A King's Comrade Part 18

"Why, of course; such like always are. But seeing that it was felt everywhere we have ridden, even so far as Northampton, and likely enough further on yet, I don't see why we should take it as meant for the king."

Then he began to laugh to himself.

"When one comes to think thereof," he chuckled, "there must have been scores of men who felt it just as they were starting somewhere; and I warrant every one of them took it to himself, and put off his business! Well, well, I can tell what it did portend, however, for Ethelbert, and that is a mighty change in his household so soon as he gets his new wife home. Earthquake, forsooth! Mayhap he will wish he had hearkened to its message when she turns his house upside down."

"Nay," I said, smiling; "one has not heard that of the princess."

"She is Quendritha's daughter," he said grimly, and growing grave of a sudden. "That is the one thing against this wedding, to my mind. If she is like her mother, or indeed like her sister Eadburga, who wedded your king, there is an end for peace to Ethelbert, and maybe to East Anglia."

Now I had heard little or nothing of how that last match turned out; I only knew that when I was taken from home we were full of rejoicing over it. So I heard now for the first time that over all the land of Wess.e.x were whispers of ill done by our new queen--of men who crossed her in aught dying suddenly, or going home to linger awhile and come to a painful end. I heard that she bore rule rather than the king, and that her sway was heavy, and so on in many counts against her. The tales were the same as those I had heard often of late about her mother, Quendritha, and with all my heart I hoped that the Princess Etheldrida was not as those two. I had heard naught but good of her, at all events, and I will say now that all I had heard was true. There could be no sweeter maiden in all the land than she. I heard the same good words of her only brother, Ecgfrith, and I suppose that those two bore more likeness to their mighty father than to the queen.

All this half-stifled talk of untold ill from Quendritha lay heavy on my mind; and it came to me that Sighard was a true man, and that to him I might tell the tale Thrond told me. I must share that secret with some one who might, if he deemed it wise, warn King Ethelbert in such sort that he should beware of her, now and hereafter. So after a little while I said:

"Thane, I have heard that Quendritha came ash.o.r.e--"

"Ay," he said sharply, looking round him. "But that is a tale which is best let alone. It is true enough. My wife's folk took her in at Lincoln."

"Is it known whence she came?" I went on, paying no heed to a warning sign he made; for we were far from the camp yet, and the king was a hundred yards ahead of us.

"Let be, Wilfrid; hold your peace on that. There are men who have asked that question in all simplicity, and they have gone."

"Why, is there aught amiss in coming ash.o.r.e as she did?"

"Hold your peace, I tell you. On my word, it is as well, though, that you have had it out with me here in the meadows. Listen: there is no harm in the drifting hither. What sent her adrift?"

"I have sailed for a month with Danes," I said. "I have met with a man who once set a girl adrift."

As I said that I looked him meaningly in the face, and he grew pale.

"So," he said slowly, "you have heard that tale also. There was a Danish chapman who came to our haven at Mundesley, where I live, and told it there to me. That was a year after the boat was found.

I bade him be silent, but there was no need. When he heard that the girl had become what she is, he fled the land. And, mind you, he could not be certain, nor can I."

"Nor could the man who told me. But my Dane is the nephew of that man."

Sighard grasped my arm.

"Speak to him, and bid him hold his tongue if he has heard the tale, else he and you are dead men. Get to him at once."

I thought, indeed, that there was need to do so, though Erling was in nowise talkative. For if, as was pretty certain, the tale of the coming of Quendritha went round the groups of men at the camp fires, he might say that he had heard of one set adrift from his own land.

So instead of going in at once with the king to the pavilion, I ran down to the lines where the horses were picketed, and found Erling on his way to the supper, which was spread under some trees for our servants. I took him aside and walked out into the open with him.

"Erling," I said, "do you mind that tale which Thrond tells concerning a damsel set afloat?"

"Ay, more than mind it--I saw it done! She went from our village. I was a well-grown lad of fourteen then. Now I know what you would say. It is the word of Thrond that this Quendritha, whom men fear so, is she. He says so, since you spoke to him."

"Have you breathed a word thereof to any one?" I asked, with a sort of cold fear coming on me.

I had no mind to die of poison.

"Not likely; here of all places. I mind what that maiden was in the old days. From all accounts she has but held herself back somewhat here. But had you had aught to do with her, I should have warned you, master."

I set my hand on his shoulder.

"I know you would. Now you will see the queen tomorrow. Tell me, then, if this is indeed she."

"Ay, I shall know her well enough. What I fear is that she may know me!"

Grim as his voice was, that made me laugh.

"Seeing that you were but a lad when she last set eyes on you--and now you are ten years older than myself, bearded and scarred moreover--I do not fear that for you in the least."

"Nor will she have need to scan me," he said. "Of course I need not fear it."

Then I asked him if he had more of the second sight.

"Naught fresh, master. Only that look on the face of the young king deepens, and ever there is the red line round his neck. I fear for him."

