Coventry
Godiva had never actively participated in a Land Ceremony, but for the past few years, she had been Bishop Lyfing’s guest to observe the custom in the estates outside the burgh gates of Worcester. She supposed the peasants did it every year, but when the growing season was bad—as had been the case, alarmingly, for years upon years now—the farmers believed that a person of high status, and especially a churchman, added gravity and power to the ritual.
The night of the Equinox, she wore layers of wool to bed, and told Merewyn to expect the steward in the dead of night. She found she could not sleep, and was already awake and dressed in every green-dyed garment she had with her in Coventry when the steward arrived. She chose green for fertility. Silk undertunic and green hose, woolen tunic girdled with a green-beaded belt and lots of gold embroidery, then an overtunic of green leather; then a cloth-of-gold veil to add a touch of majesty. She wished she had a mirror-glass. She felt bulky under all those layers but hoped she looked at least a little elegant for the farmers.
When the summons came, Leofric almost stayed asleep, but her excitement finally roused him. He pulled his heaviest woolen tunic over his shirt, belted it, put a looser leather tunic over that, and then took the waiting cloak from the sleepy-eyed chamberlain. A lantern and a rush light together lit their way into the hall, out of the hall, through the courtyard to the gate, where they were met by Avery and the dozen or so farmers they had seen before. There was much bowing and expressions of gratitude, which Leofric waved away gruffly.
They walked all together in the darkness. The day had been sunny, then clouds had rolled in from the west in time to trap the solar gain, so it was not as frigid as Godiva had feared. They reached the market square, and then, turning off one of the paths, they traveled around behind the monastery to Coffa’s Tree. It made sense, thought Godiva, that they would gather here.
The farmers, with their wives and children and aging parents, had spent all night, and likely the day before, in preparation for this moment. A trestle table had been set out under the tree, dim-lit with lanterns. A plough waited beside the table, harnessed to a sleepy-looking ox. As if an elaborate dinner feast were to be assembled, the table was lined with neat, small piles of fist-size objects, each of which Avery showed her, to demonstrate how ably they had prepared.
“Here is the earth,” he said, pointing to four small pieces of sod. These had come, she knew, from the four corners of the farmland that was about to be blessed. Beside the turf were four jugs—“holy water, honey, oil, and all the milks,” recited Avery. “All the milks” meant milk from each kind of livestock, or at least the sheep and cow. She wondered if one could milk a sow, and then decided it was too early in the morning to worry about it.
Avery now walked her down the table, showing her chunks taken out of different trees, to represent each kind of tree but oak, which was exempt; the aspen, unlike the ash, birch, hawthorn, and other shards of wood, was neatly cut and fastened to make a cross. Next along the table was the most unruly pile, a heap of stems of every known plant on the property to be blessed, from what was grown to what was gathered. These included wilting daffodils, primroses, celandines, violets, and hazel flowers.
“It is well done,” she said, sensing his desire to please her. He smiled with satisfaction, and led her back to the head of the table.
Four weary girls each picked up one piece of turf and turned it upside down in their hands. Avery was about to coax Godiva, but she politely brushed him away, remembering this part of the ceremony from when Lyfing had led it.
She took the smallest jug, which held the holy water, and put her hand into it. As Avery held the lantern close, and all the farmers and their families craned to see, Godiva carefully dripped three drops of holy water on each piece of turf, and over each piece she recited, “Grow and multiply, and make the earth replete with harvest. Pater Nostrum . . .” The congregation joined her for the rest of the prayer.
That was her first role in the ritual, and she felt a thrill, even for that small gesture. The farmers and their wives gathered into aprons and sacks all of the flora on the table, as a few of the men carefully picked up the jugs of milk, honey, and oil, and led by the girls holding the pieces of sod, the entire group moved toward the stone walls of the monastery, where a waiting monk silently let them in through the narrow post-door. Inside the compound, they herded themselves into the church.
At this point, Bishop Lyfing would typically have taken on his more conventional priestly role to sing four masses over the turf (still upside down, so that the damp muck would not spoil the altar). With the local mass-priest performing this, Godiva struggled to stay awake in the chill dark. Finally the priest—whose name she ought to know, and did, when she was more alert—placed a token of the four saints upon the arms of the aspen cross. He picked up the sod, and lay each piece upon an arm of this cross. The congregation stirred themselves again and all of a voice they chanted “Crescite” over and over, before segueing again to the Pater Nostrum.
