A King's Comrade Part 24

"If it is true that Offa is thus--well, we are forewarned.

Quendritha has let us see that in one way or the other she would fain have East Anglia. I think that she spoke unwarily to you, my king."

"Nay," said Selred the priest; "I hold that she sounded you as to whether you had any thought of adding Mercia to your own realm. If it is true that Offa has some secret ailment which is slowly and surely bringing his end near, she looks onward to the time when she shall stand alone. She would find out if you are to be feared."

"Maybe that is it," said Ethelbert, with a sigh of relief. "It must be. She is a mistress of craft; and had I one thought of adding to my realm, that would have made me show it. However, she should be satisfied. I would hear naught of putting off the wedding, as you may suppose."

I said nothing, but it was in my mind that mayhap there was more at the back of all this than they saw. I had heard overmuch of Quendritha to have much doubt that if she could see her way to reigning over both realms, she would stay for naught, even for the removing of Offa from her path if he stood in it. And almost did I tell the king of Thrond's knowledge of her, but forbore. Sighard knew it also, and he was the best judge of that. But I will say that I was somewhat lighter of heart to hear this, for it was plain to me that Offa himself had no thought of guile toward Ethelbert; and to this day I do not believe that he had. His mind was far too great for that; and if he loved power, I hold that to have married his daughter to a king was fully enough for him. Beyond that all was from Quendritha. To tell the truth, if I feared for any one, it was for Offa himself.

Now Ethelbert rose and said that he grew weary and would go to rest. Sighard said that he would get him a light from the council chamber; but he would rather bide in the moonlight, which was enough to fill all the room. So we three went into his sleeping chamber with him. At one side was the state bed with its heavy hangings, and midway in the room, by its side, was a great chair, softly cushioned. The smell of the sweet sedges with which the room had been newly strown was pleasant and cool, and a little chill breeze came in from the window with the moonlight.

"Leave me for a while, my thanes," he said; "I will call you anon.

Wilfrid will no doubt be glad to go to his place; so goodnight"

He smiled at me, and held out his hand, and I bent and kissed it.

So we went back to the other room to wait, for we knew that the king would pray. The door swung softly to after us.

Now I thought I heard the chair creak as the king went to it. Then there was a sound as of a fall somewhere near us, and a stifled cry.

"What is that?" I said, turning to Sighard.

"Housecarls outside;" he said. "It was from the place whence we heard the footsteps awhile ago. Listen! there they are again."

I heard the same sort of dull trampling as before, and there was also a voice.

"It seems to be almost beneath us," I said.

But the footsteps were plainly going away from us, and growing fainter in the distance. I climbed on a settle and looked out of the high window, which was set aloft so that none could see into the chamber as they pa.s.sed it. But I could see no man. There were some wood piles and sheds between the rampart and us, but nothing stirred about them so far as I could see. Whereby I supposed that they had pa.s.sed round the corner. On the rampart an armed sentry was pacing, black against the low moon, and beyond him the fires of the Welsh--who watched us--burnt as brightly as last night.

Now there was a gentle knock on the outer door, and I opened it.

One of the thanes said that the man who served me would see me, and I went out into the great hall, bidding Sighard and the chaplain goodnight as I did so. Down the length of the hall men were throwing themselves on the rushes to sleep along the walls in their wonted places, though there were yet groups at the tables still telling tales and drinking. The torches were almost all burnt out save where these men were, and across the open roof were strange white shafts of moonlight through the smoke, from windows and under westward eaves.

Outside the door, on the high place, stood Erling alone, for the tables there had been cleared away. Only the throne of the king remained. And in the light from the council chamber I saw that the face of my comrade was white as death.

"Where is Ethelbert the king?" he said, almost wildly, and clutching my arm.

"In his chamber," I answered. "All is well. I saw him there not ten minutes ago."

"How can that be? It is not that time ago since he stood by me on the rampart, where I walked alone, and spoke to me."

"It was some one else like him," I said. "He is going to sleep."

But Erling stared beyond me, and grew yet paler. I saw the black rims grow round his eyes. Then his grip tightened on my arm, and he gasped:

"He stood before me, and that red line round his neck had drops like gems therefrom. He said, 'Now do I die and pa.s.s to rest. I would that you came after me.' And I said, 'Trouble not yourself, king, for the like of me.' And he smiled wondrously, and answered, 'Nay, but needs must I, for you are the only heathen man in this palace garth. I would that all were well with you as with me.' Then he was gone, and there was only a brightness, and betimes that faded. Then I came hither. There is ill which has befallen the king."

