1066 Turned Upside Down Read online

  1066 Turned Upside Down

  Alternative fiction stories by:

  Joanna Courtney, Helen Hollick, Anna Belfrage, Richard Dee, G.K. Holloway, Carol McGrath, Alison Morton, Eliza Redgold And Annie Whitehead

  With a foreword by C.C. Humphreys.

  Includes discussion suggestions for schools and reading groups.

  1066 Turned Upside Down

  Copyright © 2016 Joanna Courtney, Helen Hollick, Anna Belfrage, Richard Dee, G.K. Holloway, Carol McGrath, Alison Morton, Eliza Redgold, Annie Whitehead

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Matador®

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  ISBN 9781785897283

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  Cover and graphics designed by Cathy Helms, www.avalongraphics.org

  Original stock image ©wjarek – Fotolia

  To our ancestors, Saxon, Norman and Viking alike. And to what might have been….

  Contents

  FOREWORD

  INTRODUCTION

  JANUARY 1066

  TO CROWN A KING

  HELEN HOLLICK

  FEBRUARY 1066

  A MATTER OF TRUST

  ANNIE WHITEHEAD

  MARCH 1066

  EMPEROR OF THE NORTH

  JOANNA COURTNEY

  APRIL 1066

  THE DRAGON-TAILED STAR

  CAROL MCGRATH

  MAY / JUNE 1066

  IF YOU CHANGED ONE THING

  RICHARD DEE

  JULY 1066

  A ROMAN INTERVENES

  ALISON MORTON

  AUGUST 1066

  IN THE WAKE OF THE DOLPHIN

  HELEN HOLLICK

  SEPTEMBER 1066

  THE DANISH CRUTCH

  ANNA BELFRAGE

  OCTOBER 1066

  HOLD ENGLAND FIRM

  JOANNA COURTNEY

  NOVEMBER 1066

  THE BATTLE OF LONDON BRIDGE

  G.K. HOLLOWAY

  DECEMBER 1066

  THE NEEDLE CAN MEND

  ELIZA REDGOLD

  ENDWORD

  HELEN HOLLICK

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  ANNA BELFRAGE

  JOANNA COURTNEY

  RICHARD DEE

  HELEN HOLLICK

  G.K. HOLLOWAY

  CAROL McGRATH

  ALISON MORTON

  ELIZA REDGOLD

  ANNIE WHITEHEAD

  C.C. HUMPHREYS

  FOREWORD

  C.C. HUMPHREYS

  ‘Here lies our leader, in the dust of his greatness.

  Who leaves him now, be damned for ever.’

  It was the first time I cried while reading. The book: ‘Hounds of the King’ by that near-forgotten wizard of the craft, Henry Treece. Beornoth, the boy favoured by Harold Godwinson, arrives late and sick on that dread October day, to hear the Huscarles’ death chant. Their leader, the last English King, is dying. They are going to die with him. And Beornoth, his own tears streaming, knows where he has to be and runs through the Norman ranks to join them.

  I was perhaps nine when I wept thus. Yet when I look at the book now, the copy I found in some second hand store – Harold on the cover with his bandaged eye, under his Fighting Man banner, the last of his weary men turning to face the final Norman assault – I tear up again.

  I have revisited that scene often. In my own writing, it is always sacrifice that gets to me – for a prince, a country, a lover. A cause. In my novel ‘Possession’, (part of ‘The Runestone Saga’), I finally tackled the battle itself. Oh, the urge to rewrite the history! To make Harold triumph. How I longed to do it – but couldn’t. For me it is still the greatest ‘what if?’, giving rise to lots of subsidiary ones. What if the Northern earls had smashed Hardrada at the first of the three battles that year, Fulford, sparing Harold Stamford Bridge? What if the Northerners had arrived in time for the third, at Hastings? What if Harold had rested a week? Brought more archers? Taught the fyrd not to fall for false retreats? Kept his shield raised to the sunset sky and its steel-tipped rain?

  All these possibilities, and many more, are explored in the book you hold now. Because you, dear reader, have a treasure here – an ebook that imagines, in eclectic and wonderful stories, a very different 1066. These writers have taken ‘the facts’ (and all historical fiction writers are very chary of so-called facts!) and used them in diverse ingenious ways. I won’t detract from their magnificent achievements with spoilers. But if, like me, you yearn for a better outcome to that pivotal year, you will be endlessly intrigued and satisfied here. For there are military solutions, assassinations, the intervention of God (or Gods!), the enterprise of strong women. There is an alternative history of the world where the pagan sits alongside the Christian. Where a story is rewritten – in thread! There is, of course, a time machine – for which of us historical fiction nuts, readers or writers, hasn’t longed for one of them? To go back and observe – or maybe, just maybe, alter something? One little thing, so that Harold wins at Senlac and the whole world shifts.