And now again Godiva had a role to play. This one she did not know well enough, and Avery stepped up to her, kissed her hand with his dry lips, gestured her to face east, and held up a piece of battered vellum and a lantern with enough light for her to read the charm:
“I stand facing eastward, for I’ve favors to beg,” she began, chanting in a monotone as she remembered Lyfing chanting. Her chest resonated with the depth of her tone, but her voice was nothing near as sonorous as his. She wished she sounded more like Edgiva, at least. “I ask the great and glorious Lord, I ask heaven’s holy guardians, I ask the earth below and the heaven above, and the holy, righteous Mother Mary, and the hallowed halls of Valhalla, that I might be worthy, by God’s grace, of fulfilling this charm, and cause the crops to start growing. With my faith, may I make the surface of the earth beautiful with bounty.”
At a gesture from Avery, she turned around her own right shoulder in a circle three times, and then lay herself upon the cold stone before the altar with her arms outstretched so that her body formed a cross. At this point, the priest began to recite in Latin—which meant nothing to any of the congregants—the Litany and then the Sanctus, then the Benedicite and the Magnificat, and by now her body was shivering from the cold radiating from the stones, even through the silk and wool and leather, and despite her best intentions, she was less concerned about the harvest than about sensation returning to the tip of her nose.
Finally she heard the congregation begin to recite, yet again, the Pater Nostrum, and gratefully she joined her voice with theirs. She wondered if Edgiva participated in such a ritual at Leominster, or if it fell only to the priests and monks.
Leofric, involving himself for the first time, helped her to her feet and wrapped his own cloak round her; hers was chilled through and he could see the misery on her face. He gave her a paternal smile of approval as the priest commended the pieces of sod to Christ and the holy virgin and the holy rood, and to the honor and benefit of Earl Leofric and his subjects.
Then the priest and the people and the earl and his lady moved all together back out to Coffa’s Tree, where it was much colder than it had been hours earlier. By now it was dawn and turning very quickly into full morning.
Avery gently gestured for Godiva to stand behind the plough and take the reins, and again he held up a battered piece of parchment; there was enough light from impending sunrise that she could read this.
“Earth-Mother, may the Almighty Eternal Lord grant you thriving, growing fields, that increase and strengthen, with tall stems and good crops, the broad barley and the wheat. May God Eternal and all his saints in heaven grant that the crops of this land be protected from all our foes, from all the ills of the world, from drought, from sorcery. May God who created this world assure that there be no man nor woman so skilled of tongue that they are able to undo this spell I set.”
Avery smacked the ox on the rump and clicked his tongue at it; the animal began to pull the plough. Godiva, remembering the closing verse from watching Lyfing, shouted out, “Mother Earth, mother of men, we greet you! And pray you may grow all our crops in God’s protecting arms, filling your fields for the health of mankind.”
Avery nodded, took control of the plough from her, drove the ox a few more paces, and then stopped to turn his attention back to the ritual.
A woman stepped forward with a loaf of bread and two small jugs. She placed the loaf of bread in the furrow the countess had just ploughed, and over it poured milk from one of the jugs and holy water from the other. To Godiva’s surprise, the words that completed the charm rose up in her as if she had known them since childhood:
“Oh, you field, full of food for us, brightly seeding, you shall be blessed. May the god who created this soil bless us with the gift of its fertility, so that each grain shall bloom into corn. Grow in the name of the Father, and blessed be.”
Two hours later she was finally warm and dry, and best of all, inside her own chamber; she felt both fulfilled and depleted, elated and withdrawn.
“A beautiful ceremony,” she said to Leofric. He was nursing her. He had ordered a fire-warmed shift be ready when they arrived home; he had taken off her chilled clothes and pulled the warm ones over her head, kissing her collarbone and breasts and belly as he did so. Then there were warmed blankets that he had wrapped around her like swaddling clothes, and he kissed her forehead and rubbed her chilled fingers between his large warm palms. He was proud of her, she could tell, although he would not say so. “If mass felt more like that, I would be far more enthusiastic about going every morning. Easter Sunday shall be such a come-down after a dawn like this!”
Leofric allowed himself a small smile. “I think Lyfing would be quite delighted to hear he has such an apt pupil. Although let us not mention it to any other bishop. I was surprised how much of that litany you knew.”
“So was I,” she said. “Although I am grateful I was not expected to know the priest’s parts; I have forgotten much of my Latin. Leofric, do let’s write Lyfing and tell him. Perhaps if he is well enough he could join us here for Easter. Think what that would do for the spirit of the villagers and farmers! And we could talk to him about Edgiva’s—”
“Lyfing is not a young man, Godiva, and his health is diminishing. Let us not burden him with extra duties when he can hardly carry out the ones he has now.”
