The Siege of Norwich Castle Part 9

Waltheof started, and his brows knitted over his still heavy eyes.

'How knewest thou that, witch of Endor?' he demanded.

'Nay, thou hast experience that the spirits of the air are at my beck, and that my power serves me to gain knowledge of all that concerns my dearly-beloved spouse,' returned Judith, with a sneer.

'Sorceress! I believe, in sooth, thou art leagued with the devil!'

quoth Waltheof furiously, and his expression was no metaphor. He was superst.i.tious by nature, and his sharp-witted wife had done her utmost to impress him with the notion that her intellectual gifts were replenished from supernatural sources. Hence her power over him. 'But I tell thee, thou hadst better never have been born than meddle in this concern of thy husband's. For this concern, is the concern not of my poor unworthy self, but of my country, of my people! And I tell thee, foreign harridan, I had liefer strangle thee with mine own hands than be frustrated!'

''Tis pity,' quoth Judith calmly, 'since the matter is marred already.'

'What meanest thou, viper?' shouted Waltheof, fully aroused and springing to his feet, and advancing towards Judith with a threatening gesture, his mighty fist, which could have struck the life from her frail body at a blow, clenched into an iron ball, and the knots in his ma.s.sive throat working with nervous excitement.

But Judith faced him unmoved, her proud face flashing with scorn. For the blood of Robert the Devil and Arlete of Falaise was hot in her veins, and perhaps she opined, also, that even in his wrath her heroic lord was too generous to hurt her. She did not quail before him but stood looking at him with her defiant, steadfast eyes.

'Slay me if thou wilt,' she said, without a falter in her tone. 'That which is done cannot be undone. My death will not hinder the stout messenger that sped through the night, ere thou hadst reeled from the banquet to thy chamber, from bearing the news of thy treason to Lanfranc. In vain wilt thou seek to overtake him, for he hath nigh a twelve hours' start, and he is mounted on thine own Spanish destrier, the swiftest steed in England--William's gift!'

The oath with which Waltheof answered was too terrible for repet.i.tion.

He sprang at his wife, and clutched her slender throat with his strong fingers, as if he were in very truth about to execute his threat and strangle her.

She stood like a statue, though the weight of his hands upon her shoulders almost bore her to the ground.

'My people are as dear to me as thine to thee,' she said, expecting the death-grip to follow her bold speech. 'Thou hast sworn fealty to William, nay, thou hast done him homage, and put thy hands between his and vowed to be his man; thou hast married me, his niece! The struggle and the bloodshed are over, the Normans and Saxons should be one, and thou wouldst renew the strife and divide them again!'

With a moan like that of a wounded bull, the son of Siward cast the grand-daughter of Robert the Devil from him, and, covering his face with his hands, threw himself back on his couch in an agony of thwarted and impotent rage.

'Hadst thou been a man!' he muttered,--'hadst thou been a man, that I could do battle with thee hand to hand!'

'Had I been a man, Waltheof,' said Judith softly kneeling on one knee beside her prostrate warrior,--'had I been a man, Waltheof, I had not been here to save thee, and thy country, and thy people from the consequences of thy drunken folly. Holy Mary be praised that made me a woman! Waltheof, what is thy love for thy people, if thou wouldst plunge them again in blood and fire for the vain hope of satisfying an impossible ambition? Was not the harrying of Northumberland enough, that thou wouldst have the whole country ravaged from north to south?'

No man of many words was the hero of York, and his only reply to this eloquent appeal was to mutter an occasional curse in his beard, nor did he raise his face from the pillows among which he had plunged it.

'I tell thee,' Judith went on, 'William would harry the land from York to Hastings, as he harried it from Durham to York, rather than lose it from his grip. And thinkest thou that he whom Harold G.o.dwinsson could not baulk nor drive from the land ere one Norman castle or stronghold was built in it, though he had the full force of the Saxon chivalry at his back, could be so easily ousted from the saddle into which he has climbed, now the most part of the nation are dead, or ruined and torn by dissensions and rivalry? Thinkest thou I would not gladly be a queen if there were any hope of such an ending to thine exploit? But seeing it not, I have chosen rather to endeavour to save thy life.'

