entire population of Coventry was a deliberate shaming. He was furious at her.

“Of course there was confusion, people were very frightened, they had been told—mistakenly, by someone else—that the Welsh were attacking, the bells were ringing, everyone was hiding in the church . . . but there was chaos and confusion inside the walls
before
he ever reached the gate.”

“But he would not have been
at
the gate were it not for you,” Leofric snapped. Turning to the abbess, “Do I have that correct, Mother Edgiva?” he demanded.

She nodded anxiously without speaking. She looked as if she might swoon.

Leofric made a wordless sound of exasperation. He turned to face the villagers and monks and servants, and something in his movement and his expression startled the lot of them; they leapt back together. “All of you go home!” he said. “Leave! Now!” Immediately the wave of people melted back behind the buildings.

Leofric turned back to the two women. “I cannot turn you away,” he said curtly to Edgiva. “I cannot fathom why she brought you or why you agreed to come. It is close to a disaster that you are here. You do not look well—”

“I am not, sir,” Edgiva said with quiet urgency.

“So come inside and we will have you tended to, and I must have a few words alone with my wife.” He said this without looking at Godiva, his teeth so clenched he could have cut an apple with the sharpness of his tone. Without a glance at her he turned and briskly led his horse back into the village. His housecarls followed.

When it was just Edgiva and Godiva, and the men who had ridden with them, the abbess released a shaking breath that bordered on a sob. “Oh, Lady Virgin,” she said softly. “What will happen to Sweyn now?”

“Nothing,” Godiva said, sounding surly. “ 'Tis just a big mistaken rumor. I will explain the truth to Leofric. Everything will be fine.”

Edgiva gave her a horrified, disbelieving expression. “Everything will
not
be fine. Everything will never be fine again. How ignorant are you that you don't see that, Godiva?”

Edgiva urged her horse forward into the village as the monastery bells began to toll None.

G
odiva, shaken more than she wanted to allow, dismounted in the manor yard, then went to the hall and asked for a basin to wash the dust of the road from her face. Clean water had never felt so good on her skin. Merewyn went to fetch her a more proper dress and veil, ones that did not make her look like an abducted abbess. She chose her blue-and-rose Easter outfit again, in the wan hope of appearing innocent to her husband and therefore hapless, rather than meddlesome. Leofric was in their room and Edgiva in the guest chamber, so she stood near the kitchen screens to change. The sensation of the silk brushing smoothly against her skin was so lovely after days and days of the drab woolens she had been wearing.

Their chamber was off the far end of the hall. Taking a deep breath to ready herself, she crossed through the hall, went to the door, and rapped upon it.

She heard the bolt slide. The door moving slightly in the jamb as it released. Then his footsteps walking away from the door. He was not even opening the door for her.

She pushed the door and stepped inside.

“Close it behind you,” he said tersely. “Bolt it.”

She did. The entire manor population would, of course, within moments be hovering on the other side. She stayed near the door.

Leofric was seated on the bed. They had one window in this room; it was still covered with parchment, but the curtains were open, and diffused daylight filtered in and gently lit his haggard face. He looked at her without a word for a long moment, his expression that of a disappointed father.

“Is there anything you can say to me that will change my view of what has happened here?” he asked, in a rhetorical tone.

“Yes,” she said defiantly. “Edgiva is pregnant with Sweyn's child.”

New astonishment wiped all other expression from his face. He went nearly white. “God's wounds,” he said, pushing his hand hard against his temple and then up through his hair. He clutched a handful of hair as if he would tear it from his scalp.

“So you see,” she continued, in his silence, “I am not the only one who has misbehaved here. I am not even the one who has misbehaved the most!”

“This would bring me to an early grave were I of a lesser constitution,” Leofric said, almost philosophical in his shock. “I would prefer the heat of battle to the mess that we now face.”

“You do not mean that,” she rebuked him.

“No, but very nearly,” he snapped back. “And do not use that voice with me, Godiva, I am the
only
one in this who does not deserve scolding. You are certain of her condition?”

“Yes. And that Sweyn is the father. Beyond that, I know very little. Everything happened so fast. I went there to get her advice about Edward's punishment, and I had been there not an hour when Sweyn arrived.”

“But he arrived there because of you,” he said sternly.

“Not exactly,” she said. She moved to the foot of the bed but did not dare—not yet—to sit beside him. “I told you at the Council I saw them falling for each other, do you remember that? She rode back north with his party when the Council adjourned, and stayed the night in Hereford with him. Just one night, but that is all it took. That happened
without
my meddling, Leofric—I was not there; we were on the road home. Edey went back to Leominster, realized she was with child, and wrote to me in a panic. But I did not realize the import of her message, I thought she was merely in love, and so I wrote to Sweyn—who I thought was in Hereford—telling him to pay her court.”

“Godiva!”

“Not to show up armed outside her gate with half an army, screaming for her!” she protested. “I knew that he was pining for her, he had told me that bluntly, and when I knew it was reciprocated it seemed right—it seemed my calling—to encourage them to pursue it.”

“She is an abbess!” he thundered.

“She was
made
an abbess, she has no
calling
for it. I am not saying she lacks faith, but she surely lacks
vocation
. She uses her power and position constantly the way a countess might. You have seen it. She has no native interest in a cloistered life. She is accustomed to it, she is adept at it, but have you ever seen her pray or lead a service with a quarter of the passion she gives to her work as a healer, or even, by heaven, a
calligrapher
? It was political convenience that put her in her position, not vocation. God knows well what her strengths are upon this earth, and she need not be an abbess to make the most of the gifts the Lord has given her.”