William Shakespeare - "The Tragedie of Anthonie, and Cleopatra"

Ben Jonson - "Volpone; Or, The Fox"

Sax Rohmer - "Tales of Chinatown"

Jane Porter - "Thaddeus of Warsaw"

The Ward of King Canute

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




The Danish girl laughed recklessly. "Little do I care, Candida, to tell it
truthfully. Nothing can be worse than sitting in that Abbey. Here at least
there is a chance that something may happen to help us to forget that we are
alive."

Candida shook the cloak she had grasped. "But you expect that he will be
angry! You told Elfgiva not to undertake the journey because of it. And you
were able to say the soothest about his temper."

"I was obliged to tell her that to be honest," Randalin answered, and again
there was a little wildness in her laugh, "but I should have gone stone-mad if
she had not come." Yet, as her horse commenced to bear her forward once more,
she consented to speak more encouragingly across the widening space. "If his
humor is right, it may be that nothing disagreeable will happen. She is very
fair to look at,--it may be that his mind will change at the sight of her.
Think that you will sleep in the Palace to-night."

Catching this last phrase, as her Valkyria came abreast of her, Elfgiva spoke
pettishly: "You see fit to sing a different tune from what you did when you
tried to hinder me from this undertaking. I should have brighter hopes if I
had not given ear to your advice to send a messenger ahead. If I could have
come upon him before he had time to work himself into a hostile temper--"

Her attention wandered as a couple of tipsy soldiers elbowed themselves
between the guards only to catch a nearer glimpse of her face, after which
they allowed themselves to be thrust back, shouting drunken toasts to her
beauty.

"Is it your wish that I help you to lower your hood, lady?" the Danish girl
made offer.

Elfgiva's half smile deepened into a laugh. "Not so, not so!" she said. "What!
Have you seen so much of war and battle axes that you have forgotten the ways
that are pleasing to men? Yet methinks you must needs have taken notice that,
always before he goes into battle, a soldier tests the sharpness of his
weapon. It is to that end that I endure the gaze of these serfs,--to test the
power of my face."

"It would not be unadvisable for you to whet your wits as well," Frode's
daughter muttered scornfully, and somewhat rashly, since Elfgiva's wits had
been sharp enough to guess the significance of her hand-maiden's interview
with the young English noble, and the knowledge had given her a weapon which
she was skilful in using.

"Has the sharpness of your mind brought you so much success then, my sweet?"
she inquired with her faultless smile; and had the satisfaction of seeing her
rebel shrink into silence like a child before a rod.

The crowding of the highway became more noticeable as they neared the point
where the Watling Street swerved from its old course, toward the ford and the
little Isle of Thorns, to bend eastward toward the New Gate. Some obstruction
at the forking of the roads impeded their progress almost to a walk. After a
brief experience of it, Elfgiva spoke impatiently to the nearest soldier.

"Why does it become more crowded when two paths open before us? Why does it
not happen that some of these cattle turn down the old way?"

The man shook his head. "I do not think there is much likelihood of that,
lady; since the Bridge was built, no one has wanted to use the ford; and there
is little else to take that way for, unless you are going to service in the
West Minster or to the Monastery."

"Wanted!" the Lady of Northampton repeated in the extremity of scorn. "Bid
them turn into that road at once. They stand some chance of their faces
getting clean if they take the ford,--if they also get drowned matters very
little. Tell them, seek what they may seek, to take that way instantly, or the
King shall punish them for interfering with their betters."

The man pushed up his leather cap to scratch his head. He was not unacquainted
with her custom of sweeping the Northamptonshire serfs off any road she wished
to possess, but that struck him as being somewhat easier than dispersing a
Coronation mob at the gates of London; and yet to defy her--that was harder
than either of them! It was an interposition of his good angel that at this
moment provided a diversion.

Randalin broke from her silence with an exclamation: "Thorkel! Yonder!"

Less than fifty paces ahead of them, the grizzled head of the King's foster-
father rose steeple-like above the crowd, while the mighty shoulders of the
King's foster-brother made a bulwark beside it, and the gilded helms of the
King's guard formed a palisade around them. The obstacle in the way was
nothing less than a royal detachment drawn up in waiting beside the road.

Elfgiva's frown relaxed; for the first time in many days she let the liquid
music of her laughter trickle forth. "Be blithesome in your minds, maidens!"
she called gayly over her shoulder. "Friends are at hand to take charge of
us."

