Free Godiva by Nicole Galland Page A

see the games of intrigue the lords and bishops do play, and I do not like them. I do not like the duplicity. What she does is no worse, and ofttimes, much better. There is generally beneficence to her scheming. She would never plot to hurt anyone or undermine them. However much she meddles, it is always with a happy intention.”
    â€œExcellently put, Mother.”
    â€œBut sometimes I do fret for her,” Edgiva continued. “Sometimes Godiva believes she is merely lighting a little candle somewhere when really she is heaving oil upon a bonfire. I am so grateful for her taking up my cause against the heregeld, but I am aware it is a complex matter, and Godiva is not at her best with complexity of any kind.”
    Sweyn laughed. “True enough, that. And Edward seems not to like her. Were she any woman but Leofric’s, I hate to think what he would scheme to do to her.”
    Edgiva winced then. “Edward troubles me,” she admitted quietly. “Kinsman though he be.”
    â€œHe is better than Harthacnut,” said Sweyn.
    â€œThat saying has sustained Edward on the throne for three years now,” said Edgiva. “Soon he will need more praise than simply being better than Harthacnut.”
    T hey changed to fresh horses at a posting station and set off at a hard trot; the ceasing of conversation made Edgiva no less aware of what a beautiful color of light brown Sweyn’s hair was, or how well his short cloak sat pushed back over his shoulders, or how dashingly his eyebrows swept up at the edges, or how obedient his mare was under him. Sometimes she was dizzy.
    T hey had left very early, and reached Hereford by nightfall, as it began to drizzle. An outrider had been sent ahead, and food—not quite a supper—was waiting in the hall. Sweyn’s bower contained a small guest chamber adjacent to his own sleeping quarters. Most visitors were quartered in the hall, but when Godwin or the king came through, Sweyn took this smaller room and yielded his own to his superior. His chamberlain offered Edgiva the smaller room and she accepted it, both gratefully and warily. Alone for a few moments, she offered God a psalm and St. Christopher a prayer of thanks for safe arrival. Then, as a reassuring ritual more than an act of faith, she rapidly recited nine Pater Nostrums. She finished with a plea to the Great Mother for inner calm, as the women of the forests had taught her in her herbal foragings. It was no skin off St. Christopher’s nose to share the gratitude; was Gaia not also Terra Mater to St. Christopher?
    A serving girl called Aisly brought her a basin of water and a stiff, dry towel. With weary gratitude, she washed herself before dressing again for dinner. Over her tunic she refastened her still-dusty scapular, belt, wimple, and veil. All of it was dark and drab; for the first time in her life, Edgiva wished she had something pretty to draw attention to her face. How Godiva would cackle to know that! . . . And how she would then have lovingly helped Edgiva to indulge the vanity.
    â€œI will confess this all when I am home,” she promised herself softly. From the packet of medicinal herbs she always carried with her she pulled out a small leather-bound codex, her only private possession, and looked around the room for a quill and ink. She could not find one, so she spoke to the book instead of writing in it. “I will do penance and I will cleanse it from my soul. And I promise,” she added with a wince, “to be more compassionate when others come to me bewailing this condition of the liver. I have never understood their complaints as I do now. Thank you, Mother Mary, for visiting upon me this atrocious experience. I understand now why I have been subjected to it.”
    B ecause Earl Sweyn had been gone for days—and because he returned with an esteemed religious lady as his guest—there was a festive air to supper, however drab the oysters