Naked (2 page)

Beside him, my mother. Gowned in red, garnets banded her hair. Brown-gold. The same shade as my own. Behind her woven tapestries brightened the paneled walls. Scenes of battle, hunting, dancing, feasting. Stitched by her needle.

I’d almost reached them when I spied a flaxen-haired girl standing by the fire.

“Beolinda! I didn’t know you were coming.”

We embraced tightly.

“My father brought a message. Of course, I begged to come, too.”

“Can you stay long?”

“Well, that depends.” She scanned the crowd.

“Edmund’s not staying in Coventry.” I grinned. “He’s going to the Witan.”

She sighed. “He’s such a
Saxon
. So blond and tall. But he doesn’t notice me.”

“I’m sure he notices you.” The hourglass shape beneath Beolinda’s tunic had attracted many a warrior’s attention.

“Not really.” She pouted. “He cares only for you.” She seemed to have caught Aine’s gift of premonition. “Your parents would be pleased.”

“Pleased about what?”

“If you married Edmund. He’s
cniht
to Lord Radulf now, isn’t he, and the best shot in the Middle Lands. Once I saw a marksman split an apple on top of a girl’s head.” Her smile curved. “I’d let Edmund do that to me.”

Edmund made his own arrows. Elm wood. Iron-tipped. That he was the best shot in the Middle Lands sometimes irked. I rarely enjoyed being bested.

But my pure grey gelding, Ebur, had beaten his bay stallion home.

“The Middle Lands will be yours one day, after all,” Beolinda said. “You’ll need a lord to rule the shire.”

“I need no lord, not even Edmund,” I retorted.

“Taking my name in vain?”

I spun around.

“That’s the second time today you’ve caught me unawares.”

That lightning smile.

Into the vortex.

“Then you should be on your guard.” His grey cloak rippled as he took my arm. “I chased you all the way home. Come and eat.”

“Hello, Edmund.” Lashes fluttered.

His smile flashed. “Hello, Linda.”

Another crack.

Beolinda. Struck.

At the high table she engineered to sit beside him, while I took my usual place next to my mother.

Raising his goblet, my father stood up. “The hawk-eye is mine! To Coventry!”

“To Coventry!”

The responding cry rang to the rafters. Below, the trestle tables were packed with departing warriors and their families. Townsfolk, too, squeezed in.

“
Was Radulf hail! Was Morwen hail!”

Knives drummed the wood.

As he sat down, my father gestured to the brown-garbed man at the foot of the table. “Will you say grace, Brother Aefic?”

Bowing his shaved head, the monk intoned the words. The familiar Latin washed over me.
Benedictus, benedicat, per Jesum Christum Dominum Nostrum …

“Amen,” my mother murmured.

“What do you expect of the Witan,
Fader
?” I asked when my trencher had been filled, hot pork still crackling from the flames.

“A wise council of lords, I hope, but it’s long overdue. In these times we Saxons must stand together, in spite of our differences, or the Danes will soon overrun the whole of Engla-lond.”

“The Danes.” My mother shook her head. From her ears gold glinted. “They continue to plague us.”

Edmund scowled. “And we have their Dane law here.”

“If you can call it law,” my mother added.

“They mock the Saxon way.” Edmund gripped his meat-knife. “Our laws respect our people, whatever their rank. A Saxon will always support another Saxon.”

My father exhaled. “The Danes rule by force. Not by justice. They’re a ruthless race.”

“It’s an insult that King Canute, a Dane, is on our English throne. It’s wrong they rule us.” Edmund’s skin had flushed.

How well I understood his anger. In the Angle Lands to the east, Edmund’s family had been lost to the Danes. Once he would have inherited landholdings far greater than mine, but now they were gone. My father had fostered him, taking him on as a squire before he became a
cniht
, trained to be skilled with the blade, to defend and uphold the Saxon way.

It had taken time for us to become friends. He’d been wary, I shy. He hadn’t wanted to play with a girl. But when I’d routed him with my wooden sword, he’d understood I was a girl to be reckoned with.

“How much Saxon land has fallen now?” Beolinda asked.

My father seized a russet apple from a trencher. Pushing his goblet aside, he placed the red fruit at the center of the table. “Here in the Middle Lands we’re safe under Saxon rule.”

