The Christmas Court Read online

  ‘He has not arrived yet, my lord,’ the alewife said, ‘but I heard tell a little time back that his messengers had gained the great hall so I’ll warrant they’re close. Pray God he makes Westminster before nightfall, for I hear he’s a man easily displeased.’

  ‘How could London ever displease him?’ Freya burst out and the alewife smiled.

  ‘Bless you, child, how indeed, but no doubt he is more used to grandeur than you or I. I hear he is building a palace at Caen bigger than any north of the great city of Kiev.’

  ‘Is he indeed?’ Freya stuttered, though the words made little sense to her; she had never heard of Caen and was not entirely sure that Kiev was real.

  Perhaps the woman had been tasting her own wares rather too assiduously? Earl Ralf, however, was nodding.

  ‘Duke William is a man who likes ceremony and, even more so, order. We should move on.’

  His men drained their cups and Freya looked into her own. Suddenly the apple pulp on the top turned her stomach; lamb’s wool, some called it and she could see why. Discreetly she tipped the dregs into a nearby bush and turned back to her pretty bay pony, a betrothal gift from Lord Osbern.

  ‘They’ll come over London Bridge,’ Earl Ralf told them, pointing up the huge grey stretch of river to the great wooden structure just visible on the horizon. Freya could just make out the silhouettes of houses crushed against each other along the curving sides, and fires burning in high brackets at either end to light the way through the gloom. ‘They’ll enter Westminster on the far side and we should be there before them. Ride on!’

  Freya glanced to her father as they hurried to do as instructed. Galan’s eyes were gleaming.

  ‘Sharp man, Earl Ralf,’ he said. ‘Norman, see, like Duke William. Know what they’re about, the lot of them.’

  Freya avoided answering for she did not want to be drawn into her father’s favourite topic. All the long road east, it seemed, he had chattered on to Earl Ralf and his retinue, many of them also Normans who had followed their lord to England with King Edward when he’d come to take his throne ten years ago. Galan was fascinated by their neighbours over the Narrow Sea and was ever keen to know more about their martial law, about fighting as cavalry and, above all, about their building techniques.

  Their first stop on the journey east from Leominster had been near Ludlow, at the castle of Richard FitzScrob, a friend of Ralf’s, and Freya had feared her father might stop his old heart with his enthusiasm for the structure. For herself, she couldn’t see the joy of it – a dark, forbidding place with high walls of grey stone that squatted in the pretty landscape as if some ancient giant had carelessly dropped it there. It had had precious few windows and those mere slits in the great walls. Freya had thought it an ugly thing without any of the soul of the English lordly compounds centred around a warm timber hall, doors open to the people. Normans, it seemed to her, liked to hide away from each other and where was the fun in that?

  ‘Make way!’ Her thoughts were interrupted by Earl Ralf’s strident call as they approached the crowd before the west gate of the royal compound. ‘The duke is coming. Make way!’

  Faces turned and, seeing Ralf’s big chestnut charger coming determinedly towards them, people fell instantly back, tripping over each other and tangling their carts in their attempts to clear his path. They looked up at him in awe and many even dropped to their knees.

  ‘I swear they think Earl Ralf is the duke,’ Freya whispered to Galan.

  ‘Let them,’ was his gleeful reply. ‘Ride on, Freya, my dear – we’ll be inside in no time. King Edward’s Yule court awaits us and we must relish it whilst we can.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  23 December 1051

  It was cramped inside the royal compound but Earl Ralf’s cheery face was well known and on the king’s orders a space had been saved for his pavilions under the nominal warmth of an oak tree, close to the great hall. The servants were soon erecting the waxed linen tents and Freya watched them, impressed at the speed of the operation. No compound, not even a royal one, had hall-space for everyone to sleep at festival times so pavilions were a part of life. Ralf’s men would sleep on pallets in the hall with the king’s personal guard but Ralf had a grand pavilion, Laurent and Alodie a smaller one, and Freya would share with her father and her brother in Lord Galan’s own tent, humbler than Ralf’s but still very respectable in dark green and cream stripes. Freya had slept in it a few times before when she’d attended the court in Gloucester but not since her mother had died two years ago and it was strange to see the master-bed go up for just her father.

