Godiva (22 page)

“I was not disguised as a nun,” Godiva protested impatiently. “I was dressed modestly and I took my jewelry off! Other people were hysterical and . . .
misperceived
me.”

“Very well. You were not disguised as a nun. You still rode to Hereford with Sweyn rather than coming directly to Coventry with your friend the abbess, who was obviously ill. Why did you do that? In this version of the story, where nobody has done anything wrong? Why not cleave to Edgiva from the moment you left the gate?”

They both stared at Godiva expectantly.

Clumsily, inspiration struck: “I was asking Sweyn's advice regarding the ride,” she said.

“Which would be tomorrow,” Leofric said, rubbing one temple with his hand. “As if we did not have enough crises to contend with.”

“What ride?” asked Edgiva.

Leofric blinked. “What did you just say?” he asked her.

“What ride?”

Leofric released a grunt of frustration. “All of this,” he said to his wife, gesturing as if to imply the whole room, the whole world, “all of this, and you have not even
mentioned
to her the reason you went to Leominster? The king is on his way here. And now you have put yourself in the middle of a scandal with a woman of the Church. The bishops will be sharpening their legal knives to eviscerate you. My coffers have arrived from Brom Legge; I trust there is enough to pay this perversion of a tax bill, although it may leave us nearly penniless. You cannot make the ride.” He turned toward Edgiva. “For the love of all saints, tell her not to make the ride.”

“What ride?” Edgiva repeated.

Leofric looked at his wife.

She pursed her lips together and thought a moment. There must be some way to tell this tale so that Edgiva would realize Godiva was not entirely devoid of merit. She was championing Edgiva's cause, after all.

“The king has manipulated the law to levy the heregeld against the residents of Coventry, and no one else,” she said. “What he really wants is either to take the estate from me, or to punish me—or Leofric, really—with a very heavy penalty, as I would naturally pay the tax myself, which means Leofric would pay it, as I have no such means. But Coventry is mine, and I refused to pay the heregeld on the grounds that the heregeld should not exist.”

She paused a moment, to let Edgiva digest the news that her silly friend Godiva had in fact taken a brave stand on something of weight.

Edgiva blinked rapidly a couple of times, and the muscles in her face changed—not that she looked less tense, but now she looked tense in a different way.

“And what did Edward say?” she asked.

“Edward threatened me, of course. He cited Harthacnut's treatment of Worcester, although that was for the murders, not just the tax revolt. He will not harm the town, as long as I agree to be the scapegoat and suffer humiliation in its stead.”

“What humiliation?”

“I am amazed you did not discuss this with her,” Leofric snapped.

“She was traumatized and ill,” Godiva snapped back at him. Then to Edgiva: “He wants me to ride through the town on horseback, naked.”

Edgiva blinked in astonishment.

“What a . . . bizarre and perverse demand,” she said after a moment.

“He wants her to do it on Kalendis Maia,” Leofric added. “May Day.”

“It is not such a large concern, that it is May Day,” Godiva said.

“Of course not,” said Edgiva. “On the border, the Welsh farmers and peasants observe the old traditions, without even trying to disguise them as Christian as at Rogationtide, or for the Land Ceremony. We look the other way.”

“You see?” Godiva said to her husband, taking his hand and trying to stroke the back of it.

“Would you look the other way if the most powerful countess in the kingdom were to participate?” Leofric demanded, snatching his hand away.

“I think you are reading too much into it there,” Godiva insisted.

“He wants her to make the ride on May Day,” Leofric pressed. “Specifically on the Kalends of May.
Not,
please note,
not
as part of any church ritual. He wants the rumor of it to be misinterpreted, misperceived, to imply that the lady of Mercia is openly practicing pagan ritual.”

“I assume he did not say that,” said Edgiva.

“No, he did not, because it is not true,” Godiva said. “And even if Edward in his own twisted mind thinks so, it would require the collusion of the Church.”

“And that is why,” Leofric said in a long-suffering voice, “Godiva traveled to Leominster. To ask your opinion on where the Church would stand. Would the bishops leap at the opportunity to shame our family, and decry her for something so scandalous? Would they commend her for resisting an unfair tax and yet also accepting the punishment for doing so? Perhaps lionize her for protecting her people at the expense of her own dignity? Excommunicate her for participating in unholy rites? What do you think, Edgiva? She should have asked you days ago.”

“I am not a bishop,” Edgiva said crossly. “Ask a bishop what a bishop would do.”