Godiva gave him a look. “You should at least speak to him, of all men, about the heregeld, how to best resist it. Let us see if he can come to Easter, or perhaps we can join him in Worcester if he is not well enough to travel. Let’s write to him tomorrow so we may sort it out in time.”
“As the lady of the fields wishes,” said Leofric, with a troubled smile.
Now he would have nightmares about the razing of Worcester, she knew. She should not have mentioned it. “When the king gives an order, you must obey it,” she said.
“Do not make that argument,” he said warningly. “That is no excuse for what happened. It has not always been that way. The Great Council had been very powerful under Harold and Canute. Harthacnut’s rule was tyranny and we should have resisted him. All three of us. If we had all three refused to attack the town—”
“He would have had all three of you assassinated, Leofric; he was that kind of man. Edward is no saint, but thank heavens, he is not the despot that his brother was.”
“Amen,” said Leofric. He gave her a tired smile and rested a hand on her swaddled leg. “Yes, let us write to Lyfing tomorrow. It would do my heart good to have an actual friend in residence. Write Alfgar, too, and see if you can make him change his mind about his Easter plans.”
“Of course I shan’t. Let him try his hand with this lady-friend, Leofric. I like the look in his eye when he speaks of her. A pity Edgiva is too far away to send for in time, though,” said Godiva.
“Perhaps she can go to Hereford and celebrate with Sweyn,” Leofric suggested drily.
Leominster
She had celebrated Matins for as long as she had memory, and loved how it seemed authentically to sanctify the start of the day. Yet now, in the aftermath of her great sin, it felt an alien artifice, and she seemed to view herself as from a great distance, sleepwalking through her duties and responsibilities as she herself hovered, waiting for a response from Bishop Lyfing to her plea for audience. Somehow she forced herself to rise to consciousness, and remain there, when at each Matins bells, Audry would enter her room with a candle, tap her feet, and reverentially chant, “Lord, ope my lips.” Without any expression Edgiva would fling down her blanket, climb out of bed in her long-sleeved shift, her stockings, and her undecorated girdle; fasten on her scapular, her cowl, her dark wimple and veil, pulling the veil down to meet her eyebrows; tie on her crucifix.
Some Edgiva-looking stranger gave each morning’s circator a lantern to wave in the face of those weak-willed nuns whose attention drifted dreamward during Lauds and Prime; some other creature, whom the sisters all called Mother, led the meeting in the chapter house after morning mass, read aloud in her deep mellifluous voice the day’s chapter of the Rule, prayed for the dead, announced the saints’ days, listened with the others to the confessions of their sisters, determined fair punishment, even—although rarely—lashed penitents, and then salved them herself in the infirmary. The soul “Edgiva” was but a distant consciousness watching some other spirit fill her body, move her limbs and jaw and vocal cords, as she washed her hands outside the refectory before each meal, washed her sisters’ feet at weekly Maundy, raised her voice in chant and prayer at Terce and Sext and None and Vespers and Compline and wrote her daily observations in her private prayer book and then finally returned to the little room with the little bed, too small for two people to thrash around in, as this stranger’s body she now watched had thrashed around with the Earl of Hereford.
She would sleep and dream of thrashing, and rise some few hours later with Audry tapping her awake for Matins to begin it all again.
And somehow also, nearly daily, she would take reports from the lay brothers, of how the ploughing progressed, and the clearing of fields, and the diverting of the stream near the fishpond; she would check the stores of the shrift-corn and check the state of the baking and the mead; she would meet with the cellarer and the infirmarian and the gardener; she would make a circuit of the workshops, and meet with the prior from the monks’ side to make sure all was well there. She would check the soundness of the water clocks, and see the time-candles were in good supply. She would herself receive patients at the infirmary, victims of abusive kin or farming accidents or age or illness or weather or goblins or elves or unhappy ancestors; she would treat them not only with bleeding (since the moon was waning), with tinctures and poultices, but also with charms to fend off evil spirits. She would visit the west side of the cloister, where the white-veiled novices were being schooled, some wide-eyed, some sullen, all more innocent than she; then to the north side, her favorite place in all the compound, perhaps in all the world: the famed scriptorium of Leominster Abbey.
Each nun bent dutifully with inks, quills, and other tools over her parchment, each sequestered in a shallow, low-ceilinged nook with a table-board, each nook illuminated by a window to let in God’s light. There was a similar, smaller scriptorium on the men’s side, but—perhaps for the novelty of it—it was the copies made by the sisters that fetched the highest sums for the abbey. The most recent had been bought by Sweyn of Hereford. His strong, broad hands might be unclasping it even now, pressing open the vellum pages. No, she must not think that way, especially not in here, the room most sacred to her heart.
