John Greenleaf Whittier - "Tales and Sketches, Complete"

Thomas Paine - "The Writings of Thomas Paine Vol. II"

Horatio Alger - "The Young Explorer"

William Shakespeare - "Twelfth Night; or What You Will"

The Ward of King Canute

O >> Ottilie A Liljencrantz >> The Ward of King Canute




At last he turned and came a step nearer her, courtly and noble as he had
always been. "I owe to you everything I have, even life itself," he said, "and
I offer them all in payment of the debt. May I ask the King to give you to me
for my wife?"

In its infinite gentleness, his voice was almost tender. For as long as the
space between one breath and the next, her spirit leaped up and stretched out
its arms to its joy; but she stayed it on the threshold of utterance to look
fearfully into his face, whose every shade was open to her as the day. Looking
into his eyes, she knew that it was no more than pity. He guessed that she
loved him and he pitied her; but he could not forgive her unmaidenliness, he
could not love her.

Slowly and quite easily she felt her heart die in her breast, leaving only the
shell, the husk, of what had been Randalin, Frode's daughter. Her first
thought Was a vague wonder that after it she could breathe and move as if she
were still alive. Her next, a piteous desire to escape from him while she had
this strength, before the end should really come. Clutching the broken chain,
she drew herself up bravely, her words coming in uneven breathfuls. "I want
not that recompense, lord. I want--nothing you have to give. Little shall you
think of the debt,--or think that in helping you, I repaid you for your
hospitality, your--"

Her voice broke as the memory of that time passed over her like bitter waters,
and she was obliged to stand silent before him, steadying her lip with her
teeth, until the waters had fallen. She had a faint consciousness that he was
speaking to her, but she did not understand what he said, she did not care.
Her only wish was for words that should send him away so that she might be
free to sink down beside the old well and press her burning face against its
smooth coldness and finish dying there.

"It was the King who sent for you, that he might know whether I had spoken the
truth concerning my disguise--" she said when at last her voice returned.
"Now, by coming, you have helped me against his anger,--let that settle all
debt between us. I thank you much and--and I bid you farewell." Again
Elfgiva's schooling came to her mind and she swayed before him in a courtesy.
She even bent her lips into a little smile so that he should not be sorry for
her and stay to tell her so. She did not know that her cheeks were as white as
her kerchief, that her eyes were dark wells of unshed tears. She knew only
that at last he was bowing, he was turning, in a moment more he would be
gone -

But just short of that point he stopped, and all motion around her appeared to
stop, as a noise down the corridor blotted out every sound in the garden,--the
noise of a great body of people rousing the echoes with jubilant shouting.

"The King! The King!" could be heard again and again, and after it a burst of
deafening cheers that drowned the rest.

Elfgiva dropped the gilded quoits to wring her hands. "Is it the English, my
lord?" she implored of Eric of Norway. "Is it the English attacking us? Shall
we be killed?"

"Think you that Danes cheer like that when they are expecting death?" the
Norseman reassured her with a hearty laugh. "It is good news,--great news
since the whole mob has thought it safe to bring it. Hark! Can you hear what
it is that they add after the King's name?"

Listening, everyone stood motionless as the babel came nearer with a swiftness
which spoke much for the speed of the shouters. Only Randalin's little red
shoe began to tap the earth impatiently. What did it matter what they said?

"Hail to Canute of Denmark!" "Hail to the King of the Danes and--" Again
cheers drowned the rest.

The pages, who had sped at the first alarm like a covey of gay birds, came
panting back, tumbling over one another in their efforts to impart the news.

"A messenger!" "A messenger from Oxford--" "From Edric--" "Edmund is--"
"--Edmund--" "A messenger!" one cancelled another in the wild excitement.

Elfgiva caught the nearest and shook him until his teeth chattered; and in the
lull, the swelling shout reached them for the first time unbroken: "Honor to
the King! Hail to the King of the Danes and the Angles!"

From the Lord of Ivarsdale came a cry, sharp as though a heart-string had
snapped in its utterance, the tie that for generations had bound those of his
blood to the house of Cerdic.

"Edmund?"

The mob of soldiers and servants that burst through the doorway answered his
question with exultant shouts: "Edmund is dead! Edmund is dead! Long live
Canute the King! King of the Danes and the Angles!"