  ‘This bed will be yours, Freya,’ Galan said now, seeing where her eyes fell. ‘I will gift it to you and Osbern on your wedding day for it is little use to me these days.’

  Freya tried to smile but her lips fought her.

  ‘There now,’ Galan said, giving her a hug. ‘I miss your mother too, my dear, every day, but life must go on.’

  Freya hugged him back, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing herself into his broad chest. Her betrothal had breathed life back into him after two dark years of grief and for that she truly thanked God but she could hardly bear to think of herself in that bed with Osbern.

  ‘He will die,’ Alodie had offered in another moment of incisive advice. ‘And then you will be free to choose whomsoever you wish.’

  Alodie was right of course. Osbern was forty-eight and, sadly prone to fevers, was unlikely to last more than another ten years, by which time she would still only be twenty-seven. She had a horrible feeling, though, that if he was all she knew she’d choose not to marry again. She’d been kissed once, last year, by one of the village boys in the soft dusk of May Day. He’d taken her by surprise when they were playing chase amongst the cherry trees, so much so that she’d not even thought to resist. Besides, it had been so sweet: his lips warm on hers, his hand firm in the small of her back, and his masculine smell – leather and grass with a musky undertow – wonderfully heady as he’d pulled her up against him.

  It had been over almost before it had begun and he’d ducked away, perhaps shocked at his own impudence, but it had set her body tingling for the rest of the night and it was that, more than Alodie’s raptures, that had convinced her the mystical union between men and women was something worth knowing. Kissing Osbern though . . . what if one of his teeth fell out? She shuddered and was thankful when Wilf leaped to her side.

  ‘Come on, Frey. You can hug Father any old time. Let’s get out and see the city before it’s totally dark.’

  Galan laughed.

  ‘This is London, Wilf,’ he said, ‘it never gets dark here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because the taverns will be lit up half the night and the street sellers will carry lanterns and the great hall will shine with so many rush lamps and candles that it will light up even the murky mass of the Thames until way after youngsters like you are abed.’

  Wilf drew himself up tall.

  ‘I’m no youngster, Father. I’m sixteen – a man now.’

  ‘You are, son, and I’m proud of you but remember, you may be old enough to drink the ale but not to hold it. Go steady, for if you get yourself into trouble you’ll stand as a man before the law.’

  Wilf grimaced.

  ‘Father! I’m not going to get into trouble. I just want to have some fun.’

  Galan patted his shoulder.

  ‘I know, lad. There’s not been enough of that since your mother went to the angels and I’m sorry for it.’

  ‘But we’re here now.’

  Wilf was jumping from one leg to the other and casting anxious glances to the pavilion flap.

  ‘We are,’ Galan agreed. ‘Let’s go out then.’

  With a sigh of relief, Wilf bounded for the entrance, Freya hot on his heels, and the pair of them almost collided with Alodie and Laurent, coming to call. Freya’s friend had changed out of her dark riding gown into a rich dress of blue wool and Freya felt ashamed of herself for not thi
nking to do the same.

  ‘I wasn’t going to change until dinner,’ Freya said, dismayed.

  ‘Me neither,’ Alodie agreed, ‘but Laurent didn’t seem to think my travelling gown should stay on.’

  Laurent coughed violently and Galan sailed politely past but Wilf was all ears.

  ‘Your tunic is very fine,’ Wilf said to Laurent.

  ‘I thank you.’ Laurent bowed and threw his arms wide to show off what was, indeed, a beautiful tunic in the same blue as his wife’s dress. ‘See the trim?’

  He indicated the fine white flowers sewn intricately around the sleeves and hem.

  ‘What are they?’ Wilf asked, fingering one.

  ‘Welsh roses,’ Alodie said, looking shy.

  ‘Did you sew them?’ Freya looked more closely as her friend blushingly admitted that she had. ‘That’s so clever. I would never have the patience to do such tiny stitches.’

  ‘What about for me?’ Wilf suggested hopefully but Freya shook her head.

  ‘Not even for you, sweet brother. We cannot dream up talent where there is none; you will have to find a girl of your own to do your needlework.’

