Moyra Caldecott (16 page)

Eanfleda was pressing him to know what the terms of the marriage settlement were, and he looked at her from under lowering brows. She had not wanted the match in the first place and he knew this added complication would give her yet another argument against it. But would it be such a terrible thing after all? The boy could take other women to bed. The marriage was mainly important for the alliance it brought with it, and this alliance Oswy badly needed.

‘The woman is to be wife only in name,’ he said at last, harshly. ‘Bring the boy to me and I will tell him.’

She knew him well enough to know that when he spoke like that no one argued. She left at once, considerably agitated.

Eanfleda herself had been Egfrid’s age when she had been dragged from her home in Kent to marry a stranger, a much older man. She still shuddered when she thought of those early months, the revulsion she had felt against him, and the bitterness she had nursed against her mother for making her submit to him. She had hoped her own children would not have to suffer unwelcome marriages, but one after another they were being used as pieces in her husband’s ruthless game of power. Alfrid to Princess Cyneberga of Mercia, Alfleda to Prince Peada of Mercia, Elffleda sworn to virginity by her father in exchange for help from God and sent to the monastery at Whitby to become a nun under the Abbess Hilda. Her daughter Osryth betrothed to Ethelred, the youngest of Penda’s sons. And now Egfrid! All her children brought out of her body by her husband’s lust, and doomed to serve his greed.

Sometimes she hated him!

He knew as well as she that Egfrid would commit adultery. Oswy was condemning Egfrid’s soul to eternal damnation by forcing this marriage on him.

Tears of frustration came to her eyes, and part of it was envy that Etheldreda could make a marriage contract and dictate her own terms. How she would have liked to have done the same, but had not dared.

Etheldreda travelled north with an entourage of her uncle’s choosing, but amongst them he allowed her her old friends Ovin, Heregyth and Edgils.

Wherever they passed people flocked to greet them and to wish Etheldreda happiness – no doubt in anybody’s mind that the alliance with Northumbria would be advantageous to them all.

Etheldreda smiled and talked with all who came. No one would have suspected how lonely she was as she left Ely and all it stood for further and further behind.

In the province of Lindsey they made good progress on the old Roman road, which, although overgrown in places, was still the easiest road to travel. It was usual for people to shun the ruins of the old Roman towns on the route, thinking that they had once been inhabited by giants, the huge columns and halls too big for ordinary men. But Etheldreda was intrigued and insisted that she would visit one by herself in spite of Heregyth’s warning that she might well meet demons or the ghosts of the giants themselves. She fingered her mother’s garnet cross now on a gold chain around her neck, and smiled.

‘I’ve not met a demon yet that I could not quell with the Lord’s help,’ she said cheerfully.

‘But won’t you be afraid?’ Heregyth asked, astonished.

‘No. We hold the key to ourselves. We can open the door or not as we choose. I’ll not open to anything that does not have the password of the Lord.’

Heregyth sighed, remembering how often she had been deceived by men, let alone by demons! So there was some point to all Etheldreda’s spiritual training after all. If only it were not so difficult!

Etheldreda would talk no more of demons or of giants. She went off to explore the ruined town, refusing any company.

As she wandered about the overgrown streets and sat on a broken wall in the sun, small flowers growing from the cracks, she wondered where they were now, the busy people, the men who drove the carts down these streets so often that their wheels wore out grooves, the stone-smiths, the millers, the merchants.

A snatch of an old poem came to her mind.

‘Earthgrip holds them – gone, long gone,
fast in gravesgrasp while fifty fathers
and sons have passed.’
[11]

Where were they now, her father, and her mother, and the years of innocence and joy? Where would Oswy’s mighty kingdom be by the time one more of these stones had fallen from its place?

She was allowing herself to be caught up in the temporary again, and she feared its seductiveness. She must hold to her visions of eternity and never let them go, her visions of a beauty that was ‘itself’ and did not derive its quality by comparison with other things. If she could not avoid people and noise in her new life at the Northumbrian court, she must devise a ‘place’ within her, secret and invulnerable, where she could be alone. Without this, she would be lost.