“Thanks to you, Radulf.” My mother patted his arm.

He placed another russet to the left. “To our west, in your homeland, Morwen, the Welsh Lands have resisted Danish invasion.”

One russet more set below. “To our south, Wessex remains Saxon.”

With a frown he positioned a yellow apple to the right of the central russet. “But to our east, in the Angle Lands, the Danish grip is brutal. Under the Dane law many Saxons are slaves.”

Angry muttering among the warriors. Edmund, tight-lipped.

Now my father weighed a yellow apple in one hand, a russet in the other. “But good news has come from the north, from Mercia, where the Danes have so long held sway. I have news of Thurkill the Tall.”

I drew in my breath.

“What good news can be brought of a Dane who has plundered Saxon lands and killed good Saxons? Burning homes, killing livestock, and looting churches?” My mother’s usually gentle tone was harsh.

“That he has been defeated.”

Cheers went up in the hall.

“Thurkill the Tall has been overthrown in the north by a Saxon Lord. Leofric of Mercia.”

Casting the yellow apple aside my father dropped the russet onto the table, above the central one representing the Middle Lands. Transfixed, I watched as the Mercian apple rolled and collided with the one below. They lay, touching each other.

Leofric
. The strangest sensation came over me when my father said the name. As if I’d heard it many times before. As if I’d spoken it myself.

“Leofric of Mercia? Who is he?” I asked.

“The new earl. Leofric is young but bold. He led a daring campaign against Thurkill and the Danes to regain the north.”

“God be praised!” My mother said. “I’ve long feared for us.”

My father squeezed her ringed fingers. “Fear no more. Although his title has been granted by King Canute the Dane, I’m told the new earl is a good Saxon.”

“Will he be at the Witan?” I wondered.

“I expect to meet him. What’s said of him impresses me. It’s to be hoped that young lords such as Leofric of Mercia will restore the Saxon way. But whether he can stop Thurkill the Tall, and the Danish push for land, we shall see.”

“You think the Danish peril is upon the Middle Lands?” Edmund demanded.

“Our lands are small, but our position in the heart of Engla-lond makes us mighty.”

Edmund nodded. “At the center is power.”

Later, when we were eating an apple pudding flavored with honey, the gleeman took up his place in front of the fire and began to sing.

In a low tone no one else could hear, my mother murmured to me. “This Witan Council is important, Godiva. We won’t be gone too long and I want to be with your father. That’s how you know the man you love. The days are longer when you’re apart.”

Her attention moved to Edmund, deep in conversation with my father, Beolinda hanging on his every word. “It’s a Saxon noblewoman’s right to choose the man she wishes to marry.”

Many girls were married much younger than me. I’d been given time.

Now Edmund wanted my answer.

“As heiress to the Middle Lands, you must choose wisely.” From her belt my mother took some silver keys. “We’ll talk more when I return. We charge the care of Coventry to you while we are gone. Hang these from your belt and let them remind you of your duty to our people.”

Cool and heavy. The keys had hung around my mother’s waist for as long as I could remember. “I’ll wear them,
Moder
. I promise.”

For a moment I wondered if I ought to tell her of Aine’s foreknowledge. But she turned away to speak to my father.

The gleeman began to beguile me. When I was small I’d fallen asleep at the table listening to the tale of Beowulf, lulled by its rowing rhythm. As my mother carried me to the bower I’d awoken from a dream filled with warriors, battling the monster Grendel.

“Were they real?” I’d asked, half asleep, my arms twining her neck.

“Were who real, my sweetheart?”

“Beowulf. The heroes of the past.”

“They’re as real as you would have them be, Godiva. As real as love or courage or honor or kindness. Though we can’t see these things, they are all that matter.”

Her words floated back to me as the gleeman sang.

From down the table, Edmund smiled.

In a flash I knew what my answer would be.

2

The people: therefore, as they loved her well,

—Tennyson (1842):
Godiva

“God’s greeting, Lady Godiva!”

“Good morning, my lady!”

“God’s greeting!” I called.

Once, Edmund had challenged me. I’d claimed to be able to recognize by sound and smell every landmark in Coventry town.

A blindfold around my head, our hands gripped tight.

Out of the hall, down the steps, into the courtyard.

The smell of lanolin and dye. The weaving house.

Baking bread. Roasted meat. The kitchens.

