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The Ward of King Canute

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




But the next morning, after he had set forth and found how every mile
lengthening behind him lightened the burden of his depression, a kind of joy
rose phoenix-like out of the gray ashes of duty.

"If I had continued there, I should have become feeble in mind," he said.
"Now, since I have got out of that tomb that she haunts, it may be that I can
follow my art more lustily." And suddenly his sternness melted into a great
warmth, toward the strapping soldier riding beside him, toward the pannier-
laden venders swinging along in their tireless dog-trot, even toward the
beggar that hobbled out of the ditch to waylay him. "To live out in the world,
where you are pulled into others' lives whether you will or no, is the best
thing to teach people to forget," he said. "Solitude has comfort only for
those who have no sorrows, for Solitude is the mother of remembrance."

He got genuine enjoyment out of the hour that he was obliged to sit in the
ante-room, waiting to be admitted to the King. On one side of him, a group was
discussing a Danish rebellion that seemed to be somewhere in progress; on the
other, men were speculating on the chances of a Norman invasion,--news of
keenest interest was flying thick as bees in June; and the coming and going of
the red-cloaked warriors, the occasional passing of some great noble through
the throng, stimulated him like wine.

"Praise to the Saint who has brought me into a life where there are no women!"
he told himself. "Yes! Oh, yes! Here once more I shall rule my thoughts like a
man." When a page finally came to summon him, he followed with buoyant step
and so gallant a bearing that more than one turned to look at him as he
passed.

"Yonder goes the new Marshal," he heard one say to another, and gave the words
a fleeting wonder.

The bare stone hall into which the boy ushered him was the same room in which
he had had his last audience, and now as then the King sat in the great carved
chair by the chimney-piece, but other things were so changed that inside the
threshold the Etheling checked his swinging stride to gaze incredulously. No
soldiers were to be seen but the sentinels that had been placed beside the
doorways, stiff as their gilded pikes, and they counted strictly in the class
with the ebony footstools and other furnishings. The knots of men, scattered
here and there in buzzing discussion, were all dark-robed merchants and
white-bearded judges, while around the table under the window a dozen
shaven-headed monks were working busily with writing tools. The King himself
was no longer armored, but weapon-less and clad in velvet. Stopping
uncertainly, Sebert took from his head the helmet which he had worn, soldier
fashion, into the presence of his chief, and into his salutation crept some of
the awe that he had felt for Edmund's kingship, before he knew how weak a man
held up the crown.

Certainly Edmund had never received a greeting with more of formal dignity
than the young Dane did now, while Edmund could never have spoken what
followed with this grim directness which sent every word home like an arrow to
its mark.

"Lord of Ivarsdale, before I speak further I think it wise that we should make
plain our minds to each other. Some say that you are apt to be a hard man to
deal with because you bend to obedience only when the command is to your
liking. I want to know if this is true of you?"

Half in surprise, half in embarrassment, the Etheling colored high, and his
words were some time coming; but when at last they reached his lips, they were
as frank as Canute's own. "Lord King," he made answer, "that some truth is in
what you have heard cannot be gainsaid; for a king's thane I shall never be,
to crouch at a frown and caper according to his pleasure. What service I pay
to you, I pay as an odal-man to the State for which you stand. Yet I will say
this,--that I think men will find me less unruly than formerly, for, as I have
accepted you for my chief, so am I willing to render you obedience in any
manner soever you think right to demand it. This I am ready to swear to."

Canute's fist struck his chair-arm lightly. "Nothing more to my mind has
occurred for a long time, and I welcome it! Better will both of us succeed if
we declare openly that friendship between us must always be rather shallow. I
love not men of your nature, neither is it possible for me to forget what you
have cost me. Hatred would come much easier to me,--and I will not deny that
you will feel it if ever you give me fair cause for anger." For an instant an
edge of his Viking savagery made itself felt through his voice; then faded as
quickly into cold courtesy. "As to this which I now offer you, however, I
think few are proud enough to find fault about it, for I have called you
hither to be a Marshal of the kingdom and to have the rule over my Guards. Men
from many lands will be among them, and it is a great necessity that I have at
their head a man I can trust, while it is also pleasing to the English that
that man be an Englishman. Concerning the laws which I shall make to govern
them, Eric Jarl will tell you later."

