A King's Comrade Part 16

But Hilda came to herself again, and tried to laugh, saying that there was never yet a horse of which she was afraid. Nor would she hear of a change, for when her horse grew more quiet it was plain that its terror had pa.s.sed away. She took herself gently from my arm, and spoke bravely now.

"What was it?" she asked me while Sighard soothed the beast.

"Why," answered Father Selred for me, "just what I was going to tell the paladin--such an earthquake as I felt on a like day in Rome years ago. But why it comes here in quiet England, where is no fiery mountain to disquiet the earth, I cannot say."

"Father, it is the end of the world!" said a thrall, forgetting our presence in his terror.

"Not so, my son. The thousand years of prophecy are not at an end yet; and there are more foretellings of Holy Writ yet to be fulfilled. It is just the old earth shaking herself after a sleep."

The man's face cleared, and he shrank back with a low bow, frightened at his own boldness. All seemed to have found their tongues again, and were telling how the matter had seemed to them without waiting to know whether they were listened to.

"No hurry," said Sighard; "the king cannot keep up that pace, and anywise will have to wait the pack-horse train somewhere. Let us see all well first."

Maybe we waited for half an hour after that, for the ladies were sorely frightened. We had the horses walked to and fro for a while, and presently they were themselves again. And there came no more trembling of the ground, while the clouds grew blacker, and a short, sharp thunderstorm swept over us. It was good to feel the cleared air again, and to smell the scent that rises after rain, and to hear the song of the birds break out around us.

Yet on every face was a fear that would not be put aside. Men thought that the earthquake boded ill for the journey of the king and what might come thereof.

So when the rain had pa.s.sed we rode away after the king, followed by the pack horses, and before noon caught him up. He had heard then what had happened to set his steed beyond control, and his face was grave also. Even he could not help fearing that the earthquake, coming at that moment as it did, might be sent as a token which he must hear though the dreams of his mother went for naught.

"And yet," he said to Father Selred and myself as we rode beside him, "I am doing what I deem best for throne and realm, and I have no thought of guile or harm to any man. Nor can I see that I have to fear any from Offa, or that at his court can be danger to me."

"Journey and reason therefor are alike good so far as man can see or plan," said Selred the priest. "I would that every journey was undertaken as fully innocently. I cannot think that any tokens have been sent to warn you from it. Yet if there had been aught amiss in your plans, it is true that there have been tokens enough to scare any man from evil."

"Maybe it all means naught but danger on the journey. Well, we knew there was always that in any ride. For the rest, we are in the hands of Him who orders all and can see beyond our ken. We will go on till the tokens, if tokens they be, are plain in their meaning."

Father Selred approved, gravely. Then he muttered somewhat to himself, and laughed. It was Latin, but the king told me afterward what it meant. Some old Roman poet had made a song in which he said that a man who was just and straightforward in his purposes need not fear if the world fell, shattered in ruins, around him.

It was a good saying, and surely that was the way of Ethelbert of East Anglia. Maybe the one thing which did trouble him was his thought of the terror of his mother, and of her anxiety for him.

But it was a long while before the rest of us shook off the fear of what all this might betoken. Perhaps of all I had the most reason to think that ill was before the king, for Erling, though he said no more to me, was plainly full of bodings. And I have heard that other men dreamed dreams of terror and told them to one another.

Only Ethelbert was always cheerful, singing as he rode and laughing with us, so that we ought to have been ashamed to be dull.

Save for what was in my mind, I cannot say that the miles went slowly. The days were bright and warm, and ever did I take more pleasure in the old home land. And always when Ethelbert had his counsellors round him I rode with Hilda and her father, and I think that I wished that journey might never end, after a while.

For I was going homeward to where mother and father waited me, in the first place. Then I had pleasant companions, and most of all this one of whom I have just spoken. I had a good horse under me, and a comrade in Erling who served me silently with that best of service that is given for love. I was high in honour with this wonderful young king, for the sake of Ecgbert first, I think, then of King Carl, and lastly because he did indeed seem to like my own company. I do not think that one could need more to add to pleasure.