  I admit. I am biased – and more than a touch confused. I am half-Norwegian so part of me stands in Hardrada’s shield wall. My surname is Norman – for Baron Homfrey came with William and was given lands in South Wales as a reward, hence the plentitude of Humphreys (and Humphries) there. But I am not a Welsh Homfrey – I am English. That’s why I cry when Beornoth runs to die beside his king. That’s why the hairs still rise on my arm every time the army shouts down the hill: ‘Ut! Ut!’ – ‘Get out of my country!’

  These stories deal with the ‘what if?’ of the year. What I hope to see next from this talented group is another collection dealing more fully with the results of that change. Would England, as Joanna Courtney wonders, have been part of an Empire of the North? Would we have expanded West, rather than being sucked into Europe’s endless quarrels? Cecilia Holland once speculated that the Northerners would have moved easily, along the established Viking routes, into North America. First fighting against, then allying with, that other great warrior race (who also fascinate me) the Iroquois. What kind of world might that have been?

  Alas, (perhaps!) we’ll never know – but it’s wonderful to try and imagine it. What you hold now is a great launch pad for further speculations. Revel here in these distinct voices; in what might have been. Then imagine for a moment, like me, that when Beornot
h reaches his fallen king, that Harold is not fallen at all. It’s a ruse, he is hoisting high the Fighting Man banner, signalling the counter attack that finishes the Normans and kills William the Bastard. That’s a place, and a time, I’d like to be – and you can be, in the worlds and the words that follow.

  C. C. Humphreys

  Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada.

  C.C. Humphreys is the award winning author of ten adult historical novels and five fantasy novels for Young Adults. His latest is FIRE, a thriller set in the Great Fire of London 1666.

  Website www.cchumphryes.com

  INTRODUCTION

  Writers of historical fiction are, inevitably, a little bit geeky and when it comes to a year like 1066 we love nothing more than a good ‘what if’ conversation. Having steeped ourselves in research for our fiction, we are all more than aware of the key turning points in this momentous year and, indeed, have used them to dramatic effect in our own tales of what really happened. But what could be more fun than exploring what nearly happened instead?

  One of the joys (and the frustrations) of the pre-1066 period is how little we truly know about it. Records are scant, most architecture is long gone, and although archaeology can still sometimes turn up a wonderful new treasure-trove of possible information, we have to accept that there are some things we will never know about the political twists and turns of the events leading up to the Battle of Hastings. But that does not stop us speculating endlessly about it.

  In this respect, fiction is a gift as it lets us take all the facts we have and fill in the gaps to turn them into a credible narrative. This is the closest we can currently get to time-travel (although Richard Dee’s story might have you believing differently…) but we all have slightly different opinions on the hows and whys of events and hopefully readers can appreciate and enjoy those disparities.

  Within this collection, therefore, you will find some variations in terms, names, and even timelines. We do not, for example, know for sure when Harold married Edyth of Mercia, so in one story you will find that significant event in 1066, and in another in 1065. Similarly, although we know that William lost some ships while moving up the coast to St Valery sometime in late August, we do not know if this was in storms or in a suppressed sea-battle with Harold – and those ships are the subject of speculation in more than one of these stories.

  Names are another area where you will find differences. There were, for example, several Ediths – Edward’s queen, Harold’s handfast wife, and his ‘Roman wife’ – and they are variously referred to as Edith, Edyth, Aldytha, Svana and even Richenda. We considered standardising such names but decided that these variations are part of the colour and fun of our little-known period of history, and represent each author’s personal preference, so we let them stand.

  After all, this is a collection of ‘alternative history’ stories where what we know, what we have imagined, and what we have shamelessly and joyously invented all meld.

  We very much hope you enjoy the result.

  Joanna Courtney

  JANUARY

  1066

  On January 5th, after an illness – most likely one or more strokes – that had gripped him throughout the Christmas period, King Edward of England died. On his deathbed he was reported to have commended Harold of Wessex to the throne and certainly the Witan (high council) elected Harold to the role. He was crowned King the next day, January 6th, immediately after Edward’s funeral.

  England was content to be ruled by the man who had been named for the last few years as ‘sub-regulus’ (underking) and who had long controlled England’s military defence. But in Normandy Duke William reacted with fury as he believed he had been promised England way back in 1051. Meanwhile over in Norway, Harald Hardrada, who had a tenuous claim from an old promise, started considering his options.

  A tumultuous year was beginning for England….

  TO CROWN A KING

  HELEN HOLLICK

  Based on chapters taken from Harold the King (UK title) / I Am the Chosen King (US title)

  King Edward, later known as ‘The Confessor’ died on 5th January 1066, just days after his Abbey of Westminster was dedicated to God. Within hours, his Earl of Wessex, Harold Godwinson, was crowned King of England – in unseemly haste, the Normans later claimed. Not so, Edward’s earls and nobles had been at the Christmas Court for many weeks and wanted to return to their lands, the next opportunity for a crowning would not have been until Easter. The ‘haste’ was perfectly normal for English law and custom.

