The Ward of King Canute Part 21

It was so charming a picture that Randalin smiled in sympathy, where she stood a little way behind the young wife, awaiting the moment when the King should have leisure to discover her. Not the faintest doubt of his friendliness was in her mind. She was still smiling, when at last he raised his head and looked at her over Elfgiva's shoulder.

Then alas, the smile died, murdered, on her lips. Turning, Canute beckoned to the son of Lodbrok, who was enduring the scene with the same stolid resignation which he displayed toward his chief's other follies.

"Foster-brother, how comes it that you do not follow my example and embrace the bride that I have given you?"

As ice breaks and reveals sullen waters underneath, so stolidity broke in Rothgar's face. With a harsh laugh, he strode forward.

Perhaps it was to follow the King's suggestion, perhaps it was only to vent his reproaches; but Randalin did not wait to see. Before she knew how she got there, she was at Elfgiva's side, clutching at her mantle.

"Lady! You promised me--" she cried.

And for all her chiming laughter, Elfgiva's silken arm was stretched out like a bar. "No further, good Giant!" she said gayly. "The King gave what was not his, for this toy has become mine." She turned to Canute with a little play of smiling pouts, very bewitching on such lips. "Fie, my lord! Be pleased to call your wolves off my lambs."

Plainly, Canute's frown was unable to withstand such witcheries. Despite himself he laughed, and his voice was more persuasive than commanding.

"Now he will not rob you of the girl, my Shining One. Once he has wedded her, you may keep her until you tire. It was only because--"

But there he stopped, for all at once a mist had come over the heavenly eyes, and the smiling lips had drawn themselves into a trembling bunch.

The sweet voice too was subtly tremulous.

"It is because you are to a greater degree anxious to please him than me, though it is a whole year that I have pined away, day and night, in the utmost loneliness. Wel-a-way! What! Why have you troubled to send for me, if you hold my happiness so lightly that you will not comply with me in so small a matter?" Bridling softly, she was turning away, when the young King threw up his hands in good-humored surrender.

"To this I will quickly reply that my shield does not secure me against tears! If it is not to your wish we will not speak of it. Give back, foster-brother, and choose two of the others to be your drinking-companions. Look up, my fair one, and admit that I am the most obedient of your thralls. Never, on former days or since, have I so much as kicked one of your little yelping dogs, though I hate them as Stark Otter hated bells."

Sunshine through the mist, Elfgiva laughed. "Nay, but you have them drowned when I am not looking," she retorted.

He did not take the trouble to deny it; indeed he laughed as though the accusation was especially apt. "Have I ever wounded you more deeply than a trinket would cure?" he demanded.

And behold, she had already forgotten the matter, to catch at the huge arm-ring which was slipping up and down his sleeve, so loose a fit was it. "What Grendel's neck did you take it from! If it had but an opening, I could use it for a belt."

Smiling, the King looked down on his monster bracelet. "That," he said, "does not altogether do me credit, for it shows the difference in girth between me and Edmund Ironside. When we set the peace between us, we exchanged ornaments and weapons. Think if we had followed the custom in every respect and exchanged garments likewise!"

Elf-fires were in Elfgiva's blue eyes when she raised them to his. "Rule your words so that no one else hears you say that, bright Lord of the Danes," she murmured, "lest they think you mean by it that the English crown would fit you as loosely, and forget that you are a boy who will grow." The King's mouth sobered.

"Nay, a man, who has got his growth."

Her little hand spurned the ring that the instant before it had caressed. "Not a man, but a King!" she reminded him, and drew herself up proudly before him, a queen in beauty, crowned with the sun's gold.

His eyes devoured her; his breath seemed to come faster as he looked.

All at once he caught her hands and crushed them against his lips.

"Neither man nor king," he cried, "but the lover who has adored you since he came to plunder but stayed to woo! Do you know that when I came upon you to-day, my heart burst into flower as a tree blooms in the spring-time? Had I a harp in my hand, my lips would blossom into song.

Get me one from your minstrels, and I will sing to you as we ride, and we will forget that a day has pa.s.sed since the time when first we roved together through the Northampton meadows."

Forgetful of all the world beside, he led her away toward the horses.

Chapter XX. A Royal Reckoning

A tale is always half told if only one man tells it.

GRETTI'S SAGA.

Whether from policy or necessity, the guest-house of Gloucester Abbey was surrendered to the royal band with open-armed hospitality. Every comfort the place afforded was heaped together to soften the bare rooms for the accommodation of the n.o.ble ladies; every delicacy the epicurean abbot could obtain loaded the table; and what little gra.s.s the frost had left in the cloister garth was sacrificed to the swarm of pages and henchmen, minstrels and tumblers. Now a tournament of games in the riverside meadows took up the day, now a pageant up the river itself; again, a ride with the hawks or a run after the hounds,--and the nights were one long revel. Time slipped by like a song off the lips of a harper.