"Impossible," I said. And even as I said it into my mind flashed that strange, unaccounted for trampling, and I went back, with Erling after me, unbidden. The six thanes who waited in the council chamber stared at me, but I did not heed them. Across to the king's door I went, and pa.s.sed in. Selred and the old thane were talking quietly under their breath, and I had but been gone three minutes.

"Back again, Wilfrid? Eh, what is amiss?" said Sighard, starting as he set eyes on Erling.

"Has the king called you?" I asked hastily.

"No; it is hardly time for him to do so," Selred answered, smiling.

"Look into his chamber softly, I pray you, Father Selred," Erling said in a strange voice. "It is upon me that all is not well."

Now so urgent was the tone in which the Dane spoke that the priest went at once to the inner door and opened it very gently, and peered in. Then he started forward suddenly and threw the door wide.

"Thanes!" he cried wildly, and we were at his side.

The room was empty. There was naught but the bed in it, for even the great chair was gone. Only where it had been there was a square patch of floor which was not covered with the sedges I had noted as so lavishly strown. Nor was the king in the bed, whose coverings were unruffled. Sighard lifted its hangings and peered under and behind them in a sort of frantic hope; for though there was no sound, and no answer to his whispering of the well-loved name of his master, it seemed unbelievable that from this little chamber a man should have gone utterly and without a sound during these few minutes. Yet so it was.

I set my hands on the high sill of the window and drew my face to its level. It was too narrow for a man to get through, and there was nothing to be seen outside but the white moonlight, and the mist which rose from the Lugg and curled over the rampart, white and ghostly round the sentry, who leaned on his spear and stared at the twinkling hill fires.

"It is wizardry," said Sighard, groaning, while cold drops broke out on his forehead. "He has been spirited away."

"I saw him on the rampart," answered Erling; "but it was his ghost that I saw. I knew it, and came and told my master here."

Now there came a silence in which we looked at one another. Then Sighard went and began to search the walls for hidden doors--hopelessly, for the timbers were a full foot thick. And so of a sudden some frenzy seemed to take him, for he set his hand on his sword, and would have waked the palace with the cry of treason, but that Selred stayed him.

"Friend, friend," he said earnestly, "have a care--wait! We are but two score amid hundreds, and that cry may mean death to us all.

"Wilfrid, call the other thanes. .h.i.ther."

I went to the door of the council chamber, and there was that in my face which bade the thanes spring up and hurry to me with words of question. I looked first at the three Mercians; but their faces were blank as those of the Anglians. They expected naught.

"The king has gone," I said. "You Mercians may best know whither."

One of them laughed, and sat down again.

"You have a strange idea of a jest in Carl's camp, paladin," he said. "What is it? The king gone, with us sitting here at his door, forsooth!"

"No jest, thane, but the truth," I said, taking the tall wax torch which was on the table before them. "Come."

Then they leaped up and followed me into the bedchamber, and stood staring as we had stared. It was plain that they knew as little as ourselves.

"He has pa.s.sed into the guest hall," said one of the Mercians, looking round him wildly enough.

But that was not possible, for the door was in the outer room whence we had come, and it was barred on both sides.

"We are disgraced," said another, groaning. "Our charge has been made away with, and how we cannot tell. We shall pay for this with our lives."

Then Sighard said, "He cannot be far off. Men--think! How can he have gone hence? Who would make away with him?"

But there was no answer to these questions. The thing remained a mystery. If there was any plot, these three honest thanes were not in it. And then as I walked uneasily from side to side of the room, turning over impossible ways of disappearance in my mind, I came near where the great chair had been. And under my step the floor creaked.

Now seeing how that house was built, this was a sound one would not expect to hear at all. It came into my mind that here was one of the few floors which were boarded, the most being of beaten clay, or paved with great stones wonderfully. So I trod again firmly in that place, and it seemed to me that the floor gave, somewhat.

I reached out for the torch which I had set on the sconce in the wall and looked at the floor, but why it creaked I did not make out. The boards were of hewn oak, and how thick one could not tell.