The Swan-Daughter

Book 0: The Daughters of Hastings Trilogy

by Carol McGrath

Genres: Historical Fiction; Medieval; Medieval Romance

Synopsis

The second instalment in Carol McGrath's captivating The Daughters of Hastings trilogy!

A marriage made in Heaven, or Hell?

1075 and Dowager Queen Edith has died. Her niece Gunnhild longs to leave Wilton Abbey but is her suitor Breton knight Count Alain of Richmond interested in her inheritance as the daughter of King Harold and Edith Swan-Neck or does he love her for herself?

Is her own love for Count Alain an enduring love or has she made a terrible mistake? The Swan Daughter is woven around a true 11th century tale of elopement, love and courage.

Love the novels of Carol McGrath? Don't miss THE SILKEN ROSE, starring one of the most fierce and courageous forgotten queens of England!

(P) 2021 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Release date: December 16, 2014

Publisher: Accent Press

Print pages: 337

Sample

1

Wilton Abbey, December 1075

It had been so easy to take it.

As Wilton Abbey’s bell tolled for her dead aunt’s midnight vigil, everyone – priests, nuns, novices, postulants and girls – passed through the archway into the chill of St Edith’s chapel. Gunnhild hovered near the back of the gathering. When the nuns’ choir began to sing the first plainsong, she lifted a candle from a niche close to the doorway, cupped her free hand around it and slipped out into the cloisters. She hurried along a pathway through overhanging shadows until she reached her aunt’s apartment, rooms that were set away from the main abbey buildings, elegant as befitted a queen, albeit a dowager queen. Pushing open the doors, she crept into the reception hall, crossed the dead queen’s antechamber, the great bed-chamber and finally into Aunt Edith’s vast wardrobe. I must find it because when I do I shall have a suitable garment to wear when I leave this place. I must take it before it is given to that dwarf, Queen Matilda.

Gunnhild set her candle in an empty holder on a side table a little distance from the hanging fabrics and stepped into the space between wooden clothing poles. Frantically her fingers began fumbling amongst Aunt Edith’s garments. Which one was it? No, not those woollen gowns, nor the old linen ones either. No, look again. She moved along a rail by the wall fingering linens and silks until finally she found what she sought at the very end. Reaching out with both hands she touched the overgown, pulled it down and took it out into the candlelight. Its hem was embellished with embroidered flowers – heartsease or pansies – in shades of purples and blues with centres of glistening pearls. Her aunt had worn it when Gunnhild had first travelled to be with her in Winchester for the Pentecost feast of 1066, just after Aunt Edith’s husband, King Edward, had died and Gunnhild’s father was crowned king. Their family had risen and he had wanted his nine-year-old daughter to be prepared by her aunt for an education fit for a princess, to learn foreign languages, play instruments and embroider. She had remarked then to Aunt Edith that heartsease was her favourite flower and Aunt Edith had lifted her hand, smoothed it along the silk and said, ‘One day, this dress will belong to you.’

Gunnhild peered closer, examining the clusters of tiny flowers, noticing how perfectly they were edged with gold and silver thread. Her eyes darted about the fabric. There were no moth holes. The green silk dress was as fresh as it had been ten years before. She laid the overdress on a stool, returned into the depths of the wardrobe and with both hands shaking lifted down its paler linen undergown. With a cursory glance she saw that it, too, remained in perfect condition. Make haste and hurry away. She folded the overgown into the linen shift and pulled her mantle over them both. Carefully closing the wardrobe’s leather curtains she blew out the candle and sped from the apartment, fleeing back through empty cloisters to the postulants’ building.

Pausing to catch her breath, Gunnhild pushed open her cell door with her back, slipped inside and spun around. Her every muscle tensed with fear. Eleanor was standing in the middle of the room.

‘Christina sent me to find you …’ Eleanor, who had been her friend since she had entered Wilton Abbey, broke off. ‘What, by the Virgin’s halo, are you hiding under your cloak?’

Gunnhild pulled out her bundle and dropped the garments onto her cot. Eleanor held up the silk overgown and then dropped it onto the tiles as if it were poisoned, her face pale with shock. ‘This,’ she gasped. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘I took what is mine by right,’ Gunnhild said in a quiet voice.

‘You stole it.’

