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.

"Do not have me in contempt, Tata," she admonished with a laugh of some unsteadiness. "It is not certain that I am going to belie you to the guards, or that I have lost faith in your sign. Let me sharpen my weapon for some space among these precious things, and it may be that I shall go hence panting for the field."

"Ah, gracious lady, you must needs buy my whole stock," the merchant cried with ingratiating smiles, "for I can never endure to sell to another what I have once seen near your face."

Elfgiva laughed beautifully then, and the Danish girl took a fresh grip upon her patience. Certainly the jewelled bugs, the golden snakes, the strands of amber and jet and pearl, seemed to act as tonics upon the Northampton lady. If she had not traded away, at the first two stalls, every ornament in her possession, she would have investigated each booth in the square. She came out in bubbling spirits to the waiting horses and the half-frozen guards.

"This Cheapside is a very fairy garden," she prattled, lingering with her foot in the hand of the kneeling groom. "Everything in beds and rows as they were herbs,—milk down this lane, soap down that, jewels, fabrics—" She turned with a sudden inspiration. "Maidens, would not this be a merry thought? To find out where the fabrics are kept and try some cloth of gold against these pearls?"

As the servile murmur answered, Randalin's brow darkened. Cloth of gold and pearls,—when a wolf was tearing at her heart! She spoke desperately, "I wish that the way to the fabrics might lie past the King's House, lady."

The King's wife sent her a glance, half resentful, half questioning. "Why do you say that?"

"Because if Canute could see you as you look now, with your cheeks a-flower and that ermine, like snow, upon your hair, there is nothing in the world he could refuse you."

Elfgiva's mouth curved bewitchingly. "You speak as though you had jewels to sell. What fine manners they have, these London merchants! Tell me, Candida, Leonorine, does she speak the truth? On your crosses, has not the cold reddened my nose? Or pinched the bloom off my lips?"

If the murmur that answered lacked any heartiness, their mistress did not perceive it, for every man within earshot swelled it with reassurance,—thinking perhaps of the hot spiced wine in the King's cups.

After a moment of hesitation, she flew up to her saddle like a bird. "Do you all think so?" she laughed. "Certainly I never felt in lustier spirits. I declare that I will try it. Hasten, before the roses wilt in my cheeks. Forward! To the Palace!"



Chapter XXVI. In The Judgment Hall

Strong is the bar That must be raised To admit all. Ha'vama'l.

While he kept a firm hold upon the spear which he had dropped like a gilded bar across the door, the English sentinel repeated for the tenth time his respectful denial: "I will take it upon me to admit you to the gallery, noble lady; but you were the Queen herself, I dare not let you in to the lower part. There be none but men with the King, and it is not fitting—"

"And is the son of a Saxon serf to decide where it is fitting for me to go?" the Lady of Northampton demanded, facing him in a tempest of angry beauty. "Whatsoever you shall do by my direction, dog, will in all respects be available to your credit. Let me through to my husband, or I can tell you that you will find your wariness terribly misplaced!"

The guard discreetly held his tongue,—but he likewise held his position. Elfgiva's bosom was beginning to heave in hysterical menace when a second soldier, lounging against the wall behind the first, ventured a soothing word.

"For your own safety, noble one, ask it not. The King is listening to a quarrel between an Englishman and a Dane; and by reason of it, there are many in the room whose tempers may—"

Randalin, who alone of all the maidens had remained undauntedly at her mistress' elbow, caught that elbow in a vice-like grip. "Take the gallery, then, lady!" she urged in a piercing whisper. "The gallery, as quick as you can."

As an angry cat wounds whoever is nearest, Elfgiva scratched her in the same undertone. "Stupid! Do you imagine that the only Englishman who has part in the world is the one you showed yourself a fool for? Do you not understand that if I let them assign me to some dark gallery, Canute will not be able to see me?"

It did not appear that the girl so much as felt the claws. Her eyes had a look of strained listening as they gazed past the sentinel and across the ante-room to the great curtained doorway. "He will succeed better in seeing you through a dim light than through a stone wall," she returned.

