May 1067, the Narrow Sea
The edges of a small storm caught them just after dawn, and, as the crew scrambled to control the vessel, Elise stood near the bow, holding firmly to the stem rail. The ship rode large, rolling waves. Terrified, she watched the sea, a gigantic, amorphous beast changing shape and color as it swelled. Terrified, she watched the cold, dark, angry sea split and heard it roar as it rammed them, tipping their vessel precariously. Yet she relished the taste of salty spray and the biting wind. She laughed aloud when a wave grabbed the ship and raised it so high it balanced on the sharp tip of a crest a moment before rolling under them, easing them back into the water and up again as if cradled in God’s embrace.
Green, gray, blue. Swirling and powerful. With a strong wooden vessel beneath her, she felt powerful and . . . and free! Joining the wind and sea in this dance, she screamed out her joy, knowing only the storm could hear her. Exhilarated, she thought it incongruous that a woman with such feral thoughts had been sent to tame the wild English.
The gusts calmed to a brisk, steady wind, and the sea gentled. Mesmerized and lulled now by the ship’s mild rocking, Elise watched the tips of the waves curl atop one another, the white caps hurrying in a ceaseless motion, stretching toward the white cliffs, as the wind sent her closer to the unknown.
It disquieted her to think a marriage between two people who had never even met would last a lifetime, a span of years she could not imagine. She had been raised to expect nothing more—or less—than a contract between families exchanging land, wealth, duties, alliances, and obligations, like her own parents. Yet, she had not expected to live so far away from Fontenay. She glanced at Brian, now playing a dicing game with others, and remembered his warning and Thierry’s promise. Francia, Englelond. Philip, William. Here in the sea between two kings, she felt content and safe.
Letting her thoughts drift, she wondered why her betrothed had accepted the marriage offers with such fury? Her lands should have pleased him. Transforming the image of a frightening, ferocious beast, she thought of the “Black Wolf” as a large, friendly hound. Then again, she thought, he could be diseased, a sniveling, weak, or stupid man. He might be maliciously cruel, like her uncle. She felt for the wolf brooch she wore as a pendant beneath her tunic. As her mind calmed, she recognized her greatest fear: violence on her person. Husbands beat their wives. Her mother had borne the marks of her husband’s rods. A beating was one thing, but Elise did not want to be disfigured. Oh, vanity!
Of course, she knew her husband’s alliances were more important than her vain concerns; and he would require her to accommodate those alliances in every way. Her responsibilities could take a bizarre twist if he were so inclined. Some husbands gave their wives, or daughters, to their overlords and allies to bed as symbolic acts of trust, to seal treaties and such. Or, from her own mother’s experience, to humiliate her for being outspoken or to punish her disobedience. Elise watched the shimmering light on the waves. She must keep her temper in check and not raise her voice to him, she thought, believing herself capable of such a feat.
Obedience. Obedience, she chanted to herself as the ship rose and fell over the swells. At the abbey, she had struggled with obedience, and now she recalled the monks discussing a count who’d had his wife’s head chopped off because she had “an ungrateful tongue.” The Church and courts pardoned the count for his deed because she’d driven him to it. The monks of Clarion agreed. Still, they argued there should be a law, so husbands should not have to seek pardon. Instead, they agreed that any husband should be granted the legal right to remove shrewish wives as the count did. Elise supposed a shrewish wife was one who disagreed with her husband about anything.
She glanced at Tristan. He would relish Lesceline’s disagreements. Looking back at the sea, she remembered how Marie sparred with Roland. Her wit charmed him even as she infuriated him. Elise would never feel what Marie felt for Roland or what was palpable between Tristan and Lesceline. Her parents had not loved each other. She did not expect love. She hoped for respect, but she wished, with all her heart, for something special, something she could not name.
May 1067, London
Merchant ships of all sizes traveled up and down the River Thames. Sails fluttered and bobbed, rowers propelled fast, narrow ships throughout the waterway, transporting cargo. As they rounded a bend, they encountered more vessels, and Elise got her first full view of London and thought it under attack for the thick smoke. In moments, she recognized a large, sprawling town sweeping along the north bank. Larger than any place she’d ever seen, the town frightened her at first.
“Are we going to dock?” Elise asked.
“No,” Roland said. He checked the tide and the sail, and signaled to the other ships following his lead. “We’ll avoid the tolls and go up river.”
As they approached the town’s edge, the crew kept away from jetties and steps. Dubec pointed out the crumbling stones of a Roman fort surrounding a scattered group of timbered buildings. “Few people go into the old city,” he said. “Wights live there.”
“Ghosts?” Elise said. “Do you jest, Brian?”
“No.” He said, staring at the walls.
The sounds of hammers and mallets clunked out over the water and drew her attention to a half-built tower. Men climbed over the timber structure, bellowing to one another. Ropes hung from each of the walls hoisting planks and tools to the top. Beside the tower, carpenters notched timbers, others split and hewed boards, some grooved the planks for a slotted fit. Elise looked down the waterway and back. The tower would dominate the river.