“We asked Worcester,” Godiva said. “Bishop Aldred. Leofric believes Aldred wishes to avoid being held accountable for any position. But surely anyone associated with Worcester must rally to a protest of the heregeld.”

“He has not rallied to me,” Edgiva observed.

“Ah,” said Leofric, conclusively.

There was a silence.

“So,” Godiva said at last, awkwardly. “If you desire a moment's distraction from your own dilemma, Edgiva, I would be most obliged if you would turn your brilliance, insight, and intuition on mine.”

Edgiva considered her a moment, steely-eyed.

“No,” she said.

“Pardon?” said the countess.

“I said no.”

“How can you mean that?” Godiva asked with a sweetly confused smile. “I am distrustful of my own counsel, and seek to lay down the secrets of my—”

“Do not use those wiles on me, Godiva,” Edgiva said, sharp.

“We are trying to help you with your dilemma, Edgiva, how can you not help us with ours? I am in trouble because I was trying to champion
your
cause
by standing up to Edward.”

Edgiva gave Godiva a look of incredulity, even as Leofric sighed at his wife's ineptness. “There is nothing parallel in our circumstances,” the abbess scolded. “We must, both of us, make a deal with a devil, but in your case, your enemies have set you up for a fall, for political gain—while in my case, my closest friend has put me, and somebody else, and my
unborn child,
in a horrific position for no gain to anyone at all.”

“I acknowledge that, I understand it . . . ,” Godiva said, faltering. “So please, Edgiva, advise me how to repair your situation.”

“Make one of my unacceptable options acceptable. Nothing less. Please leave me, Godiva; all of this talk is pointless and dismaying. This interview is at an end.” Trapped between them and the door, she turned her back on them decisively.

Leofric made a gesture of finality, as if flicking water from his hands. He turned and walked out of the room without a word.

Godiva knew his moods. He would go out now, to ride until the sun was setting. He would imagine to himself he was not yet a husband or a father or an earl, just a young man enjoying the beauty of his surroundings and the company of a few friends—or in this case, housecarls. Leofric no longer had friends. Godiva sometimes wondered if he noticed that.

CHAPTER 22

H
er pulse drummed sickeningly in her chest, in her throat, along the insides of her arms, as Godiva walked with brisk dignity out of the room, out of the hall, out of the manor courtyard, to her favorite spot in Coventry.

An ancient, gnarled apple orchard, a haphazard constellation of trees, stretched just outside the newly built manor walls, near the kitchen post-door. It had survived centuries, in turn domesticated and feral, as this area had been built up, razed, built up, razed, from tribal settlement to Roman fort to Christian nunnery . . . this apple orchard on the eastern outskirts of the current hamlet always remained. Generations of trees grew and aged and withered, to be felled or uprooted and new ones seeded in their place. Theirs was an uninterrupted lineage of fruitfulness. England herself could not say as much.

Beneath one ancient tree, fringed with bluebells and anemones, she had placed a wooden couch, a gift from her stepson Alfgar. It was a sweet place to bring Leofric in an amorous mood, but mostly she kept it for contemplation. She hated contemplation, so at least here its unyielding stillness was softened by ever-altering beauty. She often found that when she retired there, either Merewyn or Temman the steward had somehow guessed she might, and in anticipation brought felt cushions out, something to eat or drink, and a little bell for summoning. This time, Merewyn had placed her green mantle on the bench.

She reclined now on the cushions, gratefully, and tried to empty her mind as she gazed out across the flowering trees, the bark dull under the clouds. Edward would arrive tomorrow. She would not concede the town.

So her choice was between paying the heregeld or making the ride. No, actually: between Leofric paying the heregeld, or Godiva making the ride.

It was infuriating that there was no way she could smile her way out of this. She levied tolls herself within her estates, as Leofric did throughout Mercia. But such tolls were for mutual benefit—folk
used
the mills and roads and bridges. The heregeld was different. It was an abuse of power. Harthacnut had extracted money with no benefit to those he taxed—in fact, it was often to their detriment. To pay the heregeld would be to let Edward continue his brother's tyranny.

“So I must not pay the heregeld unless there is truly no alternative,” she said aloud to a wary robin, who had landed nearby in hope of crumbs. “But that means Edward will make an example of me.” Her strength was equally her weakness: she required an audience. There was no satisfaction to be got from being clever or profound or wise if nobody was there to witness it. She needed eyes upon her. How fitting, then, was Edward's demand. “He may be Saxon like the rest of us, but he spent years enough in Normandy to hold their view of women. He does not like how I accomplish things, and he would punish me by forcing me to overdose on that which I usually sip. Well. Let him try. I can survive it,” she assured the robin.

