Moyra Caldecott (6 page)

‘I want you to have this,’ she said, and held up a necklace of silver and jet with a small pendant cross. ‘It was my mother’s and I held it all the way to Kent. It gave me courage and, as you see, brought me good fortune.’ Saxberga’s smile was so warm and loving, it was clear that she had no idea of Eanfleda’s secret feelings about her husband.

Ethelberga watched anxiously as the girl took the necklace. She hesitated for a long time, turning it over and over in her fingers. But at last she looked up, and met the young queen’s eyes. ‘Thank you,’ she said in a low voice, her face expressionless.

Saxberga kissed her on the cheek and rode off to find her husband. It had not been easy to part with her mother’s necklace and she had thought Eanfleda would have been more pleased to receive it.

The entourage started to move forward.

Eanfleda turned her back on her mother and her home and all that she had known and loved. She lifted her chin and set her eyes on the horizon.

So be it. It was God’s will.

Chapter 5

Oswin

When Etheldreda had been six years at the school at Dunwich, her studies ranging from logic and arithmetic to metaphysics, astronomy and theology, she received a message from her father requesting that she return home to take her place at court.

At first she was determined to refuse, instructing the messenger to declare that she wanted to become a nun like her eldest sister Ethelberga, her step-sister Sathryd, and her aunt Hereswith, thinking that in this way she would be allowed to pursue her studies uninterrupted. But the messenger told her on his own account that it was her mother who really needed her and that without her she would surely die.

Startled she looked at him.

‘I have received no news that my mother is ill.’

‘No, my lady.’

‘Why not?’

‘She did not want you to worry, my lady.’

‘But,’ cried Etheldreda, ‘surely my father…’

The messenger looked uncomfortable. He had already exceeded his licence and was afraid to say more.

‘What is it? What ails my mother?’

‘She… she is with child my lady, but…’

Etheldreda’s face darkened. Over the past few years the queen had had several miscarriages, each one leaving her paler and weaker. Why could her father not leave her alone, Etheldreda thought angrily. Surely he could control himself if he really loved her.

She told the messenger that she would return with him, and called for Heregyth. Together they started packing; Heregyth attending to her clothes, Etheldreda to the vellum pages of the half-finished psalter she was making for herself, and the pens, brushes and pigments her teachers were allowing her to take with her.

‘“Make me understand the way of thy precepts, and I will meditate on thy wondrous works”
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,’ she murmured as her eye fell on the words she had written that morning. How difficult to reconcile what actually happened in the world with how she expected it to be as the ever-present kingdom of God. Her father was a good man, yet he was destroying his wife.

‘My lady,’ Heregyth interrupted the train of her thought. ‘Shall I keep the blue cloak out for travelling, or the brown?’ Her eyes were bright and her heart was light. She had never been happy at Dunwich, though she had tried to make the best of it for Etheldreda’s sake. She was delighted that they were going back to Rendilsham and all the bustle of the great hall.

‘You decide,’ Etheldreda said abstractedly, and looked sadly out of the window at the long low buildings that had been such a haven for her these last years.

One night, a few weeks later, when Etheldreda and her father were watching together beside her mother’s bed, she found it increasingly difficult to hold back her feelings of resentment.

‘Why, father. Why?’ she asked at last, fixing him with her accusing young eyes.

He did not answer for so long she wondered if he had heard her. He sat hunched with grief, a big man, his eyes clouded beneath bushy eyebrows, the downward droop of his lips hidden in his full beard.

‘One day you’ll understand,’ he said at last in a low and broken voice.

‘I want to understand now,’ the girl said, an edge of hardness to her voice.

‘I love your mother.’

‘I know you do, but love is protective and caring, not destructive.’

‘What do you know of it?’ he said bitterly. ‘You, a virgin! I love your mother. I care for her. I wish to protect her – but there are times when my longing for her is too strong. In other times a man in my position would have taken one of the women of the court or even a slave. But the Law of our Lord forbids adultery. My wife is the only one I may take to bed. I need her, Etheldreda. Is that so hard for you to understand?’

