Crusade

Estrith took us across the great close between the cathedral and the palace and into the Benedictine infirmary behind the cathedral cloisters. Dozens of sick and dying filled every available space of the long, rectangular room as the nuns and monks did their best to cope with what seemed to be an overwhelming number of patients. We went into one of the private bedchambers at the end of the room, where two nuns were leaning over a bed, tending to a patient.

‘It is Adela, she is dying.’

We rushed to her side, but the fragile figure of jaundiced skin and bone was unconscious and barely breathing.

‘I shouldn’t have done it, but when I returned to Rouen from the Peloponnese with Harold, I heard that Adela was with the nuns. When I went to see her, she bullied me into bringing her to England; you know what she’s like. The nuns said she had been fighting death for weeks, hoping that you two would return soon. She wanted to die on English soil and be buried at Bourne. I have no idea how she survived the crossing; I had to pay the captain a fortune to take her because he was certain she would die at sea and bring his ship bad luck. When we were on board, she just stared over the side, desperate for the first sign of England. It was sheer willpower that kept her alive.’

I took one of Adela’s hands and Sweyn the other. She was cold and her hands, almost without flesh on them, weighed no more than a goose feather.

Sweyn spoke to the sisters. ‘When did she become unconscious?’

‘Yesterday morning, sire. She is your wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry, sire, she is unlikely to see out the day.’

Sweyn let his head fall to his chest.

I spoke to Adela, hoping against hope that she could hear me.

‘I have some wonderful news for you. Rufus is dead, killed in a hunting accident. King Henry I, the new King, has put his seal to a Charter of Liberties for all Englishmen. It guarantees respect for the law and the right of everyone to be dealt with fairly according to the law. What was fought for at Ely has not been forgotten. We’re going to take you to the Fens to celebrate.’

She did not respond visibly, but both Sweyn and I were sure she squeezed our hands.

Adela of Bourne, Knight of Islam, died later that day without regaining consciousness.

We travelled to Bourne immediately with, to his immense credit, a royal escort provided by King Henry, where we intended burying her with as much ceremony as we could muster.

Bourne had sprung to life again, reborn after the dark days of the Conquest. The little Saxon church was being rebuilt and new houses were sprouting all over the village. Everyone knew of the tragic history of Bourne and welcomed the opportunity to meet Sweyn, one of their own, and Estrith, the daughter of the man whose deeds would make their village part of English folklore for ever.

At our request, Simon of Senlis, Earl of Huntingdon, sent four of his knights and a platoon of men to join the King’s men in an honour guard. The Abbot of Ely, Richard Fitz Richard, sent two monks to pray for Adela and a choir of six more to sing plainchant during the interment.

We waited until dusk and lit the road into the village with beacons so that we could bring her body home like the returning heroine she had become. Estrith, Sweyn and I, with Harold in his father’s arms, walked behind the cart that bore her body as it entered the village, and the entire community formed a cortege to accompany her to her grave.

As the amber glints of the processional torches lit our tear-stained faces, the honour guards raised their swords in respectful salute and the monks sang their simple melodies. Sweyn and I lifted Adela’s body, wrapped in a simple linen shroud, and placed it in her grave. Her weapons and armour were laid on her body and we took it in turns to cover her with earth. Nothing was said; she did not want any words spoken or prayers read. She had asked Estrith for silence when the time came so that she could hear the sounds of the Fens drift over her on the evening air.

She had searched all her life for her destiny and had found it in many places (Normandy, Sicily and Palestine) and in many forms (as a Knight of Islam, as a leading proponent of the Mos Militum, as a founder of our Brethren and in the Charter of Liberties) and in love, generosity and devotion — the love she had shown to Sweyn during their phantom marriage, the generosity she had shown to Estrith in helping her to disguise her pregnancy, and the constant devotion she had always shown to all of us.

Now she had come home.

The journey back to Westminster was a time of sombre reflection for the three of us.