‘No I did not. My aunt promised that one day this gown would belong to me. All her clothes will be shortened to fit the dwarf queen. And anyway …’ Gunnhild glanced down at her grey postulant’s robe and her hand flew to the hideous black cap that Christina, the assistant prioress, forced her to wear, ‘I need something better than these.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘You will know soon enough, Eleanor, I promise.’ Gunnhild scooped the gown into her arms, folded it and placed it back on her coverlet beside its linen undergown. Her mind working quickly, she searched around her chamber for a suitable hiding place. The garment chest had a strong barrel lock and a key, though she rarely secured it, but now ... She crossed the room, flung open the coffer’s lid and bent down. For a moment she inhaled the pleasant scent of cedarwood chips and felt around with both hands, rooting amongst her plain linen until she plucked out a green fillet embroidered with a golden pattern and a pair of red deerskin slippers decorated with twisting, fire-spitting, Godwin dragons. Both had been gifts from Aunt Edith for her sixteenth birthday. She lifted the head band, turned it around and around in her hands and faced Eleanor again. ‘These belong to the daughters of my family; my aunt gave them to me to keep, not to my mother who is in a convent, nor to my sister, Thea, who is far away in the lands of the Rus, but to me,’ she said, clutching her hands together so tightly her finger bones felt as if they would crack. ‘No, Eleanor, the real sin is to imprison one of us in this abbey, to expect her to wear dull gowns day upon day, and order her to wed with God.’

Eleanor leapt up from the bed and pointed at the headband. ‘Where in heaven’s name would you wear that? Christina will find you out. No one is forcing you to take vows. You chose your own path. You have broken two vows already, obedience and poverty. If the abbess finds out …’ She caught her breath and rasped, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Gunnhild, take them back to your dead aunt’s rooms and leave them there for Queen Matilda before you break the third.’

‘And that is unlikely here,’ Gunnhild complained and tucked the fillet and slippers back in the coffer. ‘No, I shall risk Christina’s fury.’ She plucked the gowns from the cot, laid them neatly on top of the fillet and slippers and covered the lot with two everyday shifts. Turning back to Eleanor she said, ‘Christina must not find out. Please say you will not tell her. Besides, I have not yet taken any vows, nor shall I take them … I have changed my mind … My father, King Harold, remember, how he was once king of the English? Well, I shall never forget it, nor that the dwarf queen’s husband, that bastard, William, killed him on the field at Senlac. I shall never forget that King William stole our kingdom.’ She gasped for breath, almost choking with fury. ‘My father never intended me for the church. He sent me to serve my aunt, to learn to read, write and embroider. Now Aunt Edith is gone to God’s angels there is nothing left for me here. I intend to be free.’

‘Gunnhild, how will that happen?’

Eleanor’s voice was very, very quiet. Gunnhild breathed deeply and said, ‘Eleanor, I am a princess. When my knight comes to claim me I shall be waiting for him in that dress.’ She climbed up on to the chest and slipped her hand behind the statue that sat in the wall niche above it. She felt around for a small key and grasped it. Carefully, so as not to knock over her plaster St Edith, she climbed off the clothing chest. Kneeling on the cold tiles she secured the barrel lock with a loud clink, stood on the chest again, replaced the key and set the statue back into its original position. Looking over her shoulder she called down, ‘Now it is hidden and only you and I know where. Promise me you will not tell.’

‘I will not. Gunnhild, your secret is safe, at least on earth if not in Heaven.’ As Gunnhild jumped from the chest Eleanor reached over and caught her hand. ‘Hurry or you really will be discovered and I hope God forgives you because if Christina finds out she will not.’

‘Bah, I am not afraid of Christina.’ Gunnhild hesitated momentarily, and added, ‘No, not a bit, even though I know she will beat me with her rod through the cloisters and lock me in the ossuary if she ever discovers my intention to escape.’ She reached out for Eleanor’s hand. ‘Thank you. You are a true friend.’

Eleanor drew her close and whispered. ‘Be careful what you wish for, Gunnhild. Now let us slip back into the chapel before the dragon comes looking herself.’

Hand in hand they sped back to the novice stalls in the chapel where they took their places amongst the other postulants and novices and bowed their heads in prayer. The vigil was drawing to its end. The bell in the abbey church was already tolling. It would only be a few hours until Prime. After morning prayers Gunnhild was to travel to the funeral in Westminster Abbey because she was the only surviving Godwin heiress dwelling in England, but once Aunt Edith’s royal funeral was over she would return to Wilton to be buried alive as deeply as the winter that was gathering about the cloisters.