Unbidden, memory raised before Randalin a picture of the English camp-fire in
the glade, with the English King standing in its light and the hooded figure
bending from the shadow behind him, its white taloned hand resting on his
sleeve. An instant she shivered at it; then again her foot stirred with
unendurable restlessness. If he was dead, he was dead, and there was no more
to be said. Was the Etheling always going to stand as though he were turned to
stone? Would he never

Ah, at last he was moving! As if the news had only just reached home to him,
she saw him draw himself together sharply and stride toward the door; and she
watched feverishly to see if anyone would think to stop him. One group he
passed--and another--and another--now he was on the threshold. Her pulses
leaped as she recognized Rothgar, in the throng pouring into the garden with
the messenger, but quieted again when she saw that the two passed shoulder to
shoulder without a look, without a thought, for each other. Now he was out of
sight.

She let her suspended breath go from her in a long sigh. "It is good that
everyone is too excited to notice what I do," she said to herself. And even as
she said it she realized that her limbs were shaking under her, that she was
sick unto faintness. "I am going to finish dying now, and I welcome it," she
murmured. Staggering to a little bench under one of the old oaks, she sank
down upon it and leaned her head against the tree trunk and waited.




Chapter XXIII

A Blood-stained Crown


He is happy
Who in himself possesses
Fame and wit while living;
For bad counsels
Have oft been received
From another's breast.
Ha'vama'l.

"Tata!" That was the pet name which Elfgiva had given to her Danish attendant
because it signified lively one." "Tata! I have looked everywhere for you!"
The pat of light feet, a swish of silken skirts, and Dearwyn had thrown
herself upon the bench under the oak tree, her little dimpled face radiant.
"What are you doing here in this corner where you can see nothing? How! Are
you not overcome with delight? Only think that Elfgiva will be a queen and we
shall all go to London!" As the only adequate means of expression, she threw
her arms around her friend in a rapturous embrace.

Something in the touch of her soft body, the caress of her satin hands, was
indefinably comforting. Randalin's arms closed about her and pressed her
close, while the little gentlewoman chided her gayly.

"What is the matter with you that you are so silent as to your tongue, when
you must needs be shouting in your heart? You are as bad as the King, who
stands looking from one to another and speaks not a word. Does your coldness
arise from dignity? Then let me lose all the state I have and be held for a
farmer's lass, for I am going to stand up here where I can see everything."
Disengaging herself gently, she climbed upon the bench as she chattered. "The
messenger had a leather bag around his neck which I think likely contains
Edmund's crown and--Ah, Tata, look l look! Thorkel is holding it up!"


As cries of savage rejoicing mingled with the uproar, Randalin found herself
dragged up, whether she would or no, until she stood beside her companion,
gazing over the heads of the shouting throng.

Yes, it was Edmund's crown. Again, a picture of the English camp-fire rose
before her, and she shivered as she recognized the graceful pearled points she
had last seen upon the Ironside's stately head. Now Thorkel was setting them
above the Danish circlet on Canute's shining locks, while the shouts merged
into a roar of acclamation. Like blowing flowers, the women bent before him,
and the naked swords of his nobles made a glittering arch above him.

"But why does he look so strange?" Randalin said suddenly.

And Dearwyn laid a finger on her lip. "Hush! At last he is going to speak."

For now it was plain that Canute's attention was given neither to the nobles
nor to the fluttering women. He was bending toward the messenger, holding him
with his glance. "Tell more news, messenger," he was saying sternly. "Tell
about the cause of my royal brother's death."

The messenger seemed to lose what little breath his ride on the shoulders of
the crowd had left him. "My errand extends no further," he panted. "It is
likely that the Earl will send you more news--I am but the first--" His breath
gave out in an inarticulate gasp, and he began to back away.

But the King moved after him. "Stop--" he commanded,--"or it may be that I
will cause you to remain quiet for the rest of time. You must know what
separated his life from his body. Tell it."

Stammering with terror, the man fell upon his knees. "Dispenser of treasures,
how should I know? The babblings of the ignorant durst not be repeated. Many
say that the Ironside was worn sick with fighting."

"You lie!" Canute roared down upon him. "You know they say that Edric murdered
him."

At that, the poor fool seemed to cast to the winds his last shred of sense.
"They do say that the Earl poisoned him," he blubbered. "But none say that you
bade him to do it. No one dares to say that."

"How could they say that?" Randalin cried in amazement, while the King drew
back as though the grovelling figure at his feet were a dog that had bitten
him.

