38

Consumed with curiosity, I accompanied King Edgar into Kent, where Allwold had his lands. The king had summoned only his favourite huntsmen and companions. They rode good horses, and dogs milled and yelped around us, baying whenever something went crashing through the undergrowth. Dogs and men went out and rejoined us, all panting and red-tongued, cheerful and savage. Before we had ridden twenty miles, they had speared two wild pigs and heaved a small doe across a saddle-horn.

It was a light and breezy day, yet the king’s men wore cowled mail shirts that stretched right to their knees, with a padded jacket over all. Over that hood of iron rings, they wore simple helmets of polished steel. We resembled a war party more than a hunt on a fine day. I do not think that was by accident. Edgar was in the heart of Wessex, and though there could be brigands and thieves on any stretch of road, he could have gone lightly armed to Allwold’s home. Instead, his thirty men wore iron.

Poor Allwold had understood he was in real trouble. Racing home before us, he knew he had to tell the entire sorry tale to his new wife. Yet when the moment came, he merely paced up and down, growing more and more nervous. In the end, he waited until King Edgar’s dust could be seen on the road and the hunt was coming down his drive.

In a torrent of words, he told his new wife what he had done. He pointed to the dust rising and begged her to make herself plain. If she rubbed dirt into her cheeks, wrapped herself in old clothes, pissed on her skirts, anything, she might still save him from the king’s anger.

Audrey rushed away to the private rooms at the back, while in his yard, we all saw him come out, red-faced and breathing hard as he knelt to the king.

Edgar dismounted, leaping down easily, though he too wore mail. The wyvern of Wessex was gold on his surcoat, I remember.

‘Where is this new wife of yours, then? Show me this dear woman who caught your heart in her skirts.’

He spoke lightly, but there was no lightness in him, if you understand me. I dismounted outside, though I was the only one who did. The others waited as if they expected to be called upon to charge at any moment. There was no laughter or talk amongst them. Though they had known Allwold for years, their loyalty was all for Edgar.

The king refused when one of them offered to go in with him. He did not fear Allwold, or perhaps Edgar wished to test his courage, I don’t know. When a young man has never known the pride of a father, he will sometimes push on, to show himself he is not afraid. I think there was a touch of that. Edgar’s father had been murdered, but the son would still duck his head and enter a home without a flinch. Outside, we waited.

King Edgar accepted a cup of wine warmed on the hearth with herbs. He did not drink from it, so he said later. It was one thing to scorn attack, but he was not so trusting as to be made a fool.

The king asked to see this Audrey and then waited, ignoring every attempt Allwold made to draw him into talk. As one who stood outside in the silence, I can say it felt like an age to me. I stroked the nose of my horse, which was very pleasant to the touch. I wondered if anyone had ever made a bag or gloves from that part. I had seen a purse fashioned from a bull’s scrotum that was very useful, lacking seams as it did that might have let in water.

When Audrey appeared, curtsying to her royal guest, she had combed her hair into great lustrous locks. Her face shone, Edgar said later, though with youth or pride it was hard to say. She wore the best dress she owned, which was dark red and of some fine cloth. A gold pendant hung from her throat.

She was exquisitely beautiful, with fine teeth and neck, lips she had bitten red, and wide, dark eyes that seemed to find wonder in the young king.

Allwold sagged as he came in. I’m told she didn’t even look at the man who had married her. Her eyes and her blushes were only for Edgar. Oh, she’d understood what Allwold had done, all right. Her beauty was her rebuke.

Yet she was married – and that was where Edgar showed his bloodline, or so I believe.

He stood and bowed to her, taking a hand in his and kissing it.

‘My lady, your husband did not do you justice,’ Edgar said warmly. He turned a colder look on his friend.

‘Well, Allwold, I came to hunt. Come out with me now.’

The earl made no protest, as I heard it. He knew the end was upon him and he only nodded rather sadly to himself as he went out.

Outside, I was still there to see King Edgar come back to the sunlight, with a miserable-looking Allwold at his side. I began to make preparations to mount once again and King Edgar’s attention drifted over to me.

‘We’ll be riding rather hard and wild, Your Grace. Perhaps you should remain. If you would be so good as to instruct the servants to gralloch and prepare the meat we have brought, I will return before too long.’

That ‘perhaps’ from Edgar was an order from anyone else. In truth, I was relieved. I have never been a great rider and I was not then as young as I’d been at Brunanburh. My hands ached when I hammered with them and the knuckles seemed stiff in the winters. Age takes all, in the end. It is the same for everyone and I do not complain. In that, we are all equal.

When they were gone, I was left alone with a small pile of carcasses. I wrapped the reins around a post and knocked on the door. The house was much larger than my father’s had been, perhaps three times the size, with walls and even corridors within.