Etheldreda was silent, thinking of Eanfleda weeping at Eorconbert’s wedding. She had never felt passion like that. No, she did not understand.

She rose and prepared to leave the room.

‘Father I must talk to you tomorrow. There are things we must settle between us.’

‘What things daughter?’

‘Leave it until the morning. We’ll speak then.’

A nerve twitched in his neck.

‘Speak now,’ he said gruffly. ‘In the morning… who knows what the morning will bring…’

She hesitated. She felt as though something she did not yet quite understand was building up within her, pressing her to speak.

‘I have decided,’ she burst out at last, ‘that I will stay with you only until my mother is well again, and then… and then I intend to take vows and become a nun.’

He looked up at her sharply, ‘You are a princess. Your life is not your own to give away.’

‘I know it. But it is the Lord Christ’s and He has asked for it.’

‘When? When did He ask for it?’ demanded her father.

Etheldreda bit her lip. To tell the truth, until that moment, she had had no great resolution to become a nun, apart from the wish to continue learning from books. She had not been conscious of a dramatic ‘call’ from the Lord Christ. The words she had just spoken had come out of her mouth without her planning them, but as soon as they were out they seemed to carry with them a sense of conviction and relief, as though somewhere deep inside her she had been preparing for this moment all her life.

Her father turned away, knowing that if he spoke now he would speak in anger. As Christian he should welcome the news, but as king he knew that he could not. He had already lost two marriageable daughters to the church, one Etheldreda’s elder sister, and the other his daughter Sathryd by his first wife. He indicated that she should leave and she obeyed quickly, needing time to think.

All night he knelt beside his wife’s sleeping form, his face in his hands.

Heregyth found Etheldreda one day looking through her mother’s chest of clothes. The queen was feeling considerably better since Etheldreda’s return and, although she could not rise from her bed and take her place beside her husband, she could sit up and speak quite cheerfully now. There was to be a particularly important feast at Rendilsham in honour of the exiled king of the West Saxons, Cenwahl, who had been living for three years as King Anna’s guest. He had for a long time held out against the new religion, but at last had given in and agreed to be baptised. King Anna felt it a victory worthier to be celebrated than any he had won upon the battlefield. Cenwahl had been stubborn in his resistance and as he was a man whom Anna deeply respected it had been very disturbing to his own faith to be continually in argument with him. The baptism was to be made the occasion for general rejoicing, and Etheldreda had been asked by her mother to dress up in the queen’s robes and to be hostess in her absence. Her friend and mentor Bishop Felix was to come from Dunwich to perform the ceremony and many sub-kings and earls were to come from the surrounding countries to witness the event.

King Oswin of Deira was to represent the north.

‘What do you think of this?’ asked Etheldreda, pulling out some fine silks from the chest and holding them against herself.

Heregyth looked at her. Her hair was golden and falling loosely over the cloth, her eyes shining.

‘Beautiful my lady. Does it fit you?’

‘Of course. My mother and I are of a height. Come help me slip it on.’

The two girls spent hours in the chamber taking turns to dress in the queen’s clothes, laughing and joking like children. But the mood changed suddenly when Etheldreda lifted a fine circlet of gold and placed it on Heregyth’s head. ‘There you are! Queen Heregyth!’ she said, but was so startled to see the expression on the girl’s face, she reached up and took it off almost at once.

‘It’s only a game, Heregyth!’ she said quickly.

‘It is for me, my lady,’ she said bitterly, ‘but you’ll be queen one day.’

‘No, I shan’t. I’ll be a nun.’

‘That would be a waste, my lady.’

‘A waste, Heregyth? To serve the Lord every moment of the day and night!’

Heregyth flushed.

‘Isn’t it possible to serve the Lord in other ways than by shutting yourself up in a monastery and living on dry bread and gruel for the rest of your days?’

Etheldreda laughed, and placed the golden circlet she had taken from Heregyth’s head on her own. It pinned down a fine veil over her golden hair, only a few curls escaping at her temples. Then she slipped on her favourite necklace of gold and pearl and held up a copper mirror to the light. Her face shone from the polished surface like a disembodied phantom, a stranger.