Biting her lips, the fair Tyrant of Northampton measured the man through her lashes. He might have been of the same material as his spear for all the sign he showed of yielding. She could not understand such defiance, and, like mysteries in general, it awed even while it angered her. Affecting to draw herself up in disdain, she really gave back a step. "Perhaps it would be wise to put off our visit until a day that there is a man at the door instead of a blockhead—"

Randalin's arm was an iron barrier behind her. "Now I do not know where you think the power to do that will come from!" she hissed in her ear. "Do you not see that if you go back to your grooms and let them know that you have not got enough honor with the King to gain an entrance, they will never dare do your bidding again? Do you not see that you must do one of two things, or now win, or now lose?"

Apparently Elfgiva saw. After a moment's bridling, she whirled back with an angry flounce of her draperies. "The gallery, then, dog! I shall reach my lord's ear from that, which will be an unlucky thing for you."

Saluting in silence, the guard drew back to let her pass, at the same time signing to a row of men-at-arms standing motionless as pillars against the stone wall of the ante-room. With a rattle and clank they came to life, and the little band of five kirtles, surrounded and led, was marched to a low side-door which gave in upon a short flight of stone steps, white-frosted now with the dampness and their distance from the fire. At the head of the flight, another door gave entrance to a narrow passage that probably reached the length of the hall below, though it seemed to the shivering women to extend the length of the Palace itself. A third door, ending this corridor, admitted them to the gallery that ran across the upper end of the hall.

As she passed the threshold Elfgiva exclaimed in vexation, for the light of the log fire, whose rudely carved chimney-piece broke the long side-wall, succumbed at the balcony's lower edge to the shadows of the raftered ceiling, and all above was wrapped in soft twilight. "He cannot tell me from a monster," she fumed, letting herself sink into a faded tapestry chair, standing forgotten amid a pile of mouldering cushions.

The three English girls, pressing timidly to her side, answered with indistinct murmurs which she could interpret to suit her pleasure. The Danish girl made her no reply whatever. Half kneeling, half sitting upon the cushions, her head was already bent over the gallery's edge, and the scene below had claimed her eye and ear to the exclusion of all else.

Whatever its shortcomings as a show-case, the balcony was excellently adapted both for spectators and for eavesdroppers, its distance from the floor being little more than twice a man's height, while the fire which doled its light so stingily, lavished a glory of brightness on the spot where the King's massive chair stood beside the chimney-piece. After one petulant glance, even Elfgiva's pique gave way to a curiosity that gradually drew her forward to the very edge of her seat and held her there, the three maids crouching at her feet.

Encircled by a martial throng, so massed and indistinct that they made a background like embroidered tapestry, three figures were the centre of attention,—the figure of the young King in his raised chair, and the forms of the Dane and the Angle who fronted each other before his footstool. Shielded from the heat by his palm, Canute's face was in the shadow, and the giant shape of the son of Lodbrok was a blot against the flames, but the glare lay strong on Sebert of Ivarsdale, revealing a picture that caused one spectator to catch her breath in a sob. Equally aloof from English thane and Danish noble, the Etheling in the palace of his native king stood a stranger and alone, while his swordless sheath showed him to be also a prisoner. He bore himself proudly, one of his blood could scarcely have done otherwise, but his fine face was white with misery, and despair darkened his eyes as they stared unseeingly before him.

As well as though he had put his thoughts into words, the girl who loved him knew that his mind was back in the peaceful manor between the hills, foreseeing its desecration by barbarian hands, foretasting the ruin of those who looked to him for protection. From the twilight of the balcony, she stretched out her arms to him in a passion of yearning pity, and all of selfishness that had been in her grief faded from it utterly, as her heart sent forth a second prayer.

"Oh, Thou God, forget what I asked for myself! Think only of helping him, of comforting him, and I will love Thee as though Thou hadst done it to me. Help him! Help him!"

Answering a question from the King, Rothgar began to speak, his heavy voice seeming to fill all the space from floor to ceiling: "By all the laws of war, King Canute, the Odal of Ivarsdale should come to me. The first son of Lodbrok took the land before ever this Angle's kin had seen it. He built the tower that stands on it, and the name it bears to this day is the name of his giving. Under Guthrum, a weak-kneed son of his lost it to the English Alfred, and we fell out of our fortunes with the tipping of the scales, and Angles have sat since then in the seat of Lodbrok's sons. But now the scales have risen again. Under Canute, Ivarsdale, with all other English property, comes back to Danish hands. By all the laws of war, my kinsman's inheritance should be my share of the spoil."

