The Betrothed Sister (10 page)

‘Spices, olive oil and silks.'

‘Do you trust this merchant?'

‘My father trusted him. He nearly gave his life at Senlac for our family. He forfeited his lands in Norfolk when he fought that day. If he fails me my house coerls will kill him. He will protect your letter and the reliquary. Warriors travel with him.' Godwin tucked Gytha's letter deep into his satchel. He glanced up. ‘Come, Edmund. We have a task to do for our grandmother.'

‘Grandmother, the reliquary will reach its destination,' Edmund said in a gentle tone. He stood, kissed her rough cheek and took his leave.

Thea complained ceaselessly. Although she was recovering, she felt despair not joy. ‘This red robe, I have no need of it now, Grandmother. It caused me to have terrible dreams.' She had not forgotten her dream of a blood-infused wedding gown and the prince who looked like a jackdaw and who smiled down on her with pity in his brown eyes.

Countess Gytha leaned over and propped her up with pillows. She gave her beer to drink. ‘Drink this. It will speed your recovery, Thea.'

Thea grimaced. The beer was laced with bitter herbs. She swallowed and spluttered, ‘It is foul.' Gytha handed her a napkin to wipe her mouth.

Her grandmother had told her that Godwin had agreed to marry Guttorm, one of the detested princesses. How could he? And she was to travel with the fourth princess, Gunnhild, to Søderup, wherever that was. At least Gunnhild was the youngest of them and, away from Ingegerd's influence, she might be almost tolerable. Padar and Gudrun were to travel with her too.

As she had lain ill, others had planned her life.

‘And when do you depart for St Omer, Grandmother? Will I ever see you again? Will you ever return to us?' She began to weep. Everyone she trusted except for Padar and Gudrun intended leaving her here with the Danes.

Gytha said gently, ‘You and I, my precious, have been together since the great battle. Now I must think of my future as well as yours. You will marry soon, if not the Prince of Kiev then another great prince. Your uncle promises to protect your future. He swore on his cross. When you marry, you will travel far into a distant land. I am too old for such travel. If Sweyn fails us, I shall return for you. I promise.'

Thea had to accept that. It was her wyrd, her fate, that she must make a great marriage. Since the ominous dream she was not so sure that she wanted Prince Vladimir after all. She wiped her tears away with her napkin. ‘When will you set out?'

Gytha took her in her arms and embraced her. ‘Soon, my sweet girl; not before you depart for Søderup.' She drew back and Thea saw concern in her grandmother's pale eyes and on her brow.
I must be brave for her sake.
‘I think you may be able to travel within two weeks,' Gytha said quietly. ‘Lady Margaret and I must sail for Flanders before December grips us with cold and storms. You will not be without your brothers for long. Godwin and Edmund will return in the spring.'

‘It will be a sorrowful winter-tide without you, Grandmother.'

‘You will be in my prayers and thoughts every day, little pearl.'

‘And you in mine, Grandmother, for ever.' Tears threatened again. She swallowed them back, and for the remainder of the afternoon they talked about how Padar would teach her more stories and songs, and of how he would watch over her as once he had watched over her mother, Elditha. The mother I lost, Thea thought, raising the linen cloth to dab at her eyes again, and now I am to lose my grandmother too.

8

Søderup, December 1068

At the beginning of December, on a frosty morning with spider webs clinging to hedgerows, Thea sailed from Roskilde. It took a whole two days to travel back in the direction she had come from a month earlier.

King Sweyn's manor was situated on an inlet north of Schleswig where there nestled a special harbour for the king's ships. After they disembarked they travelled through the bitterly cold countryside in a covered cart. Thea was swaddled in a fur cloak. Princess Gunnhild complained constantly that her father should have given her a fur mantle as well.

‘You don't even look ill,' she said nastily to Thea.

‘I wish I did not feel so tired all the time. You were fortunate to escape this pox.' Thea turned to Gudrun, ‘And you too, Gudrun.'

She archly turned away when Gunnhild, still muttering complaint, burrowed deeper into her cloak, a rich mantle which Thea noted was, in fact, warmly lined with sheep's wool.

The clip-clop of a horse drew up beside them. Padar peered in through the wagon's curtain. ‘Is all well here?' He glanced at the Danish princess, who scowled back at him.

‘Oh, has the milk curdled, Princess Gunnhild?'

‘No, it has frozen.'

‘We shall be there soon.'

‘Thank you,' Thea said. ‘I shall be glad to lie down.'