I have seen the progresses of kings before this and since, and often it has been that after their pa.s.sing there has been grumbling, and the hearty hope that the long and greedy train which ate men out of house and home, borrowed their best horses, and otherwise made a little famine in their wake, might never come that way again. But this Ethelbert left, as it were, a track of happiness across England, in hall and in village, in cot and in forest. He had ridden with so small a train that he might overburden none of those who had to entertain him on his way, and he stayed nowhere overlong. Everywhere he seemed to leave smiles and wishes that he would honour that house or that town again on his return, and not a man to whom he had spoken, if it were but a word of thanks, would ever forget how Ethelbert the Anglian looked on him with that kindly glance of his.

CHAPTER VIII. HOW ETHELBERT CAME TO THE PALACE OF SUTTON.

By Ely and Huntingdon and Northampton, and so through the very heart of England, across the sweet Avon at Stratford, our way took us, under trees that had their first leaves fresh and sweet on them, and past orchards pink and white, with the bees busy among the bloom. I had seen many a fair country beyond the sea in the wide realms of Carl, but none so sweet as this to my mind. The warm rain that came and stayed us now and then but made it all the sweeter; and I mind, with a joy that bides with me, the hours of waiting in old halls and quiet monasteries.

That black cloud of fears cleared away presently, for it was in all truth a very bridal procession in which we rode. Everywhere the news went before us that hither came the well-loved king to bear away the sweet daughter of Mercia, and from town and hamlet the bells greeted us, and the folk donned their holiday gear to come to meet us. I had not known that the name of Ethelbert, young as he was, could have been so held in love across the land. But Father Selred told me that never had been such a king as he, as there surely had never been such promise of the days when he was the heir to the throne.

First in all he was in the minds of every man who knew him, whether in war or peace, council or chamber, and maybe he was the only one who did not know it. I learned much of him in that ride, and always with a growing love of him and a deeper wonder. He thought for every one but himself.

Nor was there a church, however small, which he pa.s.sed on that happy journey toward his bride which was not the richer and brighter for some gift of his, left on the altar after the morning ma.s.s, which always began our day, or given quietly after the evensong which ended it. One might know his road now by the words of the people, who will say with more than pride that once Ethelbert crossed the threshold of their church and gave this or that gift. I have seen richer gifts given, and heard more words said; but what he gave seemed always that which was wanted, and the word he spoke was always the best that could have been. And I have wondered at the mighty churches which Carl the Great had reared and was still rearing, but in some wise it seemed to me that the way of Ethelbert was of more worth.

Now, seeing that we had started with our minds full of portents, it is not by any means wonderful that we found more on the road. For a time, if a horse did but cast a shoe, the thane it belonged to shook his head and wished that naught ill might come of the little delay. And once, when we stumbled into a fog among the river country of the midlands, where one would expect to meet with it, there was nigh a panic in the company, so that the thanes crowded round Ethelbert and begged him to return. Whereon he laughed at them gaily.

"Thanes, thanes!" he cried, "one can no more see to return than to go forward! I might take it as a warning not to go back, just as well. Did none of you ever see a fog before? Had it fallen on you while hunting, you would have done naught but grumble and wait its lifting."

But they were terrified, as it seemed, beyond reason; and, indeed, it was as thick as any Friesland fog I have ever seen, and it grew blacker for an hour or so, while we had perforce to wait under dripping trees till we could see to go on. Even a horse will lose his way home in such a fog as that.

And at last they begged the king to pray that it might clear from off us, and so he knelt and did so. It was strange to hear his clear voice rising from the midst of half-seen men and steaming horses, praying for the light. And then the fog lifted as suddenly as it had come, and the sun shone out.

"See," he said, "our fears are like this mist, and cloud our senses. Surely the fears shall pa.s.s likewise from the heart of him who prays. So read I the token, if token it be."

All that day thereafter we rode in brightest sunshine, and men were fairly ashamed to say more of ill-luck and the like. And so also in lovely weather we went for the fourteen days of our journey, until we came to the place where we should cross the Severn at Worcester, and but a day's long ride was before us.

After that time of the mist Ethelbert noticed Erling, and would call him and speak long with him of the ways of his home, as I thought.

