The Ward of King Canute Part 8

It is doubtful if the girl so much as heard him. Her eyes were pa.s.sing from feature to feature of his face, as the stars revealed it above her,--from the broad comely brow to the square young chin, from the clean-cut fine-tempered mouth to the clear true eyes. One by one she noted them, and shade by shade her strained look of fear relaxed.

Slowly she forgot her dread; and forgetting, her mind wandered to other things,--to memories of her father, and of the happy evenings by the fire when she had nestled safe in his arms,--safe and sheltered and beloved. With eyes still turned up toward his face, her lids drooped and fell; and her head sank upon his breast and lay there, in the peace of perfect faith.

Chapter IX. The Young Lord of Ivarsdale

Brand is kindled from brand Till it is burnt out; Fire is kindled from fire; A man gets knowledge By talk with a man, But becomes wilful by self-conceit.

Ha'vama'l.

Tap--tap, tap--tap, like dripping water dripping slowly. Drop by drop the sound filtered through the thick wrappings of Randalin's slumber, till she knew it for the beat of horses' hoofs, and stirred and opened her eyes.

The silver shimmer of starlight falling through purple deeps had given way to the ruddy glare of a camp fire, and she was lying just beyond its heat, cloak-wrapped, on a bed of leaves. Above her, interlacing beech boughs made an arching roof, under which the shadows cl.u.s.tered as swallows under eaves. Before her, green tree-lanes opened out like corridors. As far as the fireglow could reach, they were flooded with golden light; where it stopped, they were closed across by darkness as by gray-black doors. Within the sylvan alcove, some four-score battle-stained warriors were taking their ease after a hard day. Some of them were engaged in the ghastly business of bandaging wounds, and some were already asleep; but the greater number lounged in the firelight, drinking and feasting on strips of venison which serfs had cooked in the flames.

Through the fog of her drowsiness Randalin recognized them slowly.

Yonder was the Englishman who had found her in the bushes. Beyond him, across the fire, the soldiers who had lifted her up to the horse-man.

Here, just in front of her, was the leader himself. Her gaze settled upon him dreamily.

He had finished his meal, if meal it could be called, and was making some attempt at a toilet. While one serf knelt beside him, scrubbing at his muddy riding-boots with a wisp of wet gra.s.s, another held a gilt shield up for a mirror, and before this the Etheling was carefully parting his shining hair. His captive's eyes were not the only ones upon him, and the bright metal showed that he was laughing a little at the comments his performance drew forth from the three old cnihts lounging near him.

"Tending by five hairs to the sword-side, Lord Sebert," one of them was offering quizzical criticism over his drinking-horn.

"The Etheling must needs have extraordinary respect for the endurance of Harald Fairhair, for it is said that to accomplish a vow he went three years without barbering himself," another said gravely. While a third became slyly reminiscent, as he chewed his venison.

"These are soft days, comrades. The last time I followed the old chief, of honored memory, we held our war-council standing knee-deep in a fen.

We had neither eaten nor drunk for two days, and three days' blood was on our hands."

The young chief took it all with careless good-humor.

"When you leave off eating, in memory of that brave time, I will leave off washing," he returned. "Would you have me go into a royal council looking as though birds had nested in my hair?" With a parting scrutiny of his smooth locks, he motioned the shield-bearer aside and turned back to them his comely face, rosy from his recent ablutions and alight with a momentary enthusiasm.

"I tell you, nothing but a warrior's life becomes ethel-born men,"

he said as he straightened himself with a gallant gesture. "Nor sluggishness nor junketings, but days under fire and nights among the Wise Men of the council; that, in truth, becomes their station. By Saint Mary, I feel that I have never lived before! One week at the heels of Edmund Ironside is worth a lifetime under the banner of any other king."

A pause met his warmth somewhat coldly; and the warrior who broke the silence lowered his voice to do it.

"Keep in mind, lord, that it is no more than a week that you have been at his heels," he said.

"Likewise bear in mind whose son he is," the man with the drinking-horn added grimly. He was a stout white-bearded old cniht with an obstinate old face that looked something like a ruddy apple in a snow-bank.

Flushing, the young n.o.ble ceased examining his sword-edge to meet the eyes bent upon him.

"I hope you do not think I stand in need of a rebuke for lukewarmness, Morcard," he said gravely. "I have no more forgot that King Edmund's father gave the order for my father's murder than I have forgot that Edric was the tool who did the deed. May Saint Peter exterminate him with his sword! Did I not live even as a lordless man the while that Ethelred remained upon the throne? But what sense to continue at that after Ethelred was dead, and the valor of his son was to that degree exalted as if he had sprung from Alfred? Yourself counselled me to join him at Gillingham, and take the post under his banner that my fathers have always held beside his fathers."

Two of the three warriors made no other answer than to gurgle their drink noisily in their throats; but the one whom he had called Morcard answered dryly, "It is not against testing the new king that we would advise you, Lord Sebert; it is against trusting him. But we will not be troublesome." He lifted his hand suddenly to his ear. "Horses' feet! And stopping by the King's fire--"

What else he said, Randalin did not hear. Her wits had crawled heavily after the sound of the hoofs. Now the beat changed to a champing and stamping among dry leaves not many rods to her right. She wondered indifferently if there was any likelihood of their running over her; then forgot the query before she had answered it.

