The Betrothed Sister (14 page)

To my granddaughter Thea also named Gytha for myself, Greetings, I am safely residing at the monastery of St Omer and find it is a pleasant place – peaceful after the tumultuous events that have tracked my life. Now it is time to rest. The young boys thrive here, learning more every day. The young girls are with their families in Flanders. We are thus a small company of lay nuns. Your Aunt Hilda sends you Easter greetings. I have every faith that you will soon be betrothed and that your new life in the lands of the Rus will bring you every happiness. Prepare well for it. Learn every skill you can master. Always remember you are a Godwin and a king's daughter. The years remaining to me may pass all too quickly. We may not meet again this side of heaven. Promise me that after my fates have spun out my life, you will remember my advice.

Your brothers intend passing the summer in Ireland. They hope King Dairmaid will help them again. They fear that Sweyn may have other interests.

May God and His angels protect you.

Gytha, Countess of Wessex

What other interests possessed Sweyn? Her grandmother did not say. Thea wept, folded her letter and drew together its familiar Godwin dragon seal. She carefully placed it in the small casket that contained the precious Godwin christening gown. As she lifted the gown out of its soft cloth wrapping and looked once again upon its pale fabric she made a wish that she would soon marry Prince Vladimir and if Prince Vladimir was to be her betrothed, they could learn to love each other and have many children together. She imagined him to be Odin, brave and wise, god of wisdom, battle and poetry but also like Balder, Odin's gentle handsome son. Sometimes he became Tyr, the god of war, justice and order. She touched the tiny linen gown with the tip of her right ring finger. For a heartbeat she thought of her father and mother. Then she made a third wish. This was that her mother, Elditha, would write to her. William feared that the Godwin women might ferment rebellions in England, and so kept them apart. Maybe, just hopefully, Elditha would find a secret way to speak to her eldest daughter. Instead of writing to Elditha, she swallowed her tears and wrote a reply to her grandmother.

Dearest Grandmother Gytha,

I hope this finds you and the ladies of St Omer in good health. It is my greatest wish that you are happy and that sometimes the stern-faced nuns who dwell there smile, that you have plenty of firewood and good food. You say you have found peace in the lay community there. I pray to St Theodosia you speak the truth.

Words cannot describe how much I miss you. I am, none the less, content to be here. The farm is a pleasant place and everyone who dwells here is kind. Princess Gunnhild returned to Roskilde. She missed her sisters. Padar vanished on a secret mission soon after we arrived here. I heard that he was sent to the Rus to visit the court and my future husband, if indeed my husband is to be the Rus prince, Vladimir of Kiev. Indeed, if it is to be he whom the ambassadors spoke of then I am very happy. Thus, I prepare with great diligence here learning how a household is well ordered that I may organise my own with great care …

She was careful not to criticise Sweyn because she suspected that her letter might be read before it was sent and after all it would be sealed by Jarl Niels and sent with merchants visiting Flanders. If their journey was a guide it would take several weeks, perhaps longer, to reach its destination. She took care to press some blue flowers and include them as a keepsake for Gytha. She wrapped a cheese she had made and prayed that it would not spoil on the long sea journey. Finally she included a needle-holder that she had embroidered with a dragon ship sailing over waves, just like the
Wave-Prancer
, so that Gytha would not forget the journey they had made in it to Denmark.

‘Gudrun,' she said a morning later as they walked to the weaving sheds with baskets heaped up with newly spun wool. ‘I think Padar will be back soon. I feel it.' She glanced up at a flight of sparrows crossing the sky. ‘Look, they are returning. If Padar has been to the lands of the Rus, surely he will bring back news of my betrothal. Grandmother was sure that I would be betrothed to Prince Vladimir. She arranged it.'

‘Really, truly. Then, Lady Thea, will I travel with you to Russia?'

She smiled. They had become close companions, genuine friends rather than simply mistress and maid. ‘Yes, my dear girl. If I am betrothed; Prince Vsevolod might choose another princess for his son, one better connected and wealthier than I.' She sighed and feigned sorrow. ‘I could lose my handsome, devoted prince yet and grow into an unwed crone here in Søderop making cheeses and butter, embroidering altar cloths and pillows for Jarl Niels grandchildren.'