To-day it was to chase a boar over the wooded hills that the holiday troop was awake and stirring at sunrise. The silvery bell-notes that called the monks to morning prayer were jostled in mid-air by the blare of hunters' horns. Stamping iron-shod hoofs and the baying of deep-voiced hounds broke the stillness of the cloister, and threescore merry voices laughed out of memory the Benedictine vow of silence.

Voices and horns made a joyous uproar when the King led forth his lady and her fair following; and he smiled with pleasure at the welcome and the picturesque beauty of the gay throng between the gray old walls.

"Now how could I come upon a better sight if I were the King of a hundred islands?" he demanded of Elfgiva.

But he did not wait for her answer; instead, he stepped forward as though to avoid it and put a question to one of his huntsmen. And his wife turned and spoke sharply to the blond maiden behind her, whose more than usual fairness had given her the name of Candida, or "the white one."

"Where is Randalin? I sent the garments to her an hour ago. She stands in need of a taste of Teboen's rod to teach her promptness."

Little Dearwyn, watching the doorway with fluttering color, cried out eagerly, "Here she is, lady!"

There she was, in truth, standing on the threshold with crimson cheeks and flashing eyes. At the sight of her every huntsman uttered a whistle of amazement, then settled into an admiring stare; and Canute, glancing over his shoulder, laughed outright.

"What!" he said. "Have you tired of woman's clothes already?"

For, once more, Frode's daughter was attired in a man's short tunic and long silken hose. It was a suit much richer than the old one, since silver embroidery banded the blue, and precious furs lined the cloak; but that fact was evidently of little comfort to her, as her eyes were full of angry tears, and she deigned the King no answer whatever.

"I am obliged to pay dearly for your amus.e.m.e.nt, lady," she said bitterly.

Elfgiva chimed her bell-like laughter. "I will not deny that you pay liberally for my trouble, sweet. Does it not add spice to her stories, maidens, to see her habited thus? She looks like one of the fairy lords Teboen is wont to sing of."

"She holds her head like Emma of Normandy," the King said absently.

In wide-eyed surprise, Elfgiva looked up at him. "Ethelred's widow?

Never did I hear that you had seen her! Why has this been pa.s.sed over in silence? I have abundance of questions to ask about her garments and her appearance. When saw you her? And where?"

Canute stirred uneasily. "It is not worth a hearing. I spoke but a few words with her, about ransoms, the time that I sat before London. And I remember only that her bearing was n.o.ble and her countenance most handsome, such as I had never seen before, nor did I think that there could be any woman so queenlike." Because he did not choose to say more, or because some wrinkle in Elfgiva's satin brow warned him off, he turned hastily to another topic. "Foolishly do we linger, when we have none too much time to get to covert. Do you still want your way about accompanying us? I have warned you that a boar hunt is little like hawking; nor do Northmen stand in one spot and wait for game to come to them."

"I hold to it with both hands," the lady returned with a gayety which had in it a touch of defiance. "Nor will I consent to do anything except that alone. We will partake in the excitement of your sport, and each of these brave heroes of yours shall answer for the safety of one of us."

A gesture of her hand included Thorkel the Tall, the two Northern jarls, and the King's foster-brother.

"And is it your belief that a man can at the same time chase a boar and talk fine words to a woman?" Canute demanded between amus.e.m.e.nt and impatience. "Call it a ride, if you will, but leave the boar out for reason's sake, as he would leave us out ere we were so much as on his track."

She gave him a sidelong glimpse of her wonderful eyes, and drooped her head like a lily grown heavy on its stem. "Would that be so great a misfortune then?" she murmured. "Do you think it unpleasant to be pa.s.sing your time at my side?"

Smiling, he watched the play of her long silken lashes, yet shook his head. "Nay, when I hunt, I hunt," he said. "I would have idled in your bower if you had chosen it, but you urged me to this, and now if it happens that you cannot keep up, you must bear your deed."

As one casts aside an ill-fitting glove, she threw aside her pouts, looking up at him with a flash of dainty mimicry. "Hear the fiery Thor!

Take notice that I shall bear all down before me like a man mowing ripe corn. You cannot guess how much warlikeness I have caught from my Valkyria." She glanced back where the girl in the short tunic stood drawing on her gloves, a picture of stormy beauty.

Amused, the King's eyes followed hers, then lighted with sudden purpose.

"As you will," he laughed, "and I will give your Valkyria a steed that shall match her appearance." Advancing again, he spoke to a groom; and the signal set the whole party in motion.