Godiva by Nicole Galland

Author:Nicole Galland
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2013-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

Part 3

CHAPTER 16

On the Road

She took five housecarls. Including Druce. Armed to the eyebrows, all of them. She promised that if she heard any word of fighting, she would return at once to Coventry, or at worst, divert to Bromyard. Godiva wore the dress—the costume, really, as she thought of it—that she saved for visits to the abbey: a long shapeless tunic of dark blue, with a matching veil and wimple. She refused to lay aside her jewelry, especially her heavy necklaces . . . but for Edgiva’s sake, she dressed nearly as demurely as if she were a nun herself.

They set out next morning after mass, leaving the flowering gorse of the northern heath behind them.

Their journey took them along a path linking small villages and smaller hamlets. The weather continued queerly, cloudy but no rainfall, as if the weather gods were mocking all the farmers. Godiva rode astride, but behind her saddle was a pillion pad for respite. This was at Leofric’s insistence, which only made her determined not to require respite. From Coventry to Meriden to Solihull to Alvechurch to Bromsgrove to Droitwich they walked and trotted and sometimes, briefly, cantered, and on the second night, they approached Worcester.

The town was beautiful, strangely fresh for one so large—but five years rebuilt since the heregeld razing. The cathedral of St. Mary was still sooty from the fires, but the wattle-and-daub houses were redolent with clean thatch—surely nowhere else in England boasted such a large collection of newly thatched roofs together, in a town that housed more than a thousand souls.

Were Lyfing alive, Godiva would have been his guest at the Bishop’s Palace, but she was riding incognita and did not even pay respects to Aldred. Instead her party lodged in a town home maintained by one of Leofric’s thanes.

In the morning they went on to Bromyard, moving at a leisurely pace and arriving in time to rest that night. Godiva liked Bromyard. It was a market town for the surrounding villages, in an area excellent for growing hops. As a result, the town was famous for its ale. The lady of Mercia was accustomed to drinking mead, as the Earl of Mercia kept his cellars stocked with little else. “Life it bitter enough already,” he often said, “without adding bitters to it.”

But Godiva liked variety and made sure to sample all the local wares, and, of course, she treated the housecarls to them too.

They all awoke the next morning groggier than usual.

But they managed to get the horses geared up and were on the road by sunup, moving slowly. In the late morning, as the bells tolled the end of Terce-mass, they approached the bounds of Leominster, waiting for them on a slight rise in the middle of a wide and fertile plain.

It was a suddenly brilliant day. The air was dryer than it had been, and the breeze was strong out of the west, bringing smells and sounds of civilization and river life before they saw anything but pasture and woods, catkins and wild daffodils.

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