Taking into consideration what they had expected, the attention was so
flattering that at first they scarcely dared believe it; but its truth was
proved the moment Thorkel turned his head and saw them coming. At his command,
the line of gilded helms quickly drew out across the road in a barrier which
once more dammed the human stream to overflowing. A break in the middle
allowed the party from Gloucester to filter through; then the opening closed
behind them; the line bent at either end, and they moved as between walls,
guarded against any further jostling or rude contact. Elfgiva sparkled with
delight and greeted the Tall One with more affability than she had ever before
deigned his gruffness.

"Since my royal lord came not himself to meet us," she said graciously,--and
pushing her hood entirely back so that he might get the full benefit of her
face, "he has well honored us in his messengers, than whom no persons could be
more welcome. I pray you, tell me without delay how it stands with his health
and his fortunes."

Turning from a muttered word to the soldier at his side, Thorkel answered her
with his usual curtness. "He thrives well, but his time is full of great
matters. To-day he is with the English Witan. Yesterday they chose him to be
their king. To-morrow he is to be crowned."

"To-morrow? And he would have let me remain in ignorance!" The Lady of
Northampton was unable to repress a start of anger, though she turned it as
soon as possible into a plaintive sigh. "Let me be thankful that my arrival is
not too late. I cannot tell you how we have been beset with hardships!"
Whereupon, she instantly began telling him, giving free rein to eyes and lips
and all the graceful tricks of her hands. It did not disturb her in the least
that he rode beside her in silence, when she had observed that from under the
bristling thatch of his brows his gaze never left her face.

So complete was her preoccupation that she dis-regarded another thing,--the
highway along which they were travelling. It was Randalin who first awoke to a
consciousness that the noise of the rabble had become very faint behind them,
that no sounds at all broke the stillness ahead of them, that the uneven
weed-grown path they were treading was very different from the smooth hardness
of the Watling Street. Fens on either side of them, a low hill to the
front--was this the way to London? For the first time, she spoke to the son of
Lodbrok, who had silently taken his place at her side.

"This is not the Watling Street! Yet we have not turned-- Where are we?"
Rothgar gnawed at his heavy moustache as though the answer were difficult to
frame; and before he had time to evolve it, Elfgiva, who had caught the
exclamation, had broken off her prattle.

"That is true! The crowd has disappeared--the stones are overlaid with
weeds--" In her bewilderment, she reined in her horse and would have stopped
to look about her, if Thorkel's hand upon her bridle had not compelled her to
remain in motion.

"You are still on the Watling Street," he said harshly. "It is only that this
is the old bed of it that has not been used much since the Bridge was built.
Besides the ford, it leads also to Saint Peter's Monastery on Thorney--"

Stung with fear, she tried to snatch the lines from him. "I am not going to a
monastery! I am going to the Palace."

As a cliff stands against the fretting of waves, his grasp stood against hers;
and his voice was as immovable as his hand. "Certainly you are going to a
palace, you did not let me carry out my meaning. Adjoining the Monastery there
is a dwelling-place which was once a house for travellers, that King Edgar
himself has slept in--"

"It is a prison you are taking me to!" Her voice rose in a shriek. "It is a
prison! You are mocking me I will scream for help!"

His smile mocked her openly then. "By all means,"--he assented,--" and see how
much it will profit you."

She realized then that walls were for shutting people in as well as for
shutting people out, and she could have screamed for very temper. Yet she made
one more attempt before giving way. Abandoning her struggle for the lines, she
let her little gloved hands alight like fluttering birds upon his mailed arm,
and summoned all the eloquence of her beauty into her heavenly eyes.

"No, sooner would I trust to you," she murmured. "You could not mistreat me
so! I beseech it of you, take me to the Palace where the King is."

On what she based her belief that he was incapable of thwarting her is not
quite clear, for he had never taken the trouble to hide the fact that he
considered her a nuisance, and her civil marriage with the King a piece of
youthful folly on Canute's part. Sinister satisfaction was in his tone when he
answered her.

"The Palace where the King is," he said, "is the Palace for a Queen."

