Naked (12 page)

“Please, Edmund. You can’t leave me. Don’t go.” He had always been at my side. How would I survive without him?

“There’ll be no place for me here. Leofric has his own
cnihts
. I would have been sheriff. I would have been lord.”

It was the boy, speaking now, the boy who had lost his lands in the east. The boy who had come to us, frightened, orphaned, alone. The boy I had befriended. The boy I loved.

“There’ll always be a place for you in Coventry.”

“Serving you and the Earl of Mercia? At the foot of his table? Never. I’ll leave on the morrow.”

Straw flew as he flung out of the stable.

“Edmund. Wait!”

I raced after him, into the dusk, and skidded to a halt.

Lord Leofric stood in the stable yard.

How long had he been there? How much had he seen and heard?

“
Mercian.
” Edmund sneered.

I froze.

“You’ve been riding out alone,” Leofric said to me, almost idly. “I told you to take a guard.”

Somehow I found the spirit to reply. “To protect me or to stop me escaping?”

Edmund broke in. “I’m her guard, Mercian. Her
cniht
. I know your plan to take the Middle Lands. I’ve been convincing Godiva against it.”

Leofric took in what must have been my rumpled hair, my flushed cheeks, and bruised lips. “Is that what you were doing?”

“You’ve no right to Coventry. A fellow Saxon? To come to these lands, under the guise of assistance and take a noblewoman’s inheritance?”

“There was no guise,” Leofric said sharply. “It’s my Saxon duty to defend the Middle Lands. It’s my Saxon duty now to hold them.”

“You’re not needed here,” Edmund spat. “Godiva can hold these lands.”

“With your protection, I presume.” Leofric curled his lip. “I saw that on the battlefield. And where were you when Thurkill took her? She’d be better protected by a Dane.”

“Why you…”

Cold-glitter. Sparks of fury. Edmund pulled his sword.

“Think carefully.” Leofric spoke soft, so soft. Dead calm. Hilt-ready. “Before you make another move.”

Edmund. An edge.

Leofric. A wall.

Edmund’s lips drew back in a snarl.

In a leap I flew between them.

“Stop it!” I shouted. “Please!”

Edmund’s sword flashed in the air and dropped.

Leofric retreated. Just a step.

Edmund spoke through thinned lips. “Are you coming with me, Godiva?”

Quivering like a bowstring, I shook my head.

“Then I can do no more.” Bitter-faced, he thrust his sword into his belt. Without another word he strode away.

“Edmund! Wait!”

A hand clamped my arm.

“I’ll have your answer, Godiva.”

On my boot heel I spun.

I’d find Edmund later, talk to him. We’d argued before. Never like this, but I’d find a way to make him understand.

“You want my answer, Lord Leofric? Then you shall have it. You’ve told me your terms. Now you’ll hear mine.”

13

“Alas!” she said,

“But prove me what it is I would not do.”

—Tennyson (1842):
Godiva

The hall echoed as I entered. Empty and chill. Soon the fire would be lit and the trestles folded out for the evening meal, but for now the vast room was vacant.

Except for Lord Leofric. Waiting on the dais.

I’d insisted he give me an opportunity to change out of my boots and leggings before we had this crucial conversation. Time to prepare myself. In my bower I’d stripped off my leathers, donned a clean shift, a scarlet tunic. Lavender water splashed over my skin.

A quick glance at the missal. A muttered prayer.

An anxious reflection in the polished roundel. A cloth rubbed at the red marks on my neck. A circle of gold looped to hide them, my fingers trembling. Honey balm on my tender lips.

My argument with Edmund had shaken me to the bone. I had to find him. I had to explain. But first I had to find enough strength to bargain with the Earl of Mercia.

These negotiations were crucial.

Yet Lord Leofric appeared unconcerned as he leaned against the high table, his boots crossed in front of him. “You’ve come to a decision.”

“I have.” Breath sucked from deep inside my lungs. “But I have my terms.”

On my way back from the hill I’d planned my exact wording of what to say in this meeting.

My prepared phrases scattered like dandelion seeds as Leofric came close to where I stood warming my hands in attempted nonchalance by the central fire.