"I bid him do it?" he repeated. All at once his face was so terrible that the
man began to crawl backward, screaming, even before Canute's hand had reached
his hilt.

Before the blade could be drawn, Rothgar had stepped in front of his royal
foster-brother with a savage sweep of his handless arm. "Do not waste your
point on the churl, King," he said in his bull's voice. "If you want to play
this game further, deal with me, for I also believe that you bade the Gainer
murder Edmund."

As though paralyzed by his amazement, Canute's arm dropped by his side. "You
also believe it?"

Little Dearwyn hid her face on the Danish girl's breast. "Oh, Randalin, would
he do such a deed?" she gasped. "The while that he seemed so kind and gentle
with us! Would he do such horrid wickedness?"

"No!" Randalin cried passionately. "No!"

But even as she cried it, Thorkel the Tall dared to lean forward and give the
royal shoulder a rallying slap. "Amleth himself never played a game better,"
he said; "but is it worth while to continue at it when no Englishmen are
watching?" And his words seemed to open a door against which the others were
crowding.

"King Canute, I willingly admit myself the block-head you called me." Ulf Jarl
hastened to declare in his good-natured roar. "When I saw you take your point
away from Edmund's breast, that day, my heart got afraid that you were obliged
to do it to save yourself. Even after I heard how you had made a bargain to
inherit after each other, I never suspected what kind of a plan was in your
mind."

And Eric of Norway smote his thigh with the half resentful laugh of a man who
has been told the answer to a riddle which he has given up. "I will confess
that your wit surpasses mine in matters of cunning. I did suspect that you
might think it unfeasible to kill him before the face of his army, but I had
no idea that it would be possible to get the land from him both according to
law and without further fighting or loss of men. On a lucky day is the King
born who has a mind like this!"

One after another, all the nobles echoed the sentiment; until even the mob of
soldiers found courage to voice their minds.

"His wit is made out of Sleipnir's heels!" "Skroppa herself could not be
foreknowing about him!" "I am as glad now as I was disappointed when I saw him
take his blade off the Ironside--" "When I saw that, I thought I would turn
English--" "They will try now to turn Danish." "You speak well, for he will
get great fame on account of his wisdom." So they filled the air with
marvelling admiration.

Standing in silent listening, Canute's gaze travelled from face to face until
it came to the spot where Elfgiva fluttered among her women, holding her
exquisite head as if it already wore a crown. An odd gleam flickered over his
eyes, and he made a step toward her. "You!" he said. "What do you believe?"

Pealing her silvery laughter, she turned toward him, her eyes peeping at him
like bright birds from under the eaves of her hood. "Lord, I believe that I am
afraid of you!" she coquetted. "When I bethink me that all the time I have
been chiding you for being unambitious for glory, you have had this in your
mind! I shall never presume to compass your moods again. Yes. Oh, yes! I shall
see daggers in your smile and poison in your lightest word." Laughing, she
stooped and kissed his hand with the first semblance of respect which she had
ever shown him.

In the Danish girl's embrace, Dearwyn shivered and nestled closer. "Randalin,
you hear her? She thinks he did it."

"She is a foolish woman," Randalin said impatiently, "and if she do not take
care, she will feel it for speaking so. See how his fingers tap his belt for
all that his face is so still."

His face was curiously still as he regarded the beautiful Elfgiva, -- and
stilly curious, as though he were examining some familiar object in a new
light. "You believe then that I had him murdered?" he asked. "And you find
pleasure in believing it?"

"Now it is not murder!" she protested. "When a king kills--in war--"

"But this is not war," he said slowly. Lifting one of the jewelled braids from
her shoulder, he played with it as he studied her. "This is not war, for I had
reconciled myself to him. I had plighted faith with Edmund Ethelredsson and
vowed to avenge his death like a brother."

Her white forehead drew itself into a puzzled frown. "But you were not so
foolish as to swear it on the holy ring were you?" When he did not answer, she
raised her shoulders lightly. "What should I know about such matters? Have you
not told me, many times and oft, that it behooves a woman to shun meddling
with great affairs?"

He gave a short laugh, "And when were you ever before content to follow that
advice?" Letting the braid slip from his fingers, he stood looking her up and
down, his lips curling with scorn. "Yet this was not needful to show me that
the elves felt they had done their full day's work when they had made you a
body," he said. And whether he did not see her bridling displeasure, or
whether he saw and no longer cared to appease it, the result was the same.