‘Hello?’ I called.

I saw her then, when she came. I almost flinched at her beauty, which I cannot explain. Some women are so fair of face that men will follow them and gaze upon them, drinking them in. She was one of those, and yet I was a priest and an abbot, an archbishop as well as a man. I had still not been restored as treasurer, though Edgar had appointed me bishop of London, which brought me great prestige in that city.

I will not describe Audrey as I might a prize heifer, with talk of lips and teeth and ears and clear skin that knew no pox. She listened, I will say that much. When Audrey wished to flatter a man, she listened as if the whole world could fall and she would not care, as long as he spoke. I saw her do that to Edgar, but also to me. With me, she took one look at my tonsure and my gold ring and decided I was one to encourage. I could almost see her make the calculation, so that I was not fooled or drawn in. While Allwold’s servants dragged the animals away to be skinned and disembowelled and jointed, I took a seat and we waited together for the hunt to return.

I look back now and realise I talked for a long time, as the sun certainly moved across the sky outside and the shadows lengthened. I told her of my childhood in Glastonbury and even how I had fallen from a cliff and broken a man under my weight. I made her gasp and laugh, and I could hardly believe the way old words tumbled out of me. I had almost to bite my tongue in the end, before I ruined myself. Such is the power of a beautiful woman’s attention on a man. Thank God they do not know, most of them. Audrey did, though. She knew exactly.

We heard the hunt long, long before we saw even the dust of them on the long road leading to that estate. The dogs barked in constant chorus, never ceasing while they ran. The men rode much faster than before, at least to my eye when I went outside. Believe me, it is a difficult thing to remain seated while the king and thirty horsemen come thundering up to your door, never mind that baying pack.

Edgar dismounted, looking grim. In turn, I looked for Allwold in the crowd, but I could not see him. I think I’d known, from his expression. The man had been resigned to his fate, almost at peace.

‘My lady,’ Edgar said. ‘I am very sorry. I’m afraid there was an accident. Your husband was killed in the deep woods.’

She did very well, I think, looking back. There were tears and a hand held to the mouth. There was a gasping prayer for his soul. They had left Allwold’s body at the boundary of his land, rather than bringing him to his door like a bad surprise. Audrey walked out to where her husband lay sprawled in the grass, his ribs all red on one side where a boar spear had pierced him.

I went with them, wondering whether I should remain quiet, or whether duty demanded I should speak out. A king was writing his own tale as I stood there, bending the arc of the world towards him. I chose to say nothing, in the end. I had not seen the events of the deep wood. Perhaps another man would have cried out against it, or condemned the king in front of them all. Edgar was my friend and I did not.

There had to be another period of mourning. Allwold’s body was interred in the family tomb and his weeping widow waited an entire month before accepting the king’s hand in marriage. Her beauty had played a part, of course, but it was not the whole of it. When I look back, it was her ruthlessness that made her fate. Women are soft-hearted creatures, most of them. How many would have heard Allwold’s plea and gone to make themselves plain? All but one in ten thousand, perhaps. She had given oaths at her marriage, and in that moment when he laid his foolishness before her, she had broken them all. For the fourth time in my life, a woman crossed my path. From Aphra and my Beatrice, to Queen Elgiva, to Queen Audrey, in the end they brought me only pain, only trouble. Audrey was the worst of them. Yet her fairness hid her from my sight.

I cannot understand why it should be so, but men link beauty and goodness together. An ugly woman is more likely to be called a witch, though it makes no sense at all. What form would evil take if there was any choice? It would be fair, and sweet and soft to the touch. It would not be withered fruit.

I conducted the marriage service in Winchester and sat near the king’s right hand at the great feast afterwards. I raised a cup in toast to the happy couple and they both smiled and were pleased. Perhaps I was a coward not to speak out, but as I say, I liked him.

It was not long before Edgar’s second queen was heavy with child. Audrey spent her days in the comfort of the royal estate at Winchester, waited on hand and foot and enjoying rather more status than she would have known as wife of Allwold. Still, even then I sometimes felt she was a strange bloom. There was no doubting her beauty. Her neck was long and slender, so that it always reminded me of a swan. The line of her jaw grew on me, somehow, so that over time it became more pleasurable to gaze upon her, rather than less. I do not know how that can be, as most things dim and jade through use.

When the gravid state was well advanced, I came to the palace to ask for a loan from the king – one I hoped he would simply grant as a gift, if I am honest – for the Irish marble I wanted to use at Canterbury. It had to be the first church in England, so the materials could not be poor stock. There was peace still, so ships sailed between us with trade goods rather than armed men, but the prices were extraordinary. As I explained to the king, a cathedral on that scale was the labour of eight or twelve years, but it would stand for a thousand, admired by all. It would impress all those foreign lords who visited the court. What price can be put on prestige of that nature?

