Naked (25 page)

Naked.

25

Then she rode forth, clothed on with chastity:

—Tennyson (1842):
Godiva

“Your hair!” Aine shouted behind me. “Wait, my lady! Your hair!”

With a start, I came out of my reverie. It had all flashed before me: what had led me to this fateful hour, to this fateful ride.

“My lady! Your hair!”

For a moment, I didn’t understand. Then I realized what Aine meant me to do.

I released my braid.

My hair fell in waves of golden brown over my body, covering me in a living cloak. Tendrils caressed my shoulders, curled over my breasts, vined my waist, curtaining my hips. Only my legs were left white against Ebur’s coat.

“Forward, Ebur.”

Toward the gates. I clutched his mane.

The wind lashed my skin. Over my shoulder I threw a desperate peek toward Aine. She stood alone in the courtyard, a statue, my garments clutched in her hands, the golden belt glinting.

The church bell continued to toll the hour, each peal a shock of doom. No other sound, just the wailing wind and the four-steady clatter of hooves.

Ebur’s hair rubbed the tender skin inside my thighs. As I waited for the last peal of the bell, I forced myself to sit proud, shoulders firm, neck straight. I was a warrior. A battle-maid.

Courage is known after the battle is won
, Leofric had told me, before we faced Thurkill the Tall.

My courage wouldn’t fail me now
.

Yet all at once I was seized by an overwhelming urge to give in. To go backward, not forward. To avoid the prying squints, the leers burning on my naked flesh. The townsfolk, many of them I’d known since I was a child. Walburgha, Wilbert, Tomas the tanner. At the last name I shuddered. How could I show myself naked in front of them? What of my rank? I was the daughter of a Saxon thane.

My parents. They would have wanted me to do my duty. But would they have wanted me to make this ride? Of that, I was uncertain.

Perhaps I wasn’t bringing honor to Coventry, but shame.

Shame.
I licked it on my lips, tasted its vinegar on my tongue. Only moments before I’d told Aine I would feel no shame bringing justice. Now my head drooped like a harebell on a stem.

I’d been wrong. So wrong.

Another chime.

Shame billowed over me now, as the wind tugged at my hair, the gossamer shield that hung so precariously over my body. Only golden-brown strands covered the private parts of me, floating over my breasts, taut as sails against the wind, reaching its tendrils between my legs, the most secret place of all, that had only ever known Lord Leofric’s touch.

My husband.

The wind watered my eyes, as my throat constricted with the sharpness of a dagger scrape. My husband had brought me to this. He hadn’t come to my bower in the shadow of night, or in the morning clear, to stop me from making this terrible ride. He didn’t regret his dare. And yet I felt no anger toward him. Not now, in daylight. The blaze of fury that had been flint-fire in my loins, the cruel words we’d exchanged—all that anger, all that rage, had vanished. All that remained was the love I had for him, the love, the powerful love that I knew now would never depart.

Love for Leofric. Love for my parents. Love for my people.

The last chime of the bell.

She rides!

*   *   *

A cry. I heard it from beyond the wall. A summons to line the streets, to call, to laugh, to jeer.

Ebur. So slow as I approached the gates.

From inside the courtyard I peered ahead. The gates, the arches, the street. How long it stretched, how straight. How narrow the way.

I knew Coventry blindfolded. I’d walked it so with Edmund. He’d promised to stay near, to watch out for me. But he must be far away. My eyes must stay open wide.

More tightly now I gripped Ebur’s reins. Sensing my tension, he picked up the pace.

Another glance over my shoulder. No one in the courtyard now, nor in the stable yard. Aine had disappeared. I was alone.

But not for long.

Fear tossed my stomach.

As soon as I passed through the gates, it would begin.

The people would come to watch me. Would they throw stones, as if I were indeed a fallen woman, making a penitent’s ride for her sins? Penitents, at least, had a linen shift to cover them, while I had only my hair.

In the pale yellow sunlight I shivered. The chill in my body became nothing compared to the fear ice-spearing in my heart.

Courage, Godiva
. Some stronger part of me murmured to the self whimpering within.
Courage. You have faced battle against Thurkill the Tall. You can face this.

