Enchantress Mine (49 page)

Summer came, and with it the anticipated invasion by the Danes. A fleet of two hundred and forty ships under the command of King Sweyn’s two sons, Harold and Cnut, and his brother, Jarl Osbiorn, arrived first off Kent. Their move up the east coast of England to the mouth of the Humber was a signal for a general uprising in Yorkshire. Young Edgar the Atheling was now fourteen, and filled to overflowing with enthusiasm, ambition, and high spirits. He had been dissuaded from returning to Hungary, and with his fellow English exiles Earl Waltheof and Gospatric had joined with the Danes. Ten thousand strong they marched upon the city of York, which easily fell to them on September 20th.

The Danes then fortified Axholme Island, and dispersed themselves over north Lincolnshire where they were welcomed by the peasant population who wanted no further trouble. The northern rising encouraged other risings of a minor nature in Dorset, Somerset, south Cheshire, and Staffordshire. By now the king had had more than enough. How could he build a strong England when the land and its people were constantly being beset from both within and without? England had too long been a battleground for those wishing to play at war. The bulk of the country had settled down. The bad example of the north could eventually cause serious problems throughout the entire land.

William was a decent man. He considered himself a good Christian, but these were hard times. Even the church agreed with him that an example must be made of those who would defy the king’s authority. They did not, however, anticipate the harsh cruelty of what was to come.

The king marched north once more, moving toward Axholme. With his coming, the Danish forces eased themselves back over the Humber to York. William’s younger brother, the Count of Mortain, and his friend the Count of Eu were left in charge of that part of the expedition. A new rebellion had arisen in the west led by Eadric the Wild and his Welsh allies.

It was Josselin de Combourg who had sent the king word of this latest difficulty, and it was Josselin, with his small but well-trained troop of soldiers, who had held Eadric at bay just long enough for the king to get there. The Welsh princes disappeared magically back into the hills from whence they had come. Eadric was defeated, but once more escaped the Normans. Josselin returned to Aelfleah to personally tell his wife he would be rejoining the king in his battle to subdue the north once and for all.

“The king needs as great a show of force as he can muster,” Josselin explained to his wife.

“Then go,” she said, “but promise me you will be careful. We have a family now.”

He had never felt more pride for anyone than he felt for her as he departed their home. She had offered him a stirrup cup, and then sent him forth with dignity, standing proudly before the door of their house. He did not know that when he had passed from her sight she had gone quietly to their chamber to weep silently alone. She feared for him. She would not fret him, however, with those fears. In that moment of her darkest hour, Mairin knew she had at last left her childhood far behind her.

Josselin and his men rode to meet the king at Nottingham, but by the time they had reached it, William, learning that the Danes planned to attempt a reoccupation of York, had gone north again. Josselin followed, easily finding his way, for the king in his anger and impatience left a swath of devastation of such enormity that the north would never really recover. No distinction was made between rebel and loyalist. The land was scorched, and every living male the king’s men could find, animal or man, was put to the sword.

Granaries, farms, manors, castles, churches, monasteries, and convents were all burnt to the ground. The air was heavy with smoke and the smell of rotting flesh. Nothing was left that could possibly support life. The king’s vengeance was a terrible thing, but there would be no more rebellions in the north because there was no one left in the north. The innocent had suffered along with the guilty, and even the church, which had encouraged William to make an example, was horrified by his actions.

They reached York in mid-December, and the king decided to hold his Christmas court in the burnt city. Messengers were dispatched summoning the nobility to York. At the king’s command, Josselin sent for Mairin to join them. It was, he wrote, a royal command. She could not refuse.

“But I can’t go!” Mairin wailed. “Maude is far too young to travel.”

“Leave her,” said Eada. “Of course you cannot take her. She is far better off here at home.”

“But who will feed her, mother? She is only ten months old, and still nursing.”

“There are plenty of women in the village with nursing babies and milk to spare. The miller’s wife! She has breasts like jugs, and is forever complaining her son doesn’t drain her. It is time you stopped nursing Maude. You must go to your husband. I will have Enid move in here this very day with her son. Weorth could use a respite from her chatter. Make yourself a potion to dry your milk, and bind your breasts, Mairin. By the time you reach York you will be fit for Josselin, and I do not think he will be unhappy that you are so,” Eada finished with a broad smile.