Touching the coarse hemp of her plain gown she sighed. No knight would ever look at her dressed in raiment as pale as the shroud that covered her aunt’s once lovely form. As Gunnhild’s eyes swam with tears, she wiped them away from her cheeks using a corner of her cloak. She whispered into the candle smoke, ‘Aunt Edith forgive me; I want to be of the world, not apart from it.’ 

2

Westminster, December 1075

‘And the Lady Edith passed away in Winchester 7 days before Christmas and the king had her brought to Westminster with great honour, and laid her with King Edward, her lord.’

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, translated and edited by Michael Swanton, 2000

Their long wagon clattered into the palace courtyard, almost too late for Aunt Edith’s funeral. The palace of Westminster was smaller than Gunnhild remembered. Even so, the new church still drew her awed gasp as she peered out at it from the nuns’ litter. She recollected how Aunt Edith’s smooth face had become riveted with anxious gullies on the night that the King, Gunnhild’s uncle, collapsed at the Christmas feast of 1065. He had lingered in a shadowy place between worlds for days, rambling terrible prophecies, foretelling, to those gathered at his bedside, of fire, sword and destruction.

It was this fear that drove Uncle Edward to give care of his kingdom to Harold of Wessex, her father, who was the strongest of all the earls. After all, the other earls had elected her own father to be king because the obvious choice, young Prince Edgar, who had been born in exile, was foreign to their people and was inexperienced.

During that long-ago Christmastide the freezing palace had seemed to creak and groan with the weight of her aunt’s sorrow. She remembered Uncle Edward’s funeral on the Epiphany and how, on the same day that he was interred, her father had been crowned King Harold II. On that day she had become an eight-year-old princess.

Now, ten years on, she climbed from the wagon into the icy courtyard to stand in her thin woollen mantle amongst the nuns from Wilton waiting to join her aunt’s funeral procession. It would move in a stately manner out of the palace, across the snowy courtyard and into the long pillared aisle through the Minster’s west door. She was not a princess today, of course. As she surveyed the noble Norman ladies, clad in rich furs and gathering around the palace yard in elegant groups, she could not help but long for someone to love her, someone to free her from Wilton and sweep her into her own elegant existence in the world beyond abbey walls.

She shivered and watched, her face as unsmiling as those all around her. King William, who led the procession, looked ahead sternly. The tiny queen who stepped neatly beside him owned an alabaster complexion as white as polished ivory. Gunnhild knew that she was, of course, far beneath the dwarf queen’s notice.

At last the Wilton nuns slipped into place to join the walk to the cathedral and Gunnhild took up her position alongside Christina, behind the knights and nobles, bishops and monks. As they moved forward over the palace’s icy yard towards the church, the monks’ censers swung back and forwards through sharp winter air in a slow, methodical rhythm. After what seemed an endless time, they were at last crowding into the nave of the great Minster. Others pressed in behind them and Gunnhild found herself moving forward with a crowd of mourners all about her. They thronged every space from the altar to the West Door. She could smell the musty damp rising off their furs, hardly masked by the heavy oily perfumes that they wore to conceal the stink of their sweat. Her throat was irritated by the pungent smoke from the golden swaying censers and she began to cough. Christina glared at her through bead-like jackdaw eyes that missed little. Gunnhild clamped her hand to her mouth.

Turning away from the censor-swinging monks, she tried to breathe slowly. In, out, in, out. Try not to inhale the sickly perfume, worse inside than out, just breathe. As she recovered, a deep sadness overcame her and her mind wandered. Aunt Edith was telling her to sit by her charcoal fire on a stool, teaching her to read from an illustrated book with tales of animals – stags with thorny crowns, red foxes and long-eared hares. Shaking herself from such memories, she focused hard on where she was now. Looking about the nave, she began to scan the sombre faces of others. So many people had gathered at Westminster. Did they really care about the dead old queen who had straddled two worlds, the beautiful world she had known before the great battle and that of the Norman conqueror. How could these strangers possibly care about her clever aunt? She closed her eyes, and by squeezing them tightly shut, she captured an older recollection. This time she saw her mother embroidering a fine tunic with golden thread. It was for her handsome warrior father, Earl Harold, in their happy time before he was king. Perhaps her mother, the once lovely Edith Swanneck, was here too. She opened her eyes and glanced around again, peering hard through gaps in the groups that crowded the nave. Her mother was not there. So they never invited my mother. I am still not permitted to speak with my mother in case we plan together to bring my brother Godwin back from Denmark and help him to kingship. Aunt Edith never allowed me to write to her. ‘For your own sake, Gunnhild,’ Aunt Edith had once said when she had begged to write to her mother. ‘Forget you ever had a mother. I am your mother now.’ Gunnhild knew the true reason. Simple. The bastard king is afraid of my mother, ever since her part in the rebellion at Exeter. She is like the rest of the mothers of Hastings, shadows in the corners. This is what becomes of passing your days on your knees in prayer .