"Marshal!" That then was what the mutter in the ante-room had meant. Sebert
would not have been young and a soldier if he had not felt keen delight tingle
through every nerve. Indeed, his pleasure was so great that he dared say
little in acknowledgment, lest it betray him into too great cordiality toward
this stern young ruler who, though in reality a year younger than he, seemed
to have become many years his senior. He said shortly, "If I betray your
trust, King Canute, let me have no favor! Is it your intention to have me make
ready now against this incursion of the Normans, of which men are--"

He did not finish his question, for the King raised his hand impatiently.

"It is not likely that swords will have any part in that matter, Lord Marshal.
There is another task in store for you than to fight Normans,--and it may be
that you will think it beneath your rank, for instead of the State, it
concerns me and my life, which someone has tried to take. Yet I expect you
will see that my death would be little gainful to England." A second curt
gesture cut short Sebert's rather embarrassed protest. "Here are no fine words
needed. Listen to the manner in which the deed was committed. Shortly before
the end of the winter, it happened that Ulf Jarl saw the cook's scullion pour
something into a broth that was intended for me to eat. Suspecting evil, he
forced the fellow instead to swallow it, and the result was that, that night,
the boy died."

The Etheling exclaimed in horror: "My lord! know you whence he got it?"

"You prove a good guesser to know that it was not his crime," the King said
dryly. "A little while ago, I found out that he got it from the British woman
who is nurse to Elfgiva of Northampton." To this, the new Marshal volunteered
no answer whatever, but drew his breath in sharply as though he found himself
in deep water; and the King spoke on. "I did not suspect the Lady of
Northampton of having evil designs toward me, because--because she is more
prosperous in every respect while I am alive; and now that belief is proved
true, for I am told for certain that, the day before the British woman gave
the boy the liquid, a Danishman gave the British woman an herb to make a drink
of." He paused, and his voice became slower and much harder, as though he were
curbing his feelings with iron. "Since you have heard the Norman rumor," he
said, "it is likely that you have heard also of the discontent among the
Danes, who dislike my judgments; but in case you have not, I will tell you
that an abundance of them have betaken themselves to a place in the Middlesex
forest where they live outlaws,--and their leader is Rothgar Lodbroksson."

To motion back a man who was approaching him with a paper, he turned away for
a moment; and Sebert was glad of the excuse to avoid meeting his glance. Not
until now had he understood what the judgment in his favor had cost the judge,
and his heart was suddenly athrob with many emotions. "In no way is it strange
that I am hateful to him," he murmured. "But by Saint Mary, _he_ is of the
sort that is worth enduring from!"

He inclined his head in devoted attention as the King turned back, lowering
his tone to exclude all but the man before him. "Even less than I believe it
of Elfgiva of Northampton, do I believe it of Rothgar Lodbroksson, that he
would seek my life. But often that happens which one least expects, and it is
time that I use forethought for myself. Now I know of no man in the world who
is better able to help my case than you."

"I!" the Etheling ejaculated. Suddenly it occurred to him to suspect that his
new-sworn vow of obedience was about to be put genuinely to the test, and he
drew himself up stiffly, facing the King. But Canute was tracing idle patterns
on the carving of his chair-arm.

"Listen, Lord of Ivarsdale," he said quietly. "It is unadvisable for me to
stir up further rebellion among the Danes by accusing them of things which it
is not certain they have done, and even though I seized upon these women it
would not help; while I cannot let the matter continue, since one thing after
another, worse and worse, would be caused by it. The only man who can end it,
while keeping quiet, is the one who has the friendship of the only woman among
them to whose honor I would risk my life. I mean Randalin, Frode's daughter."

Whether or not he heard Sebert's exclamation, he spoke on as though it had not
been uttered. "One thing is, that she knows nothing of a plot; for did she so,
she would have warned me had it compelled her to swim the Thames to reach me.
But she must be able to tell many tidings that we wish to know, with regard to
the use they make of their jewels, and the Danes who visit them, and such
matters, which might be got from her without letting her suspect that she is
telling news. Now you are the one person who might do this without making any
fuss, and it is my will therefore that you go to her as soon as you can. Your
excuse shall be that the Abbot has in his keeping some law-parchments which I
have the wish to see, but while you are there, I want you to renew your
friendship with her and find out these things for me. By obeying me in this,
you will give the State help where it is most needed and hard to get." When
that was out, he raised his head and met the Etheling's eyes squarely, and it
was plain to each of them that the moment had come which must, once and
forever, decide their future relations.