But for the aftermath? The ride itself was only the beginning. For the remainder of her days on earth, she would be the countess whom King Edward had forced to ride naked in front of her own peasants. That stain would cost her, and Leofric, in so many ways. How high the cost?

Was it a higher price than the heregeld?

Possibly.

The robin tired of waiting for crumbs and began to spade the earth with its beak for grubs. She felt a pang of envy that the bird had only itself to look out for. She gazed over the orchard, which was almost unnaturally still in the heavy, damp air, and wondered how many people had sat here before her, pondering their lives' woes. She grievously desired Edgiva's counsel. She knew Edgiva would not give it.

“Never mind, then, I shall
conjure
it,” she informed the robin. The robin had lost interest. “Heathen witch that I am, I shall spirit myself into Edgiva's soul so thoroughly that I shall divine her judgment. Are you ready?” she asked the robin, smiling sadly. “Watch this. I shall conjure her.”

She had no idea how one was supposed to hold oneself while conjuring. Experimentally, she kneeled in the exact center of the couch, closed her eyes, and pressed her palms together, prayerfully, in front of her chest.

“Edgiva of Leominster Abbey,” she chanted in Gregorian tones, “show me the proper form of indirect resistance here.”

With a vividness normally reserved for her most intense dreams, she recalled at once an unusual moment from their childhood.

Edgiva—very unwontedly—was misbehaving with her. To protest Abbess Berthe's harsh treatment of a terrified novice, Edgiva had determined to skip afternoon mass (something Godiva did quite often, but Edey? Never). Godiva, of course, joined her. Mother Berthe sent her prioress after them, one Sister Agatha, and Agatha was not a friendly woman. She used a willow stick liberally for even the most minor infractions, and not with the compassionate regret that was, according to St. Benedict, supposed to accommodate such lashings; Godiva the grown woman still had faded scars to prove it. Agatha was the sister Berthe had used to terrify the novice, so young Edgiva was particularly disapproving of her. Agatha meant to drag them bodily into the church to make an example.

But she had to catch them first. Knowing young Edgiva's fascination with herbals and healing, she sought them in the drying shed. As she approached, the girls giggled nervously, sensing her proximity. She pounded on the door with a heavy, calloused hand. “Unbolt this door and let me in!” she thundered.

They giggled more. Sister Agatha threw her considerable weight against the door, and the board shivered in the braces holding it in place.

“Do you think that is wise, Sister?” Edgiva queried from inside. “This little shed is likely to fall over before the board breaks.”

“Open! This! Door!” Agatha hollered, pounding her fist against it with each word.

Edgiva, usually so serious and dutiful, looked at Godiva with mischief in her eyes. It was bewitching to see her in this mood. She put her finger to her lips, and then pointed with her free hand to each end of the board. Together, moving carefully in silence, they lifted the bolt up out of the bracing—if they had slid it open, it would have made a sound. They lowered it to the ground as Agatha, assuming the door was still bolted, again threw all her weight against the door.

The door fell open and she tumbled smack onto the floor. Edgiva clapped her hands with pleasure.

The story did not end well for them, but that moment had been priceless.

And Edgiva—so typical of Edgiva—used it as a parable years later, as Godiva the Conjurer remembered now:

Just married, the new lady of Mercia had ridden tearfully all the way from Leofric's court of Brom Legge to Leominster Abbey, and begged advice on deflecting her new stepson Alfgar's temper. To the earl's dismay, whenever his wife and his son were in a room together, surly adolescent Alfgar would taunt Godiva, saying execrable things about her family, declaiming she was ugly, declaring Leofric would never love her as he'd loved Alfgar's own mother. Godiva, stung, would snap back at him, which only egged him on until he reached decibels of cruelty that overwhelmed her, ignoring his father's threats of punishment.

“Recall how we used Sister Agatha's own strength against her,” Edgiva, new-minted abbess, reminded her distraught friend. “If she had not been hurling herself at the door that way, she would never have landed on her face. Fighting anyone gives them something to fight back with. Letting them rage at you—in fact, inviting them to rage—gives them an opportunity to fall on their face at your feet.”

“And then lash you and send you to bed without supper,” Godiva had argued sardonically.

