Gods Concubine (9 page)

Matilda was not entirely sure that it was
love
that bound these two. Something else bound them…their equal ambition for the throne of England, perhaps? Matilda believed William when he said that she, Matilda, would be his queen…but Matilda did not think that Swanne would let go of her own ambition easily. Whatever William might believe, Swanne fully intended to sit beside William as his lover and as his queen.

You might be a witch, Lady Swanne,
Matilda thought,
but you have not yet matched your wits against a daughter of Flanders, have you?

William sighed then, half waking, and shifted his body a little, running a hand over Matilda’s breast and cupping it gently in his hand before falling back into a deeper sleep.

And you are not the one lying under his body, and with his child in her belly. Beautiful and powerful you might be, Swanne, but you are deluded if you think that love and lust will mean more to William than loyalty and friendship and the bonds of a strong marriage.

Matilda resolved, then, to never tax William with Swanne again. If she did so, then it would be Matilda herself who would fracture their marriage.

No, she would not tax William about Swanne, but she could do her utmost to make sure that
she
had
her
ears and eyes at Edward’s court. Two agents were better than one when it came to a throne…and a marriage.

S
EVEN

I
n the six months following Edward’s marriage to Caela, the court at Westminster grew apace. Edward had announced plans to build a great cathedral on Thorney Isle, as well as extend and refurbish his own palace.

Builders and labourers thronged the site. In catering to the growing workforce, and to the growing size of Edward’s court, the numbers of servants and their families grew also. Westminster almost tripled its population, and a small town grew up about the palace and abbey complex.

Many new arrivals thronged the community of Westminster, but among them there were three who had deeper purpose than merely finding employment.

Some three months after Edward’s marriage a young widowed and destitute peasant woman had come to the palace, asking for work as a laundress, or perhaps a dairy maid…whatever work there was, she begged. Damson, she called herself, after a variety of exotic plum.

A damson, thought Edward’s chamberlain, studying her silently, was the last thing she looked like. The woman was already tired and worn, despite her relative youth, with stooped shoulders, waxen cheeks marred by broken veins, and pale blue eyes that looked set to fade away to nothing. Nevertheless, she claimed to be a skilled laundress, and with a queen in residence, and all the ladies she attracted about her, and all the linens they wore, or sewed, or commissioned…well, another laundress was always needed.

“Very well, then,” said the chamberlain severely, “but you’ll work under my direct orders for the time being, until I can be sure you’re trustworthy.”

Damson’s eyes brightened at the prospect of a home, and the chamberlain softened. He patted her on her cheek and sent her away to join the women already carrying heavy wicker baskets of laundry down to the river.

Within a week he had forgotten about her.

Edward was a particularly pious king, and among the builders and labourers and sundry laundresses that flocked to Westminster, there also arrived a corresponding number of clerics. Among these were many hoping that Edward would sponsor their religious order, as he had that of the Westminster abbey monks. Many of these he did indeed aid; some he turned away.

One he did, almost, turn away was a woman of a particularly annoying frankness and air of independence. She presented herself at Edward’s court in order to petition him to fund the establishment of a female religious priory.

“In honour of St Margaret the Martyr,” the woman said to the king as she knelt before his throne.

Edward watched her silently, not only wondering precisely
who
St Margaret the Martyr was (possibly one of those forgettable Roman noblewomen who had somehow managed to achieve martyrdom and subsequent sainthood on the strength of their donations to the emerging church), but also wondering how he could rid himself and his court of this unsettling woman as quickly as possible. She was of some forty years, rotund, and with a cheerful round face, but there was a strength and determination underlying that cheerfulness that truly disconcerted Edward. Women should know their place, and he was not at all sure that this one did.

“I am afraid—” he began, when, to his amazement, his wife broke in, leaning forward in her throne and speaking to her husband.

“My husband, may I perhaps take this care from your already over-burdened shoulders?”

Edward stared at Caela, his mouth open. This was the first time he could ever remember her speaking openly in court, let alone interrupting him.