It was a long time that the Lord of Ivarsdale stood there, the pride of his
rank, and the prejudice of his blood, struggling with his new convictions, his
new loyalty. But at last he took his eyes from the King's to bow before him in
noble submission.

"This is not the way of fighting that I am used to, King Canute," he said,
"and I will not deny that I had rather you had set me any other task; but
neither can I deny that, since you find you have need of my wits rather than
of my sword, it is with my wits that it behooves me to serve you. Tell me
clearly what is your command, and neither haughtiness nor self-will shall
hinder me from fulfilling it."




Chapter XXVIII

When Love Meets Love

Rejoiced at evil
Be thou never,
But let good give thee pleasure.
Ha'vama'l.


Before the time of the Confessor, the West Minster was little more than the
Monastery chapel, in which the presence of the parish folk, if not forbidden,
was still in no way encouraged. To-day, when the Lord of Ivarsdale came
unnoticed into the dim light while the last strains of the vesper service were
rising, there were no more than a score of worshippers scattered through the
north aisle,--a handful of women, wives of the Abbot's military tenants, a
trader bound for the land beyond the ford, a couple of yeomen and a hollow-
eyed pilgrim, drifting with the current of his unsteady mind. After a
searching glance around him, the Etheling took up his station in the shelter
of a pillar.

"Little danger--or hope--is there than I can miss her," he told himself, "if
she is indeed here, as the page said. Yet of all the unlikely places to seek
her!" he smiled faintly as the figure in elfin green flitted through his mind.
As well look for a wood-nymph at confession--unless indeed, Elfgiva had taken
her there against her will-- But that was scarcely likely, he remembered
immediately afterwards, since an English-woman who had entered into a civil
marriage with a Dane would be little apt to frequent an English church.
"Doubtless she makes of it a meeting place with her newest lover," he
concluded. And the anger the thought gave him, and a sense of the helplessness
of his own position, was so great that he could not remain quiet under it but
was tortured into moving restlessly to and fro in the shadow.

Tender as the gloaming of a summer day was the shade in the great nave, with
the ever-burning candles to remind one of the eternal stars. Now their
quivering light called into life, for one brief moment, the golden dove that
hung above the altar; now it touched with dazzling brightness the precious
service on the holy table itself; again it was veiled by drifting incense as
by heaven's clouds. From the throats of the hidden choir, the last note
swelled rich and full, to roll out over the pillared aisles in a wave of
vibrant sound and pass away in a sigh of ineffable sweetness under the
rafters.

As he bowed his head in the holy hush that followed, the hush of souls before
a wordless bene-diction, some of Sebert's bitterness gave way to a great
compassion. What were we all, when all was told, but wrong-doers and mourners?
Why should one hold anger against another? In pity for himself and the whole
world, his heart ached within him, as a rustling of gowns and a shuffling of
feet told that the worshippers had risen from their knees and were coming
toward him. He raised his bowed head sadly, fearfully.

First came the merchant, tugging at his long beard as he advanced,--though
whether his meditations were the leavings of the mood that had held him or a
reaching forward into the busy future, none could tell. Him, Sebert's eye
dismissed with a listless glance. Behind the trader came the yeomen, one of
them yawning and stretching noisily, the other energetically pulling up his
belt as one tightens the loosened girth on a horse that has had an interval of
rest. The young noble's glance leaped them completely in its haste to reach
those who followed,--the knot of women, fluttering and rustling and preening
like a flock of birds. But the bird he sought was not of their number. He
stared blindly at the pilgrim as the wanderer shuffled past, muttering and
beating his breast. Only one figure followed the penitent, and if that should
not be she! Even though he felt that it could not be--even though he hoped it
was not--hoping and fearing, dreading and longing, his eyes advanced to meet
the last of the worshippers.

Only one figure, but all at once it was as though the whole world were before
him!

Coming slowly toward him out of the soft twilight, with eyes downcast and
hands folded nun-like before her, the daughter of Frode did not look out of
place amid blue wreaths of incense and starry altar tapers. Even her robes
were in keeping, gold-weighted as they were, for hood and gown and
fur-bordered mantle were of the deepest heliotrope, that color which bears the
majesty of sorrow while yet it holds within it the rose-tint of gladness.
Beneath its tender shadow the dusk of her hair became deeper, and her face,
robbed by winter of its brownness, took on the delicacy of a cameo. Ah, what a
face it was now, since pain had deepened its sweetness and patience had
purified its ardor! The radiance of a newly-wakened soul was like a halo
around it.