Randalin spoke abruptly to her companion. "Dearwyn, I can tell you something.
Elfgiva will never get the queenship over England."

"What moves you to say that?" the little English girl asked her, startled.

But Randalin's attention had gone back to the King, who had turned where the
son of Lodbrok waited regarding him over sternly-folded arms.

Brother," he was saying gravely, "your opinion is powerful with me, so I will
openly tell you that you are wrong in your belief. I was satisfied with the
crown of an under-king, satisfied to pass the time as I had been doing. Never
have I so much as hinted to yonder peace-nithing a word of harm against Edmund
Ironside."

From Thorkel the Tall came one of his rare laughs,--a sound like the grating
of a rusty hinge,--and Rothgar unfolded his arms to fling them out in angry
rejection.

"This is useful to learn!" he sneered. "Do you think I could not guess that
you had no need to put your desire into words after you had shown Edric by
your actions that your mind and his are one, after you had admitted by your
bond with him that you hold the same curious belief about honor?"

This time it was Randalin who clutched the English girl. "Oh!" she gasped.

For Canute's eyes were less like eyes than holes through which light was
pouring, while his fingers opened and shut as though he had forgotten his
sword and would leap upon the scoffer with bare hands. Thorkel left off
laughing to grasp the Jotun's arm and try to drag him backwards.

"Do you want to drive it from his mind that he has loved you? Go hide yourself
in Fenrir's mouth!"

But the King did not spring upon his foster-brother. Even as they looked, the
fire went out in his eyes, spark by spark, until they were lustreless as
ashes, and at last he put up his hand and wiped great drops from his forehead.
"Never had you the keenness to father that judgment," he said in a strangely
dull voice. "It must be that a god spoke through your mouth." Leaving them, he
moved forward to the well and stood gazing into it, his fingers mechanically
raking together and crushing the dead leaves that had fluttered down upon the
curbing.

Dearwyn's pretty lips began to quiver with approaching tears. "Randalin, I am
miserably terrified. The air feels as though awful things were about to
happen."

"It seems that the world has begun to fall to pieces everywhere," Randalin
said wearily. The momentary forgetfulness which the happenings around her had
created was beginning to give way before the weight in her breast. She drew
herself up listlessly. "Is it of any use to remain up here, Dearwyn?"

But Dearwyn's grasp had tightened. "See! the King is beginning to speak."

Whom he was addressing was not quite clear even though he had turned back to
the group of nobles, for his eyes still gazed into space, but his words
sounded distinctly: "Heavy is it to lose faith in others, but heavier still to
lose faith in one's self... I know that no word of mine urged Edric to this
deed, but what my eyes may have said, or some trick of my voice or my face, is
not so sure... It may be that I wanted this thing to happen without knowing
it. When I see what it has brought me, I cannot understand how I could help
wanting it... It is true that I do not always know for certain what I have at
heart." His eyes came back from space to rest musingly on Elfgiva. "When I
began this feasting-time, I thought I had grasped heaven with my hands, but
now--" he spread out his fingers and released the little bunch of dead leaves
that he had been rolling against his palm--"now I let not this go from me more
easily... You see that a man is not sure even of his own mind."

Again his head was sinking on his breast, when he raised it with a fierceness
that startled them. "One thing only I am sure of, and that is that I have done
forever with craft. Hereafter, if a man is a hindrance to me, Rothgar's axe
shall send him to Hel while it is broad daylight and all his friends are
looking. Such is my luck with craft as though I had grasped a viper by the
tail, in the belief that I had seized its snout... I have been finely
treated... Not only have I been betrayed by all of you who have thought such
thoughts of me, but now some troll has got into me and turned me false to
myself so that I cannot give you punishment for your treason! Certainly the
gods must think this crown of great value since, before they give it to me,
they take from me all that I have thought my happiness, and rob me of my honor
as well!"

He dashed his fist against the tree beside him and did not seem to feel it
when his hand was bleeding. "Here I take oath that they shall cause their gift
to prove its value! It shall be meat and drink to me, and honor and life
itself. Many happenings shall spring from this gift, for I will put my whole
strength into the holding of it; Odin himself shall not wrest it from me! I
will be such a king that there will not be many to equal me; such a king that
they will wish they had given me happiness and left me a man."