No hiding.

No shame.

A gust of wind sent my hair haloing as I sent a prayer soaring into the sky.

Not of beseeching. Not of sorrow.

But of thanksgiving.

For Coventry. For the Middle Lands. For the land of my people, the land of my
cyn
. For the land I loved.

“Forward, Ebur.”

*   *   *

Under the arches as the bell stopped. My breath ballooned within my lungs. Ebur clopped on, slowing to a walk. Bracing myself, I squared my shoulders.

My eyes slammed closed.

I forced them open.

Through the arches.

An empty street.

Eerie silence.

No jeers. No laughs. No onlookers.

It was market day. Why was the street empty?

And then I understood.

My people hadn’t betrayed me.

The cry I’d heard.

She rides!

Not a call to look, but a call to hide. To run into shops and houses. To slam their doors. To pull their curtains and shutters eyelid-tight.

One by one, house by house, the people of Coventry had turned their gaze away.

Tears rained down my face, onto my neck, down my breasts. A mixture of relief, love, and gratitude.

I’d not failed my people.

They’d not failed me.

Not just one or two had bowed their heads in mercy, averted their gaze, glanced away out of respect. Each and every one had refused to observe my bared body.

Hawk high, I lifted my head. No shame now. Only pride in being the lady of such a people. My Saxon people, who loved justice, had observed a greater law. Not a law handed down from above but a law risen up from their hearts.

Another gust of wind lifted the veil of my hair. This time no fear pricked my skin, no trepidation trickled down my spine. I needed no shield from prying eyes in the streets of Coventry, for there were no prying eyes to see.

In a surge of elation I lifted my arms into wings, my hair a banner unfurled. Sensing my joy, Ebur raised his great body up on two hind legs, his white mane flying like feathers in the sky.

We dropped back down to earth. Beneath me Ebur continued his steady journey. Still there were no jeers, no laughter, no mocking calls. Not a child played, not a dog barked. Only the sound of the wind, and Ebur’s hooves as one by one I passed.

Past the stopped water mill.

Past the silent tavern.

Next to the tavern was the house where Tomas the tanner lived. Just the thought of his feaberry eyes, the licking of lips—as I passed by I shuddered, as if cold water had been thrown on my naked limbs. His gawk upon my flesh would have been terrible to bear. But no, he too was inside his home. I would be spared his leer.

A movement caught my attention. A chink of light from behind the shutter.

A phantom crawl over my skin.

An imagining? I rode on.

Past more houses.

Into the square. No cattle. No sheep. No wrangling between shopkeepers and farmers to get the best price.

Past the carpenter’s shop. Closed.

On to the forge. No fire. No bellows wheezing.

Past Wilbert and Walburgha’s thatched house. Smoke from the central chimney but the door shut tight.

The end of the road in sight. With relief my shoulders dropped. The journey home to the hall would be so different from when I’d set out, when I’d not known what the good people of Coventry would do for me. I wanted to call out and thank them. They’d understood. They did not blame me anymore for the taxes being raised upon them. The way they’d shunned me when I had traveled from the monastery … how hostile and angry the townsfolk had been then.

But to do this—they loved me, just as I loved them. How grateful my parents would have been to the people of Coventry. And I would never be able to repay them for their kindness.

The wind blew harder, whirling my tresses above my head. How shamed I would have been if all eyes were upon me! Now I let the wind blow.

Honor had clothed me.

The love of my people was my garment.

Light as gossamer, invisible as air. Unseen.

Fripwebba
, the wind whispered.

Peace weaver.

At the end of the street I stopped in front of the church and revolved.

The sign of the cross.

My ride hadn’t cost my modesty, or my pride. Yet these were nothing compared to what I’d lost forever.

Dejection took hold. Slumped my shoulders, bowed my head.

Leofric.
My husband.

I’d saved my people and lost the man I loved.

26

The little wide-mouth’d heads upon the spout

Had cunning eyes to see …

—Tennyson (1842):
Godiva

Shaking, I huddled by the fire in my bower.

My bare feet had found their way home.