Edgar was in his private rooms on that particular day. Even I would not sweep into those without some warning. I announced myself and waited for Edgar to be told I was there. As I stood in restful silence, reciting prayers to ease my mind, the door crashed open. A little boy came staggering through, almost falling, weeping and red-faced.

Before my eyes, I saw the queen erupt from the same doorway with a switch in her hand. Audrey was stronger than Prince Edward even in her state. I watched open-mouthed as she grabbed hold of the boy and beat wildly at him for a long time.

At last, he squirmed free and went away wailing down the corridor. Now, do not mistake me. Boys need to be beaten, or they grow snide and weak in spirit. Yet it must be done in stern reproof, not for enjoyment. It is not a pleasure to be savoured, but a reluctant duty to be endured!

I saw flushed triumph on her face as she looked after him, only turning to me when she felt my gaze. She was breathing hard and her dimensions reminded me rather of the apse I had designed at Canterbury. Lost for words, I almost said so and bit my lip.

‘He said I was not his mother,’ she told me.

She was still angry, but also bright-eyed and thrilled with herself. I felt a pang of dislike for her, despite her beauty. She seemed to me to be a plum too long on the branch, for all she had clearly been plucked.

‘He did not know his mother, the lady Fæltha, of course,’ I murmured. ‘I imagine he longs for some comfort he cannot name. All boys need discipline, my lady . . . but also kindness.’

I do not know why I said the last. The queen was preening at my agreement, but then I had to spoil it, so that a hard look came into her eye. Men did not correct her, I realised.

‘Are you here to see my husband, the king?’ she asked, as if I might have forgotten his title. ‘He is not here today.’

I stared, unsure what to say to that. I knew the guard had gone to ask Edgar if he might receive me. She raised her chin a fraction and I wondered if I wanted to make an enemy. The idea was quite intriguing, like ashes stirred for embers.

‘I believe I shall wait,’ I said.

She pursed her lips at me and glared, but I had not said she lied. I only looked peaceably at her, with one eyebrow raised in gentle question.

Without another word, she went back inside. A servant closed the door behind her and I was left with a single guard, a man very careful not to meet my eye. I was interested to see if the queen might let me win a small victory, or somehow interfere with his companion when he came back.

The other guard did not return, so I knew he had been stopped and sent somewhere else. What an interesting woman she was, to take such pains over something so small! I found myself humming an old tune as I walked away.

I left a written note to be passed to Edgar – rather than allow his wife to spin whatever tale she chose into his ear. Yet I was careful in the words I used. It does not do to come between a husband and his wife, still less a king and his queen. I only had to think of poor Allwold’s fate to know that.

When I had sealed my note and passed it to a steward I knew well, I went out into the open air. I had put aside the afternoon to spend with the king and I was free. It was pleasant to feel no other work looming for once. I exchanged a few light words with the guards on the gate and stepped out onto the street. There, I found the heir to the throne and royal prince leaning against the wall like any urchin of Winchester. Edward was perhaps six years old then, as blond as his father and, on this occasion, dirty with dust and the trails of tears.

‘Ah, Prince Edward, I was looking for you,’ I said, though it was not true. ‘I was worried you were lost somewhere. I don’t know what I would have done, what I would have said to your father if I’d lost you.’

‘He doesn’t care. All he cares about is her now.’

He didn’t need to explain. It was true to a degree. King Edgar had somewhat devoted himself to his new wife, though that is not uncommon, especially in young men. I could hardly explain that to the son of his first marriage, however.

‘King Edgar has . . . a lot of duties,’ I said, dropping into a crouch at his side. ‘His own father was king for just a short time and left a lot of work undone. Did you know that?’ The boy shook his head. ‘And his brother Edwy kept making bad choices, so he left a great deal undone as well. Your father feels the weight of all of that on his shoulders – as well as being a husband to a new wife whom he loves.’

‘He doesn’t love me,’ the boy said.

‘No. No, I won’t have that, Edward Aetheling! He adores you and he has said so to me, many times. I am his friend, Father Dunstan, and I do not lie. Is that understood? Why, I am the archbishop of Canterbury. I cannot lie!’

He sniffed and rubbed his face, taking some comfort from my words. I knocked on the door and ushered him in past the shocked stares of the guards there.

‘Take heart, sunshine,’ I called to him. ‘You are very young, but you know, one day, you will be king.’

I saw his smile return at that thought as the door closed once more.