  She grinned at Wilf who stuck his tongue out at her, but as Alodie linked her arm through Freya’s to cross the compound, they heard him eagerly asking Alodie’s Norman husband if there would be lots of girls at court.

  ‘Oh lots,’ she heard Laurent tell him, ‘especially for the son of a lord.’

  Freya rolled her eyes. Wilf worshipped Laurent and the young knight seemed recently to have taken him under his wing, saying he reminded him of his own brother back home in Normandy. Certainly they were of similar colouring and Freya had enjoyed watching them together when they were riding and sparring, for Galan no longer had the energy to keep pace with Wilf. Here in London, though, she wasn’t so sure Laurent would be a good influence. He was a terrible flirt. Alodie seemed to find it funny when he charmed the ladies but Freya wasn’t so sure.

  With the solidly English Godwinsons in exile and Robert of Jumièges installed as Archbishop of Canterbury, it wasn’t just Galan who was busily praising Normans. Whatever the private grumblings amongst the English, anyone from the other side of the Narrow Sea was being looked upon with reluctant favour by both the men and, more obviously, the women of the court and Laurent seemed disposed to take advantage of that goodwill. Still, he was pleasant company and if her friend was happy that was what counted. Freya squeezed Alodie’s arm and her friend drew her close as they stepped out towards the East Gate. Tomorrow there would be a grand market in this part of the compound and already some stalls were setting up and doing a brisk trade.

  ‘Keep your purse close,’ Alodie said, putting her spare hand over her own, dangling from her woven leather belt. ‘There’ll be villains abroad and I don’t want them stealing my pennies, especially as there are so many of them.’ She pulled Freya closer. ‘Laurent is very pleased with me.’

  ‘He is?’ Freya said mildly, not sure she wanted to hear why but when Alodie turned to face her, her friend’s eyes looked moist. ‘Allie? What is it?’

  Alodie swallowed, smiled.

  ‘I am with child, Frey.’

  ‘Truly?’ Freya stopped.

  ‘Truly. I have been three months now without my flux.’

  ‘That’s wonderful.’

  ‘Isn’t it? Oh Freya, I can’t wait for you to hurry up and have one too then we can be mothers together. Won’t that be joyous?’

  ‘It will,’ Freya agreed, meaning it, even if she’d rather not dwell on her marriage. ‘Are you well?’ she asked Alodie hurriedly.

  ‘Very well, yes. A bit tired but nothing more. Laurent says we must look for fabric at the market for the babe’s swaddling. He’s as proud as a lord.’

  ‘As he should be. I’m so . . .’

  Her words, however, were cut off by the strident blare of a bugle beyond the East Gate. The bustling crowd in the marketplace stilled, as if night had frozen them to the hard ground, and all eyes turned as the imperious clatter of horses’ hooves pounded across the wooden bridge beyond.

  The people nearby crushed back and between them Freya saw a huge horse canter into the courtyard, its coat shining as black as a country midnight and its eyes just as dark as they fixed on the Englishmen and women through the hood that covered its magnificent head and ran down beneath the gilt-edged saddle in a curtain of scarlet and gold. Astride it sat a man in a matching scarlet cloak and a chain-mail coat so tightly wrought and highly polished that he seemed, for a moment, as if he might be made of metal. His eyes were as dark as his stallion’s and they swept over the crowd just as coldly.

  ‘The bastard duke,’ Wilf breathed behind Freya and she felt the words like flames across her bare neck.

  ‘And Duchess Matilda,’ Alodie added as Freya tore her eyes away from the magnificent figure at the head of the party to the woman reining in at his side. Matilda’s horse was nearly as big as her husband’s but it was snow-white and clad in a ceremonial coat of elegant silver cloth. Even its hooves seemed to be coated in the precious metal for they glittered dazzlingly against the frosty ground. The duchess herself was tiny – a head shorter than William – and so slender that she looked as if a hard breeze might pull her right off her horse but she sat rigid with her elegant chin high and seemed somehow twice her true size. Her red-blonde hair lay in thick plaits either side of her white headdress and her pale skin was as smooth as a summertime pond.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ Freya gasped.

  ‘Do you think so?’ Alodie cocked her head on one side, considering. ‘She looks terrifying to me.’