A movement behind her made her turn her head.

Ovin stood a little way off.

She could not be sure that he had not been there a long time, sent by Heregyth to protect her.

She smiled. She was glad it was Ovin and no one else, for he was the one person who did not make her feel crowded.

Egfrid sat in the great hall at York waiting for his betrothed, his knees drawn up under his chin, his brows knit in a scowl. His features were not unlike his father’s and his brother’s, but his expression was his own. He was disgusted that he was to marry a nun, an old one at that, and had pictured her pale and shrivelled, eyes cast down in humility, hands folded meekly. He did not bother to stand when she was ushered into the room, nor to look up. He heard voices giving formal greeting and then his brother angrily jogged his arm. Sulkily he raised his head and was startled at what he saw. She stood in a shaft of light in front of him, her head held proudly, her cheeks flushed with health. Her skin was bronzed by the sun, her blue eyes shrewd and lively. She wore a long cloak embroidered with gold, held with gold brooches at the shoulders. Above it her hair shone so much that the circlet of gold that held it in place looked almost dull. She did not bow her knee to his brother, but inclined her head very slightly in greeting, smiling pleasantly at Queen Cyneberga.

King Oswy and Queen Eanfleda were still at Bamburgh and had sent Romanus to deliver their welcome. While he droned on and everyone’s attention was on him, Egfrid unfolded his legs and rose to his feet. He kept to the shadows, moving closer so that he could see her more clearly. If she was aware of him she gave no sign until his name was mentioned and then she turned her clear gaze upon him, looking at him steadily, appraisingly. She saw a gauche boy, standing awkwardly, his face slowly flushing angrily at her scrutiny. She saw his resentment of her, his restless, moody energy. She saw someone who had never known self-discipline, only the domination of others. She knew that their relationship was going to be a difficult one.

She moved towards him, her progress elegant, controlled, and he stepped forward to meet her with an expression of haughty condescension. But his foot caught a wooden stool which went crashing to the floor. He lost balance and stumbled clumsily. With an expression of disgust he kicked the fallen stool savagely away from him, and then turned his shoulder to her and stormed out of the hall.

Queen Cyneberga was the first to speak.

She rose from her husband’s side and took Etheldreda’s arm.

‘You must forgive him, lady, he is still young and embarrassed by small things. Give him time and no slave would be more devoted to his mistress than the prince to you.’

‘I hope not so, my lady,’ Etheldreda said quickly. ‘I have travelled all this way for a companion and a helpmate, not for a slave.’

‘And that is what you shall have!’ Alfrid rose now and joined them, speaking brusquely. ‘Give him time. He is a good lad, but his manhood is insulted that you will not accept him as a man.’ Alfrid did not like the chastity clause in the betrothal contract and was determined to do all in his power to break it down.

Etheldreda smiled at him unperturbed.

‘Surely his manhood is founded on more secure ground than whether I go to bed with him or not?’ she asked blandly.

Alfrid looked irritated. The princess was not what he had expected either, and he could see his brother was not going to find it as easy as he had done, with Penda’s daughter, to win her sexually. She would indeed be a formidable and valuable addition to the ruling family of Northumbria, but whether she would prove too strong a meat for his young brother remained to be seen.

‘My lord, the princess Etheldreda is tired after her long journey,’ Cyneberga intervened tactfully. ‘May I take her to her chambers?’

He nodded at once, glad to be relieved of her disturbing presence. As she turned to go her cloak floated back and the curves of her figure showed briefly through the soft fabric of her dress. A twinge of desire stirred in Alfrid’s heart and he conceived of a plan to help his brother.

‘Such beauty wasted is an insult to God,’ he told himself. ‘No purpose is served by such denial. She could feed the poor, pray for souls, just as effectively if she were a normal married woman, better, for she would understand the human condition more intimately. When she is old and ugly, then let her join a monastery!’

He thought of his sister Elffleda. At the age of one she had been vowed to perpetual virginity by their father in gratitude for his victory over Penda at Winwaed. When she grew to womanhood would she not curse him for this? And would she not be right to do so?