“Days after his coronation, William started repairing the old fort,” Dubec said. “He charged his builders to strengthen the stone curtain walls, the ramparts, and battlements to protect the tower.”
“Will he build a stone fortress, like the ducal palace at Rouen?” Elise asked.
“Perhaps.”
Elise watched what she thought were hundreds of men digging a trench and shoring up the old walls. Oxen pulled carts laden with dirt, masons chipped and set large blocks of stones. An anchored barge held logs for the palisade, laborers rolled them onto the land, and hitched oxen dragged the timbers to the building site.
As they passed the tower, she saw a few stone structures. Timbered buildings were rising everywhere she looked, dominating the smaller mud and thatched buildings peppering the smoky town. At the docking posts, toll takers wearing symbols of their rank, carried ledgers and counted goods, and aides held the treasury chests beside armed Norman guards. On the river, rowboats and sailing vessels traveled from side to side, weaving through or towing the larger, slower merchant ships and barges.
Approaching the bridge, Elise feasted on the sights. Fishers scooped their catch into barrels as squawking gulls circled above. Men unloaded salt barrels and sacks, pushed carts filled with ale, flax, thatching reeds, and wool, and crisscrossed over the docks and toward the streets. Next to a tannery, bright orange mud oozed into the river, accompanied by a stench so pungent it made her eyes water. She looked up at the bridge filled with carts and people carrying bundles traveling in both directions and saw a company of knights gallop across, scattering everyone out of the way. Watching them, she remembered her betrothed, forgotten in her wonder.
As their vessel passed under the bridge, she asked Brian, “How many people live here?”
“Twelve, perhaps fifteen thousand.”
“Fifteen thousand?” she said incredulously, trying to imagine so many people in one place. Elise had heard Paris had fifteen thousand people, but thinking back three years ago, she realized she had not seen much of Paris beyond the royal quarter of the citadel island. All she remembered now of Philip’s palace were the moldy, decaying tower and the dim passageways filled with seeping slime.
Beyond the bridge, muck wagons lined up at the quay where swarms of men dumped their cargo into the river. Roland’s ship bobbed through the murky water filled with foamy human waste, carcasses of dogs and cats, raw vegetation, and large rats, alive and clinging to debris.
“Is Rome this big?” she asked.
Roland and his men laughed. “Much bigger,” Tristan said, as the wind filled the sail with a slap and a shudder. “We counted forty-six fortresses.”
“Forty-six!” Elise looked back at William’s single castle, trying to imagine more than one.
“And another two hundred watchtowers,” Roland said. “Thousands and thousands live there.”
“London,” Giles said, “is a pigsty. In Rome, nearly all the streets are paved, and most buildings are made of stone.”
Eagerly they told her about water flowing into houses, marble buildings, a circular altar with an open eye in the ceiling, gleaming churches, colored tiles, and festivals.
“Ah, Rome,” Yves sighed. “The winter is warm, the fruits are succulent, and—”
“And angels,” Tristan smiled, “fly about the ceilings.”
“And I suppose,” Elise said, “Roman carts never bounce on cobble streets, and Roman fires never smoke.”
They all laughed.
“Bertrand,” Elise said, turning to the man on her left. “Do they jest, or tell me true?”
Bertrand turned a bright red and squirmed. “T-t-true, m-m-my lad-d-dy.”
“Really?”
He nodded.
“Then it must be so.” She turned toward London unperturbed by descriptions of a place she was likely never to see. This town was the center of her husband’s world, and now hers, too.
They sailed beyond the clustered buildings, past a church, a small river draining into the Thames, burned out cottages, and several stationary water mills. Some time ago, a floating mill had broken away from its mooring and crashed into a barge, leaving a wreckage of splintered timbers. Rotting piers jutted into the river alongside partially submerged sunken ships. Along the shore, sparsely planted huts gave way to green fields or marshes. Merchants and soldiers traveling in groups for safety, she supposed, used the river trail, dogs barked at passing vessels. They rounded another broad bend.
“St. Peter’s Church and the new abbey,” Dubec said. “William was crowned there last Christmas.”
She looked at the arches and towers behind the other buildings rising nearby. Brian pointed out the walled compound, the king’s palace and hall, sharing the island with the abbey, the bridges and watchtowers. Seeing the ships bearing William’s colors, she asked, “When will William return from Rouen?”
“Perhaps never. The people are subdued.”
That night, Hortense, making her first appearance since they had left Boulogne, joined the others. Buried in a fur cloak, she ate dried cheese and bread and drank a little wine. Elise asked her about the English, for Hortense had once lived among them with her English husband. Hortense repeated tales told in English halls and recited several Saxon lines of poetry. Elise frowned, Yves and Giles laughed at her expression.
“You’ll become accustomed to it,” Yves said. “The Saxon tongue sounds harsh to our ears, and their coarse words nearly always sound a challenge to fight.”
“I will remember to not take offense,” Elise said, lifting her hood as it began to rain.