“My father has endowed me well,” Caela continued, her cheeks flushed as if she realised her transgression, “and I would like this opportunity to repay Christ and His saints for their goodness to me. Perhaps I could use a small portion of my own reserves to endow this holy woman’s priory?”

At this her courage failed her—by now over half the court were staring at Caela, open-mouthed—but Edward smiled, suddenly pleased with her. If she was this pious, then perhaps she could eventually retire to the order she founded and he could be rid of her.

His smile broadened. “Of course, my dear. As you will.”

Caela blushed even further, perhaps astounded by her own temerity, but she turned to the woman still kneeling before Edward (with her round and generous face now turned to Caela) and asked her name.

“You may call me Mother Ecub,” said the woman, and then looked at Caela as if she expected some reaction.

But Caela only smiled politely, and begged Mother Ecub to visit her within her own private chamber on the morrow.

Mother Ecub bowed, rose to her feet, and left.

And as she left, so she locked eyes momentarily with Swanne, Harold of Wessex’s wife, newly risen from childbed. Both understood each other immediately; each sent ill will coursing the other’s way before each turned aside, and pretended indifference.

Thus was the Priory of St Margaret the Martyr founded, with Mother Ecub as its prioress. The small priory was built at the foot of Pen Hill just to the north of London, and within a year it had attracted some twelve or thirteen women who lived within its walls. The nuns contented themselves with good works to travellers, lepers and the destitute, and soon earned themselves such a good name among the Londoners that they called the priory Mother Mag’s as a measure of their affection.

It pleased Mother Ecub no end.

The third arrival into Edward’s court in this first year of his marriage caused much comment, where the other two had scarcely caused a ripple. King Edward had recently suffered pain from the gradual swelling and heating of the joints in his hands, elbows and knees. Many physicians attended him, but there was only one who consistently relieved Edward’s discomfort and he the youngest of those who presented the king with their herbals and unguents.

His name was Saeweald, and he was but eighteen or nineteen years of age. Born to the north of London, he had only recently completed his apprenticeship. Despite his youth, in his craft Saeweald combined an assurance, knowledge and skill that most of his older fellows envied, and the youth quickly became a fixture at Edward’s side.

Saeweald attracted comment not only because of his youth and his talent. Apart from the green of his eyes, he was very dark, bespeaking more the ancient British blood than the Saxon in his veins, but even this was not what made him stand out at court. Saeweald’s right hip and leg had been brutally mangled during his birth, and the newly appointed royal physician walked with the greatest difficulty, dragging his deformed leg behind him, and, on his worst days, requiring crutches to stand upright. But in a strange manner this endeared him to many. Saeweald’s rasping breath of discomfort, the drag of his leg, the tap of his crutches and the constant jangling of the small copper boxes of herbs which hung at his belt announced his imminent arrival more efficiently than any clarion or horn. No one could ever accuse the physician of spying, for there was no means by which he could creep unheard upon any conversation and this made everyone in the court comfortable with his comings and goings.

Yet Saeweald did keep secrets, and it was Tostig, younger brother to Harold of Wessex, who discovered one of these a few months after Saeweald’s appointment as royal physician. Tostig and Saeweald had become friends soon after the physician’s arrival at court. Outwardly, this seemed a strange friendship, for Tostig was a youth dedicated to the military arts, to heroic action and to the bravado of the warrior, while Saeweald was far more introspective and given to the pursuit of knowledge and mystery rather than a warrior’s heroisms.

This was, after all, all that his leg would allow him.

Tostig and Saeweald did find some common ground, however; perhaps their mutual youth, as well as their mutual indulgence in the fleshly delights the court and community of Westminster offered them (such fleshly delights kept well away from Edward’s attention). Thus it was one afternoon, when Tostig was trying to find Saeweald in order that they might plan which of the accommodating ladies they would prevail upon this night, that he found him soaking away the aches in his leg in a large tub of heated water redolent with herbs.