Ending roundly, he drew himself up in an attitude of bold assurance. Wherever a group of scarlet cloaks made a bright patch upon the human arras, there was a flutter of approval. Even the braver of the English nobles, who for race-pride alone might have supported Sebert in a valid claim, saw nothing to do now but to draw away, with a silent interchange of shrugs and headshakes, and leave him to his doom.

In the shadow of his hand, Canute nodded slowly. "By all the laws of war," he affirmed, "your kinsman's inheritance should be your share of the spoil."

Again an approving murmur rose from Danish throats; and Rothgar was opening his lips to voice a grateful answer, when a gesture of the royal hand checked him.

"Recollect, however, that just now I am not only a war-chief, but also a law-man. I think it right, therefore, to hear what the Englishman has to say for his side. Sebert Oswaldsson, speak in your defence."

Not even a draft appeared to stir the human tapestry about them. Sebert started like a man awakened from sleep, when he realized that every eye was hanging upon him. Swiftly, his glance passed around the circle, from the averted faces of his countrymen to the foreign master on the throne, then bitterly he bent his head to his fate.

"I have nothing to say. Your justice may most rightly be meted out."

"Nothing to say?" The King's measured voice sounded sharply through the hush. For the first time, he lowered his hand and bent forward where the fire-glow could touch him.

As she caught sight of his face Elfgiva shrank and clutched at her women. "Ah, Saints, I am thankful now that it is dark!" she murmured.

Sebert sustained the look with proud steadiness. "Nothing that would be of use to me," he said; "and I do not choose to pleasure you by setting up a weak plea for you to knock down again. The right which gave Britain to the Saxons has given England to the Danes, and it is not by words that such a right can be disputed. If your messengers had not taken me by surprise—" He paused, with an odd curl to his lips that could hardly be called a smile; but Canute gave him grim command to finish, and he obeyed with rising color. "If your messengers had not come upon me as I was riding on the Watling Street and brought me here, a prisoner, I would have argued the matter with arrows, and you would needs have battered down the defence of stone walls to convince me."

Mutters of mingled admiration and censure buzzed around; and one English noble, more daring and also more friendly than the others, drew near and spoke a word of friendly warning in Sebert's ear. Through it all, Canute sat motionless, studying the Etheling with his bright colorless eyes.

At last he said unexpectedly, "If you would not obey my summons until my men had dealt with you by force, it cannot be said that you have much respect for my authority. Do you not then acknowledge me as King of the English?"

Rothgar betrayed impatience at this branching aside. Sebert himself showed surprise.

He said hesitatingly, "I—I cannot deny that. You have the same right that Cerdic had over the Britons. Nay, you have more, for you are the formal choice of the Witan. I cannot rightly deny that you are King of the Angles."

"If you acknowledge me to be that," Canute said, "I do not see why you have not an argument for your defence."

While all stared at him, he rose slowly and stood before them, a dazzling figure as the light caught the steel of his ring-mail and turned his polished helm to a fiery dome.

"Sebert Oswaldsson," he said slowly, "I did not feel much love toward you the first time I saw you, and it is hard for me not to hate you now, when I see what you are going to be the cause of. If your case had come before Canute the man, you would have received the answer you expect. But it is your luck that Canute the man is dead, and you stand before Canute the King. Hear then my answer: By all the laws of war, the land belongs to Ivar's son; and had he regained it while war ruled, I had not taken it from him, though the Witan itself commanded me. But instead of regaining it, he lost it." He stretched a forbidding hand toward Rothgar, feeling without seeing his angry impulse. "By what means matters not; battles have turned on a smaller thing, and the loyalty of those we have protected is a lawful weapon to defend ourselves with. The kinsman of Ivar a second time lost his inheritance, and the opportunity passed—forever. For now it is time to remember that this is not war, but peace; and in times of peace it is not allowed to take a man's land from him unless he has broken the law or offended honor, which no one can say this Englishman has done. What concerns war-time is a thing by itself; as ruler over laws and land-rights, I cannot give one man's lands to another, though the one be a man I care little for, and the other is my foster-brother. Go back therefore, unhindered, Lord of Ivarsdale, and live in peace henceforth. I do not think it probable that I shall ever call you to my friendship, but when the time comes that there is need of a brave and honest man to serve the English people in serving me, I shall send for you. Beware you that you do not neglect the summons of one whom you have acknowledged to be your rightful King! Orvar, I want you to restore to him his weapon and see him on his way in safety. Your life shall answer for any harm that comes to him."

