The Cunning of the Dove Read online

  On the next day came further news, which meant that the Lady, my mistress, was still mother to the King of the English. We heard that the great men of the Council had chosen as successor to Hardicanute his half-brother, Edward. This Edward had long been recognised as the destined heir, but no one can be sure about the succession to the crown of the English until the new King is proclaimed. In this particular case the election of Edward as successor was by no means a foregone conclusion, for it entailed a change of dynasty. So much has happened since, including many greater changes, that I had better explain the position as it was in the year 1042.

  As a girl the Lady Emma had come from Normandy to marry Ethelred, King of the English and, as you would suppose, an Englishman. She bore him two sons, Alfred and Edward. Presently Sweyn, chief of the heathen Danes, conquered England from Ethelred, only to be struck down in the hour of victory by the miraculous spear of St. Edmund, the martyred King of the East Angles (on a peaceful journey Sweyn fell from his horse, crying that St. Edmund had run him through). He was succeeded by his son Canute, who accepted baptism and ruled as a good Christian. This Canute married the Lady Emma as soon as she was widowed, and by her had a son, Hardicanute. But in the manner of his heathen countrymen Canute fathered other sons on various concubines; and when he also died suddenly and young (for a King of the English rarely sees old age) his bastard Harold seized the Kingdom. This Harold reigned for a year or two and found time to murder Alfred the son of Ethelred; when he also died in the flower of his youth he was succeeded by his half-brother Hardicanute, son of Emma the Lady. Now Hardicanute was dead, young and childless, and no one was left to carry on the line of Canute; though in Denmark and the north there were young men of his kindred, descended from his ancestors, who had some claim to be considered hereditary chieftains of all the Danes in Denmark and England.

  Thus the succession of Edward meant a return to the dynasty discredited by the incompetence of Ethelred, and a setback to all the Danes settled in eastern England. It meant also a return to the old dynasty of Cerdic, who founded the Kingdom of Wessex more than five hundred years ago; so that it was popular in Winchester, the cradle of Wessex. But in upstart London and the Danish north-east some great men were not pleased.

  Strangely enough, the Lady also was not pleased. Naturally, she did not express her opinion on important political questions while I was in the room, but even a fourteen-year-old page could see that she was dissatisfied. The housecarles of her bodyguard made no secret of their views. They were Danes, who had served the great Canute; they said quite openly, as they drank the Lady’s ale by her fire, within the special peace of her household, that if any Danish or Norwegian claimant tried to upset the decision of the English Council he might count on their axes to help him to the throne. I heard one of the Lady’s Norman tirewomen remind them that of the great men who had given the crown to Edward the greatest, Earl Siward, was a Dane; and the second, Earl Godwin, though a South Saxon by birth, was married to a Danish wife and had been a trusted servant of Canute. A King who was good enough for Danish Earls ought to be good enough for common Danish axemen.

  Then of course the fat was in the fire. No man would dare to call a royal housecarle a common Danish axeman; and even among women only a Norman would have the courage. The housecarles protested that all of them had been the trusted companions of King Canute, and that the great Earl Godwin had no prouder title. I believe that in Danish eyes their position was in fact most honourable; though to Normans and English they seemed ordinary hired soldiers. I listened eagerly to the beginning of the dispute, because I like hearing foreigners expound a foreign point of view. Presently I saw that the housecarles were so angry that they longed to pick a quarrel with any man, even a half-grown boy; and I went away before one of them should sink his axe into my head.

  We wore mourning until the autumn, which seemed right when the Lady had lost a young and beloved son; though some people thought it a queer way to welcome another son to the throne of England. Anyway, our mourning did not mean that the Lady retired into seclusion. During all that time we were kept very busy as great men came and went, or came to stay.