Edward had given Saeweald three chambers (an unheard-of allocation of private space for this crowded community) in one of the palace outbuildings. Saeweald used the space to live and sleep, as well as to store and dispense his herbs. The first chamber was given over to the herbs and a dispensary, the second Saeweald used as his sleeping and living quarters, and the third…well, the third Tostig had never entered. But this day, as he walked silently through the first and then the second chamber, seeking his friend, Tostig heard the sound of splashing coming from the third chamber, and so, without any announcement—assuming his friend was merely enjoying a soak—Tostig walked straight in.

Saeweald jumped in surprise, an unfortunate reaction which instantly gave Tostig full view of something he’d not ever suspected of his friend. True, he’d never previously seen Saeweald utterly naked, and Tostig had always assumed this was because Saeweald was sensitive about his deformed hip and leg.

Now he saw there was another reason—a far darker one.

“What is this?” he said quietly, coming to stand at the side of the tub.

Saeweald had sunk under the water, but now, observing the strange light in Tostig’s eyes, he sat himself upright, allowing Tostig to see his chest.

Tostig looked at Saeweald’s chest, then at his face, then back to the man’s chest. He stepped closer and, very slowly, lowered his hand on to Saeweald’s wet skin.

Saeweald’s skin jumped a little as Tostig’s hand touched him, and the man tensed, but then he relaxed as he saw the expression on Tostig’s face.

Awe. Reverence.

Tostig breathed in deeply and, as Saeweald remained still, moved his fingers over Saeweald’s chest and shoulders, their tips tracing the dark blue, tattooed outline of a magnificent spread of stag antlers.

“I should have known,” Tostig whispered.

Saeweald said nothing, his dark eyes unmoving from Tostig’s face.

“You follow the ancient ways,” said Tostig, very quietly. “By the gods, Saeweald, no wonder you are so skilled with the healing herbs!”

He lifted his hand from Saeweald’s chest and looked the man full in the face. “This mark is enough, my friend, to have you executed at the order of our most Christian of kings.”

Still Saeweald said nothing; still he watched Tostig carefully.

Tostig breathed deeply again, visibly affected by what he had discovered. “Moreover, this tattoo marks you as not just a follower of the ancient ways, but as…as…”

“Are you too afraid to say it, Tostig? Then I will, for already you know enough to have me killed. I am Saeweald, but I am also of the bloodline that traces back to the ancient priests of this land. I am the heir to that bloodline, and to the power of the ancient stag god of the forests.”

Tostig paled, and took a step back, his round eyes fixed on Saeweald’s face. Saeweald continued remorselessly.

“One day that god will rise from his grave, Tostig, and on that day
I
will speak with his voice.”

“You are his Druid,” Tostig whispered.

“Aye. I am his Druid,” Saeweald said, using a word and concept Tostig would understand.

Tostig blinked, and with heartfelt relief Saeweald saw tears slide down the youth’s cheeks.

“Then I am your man, and you have more friends here at court than you can possibly realise.”

Saeweald grimaced. “There is more at this court than
you
can possibly realise, my friend.”

Tostig held out his hand, and Saeweald took it, using his friend’s strength to pull himself out of the tub. Tostig stood watching Saeweald as the man dried himself. “Have you met my brother Harold yet?”

Saeweald shook his head. “He has been south in his estates for some weeks. No doubt I will make his acquaintance soon enough.”

“He needs to see this, too, Saeweald.” Tostig reached out once more and touched gently the markings on Saeweald’s chest. “I think he is going to be as good a friend to you as I am.”

A month after this incident, a month during which Edward became increasingly reliant on his young, brilliant physician, the king asked Saeweald to attend his wife.

Saeweald stood before Edward, who had retired from the Great Hall to hold his evening court within his private chambers. Here, above the hall, gathered a relatively small number of people: a few of the king’s closest attendants, three or four of the queen’s attending ladies, some of the servants, and, invariably, the abbot of Westminster, with perhaps one or two other guests. The atmosphere was much more informal than that of the court held within the Great Hall, but Saeweald nonetheless kept his head partly bowed and his face cleansed of anything but deferential respect.