At first, it seemed that she would either scratch out his eyes or throw
herself from her saddle. But in the end she did neither, for a sense of her
helplessness turned her faint. To one who has always ruled undisputed, there
is something benumbing in the first collision with the pitiless hand of Force.
"If I had the good luck to see a bee caught in a brier, I should wish your
death," she threatened. But she said it under her breath; and after that, rode
with drooping head and eyes that saw nothing of the scene before her.

When the road had left the fens, it climbed a low hill, beyond which it
entered a wood. A brook was the further boundary of the wood, and across its
brawling brown water a rude stone bridge continued their path, and linked the
bank with the little Isle of Thorns. Nature must have had a prison in mind
when she constructed this island, Elfgiva thought with a shiver. A low sandy
hillock rising amid three streams or water, the high tide would have cut it
off completely but for the friendly arm which the Watling Street extended to
it from the Tot Hill, while a thicket of brambles and briers edged it like a
natural prison wall. Nor had man forgotten such defences, she found when they
had passed a gap in the thorny hedge; a fence of stone rose sheer before them
and extended on either hand as far as eye could reach. In the fence was a
great gate of black oak, which a black-robed Benedictine presently opened to
their summons.

Now for the first time, Thorkel took his hand from her rein. "I will go no
farther," he said. "You are expected, and one of the monks will be your guide.
It lies only across the court and through one more door." His lips curled in
their cruel smile as he motioned her forward. "Go in and take possession. It
is not sure how soon the King will get time to come to you. His mood has not
been very playful lately. Rothgar's sword has scarcely had time to go to bed
in its sheath--"

"The King is occupied with great matters," Rothgar's heavy voice bore down the
old man's thinner tones. "It is not only that he has to be crowned and make
laws. He has many Englishmen to dispose of, and much land to divide up among
his following."

While Elfgiva's glance passed him uncomprehendingly, Randalin lifted startled
eyes. When she saw that he was looking directly at her, she knew that it was
no chance shaft, but an arrow aimed at her heart. The time had come that he
had looked forward to, when Canute should get the kingship over the English,
and Ivarsdale should come back to the race that had built it. And it was all
fair, quite fair, quite within the rules of the game at which she herself had
played. She had not a word to offer as she lowered her eyes and let her horse
follow the others as it would. There was satisfaction on the lips of each of
the King's deputies as they rode cityward that day.




Chapter XXV

The King's Wife



Long is and indirect the way
To a bad friend's,
Though by the road he dwell.
Ha'vama'l.

The fact that King Edgar had slept under its uneven on some visit to Dunstan's
monkish colony, was scarcely sufficient to make a palace of the rambling
rookery which a wall separated from the West Minster. It was an irregular
one-storied building,--or, rather, group of buildings connected by covered
passages,--and every kind of material had been used in its construction,--
brick and stone and wood,--while some of the smaller offices were even
straw-thatched and wattled.

"It is the waste-place of ruins," Elfgiva said on the day of their arrival,
when the monk who guided them proudly identified the brick portions as
fragments of the old Roman Temple to Apollo, the wooden door-posts as beams
from the Saxon Seberht's refectory, and the stone walls as contributions from
Dunstan's chapel, which the Danes of the year one thousand and twelve had
reduced to a crumbling pile.

To-day, a fortnight later, Randalin repeated the comment with a despondent
addition: "It is the waste-place of ruins, and ruins have come to dwell in it.
I can believe that it is no lie about the Fates to call them women, when they
put like with like in so housewifely a manner."

She was alone in one of the bare mouldering rooms, leaning against the
deep-set small-paned window which had become her accustomed post. It offered
no pleasanter outlook than the snow-powdered thicket beyond the wall and a
glimpse of the Thames, spreading silently over the surrounding marshes; but
from it her fancy's eye could follow the mighty stream around its eastern bend
to the point where the City walls began, and Saint Paul's shingled steeple
reared itself in lofty pride. The Palace stood in the shade of that steeple,--
the real Palace, where the King sat deciding over the fate of his new
subjects, taking their lands from them, when he did not take their lives, and
banishing them across the sea to live and die in beggary. Her fingers tapped
the glass in desperation as she realized her helplessness even to get news of
his judgments.

"The King will never come to this rubbish heap," she told herself
despairingly. "Here we are buried no less than if we lay in a mound. It is not
likely that we shall get news by an easier way than by going to him."