‘You will not have long to wait now, Lady Thea.'

A wide gate drew open. Through the parting in the curtain Thea saw a sprawling farmhouse with two storeys. A collection of snow-sprinkled wooden buildings was set in an orderly semi-circle about it. Trees stood around the farm yard, their branches shivering in the wind. Then she made out figures wrapped in heavy cloaks chopping wood, carrying pails and lifting straw with pitchforks from an open cart. Their wagon drew to a halt in the yard. Grooms ran forward to hold the horses steady as the girls dismounted. Two smiling figures appeared in the yard and a moment later, a broad-shouldered, heavily cloaked man stepped forward.

‘Good to see you, Princess Gunnhild.' He bowed graciously. ‘And you too, Theodora Gytha, welcome to Søderup. I am Jarl Niels. My wife, Lady Ingar, will make you comfortable while I see that these dolts of grooms do the same for the horses.' He waved for his wife to come forward and meet King Sweyn's cousin. Moments later, after friendly greetings were given and received, Lady Ingar ordered servants to carry the girls' belongings to their chambers. She ushered the three girls into the hall where flames danced brightly in a central hearth. Servants took their mantles, hung these on pegs close to the entrance, and Lady Ingar settled them by the fire and sent for possets and cakes.

‘When the king comes here he throws himself into the life of his farm,' Jarl Niels said and looked over at Princess Gunnhild who sat closest to the hall fire, clutching a cup of hot milk laced with honey. ‘Is this not so, Gunnhild?'

‘I suppose so.'

Lady Ingar, her warm brown eyes glowing below her wimpled brow said, ‘Now, Gunnhild, no sulking. Here we all work for our bread. Last time you were here you enjoyed learning to make cheese.'

Jarl Niels nodded at Thea. ‘The king wants life to be ordinary here. His message insists that I am to address you as Thea. You will observe that Princess Gunnhild is referred to here as Gunnhild.' The steward of Søderup continued, ‘I am Jarl Niels. You will use my name in full when you address me, Theodora Godwinsdatter. My wife is Lady Ingar. Remember that. My daughters,' he broke off to wave a hand at two neat, plain-faced women in their twenties who were dropping spindles across the hearth. ‘Now, Thea, look at how modest my daughters are and how busy their hands remain. They are Elizabeth and Mary – called so for the holy family. Their husbands – well, you will learn their names in time.'

‘Yes, Jarl Niels,' Thea said, too tired to think. ‘If I may, I must lie down.'

‘Nonsense, no one lies down before supper is served.'

‘Jarl Niels,' Lady Ingar began, ‘I think tonight is an exception. Thea's maid can bring her soup up to her. She has been ill. I do not wish to be responsible if she relapses.'

Jarl Niels softened. ‘Well, well, if you insist, dear wife. You know best. Take her to her chamber.'

‘Thank you, Jarl Niels,' Thea said as she set her milky drink aside and thankfully rose to her feet. ‘Come with me, Gudrun.' She was thankful when she found out that she was to have her own bedchamber that was reached by an outside staircase.

Thea stood in the middle of her new chamber. The rafters reached down towards the floor from a high point in the roof and the floorboards were scrubbed. The room was plain but it would do, and she did not have to share it with Gunnhild. Its walls were lime-washed but undecorated except for a carved Christ with enormous eyes hanging from a wooden cross. At the bottom of this cross, instead of a weeping Madonna, a snake-like creature was carved into the wood. It had one foreleg. She recoiled from it. It was hideous. If she could, she would ask for a replacement. Surely that cross was not Christian? She told Gudrun to take it down and hide it under the bed. She could not bear to look at that every day. Instead she hung a little ivory cross that had belonged to her mother in its place.

For a week Thea kept to her room, sending excuses down the stairway daily, until Lady Ingar came to her one morning, whipped the padded cover from her bed and tossed her a work gown of rough wool. ‘Today, you must join the other women who are spinning in the hall. In the afternoon you will work in the dairy making cheese. Everyone here is expected to work. If you do not work you will not eat.' Lady Ingar seized Gudrun's arm. ‘You too, my girl, enough tripping up and down the stairway with bread and honey and titbits from the kitchen. You will assist Lady Thea in every one of the tasks we give her.' She turned back to Thea. ‘You will eat with the rest of us today in the hall below.' She looked at the tiny ivory cross on the wall and arched one of her eyebrows. ‘Where is it?'