  They were not at first the very greatest men in England, not Earls of the front rank; but rather substantial landowners from the eastern parts, Danes who had risen under Canute and remained faithful to the widow of their lord. The most prominent among them was the Bishop of the East Angles, who about that time came to settle in Winchester and act more or less as chaplain to the Lady, though he did not lodge in her hall. That is, if he was indeed the Bishop of the East Angles; for throughout his long life there was always something dubious about the ecclesiastical position of Stigand.

  We servants were commanded to kneel for his blessing, and in every way to receive him with the respect due to a Bishop. But of course we thought it odd that a Bishop with a fine minster at Elmham among the East Angles should come to live permanently at Winchester among the West Saxons. Two explanations were current in the hall, and to this day I am not sure which was the right one. According to one story he had been consecrated Bishop, and then expelled from his See by King Harold or King Hardicanute; according to the other version one of these Kings had granted him the lands and revenues of Elmham, but could find no Archbishop willing to consecrate him. Whatever was his trouble, I am sure the root of it was political. Stigand was a man of more or less regular life, or at least not so obviously debauched that an Archbishop would refuse him consecration. But he was a very busy and partisan politician. I remember him in those days as an urgent, thin, haggard man always in a hurry, always with a bundle of writings under his arm. He was affable to servants, but we did not like him. We could see that he was not quite a gentleman, but not holy enough for ordinary men to overlook his humble birth; and he was such a typical Dane of the Danelaw that his speech and manners grated on every West Saxon.

  During that autumn and winter nearly everybody of importance came to Winchester, except the King. That was odd, because in those days the Old Minster at Winchester was the shrine where a King of the English must be crowned; and until he had been crowned and anointed Edward would not be completely King. The official explanation for the delay was that Edward, as acknowledged heir to the Kingdom of Hardicanute, had already received the oaths of all the magnates and himself sworn the customary promise to do justice and protect the Church; so that only the religious rites remained to be performed, and they might as well await the convenience of the busy Archbishops. I believe the real reason was that the Danelaw was restive; the King and the great Earls dared not come so far west as Winchester.

  It was amusing to listen to all this gossip about the troubles of the great, and to pick up half-understood scraps of the plans of intriguing politicians. We felt that we were on the inside, hearing secrets that would never be known to the vulgar; and we were quite sure that whatever happened to the crown of the English we would not be affected. The Lady Emma, widow of two Kings, mother of two Kings, would live peacefully in Winchester and protect her household.

  At last the date of the coronation was announced, Easter Day, the 3rd of April 1043. My mistress had a place of honour in the Old Minster, for so long as her son was unmarried she was still the Lady of England. But there was not room, even in that great church, for all her servants; I saw what I could from an upper window of her hall. During the week of festivity I saw all the great men of England ride below me, and thought how well they portrayed the characters that popular gossip had bestowed on them. I saw the mighty Siward, a heavy load even for his magnificent horse; his bushy red beard, tinged with grey, covered all his breast; on his back was a round Danish shield ornamented with silver and enamel; his great doubleheaded axe, hanging from his saddle-bow, was damascened with gold; on his head was a winged Danish helmet. Here was obviously a great chieftain of the pirates.

  I saw Earl Leofric, of the ancient Mercian line. He was fair and slight and elegant and very splendidly dressed. It was pleasant to know that at least one noble
of high English blood had a place among the greatest magnates, even after the Danish conquest of England.

  I saw Earl Godwin, who as Earl of the West Saxons might be considered almost my own lord. But in Winchester we served the Lady of England, and there were few cheers from the crowd for this renegade Englishman who had risen by the favour of Danish Kings. Some of his Danish sons rode behind him, fierce pirates by the look of them. But Godwin himself, a short dark man, looked affable and almost cringing. We were told that in his youth he had won victories far away on the shores of the Baltic, but he had not the air of a warrior. He smiled uneasily to placate the sullen crowd, and his slack mobile lips were those of an orator rather than a doer.

  Last of all I saw the King. Or rather, I did not see King Edward, for I could see nothing but his robes of state. He was tall, and he sat his horse well; so that he looked a mighty warleader, a true son of Cerdic and of Woden the devil of the heathen. We cheered in frenzy, longing for the day when he would lead us against our Danish oppressors.