With one hand, he struck down the murmur that was rising; with the other he made an urgent gesture of haste, which Orvar seemed to understand. Even while he was returning to the Lord of Ivarsdale his sword, he seized him by the arm and hurried him down the room, the Etheling walking like a man in a dream.

From the dusk of the rafters, the girl who loved him stretched out her hands to him in tender fare-well, but there was no more of anguish in the gesture. Gazing after him, the tears rose slowly to her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks, but on her mouth was a little smile whose wondering joy mounted to exaltation.

No need was there for her to hide either tear or smile, for no one of the women about her was so much as conscious of her existence. The murmur below was growing, despite the King's restraining hand; and now, crashing through it in hideous discord, came a burst of jeering laughter from the Jotun. What words he also spoke they could not catch, but they heard the Danish cries sink and die, aghast, and they saw a score of English thanes spring upon him and drag him backwards. Above the noise of their scuffling, the King's voice sounded stern and cold.

"While I act as law-man in my judgment hall, I will hear no disputing of my judgments. Whoso comes to me in my private chamber, as friend to friend, may tell his mind; but now I speak as King, and what I have spoken shall stand."

Struggling with those who would have forced him from the room, Rothgar had no breath to retort with, but the words did not go unsaid because of that. Wherever scarlet cloaks made a bright patch, the human arras swayed and shook violently, and then fell apart into groups of angry men whose voices rose in resentful chorus:

"Such judgment by a Danish King is unexampled!" "King, are we all to expect this treatment?... This is the third time you have ruled against your own men—" "Sven you punished for the murder of an Englishman—" "Because you forced Gorm to pay his debt to an Englishman, he has lost all the property he owns." "Now, as before, we want to know what this means." "You are our chief, whose kingship we have held up with our lives—" "What are these English to you?"... "They are the thralls your sword has laid-under, while we are of your own blood—" "It is the strong will of us warriors to know what you mean—" "Yes, tell it plainly!"... "We speak as we have a right." Snarling more and more openly, they surged forward, closing around the dais in a fiery mass.

In the cushions of the balcony, Leonorine hid her face with a cry; "They will murder him!" And Elfgiva rose slowly from her chair, her eyes dark with horror yet unable to tear themselves from the scene below. The mail-clad King no longer looked to her like a man of flesh and blood but like a figure of iron and steel, that the firelight was wrapping in unendurable brightness. His sword was no more brilliantly hard than his face, and his eyes were glittering points. The ring of steel was in his voice as he answered:

"You speak as you have a right,—but you speak as men who have swines' memories. Was it your support or your courage that won me the English crown? It may be that if I had waited until pyre and fire you would have done so, but it happened that before that time the English Witan gave it to me as a gift, in return for my pledge to rule them justly. My meaning in this judgment, and the others you dislike, is that I am going to keep that pledge. You are my men, and as my men you have supported me, and as my men I have rewarded you,—no chief was ever more open-handed with property toward his following,—but if you think that on that account I will endure from you trouble and lawlessness, you would better part from me and get into your boats and go back to my other kingdom. For I tell you now, openly and without deceit, that here henceforth there is to be but one rule for Angle and Dane alike; and I shall be as much their King as yours; and they shall share equally in my justice. You may like it or not, but that is what will take place."

How they liked it was suggested by a bursting roar, and the scuffling of many feet as the English leaped forward to protect their new King and the Danes whirled to meet them, but the women in the gallery did not wait to see the outcome. In a frenzy of terror, Elfgiva dragged up the kneeling maids and herded them through the door.

"Go,—before they get into the ante-room!" she gasped. "Do you not see that he is no longer human? We should be pleading with iron. Go! Before they tear down the walls!"