He had sent a small troop of heavily armed men to escort his wife, but they could not screen her from the horrors she saw as they rode. Mairin was appalled at the wretchedness and the wholesale homicide that had taken place in the king’s name. Her purse was empty by the time they were halfway to York, for she could not refuse the shoeless women with their haunted eyes, and their clinging, weeping daughters. She went hungry most nights, and shamed her men into sharing their own rations with the homeless, wandering refugees. The worst cases she sent on to Aelfleah to Eada for refuge.

She reached York on December 23rd, and was led by her men to a small anonymous tent set among many in the burnt-out city. Within was a small brazier that gave off a feeble warmth. She had brought with her fresh clothing for her husband and bedding for them to share. Stakes were driven into the dirt floor of the shelter, and two large cured and tanned hides that had been sewn together were stretched and fastened between them. Atop the hides she made a bed of furs. She set two additional braziers on either side of their bed and placed kindling and hot coals from the other braziers in each. Shortly the tent began to feel a bit more habitable.

It was not long before Josselin had come, and he had swept her up into his arms inhaling the sweetness of her. “I have missed you so,” he said simply. “I find I do not like being separated from someone I love.” Releasing her he looked about, and then, his eyes lighting upon the newly made camp bed, he smiled. “What luxury, enchantress! I have slept on the ground wrapped in my cloak these past weeks. You have no idea how I have longed for our bed at Aelfleah.”

Mairin chuckled. “You have grown soft with the good living of our home, my lord. This expedition has been good for you, I’ll vow.” Then her eyes grew sad. “God’s mercy, Josselin! Never had I seen such terrible suffering and devastation as I have seen these last few days. It is horrible! Was it necessary?
Really necessary?
”

For a moment he turned his eyes from her, and then looking directly at her he said, “It was necessary. The peasants welcomed our enemies. Their lords forsook their oaths to uphold the king. How many times in the last three years has William been forced north to put down their treasons? The king is no saint, Mairin. He is a man, and he has his limits. Even when they massacred his wife’s kin, Robert de Commines, last January, he forgave them. This he could not. He has destroyed Northumbria and York and wasted their lands. They will trouble him no more.”

“When can you come home?” she asked, realizing that his part in the king’s revenge must be painful, and that the subject was now closed.

“After he holds his Christmas court, we are both free to return to Aelfleah.”

“The king makes a strong point holding his Christmas court in York,” Mairin noted.

“Aye, but it is a point well taken,” replied Josselin. “It is rumored that Earls Waltheof and Gospatric will submit and be pardoned after Twelfth Night.”

“That is outrageous!” cried Mairin. “ ’Tis their fault all of this happened. They broke their sacred oaths to the king, and encouraged that beardless boy, Edgar the Atheling, and his Scots allies. Now Waltheof and Gospatric will be pardoned? What of the Atheling, Earls Edwin and Morkar?”

“Those three fled back to Scotland,” said Josselin.

“I am surprised King Malcolm puts up with such guests,” Mairin muttered.

“Edgar the Atheling’s elder sister, Margaret, married the Scots king this autumn past. They are now kin, and he is forced to put up with the lad.”

“Will the Scots king support Edgar the Atheling?”

“Not seriously,” said Josselin. “Malcolm is too concerned with his own country. Remember, he has only recently overthrown his uncle, MacBeth, to regain a throne that was rightfully his. He spent his youth in exile at King Edward’s court, and his only brother was raised in Ireland. He has too much to do in his own country to be bothered with a half-grown brother-in-law’s problems. It is for his wife’s sake, I suspect, he got involved this time. He is newly wed to Margaret and, rumor would have it, totally infatuated with his bride.”

“Why are we speaking on politics?” she suddenly asked him.

They had been standing facing one another as they spoke. Now he put his arms back around her, and drew her into his embrace.