So did I, but of that we spoke no more. I tried all I knew to fathom that fear of mine, and the most I could do was to make it seem more and more needless and foolish. And presently, when we sat at the table, and I saw the king speaking with the Mercians, and noted their admiring looks at him, and their eagerness to listen to him, I thought that Sighard was right, and that I was frayed with shadows of my own making. I knew enough of men by this time to see that here was no thought of ill toward Ethelbert.

CHAPTER IX. HOW QUENDRITHA THE QUEEN WOVE HER PLOTS.

Great was the welcome which Ethelbert of East Anglia had from Offa of Mercia when we reached the great stronghold of Sutton Walls on the next morning, riding there in all state and due array in our best holiday gear, with those Mercian thanes who had met us as escort before and after us. The morning was bright and clear, and I thought I had never seen so fair a procession as this with which the king went to meet his bride.

I had heard much of this palace of Offa's from the Mercians and from Ethelbert himself, but it was a far stronger place than I had expected. Seeing that here, on the newly-conquered Welsh border lands, no man could tell when the wild Britons might swarm across the ford, and bring fire and sword in revenge on the lands they had lost, if the king would have a palace here, it must be a very strong hold, and Offa had indeed made one.

The Romans had chosen the place long ago, having the same foe to watch and the same ford to keep, and on the low hill, which they saw was best for strength and position alike, they had set a great square camp with high earthen walls and deep moat below them. Once they had had their stone houses within it, but they had gone. The last of them were cleared when Offa drove out the Welsh and set his own place there after our fashion. Then he had repaired the earthworks, and crowned them afresh with a heavy timber stockade, making new gates and bridges across the moat.

Across the bridge which faces toward Wales we rode, between lines of country folk, who thronged outside the stockading to see our coming; and so with their cheers to greet us we came into a great open courtyard, with long buildings for thralls and kitchens and the like on either side of it, and right opposite the gate, facing toward it, the timber hall of the king itself. A little chapel, cross crowned, stood on its left, and the guest house and guard rooms for the housecarls to the right, stretching across the centre of the camp where once the Roman huts had been.

The hall was high and long, and had a wide porch and doorway in the end which faced the gate. Behind it one could see the roofs of other buildings which joined it, and beyond it again were stables, and byres, and kennels, and barns, and the countless other offices which a great house needs, filling up the rest of the s.p.a.ce the stockade enclosed. Nor were they set at random, as one mostly sees them; but all having been built at once, they stood in little streets, as it were, most orderly to look on, with a wider street running from the back of the hall to the gate which led toward Mercia through the midst.

Presently I learned that the queen's bower was a lesser hall, which joined the back of the great palace hall itself, and that there were other buildings, which were not to be seen at first. It was the greatest palace in all England, and I wished that the Franks, who had little praise for our dwellings, had seen this before they went back home. It is true that all was built of timber, while the Franks used stone; but that last no Angle or Saxon cares for while good oak and ash and chestnut are to be had.

I did not pay much heed to the place at the time when we rode in, beyond a swift glance round me. There was that which held my eyes from the first on the wide steps that led to the hall door. There stood Offa and his queen to meet their guest, with the n.o.bles of Mercia round them in a wondrous gathering, blazing with colour, and gold, and jewels, and the white horse banner of Mercia over them.

To right and left along the front of chapel and guest house were lines of the scarred housecarls who had followed Offa and won the land for him, bright with flashing helms and weapons; and close behind the group on the steps were some black-robed priests, who had a vested bishop in their midst.

So they waited while we dismounted, and then Ethelbert went forward alone toward the king and queen, carrying his helm in his hand, and with only a little golden circlet round his fair hair. I mind that the bright sun flashed from it as he went till there seemed a halo round his head, like to the ring of light they paint round the heads of the saints in the churches. And I thought that even Offa seemed less kingly than did he, though the great king was fully robed and wearing his crown. I think he had on a white tunic with a broad golden hem, and a crimson cloak fastened on his shoulder with cross-shaped brooch, golden and gemmed, while his hose were of dark blue, cross-gartered with gold.

And then I must look at the queen, and I saw the most wonderfully beautiful lady who ever lived outside of a gleeman's tale, so that hardly could Guinevere herself, King Arthur's queen, have been more beautiful. She was tall and yet not thin, and her golden hair fell in two long plaits almost to the ground over her pale green dress.

From her shoulders hung a cloak of deeper green, wondrously wrought with crimson and gold and silver, and fastened with golden brooches. She also wore her crown; but even if she had not had it, none could mistake her for any but the queen among all the ladies who stood behind her, and they were of the n.o.blest of that land.

I thought that the Princess Etheldrida would be there also, for beside the king was Ecgfrith the atheling; but she was not. They say that she had some maidenly fear of meeting this husband of hers, who was to be, in the open court thus.

Now Offa smiled and came down the steps to meet Ethelbert, and set his hand on his shoulder and kissed him in a royal greeting, and so led him to the queen, who waited him with a still face, which at least had naught but friendliness in it. One would say that it was such a look as a fond mother might well turn on the man who would take her loved daughter from her, not unwilling, but half doubting for her. There seemed no look of ill, and none of guile, in her blue eyes as Ethelbert bent and kissed her hand; and she too bent and kissed his forehead.