A King's Comrade Part 14

"It is sent for some reason, therefore," said I. "Now, is it possible to avert the doom which seems written?"

He shook his head. "I have never heard so," he answered.

"Yet the king does not seem fey," said I, "and there is no man in all this land who would harm him. Ah, maybe you saw the robe as of a saint, because all men hold him most saintly!"

"May it he so," he answered. "You are Christian folk, and it may mean that; I will hope it does. How should a heathen man know what is for you? Over you the Norns may have no power. Pay no heed to me."

"No," said I. "We ride to Offa with the king in a few days, and if you and I have fears for him, there are two who will watch him carefully. That is why the sight has come to you, I think. There is danger, and we may meet it."

Thereat he cheered up, for the thought of facing a peril heartened him. His heathen fear of fate was enough to make any man downcast when it seemed to promise naught but ill, and I verily believe that he thought the way of the Christian might be altogether different from his. But I liked his second sight not at all, for of course we Saxons know that when it is given it is not to be despised. My father had many times told me of the like before I heard this.

After that I asked now and then if there was any danger to be guarded against on the way to Fernlea, and I was told by all that there was none. Hardly would a strong guard be needed, for the hand of Offa was heavy on ill doers, and his land had peace from end to end.

So then I began to think the portent altogether heathenish, and half forgot it. And with that I hoped that Erling would not often be taken in this way.

I rode with the Franks for an hour or two on their road back to Norwich, homeward, and then took leave of them, riding back to Thetford with Erling alone, for the king had but set the emba.s.sy as far as the gates of the town. And as I watched them pa.s.s across the heaths and at last disappear behind a hill, it seemed to me that I had my life to begin afresh, for the days when I was one of the paladins of King Carl of the Franks were past and done with. Many were the lessons I had learned therein, and I have never regretted those five years; and, best of all, in them I had been the friend and close comrade of Ecgbert, who I know had then all the promise of his greatness of the days to come.

CHAPTER VII. HOW ETHELBERT'S JOURNEY BEGAN WITH PORTENTS.

Seeing that Carl the Great was at this time, and I suppose always will be, the model of what a king should be, Ethelbert had many things to ask me of him, and out of the hours which he spent in questioning me it came to pa.s.s that he took pleasure in my company at other times as well, treating me as a close comrade. That sort of thing is apt to be perilous in time, for it makes jealousies about a court if there is favour for one more than for another of the courtiers; but as I was no more than a pa.s.sing stranger, who had not the least intention of biding here, I escaped that. Nor do I think that any one was jealous of me, for the honour which Carl had set on me for the sake of Ecgbert hung about me, as it were, and I suppose that half the court thought that I had to take some message on to Offa from my late lord.

Moreover, for good and wise reasons of his own, Ethelbert had no close companions of his own age, and maybe longed for such, finding in myself one to whom he could speak his mind of his own affairs without any thought of favour or policy rising up to cloud my answers to him, as his guest.

So in a few days I told him of Ecgbert, and gave him those messages of which I have spoken, being sure that with him they were safe.

And I was glad that I did so, for his joy on hearing of his friend was good to see. As for the rest of the hopes of our atheling, he may have had his own thoughts, but he said plainly that the day when Wess.e.x would need him might come, and that if it did none would more willingly welcome him home again.

"But," he said, "I think that best of all Ecgbert would wish to come home in peace at once, and set all ambition aside. Presently, if we are careful, I may be able to speak to Offa of him again.

Nay, but have no fear; I understand how matters are with Bertric, and will risk naught. I think we may find that Offa, who is friendly with King Carl, knows more of Ecgbert than you might guess."

So that matter dropped, and I had done my errand. But for the sake of Ecgbert I was all the more welcome to the king, for I had to tell him of the wars and the deeds of his friend. I do not think that any will wonder that thus I saw more of the king than otherwise might have been my lot.

Now there was another of whom I saw much at this time before we started to ride westward, and that, of course, was the Lady Hilda.

She, I found, was going to Fernlea, rather that she might be one of the ladies who should attend the bride whom it was hoped that the king would bring home, than as going to remain with Quendritha, and I must say that I was glad thereof. With her and her father I rode many a mile hawking, and both of them seemed to hold me as an old friend by reason of that lucky chance which brought about our first meeting; and the only fault I had to find with the journey we looked for was that in Offa's court would end my friendship with them.

So it happened one day as we rode thus that while the thane had crossed a stream, beating up the far bank for a heron, we fell into talk of the journey and its ending.

"What is amiss with it all?" she asked. "The good queen seems terribly downcast about it. Is not the princess her choice?"

"Altogether so, as the king tells me. Perhaps the queen has mother-like fears for the safety of this only son of hers, and lets them get on her mind overmuch."

