Category: Historical Fiction Publisher: You Write On
ISBN-10: 1849234779
Type: Fiction
Pages: 469
Copyright: nov 2009
ISBN-13: 9781849234771
The Story of Eadgyth Aelfgarsdottir, queen to Gruffydd ap Llewellyn and Harold ii.
When her father falls foul of the king Eadgyth Aelfgarsdottir is sold into marriage with her father's former enemy and is plunged into the feuding, male dominated world of Anglo Saxon Britain. Queen to Gruffydd ap Llewellyn of Wales and Harold ii of England, her story is one of exile, conflict and courage. Her experiences encompass the years leading up to the Battle of Hastings.
Excerpt
CHESTER 1070
We watched him ride past today, the one they are calling The Conqueror. Eadgytha and I saw him pass through the city gate and, although he is just a man, I buried the faces of my young sons in my skirts to shield them from the sight. Thus concealed, they escaped the gaze of the squint-eyed king as he clattered by and did not see the splendour of his retinue throw a gaudy splash of colour across the sombre street. Around us the crowd stood silent in the rain and, although I am tall and feared that the hatred surging in my heart would knock him from his mount, he did not see me there.
The crowd dispersed slowly, muttering against the ravages of the Norman dog who, having laid waste to the south and north of England, now turned his attention to Chester, our place of refuge and the last Saxon stronghold. Many have been slaughtered and homes destroyed, leaving ruins to smoke beneath the sulky sky and the destitute to huddle in the darker places of the street.
A ragged old fellow snorted and spat greenly into the mud where the Norman king’s horse had trod, ‘God’s curse be on ye gutter shite.’ he cried in cracked tones, shaking his feeble fist in the air. I patted his arm in mute sympathy before we turned away.
‘Why are you trembling, Mother?’ asked Harold as we hurried back to our lodging, heads bent against the driving rain.
‘Your mother is chilled, that is all,’ replied Eadgytha, hastily taking the child’s hand. ‘We have stood too long in the rain, come, hurry along, Harold, make haste, Wulf.’
We climbed the steep castle hill, inhaling the acrid stench of smouldering fires newly quenched by sheeting rain.
*
Too close to the stronghold for comfort now it is in Norman hands we need to move on. Chester is no longer a safe refuge for any Saxon, let alone women such as we.
Indoors the fire has sunk low. Eadgytha stoops to feed it a few meagre sticks before warming a little goat milk for a nourishing drink. Then we sit, knee to knee, before the hearth while the twins play with swords fashioned from two sticks. Anwen bursts through the door accompanied by a flurry of wind and leaves. ‘My, ‘tis some cold out, my ladies. I’ve managed to find a few things for supper, ‘tis nothing to drool over but better than nought. I’ll get it going right away so we can dine and get ourselves early to our beds.’
She throws vegetables into a pot for broth while Eadgytha and I, chilled more by circumstance than weather, begin to discuss our options. There are few places of refuge left in all of England, the invasion having been thorough. No Saxons are content beneath the Norman rule yet most, eager to save their necks, collaborate, quelling their hatred to meekly bear the yoke.
A few have rebelled, some rally to the call of Hereward, known as the Wake, in his hiding place in the Fens. Perhaps we should join them there but it is a far off place, haunted by the dispossessed and the marshes are fraught with mischievous sprites; besides, neither of us knows the way and there is no man now to protect or guide us. We cower here in this dark place, two women alone. Our household is scattered and we are forced to look to ourselves. You may think it simple for women to live in obscurity, raising our children and scratching a living from the dirt but it is not so, not for women such as we.
Eadgytha’s sons are far away and her daughters are … well, we know not where. My family is scattered also; my older sons are across the dyke with their Welsh kin and my brothers are lost.
We make an odd pairing, Eadgytha and I, but we have only each other now. Of all the women in the land, we are the two that William of Normandy most desires to lay his hand upon. If captured, he will put out our eyes and cut off our noses. If we are lucky we may be shut away in a religious house but, if he lays hands upon my infant sons, he will show them no mercy but will kill them straight. There are none in this stricken land who flee King William more diligently than we, for Eadgytha the Gentle Swan was, for twenty years King Harold’s mistress.
I am named Eadgyth too and I was Harold’s queen and mother to the Ætheling, Harold Haroldsson, who tumbles in play even now with his brother upon the dusty floor.
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