‘How we mistake the image for the reality,’ she thought. She touched her face wonderingly as though she were exploring a strange object she had never seen before. ‘This is no more me than the sound I hear when I hold a shell to my ear is the sea.’

Quietly and graciously the Princess Etheldreda greeted her father’s guests, addressing each by their correct title, making them feel personally welcome.

Prince Tondbert of the South Gyrwes was there, a few years older and more gnarled since she had seen him. Elegant living was not to his taste and he stood awkwardly and clumsily in the background until the young princess took him by the hand and led him to his place at the table.

And then King Oswin of Deira entered.

There were stories Etheldreda had heard of him that made her take more than usual notice as she showed him to his place. He was a handsome young man, tall and fair, known for his generosity to high and low alike, his court a place where any man could come and speak his mind without fear of disfavour or sudden death. There was a story that he had once given Bishop Aidan a very fine horse, concerned that, as the bishop grew old, the long and arduous journeys he was wont to make on foot to preach to outlying districts would be too much for him. But the Bishop, who had walked everywhere since he had chosen the life he now led and had never allowed himself any luxury or comfort, gave the horse and all its expensive trappings to a poor and crippled beggar. It was said that when news of this came to King Oswin’s ears he drew the Bishop aside as they were going to dine and asked why he had given the King’s gift away.

‘What are you saying, my King?’ Aidan replied somewhat tartly. ‘Is the foal of a mare more valuable to you than a child of God?’ Bishop Aidan then took his place at the table, but the King stayed warming himself by the fire for some time.

Suddenly he unbuckled his sword and, handing it to a servant, impulsively knelt at the Bishop’s feet and begged his forgiveness. The Bishop was deeply moved and rose at once, drawing the King to his feet, and placing him on his chair at the table.

As the night wore on Bishop Aidan became more and more reserved and eventually it was noticed that tears were flowing from his eyes. The earl who brought the story to King Anna’s court said then that when he was questioned he said in a low voice that he knew that King Oswin would not live long, for such humility and Christian charity could not survive the violence of the times.
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As Etheldreda stood beside King Oswin and showed him where he was to sit, he looked into her eyes with a clear, pleasant gaze. It seemed to her that her heart turned over in her breast and her legs lost all their strength, and then, her hand resting on the back of his chair within inches of his arm, she could feel the flesh prickle as though he were touching her. She shut her eyes and in her imagination felt his arms about her.

‘My lady!’

She heard his voice very close to her ear so that his breath brushed her cheek. He had seen her shut her eyes and sway slightly as though she were about to faint. Solicitously he took her arm, but she drew it away from him at once, flushing deeply. And then with a quick, nervous bow she rushed away from him and left the room, aware that his eyes were following her.

Heregyth found her a few moments later trembling and weeping outside in the dark.

‘My lady,’ she cried. ‘What’s the matter? Princess, speak to me! What’s happened?’

Etheldreda shook her head angrily, wanting to be left alone. So this was the desire she had seen so destructively at work in others!

‘Lady…’

‘Leave me, Heregyth. Leave me. You can do nothing for me.’

‘But…’

‘Please!’ Her voice was sharp as she pulled herself away from her friend’s reaching arms, and tried to control her sobs. ‘I must be alone for a few moments. Go back and make sure that I am not missed. If you love me do this for me.’

Heregyth, seeing her determination and that she was already much calmer, returned to the hall.

Within a few minutes Princess Etheldreda joined her and returned to her duties as hostess, her face composed.

At midnight a servant came to fetch King Anna and Princess Etheldreda from the hall. They left at once, their faces suddenly shadowed and anxious. The rumour that spread at once and brought a hush to all who heard it was that the queen was being delivered of her child and was herself near to death.

Anna and Etheldreda found her writhing in agony, her face running with sweat and her eyes glazed with pain. Bishop Felix was on his way, but for the moment she was being attended only by her women.

Anna knelt at once by her side and took her hand. Etheldreda saw in his face such suffering, such love and tenderness, she felt ashamed of her recent anger.