The Ward of King Canute Part 1

The Ward of King Canute.

by Ottilie A. Liljencrantz.

Acknowledgment

For the facts of this romance I have made free use of the following authorities: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; The Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England; Ingulph's History of the Abbey of Croyland; William of Malmesbury's Chronicle of the Kings of England; The Chronicles of Florence of Worcester; Lingard's History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, and Lingard's History of England; Dean Spencer's The White Robe of Churches; Collier's Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain; Montalembert's Monks of the West; Thrupp's Anglo-Saxon Home; Hall's Queens Before the Conquest; Kemble's Saxons in England; Ridgway's Gem of Thorney Island; Brayley and Britton's History of the Ancient Palace and Late Houses of Parliament; Loftie's Westminster Abbey and Loftie's History of London; Allen's History and Antiquities of London; Lappenberg's History of England Under the Anglo-Saxon Kings; Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons; Knight's Old England; Hume's History of England; Green's Conquest of England; Thierry's History of the Conquest of England by the Normans; Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest.

For the translations of Ha'vama'l, etc., used at the beginnings of the chapters, I am indebted to Professor Rasmus B. Anderson and Mr. Paul du Chaillu.

O. A. L.

Chicago, April 1, 1903.

Foreword

There is an old myth of a hero who renewed his strength each time he touched the earth, and finally was overcome by being raised in the air and crushed. Whether or not the Angles risked a like fate as they raised themselves away from the primitive virtues that had been their life and strength, no one can tell; but it has been well said that when Northern blood mingled with English blood at the time of the Danish Conquest, the Anglo-Saxon race touched the earth again.

Chapter I. The Fall of the House of Frode

Full stocked folds I saw at the sons of Fitjung, Now they carry beggars' staffs; Wealth is Like the twinkling of an eye, The most unstable of friends.

Ha'vama'l.

As the blackness of the midsummer night paled, the broken towers and wrecked walls of the monastery loomed up dim and stark in the gray light. The long-drawn sigh of a waking world crept through the air and rustled the ivy leaves. The pitying angel of dreams, who had striven all night long to restore the plundered shrine and raise from their graves the band of martyred nuns, ceased from his ministrations, softly as a bubble frees itself from the pipe that shaped it, and floated away on the breath of the wind. Through a breach in the moss-grown wall, the first sunbeam stole in and pointed a bright finger across the cloister garth at the charred spot in the centre, where missals and parchment rolls had made a roaring fire to warm the invaders' blood-stained hands.

As the lark rose through the brightening air to greet the coming day, a woman in the tunic and cowl of a nun opened what was left of the wicket-gate in the one unbattered wall. A trace of the luxury that had dwelt under the gilded spires survived in her robes, which had been of a royal purple and embroidered with silken flowers; but the voice of Time and of Ruin spoke from them also, for the purple was faded to a rusty brown, and the silken embroideries were threadbare. She struck a note in perfect harmony with her surroundings, as she stood under the crumbling arch, peering out into the flowering lane.

Stretching away from her feet in dewy freshness, it made a green link between the herb-garden of St. Mildred's and the highway of the Watling Street. Like the straggling hedges that were half buried under a net of wild roses, red and white, the path was half effaced by gra.s.s; but beyond, her eye could follow the straight line of the great Roman road over marsh and meadow and hill-top. If gra.s.s had gathered there also, during the Anglo-Saxon times, there were no traces of it now, in the days of Edmund Ironside when Canute of Denmark was leading his war-host back and forth over its stones. Between the dark walls of oak and beech, it gleamed as white as the Milky Way. The nun was able to trace its course up the slope of the last hill. Just beyond the crest, a pall of smoke was spread over a burning village. Though it was miles away, it seemed to her that the wind brought cries of anguish to her ear, and prayers for mercy. Shivering, she turned her face back to the desolate peace of the ruins.

"Now is it clear to all men why a b.l.o.o.d.y cloud was hung over the land in the year that Ethelred came to the throne," she said. "I feel as the blessed dead might feel should they be forced to leave the shelter of their graves and look out upon the world."

Rising from its knees beside a bed of herbs, a second figure in faded robes approached the gate. Sister s.e.xberga was very old, much older than her companion, and her face was a wrinkled parchment whereon Time had written some terrible lessons.

She said gently, "We are one with the dead, beloved sister. Those who lie under the chancel lay no safer than we, last night, though the Pagans' pa.s.sing tread shook the ground we lay on, and their songs broke our slumbers. Let us cease not to give thanks to Him who has spread over us the peace of the grave."

The shadows deepened in the eyes of Sister Wynfreda as she turned them back toward the lane, for her patience was not yet ripe to perfect mellowness. She was but little past the prime of her rich womanhood, and still bore the traces of a great beauty. She bore in addition, upon cheek and forehead, the scars of three frightful burns.

"The peace of the grave can never be mine while my heart is open to the sorrows of others," she answered with sadness. "Sister s.e.xberga, that was an English band which pa.s.sed last night. I made out English words in their song. I am in utmost fear for the Danes of Avalcomb."

"'They that take the sword shall perish with the sword,'" the old nun quoted, a little sternly. "An Englishman was despoiled of his lands when Frode the Dane took Avalcomb. If now Frode's turn has come--"

Her companion made a gesture of entreaty. "It is not for Frode that I am timorous, dear sister, nor for the boy, Fridtjof; it is for Randalin, his daughter."

Sister s.e.xberga was some time silent. When at last she spoke, it was but to repeat slowly, "Randalin, his daughter. G.o.d pity her!"