‘Nonsense, Lady Thea, that will never be so. You are much too beautiful. If Padar describes you well …' Gudrun looked sheepish as she spoke Padar's name. She blinked and said softly. ‘I hope that one day I can find a husband too. I, too, wish for love, my lady.'

Thea felt a sense of reality enter her dreams. ‘But in truth, my friend, we never actually marry for love. It grows. It did between my mother and father. Theirs was a handfasted wedding in the old way. She was the daughter of a wealthy nobleman and he died leaving her a great heiress. I never knew my mother's family. My father's family became her family and just look what happened to his brothers. Uncle Tostig died a traitor, Uncle Gyrth died at Senlac and my favourite uncle of all, Uncle Leofwine, also fell in the great battle.'

‘And my father too.'

They continued in companionable silence across the courtyard. Thea pointed to the bench outside the shed where men inside were busy working the table looms. They sat down. The rhythmic noise of shuttles clacking and the oily smell of new wool escaped from the shed. ‘There is something I cannot say in the house.'

‘My lady? I am listening,' Gudrun said quietly.

‘Before she left for Easter at Roskilde, Princess Gunnhild told me that there was a cunning woman here who was clever with ancient spells. Gunnhild said that the woman might help me make an invocation to disturb William's enjoyment of our stolen English lands.' Thea glanced down at her tightly clenched hands. ‘If I cannot marry well then he is to blame.' Thea's eyes stung as if pins were pricking them. ‘Do you think God will punish me if I ill-wish that Bastard?'

‘That is twisted thought; it is as twisted as an old snake, my lady. It will curl about your heart like a serpent and choke you. My lady, be careful what you wish for. It is more honourable for us to hope that King William just keels over and dies or that he is defeated in a battle. Sorcery and witchcraft are dangerous.' Gudrun shuddered. ‘I am not sure that Princess Gunnhild has your interests at heart. If you were discovered dealing in spells, you could jeopardise every chance of a good marriage.'

‘But, Gudrun, if it was only a small spell, if we can find the woman, will you help me?'

‘Yes, I suppose, but only if we pray devoutly that none of her evil can taint
us
, only those who have committed evil.' She sat still thinking until she added, ‘King William killed my father too.'

‘Then we shall go into the shed and deposit these baskets. After that we must walk down to the river and follow the sycamore pathway into the woods.'

‘But we shall be outside the palisade.'

‘Yes, and we can say we are visiting the dyers. They have been dying fleeces.'

‘Do you know how to find the cunning woman, my lady?'

‘She has a hut by the great rune stone marker where there was once a chieftain buried in his ship.' Thea frowned. ‘She delivers herbs and charms for the sick but she has stronger magic too; so Gunnhild said.'

‘We must take Ghost,' Gudrun said firmly. Ghost was the fiercest hall hound. He was completely white and wore a studded collar.

‘We can take Ghost. Let us ask for salt for the dyers, a good excuse to get outside the palisade. I heard Lady Ingar say they need salt and that no one would be available to go to the river today.
We
can offer. That way no alarm will be raised and I do not have a music lesson today until after Vespers.'

‘They'll look for us during the dinner hour.'

‘We'll say that we plan to eat down by the river.' Thea stared up at the cloudless sky. ‘Lady Ingar will be so pleased about the salt that she will allow us to take meat and cheese with us. Everyone is busy today. She will let us go if we take Ghost. That hound can be really fierce. I've watched him catch rats in the hall straw.'

Just after noon, with Ghost trotting along by their sides, occasionally snuffling in hedgerows, Thea and Gudrun hurried towards the mill. Gudrun pushed the sack of salt, a sack of corn for the miller and their dinner in a wheelbarrow along the palisade pathway. Thea swung Ghost's leather leash from her hand.

Organised shelves with large sacks of milled flour lined the walls inside the mill. In the centre of the room ladders ascended up the mill's interior to the floors above. Gudrun shouted up the ladder to the miller who came lumbering down the ladders to greet them.

The burly miller seemed surprised to see Thea standing in her mantle in the middle of the space below amongst sacks of un-milled grain. Bowing, he said, ‘My lady, what brings you to the mill?'

‘Lady Ingar sends her greetings and a sack of last September's corn to be ground into flour. She will require it by tomorrow.'

