The Winter Mantle (27 page)

'Ye'll treat him well,' Malcolm growled, 'else I'll make garters of every pair o' Norman guts between here and Durham town.'

William inclined his head. 'Providing you keep to your side of the bargain, your son will come to no harm,' he replied.

Malcolm scowled and blustered, but finally agreed to the terms. However neither he nor William were yet prepared to seal them by the ceremony of making the kiss of peace. Both men still had points to settle. William desired the removal of Edgar Atheling from the Scottish court.

'I canna dae that, the man's my brother-in-law!' Malcolm's eyebrows bristled and he folded his arms belligerently.

'The man is a thorn in my side who persists in fomenting rebellion. In yielding to me, you are accepting me as your overlord and you cannot harbour my enemies at your court. Your brother-in-law or not, Edgar Atheling goes.' William spread his hands on the trestle and leaned on them to emphasise his point.

There was a long silence but only one outcome. Everyone knew that Malcolm had no choice. It was one of the prices to pay for peace and the only way that the Norman force was going to withdraw back across the Forth.

'If I dae that for ye, then ye mun dae something for me,' Malcolm said.

William raised his brows.

Malcolm glared with triumphant malice at Earl Gospatric. 'I'll no hae that blethershite Gospatric facing me o'er the border. There'll be more bloodshed than ye've ever seen if he stays.'

Gospatric leaped to his feet, his complexion fire-red and his hand going to his empty scabbard, all swords having been prudently left outside. 'You dare to make such demands!' he spat. 'You're naught but a murdering, primitive heathen with sheepshit for brains!'

'And you're nae more than a runty wee arsewipe who I'll nae entertain as my neighbour.'

Gospatric launched himself at Malcolm and got such a grip on his throat that it took three men to haul him off and then pin him back against the side of the tent. Choking, Malcolm fell to his knees, and Waltheof went to his assistance. With cold fury in his eyes William gestured two guards to carry Gospatric outside.

'Ye see?' Malcolm wheezed. 'What chance is there for peace wi' him on my borders?'

William did not look best pleased. 'You force my hand,' he said, 'and that is something that I do not like.'

'Hah, well I don't like yielding tae you, but I mun dae it to survive,' Malcolm rasped tersely.

William swung round to pace the short length of the tent. Simon watched him. Outside Gospatric could be heard wrestling with the soldiers. There was indeed a bitter enmity between Gospatric and Malcolm. The former had plundered the Scots lowlands last year, serving a warning that Scots raids on English territory must stop. In retaliation Malcolm had brought devastating fire and sword across the border, his attack so savage that William had come harrying north to deal with the situation.

'Very well,' William said, swinging round. 'I will appoint a new earl, and raids on both sides will cease.'

'That depends on who ye appoint,' Malcolm said.

William rubbed his jaw as if deliberating, but Simon knew that his mind was already made up and had long been so. 'I have in mind Earl Waltheof of Huntingdon,' he said. 'He has a natural entitlement to the position, and although he has a Norman wife he is without Norman blood.' A wintry smile curved his mouth corners as he made the last observation.

Waltheof's breath hissed through his teeth and Simon saw the astonishment widen his eyes and brighten his complexion.

Malcolm turned his gaze on Waltheof and eyed him craftily. 'I suppose needs must when the De'il drives,' he pronounced, but he was clearly not displeased by the choice. Why should he be, Simon thought. Waltheof might be a fine warrior in his mid-twenties with an enhanced reputation from the Danish invasion of York, but as yet he was no Siward the Strong, the very mention of his name to be feared. Doubtless the King of Scots thought that he could run rings around him.

Looking dazed, Waltheof first stood up then knelt at
William's feet and bowed his head. 'It is a great honour that you do me, your grace.'

'It is indeed,' William said. 'Make sure you honour the position as much as it honours you.' Stooping he took Waltheof's hands between his own and gave him the kiss of peace on either cheek, thereby conferring on him the earldom of Northumbria that had once been held by his father.

'And what o' Gospatric?' Malcolm demanded with a contemptuous jerk of his head. 'What will ye dae wi' him?'

William stood straight. 'He can be escorted to the nearest shore and put out of these isles with your outlawed brother-by-marriage,' he said curtly.

Malcolm nodded, accepting the fact, then turned to Waltheof, who was slowly easing to his feet, a beatific expression on his face. 'Watch yoursel', laddie,' he said. 'Your king uses men like food. Eats them up and spits oot the bones when he's had the sustenance.'

Simon frowned. Malcolm had it wrong. William did indeed devour men, but if he discarded them it was not because he had no more use for them, but rather that they were unable to live beneath his harsh codes and demands for unquestioning loyalty.

'Since I have never gained so much goodwill from being anyone else's man, I'll take the risk,' Waltheof answered, inclining his head in courtesy to the King of Scots. 'I am sure that you are a gambling man yourself, sire.'

'Aye,' Malcolm said sourly. 'And look where it got me.'