The Etheling was speaking again, with all the earnestness of hero-worship. "--the battles he has fought, the abundance of warriors he has gathered together, the land he has won back since his father's death! Only take to-day--"

"Ay, take to-day!" the old man snapped him up with unexpected vehemence.

"And the Devil take me if I ever heard of such witless folly! What! To go plunging off into the thick of the enemy, endangering in his person the hope of the whole English nation--"

The young n.o.ble relaxed from his earnestness to laugh. "Now has habit outrid your manners, Morcard. So long have you been wont to use your tongue on my heedlessness, that it begins mechanically to perform the same office for Edmund. In a king, such courage inspires--"

"Courage!" Morcard's fingers snapped loudly. "Did not the henchman who followed you have courage? Yet do we think of crowning him? I tell you that a king needs to have something besides courage. He needs to have judgment. Then will he know better than to leave his men like sheep without a leader. The old proverb has it right, 'When the chief fails, the host quails.' It was when they had become frightened about him that they began to give way, and after that it was easy for any oaf to jump out of the bushes and put them to flight."

This time the Etheling's smile was rather unwilling. "Oh! If you think fit to set at naught a brave deed because nothing arose from it! After his father's cowardice, such energy and dauntlessness alone--"

"Dauntlessness!" the old cniht snorted again. "It is the dauntlessness of the man in Father Ingulph's story, who was so much wiser than his advisers that he must try to drive the sun a new way, till it came so nigh as it nighest may to setting the world afire." So hot was his scorn that he was obliged to cool it in his ale, coming to the surface slightly mollified. "However, Lord Sebert, you have cast your colt's-teeth, and I have no desire to tread upon the toes of your dignity. If I have been over-free, excuse it in your father's old servant and comrade who has guarded and guided you since--since you have had teeth to cast."

The young man laughed good-humoredly as he straightened himself for action. "Too often has my dignity bent under your rod, Morcard, to hold itself very stiff against you now. Never fear; I will be an owl of discretion. Give you favorable dreams over your horns!" He picked up his cloak and was turning to depart, when one of the warriors flung up a hand.

"Soft, my lord. Yonder comes Wikel making strange signs to you." All heads but Randalin's turned in the direction he was looking. She was still too lethargic for curiosity; and she found a kind of dreamy content in lying with her eyes upon the Etheling's handsome face. Though its prevailing characteristic was the easy amiability of one who has known little of opposition or dislike, there was no lack of steel in the blue eyes or of iron in the square chin; now and then a spark betrayed them, thrilling pleasantly through her drowsiness.

Presently, however, between her and the comely apparition there intervened the brawny figure of a yeoman-soldier. He said breathlessly, "Chief--before you go to the King--be it known to you that those horse-feet you heard--belong to the mounts of Edric of Mercia and his men--and he is with King Edmund now!"

The three stolid old warriors got to their feet with curses. The Etheling bent forward to gaze incredulously into the man's face.

"Edric of Mercia? With the King? Why do you think so?"

"I was a little way beyond the King's fire, watching a fellow who was showing how he could jump over the flames, when I saw the Gainer ride past; and I followed him, as near as the guards would permit--near enough to see that the King received him--let him settle it with Saint Cuthbert!"

There was a pause of utter stupefaction; then, from all within hearing, a clamorous outburst: "It is the Gainer's luck again!"--"The messenger knew what he was saying!"--"No sharpness of wit can comprehend it!"--"It is the magic of his flattering tongue."--"A hundred tongues had done no harm if Edmund--" The voices sank into a snarling undertone: "Ay, there it is!"--"Ethelred's blood!"--"It is no more to be counted on than is water--" "What could have moved him to it?"

Morcard's throat emitted a sound that might have been a chuckle or might have been a growl. "I will tell you plainly for why; it is his dauntlessness. He is going to pit his green wit against Edric's, that has made two kings as wax between his fingers! And he has begun by letting the wolf into the fold."

It appeared that the Etheling had recovered from his surprise, for now he said steadily, "I will not believe it. Until their oaths have been spoken and their hands have clasped and my own eyes have witnessed it, I will not believe it of him."

Motioning them from his path, he was starting forward a second time, when the old cniht laid a hand lightly upon his shoulder.

"Hear me, Lord Sebert! If then,--to weigh all perils like a soldier,--if then, you do witness it with your own eyes?"

The blue gave out a flash of smitten steel.

Morcard answered as to words: "You will be one against many, lord."

"You cannot mean that the Witan will comply with him!" the Etheling cried.

"How is it possible that they should do otherwise? The odal-born men could not prevent it when Ethelred took Alfric back. And to-night, few but thanes have resorted thither--men whom the Redeless took from ploughing his fields to gild with n.o.bility. Is it likely that they will oppose the hand that can strip off their gilding?"

It appeared that the young man could find no answer to that, for he made none. "At least once, my lord, Ethelred's wilfulness has shown in his son, when he set aside the King's command to take possession of Sigeferth's widow and her estates. And I think it was Ethelred's temper that moved him to spend an energy, much better directed against the Pagans, in laying waste two of his own shires. Remember what happened when your father raised himself against Ethelred."

Restive under the restraining hand, the young n.o.ble faced him desperately. "Morcard, in G.o.d's name, what would you have me do? I will not bend to it, nor would you wish me to. Or sooner or later--"

"Let it be later, lord. After you have had time to marshal your wits, and when it is daylight, and you have your men at your back."