Conquest

Godwin moved uneasily in his chair, as if a great burden had been placed on his old shoulders. ‘I hoped I would never have to tell that story again.’ He paused, as if preparing for an ordeal. ‘My time should have come at least ten summers ago. Every year, as the autumn winds rushed around my home, I felt death coming, but it passed me by. With each spring, I began to realize that I was being granted the extra years for a purpose. When the good priest clambered up the mountain to see me, I knew what it was he carried.’ Godwin spoke quietly, with all the solemnity of his great age, then his eyes brightened a little, as if to ease the tension he had created. ‘Sire, would you grant me just two favours in the telling of my story?’

‘Of course.’

‘I need one of your fine cavalry horses. I can only tell you the story from where I can remember the detail — on the top of my mountain — and I doubt that I can get back up there without the help of a horse. Also, I need Father Leo to hear my story. My time isn’t far off and a kindly priest may be useful to me in facing the unknown.’

Leo smiled. ‘Godwin, all men need a priest when they face God; only heathens face the unknown.’

‘Precisely, Father!’

Now, all four men were smiling.

Prince John Comnenus called to the Captain of his Guard. ‘We leave within the hour.’

As he approached, the Captain bowed in turn to the two Johns, and then he turned to Godwin and spoke to him in almost reverential terms. ‘Godwin of Ely, I am privileged to salute you.’ The Captain clenched the hilt of his sword and nodded his head.

Godwin grasped his sword and nodded back.

Several hours later, the Princes’ Guard was camped in the high meadow beside Godwin’s mountain home. Ripples on the lake forewarned that the wind would soon rush off the mountain and chase away the setting sun. Although the air was not yet cold, it soon would be.

The stewards did their best to make sure the four men were comfortable. They had made a roaring fire and collected a large supply of wood. Godwin and John Comnenus sat on sacks of straw and leaned back against the rocks which were strewn around the side of the lake, their sharp surfaces softened by furs and bearskins. Prince John Azoukh sat nearby, within earshot, with Father Leo beside him. Leo knew that the story he was about to hear would not only be a saga of kingship for the young prince but also Godwin’s private confession.

Godwin had insisted that he tell his story in the open, looking north-west, where he could see the setting sun and, in his mind’s eye, England, the land of his birth. John Comnenus reflected on the scene, and how different it was from Constantinople. Here was tranquillity, without intrigue, mistrust or evil deeds; just nature and its eternal cycle.

‘Is it time for me to hear your story now?’

‘Yes, sire, I am ready. But understand this: it is not my story. It is the chronicle of another man — a man from a distant country and another age.’

‘But you are a legend — an invincible warrior. My father tells me that you carried the Talisman because you embody all that it means.’

‘I am merely a participant in the story. The Talisman has belonged to many men, but this is the story of a messenger, a man who carried it in search of a leader worthy of the name. He was an Englishman, who, as guardian of the Talisman, found his own destiny; a destiny that was difficult to live with, but even more difficult to die for.’

‘That sounds like a riddle, Godwin.’

‘Maybe it is, sire. But every man must find his destiny, live with it and then come to terms with its reckoning. So must kings… and so must emperors.’

1. Young Thegn

The year was 1053, the eleventh year of the rule of Edward I, King of England, later to be called ‘The Confessor’, an accession that had ended a brief dynasty of three Danish kings on the throne of England. Edward was of the royal Cerdician house, a centuries-old Anglo-Saxon lineage from England’s heartland in Wessex. However, for twenty-five years before becoming King, Edward had lived in exile in Normandy at the home of his mother, the redoubtable Emma of Normandy.

Edward ruled a kingdom that was far from secure. The ambitious Welsh warlord, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, controlled most of the land west of Hereford and was attempting to unify the Welsh tribes. To the north, Macbeth, King of the Scots, was a shrewd and resourceful leader. The Danes and Norwegians were always looking for opportunities to plunder England’s riches, as they had for centuries. Most significantly of all, the restless Normans lay in wait across the Channel in northern France, on the lookout for an opportunity to strike.