But she took the advice to heart. Back in Brom Legge at Christmas feast, Alfgar—furious his father had ever remarried—had beset Godiva with verbal abuse before the entire court, including the king, who was visiting for Christmas. Only his mother had ever been able to rule him, and since her death years earlier, Leofric had given up trying to curb his tongue. His visits home from his fosterage in Northumbria were unpleasant for everyone, including him, but over the past decade, Leofric's court had grown inured to it.

Young Godiva had not, however. She was spirited, and everyone in Leofric's household had heard her tussle with Alfgar verbally. It felt unnatural to check her tongue now, to refrain from all the witty barbs he lay himself open to. But she kept Edgiva's words foremost in her mind, and this time, let him rail. She even said, as graciously as possible, “I regret to cause you such offense, young master, please continue to instruct me on my shortcomings,” wondering how this could possibly turn to her advantage. Her words dampened some of his spark, but not enough for her to feel as if she had somehow triumphed.

As the bread pudding was being cleared away, King Cnut turned to Leofric and declared, loudly, “Your lovely bride already pleased me with her face and her comportment, but without your son's outrageous cruelty I would not have had the chance to see how dignified she is.”

That shut Alfgar up completely.

“I would like to honor her extraordinary poise with a gift,” continued the king. “I will have my chamberlain send relics to her favorite abbey and the necklace my mother always wore to the lady herself, for her own keeping. I applaud what I am sure is Alfgar's desire to make a gesture of recompense as well.”

The entire hall was speechless. Godiva realized this was more to instruct Alfgar than to reward her, but still she smiled with relieved pleasure, thanked the king profoundly, and asked that the relics be delivered, at His Majesty's convenience, to Leominster Abbey, “where I learned all the grace that pleases Your Majesty.”

Alfgar, astonished at the benefit of her restraint, began to practice some himself. When he came home for Easter and kept his tongue civil, Godiva smiled at him warmly for the first time, and he softened. After a brief, predictable period of his lusting for her (which she and Leofric had simply pretended not to notice), he eventually became her most devoted kinsman.

She opened her eyes now and looked around the silent orchard. A fog was creeping in, pearling on the newly opened blossoms; the air grew heavier and colder. The robin was gone, which made her lonely.
What does this conjuring advise me?
she wondered.
The message seems to be: give in, and trust that giving in will yield a benefit. But does that mean I should surrender, then, and pay the tax? Is that what my private angels tell me now?

But that did not feel right. That made it Leofric's burden. And by extension, the burden of all Mercia.

Some part of her wanted to give another part advice, but did not know how to speak in words, only in examples. If the advice was—as she sensed in her gut—against paying the heregeld . . . what was it in favor of?

The ride.

In demanding the ride, Edward was actually doing exactly what Edgiva had counseled her. Despising her displays of femininity, he would force her to display
all
of her femininity. He was felling her with her own ax.

And so . . . she should allow him to shame her? As with Alfgar's torment, was there a way not merely to escape abuse, but to somehow
gain
by welcoming it? Was it possible to make Edward wish heartily he had never even tried to punish her?

She got up, shivering, and began to pace, avoiding the campion blossoms just beginning to open around the edges of the orchard, rubbing her clammy hands together briskly. Riding. Naked. That was the insult she must embrace. He wished her to ride naked through the streets in order to mortify her with shame. Could she possibly embrace the punishment without suffering the humiliation?

How?

“It is not humiliating,” she heard her own voice say, startling her. As if the words were someone else's, she carefully repeated them: “It is not humiliating.”

And now, tasting the idea, examining it: “I need not be humiliated. One assumes an ordeal is a humiliation. But the first is an action, and the other a spiritual state . . .”

. . . D
o you see?” She doffed the mantle. “There is no immutable law saying one incurs the other. One kisses a beloved, and feels contentment. One defeats a foe, and feels triumphant. We assume these are always true things, but they may not be,” she declared, nearly jumping on top of Leofric as he lay on the bed with his boots off. He shuddered at her cold fingers on his neck but did not push them away. “You might kiss a loved one without feeling contentment—if they are on their deathbed, or about to leave on a long journey. You might strike down an enemy, but if he is also your child or your brother or your oldest friend who has turned on you, you might feel more grief than triumph. We perceive that a certain action requires a certain response, but 'tisn't always so. There is no law says I must feel shame for riding naked through the streets. There is simply an assumption that I will.”