Chapter XXVII. Pixie-led



To a good friend's The paths lie direct, Though he be far away. Ha'vama'l.

So Sebert of Ivarsdale went to his tower unhindered; and the rest of the winter nights, while the winds of the Wolf Month howled about the palisades, he listened undisturbed to his harper; and the rest of the winter days he trod in peace the homely routine of his lordship,—in peace and in absent-eyed silence.

"The old ways are clean fallen out of England, and it becomes a man to consider diligently how he will order his future," he told Hildelitha and the old cniht when they inquired the reason for his abstraction. Perhaps it was the future that was engrossing his mind, but sometimes it came to him dimly as a strange thing how so small a matter as a slip of a girl in a page's dress could loom so large that there was no corner of manor or tower but recalled some trick of her tossing curls, some echo of her ringing laughter. The platform whereon they had walked in the moonlight, facing death together, he shunned as he would have shunned a grave; and the postern where they had parted was haunted ground. Did he tramp across the snow-crusted fields, memory clothed them again in nodding grain, and between the golden walls a figure in elfin green flitted like a will o' the wisp. Did he outsit the maids and men around his hearth and watch the dying fire with no other companions than his sleeping dogs, fancy placed a scar-let-cloaked figure on the cushion at his feet and raised at his knee a face of sweetest friendliness, whose flower-blue eyes brightened or gloomed in response to his lightest mood... Once more he heard the harp-notes that told of the wood-nymph's sorrow;... once more he heard his laughing denunciation;... again there looked back at him the wounded eyes... Whenever this vision rose before him, he stirred in his chair and turned his face from the light.

"May heaven grant that she is not remembering it!" he would murmur. And for a while he would see her as he had left her in the garden, holding herself so bravely erect in her shining robes, her white cheeks mocking at her smiling lips. A great well of pity would spring in his breast, drowning his heart with its pent-up gushing, and the waters would rise, rise, until they had touched his eyes. But always before they brimmed over, another change would come. Slowly, the rigid figure before him would relax into an attitude of idle grace, the white cheeks would regain their color, the eyes their brightness, and—presto! she stood before him as he had seen her from the passage, a high-born maid among her kind, favored by the King, guarded by her lover. When he reached this point, he always rose with an abruptness that swept his goblet to the floor and awakened the sleeping dogs.

"Fool!" he would spurn himself. "Mad puffed-up fool! Keep in mind that she has her consolers, while you have only your wound. If she could stake her all upon the son of Lodbrok and then give him up at the turn of the wheel, is it in any way likely that she is dead with tears for you? What? It may easily be that she has had a new love for every month that has passed."

As the winter wore on, he grew restless in his solitude, restless and sullen as the waters of the little stream in their prison of ice. He told himself that when the spring came he would feel more settled; but when on one of his morning rides he came upon the first crocus, lifting its golden cup toward the sun, it only gave to his pointless restlessness a poisoned barb. Involuntarily his first thought was, "It would look like a spark of fire in the dusk of her hair." When he realized what he had said, he planted the great fore-foot of his horse squarely on the innocent thing and crushed it back into the earth; but it had done its work, for after that he knew that neither the promise of the springtime nor the fullness of the harvest would bring him any pleasure, since his eyes must see them alone.

"The next time they sing the 'Romance of King Offa,' before me, I will not hold back my sympathy," he scorned himself, "for at last I understand how it is possible for an elf to lure a man's reason off its seat and leave him a dreaming dolt."

Like a new lease of life it came to him when the last of the April days brought the long-delayed summons to the King. The old cniht, who considered that a command to military service could be justified only by imminent national destruction, was deeply incensed when he learned that the call was to no more than an officership in the new body of Royal Guards, but the young lord checked him with even a touch of impatience.

"What a throng of many words, my friend Morcard, have you spoken! Did you learn naught from the palisade that gave way because churls paid me their service when and how they would?" he demanded. "Now let me inform you that I have got that lesson by heart, and hereafter no king shall have that trouble about me. At sunrise, I ride back with the messenger." And he maintained this view so firmly that his face was rather stern as he spent the night settling matters of ploughing and planting and pasturage with the indignant old servitor.

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?"