Gunnhild chased another memory. Ulf, her little brother, was still a hostage at King William’s other court in Normandy. He had been fleet of foot and so filled with mischief. They had glided together over frozen ponds on bone skates and climbed tall spiky trees on the estate of Reredfelle that winter before her father had sent her to Wilton for her education. She felt herself smiling through damp eyes until a moment later a finger was prodding her, pushing her forward. Christina was hissing in her ear. ‘Wake up, look down. This is a funeral, not a wedding.’

Four nuns stood in a tight group around Christina, their sweat as stale as rotting fish, their breath foul. Gunnhild looked away from them and swallowed. She glanced across at the other side of the nave. A knight who stood by a statue of St Mark’s lion was looking straight at her, watching her. As she caught his eye he turned to the canons who were gathered about the coffin chanting prayers, helping Aunt Edith to Heaven. Had he really looked her way, or was her imagination tricking her?

‘Gunnhild, what are you doing now?’ Christina pinched her arm. Gunnhild bit her lip to stop a retort. ‘Look down, girl. This behaviour does not become the daughter of a man who was once a king of the English.’

‘I am just trying to find my mother, Lady Christina.’

Christina hissed. ‘She would not be invited.’

Sweat trickled down Gunnhild’s back and soaked into the coarse linen she wore under her gown. She must find fresh air before she vomited in front of them all. ‘Excuse me a moment. I …’ Gunnhild clapped her hand to her mouth and turned around, almost knocking the nun behind her over in her haste to escape. She pushed back through the great gathering of nobles, weaving a way around groups of strangers until she sensed clearer air from an opened side door. She ran out into a small courtyard and retched. She used her sleeve to wipe the spittle from her mouth and leaned against the stone wall, gulping cold air. Once she felt a little better, she edged her way back along the wall. The same knight stood there with his back to her, hovering just inside the doorway, blocking her return. He shifted his stance and glanced out. From her place of safety she observed him through the slits in the stone tracery of the portico. She realised that she had seen him before. His red hair was less bright than when she had last observed him during the nightmare year when other women of her family fled England. She had only been ten years old and had chosen to stay at Wilton with Aunt Edith.

Many foreign ambassadors and great knights had visited Aunt Edith. This red-headed knight, known to them then as Count Alain of Brittany, had lingered deep inside her memory. Her mother had behaved in a scandalous manner, agreeing to wed the knight then breaking her promise. Aunt Edith had been angry and had never mentioned her mother’s name again. Momentarily the knight stood still as the effigies that graced the side chapels inside the minster and, watching him slowly scan the courtyard, she felt a delicious stirring of something she longed for – his world.

He moved out of the doorway, strode around the portico and looked straight down at her. Trying to reclaim her dignity, she stood up, swept her hand down her gown and pulled her rough mantle closer.

‘Are you unwell, my lady? Can I fetch someone, one of your order, perhaps?’

She did not reply. He spoke again. ‘Who cares for you? Can I find that person for you? Ma petite, you are a novice, yes?’

Stretching up to her full height she found her tongue. She fixed him with as stern a look as she could manage. ‘No, my lord, I am not yet a novice nor do I ever intend to be one. I am Gunnhild, a daughter of King Harold of the English.’

‘I thought as much. Lady Gunnhild, you are grown since I last saw you in Wilton. You must be … what age?’

‘I am eighteen years, and I am quite recovered, thank you. Please allow me to pass.’

The knight scrutinised her face. Is he looking for my mother in my countenance? My mother was right to deny him, of course. This man could never replace my father.

He said, his voice so low she hardly heard, ‘And at eighteen you should be wed.’ He bowed, inclined his head and moved aside to allow her passage.

‘You are bold, knight.’ She looked up at him, refusing to let his remark pass unnoticed, even though she agreed. She should indeed have a husband.

‘And you are fair, my lady. I mean it as a compliment.’ At that, Gunnhild pushed past him into the church and hurried back through the crowd.

She turned at a pillar and glanced back, her eyes searching hard for him but others had closed him in and he was gone.