“Do you think you’re in a position to set terms?”

“You think me a mere girl, but you’ve already been mistaken in me. You thought me not a warrior.”

“I’ll concede that you can fight.”

“Then hear me now.” To my shame my voice wavered. With resolution I steadied it. “We must discuss the
morgengifu
.”

Astonishment, speedily hooded by his eyelids.

“Must we indeed?”

“Since my father is not here to negotiate for me, I must do so for myself.”

Grief swiped its sickle through me once more. Yet again I wished my father by my side. There was a certain humiliation in having to speak to my prospective husband of the morning gift that by our custom was given to a bride the morning after her wedding. More than a mere dowry, it defined the power relations in a marriage, and between the families to be joined in wedlock. Negotiations could be heated and I was sorely unschooled. But I had to bargain for myself. No one else would.

Leofric put his hands together in a steeple. “Go on.”

“You can try to take these lands from me by force. But you haven’t counted upon the loyalty of my people—to me, not to you. They will not bow to you willingly, not unless I ask them to. Without my command, you’ll have internal unrest to add to the external Danish threat. You don’t want trouble in the Middle Lands, should I allow you to overlord them.”

“Allow me? I don’t need their willingness.”

“Do you not? Do you want strife or do you want peace?”

Acting as a
fripwebba
, a peace weaver, was demanding as much courage as being a warrior.

His harsh exhalation was almost a curse. “You dare to threaten me?”

“I dare to warn you. If not, you will have more trouble than you bargained for.”

“I’m beginning to think that already.” His murmur sent a ripple deep in my stomach as if it were a caress.

“Let me tell you my terms.” I counted on my fingers. “They are these. First, as my
morgengifu
I keep sovereignty of Coventry as far as the wildwoods of Arden. Coventry will not become part of Mercia to be subsumed under your authority.”

“And second?”

“It will be their lady to whom the taxes are paid. It will also be their lady to whom they come for advice and justice.”

With great care I’d considered what to ask for. Control of the shire’s finances was crucial. It would give me power that I wouldn’t possess if I was ruler in name only.

The Earl of Mercia would know that, too.

Lord Leofric stalked away and stared out the window into the courtyard to where two Mercian warriors stood on evening guard. The taller of them was Acwell, his henchman. I wasn’t a prisoner, but the sight of the Mercian warriors reminded me how easily I could become one.

Stitching my fingers between each other I waited for his reply.

Had I dared too much? Would he listen to me?

Playing for time, he remained with his back to me. A strategy of his, I’d begun to discern.

When he swung around a muscle twitched in his jaw.

“You want to keep Coventry. The jewel in the crown. And the rest of the Middle Lands?”

“They will be yours.” It seemed to slice away a limb to lose any part of my inheritance. But in the dark of night, pacing my bower, I’d come to the conclusion it would be safer for most of my lands to become part of Mercia, especially the border area to the northeast, always vulnerable to Danish raids. For our protection, I had to be a peace weaver.

Who knew what evil still lurked outside our borders?

“This is all you ask?” The word
all
twisted with sarcasm.

“There’s something else.” The words fell out of my mouth, as fast as pebbles in a hill slide. “If we have a son then he will have Mercia. If we have a daughter, then she will be Lady of Coventry. The title must continue under the female line.”

“Lady, you’re quick,” he drawled. “We haven’t bedded yet.”

A flush roared into my cheeks that came from my fire-core within. “You mock me.”

A negative movement of his head, yet a slant of a smile hovered around his lips. I noted again the line that appeared in his cheek as though it had once been dented in laughter.

“You fight for yourself and on behalf of children you haven’t yet borne. Who can’t admire that in a woman?”

“Doesn’t every she-wolf fight for her cubs? My father was a thane. His rank was not as high as yours, but as his daughter, I inherited lands and title. My daughter must do the same.”

Leofric rubbed his jaw.

My heart began to pound. Danger had hemmed me in. Only Mercia could keep it at bay. My bargaining position was weak. Only my resolve was strong.

“Rebels from the Middle Lands at Mercia’s borders are the last thing I need,” he said at last. “They would be as bad as the Danes.”

“Worse.”