In the midst of shaking her head, Randalin paused and her mouth became as round as her eyes. "Foolishly do I recall it! As if he would! And yet—Dearwyn, he has asked me four times if any Danes visit us here. Would you think that he could be—"

"Jealous?" Dearwyn dropped her flowers to clap her hands softly. "Tata, I have guessed his distemper rightly. Let no one say that I am not a witch for cleverness! Ah, you can have the best fun that ever any maid could have! If you could but make him believe something about that Danishman that Teboen saw last winter!"

"Last winter?" Randalin repeated. "Oh! I had altogether forgotten him. It seems that it has not been truthfully spoken when—"

The little Angle smothered the rest in her rapturous embrace. "The ring, Tata,—that would be the cream of all! Let him think that Rothgar gave it to you, that he is your lover! I would give many kirtles to see his face." "Rothgar?" Randalin's voice was light with scorn. "As likely would! be to think him love-struck for the serving-wench who sparkled her eyes at him, as he to think that Rothgar Lodbroksson could count for aught with me! Yet I say nothing against the fun it would be. It may be that if he take notice of the thing and question me—just to see how he would look—" She broke off discreetly, but the one elf which the Abbot had not exorcised crept out and danced in the dimple of her cheek.

Dearwyn shook her floral rod with an assumption of severity. "I trust he will be sorely disquieted," she said. "He deserves no otherwise for his behavior last winter. Are you so soft of heart, Tata, that you are never going to reckon with him for that?"

The dimple-elf took wing and all the mischief in the girl's eyes seemed to go with him. "Those days are buried," she said. "Let the earth grow green above them." And suddenly she leaned forward and hid her face on the other's shoulder. "Bring them not before me, Dearwyn, my friend, until I am a little surer of my happiness. It is so new yet, Dearwyn, so new! And it came to me so suddenly that sometimes it almost seems as if it might depart as suddenly from me." A while they nestled together without speaking, the little maid's cheek resting lovingly on her friend's dark hair.

It was a page thrusting aside the arras that broke the spell. Opening his mouth to make a flourishing announcement, the words were checked on his tongue by four white hands motioning stern commands for silence.

"It is the King's Marshal," he framed with protesting lips. But even that failed to gain him admittance.

Rising, flushed and smiling, the girl with the blue lilies in her hair tiptoed toward him. "I have orders to receive the Marshal," she whispered. "Where is he?"

"He is in the Old Room," the page answered rather resentfully, but resigned himself as he remembered that, however this curtailed his importance, it left open a prompter return to his game of leap-frog along the passage.

In all probability his nimble departure saved him from a scolding for, as she tripped after him down the corridor, a little frown was forming between Randalin's brows. "I think it is not well-mannered of the fellow to say 'the King's Marshal' as though my lord were Canute's thane," she was reflecting, "and I shall put an end to it. Whatever others say, one never needs to tell me that Sebert is not suffering in his service."

With this thought in her mind, she raised the moth-eaten tapestry and stood looking at him with a face full of generous indignation. Except for the noble's embroidered belt and gold-hilted sword, his dress now differed in no way from that of the hundreds and hundreds of red-cloaked guards who were spread over the country like sparks after a conflagration. As he turned at the end of the beat he was pacing and came slowly toward her, she could see that in its gravity his face was as soldier-like as his clothes. Always she found it so when she came upon him unawares; and always, when she spoke to him—She held her breath as his eyes rose to her, and let it go with a little sigh of happiness as she saw gloom drop from him like a mask at the sight of her.

"Randalin!" he cried joyously, and made a step toward her, then stopped to laugh in gay wonder. "Now no poet would call you 'a weaver of peace' as you stand there, for you look rather like an elf of battle. What is it, my raven?"

Her lips smiled back at him, but a mist was over her eyes. "It is your King that I am angry with, lord. He is not worthy that a man like you should serve him."

Moving toward her again, he held himself a little straighter. "I serve not the King, dear heart," he said gently, "but the State of England, in whose service the highest is none too good to bend."

She yielded him her hands but not her point. "That does not change the fact that it is his overbearingness which makes your path as though you trod on nettles,—for certainly I know it is so, though you will not say it!"