Standing there gazing at her, a wonderful change came over the Lord of
Ivarsdale. Neither then nor ever after could he understand how it happened,
but, all at once, the barrier that circumstances had raised against her fell
like the city walls before the trumpet blast, until not one stone was left
standing upon another. Without knowing how or why,--looking at her, he
believed in her; and his manner, which a moment before had been constrained
and hesitating, became easeful with perfect confidence. Without knowing how or
why he knew it, he knew that she had never squandered her love on the Jotun,
neither had she come here to meet any Dane of the host. He knew her for his
dream-love, sweet and true and fine; and he stepped out of the shadow and
knelt before her, raising the hem of her cloak to his lips.

"Most gentle lady, will you give a beggar alms?" he said with tender
lightness.

The sound of his voice was like a stone cast into still water. The rapt peace
of her look was broken into an eddy of conflicting emotions. Amazement was
there and a swift joy, which gave way almost before it could be named to
something approaching dread, and that in turn yielded place to wide-eyed
wonder. With her hands clasped tightly over her breast, she stood looking down
at him.

"My lord?" she faltered.

As one who spreads out his store, he held out his palms toward her. "Randalin,
I have sought you to add to the payment of my debt the one thing that in my
blindness I held back,--I have come to add my true love to the rest I lay
before you."

As a flower toward the sun, she seemed to sway toward him, then drew back, her
sweet mouth trembling softly. "I--I want not your pity," she said brokenly.
Still kneeling before her, he possessed himself of her hands and drew them
down to his lips.

"Is it thus, on his knee, that one offers pity?" he said. Holding the hands
fast, he rose and stood before her. "Heart beloved of my heart, you were
merciless to read the truth before. Look again, and take care that you read me
as fairly now."

Despite his gentleness, there was a strength in his exaltation which would not
be resisted. Turning shrinkingly, she looked into his eyes.

In the gray-blue depths of her own he saw the shimmer of a dawning light, as
when the evening star first breaks through a June sky, and gradually the
star-splendor spread over her face, until it touched her parted lips.

"You--love me--" she breathed, but her voice no longer made it a question.

Still gazing into his eyes, she let him draw her closer and closer, till he
had gathered her to his breast.




Chapter XXIX

The Ring of The Coiled Snake



He is happy
Who for himself obtains
Fame and kind words;
Less sure is that
Which a man must have
In another's breast.
Ha'vama'l.

The murmur of the rain that was falling gently on the roses of the Abbey
garden stole in through the open windows of Elfgiva's bower and blended softly
with the music of Candida's lyre. Poring over the dingy scrolls spread out on
the table before her, the Lady of Northampton yawned until she was moved to
throw herself back among her cushions with a gesture of graceful surrender.

"It seems that the Saints are going to take pity on me and shorten one of
these endless days with a nap. Nurse, have a care for these scrolls. And if it
happen that the King's Marshal comes-- Randalin! Where is Randalin?"

Beyond Leonorine's embroidery frame and the stool where Candida bent over her
lyre, the length of the room away, a figure in iris-blue turned from the
window by which it stood.

"Here, lady. What is your need?"

To place the speaker Elfgiva raised her head slightly, laughing as she let it
sink back. "Watching for him already, and the sun but little past noon? For
shame, moppet! Come here."

"So please you, I was watching the rain on the roses," Randalin excused
herself with a blush as she came forward.

A merry chorus mocked her: "Is it to watch the roses that you have put on the
gown which matches your eyes, you sly one?"... "And the lilies in your hair,
sweet? Is it to shelter them from the rain that you wear them?"... "Fie, Tata!
Can you not fib yet without changing color?"

But Elfgiva raised an impatient hand. "Peace, chatterers!" she commanded; and
drawing the girl to her, she spoke low and earnestly in her ear.

Randalin looked up in surprise. "You will not see him, lady? Not though he
bring news of the doings in the Palace?"