Straining her eyes out over the mist-robed river, she tried for the thousandth
time to think of some bait alluring enough to tempt Elfgiva to that point of
daring. Hope the Lady of Northampton had every morning when she awoke and
looked in her mirror, and Wrath lay down with her every night, but the
rashness which had prompted her first attempt, Thorkel must have taken away
with him, a trophy tied to his saddle-bow. She made big plans and she talked
big words,--but always she put off their fulfilment until the morrow.

"At this gait, he could be dead and in his grave without my knowing it!"
Randalin cried in despair, and her voice made it quite clear that "he" no
longer meant the King. Since there was no one to see it, she even allowed her
head to fall forward on her arms, and let the ache in her throat ease itself
in a little sob. "Now it is open to me that I was foolish to let what happened
in the garden, that day, cause so much sadness in my heart," she sighed. "It
should have been a great joy to me that he was still safe and happy... and I
should have found some hope in it, also, for as long as he is in England there
would always be the chance that I might see him again... And perhaps, after a
long while, when he had quite forgotten how I looked as Fridtjof... if I
should be able to learn many graceful woman's ways from Elfgiva... and if he
should come upon me when I had on a very beautiful kirtle... so long as he
likes my hair..."

But even as the smile budded on her lips, she plucked it from them, trembling.
"How dare I think of such things, when already they may have driven him across
the sea! It would be quite enough if I could know that the same land is to
hold us both, if I could have the hope of seeing him again to make it seem
worth while for me to go on living. Oh, I did not dream how much I leaned on
that, until it was taken from me!" In the utter loneliness of her despair, she
crushed her face against her arm, pressing back the burning tears, and her
heart rose in a prayer to the Englishman's God, since her own no longer
answered her: "Oh, Thou God, if Thou art kind and helpful as he says, it is
easy for Thee to let him remain here where I can sometimes see him! Leave me
this one hope, and I also will believe in Thee." With her face hidden, she
stood there praying it until it rang so strong through her soul that it seemed
to her the Power could not but hear. And after He had heard, it would be so
simple,--if He was as helpful as Sebert said.

There was new resolution in her movements when at last she left the window and
went toward Elfgiva's bower. "I will try once more to entice her to the
Palace, so that I can get tidings," she determined. "Perhaps it will be easier
if at first I suggest no more than a ride, and after that allure her by
degrees. I wonder what kind of humor she is in."

It was not necessary to go far to obtain a hint as to that. Even as she
entered the passage, she heard from the bower-chamber the crash of a chair
overturned, the scramble of scurrying feet, and then screams and the thud of
blows.

"Now it is heard that she is not sulking among her cushions," Randalin
observed. "When her temper is up she is little afraid of doing things which
she else would not dare do."

According to that her expectations should have mounted high, as she drew aside
the door curtain, for the Lady of Northampton was far from sulking. Partially
disrobed, as she had sprung up from before her mirror, she was holding the
luckless Dearwyn with one hand while with the other she administered pitiless
punishment from a long club-like candle which she had snatched from its
holder. Between her entreaties for mercy, the little maid was shrieking with
pain; now, at sight of Randalin, she redoubled her struggles so that the belt
by which her mistress grasped her burst and left her free to dart forward and
fling herself behind the Danish girl.

"Help me, help me!" she gasped; as Elfgiva swooped upon both of them, her
streaming hair taking on a resemblance to bristling fur, her eyes showing more
of opal's fire than of heaven's blue.

"Come not betwixt, or I will treat you in a like manner," the mistress panted.
"Do you understand the evil she has wrought? She has broken the wing off my
gold fly, besides tearing the hair half out of my head. It is not to be borne
with!"

But the Valkyria's fear of Elfgiva's tongue did not extend to Elfgiva's hands.
Catching the dimpled wrists, she held them off with perfect coolness, as she
said soothingly, "Now you tire yourself much, lady; and you will tire yourself
more if you consent to the entertainment I came hither to propose." She
laughed, a little excitedly, as a thought struck her. "It may even be that you
will not blame her for this, but rather take it as a sign that my advice is
good."

To say "sign" to Elfgiva was something like saying "cream" to a cat. Gradually
she ceased trying to free her hands, to gaze at her captor. "What do you mean
by that? Or have you any meaning except only trying for an excuse to get this
hussy off from punishment?"

"No, in truth, for I thought of it before I knew that trouble had happened to
her," Randalin answered; and now she knew that it was safe to release the
wrists. "I will show you. I was thinking how it might cause amusement to us to
ride into the City and see what the goldsmiths have in their booths. And then
I came in here and found you in need of goldsmiths' mending! Does not that
look like a sign that my thought is good?"