'Save my life? Thou hast rather lost it! Say'st thou not that thou hast betrayed me to Lanfranc?' He raised his head at last, and looked her in the face.

'Nay, Waltheof!' answered Judith, softly laying her slender hand upon his huge shoulder. 'The foreign harridan loves her husband! I would save thee, not destroy thee. The letter was couched in thy name and sealed with thy seal, and so writ as though thou hadst but seemed to join the plot the better to discomfit the king's enemies.'

'Thou fiend infernal!' cried Waltheof, starting up again in an agony.

'Hast thou so dared to sully my good name?--to paint me so black a traitor?'

'Softly, my husband! The vow that is first made counts most binding. I would save thy name from the foul stain of treachery to thy generous liege-lord, William of Normandy, to whom thou didst homage in person on the banks of the Tees, coming of thine own free will to tender it, and accepting his forgiveness, his friendship, and the hand of his kinswoman. Yes--the hand of thy poor wife Judith, who would fain lead thee back to thy n.o.bler self.'

The logic of this speech bore heavily on Waltheof, who threw himself down again upon the couch with a curse and a moan.

'Would that the sun had never risen on the day I first saw light!' he muttered.

Judith stretched out her hand and raised the golden crucifix which was suspended by a chain from her husband's neck, so that it was on a level with his eyes.

'Though we be of two nations, Waltheof,' she said gently, 'we are servants of one Lord. The abbot who bade thee plunge thy country afresh in blood and fire is no true priest of G.o.d. And for my countryman, Roger of Hereford, thinkest thou Lanfranc excommunicated him for nought?--Lanfranc, who loved him as a son. Wouldst thou a.s.sociate with one accursed? What motive can he have in this save the slaking of his over-weening pride? As for the Breton, or the Englishman, or whatsoever he be called, Ralph of Guader, he who fought against his people at Hastings can have little spur save his own ambition. Wilt thou be the tool of such as these? I tell thee, Waltheof, if thou by timely return to thy sober senses dost frustrate the plottings of these men, thy memory will be green in the pages of the chroniclers, but if thou dost strengthen them in their folly, the ages will curse thee. Without thee they are powerless. It is thy name they conjure with, son of Siward.

What Saxon would fight for Roger of Hereford, the son of their mightiest foe, or for the renegade, half-bred Ralph de Guader? Go now to Lanfranc, throw thyself at his feet, and all bloodshed will be stopped.'

And Waltheof groaned, and kissed the crucifix as she held it to his lips, for he was deeply religious after the wild manner of his times; humble in his faith, and little dreaming that the Saxon Church he loved so well would one day account him a martyr, and accord the power of miracle-working to the tomb in which his headless corse would repose, the trysting-place of countless pilgrims.

'I would not willingly bring further suffering on my unhappy country,'

he said thoughtfully.

A gleam of triumph pa.s.sed over the face of Judith, for the fury was gone from his voice, and she knew that she had conquered.

CHAPTER VIII.

KNIGHT-ERRANT AND MERCENARY.

Sir Aimand de Sourdeval, after he had been forbidden by Eadgyth of Norwich to wear her colours openly in his helm at the tourney, had cast about in his mind for some means of so bearing them that she should be aware that he did so, and she alone.

Accordingly, he had a new device blazoned on his shield,--a star shining from a band of blue sky between two barriers of sable cloud, with the motto, '_L'esperance vit dans le bleu_,' blue being the colour most affected by Eadgyth, and to be worn by her, he knew, at the bride-ale.

