Black Pearls - Louise Hawes [66]
Leofric was wont to tell me, in those days, that I took the woes of commoners too much to heart. "You are, my precious Godiva, inclined to weep overmuch for peasants and dumb animals, none of whom will shed a single tear for you."
"It is not with hope of return," I told him, "that I aid those less fortunate than ourselves." I remembered the eyes of the littie ones when I threw coins into the streets on feast days. "It is for the sheer joy it brings me."
And, I should have added, for the absolution. It was, after all, not pleasure but forgiveness I sought the day I saddled Felicity with the stable boy's blanket instead of the silver harness to which she was accustomed. It was to erase a sin that I mounted her and rode into town without the silk and jewels by which the people knew me. And it was as a penitent that I dismounted, freighted with a secret treasure, at the small cottage where Ebba was being born.
When it was new, Coventry boasted only a single street, a long path that wound in a circle around the town, then worked its way to the river Cune on one side and to the forest of Arden on the other. The house I sought that morning was halfway around the circle, and so I was forced to pass some forty thatched huts before I reached it. Few of those poor homes had windows, but they all had doors. Soon villagers were running from one house to another, and more and more doors began to open along my way.
Some village folk came into the street to stare, others watched from their doors, and still others turned away as if it hurt to look on me. All of them were silent, hushed by the fire in my eyes and the shock of my bare legs against the horse's sides, my naked shoulders and breasts. I was too numb with righteous anger and hurt pride to notice their expressions, to care if one was lusty or another shamed, but I remember still the old man who stepped into my path to grab hold of Felicity's bridle. He was palsied and trembling, but he held the horse fast until he had made the sign of the cross in front of my face. Then, God's work done, he fell back to let me pass.
By the time I arrived at old Ædre's house, news of my ride had already reached her. She rushed to wrap me in a rough woolen cloak before I had set both feet on the ground. "Here, my lady," she said, far more embarrassed than I. "You must not show yourself like this." She put her arms around me and helped me into the house, as if my nakedness had somehow made me infirm.
I had ridden there in the heat of passion, filled with indignation. I had not cared who stared or gawked as the horse and I made our way along. Now, with the rude cloak thrown over me, I was suddenly ashamed. I had never set foot inside any of the villagers' homes, and this one was humbler than I could ever have guessed. The floor was tamped earth, and a chicken roused itself from one corner to meet us and peck boldly at my bare toes. The room was filled with sweat and heat. Behind a blanket hung from the rafters, I heard a woman scream. She moaned, then screamed again, and I knew it must be young Fride in the pangs of birth.
I had seen her in town, a strong-limbed, laughing girl who sold her grandmother's honey at market. Now, if the talk that had spread from town to castle, from gardener to cook, and finally to my own lady in waiting was true, this girl was giving birth to the Earl of Mercia's babe.
When yet another scream pierced us, Ædre bade me sit by the fire while she tended her granddaughter. "Aiiiiyeee," the girl wailed. And "There now," soothed Ædre. "It will not be long."
As I listened, memories filled my head and heart, memories I did not want in either place. Busying myself, I spat out the cloth bag I had hidden in my mouth. It looked like nothing, a tiny package wrapped in muslin. But when I untied the string and the square of fabric fell open on my palm,