Free Gods Concubine by Sara Douglass

work there was, she begged. Damson, she called herself, after a variety of exotic plum.
    A damson, thought Edward’s chamberlain, studying her silently, was the last thing she looked like. The woman was already tired and worn, despite her relative youth, with stooped shoulders, waxen cheeks marred by broken veins, and pale blue eyes that looked set to fade away to nothing. Nevertheless, she claimed to be a skilled laundress, and with a queen in residence, and all the ladies she attracted about her, and all the linens they wore, or sewed, or commissioned…well, another laundress was always needed.
    “Very well, then,” said the chamberlain severely, “but you’ll work under my direct orders for the time being, until I can be sure you’re trustworthy.”
    Damson’s eyes brightened at the prospect of a home, and the chamberlain softened. He patted her on her cheek and sent her away to join the women already carrying heavy wicker baskets of laundry down to the river.
    Within a week he had forgotten about her.
    Edward was a particularly pious king, and among the builders and labourers and sundry laundresses that flocked to Westminster, there also arrived a corresponding number of clerics. Among these were many hoping that Edward would sponsor their religious order, as he had that of the Westminster abbey monks. Many of these he did indeed aid; some he turned away.
    One he did, almost, turn away was a woman of a particularly annoying frankness and air of independence. She presented herself at Edward’s court in order to petition him to fund the establishment of a female religious priory.
    “In honour of St Margaret the Martyr,” the woman said to the king as she knelt before his throne.
    Edward watched her silently, not only wondering precisely who St Margaret the Martyr was (possibly one of those forgettable Roman noblewomen who had somehow managed to achieve martyrdom and subsequent sainthood on the strength of their donations to the emerging church), but also wondering how he could rid himself and his court of this unsettling woman as quickly as possible. She was of some forty years, rotund, and with a cheerful round face, but there was a strength and determination underlying that cheerfulness that truly disconcerted Edward. Women should know their place, and he was not at all sure that this one did.
    “I am afraid—” he began, when, to his amazement, his wife broke in, leaning forward in her throne and speaking to her husband.
    “My husband, may I perhaps take this care from your already over-burdened shoulders?”
    Edward stared at Caela, his mouth open. This was the first time he could ever remember her speaking openly in court, let alone interrupting him.
    “My father has endowed me well,” Caela continued, her cheeks flushed as if she realised her transgression, “and I would like this opportunity to repay Christ and His saints for their goodness to me. Perhaps I could use a small portion of my own reserves to endow this holy woman’s priory?”
    At this her courage failed her—by now over half the court were staring at Caela, open-mouthed—but Edward smiled, suddenly pleased with her. If she was this pious, then perhaps she could eventually retire to the order she founded and he could be rid of her.
    His smile broadened. “Of course, my dear. As you will.”
    Caela blushed even further, perhaps astounded by her own temerity, but she turned to the woman still kneeling before Edward (with her round and generous face now turned to Caela) and asked her name.
    “You may call me Mother Ecub,” said the woman, and then looked at Caela as if she expected some reaction.
    But Caela only smiled politely, and begged Mother Ecub to visit her within her own private chamber on the morrow.
    Mother Ecub bowed, rose to her feet, and left.
    And as she left, so she locked eyes momentarily with Swanne, Harold of Wessex’s wife, newly risen from childbed. Both understood each other immediately; each sent ill will