‘Will she now?'

‘She expects company. There is not enough flour left for the bread. She asks that you send it over to the hall kitchens when it is milled.'

‘It will be done.' The miller followed them outside, lifted the corn sack, opened it and thrust his hand inside. ‘I suppose it is cleaned. The last sack took an age as it was full of grit.'

Thea shrugged. ‘I do not know that, Jacob. I am just delivering it. We must be on our way now.'

‘God speed, my lady,' Jacob shouted above the roaring of the millstream and the clunking of the mill wheel. ‘Tell Lady Ingar I shall have her flour up to the hall by noon on the morrow.'

Thea and Gudrun waved their good byes and skirted the mill pond. They passed by a dam that Jacob was always strengthening. The river lay beyond the cut leading to the mill stream's dam. They trundled the wheel barrow along the river trackway. Ghost raced after them, then before them frantically wagging his long tail.

Thea wrinkled her nose as the pungent stink from the dyers' longhouse reached her. But she did like seeing the coloured fleeces stretched over the hedgerows where they were thrown to dry. Today, dyers were using woad which was particular smelly although the result was pleasing, a deep blue like the sky.

After handing over the precious bag of salt, one of the dyers thrust a bone for the hound at her. Thea shoved it into the wheelbarrow and hurried them along the river away from the stench. ‘Come on, Gudrun. Let us find a secret place amongst the bluebells to eat our picnic. Ghost can chew at his sheep's bone. And, you know what? We can leave the wheelbarrow here and fetch it on our way back to the hall.'

‘You are still determined to find her, my lady?' Gudrun looked thoughtfully at her mistress.

‘Yes. We shall find her, so let us look for a log to sit on and eat that cheese.'

She chose a spot amongst the bright blue flowers that was shaded by elders and pushed the barrow out of sight into the trees. She pointed to a log, flat on the top, conveniently close to the river bank where they could sit, drink their ale, eat and rest for a short time. After they had eaten their share and given Ghost the rest, they were able to tug off their boots, slide down onto the riverbank and cool their feet in the fast-flowing stream. Moments later, Thea pulled her feet out, dried them on her mantle and said, ‘Now, Gudrun, we must hurry.' She pointed into the wood behind. ‘Let's try that way, in through those beech trees. They should open out onto a pathway. Dry your feet and come on.'

Thea glanced up at the trees by the stream. They were bursting into leaf. Verges were filled with lacy cow parsley. Hawthorn clung in snowy clumps to the hedgerows. Spring was already turning towards the summer season.

Thea discovered a rough trackway that led into the woods not far from where they had been resting. It was as if it had intentionally opened for them, as if something was drawing them forward onto it, an invisible force that she did not wish to resist. In the distance she could hear the peal of bells. ‘The monastery of St Olave,' she said, delighted that the track wound through the trees close to the comfort of resounding monastery bells. She turned to Gudrun. ‘As long as we stay on the track within reach of the bells' ringing we cannot get lost.' Logic told her that since woods around the king's estate were not very dense the path would take them towards the ship burial.

She called Ghost to her and walked forward into the beech trees. Keeping a few steps behind, Gudrun followed her. ‘Are you sure this is the way, my lady?'

Thea turned. ‘No, I'm not sure, but I shall soon find out, and besides, is it not a wondrous thing to have the afternoon to ourselves; not to be surrounded by people and their work, endless work. Listen to the birds, Gudrun. You can really notice them here.' She stopped and raised her hand to her ears. ‘I hear woodpeckers knocking on tree barks and, listen, there is the finch. I think I can imitate that call.' For a moment they both paused and listened. Thea pursed her lips and made a perfect imitation of a finch calling to its mate. Stopping, she breathed deeply. ‘It is
so
good to feel part of the woods, as if we were Ghost or even the animals he chases along the verges. Just look at Ghost now. He's enjoying his freedom too.' Nonetheless, she held onto Ghost's leash ready to slip it through the hound's collar in case he deserted them and bolted into the thickets. She only promised Ghost conditional freedom.

Ghost clearly knew his freedom's limitations for he stayed within them, faithfully shadowing Thea, only darting into the undergrowth sporadically, returning to rub against her legs.