Two weeks later William prepared to leave for Normandy where a border war was brewing with his neighbours in Maine. Waltheof returned home to Judith, bearing with him the momentous news that now, as his father had been, he was Earl of Northumbria.

Judith's pride in his accomplishment glowed out of her eyes. When he kissed her, she kissed him back. In bed her responses were almost feverish and he brought her to pleasure twice before he reached his own. It was as if his new status was a powerful love potion that she was unable to resist.

'Now you are truly a man of influence,' she declared as they lay together in the breathless aftermath of lovemaking, her fingers gently tugging on his coppery chest hair. He had shaved his beard and had the barber return his growing locks to the harshness of a Norman crop in consideration of his wife.

He was aware that his new title meant a great deal to her, but he had not realised how much until he saw her incandescence at the news. He was amused, and also, if the truth were known, a little uneasy. His love for Judith was not bound up in her status as the Conqueror's niece, but it seemed that her regard for him was powerfully influenced by his social standing. But he said nothing. To have done so would have exposed aspects of their relationship that were better kept buried. Besides, he was very tender of her, for she was again with child. The infant had been conceived on the night that he departed for Scotland. At the most there would be eleven months between the new babe and its sister.

'This time it will be a son, for our lands,' Judith said fiercely, and taking his hand, laid it upon her smooth belly. 'I feel it as strongly as a river flowing.'

'Son or daughter, it matters not,' Waltheof murmured, spreading his hand over the pale curve of her flesh. 'There is time enough for both. King William has an equal number of each.'

'No,' Judith said stubbornly, 'it will be a boy.' Her lips became mulish and a little folded inwards, the way they did when she was determined to have her own way.

Waltheof shrugged and smiled, indulging her. 'Very well,' he said with a yawn. 'It will be a boy.'

In the midsummer heat of the following year, Judith gave birth to their second daughter. She wept bitterly and refused to be consoled when the midwife hesitantly delivered the unwelcome news along with the squawling, dark-haired bundle. 'If I had married a Norman,' she hurled at Waltheof, 'he would have given me sons!'

'And if I had taken an English wife, I would not have to suffer the unseemly lash of her tongue!' he had retorted. Shocked at the clash of their mutual bitterness, hurt and angry, Waltheof stormed from their bedchamber and proceeded to get roaring drunk, because apologising was more than he could bear to do. Early on in the session, before he lost his wits in the cool depths of a firkin of ale, Sybille brought him the new baby, still damp from her birth and wrapped tightly in linen swaddling. Holding her in the crook of his arm Waltheof saw his wife clearly in her tiny seashell features and the puff of almost black hair on her brow. It made him want to weep.

'How is she to be named, my lord?' Sybille asked gently.

Waltheof swallowed. 'For her mother,' he croaked. 'Mayhap it will recall her to her duty.'

Sybille said nothing, although she privately thought that naming this second child thus was a bad idea. Every time she looked at the baby, Judith would be reminded of her failure to produce a son.

Waltheof gazed at Sybille. 'How is it possible to begrudge a child its life because of its sex?' he asked in a torn and bewildered voice.

Sybille did not have an answer. Biting her lip to stop it from trembling, she took the baby back into her own arms. 'I'd best go and take her to the new wet nurse,' she said gently. 'I would have nursed her myself, but I don't have enough milk for three.'

Waltheof nodded a dismissal and turned back to the jug of ale with a vengeance.

Palace of Northampton, Spring 1075

The apples had been stored over winter and were slightly wrinkled, but their sweetness was wonderfully concentrated. Sybille peeled one with her small, bone-handled knife, cut it into slivers and divided it between her daughter Helisende and the ladies Matilda and Judith. Lured by a warm flood of April sunshine, she had brought the girls into the garden. Their mother, as usual, was at her prayers. Recently she had been speaking of founding a nunnery on her lands at Elstow near Bedford.

Matilda lingered at Sybille's knee, her eyes on the core.

'You want it,
chérie
?'

'I want to make a tree,' Matilda said. Each word was firm and clear. Everyone agreed that the child was advanced for her years, in both stature and intellect. Already she topped Helisende by a head. Caught back in a blue ribbon, her hair was a mass of coppery-bronze curls, slightly less red in tone than Waltheof's. Her creamy skin was peppered with freckles and her eyes were the same dense shade of blue as her father's.

A tree, my love?'

Matilda took the core in her chubby hand. 'You put it in the ground,' she said patiently to the maid, 'then you water it, and a tree grows.'

'Ah,' Sybille nodded. 'And who told you that?'

'Edwin.' She announced the gardener's name loudly and looked at Sybille as if she thought her slightly dim-witted. Taking the core, she marched over to a bed of recently dug soil and set about planting her treasure. Sybille thought that she had better inform Edwin about Matilda's endeavour lest he had other plans for the newly turned bed.

Helisende and little Judith came to watch the ceremony of the planting. The latter decided that the soil itself might taste nice, and Sybille had to grab and apprehend the child before she could cram her mouth.