"That would be hardly like our queen," she answered, laughing; "she is above that foolishness. No, but there is somewhat more."

"Then," said I, thinking that this was fancy, "it will be some trouble of state which is at the bottom of her anxiety. That none of us can mend."

"It may be that," she said; "but it is some heavy trouble. I have never seen her so downcast until yesterday. It is a sudden thing."

There we left the subject, and I thought little more of it until the next morning, which was that of the day before we started. It had become a custom that I should wait on the king at his first rising, when he had most leisure to talk with me, and this time I found the queen with him in his chamber. She looked sad and anxious, as I thought.

"Wilfrid," she said to me when the fitting greetings were over, "you are a stranger here, and no thought of policy will come into your mind. Tell me truly what you think of this; it may be that your word will have some weight with my son."

Ethelbert smiled, but it was not quite his usual untroubled smile at all.

"It is not fair to ask Wilfrid," he said; "maybe he puts much faith in these omens."

"No, but he is of Wess.e.x," she said. "He cares naught for alliance or court, or for any of those things which blind our eyes. I want him to answer me as if I were just a franklin's wife who is in doubt.

"Listen, then, if you will."

She turned to me with a sort of appeal, and spoke quietly, though I saw that she was almost weeping.

"Last night I dreamed a dream, and in it I waited in the church here for the bells to ring for the wedding of my son and Etheldrida, whom he loves. It was in my mind that all the good folk would come in their best array, and that so we should sing a great 'Te Deum' for the happiness of all. And indeed there was a voice from the belfry--but it was of the great bell alone, as of a knell for the dead. And indeed it seemed that the people came--but they came softly and weeping, and they were clad all in black. And then they sang--but it was the psalm 'De Profundis.'"

I think that I paled, for I minded those other things which Erling had told me. The lady, who looked in my face, saw it, and she grew white also--whiter than she had been before.

"Lady," I stammered, "I have no wit to read these things. It were well to ask the good bishop, for he is wise."

"Ay, too wise," she said. "I would hear simplicity."

Then Ethelbert rose up and set his arm round his mother very gently, and said gravely:

"Mother, know you not of what you have dreamed? Even as you told it first to me, and now again, I seemed to be back on that day, not so long past, when we buried my father. So it was in the church at that time, and it was the most terrible thing which you have known.

"Is it wonderful, Wilfrid, that it should come back thus in the night watches?"

"It is not wonderful," I said.

"Lady, I think that the king is right.

"But, King Ethelbert, if I am to say my mind, I would put off the journey for the sake of the peace of the queen your mother."

"And thereby offend Offa, and maybe hurt that little playmate of mine? No, it cannot be. And what should the dream be but that we say?"

Then the queen said plainly:

"I fear for you, my son--I fear Quendritha. In the days gone by your wise father was wont to say that if ever danger came from Mercia to East Anglia, it would be by reason of her ambition and longing for power and width of realm."

"Why, mother, then surely in gaining the East Anglian throne for her daughter she gains all she would. And she is Offa's queen, and in his court can be no danger to me or any man. Presently you shall surely dream again, and that dream shall show you the old sorrow turned to joy, for you will have a fair daughter to drive away your loneliness. She will be all you need, for I know that I can be of little help to you. The dream was of the sorrow which is pa.s.sing to make way for joy to come."

Then the queen made shift to smile, and told him that she deemed that her fears might be foolish. But to me it seemed that even as she had said, the thought of policy and state came first of necessity, setting aside such a vision as any simple thane would surely have thought held him from a journey he would take. Indeed, many a one would have given it up for far less, for I have known men turn back when already started, because a harmless hare crossed their path or a lone magpie sat on a wayside tree. Maybe I minded such like myself once, but service with Carl mended that. If he bade a man do a thing, that man had to do it, omen or none. Whereby I found that mostly these journey tokens, as one may call them, came to naught, and certainly I should not have done that if I had been able to mind them. And yet I do not know if aught would turn a true lover from the way which leads him toward the lady of his choice.

"One thing only I do fear from this dream of yours, my mother," the king said after a little while. "Can it mean harm to Etheldrida?

Was it for her that the knell pa.s.sed, and shall I find her gone from me? It is many days since I heard from her or of her."

Now when it came to that, I knew that nothing would stay the king, and so also did his mother. Whereon she was eager as himself to say that the dream was but wrought of her sorrow.

"Why, then," said Ethelbert, "you and Wilfrid may laugh at me if you will; for I have dreamed a dream to set against yours, because I think it has a good meaning. I thought that I was in a city, and that from its marketplace rose heavenward a great beam of light, like a pathway. And so I would climb it, but I could not. Then I had wings, and up it at last I sailed as a ship sails on the path of sunlight on an evening sea. Surely that promises a happy journey for me. Fear no more, therefore, my mother."