Whirling, he flung out his bleeding hand toward Elfgiva, and his mouth was
distorted with its bitterness. "Hear that, you who were so mad to have your
lord the King of England that you could not spend a thought on the love of
Canute of Denmark! You have got your wish,--go back now to your
Northamptonshire castle and think whether or not you are gladdened by it."

"Go back!" Elfgiva fell from her height of injured dignity with a piercing
scream. "What is it you say, King? Now by the splendor of heaven, you depart
not for London without me! Be it known to you that I am going to be your
Queen."

At first he looked at her in genuine astonishment; after that he laughed,
neither angrily nor bitterly, but with the quietness of utter contempt. "I
will have the London goldsmiths send you a crown if you wish," he said. "That
is all you understand about being a queen."

She tried to protest, to cajole, to threaten. She tried to do so many things
at once that she accomplished none of them. Her speech became less and less
intelligible until tears and hysterical laughter reduced it to mere mouthings,
while her tiny hands beat the air with fingers bent hook-like.

But the young King did not look at her again. He had rejoined his nobles and
was leading them toward the door, giving rapid orders as he walked. "Do you,
Rothgar, see to it that the horses are saddled. Kinsman Ulf, it is my will
that you join us some while later, when you have seen these women returned in
safety. You, my chiefs, get you ready to ride to Oxford as quick as is
possible." His voice was lost in the trampling as they stepped from the turf
upon the flagging of the gallery.

When the echoing tread was gone at last from the cloister, the garden seemed
strangely silent in spite of the hurrying servants,--silent and empty. In the
stillness, it came slowly to Randalin that life was not so simple as she had
supposed; that she was not going to die of her grief but to live with
it,--live with this dead emptiness in her breast. The years seemed to stretch
before her like the snow wastes of the North,--white, white, white, without a
break of living green.




Chapter XXIV

On The Road to London



Hotter than fire
Love for five days burns
Between false friends;
But is quenched
When the sixth day comes,
And friendship is all impaired.
Ha'vama'l.

From Edgeware, where the Watling Street left the Middlesex Forest to cross the
barren heath known as Tyburn Lane, the great road was crowded with travellers.
A small portion of them--messengers, soldiers, and hunting parties--were
riding northward, but the great mass was facing the City whither they were
pressing to warm themselves in the glow of the Coronation. On foot, on
horseback, in wagons and on crutches, they were as motley a throng as had ever
trod the Roman stones; and the respectable element among them was by no means
large enough to leaven the lump. Sometimes a group of merchants was to be
seen, conducting loaded wagons; sometimes, a thane's pompous thane, ensheathed
in his retinue; while occasionally, as they neared the New Gate, the crowd was
swelled by squads of the lesser Cheapside dealers making the daily pilgrimage
from their country dwellings to their stalls in the City. But these were as
scattered islands in the stream of half drunken seamen, masterless thralls,
wolf-eyed beggars, paupers, vagabonds and criminals, who were pushing toward
London in hopes of pleasure or gain or for want of another goal.

Amid such a rabble, and as out of place as a swarm of butterflies in frost-
silvered air, a band of high-born women was to be seen approaching the City
this early December morning. Gorgeously attired pages, hardly more warlike
than the women, made a blooming hedge around them, while a sufficiently strong
guard of men-at-arms protected them from actual harm, but from impudent
comment and ribald jest there was no defence. Their hoods were pulled down as
before a storm, their mantles drawn up above their chins; and all but two of
them appeared to be trying to shrink into their gilded saddles.


The two who rode at their head, however, looked to be of a different mettle.
Indeed, in the quality of her courage, each appeared to differ from the other,
though muffling folds blotted out anything like individuality. The shorter of
the two, while she rode with gracefully drooping head, had left her face
practically uncovered, seemingly unconscious of the half slighting, half
pitying admiration elicited by its pathetic beauty. The other, who showed no
more than the tip of her nose, held her head bravely erect, while, even
through her wrappings, the straightness of her back breathed haughtiness.

Yet it was not to the pensive fair one that a timid companion appealed for
comfort, when a temporary damming of the stream pressed those who led, back
upon those who followed. She stretched out an en-treating hand toward the girl
with the haughtily carried head.

"Randalin! What will he do--the King--when he finds that we have fooled Ulf
Jarl, and come hither against his command?"

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.