"Heaven's mercy!" Elfgiva shrugged with a touch of scorn. "What abundance of
news he has found to bring since the day he fell in with you at even-song!"
Then she consented to smile faintly as she settled her head among the
cushions. "I would rather sleep, child. Comfort him as best you can,--only not
so well that you forget that which I enjoined you. If he fail us, I cannot
tell what we shall do,--now that the second scullion has been so foolish as to
get himself killed in some way. Where bear you the ring?"

The girl touched the spot where the gold chain that encircled her neck crept
into the breast of her gown. The lady shook her head.

"Never would you think of it again. Take it out and wear it on your finger."

As she obeyed, Randalin laughed a little, for the ring was a man's ring, a
massive spiral whose two ends were finished with serpents' heads, and her
thickest finger was but a loose fit in its girth. But Elfgiva, when she had
seen it on, closed her eyes with an air of satisfaction.

"To keep from losing it, will keep it in your mind," she said. "Now leave me.
Candida, -- more softly! And see to it that you do not stop the moment my eyes
are closing. Leonorine, why are you industrious in singing only when it is not
required of you?... That is better... Let no one wake me."

They drew silence around her like a curtain through whose silken web the
blended voices of rain and lyre and singer crept in soothing melody. To escape
its ensnaring folds, Randalin stole back to the distant window beneath which
Dearwyn sat on a little bench, weaving clover blossoms into a chain.

The little gentlewoman looked up with her soft pretty smile. "How mysterious
you are, you two!" she whispered, as she swept the mass of rosy bloom to the
floor to make room for her friend. "What with Teboen always seething
ill-smelling herbs and-- Tata, I pray you to tell who has gifted you with such
a monster?"

Waving the ring where the light might catch the serpents' eyes, Randalin
pursed her lips with so much mystery that her friend was tempted to catch the
hand and hold it prisoner while she examined the ornament. After one look,
however, she let it fall with an expression of awe upon her dimpled face.

"The ring Canute gave Elfgiva--that he won from the giant Rothgar? Heaven
forbid that I should press upon her secrets! My ears tingle yet from the cuff
I got only for looking at yonder dirty scroll. Yet how long is it since you
were taken into their councils, Tata? Yesterday you were no better able than I
to say how things were with her."

"How long?" Randalin repeated dreamily. Her gaze had gone back again to the
rain, falling so softly that every pool in the sodden paths seemed to be full
of lazily winking eyes. "Oh, there are many good chances that he will be here
soon now. He is seldom later than the third hour after noon."

After a bewildered gasp, Dearwyn stifled a burst of laughter in her garlands.
"Oh, Tata, come to earth!" she admonished. "Come to earth!" And scooping up a
handful of the fragrant bloom, she pelted the dreamer with rosy balls.

Shaking them from robe and clustering hair, Randalin turned back, smiling. But
her lips sobered almost to wistfulness as she sank down upon the seat beside
her friend. "It seems that I must do that against my will," she said.
"Dearwyn, do you get afraid when you are happy? Sometimes, when I stand here
watching for him and think how different all has happened from what I
supposed, I am so happy,"--she paused, and it was as though the sun had caught
the iris flowers in her eyes, until a cloud came between and the blue petals
purpled darkly--"so happy that it causes fear to me, lest it be no more than a
dream or in some way not true."

Her cheek, as she ended, was softly pale, but Dearwyn brushed it pink with
sweeps of the long-stemmed blossom in her hand.

"Sweet, it is the waxing of the moon. I pray you be blithe in your spirits.
Small wonder your lover bears himself as gravely as a stone man on a tomb if
you talk such--"

"Dearwyn, the same thought has overtaken us both!" Randalin broke in
anxiously, and now she was all awake and staying the other's busy fingers to
ensure her attention. "Not a few times it has seemed to me that he looks weary
of heart, as though some struggle were sapping his strength. He swears it is
not so, yet I think the rebellion of his pride against king-serving--"

"If you want to know my belief, it is that he carries trouble in his breast
about you," Dearwyn interrupted.

"About me?" So much hurt surprise was in Randalin's manner that the little
maid begged forgiveness with caresses of the swaying clover.

"Be not vexed, honey, but in truth he is overcome by the oddest look
whensoever he watches you without your seeing,--as though he were not sure of
you, in some way, and yet-- Oh, I cannot explain it! Only tell me this,--does
he not ask you, many times and oft, if you love him, or if others love you, or
such like?"

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