At Worcester we waited while a message went from the town to Offa, and next day there came to meet us some score of the best thanes of the Welsh borderland, who should be our guides to the end of the journey. Hard warriors and scarred with tokens of the long wars they were, but pleasant and straightforward in their ways, as warriors should be. Only I did not altogether like the smooth way of the man who was their leader. His name was Gymbert, and he was of mixed Welsh and English blood, as I was told, and he was also high in honour with Offa, and with Quendritha herself; which in itself spoke well for him, but nevertheless in some way I cared not for him.

They feasted us that night in Worcester, and early next morning we rode out westward again on the last stage of our journey, the king leading us with this thane at his side, followed by the rest of the Mercians and his own thanes. So I, not altogether unwillingly, rode with Hilda in the rear of the party, feeling somewhat downcast to think that this was the last time I was at all likely to be her companion.

I suppose that there is not a more wonderful outlook in all England than from the Malvern heights, save only that from our own Quantocks, in the west. I hold that the more wonderful, for there one has the sea, and across it the mountains of Wales, which one misses here, while it were hard to say whence the eye can range the furthest.

I told Hilda so as we reined up the horses for a moment at the top of the steep to breathe them, and she sighed, with all the wonder before her. We of the hill countries do not know all the pleasure that comes into the heart of one from the level east counties, as he looks for the first time from a height over the lands spread out below. I had been long enough in Friesland now to learn some of that wonder for myself anew.

"Well," she said, "you will be back again at home in your hills shortly, and all this ride will be forgotten. Where does your home lie? Can it be seen?"

I pointed south or thereabout. I could almost fancy that I should be able to see the far blue line of the Mendips under the sun, so bright it all was and clear.

Then she asked if my folk knew that I was on my way home.

"No; else I had ridden straightway from Thetford to them. They think that I am yet with the Franks across the sea, and a few days can make no difference to them. Nor could I be so churlish as to refuse the king's offer of help on my way."

"I wonder how you will find all when you get back?"

"And so do I. There were merchants from Bristol who brought me a message that all was well with them six months ago, and by the same hands I sent back word that so it was with me. Possibly that message has reached them about this time."

That was the third time I had heard from home during these years, and I was lucky to have heard at all. It seems that my father had bidden friends of ours at the ports to let him hear of men from across the seas who were to go to the court of Carl.

"Ah," she said, "I hope so. That would be more than joy to your mother. And then for you to follow so quickly on the message! that will be wonderful. I would that I could see that meeting."

She turned and laughed in the pleasure of the thought, and I suppose there was that in my eyes which told her that I had the same wish. Maybe I should have said so, but she flushed a little, and gave me no time.

"But I shall be on the way back to East Anglia with the princess, and I will picture it all. Some day, when you come back to see the king, as you say he has asked you, I shall hear of it."

Now it was in my mind that it was possible that I might be back in Thetford, or wherever Ethelbert's court might be at the time, sooner than I had any wish. For if aught had happened amiss at home, so that our lands, for want of the heir, had fallen into the hands of Bertric, I should be left with naught but my sword for heritage. Then--for the king had spoken of these chances to me--I was to come straightway back to him and take service with him. My knowledge of the ways in which Carl handled his men would be of use to him, and a place and honour would wait me. But I would not think much of such sorrow for me, though that it was possible, of course, may have been the great reason which made me silent when there were words I had more than once had it on the tip of my tongue to say to Hilda. Could I have known for certain that home and wealth yet waited for me, I know that I must needs have asked her to share them, now that at the end of this daily companionship I learned what my thoughts of her had grown to be.

"Ay, I shall be back with Ethelbert at some time," I said. "I do not forget promises."

After that we rode down the long hill silently enough, and the way did not seem so bright to me. And so through the long day we rode, stopping for an hour or two at the strong oaken hall, moated and stockaded, of some great border thane for the midday meal. There were the marks of fire on roof and walls; for once the wild Welsh had tried to burn it, and failed, in a sudden raid before Offa had curbed them with the mighty earthwork that runs from Dee to Severn to keep the border of his realm. "Offa's d.y.k.e" men call it, and so it will be called to the end of time.