Neither would he admit it now, but laughed lightly as he drew her to him. "Now may he not give me thorns who gives me also the sweetest rose in his king-dom? I tell you he is the kingliest king ever I had to deal with, and the chief I would soonest trust England to. Be no Danish rebel, shield-maiden, or as the King's officer I will mulct your lips for every word of treason."

She showed no rebellion against his authority, at all events; and her hands remained in his clasp until of his own accord he opened his fingers with an exclamation. "Do you wear bracelets for rings, my fair, or what? What!" From the monstrous bauble in his palm, he raised his eyes to hers, and if she had seen their look she might have answered differently. But her gaze was still on the ring; and as she felt him start, that impish dimple peeped out of her cheek.

"Is it not a handsome thing?" she said. "It looks to be a ring to belong to a giant."

"Is it—Rothgar's?"

The dimple deepened as she heard his tone. For all its absurdity, there must be some truth in Dearwyn's witch-skill. She was obliged to droop her lashes very low to hide the mischief in her eyes. "It is not his now," she murmured. "It has been given me—to keep me in mind of something." But after that her amusement grew too strong to be repressed, and she looked up at him with over-brimming laughter. "There will soon be too much of this! Sweetheart mine, are you in truth so easy to plague?"

Laughing she looked up at him, but, even as his face was clearing, something in it struck her so strangely that her laughter died and she bent toward him in sudden gravity. "Lord! It is not possible for you to believe that I could love Rothgar!" Her manner of uttering that one word made it speak more scorn than volumes might have done.

For a while he only looked at her, that strange radiance growing in his face; but suddenly he caught her to him and kissed her so passionately that he hurt her, and his voice was as passionate as his caress. "No," he told her over and over. "Would I have offered you my love had I believed that? No! No!"

Satisfied, she made no more resistance but clung to him with her arms as she had clung to him with her heart since the first hour he came into her life. Only, when at last he released her, she took the ring from her finger and thrust it into his hand with a little gesture of distaste. "I shall be thankful if I do not have to see it again. It is Elfgiva's, that Canute gave her after he had won it from Rothgar in some wager. It is her wish that you bring it to the King again by slipping it into his broth or his wine where he will come upon it after he has finished feeding and is therefore amiable—" She stopped to laugh merrily in his face. "See how the very naming of the King turns you grave again! When one gets a Marshalship, one becomes more and more stark." Grown mischievous again in her happiness, she mocked him with courtesies.

But it was only very faintly that he smiled at her fooling, as he held the spiral against the light and shook it beside his ear. "Is there no more to the message," he said slowly. "Am I to know nothing of her object? Or why I am chosen of all others?"

"Easy is it to tell that," she laughed. "You were not chosen without a reason, and that is because no one else is to be had, since the scullion who formerly served her has gotten himself killed in some way and the man who stepped into his shoes, out of some spite, has refused Teboen's gold. And as for her object—I wonder at you, lord of my heart! What kind of a lover are you that you cannot guess that?" Feigning to flout him, she drew away; then feigning to relent, turned back and laughed it into his ear. "It is a love-token! To hold him to the fair promises he made at its giving, and to remind him of her, and to win her a crown, and to do so many strange wonders that no tongue can number them! Are you not ashamed to have failed on so easy a riddle?"

To her surprise, his gravity deepened almost to horror. "Love-token!" he repeated; and suddenly he laid his hands on her shoulders and forced her gently to give him eye for eye. "Randalin, if I comply with you in this matter, will you answer me a question? Answer with such care as though your life—nay, as though my life depended on it?"

"Willingly; more than one," she consented; but forgot to wait for it as a memory, wakened by his words, stirred in her. "Now it is time for me to remember that there is one thing I have not been altogether truthful about, through forgetting,—about the Danes we have seen. I recall now that last winter Teboen often saw one when she was gathering herbs in the wood. She spoke with him of the magic things she brews to make Elfgiva sleep, and he gave her herbs which she thought so useful that she has been fretful because she has not seen him since—"

Unconsciously, the young soldier's hands tightened on her shoulders until she winced. "You know with certainty that she has never seen him since?" he demanded,—"that Danes had naught to do with the last token Elfgiva sent through the scullion? You can swear to it?"