“Because you started it, my beautiful enchantress. I have been separated from you for almost two months, Mairin. There are things I would far rather do with you than stand here in speech.” He kissed the tip of her nose, his generous mouth quirking with amusement at the smoky look that sprang into her eyes.

“Indeed, my lord,” she said softly, and strained closer to him. She could feel the muscled hardness of his thighs through his tunic. Her hands slid up his chest and she wrapped her arms about his neck. The tip of her tongue raced across her upper lip. Teasingly her fingers played with the muscled back of his neck, and she pressed the lower half of her torso suggestively against his body.

A slow smile lit his eyes. “Lady,” he said, “you display a behavior most wanton.”

“You do not find the bed I brought tempting, my lord? Shall I have it dismantled, and we will sleep separately upon the cold ground?”

“If you do not stop rubbing yourself against me in that shameless way, my enchantress, it will not matter. I am so hot for you right now that I could tumble you anywhere! That delicious-looking bed of furs you have arranged, or even upon the hard ground! Alas, we cannot. Not now at least. When the king heard you had arrived he requested that we join him in his tent for supper. He attempts to make it as normal a Christmas court as one can hold in the burnt-out ruin of a city.” Then he laughed, for she made no attempt whatsoever to hide her obvious disappointment. “Sweeting, the nights are longest now. We shall lose little by waiting.”

“It will sharpen our appetite for one another,” she answered him. “That was what Basil used to say to me. Oh, very well, my lord, there is no help for us now. Can your squire get me some water with which to wash off the dust of my travels? I cannot appear before the king looking like this.” Removing herself from his arms, she began to unbind her long hair.

He called for his squire, Loial, who immediately brought water, and having greeted his lady politely, discreetly departed. Josselin sat upon the edge of the camp bed and watched his wife comb out her long red-gold hair. Erotic images arose unbidden within his mind’s eye. He pictured Mairin nude, her milk-white skin gleaming in the firelight, her wonderful hair swirling about her body. A small groan escaped him, and she looked up from her task.

“My lord?”

He shook his head. “It is nothing, enchantress.” A neat lie, he thought. He wanted her. He wanted her here and now. Damn the king who had called for a Christmas court to be held in York. Had he not, I might be home in my own bed with my beautiful wife!

Mairin rebraided her hair up neatly, and then washed her hands and face in the icy water Loial had brought. She shook out her dark green skirts, and smoothed the matching tunic, retying the gold rope girdle about her slender waist. Rummaging amongst her scant luggage she drew out a sheer gold veil and a small twisted gold chaplet studded with tiny freshwater pearls, and placed them upon her head. Picking up her fur-lined cloak she said, “I am ready now, my lord.”

His glazed eyes refocused themselves, and seeing her fully dressed, he sighed. “So you are, Mairin,” he said sadly, and rising, took her hand.

“What were you thinking of?” she asked him as they hurried through the encampment to the king’s dining tent.

“Of how sweet it is to make love to you,” he said. “Of how I wish we were home at Aelfleah, free of royal commands so I might feast upon your flesh in the privacy of our own chamber, and not upon tough and ill-cooked venison within the king’s tent.”

“Oh, Josselin,” she answered him, “your thoughts but echo my own!”

He stopped then, and there in the middle of the encampment, heedless of what went on about him, he kissed her tenderly. “Tomorrow we will be wed three years, enchantress, and on St. Stephen’s Day, I vow we will depart for Aelfleah!”

They were welcomed into the king’s makeshift hall, a large tent, and joined with the other ladies and gentlemen who had journeyed from all over England to help the king celebrate Christmas. It was as festive and merry an evening as any might have been, but they were nonetheless glad when they were able to leave the hall to return to their own small shelter.

Loial was nowhere to be found, but the three braziers were burning brightly, and the tent was warm. A flask and two wooden goblets had been placed upon the single stool they possessed. They both smiled, thinking that Loial was a romantic young man. Quickly they pulled their clothing off, and standing in the dim, flickering light cast by the braziers, they caressed each other’s bodies. Then hand in hand they walked to their bed and slipped beneath the furs to cuddle.