When she returned to her place, Christina tugged her mantle and she fell to her knees. They rose again as everyone was beginning to leave, drifting towards the great door, following after the king and queen and Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, monks, nuns and nobles. No matter how hard she peered through gaps in the great gathering she could not see the red-headed knight and, by the Virgin, she could not remember his name.

‘Where were you, Gunnhild?’ Christina said.

Gunnhild pointed to an alcove close to the narrow doorway. ‘Praying to Our Lady for my aunt’s soul.’ The lie slipped from her tongue as easily as the liturgy she knew by rote.

‘Sooner you are shriven the better, my girl.’ Christina took Gunnhild’s arm and hurried her back out into the brightness of day. Turning to her group of nuns she dropped Gunnhild’s elbow and said, ‘There are too many temptations at a funeral feast. Prioress Winifred will see to our needs in the women’s hall and there we shall rest.’ With that she turned on her heel. Dutifully the four nuns of Wilton followed as Gunnhild trailed behind them. Glancing backwards, Gunnhild now saw that the knight was leaning on his sword by the choir stalls, once again observing her. Feeling a flush of colour creep up her neck she drew her mantle hood close and hurried after the others.    

3

Wilton Abbey, Winter 1076

While snow and hail and frost all fall together

The heart’s wounds seem by that yet heavier …

The Wanderer – A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse edited by Richard Hamer, 2006

‘Gunnhild, I must speak with you and with Eleanor,’ Christina announced after Nonce on a snowing day in January. The year’s first snowfall always reminded Gunnhild of how her grandmother, Gytha, had told them of how a white raven who had belonged to the Norse god Odin scattered feathers in the cold of winter, feathers that fell to earth as snow.

Obediently bowing their heads, they trailed behind Christina through the icy cloisters, exchanging anxious glances. Gunnhild wondered what was waiting for them. Had they not been diligent enough? Would Christina punish them for some silly misdemeanour with more time on their knees in the chill chapel in prayer, finger-pricking embroidery, or, perhaps, the worst of all punishments, fumigating blankets for the abbey’s guest house? She shuddered. The extra blankets were stored in fusty chests where fleas mysteriously multiplied in their woollen seams.

She huddled into her mantle and longed to climb the twisting stairs behind the cloisters to the scriptorium where a basket of coals glowed in a charcoal brazier. There, she could lose herself in drawing tiny acanthus leaves which she loved to touch with gold. Tucked away in an alcove set aside for her use she drew and coloured little figures with such talent that visiting monks remarked that they could never better her work. She trampled snow as she plodded behind Eleanor and Christina, escaping in her mind into her miniature depiction of the Wedding at Canna with its small roses that crawled up a pillar beside the kind Jesus who reached out his hand in blessing.

They had arrived at Christina’s door. She ushered them inside, pointed to a bench and ordered the girls to be seated whilst she placed herself behind a table and arranged her gown. Once she was comfortably seated she looked at them both across the top of a prominently positioned box and a book.

Gunnhild did not recognise the largish box but she knew that the book beside it contained the names of postulants and their possessions, those belonging to girls with great fortunes and some without. Eleanor was without, but then she was an accomplished embroideress and embroidery was of great value. Christina leaned forward and opened the codex, spoiling the perfect arrangement of box and book. Ignoring Gunnhild she glanced up at her friend. Eleanor was a novice. ‘Yes, I am correct, Eleanor, my dear,’ she said with a thin smile, ‘the book indicates that you will take vows next year.’ Christina looks like a hawk today. Christina screwed up her eyes and sat back in her chair. ‘I consider you in need of no further instruction, Eleanor. You may take your vows this Easter.’ Her thin lips broke into a smile. ‘Until then you will work on our tapestry panel for Bayeux. Bishop Odo is anxious this is completed before Pentecost. Canterbury is ahead of us with their panels and this we cannot allow.’

Eleanor’s shoulders visibly relaxed. Christina turned to Gunnhild. Her thin smile became a frown. ‘Gunnhild, we are not considering you as a novice, not just yet – though I expect you to be ready by summer.’ Christina sat up straight and drew herself taller. ‘In preparation you shall attend four services daily.’ Gunnhild let a sigh escape her lips. ‘Not so fast my girl,’ Christina continued. She tapped the mysterious box. ‘You will remove yourself from the scriptorium since you, too, must work on our tapestry panels. The Bishop is sending one of his designers to check our work. It has to be perfect. You will be stitching the vow that King Harold took in Bayeux when he acknowledged Duke William as the rightful future king of England.’