  Besides the great men of England, envoys came from all Christendom to congratulate the new King, bringing him splendid presents. King Sweyn sent an embassy from Denmark, whose coming delighted the burgesses of Winchester; for it showed that the Danes oversea acquiesced in the restoration of the old English line. All our merchants had been afraid of war with Denmark, for that would have unloosed the Vikings and closed the seas to peaceful commerce. Magnus of the Norwegians sent a message of defiance, claiming to be heir to King Canute in all his dominions; but that was not at the time a serious threat, for Magnus was fighting for his little realm of Norway against a coalition of powerful enemies.

  The most costly gift offered to the King came not from a foreign ruler but from one of his own subjects. Earl Godwin gave him a warship, complete with its crew of professional Danish warriors. The ship was displayed at Southampton, and I heard from those who went to see it that it was a magnificent affair, adorned with gilding and costly red paint. The crew were armed with fine new axes, and Earl Godwin had paid their wages for a year. A ship is about the most expensive thing that can be bought with money, and it must have cost the Earl a fortune. But he could hardly avoid giving it, for he had set himself a troublesome precedent; he had given a similar ship to King Hardicanute at the last coronation less than three years before, and he felt that he must repeat the gift lest the new King should doubt his loyalty.

  The coronation was a great event for the burgesses of Winchester, but we of the Lady’s household took little part in the festivities. There could be no doubt that the accession of King Edward was a slight on the memory of King Canute; the Lady’s housecarles, and all her upper servants, had been devoted followers of the great King of the North. To some of us juniors it seemed odd that the Lady should show so little joy when her son was made King; but we were too young, and too lowly, to understand the mind of one so elderly and great.

  There followed a summer of peace, bright with the optimism which always brings in a new reign. The King ruled in peace, no extra taxes were imposed, veteran Earls who had been trained under the great Canute kept order in the countryside. The weather was appalling, drenching rain with cold blighting winds; but that did not worry the servants of the Lady, snug in her warm hall. In the middle of a crowded city we were hardly aware of what was happening to the fields, so that the disaster of that autumn took us by surprise.

  The harvest failed utterly, all over England. Even the peasants had not expected such a miserable yield; right up to the end they brewed barley into ale, and they had stored up very little of the old harvest. Immediately there was a panic, as burgesses saw supplies grow scarce in the market. Men with money, but no land of their own (my father among them), rode through the villages buying corn at any price; until it was said that the cost of grain reached as high as 50 pennies the sack.

  It was not quite so bad as the devastation of a Danish army. Peasants went hungry, but country folk can usually live through a single bad season by eating roots and nuts and vegetables and the small animals of the waste. Of course they would not part with their land, and if they had been willing to sell there was no one to buy it. The people who were ruined were the burgesses. My father kept his family alive by buying bread in the open market, by begging at the doors of religious houses, by cooking all my mother’s laying hens, and by other shifts honest and not so honest. I stole for him what I could from the thriftless kitchen of the Lady’s hall; but the other servants were doing the same thing, and in my humble post I had few opportunites. When plenty returned with the excellent harvest of 1044 few men had died of actual starvation and the peasants soon grew fat again; but practically every craftsman in Winchester had sold his stock and his tools to buy corn, and must start again as a penniless journeyman.

  In the midst of this frightful distress, with the streets full of whimpering beggar children, quite another disaster befell the household of the Lady. Dusk was gathering on a gloomy November evening, and I was on duty in the anteroom; in her chamber the Lady sat by a good fire, listening to one of her Norman chaplains who was reading from a new poem. Suddenly we heard a tremendous trampling of hooves, as though a great company had ridden up to the outer palisade at full gallop. The two housecarles who guarded the chamber door straightened themselves and caught up their axes, but the feet we heard pounding towards us were those of the commander of the bodyguard; of course they allowed him to run on into the chamber without challenge.