Past the servants’ quarters. Past the storerooms.

Mint, rosemary, lavender, rue. The herb garden.

Horse manure. Hay. My nose had wrinkled. The stables.

Through the gates, into the street.

Every step of Coventry, under my feet.

Past the slosh of the water mill.

Raucous shouts, the yeast of
beor
and ale. The tavern.

Curing animal hide. A stench that made me sick. The tanner’s.

Past more houses.

The mooing and baaing of cattle and sheep. Wrangling between the shopkeepers and farmers, to get the best price. The market square.

The taste of sawdust on my tongue. The carpenter’s shop.

A burst of heat on my cheeks from the blacksmith’s anvil. The forge.

Every step of Coventry town. I knew.

We’d laughed as Edmund ripped off the blindfold. Lifted me off my feet.

I laughed again, remembering.

“God’s greeting, my lady!” The blacksmith called now, hard at work with his wheezing bellows.

“And to you!” I waved and smiled.

Onward. More houses. At a round, thatched cottage I dipped my head beneath the low doorway. Edmund had hit his forehead on the beam more than once.

“Walburgha?”

Wiping her hands on the homespun tied around her ample waist, she hastened to the door. “Lady Godiva! Come in!”

She bustled to the fire at the center of the room.

“Wilbert! Make way!”

The thin, grey-haired man who sat whittling silently offered me his bench. For years he’d made me toys. Horses, sheep, ducks.

“Thank you.” I smiled.

A cough, a shy smile in return.

“Sit down, that’s right,” said Walburgha. “Now, what can I get you? My bog-myrtle
beor
?”

I’d sampled Walburgha’s bog-myrtle
beor
before. My head had ached for a week. “It’s early for me, Walburgha.”

She beamed. “A honey cake then, the kind you and young Edmund always like so much.” She rarely let us past her door without sampling them.

Warm and sweet-smelling. She pressed it on me. As usual, it melted in my mouth.

“Are you sure you’re not thirsty, my lady? Be sure to say if you change your mind.” Dragging close another bench she settled down on it. “Busy out there on the streets, isn’t it, my lady? With market day and all. Why, I can recall this town being not much more than a village. Can’t I, Wilbert?”

Wilbert nodded.

“Your father must be pleased with how Coventry has grown. And now he’s gone to the Witan! Our own lord!”

Copying Wilbert, I nodded. His main communication with his wife was via gesture.

“And Lady Morwen gone with him!”

“My mother asked me to deliver this to you.” From my pocket I retrieved a pottery bottle, safely stopped with wax. It had mandrake in it, to ease bone ache. “Aine made it for you.”

Aine’s herbal remedies were much in demand, even if the townsfolk were suspicious of her. Beolinda had returned home accompanied by many pots and jars.

“She’s been driving me mad,” Aine had grumbled in private. “A lotion to remove my freckles. An oil to make me smell sweet. A rinse to brighten my hair. On and on, vain as you please.”

I’d chuckled. I’d enjoyed Beolinda’s company even if she did only talk about her appearance. And Edmund.

Edmund.

My stomach whirled and rippled. He’d return from the Witan soon and I’d have to give him my answer.

Since Beolinda had left it had been quiet without him, although it had given me time to think.

By contrast, right now it was comforting to just listen to Walburgha’s cheerful chatter.

“Your sainted mother!” she exclaimed. “The kindest lady in all of Engla-lond, our Lady Morwen. Always thinking of others, even in her times of trouble. Why, I remember when you were born. How happy our lord and lady were! God’s Gift, they named you. What a feast we had! What mead! What mutton!”

Wilbert managed to get a word in. “When will your parents return?”

Cake crumbs caught in my throat. “I expected them last week.”

Few families were as close as ours. Like a milking stool we stood strong on three legs. Without them I felt wobbly, uncertain.

Wilbert’s brow furrowed.

“Thank you for the cake, Walburgha.” I got to my feet. “It was delicious.”

“You can have some
beor
next time.”

Wilbert touched his brow. “Blessings on you.”

Walburgha patted my arm as she showed me out. “Your parents will soon be back. God willing.”

“God willing.”

*   *   *

At the end of the street I opened the lych-gate, creaking new on its hinges. I hadn’t planned it. But my feet made the pilgrimage.