Moyra Caldecott by Etheldreda Page A

Kent they decided to break their journey with Bishop Honorius, and it was as his guests that they came to be at the princess Etheldreda’s wedding.

    The wedding festivities lasted several days. In all that time the bride and groom, not yet united, walked amongst the guests, listened to heroic poems of other marriages and legendary love affairs, watched dancing, spoke politely to strangers. At night Etheldreda lay in her narrow bed, weary but unsleeping, wondering how it would be to live with the man she had seen so much of the past few days but with whom she had never once been alone.
    At the wedding ceremony Bishop Honorius spoke a great deal about marriage being for the procreation of children.
    Etheldreda shut her eyes. What if even now she were to say ‘No!’? Would people die because of it?
    She opened her eyes and found that she was looking directly into Tondbert’s. He had been kind to her as a child and she had affection for him. But now she was afraid. Would he respect her vow? She could not read his thoughts. The Bishop’s Latin words rolled over them, welding them together, making it impossible for her to change her mind.

    As they left her home and rode slowly through the cheering, smiling crowds that lined their route, she caught the eye of the younger of the two men who had come with the Bishop Honorius. It was dark and shrewd and looked boldly into hers. Troubled, she turned away, but she had the sense that she had not seen the last of him.

    At sunset Prince Tondbert’s wedding tent was pitched for them and at nightfall they were ushered towards it, his men crowding and jostling, calling out to each other, and sometimes to their prince, their anticipation for the night in terms that made Etheldreda’s cheeks burn.
    It was only when the tent flap closed behind them at last that the men settled down with their jars of ale. But it was not long before the ribald songs began. Heregyth complained bitterly about the noise but was powerless to stop it. For the first time she wondered what kind of life she and her mistress were going to have among such uncouth people.
    Ovin paced up and down throughout the night, sleep and peace of mind far from him.

    Inside the huge tent the lamps flickered and made monstrous shadows of the bride and groom, the only furniture a huge pallet of straw covered with furs. Etheldreda stood beside it, her heart beating painfully, hardly daring to meet her husband’s eyes.
    ‘My lord…’ she said at last in a small dry voice, but then found that she could not continue. They stood in silence, trapped in the lamplight, aware of each other, aware of what was expected of them by the laughing men outside.
    Tondbert moved at last and began to extinguish the lamps one by one. As each one went out a cheer went up from the men outside.
    Etheldreda clasped and unclasped her hands.
    As he came to the last one he paused and looked at her. The darkness was all around her; the flame of the last lamp dancing on her gold hair and the gold necklace at her throat. A muscle twitched in his cheek uncontrollably, but he said in a voice not much above a whisper: ‘We must go to bed lady – but you needn’t fear, I will honour the conditions of our betrothal though it destroys me.’
    As the flame went out, she flung herself upon the bed and sobbed, trying to keep the sound of it from reaching the men outside. Her husband did not touch her, but lay flat on his back at the other side of the pallet staring all night at a small aperture in the tent that let the starlight in.

    By dawn most of the men had fallen drunkenly asleep around the dead and dying fires and when Tondbert drew the curtain flap aside and strode out into the pale morning air, beating his fists upon his chest and smiling broadly to show that he had had a good night, not as many of his companions as he would have wished were there to see the act. But when the princess emerged later in her long silk robes, her hair dishevelled and her