She gave birth to a son, of course, calling him Edmund. He did not live beyond his first years and died of some pox rash before he could speak or walk. The queen took that rather badly, I thought, growing somehow harder, more a woman than a girl, though if anything, more beautiful. It was said of her that a troop of soldiers could not ride past where she stood without at least one of them falling or crashing into another. She made men fools to themselves, which is not such an achievement as it sounds, I sometimes think.

It was not long before Queen Audrey was great with child once more, this time blessed and washed with holy water on a daily basis to protect the child from disease. Her husband had been on the throne for ten years then and I sometimes felt like an old man, though my cathedral was not yet finished and had proved to be a task even greater than my abbey.

Even so, I was at the height of my strengths. It should not have been a surprise that King Edgar came to me to organise his coronation, at last. It seemed his wife wanted to see him crowned. She had plans for how it might go, with a grand ceremony and small kings from all over England, Wales and Scotland coming down to honour the high king and acknowledge him as their lord. He would be anointed by the Church, by me.

While his queen was confined to give birth, Edgar called me to his side. He had a slightly harried look, I remember, as all husbands have at such times. The crown I had made for him was in his hand and he was staring at it as I came into the petition hall in Winchester. I looked around and saw only a few guards at the doors, so that we were about as alone as it was possible for him to be.

‘I could crown you now, if you like,’ I said lightly.

He looked thoughtful.

‘I have never worn it, father. Not once.’

‘Truly? There is no law that says you may not, Your Highness. Not that I know. If you wish, I will place it on you today.’

‘As archbishop?’ he asked. His face was in shadow, his head bowed.

‘As a friend, if you wish,’ I said. I could not understand his reluctance.

‘You are kind, father. But I think I will wait. I have waited a long time.’

A king does not have to give up secrets. He cannot be made to speak by any man, or even any woman. In the bedroom or before the Witan, he can say: this is my concern alone – and all questions cease on that instant.

I’d wondered a thousand times why there had been no coronation. His brother had been crowned within weeks of becoming king, his father also. I’d wondered if it had something to do with those men, of course. I’d even asked the question, twice, over the years. Both times, Edgar had just pursed his lips and looked away, as if a shadow had fallen over him. I hadn’t tried to force an answer. A king will not be forced.

In that quiet hall, with Edgar dangling his crown from his fingers like a child’s hoop, I wondered if I might hear why we were so many years into a peaceful reign but had somehow avoided a coronation.

‘When I became king, it was in tragedy. My brother dead after just three years, his wife killed. I ruled half England, father. I had no desire to rule the rest as well.’

He looked up at me, but I know when to be silent. I heard him sigh.

‘You asked for their crown to be remade and I gave it to you, in part so that I did not have to put it on. I was not ready then. I was, what, sixteen? I would have had to pad the band just to wear it. My father’s crown, my brother’s crown. No. And if there was a perfect moment to be crowned, it went by. I was king! The realm was under threat and I spent years forming alliances, breaking faithless lords, taking heads and oaths to keep the great peace.’

He smiled suddenly and looked up at me from under his brows.

‘I had a gift for it.’

It was true and I felt a glimmer of tears come to my eyes as he spoke. What a strange creature, to have tears drawn from me with just a word and a smile! I rode to war, once. I made a harp that played itself. I did not expect strong emotion, just in echo of his old insecurity.

‘My first wife brought me pain – but gave me a son. I know, Dunstan, you have your bishops, your abbots – you are father to them all. You have done well, with all I gave to you. Yet I had a boy in the world – and I saw him grow, as once I did. And I thought, if I wear that crown, it will all end. If I wear that crown, I will die. It fixed in me, somehow, for years. I did not want to speak of it, even. I had so much to lose and it could have ruined me. So I was harsher with those who broke their word – and I drew iron on them, where once I would have laughed. I clung too hard to the crown, do you see? So that it hurt me.’

I could only blink at him. I heard the words and the revelation that it had been more important in his life than I had known – and that I had missed that deep current in him, seeing only the good king, the friend.

‘Why now?’ I asked softly.

He smiled, almost as a man will when he is in pain and cannot bear to move.

‘Because she asks me to. Because I told her I would, if she bore another son. Because I am king and I do not need a crown, but I will not be afraid.’

I reached out.

‘It would be my honour to crown you, Your Highness.’

‘It might not happen yet, father,’ he said with a grin. ‘I have prayed, but perhaps there’ll be no answer. Perhaps the child will die again, before we bring my lords to one place.’

I sensed great pain in him, more than I could understand. Children died all the time. He would have other sons, other daughters, other wives if he needed them. Yet I patted him on the arm and spoke to him, an older man offering comfort to a younger one. We are sinners, all, but we can be kind.