  The Normans also claimed that the childless Edward sent Harold to Normandy in the 1060s to offer the crown to William. This would have been highly unlikely: the English earls would not have sanctioned it and it was for the Witan, the Council, to elect a king – usually the eldest son, but it could be the man most worthy to do the job. And there was already a legitimate heir, Edgar, the young grandson of Edward’s half-brother, Edmund Ironside. In 1066, Edgar was only about thirteen years of age…

  Westminster, London – January 1066

  The fifth day of January. For the first occasion in many a week the sky had cleared and brightened from the misery of rain, turning into the vivid blue of a clear winter sky. There had been a nip of frost in the air during the day, but as the sun had set, burning like liquid gold over the Thames marshes, the temperature had dropped to below freezing. Come morning, there would be a white crust riming the edge of the river and the palace courtyard would be a film of treacherous ice, cracking and snapping beneath booted feet.

  Throughout the short hours of daylight King Edward’s breath had rattled in his chest, incoherent words flowing from his blue-tinged lips. His eyes fluttered open an hour before midnight, but they were dull within sunken hollows, and he did not seem to recognise any of the men gathered with grave solemnity around the bed. His wife, Edith, knelt at his feet persisting in her attempt to rub warmth into his lower limbs. Quiet tears drizzled down her pale cheeks.

  ‘My lord?’ Archbishop Stigand bent over him, not seeming to notice the fetid breath. ‘You must make confession.’

  Edward stared back; an empty soul fading away behind empty eyes. When he spoke his feeble voice whispered from dry lips; ‘Is my abbey complete?’ he asked, his bone-thin fingers reaching out to pluck at the archbishop’s woollen cloak.

  Harold, Earl of Wessex, standing on the opposite side of the bed took Edward’s left hand, raised it to his lips and kissed the royal ring that swivelled there, loose and over-large. ‘Aye, my sweet lord, it is. We held the service of dedication yester-eve. Your Abbey of Westminster is consecrated.’

  Edward nodded, a weak smile playing at one corner of his mouth. ‘That is good,’ he said, repeated, ‘that is good.’

  He closed his eyes again, lay there silent save for the shallow, rattling, breath. Then his eyes snapped open again, a brightness burning within them that had not been there before. ‘I am for God,’ he declared. ‘I have no fear of meeting Him, I look forward to sitting at His feet. Bury me within my mausoleum, now it is made ready for my coming.’

  Stigand nodded. ‘There is no need to fear death, for you have served God well, and you go to an everlasting life from this transitory one.’

  ‘The succession,’ Edith hissed, rising to her feet and grasping the archbishop’s arm, her fingers pinching through his vestments. ‘Quick man! While he is lucid, ask him of my brother Tostig’s forgiveness and the succession!’

  Harold, her eldest brother, remained silent. Had to admit to himself that his spoiled and selfish only sister was at least resolute, even if she held no other redeeming features. She was the childless Queen of England, and had never made secret her favouritism of their younger brother, Tostig. Not even when he had almost caused civil war in the North, had insulted King Edward to his face, and then fled abroad in disgrace. Not even all that had convinced Edith that Tostig, exiled Earl of Northumbria, could ne
ver, would never, be named as king after Edward no longer had need of his crown.

  Either Stigand deliberately misunderstood her, or had no intention of mentioning Tostig’s exile, a subject that would inevitably upset Edward. The archbishop stroked the back of the monarch’s hand, said, ‘We are here, my lord, we are at your side.’

  From across the bed Edith glowered at Harold, furious that he had not demanded Edward reinstate their brother as earl, or gone into exile with him. Too wrapped in her own fear and disappointment to recognise the truth, she had refused to listen to Harold’s insistence that Tostig’s ineptitude had been the reason for the upset.

  ‘No, no! Remind him of Tostig!’ Edith hissed, brushing Stigand aside and taking her husband’s hand earnestly within her own.

  Irritated, Stigand indicated that Harold should say something.

  To Harold, the eldest living son of the Earldom of Wessex, the commander of the English armies, and the most powerful man beneath the king, it did not seem possible that Edward was dying, that so much was going to change from this day forward. As a king Edward had fallen short of expectation, was almost as useless as Æthelred the ‘Unraed’, his father before him, yet unlike his father, the people loved Edward. His unstinting care and concern for the well-being of the common folk was commendable, as was his dedication and unwavering love for God. Not for the first time did Harold think that the man should have become a monk. As an abbot he would have been without fault – even down to his lack of duty in siring a child. To the best of Harold’s knowledge Edith remained as innocent of a man as she had been on her wedding day. Edward himself had once, in a moment of drink-filled weakness, revealed that he had not managed to perform, that the both of them had remained virgin-pure throughout the many years of their marriage. The fault had been his, not Edith’s – that too, he had acknowledged. The mystery remained, in Harold’s mind, whether that fault was because of piety, natural impotence, or a secretive preference for intimacy with men.