This shield he bore with brilliant fortune in the joust, and plied his lance so well that the highest prize was awarded to him, a lady's bracelet gleaming with many gems, which Emma Fitzosbern handed to him with a bright smile; while Eadgyth, who stood behind her, thrilled with pleasure and pride that the knight who had placed his valour at her disposal had so worthily acquitted himself, though it was but a painful pleasure, since she deemed that an impa.s.sable gulf divided them, and she grieved to see how, without wearing any token openly, Sir Aimand still contrived to carry her colours. The ingenuity of the homage touched Eadgyth to the quick, for she was no coquette, and had no wish that a gallant youth should waste his breath in vain sighs for her favour.

So, when Emma with a gracious compliment crowned Sir Aimand with laurel, and handed him the prize he had won away from the many dexterous lances and strong arms which had contended for it, Eadgyth's eyes were full of ruth, and Sir Aimand, seeing them, grew suddenly glad at heart.

'Nay, n.o.ble Emma,' he said, declining to take the bracelet from her hand. 'Though my lady's eyes are as bright as the jewels that stud this golden circlet, they look not upon me with favour, neither may I wear her token in mine helm, nor place my trophies at her feet. Bestow the prize, therefore, upon one of thy fair damsels whose small wrist, peradventure, it may be of size to suit.'

So saying, he descended into the lists again, mounted his steed, and rode away amid the cheers of the spectators.

Emma turned to the maiden beside her, and bade her hold out her wrist.

'I believe shrewdly the bracelet will fit thee,' she said; and Eadgyth, blushing, was obliged to obey, and saw the jewelled circlet blazing round her arm with strangely mingled feelings of triumph and sorrow.

On the day of the bride-ale, it fell to the lot of Sir Aimand, as the youngest knight in Ralph de Guader's following, to keep ward over the sentries of the camp, and necessarily, therefore, to be absent from the banquet. So, while his chief was pledging his guests with pledges of dire import, and men were feasting and revelling and vowing mad vows to help each other's treason, and follow the three great earls in their wild enterprise, the unconscious Knight of Sourdeval was riding through the starlit night from outpost to outpost, pa.s.sing the watchword himself had chosen for the night.

'_Corage e bonne conscience_,' he said, as he proved each post.

'_Fait tout homme fort e fier_,' answered each sentry.

For Sir Aimand, it must be admitted, was of a romantic cast of mind, and threw himself heart and soul into the fantastic images of chivalry which were then being evolved by the brightest spirits of the age, and never lost an opportunity of enforcing a good maxim, if it were only in so small a matter as a watchword.

His young head was as full of schemes for the reformation and improvement of the world as that of any modern Socialist; and, having lately met a palmer who had returned from a visit to the Holy Sepulchre, he had fallen a-dreaming on his chances of ever being able to travel thither himself, a project which had haunted him for a long time with more or less persistence, and which had started into prominence again in his mind since Eadgyth had given so discouraging an answer to his suit.

Being profoundly religious, he had been inclined to believe that her answer was guided by Heaven to lead him back to the less worldly scheme which had so filled his heart before he met her, and which he must have laid aside for an indefinite period, if not for ever, if she had consented to wed him; and he found comfort for his wounded love in the thought that he was, perhaps, to attain a higher spiritual life through the denial of earthly joy.

So, as he rode under the sparkling sky, his breast was full of a tender resignation, and the thought that he was guarding the lady of his love caused him a quiet satisfaction. He liked to feel that he was serving her, and vowed to serve her no less zealously that she had forbidden him ever to expect guerdon, and made all manner of silent vows to prove himself worthy of the love he had asked, and to live knight-like and piously, and do his _devoir_ to G.o.d and man.

So n.o.ble a frame of mind might well bring forth fruit of song, and as he rode he hummed s.n.a.t.c.hes of a _lai_ which had taken his fancy a few weeks before, when he heard it from the lips of the author, a gallant minstrel, who, like Taillefer the famous, was also a knight of goodly prowess, and was devoted to the n.o.bler branches of the _joyeuse science_.