Elfgiva threw aside the candle to come close and lay her hands upon the girl's
breast. "Good for what?" she demanded. "Do you think it likely that I might
fall in with the King somewhere in the City?"

This was going a bit faster than Randalin had planned, and her breath came
quickly, but she took the risk and admitted it. "I did hope that it might
happen that we would see the King," she said, "and--what is more important to
us--that the King might see you."

Slowly, the King's wife went back to her seat before the mirror, and sat there
fingering and turning the jewelled rouge-pots in a deep study.

"Deliver me your opinion of this, Teboen?" she said, at last, to the big
raw-boned British woman who was her nurse and also the female majordomo of her
household.

Teboen was enough mistress of the magic art to give anything like an omen its
due weight,--and perhaps she was also human enough to be weary of a
fortnight's imprisonment with a porcupine. After becoming deliberation, she
replied that she thought rather favorably of the plan, that certainly it could
do no harm, since a visit to the booths had never been forbidden to them,
while it would be almost as sure to do good if the King could be reminded of
how beautiful a woman he was neglecting.

Elfgiva's laughter was like returning sunshine. "How! You say so? Then will we
make ready without delay! Leonorine, come hither and finish clothing
me,--Dearwyn would shake too much. Lay aside your whimpering, child; the
scourging is forgiven you. Tata, I could find it in my mind to scold you for
not thinking of this before. You must mouth the order for the horses, though,"
she added as an afterthought. "I should expect it would be told me that I am a
prisoner, whereat I should weep for rage."

Another flash of daring lighted Randalin's eyes, though her mouth remained
quiet. "A good way to keep them from thinking you a prisoner, lady, is to act
like a free woman," she said. "I shall tell them that you are going to the
Palace to see your husband." Sowing her seed, she left it to take root, and
went away to convince the head of the grooms.

As she had foretold, he was too uncertain regarding their position to dare
contest their order, little as he liked it. In something less than an hour,
the five women, fur-wrapped and flanked by pages and soldiers, were riding
across the little stone bridge and up the wooded slope of the Tot Hill. In
something more than an hour after that, they were passing under the deep arch
of the New Gate into the great City itself.

"Do you purpose to visit the Palace first, noble one?" the leader of the
guards inquired with a respectful if uneasy salute.

The seed had rooted so far that Elfgiva did not disclaim the intention; but
she hesitated a long time, pulling nervously at the embroidered top of her
riding glove. "In what direction lie the goldsmiths?" she asked at last.

"Straight ahead, lady. Nothing very pleasant is at the beginning; neither the
shambles which lie across the way, nor the wax chandler's which is opposite;
but when you get beyond Saint Martin's to the Commons, you will find--"

The lady's nose wrinkled disdainfully. "Which way lies the Palace?"

"Down the lane on your left, noble one. You can see where the wall of the
King's garden makes one side of Paternoster Row. You can reach the Cheapside
along the road also," he added, "if you do not turn in your way until you come
where the Churchyard joins the Folk --"

"Turn then to the left."

They obeyed her, but their gay chatter died on their lips. If the road bore
none of the repulsiveness of the shambles, it was still little more cheerful
than the graveyard. On their right, an ice-stiffened marsh reached to the
great City wall, while a remnant of the primeval beech forest lay along their
left, leafless, wind-lashed and groaning. Ahead, behind its walls and above
its gardens of clustering fruit-trees, rose the towers and gilded spires of
the King's Palace.

As they neared the arched gateway, red with the cloaks of the royal guards, it
seemed to Randalin that an icy hand had closed about her heart. The blood was
ebbing from Elfgiva's face, and it could be seen that she was forced to keep
moistening her lips with her tongue. Nearer--now they were in front of the
entrance-- All at once, the lady thrust a spur into her horse as he was
slackening his pace in obedience to her tightened rein.

"To the goldsmiths' first," she ordered. "On our way back--" Her words were
lost on the frosty wind.

The master of the first booth in the row of wretched little stalls was humped
with steaming breath over a brazier of glowing coals. He leaped to greet such
splendid ladies with a profusion of salaams and a mouthful of pretty speeches
that brought some of the color back to Elfgiva's cheeks.

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