Godiva Read Free Page A

Godiva said. “So I continued, ‘Shall we seek him out? Come quickly, do let’s find him!’ He was so confused, I was able to push past him and back into the courtyard, where there were more people. He gave me a wide berth the rest of the Council. But that is not the best piece of the story.” She gave him an expectant look.
    â€œPray continue,” Sweyn said dutifully, clearly wishing he had never left off wrestling.
    â€œI told both of these two about it that evening. Mother here grinned about it despite herself, although she was shocked.” She winked at Edgiva, who reddened and looked away again. “But Leofric? Oh, dear. He groaned and rubbed his fingers at his temples as he always does when he is distressed, and told me I would create the most atrocious trouble for both of us and he would divorce me if I did not cease flirting.”
    â€œIn my experience, you have not obeyed him,” Sweyn observed, embarrassed.
    â€œBut hear the coda,” Godiva said, in a triumphantly concluding tone. “The next day, I charmed an elderly Danish lord into forgetting he was not supposed to tell any Britons how many new warships King Harold was to build, and certainly could see no harm in sharing that number with a young lady who was staring at him adoringly and trying to speak Danish. Leofric was grateful, and lifted his censure.”
    â€œAh,” said Sweyn, at a loss for further commentary.
    The horn sounded near the king’s chair to announce the recommencement of the Council, and Sweyn nearly swooned with relief.

CHAPTER 2
    Gloucester
    I t was an hour later and the countess Godiva was bored almost to nausea.
    At the time the Great Council was called in Gloucester, the ruling couple of Mercia had been in the small, recently resettled hamlet known as Coventry in one of Godiva’s estates. With Leofric, whose wealth dwarfed hers, she had just endowed a new Benedictine monastery there. They had done so mostly because King Edward had—the moment he’d been crowned three years ago—expressed a desire to build a monastery there himself, and the ruling couple decided they would rather be patrons of a minster in their territory than allow the king that chance. Edward had been quite irritable about this, claiming sorrow not to found such an auspiciously sited abbey himself.
    â€œThe site is auspicious chiefly for being deep in the bowels of my earldom,” Leofric had muttered to his wife. “An excellent harbor for his spies.”
    So they had leapt into building the monastery, although they usually saved their patronage for monasteries placed in other people’s territories (providing an excellent harbor for Leofric’s spies).
    From Coventry to Gloucester was two days’ ride in summer, but this being early spring and the nights still long, they had given themselves a leisurely three days for it. Godiva wished they had given themselves a fortnight and missed the Council entirely.
    The crush of well-dressed bodies, Lenten-lean, provided heat in the smoky great hall. But not everyone was given to perfumery, and once they were settled onto benches, it was a pungent gathering. There had been such fuss about positioning. Only earls and bishops warranted stools; the rest made shift cramped together on benches. The king was flanked by two of his three great earls: Godwin to his right, Siward to his left. Leofric of Mercia had chosen not to play the game of who-sits-where and quietly joined his wife on a bench among the lesser gentry.
    Only out of love, Godiva now forced her attention to the end of the hall where the Abbess of Leominster, poised and elegant, had risen to address her uncle, the king, comfortably situated in the room’s only chair.
    There stood her childhood friend; there sat the king, who always looked irked when a woman stood to speak; and to either side of him, sat the men Godiva liked to call “those other earls.”
    Godwin was that