"Certainly, if they speak the truth, I know it," she answered wonderingly. "How should Danes—why, Sebert, what ails you?"

For he had let go her shoulders as abruptly as he had seized them, and walked away to the window that looked out upon the rain-washed garden. After a moment's hesitation, she stole after him. "Sebert, my love, what is it? Trouble is in your mind, there is little use to deny it. Dearwyn says it concerns me, but I know that it is no less than the King. Dear one, it seems strange that you cannot disclose your mind to me as well as to—Fridtjof."

It was the first time, in their brief meetings together, that she had spoken that name, and his smile answered. Even while his lips admitted a trouble, his manner put it aside. "You are right that it concerns the King, my elf. Sometimes the work he assigns me is neither easy nor pleasant to accomplish. Yet without any blame to him, most warlike maiden, for—"

But she would not be prevented from saying stern things of her royal guardian, so at last he let her finish the subject, and stood pressing her hands upon his breast, his eyes resting dreamily on her face.

When she had finished, he said slowly, "Sweeting, because my mind is laboring under so many burdens that my wits are even duller than they are wont, will you not have the patience to answer one question that is not clear to me? Do you think it troublesome to tell me why it was that you said, that day in the garden—Now shake off that look, dearest; never will we speak of it again if it is not to your wish! Tell me what you meant by saying that you came into Canute's camp because you had too much faith in Rothgar, if you despise him—since you despise him so?"

Her eyes met his wonderingly. "By no means could I have said that, lord. When I left home, I knew not that Rothgar lived. The one in whom I had too much faith was the King. Because I was young and little experienced, I thought him a god; and when I came to his camp and found him a man, I thought only to escape from him. That was why I wore those clothes, Sebert—not because I liked so wild a life. That is clear to you, is it not?"

He did not appear to hear her last words at all. He was repeating over and over, "The King, the King!" Suddenly he said, "Then I got that right, that it was he who summoned me to Gloucester to make sure that you had kept your secret from me also?—that he was angry with you for deceiving him?"

"Yes," she said. But as he opened his lips to put another question, she laid her finger-tip beseechingly upon them, "Sebert, my love, I beg of you let us talk no more of those days. Sometime, when we have a long time to be together, I will tell you everything that I have had in my breast and you shall show me everything that you have had in yours, but—but let us wait, sweetheart, until our happiness seems more real than our sorrow. Even yet I do not like the thought of the 'sun-browned boy-bred wench.'" She laughed a little unsteadily at the sudden crimsoning of his face. "And I am still ashamed—and ashamed of being ashamed—that I showed you so plainly what my heart held for you... Elfgiva's tongue has stabbed me sore... Beloved, can you not be content, for now, with knowing that I have loved no man before you and shall love none after you?"

Bending, he kissed her lips with the utmost tenderness. "I am well content," he said. And after that they spoke only of the future, when the first period of his Marshalship should be over and he should be free to take his bride back to the fields and woods of Ivarsdale, and the gray old Tower on the hill.



Chapter XXX. When The King Takes a Queen

Moderately wise Should each one be, But never over-wise; For a wise man's heart Is seldom glad If he is all-wise who owns it. Ha'vama'l.

Out under the garden's spreading fruit trees, the little gentlewomen of Elfgiva's household were amusing themselves with the flock of peacocks that were the Abbey's pets. In a shifting dazzling mass of color—blended blue and green and golden fire—all but one of the brilliant birds were pressing around Candida, who scattered largess from a quaint bronze vase, while the one whose vanity was greater even than its appetite was furnishing sport for Dearwyn as she strutted after him in merry mimicry, lifting her satin-shod feet mincingly and trailing her rosy robes far behind her on the grass. The old cellarer, to whose care the birds fell except during those hours when the brethren were free for such indulgences, watched the scene in grinning delight; and Leonorine laughed gaily at them over the armful of tiny bobbing lap-dogs, whose valiant charges she was engaged in restraining. The only person who seemed out of tune with the chiming mirth was the Lady Elfgiva herself. Among the blooming bushes she was moving listlessly and yet restlessly, and each rose she plucked was speedily pulled to pieces in her nervous fingers. A particularly furious outburst from the dogs, followed by peals of ringing laughter, brought her foot down in a stamp of utter exasperation.