  I could hear all that followed, in the sudden hush of amazement before fugitives began to scurry through all the passages of the rambling hall. ‘My Lady,’ gasped out the Danish captain, ‘an army of Englishmen has ridden against us. Shall I bar the hall? We can perhaps hold it for a short time, long enough to smuggle you out in the dark.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ the Lady answered. ‘The English are not at war with us. My husband, the great Canute, conquered them and made peace with them. Throw open the gate, send out ale to the common soldiers, and ask the leaders to wait on me here in my chamber.’

  Though the Lady answered in Danish I could follow all she said. It was a revealing answer. I saw that she thought of herself as a Dane, even as a Danish conqueror of England; an odd point of view for the Norman widow of King Ethelred. But then I suppose a woman who had been married to the mighty Canute would forget any lesser husband.

  The captain of the bodyguard had promised more than his men were willing to perform. As he left the chamber I could hear a throng of soldiers pressing through the gate into the courtyard. Ordinary housecarles dared not defend this timber hall against an army.

  The chaplain also bustled out of the chamber, and when I looked round the two axemen who should have guarded its door had vanished. At the time I blamed them for cowardice; but cowardice is seldom a failing of housecarles, and now I know better. They were experienced veterans, taking a wise precaution. When a hall or a town is taken by storm it is the custom to kill all the men in it but to spare the women; yet a warrior who has begun to kill finds it hard to stop, and if he comes on men and women together he may kill the women also. The best chance for their safety is to leave them alone with no men near them.

  In my ignorance I thought I alone had stayed to guard the Lady, and though I was unarmed I determined to keep my post to the last. Above the noise of increasing confusion I could hear the march of armed men; they came steadily nearer, but there seemed to be only a few of them, and they were not shouting war-cries.

  Then four warriors crowded into the anteroom together. They wore mailshirts and helmets, but they were not prepared for immediate massacre; their shields hung on their backs, and their axes dangled by thongs from their wrists. With amazement I recognised men whom I had seen at the coronation. They were the four most powerful men in England: the King and the three great Earls, Siward, Leofric, and Godwin.

  Nevertheless, my duty was still plain before me. I stood in their path and appealed to them to halt. ‘My lords, this is the private chamber of the Lady of
England. It is the custom that all visitors wait here until the Lady signifies that she is ready to receive them.’

  Earl Siward grasped his axe, but before he could raise it the King checked him. ‘Don’t harm the boy. I am glad to see that one of my mother’s servants is still faithful to his duty. Boy, announce to the Lady that the King and his Council have urgent affairs to discuss with her; she would be wise to admit us without delay. Come back with her answer, and then leave us. You had better go to the kitchen, where you will find the other servants under guard.’

  I did no more than put my head through the door-curtain, for I was so frightened that I could hardly walk. I saw the Lady seated in a tall chair, with her frightened women clustered round her; but she looked stately and composed, more angry than afraid. She heard my message with an unmoved countenance, and told me to admit her visitors. I pulled back the door-curtains and scuttled away to the kitchen.

  There I found the household sitting gloomily on benches, too scared to discuss this surprising adventure in tones louder than a whisper. Axemen clustered at the doors and peered through the windows; most were strangers of the King’s following, but among them I recognised some of the Lady’s housecarles.

  That is characteristic of the behaviour of housecarles in a tight place. They are honourable men, and take pride in their honour; they boast, with truth, that if they are beaten they would rather die than flee; but they like it better still if they can arrange to join the winning side in the moment of victory.

  As darkness fell outside we sat on. Torches were lit, for it was long past supper-time. But no food was served, and even the leather jacks standing on the tables were left empty of ale. No one dared to drink while those axemen watched us; they would have seized a share of the ale, and if they managed to get drunk they might have slaughtered the lot of us.

  Presently, after a stir among our guards, the King stood in a doorway, black against the flaring torches behind him. He addressed us all, in a loud carrying voice.