The royal buildings at York were far grander than those Etheldreda had been accustomed to in her homeland. The central hall itself had colonnaded porches surrounding it where supplicants and visitors could wait out of the rain before they were admitted to the king’s presence. Benches lined the walls, some of them elaborately carved. The spear-racks were enormous.

The sleeping quarters too were much more complex. There were many rooms joined one with another, as in Roman houses, except the rooms were smaller and the structure was of wood.

Cyneberga proudly showed Etheldreda the kitchens and the weaving rooms before she took her to her own bedchamber.

York had been a Roman town, one of the few the immigrant tribes had made use of when they sailed up the River Humber and its tributaries to make this land their own. Consequently part of the royal complex was in stone, the roads were well laid out and in workable condition, and there was a wall, well built and sturdy, though it had not always served to keep conquerors out. Knowing that Etheldreda was a friend of Queen Eanfleda, King Edwin’s daughter, Cyneberga pointed out the place where Edwin’s head had been left to rot upon the wall. There was a touch of pride in her voice that her father had helped to put it there.

Neither the Celts, nor the Germanic invaders, had skill in stone masonry, and the Roman town had been left to fall into disrepair. The elaborate system for central heating was no longer understood or used and in winter the winds blew cold over the moors and the frost worked on the crumbling stone buildings. York at the time of Alfrid was mainly wooden built, but the nearest thing to a city in the Roman sense the Northumbrians possessed.

Etheldreda’s rooms were half Roman stone, half Saxon wood. Cyneberga drew aside a finely worked curtain to reveal a stone bath sunk into the floor. There were steps leading down to it. It was huge.

‘Alfrid had this cleaned out when we were married,’ Cyneberga said proudly. ‘The roof had fallen in and so we built a new one of wood, but the bath itself is quite usable.’

‘How do you put the water in?’ Etheldreda asked curiously, walking round the edge, marvelling at the size of it. It was by no means as clean as a Roman would have wished, but to a Saxon it was magnificent. Etheldreda had only ever washed in wooden buckets, the water boiled in iron cauldrons, carried by slaves or, recently, by herself.

‘Slaves, of course. I have tried to use it once,’ Cyneberga said. ‘I had it filled, but it really was too cold. Would you like it filled for you?’

‘No. No, of course not. But I would like a bucket of water if possible before I rest.’

Cyneberga sent one of her women at once for hot water, and then excused herself and left.

When the water came Etheldreda dismissed Cyneberga’s slaves, but kept Heregyth with her.

Together they carried the bucket down the steps to the stone bath.

‘Come, Heregyth, undress! I feel like a water fight!’

Heregyth had not seen the face of her mistress so alight with mischief for many years. She was quick to accept the challenge.

Naked, they began to splash each other with the water, laughing and shouting like two young children. Etheldreda knew she would have to be a royal princess again, a responsible and serious-minded diplomat on whom lives depended, married to a difficult and complicated man, but before she did, she would have one last joyous fling.

As the water flew and they darted and dodged, she remembered her childhood at Exning when life had seemed so simple. On summer days she and Saxberga had sometimes had such water fights in the little river that flowed through the valley.

Just as the last handful went into Heregyth’s laughing face and they both stood dripping and exhausted, they heard a sound behind them and spun round to see that King Alfrid had entered above and was watching them.

A few days before the wedding King Oswy and Queen Eanfleda arrived from Bamburgh. The occasion was to be used as a show of power and solidarity to impress King Wulfhere of Mercia and the other guests who were arriving for the wedding from every direction, at all hours of the day and night.

The quays on the River Ouse and the River Foss were constantly busy, and the children of the town were climbing on every available pile of timber or bale of wool at the quayside to get a better view of the distinguished guests.

The Roman road from the south was lined with people too, watching for the baggage trains and the stewards, and guessing for whom the elaborate tents were being raised.

When the rumour got round that the Kentish royal family were due at the quay, the crush was so great Queen Eanfleda and Princess Etheldreda could scarcely get through. Many remembered the times of Edwin and were eager to greet his widow.