Wrapped in a horse blanket, I’d seen no one as I went to my bower. The stables and the courtyard had been as empty as the town as I’d put Ebur in his stall. The servants, too, it seemed, knew of the townsfolk’s pact.

I’d never felt so alone. Not since my parents had died. Not when Edmund had left. Now, there was emptiness within me, deep as a water well, numbness in my fingers and feet as though I had been in a cold place for a long time.

Around my bare body I pulled the blanket scratch tight. Still trembling, a leaf in a gusty wind.

The stable smell. A comfort.

I’d done what Leofric had dared me to do. No joy, no sense of triumph. No vindication mine. Not now.

Leofric.
A strange dullness in my brain. I might never see him again. Never feel his hands discovering me or explore those river-deep eyes.

Our marriage would be over now.

He would return to Mercia. To Elfreda, perhaps.

Nothing left. I didn’t even have the ruby ring he’d given me as my
morgengifu
. In this bower he’d vanquished. No longer even a white mark on my finger where it had been, though I rubbed the place again and again. My anxious fingers went there now, round and round, as though by some witchery my troth brand would reappear.

Soon it would be as though my marriage had never happened.

My ride would be forgotten.

But I would never forget Leofric.

From the trunk I pulled the garland Aine had placed on my head on my wedding morn, unwrapped it from a piece of embroidery. The flowers and leaves were curled and dry.

Petals of day’s eyes. The flower that opened to welcome the morn.
For new beginnings.
Wheat.
For fertility.
Clover.
For wealth.

One berry.

For true love.

Crowned, I’d gone to meet him. Vows in the church of God. Vows in the sacredness of the bower. Husband. Wife. He’d disgraced me and I’d publicly defied him. No chance of happiness for us now. Too many suspicions, too many betrayals, too many doubts. The marriage I’d hoped for, the marriage I’d dreamed of, without knowing I dreamed at all, would never be. No equal with whom to govern. No ally to stand beside. No children to inherit. No lover in the night. Our marriage weave had been shredded, torn apart by our own hands. By no needlecraft could it ever be mended.

I’d gone too far. So had he.

Clambering to my feet, with care I laid the garland on the table by the window. On the wooden top beside it lay my knife, the one I usually carried, tucked in my belt. Aine hadn’t given it to me before we set out. There’d been no need.

From its leather sheath I drew it and ran my finger over the amber hawk-eye on the handle. Along the edge.

Sharp.

I stared into the polished silver above the table. My pale reflection stared at me.

I’d changed. I saw it in the lines of my face. Perhaps no one else would discern it. Part of me had died on my ride through Coventry.

Over. My marriage was over. Never would I desire another man’s eyes or hands on me. Never would I desire to touch another man. No arms would hold me as I cried out in my sleep, no lips seek mine in the dawn. No man would ever take Leofric’s place in my bed, in my bower. My maidenhood had been my gift to him alone.

A widow, a nun. A convent, a tower.

These were places to mourn, to hide, for those as heartbroken as I. But I would have to carry on and rule Coventry.

Alone.

The blanket fell from my shoulders as I raised the knife.

In my trembling fingers I seized a lock of hair.

My crowning glory. My strength. My shield.

My hair fell like a shock of cut wheat as I began to hack with the blade.

The bower door crashed open.

Leofric wrenched the knife from my hand and stabbed it into the table.

Seizing the blanket from where it lay crumpled on the floor, he wrapped it around my naked body.

As if in a dream, I watched as in a swift movement he knelt. Reached for my hands, encased them in his.

“Godiva, forgive me.”

My heart beat so fast I thought it would escape from my chest like a lark aimed for the sky. I struggled for breath, for words.

“You’re asking for my forgiveness, my lord?”

“That I’ve brought you to this. I should never have made such a dare.” Face agonized, he hauled to his feet. Pacing over to the window, his spine stiffened as he appeared to struggle to control his emotions.

Finally he swung around. A muscle worked in his cheek. “My only hope is that you can find it in your heart to listen to me. My anger … my pride … my stubbornness drove me to it. And—I didn’t believe you would do it.”