“Hah.” He released another of those exhalations. “For the good of both our lands I agree to your terms.”

In relief my shoulders slumped. There was graveness in him I trusted. “I have your word on this? As a Saxon?”

“My Saxon word for Saxon good. But I must give you a warning of my own.” He leaned in, his mouth next to mine. “I will be
your
lord.”

My stomach somersaulted as if I had taken to the air. So close to him, my lips parted as my body remembered the kiss we’d shared.

Instincts battled within me. An urge to step closer to him. At war with my feet, falling back.

Feet won. I retreated, yet my attention remained on him.

“You will be known as the Lady of Coventry. You shall also be Lady of Mercia.”

“It doesn’t mean the same to me.”

A raised brow. That was all. Then his visage was clear of any emotion I could discern. “There’s something you have forgotten.”

Moving nearer still, he closed the gap I’d stretched between us. His breath warmed my cheek. “The
morgengifu
is given to a woman by her husband the morning after their wedding night. Not before. To wed is to gamble. In our language even the words have the same meaning. But the gamble is mine, is it not?”

The blush scalding my face suffused my neck and breasts as I stared at the dirt floor. More than ever I wished my father was alive to broker my wedding. “My
morgengifu
is sovereignty of Coventry. No more and no less.”

Lifting my chin, he forced me to meet his stare. A blue flicker. The heart of a flame.

“Such a price suggests great satisfaction with the bride.”

“I know what marriage requires.” My cool words belied the fire-serpent coiled in my loins. In the cup of his palm I raised my chin higher. “For the sake of Coventry, you won’t be dissatisfied.”

Edmund’s bite marks on my neck. Red, raw. In spite of the gold necklace, he saw them.

Instantly he withdrew his hand.

“Is there nothing you wouldn’t do for your people?”

The touch of his skin still kindled though now his fists were clenched by his side.

“I’ll do anything.”

Speculation in his surmise.

Silence.

“Then we’re agreed, Godiva of Coventry.”

“Agreed. For the good of my people, for the good of my lands, I’ll marry you, Leofric of Mercia.”

Yet even as I spoke I trembled at the bargain I’d made.

The marriage gamble was also mine.

14

So left alone, the passions of her mind,

As winds from all the compass shift and blow.

—Tennyson (1842):
Godiva

“Faster, Ebur. Faster.”

The wind tangled my hair as I galloped across the fields, splashed through the streams.

Yet again I’d disobeyed Leofric’s command to take a guard with me.

I had to be alone.

Thoughts clanged and clashed as the Middle Lands flashed past me in a kaleidoscope of sky and land.

Tree, leaf, blade of grass. Farm, barn, hut. Ox, sheep, bird. Man, woman, child.

Each and every one dear to me.

For these I would lay down my life.

We charge the care of Coventry to you, while we are gone.
My mother’s voice whispered on the wind.

So boldly had I told Lord Leofric my terms for marriage. Against Ebur’s flanks my knees still trembled as I thought of it. Had he guessed how terrified I’d been? How alone I’d felt?

Now I was more alone than ever.

With a childish sniffle I wiped my glove across my cheeks. It was more than a week since Edmund had gone, without another word to me, his place at the high table empty, his horse’s stall unfilled.

While I’d pledged myself for Coventry, he’d vanished.

Shards. Splinters.

Left me as shattered as the stable wall.

“It’s better Edmund’s gone, my lady.” Aine had said, as I sat slumped by the fire in my bower. “A stable can’t have two stallions.”

“But to leave without saying good-bye. Don’t you know how much Edmund means to me?”

“Playmates as children was one thing, now it’s quite another,” she’d retorted. “You’ve grown too close to Edmund. He’s like bindweed around a
hollen
bush. It’s dangerous. You must stand alone now. You’ll see him again, never fear.”

Desperately I wanted to believe Aine. Would I ever see Edmund again? What I’d said to him still rang in my ears. There was no way I could revoke my words now. The raw pain on his face, as though my palm had slapped across his cheek, still made me wince. The words had spilled out of my mouth of their own accord, ale from a tankard. I hadn’t even known I would say them until they had been said and couldn’t be retrieved.