Sister Wynfreda was no longer listening. She had quitted her hold upon the gate and taken a step forward, straining her eyes. They had not deceived her. Out of a tall ma.s.s of golden bloom at the farther end of the lane, an arm clad in brown homespun had tossed itself for one delirious instant. Trailing her robes over the daisied gra.s.s, the nun came upon a wounded man lying face downward in the tangle.

There was little in that to awaken surprise; it would have been stranger had warriors pa.s.sed without leaving some such mute token in their wake.

Yet when the united strength of the four arms had turned the limp weight upon its back, a cry of astonishment rose from each throat.

"The woodward of Avalcomb!"

"The hand of the Lord hath fallen!"

After a moment the younger woman said in a trembling voice, "The whisper in my heart spoke truly. Dearest sister, put your arm under here, and we will get him to his feet and bring him in, and he will tell us what has happened. See! he is shaking off his swoon. After he has swallowed some of your wine, he will be able to speak and tell us."

It was muscle-breaking work for women's backs, for though he tried instinctively to obey their directions, the man was scarcely conscious; his arms were like lead yokes upon his supporters' shoulders. Just within the gate their strength gave out, and they were forced to put him down among the spicy herbs. There, as one was pulling off her threadbare cloak to make him a pillow, and the other was starting after her cordial, he opened his eyes.

"Master!" he muttered. "Master? Have they gone?"

In an instant Sister Wynfreda was on her knees beside him. "Is it the English you mean? Did they beset the castle?"

Slowly the man's clouded eyes cleared. "The Sisters--" he murmured. "I had the intention--to get to you--but I fell--" His words died away in a whisper, and his eyelids drooped. Sister s.e.xberga turned again to seek her restorative. Sister Wynfreda leaned over and shook him.

"Answer me, first. Where is your master? And young Fridtjof? And your mistress?"

He shrank from her touch with a gasp of pain. "Dead," he muttered.

"Dead--At the gate--Frode and the boy--The raven-starvers cut them down like saplings."

"And Randalin?"

"I heard her scream as the Englishman seized her--Leofwinesson had her round the waist--they knocked me on the head, then--I--I--" Again his voice died away.

Sister Wynfreda made no attempt to recall him. Mechanically she held his head so that her companion might pour the liquid down his throat. That done, she brought water and bandages, and stood by, absent-eyed and in silence, while s.e.xberga found his wounds and dressed them. It was the older woman who spoke first.

"The fate of this maiden lies heavy on your mind, beloved," she said tenderly; "and I would have you know that my heart also is sorrowful.

For all that she is the fruit of darkness, it was permitted by the Lord that Randalin, Frode's daughter, should be born with a light in her soul. It was in my prayers that we might be enabled to feed that light as it were a sacred lamp, to the end that in G.o.d's good time the spreading glory of its brightness might deliver her from the shadows forever."

Staring before her with unseeing eyes, Sister Wynfreda nodded an absent a.s.sent. "To me also it seemed that the Lord had led her to us... I keep in mind how she looked when she came that first morning... a bit of silk was in her hand, which Frode had given her for a present, because a golden apple was wrought upon it. She came on her horse, with the boy Fridtjof, to offer us bread from the castle kitchen if we would agree to teach her the secret of such handiwork. And when we said that for the sake of bread to lighten the evil days we would comply with her in the matter, she laughed with pleasure, and her laughter was as grateful to the ear as the chime of matin bells. I can see her again as she sat above us in her saddle, laughing: her long hair blew about her, and the red blood glowed in her cheeks, and her eyes were like pools that the sun is shining on--" Suddenly the Sister's voice broke, and she hid her face in her hands.

The old nun regarded her compa.s.sionately. Hers had been a long hard life, and she was very near the mountain-top from whose summit the mystery of the valleys is revealed.

After a time she spoke with tender reverence: "Almighty Father, who hast given us strength to endure our own trials without murmuring, grant us also the grace to accept patiently the chastening of those we love."

The bowed head of Sister Wynfreda sank lower, and slowly the heaving of her breast was stilled. In the chapel four feeble old voices raised a chant that trembled and shook like a quivering heart-string.

"I beseech thee now, Lord of Heaven, And pray to thee, Best of human-born, That thou pity me, Mighty Lord!

And aid me, Father Almighty, That I thy will May perform Before from this frail life I depart."

Tremulously sweet it drifted out over the garden and blended with the aroma in the air. The wounded man smiled through his pain.

Raising her tear-stained face at last, Sister Wynfreda said humbly, "G.o.d pardon me if I sin in my grief, but to me it seems so bitter a thing when trouble comes upon the young. The first fall of the young bird in its flight, the first blow that startles the young horse,--I flinch before them as before my own wounds. When the light of the fair young day dies before the noon, I feel the shadow in my heart; and it saddens me to find a flower that worms have eaten in the bud and robbed of its brief life in the sun. How much more, then, shall I grieve for the blighting of this human flower? I declare with truth that the first time I saw her my heart went out to her in a love which taught me how mothers feel. Her freshness and gladness have fed my starved heart like wine. I cannot bear that trouble should crush them out of her in the very flower of her youth; I cannot bear that tears should wear channels down her soft cheeks and dim the brightness of her eyes. Sooner would I give what remains to me of life! Sister, do I sin? Do I seem to murmur against His will? But I have grown used to suffering, while she--what has she known but love? Oh, have I not suffered enough for both? Could she not have been spared?" Her voice mounted to a cry of exceeding bitterness.