  ‘Terrifyingly beautiful,’ Freya suggested and they moved a little closer to each other as, with a barely perceptible command, William walked his horse forward.

  In a hasty fanfare, King Edward stepped out of the great hall behind them, his crown on his head and his arms stretched wide to greet his guest. All eyes turned. Edward favoured a longer gown than most and today it almost touched the floor, making him look more clergyman than king. At his side stood the thin-faced Archbishop Robert. With Edward’s Godwinson wife Aldyth banished to Wilton Abbey, the new archbishop seemed to stand in her place, as proprietorial as any spouse, and it was he who stepped forward to hand the duke down from his horse. He knelt to kiss William’s hand but the duke raised him and they exchanged a few earnest sentences before William turned to the king.

  ‘Edward, Sire, cousin!’

  William’s voice echoed around the compound like the screech of sword against sword and Freya flinched instinctively away. As she did so, however, a serving boy darted from the great kitchen-hall, a stream of earthy reproach following him. He collided with Freya, sending her staggering as he ducked out into the parade of William’s approaching men. A horse, startled, reared up and Freya saw the sharp edges of its hooves above her head. Instinctively, she put up her hands to ward off the lethal blow. Someone screamed as the rider battled to control the creature. In the confusion, Freya felt a tug at her skirt but it only served to pull her feet from under her and she slipped helplessly on the frosty track before suddenly an arm whisked around her waist and she found herself hoisted into the safety of a saddle.

  Dazed, she blinked furiously and saw the rearing creature brought safely back under control to her left. She seemed to be sitting on the back of its neighbour, held there by a warm strong arm, and she hardly dared look back to see who had raised her to this public position. Duke William, thankfully, was speaking again, his harsh voice cutting through the commotion, and as the crowd looked his way once more she was able to risk a glance back at her saviour.

  ‘Count Heriot of Argences.’ The young man introduced himself in a soft voice and Freya found herself looking into a pair of eyes as golden brown as fresh honey.

  ‘Lady Freya,’ she stuttered, adding before she had time to think, ‘you saved me’.

  Count Heriot smiled modestly and Freya saw a dimple curve above his mouth.

  ‘I offered a little a
ssistance, no more. It is a pleasure to serve, my lady.’

  ‘The pleasure is all mine,’ Freya said and then realised how wanton that sounded and clapped a hand across her mouth.

  The movement sent her slipping a little on the soft leather saddle and Count Heriot’s arm tightened around her waist.

  ‘Take care. I would not look such a saviour if I dropped you now.’

  ‘No indeed,’ Freya agreed, ‘though my father might be glad of it.’

  She indicated Lord Galan, who was fidgeting below them.

  ‘Perhaps he thinks I am a base Norman who will abscond with his precious daughter? Fear not . . .’ Count Heriot added, though in truth Freya had not been fearful at all. ‘I shall set you down safely back into his care.’

  His arm, however, did not slacken from around her, nor did she attempt to pull free. She could feel his chest hard against her back and his leg taut beneath hers as he held her sideways in the saddle before him and she felt she would happily stay there all day.

  ‘Freya! Everyone is looking at you!’

  Galan’s cheeks were red and his eyes strained. Freya shook herself.

  ‘Thank you for your care, Count Heriot,’ she said formally.

  ‘It was my honour, Lady Freya.’ He rolled her name around his tongue, his soft Norman inflection making it sound somehow delicious. ‘I was not, I confess, happy to brave the Narrow Sea at midwinter but now I am much cheered. England seems a more hospitable place than I had hoped.’

  ‘And the Normans,’ Freya countered, ‘less dour than I had feared.’

  ‘Some of us,’ Heriot said with a quick look to his duke, then he leaned forward and lowered Freya gently to the ground. ‘Happy Christ’s Mass, my lady.’

  With that, Heriot was sucked into the duke’s entourage and gone. Freya stood there, her legs unsteady, her head beating like a war drum. She felt Galan’s hands on her shoulders, pulling her back into the safety of the crowd; heard his bumbling concern; saw Wilf’s glee and Alodie’s knowing look, but it all seemed far removed, as if seen through the fancy glass Earl Ralf had recently installed in his window-openings at Hereford.