‘Under the bed, Lady Ingar. The snake is a frightening, pagan image,' Thea said, shuddering. ‘I could not sleep with that snake at the cross's foot ready to reach out and snap at me.'

‘Nonsense, it is the way our craftsmen work and it is a warning to sinners. Nonetheless, if it disturbs you I shall have it removed from under your bed.'

‘If you would, my lady, I thank you,' Thea said, reaching for the work gown.

Gudrun was visibly shaking with fear as Lady Ingar stomped down the stairway in her great boots. These, Thea remarked, looked more suitable for a man than a woman. Climbing down from the high bed, she said, ‘We have no choice. We have to join the other women. I hope they are kinder than the princesses were.' She sniffed the gown. ‘At least it is clean. Come on, Gudrun, help me,' she said and they pulled the itchy gown over her shift.

Thea decided not to hurry. She drained her cup of buttermilk and ate her bread roll. Concealing her hair under a linen coif she was dressed as simply as a peasant who had always worked on a farm. Over the past few days she had been thinking about Prince Vladimir again, as the terrible memory of her fever-inspired blood-red wedding had faded. Instead, when she dreamed of her wedding, she wore a pale blue overgown of samite silk and blue slippers of the softest leather. She was as pure as the Virgin, a perfect beauty with her pale skin and golden-red hair, her veil as delicate and transparent as a skeleton leaf. What would her prince think of her today? She shook her head. Ready to face whatever Lady Ingar demanded of her with stoicism, she descended the staircase into the icy cold of the yard.

She had had no idea of the bitter December cold that had gripped the outside world in the week she had lain in her warm bed, missing her grandmother or thinking about the Prince of Kiev. ‘This cold is biting,' she complained, hugging her arms about her body.

‘It is no worse than during the siege we suffered in Exeter, my lady. That was a hard winter too,' Gudrun said as she trailed after Thea into the hall.

‘It was, I shall never forget it, nor do I want to suffer it again, ever.'

Thea wrinkled her nose on entering the hall. The smell of damp wool mingled with the unwashed smell of many busy bodies. The women stopped working and looked up at her.

‘Sit here,' Lady Ingar said, moving over on a bench close to the hearth. ‘Here, take this and this.' She handed Thea a spindle whorl and a handful of soft, oily wool from a basket. ‘Gudrun, you will help your mistress.' Lady Ingar glared around at the others, who included Princess Gunnhild, and signalled to them to continue working.

Thea lifted the spindle and wool and began the work of teasing wool into thread. As she finished one lot Gudrun handed her more wool to spin. She was glad that she had done this task before in Grandmother Gytha's hall. Soon the knack of dropping her spindle returned to her and she noted the admiration and surprise in the eyes of Princess Gunnhild as she swiftly produced woollen threads that Gudrun nimbly wound into skeins.

There were no unkind comments or snide looks on the women's faces. They concentrated on their task and as they worked they conversed. Soon a sense of togetherness developed between them as they asked Thea about England and said how they were all welcome here at Søderup. Princess Gunnhild, away from her sisters' influence, smiled at the conversation as she worked, although she was not as nimble-fingered as they were and often broke threads.

As the dinner hour approached and candles were lit the morning's work was cleared away into huge baskets. Servants pulled out trestles and laid them with food. The men came into the hall and soon the hall was full of people. Servants bustled around setting out bowls of the steaming meat stew that had bubbled all morning in a cauldron over the central raised hearth. They brought in freshly baked bread from the outside kitchen and cheese from the Søderup dairy. Thea discovered that she was very, very hungry.

It was at that dinner time that Thea noticed how Padar smiled across from the men's trestle at Gudrun. She observed too how Gudrun's eyes seemed to light up like glowing stars when he looked her way. Gudrun had turned fifteen on the day they had arrived in Søderup but she had been too tired and miserable to mark her name day. She must make her handmaiden a belated gift, perhaps a belt purse, if there was felt to be had at Søderup. And, she mused as Padar's twinkling eyes looked across the hall towards them, Gudrun was old enough to admire and be admired. She must speak to the girl, find out what had been going on while she had lain in bed thinking of her grandmother and her brothers; worrying about her brothers' long sea journey back to Dublinia so late in the year; missing Grandmother Gytha whom she loved with all her heart, dreaming her own dreams of longing and love. She bit her tongue to stop the tears welling up as she thought of her grandmother now. This was life and she must just get on with it. Swallowing back her longing, she bent her head over her bowl and scooped up another spoonful of stew.