She heard Christina’s pronouncement as if it came from a distant world. These were hard words. Her aunt often said that Harold had ignored a promise made on holy relics to be Duke William’s man and that when King Edward had died her father had by-passed Christina’s brother, the Atheling Edgar, and had accepted the English throne. Gunnhild wanted to cry out, ‘This is all past, long, long ago. It is nothing to do with me.’ But she swallowed and bit her bottom lip, the physical pain helping to ease her anger. Christina continued, ‘As you well know, Gunnhild, a vow on holy relics is sacrosanct. Your father’s broken promise brought us to war, caused his own death and has brought God’s wrath on us.’ She lifted her hand and again tapped the box by her elbow. ‘In this chest are your inks and brushes. They will remain in my possession since there is no need for you to revisit the scriptorium.’

Gunnhild inhaled and silently exhaled. She could feel her heart beating like that of a wounded sparrow she had once held in her hands, trapped within the cage of her fingers. For a moment she could not breathe. She watched horrified as Christina moved the box to one side, leaned forward and remarked, ‘By the way, Gunnhild, there is a visitor here today, one who wishes to speak with you. I cannot refuse this interview since he is a cousin to King William. So …’ she leaned back in her chair and sighed, ‘You may see him in the abbess’s antechamber after Vespers. Since our beloved abbess is unwell and I am working on the tapestry today, Sister Marte will chaperone you.’ She waved her hand in a dismissive manner. ‘Now, both of you go about your day.’

Eleanor bowed her head. ‘Thank you, Lady Christina,’ she murmured. Gunnhild rose to follow Eleanor but stopped and turned at the door. ‘My visitor’s name?’

‘Count Alan of Richmond. He knew your aunt and says that he has a gift for you, something that belonged to your grandmother, Countess Gytha. Now go.’

‘I see, Lady Christina. Thank you.’

‘Go. I am busy.’

Gunnhild drew another long intake of breath and did not exhale until she was back in the snowy cloister.

Marte led Gunnhild to the abbess’s receiving chamber and placed her in a chair behind a wooden lattice screen that had been especially imported for the meeting. Marte and Beatrice, both of them lowly nuns, sat behind her with embroidery in their laps. Soon after, Count Alan was ushered in by a servant and shown to a winged chair close to the screen. Since she had seen him last he had sprouted hair on his chin. His brush of a red beard was nodding this way and that. If she put a finger through the screen’s lattice work she could touch that beard. She peeped up and saw too how his close-cropped hair gleamed in the candle-glow and how his long face was criss-crossed with a light and dark latticed pattern.

He leaned in. From behind her chair, Marte clucked her disapproval. Gunnhild ignored Marte and she, too, leaned in towards the screen. His eyes were intense, the colour of amber, fox eyes, but it was difficult to tell in sconce light. Perhaps they were just brown or even tawny.

‘Gunnhild,’ he said in a quiet voice. This time she noticed his pronounced foreign accent. ‘I have come to ask forgiveness for what my people have done to your family. I was responsible for the destruction of Reredfelle. I did wrong by your mother. This sin has lain on my conscience for many years. Since the destruction of that estate, we have burned and taken lands from hundreds of those who once farmed them. If the people rebel they lose everything. These have been cruel years. Take the north for instance. There was a great rebellion there four years past and the lands of Lords Edwin and Morcar – do you remember them?– have been laid waste.’ She nodded. He went on, now sounding impassioned, his voice hoarse with irritation. ‘The punishment was harsh. Laying waste the north is not the way to win the tenants’ loyalty.’ He breathed hard and said, ‘I live in the north and by Christ one day I shall bring peace to that land. People cannot work the land if they are not at peace, Gunnhild.’ He lowered his voice. ‘And, I am Alan now, not Alain. I think it may help me win my tenants loyalty. I try to be fair but if they cross me …’

‘I see,’ she interrupted. She had listened to enough of this. Gunnhild had not seen the destruction of the north with her own eyes but she had heard of the rebellion and about King William’s revenge. If Count Alan intended to help its recovery then perhaps not all foreigners were bad, that was if he meant what he said. ‘I hope you will act as you say,’ she said aloud. Thinking for a moment, she added, ‘You wanted to marry my mother.’

He steepled his hands. ‘A great wrong was done to her. But no one can turn this tide back from time’s shore