The scratching of quill on vellum was as soothing to her as a mother’s heartbeat to a babe, and it was here, and only here, that she almost felt she was, indeed, Mother Edgiva, Abbess of Leominster, despite her transgressions. She knew each pen scratch, could sometimes almost tell which letter was being formed by the rhythm of the scratches, which ink was being used by the scent of it.
No monastic house was allowed its own style. She formally instructed each of her calligraphers, nuns and monks alike, to follow the model of the scribe Eadui Basan—the thick lines and enormous capital letters resting on patterns of warmly tinted background colors. Privately, however, if she saw that any scrivener had a gift, and wished to indulge in animals or mythic figures or horological symbols, she allowed it and even encouraged them. The illuminations had little enough to do with the matter they illuminated anyhow; truly, they were just an opportunity to add beauty to the world.
Also, she had always felt, there was nothing sinful in having the opportunity to resist pridefulness, and how could one learn to resist a sin but to be tempted by it first? A talented botanist, she herself was admired among scribes throughout England for having perfected a certain blue ink from the juice of larkspur petals mixed with alum. That is who I am. Not some wanton whore. Not even Godiva—so reckless and absent of all modesty—not even Godiva had ever behaved as shamefully as Edgiva.
Every time a messenger approached she would send a novice rushing to see if he was from Bishop Lyfing; she needed Lyfing to come to her, or for him to summon her to him. She could think of almost nothing else. At one time she had moved among her charges daily, hourly, by the minute, spirited yet self-contained, outspoken but soft-spoken, a calm bundle of energy. Now she was distracted, distant, sometimes confused. She was supposed to represent the presence of the Virgin Mary. Something had gone terribly wrong.
Approximately weekly, usually Saturdays, she received a letter from some superior in the Church, instructing her or reminding her of the newest proscriptions that would touch upon her position or her charges. She would at once reply, carefully but firmly, protesting the erosion of her rights and duties, pointing out, as she did every week, that forbidding sisters from touching holy books was difficult when they were themselves the ones who wrote the holy books. But so it goes in Rome now, came the tart Lateran replies, and howsoever Rome evolves, so must the rest of Christendom follow suit—and especially in England, where finally at last there was a good continental and wholly Christian king to help repair the laxity of a semiheathen past.
Sundays, she led the ceremony to sprinkle holy water on all the buildings in the compound, although reports from Rome warned her that new theology suggested only monks should do that. Weekly, usually Mondays, she would counsel Audry through her confusion: the young sister never understood why penance was not a part of healing, since clearly ill health was a punishment or trial from God. No, Edgiva would say patiently, that is not so, although in fact the great religious minds of Rome were beginning to consider that.
She watched herself, and she watched Audry watching her with increasing concern and curiosity, and all the time she fought to keep her thoughts away from Hereford and focused on the gold band on her finger that wedded her to Christ. She needed the calm and understanding Lyfing to help her to renew her vows.
Coventry
On the feast of the Assumption, Leofric and Godiva wrote to Bishop Lyfing, inviting him to join them for Easter, and briefly, proudly recapitulating Godiva’s role in the Land Ceremony. Godiva, cheered at the possibility of the bishop’s presence, estimated the size of his entourage and informed the cook and steward to prepare extra food and cots.
But the following morning, Godiva returned from a visit to the monastery, enjoying how the drying breeze buffeted her blue silk outfit . . . to find Leofric sitting at his chair, staring into the hearth-pit with sorrowful eyes. The steward and the other hall servants moved quietly around the edges of the room, afraid of disturbing his trance.
Somehow she knew before he even said the words that Bishop Lyfing was no longer with the living. She took a stool and placed it close to Leofric’s chair, sat on it, and rested her head sadly on his lap, breathing in his scent for comfort.
He handed her an unsealed scroll; she unrolled it and began to read, as Leofric said, “It is a disrespectful way to tell us. Disrespectful to Lyfing, I mean. As if he were an afterthought.”
King Edward sends friendly greetings to Earl Godwin and Earl Leofric and Earl Sweyn and Mother Edgiva and all the thanes in Worcestershire and Herefordshire and Warwickshire and Gloucestershire. I inform you that, upon the passing of the inimitable Lyfing, I have granted to the abbot Aldred the bishopric of Worcester, with sake and soll, toll and team, within borough and without, as fully and completely in all things as ever any of his predecessors possessed it.
Leominster
Sixty-odd miles to the west of Coventry, Mother Edgiva was receiving the same news. She wrote with trembling hands into her private diary and felt more alone than ever in the world. There was nobody upon whose knee she could rest her head. The news brought with it far greater dismay than her saddened sisters ever could begin to know.