"Not more than I feel you deserve, and yet were not this your last night as my companion, were not tomorrow"s ceremony to separate us, perhaps for ever, I do not think I should thus overwhelm your modesty.
"You blush like a girl," said he, laughingly.
He lingered some time, and seemed loath to undress. At last he said:
"Have you seen the messenger Canute sent me?"
"Yes; I entertained him at the b.u.t.tery as you requested."
"Well, he came with a proposal from Canute that we should join in building and endowing a church at a.s.singdun, where a priest may ever say ma.s.s for the souls of our dead, whether English or Dane. Of course I have accepted the offer, but Canute added another and more mysterious message."
"And what was that?"
""Beware," he said, "of Edric; his apparent desire of reconciliation cannot be trusted;" and he added that Edric was like a certain person who wanted to become a monk when he was sick."
"I fear he speaks the truth."
"But I cannot act upon his advice; it is too late now. I have striven to do what I thought, and the bishop said, in his Master"s name, was my duty--well, I have my reward in the approbation of my conscience. Goodnight, Alfgar, goodnight; I shall sleep soundly tonight; I hope some day I may lay me down for my last long sleep as peacefully."
Alfgar followed his example, and, commending himself to G.o.d, slept.
About half-an-hour after midnight Alfgar awoke with a strange impression upon his mind that some one was in the room. It was very dark and stormy, and the wind, finding its way through crevices in the ill-built house, would account for many noises, but there was something stirring which was not the wind, and the impression was strong on his waking senses that between him and the window, which was opposite his bed, a figure had pa.s.sed.
Not fully trusting impressions produced at such a moment, yet with a heavy vague sense of evil weighing him down like a nightmare, Alfgar lay and listened.
At length he heard a sound which might have been produced by falling rain percolating through the roof, drop, drop upon the floor, but it was strange, for there was no sound of rain outside at that moment.
At length a cold draught made him turn his head, and he dimly saw Edmund"s door open and disclose the window within the room, then shut slowly again.
He could control his apprehensions no longer, and rose gently from his bed, so as not to warn the foe, on the one hand, should one be present, or if, as he strove to believe, all was fancy, not to awake Edmund. No one was in his own little room, that he felt rather than saw in a moment; but some one might be in Edmund"s, and he pa.s.sed through the door, which he remembered, with a shudder, was shut firmly when Edmund said "goodnight." At that instant he heard a low click, as of a spring lock, but very faintly; hesitating no longer, he pa.s.sed into the monarch"s room, and advanced to the bedside.
"My lord!" he gently whispered, but there was no answer; he spoke again in vain.
Just then he felt his naked feet come into contact with some wet substance, slightly glutinous, on the floor, and shuddered at the contact. All trembling, he put his hand to the pillow, and drew it back; it was wet with the same fluid, which his reason and experience told him was blood. He could hardly refrain from crying for help, but first sought a light. The process of procuring light then from flint, steel, and tinder was very slow, and it was some minutes before he had a taper lighted, when its beams disclosed to his horror-stricken sight Edmund, weltering in his blood; a dagger had been driven suddenly and swiftly to his heart, and he had died apparently without a struggle. The weapon yet remained {xviii}.
Here his affliction and grief overpowered him; he threw himself upon the body from which he had withdrawn the weapon; he kissed the now cold lips; he cried, half distracted, "O Edmund, my lord, speak!"
Alas! those lips were never to speak again while time lasted. At length the first deep emotion pa.s.sed away, and left the unhappy Alfgar comparatively master of himself, whereupon he left the chamber, and cried aloud for help.
It was his cry which the ladies heard in their distant bower.
The piercing cry, "Help! Edmund, the king, is slain!" roused the household--Elfwyn, Herstan, Hermann, the ladies, agitated beyond measure; the household guard; and, last of all, Edric.
They beheld Alfgar in his night dress, all b.l.o.o.d.y, holding a dagger in his hand, and with his face blanched to a death-like paleness, uttering cry upon cry.
"Help! Edmund, the king, is slain!"
They (the men) rushed to the chamber, and, pa.s.sing through Alfgar"s little room, beheld, by the light of many torches, Edmund bathed in his own blood, which still dripped with monotonous but terrible sound on the floor.
Edric entered, and with woe, real or affected (no one could tell), painted in his face, approached the body; and Elfwyn and Herstan beheld, or thought they beheld, a prodigy: they thought they saw the eyes open, and regard Edric, and that they saw the blood well up in the wound. But doubtless this was fancy.
"One thing we all must do," said Edric; "we must all help to find the murderer. The first step to that effect will be to note all present appearances. First, where is the weapon?"
"Here," said Alfgar, extending it.
"Why, Alfgar, it is your own dagger," said Elfwyn; "one which he gave you himself."
Alfgar uttered a plaintive and pitiful cry.
Edric possessed himself of the blood-stained weapon.
"Alfgar," said he, "you must have slept soundly. Tell us what you heard and saw."
He briefly related the particulars with which the reader is acquainted.
"But how could they enter? Was your door unfastened?"
"No; it was bolted on the inside, even as I left it last night."
"Bolted on the inside! then they must have entered through the window," said Edric, noting the words.
"Impossible," said both the thanes; "they are barred, both of them--heavily barred."
"We can no longer a.s.sist our departed lord save by our prayers," said Edric. "G.o.d be thanked, he died friends with me. I shall value the remembrance of that kiss cf peace in St. Frideswide"s so long as I live. And now I, once his foe, but his friend and avenger now, devote myself to hunt the murderer. So help me G.o.d!"
"So help me G.o.d!"
"So help me G.o.d!" said all present, one after the other.
"We are then of one heart and soul, and no tie of kindred, no friendship, shall bar our common action. And now we must rouse the reeve and burgesses; the gates of the city must be closed, that none escape. I will send members of the guard to do this, and when they have a.s.sembled we will all take counsel together."
"O Alfgar," whispered Elfwyn, "how came your dagger there?"
"I know not. I feel as one distracted," said the faithful and loving Alfgar, who had lost by this fell stroke a most faithful friend, with the warmest heart which had ever beaten beneath a monarch"s breast.
Oh, how the thought of the conversation last night came back to him now--the warning of Canute, the loving words of affection which had been spoken to him by those lips now cold in death!
All the imperfections of his character now faded away; he seemed so brave, yet so loving, so invincible in combat, yet so gentle and forgiving, as he had shown in forgiving even--even--even-- said Alfgar to his own wounded bleeding heart--even in forgiving his murderer. For in his eyes it was Edric, and none but Edric, who had done this deed.
But a terrible suspicion of a very opposite nature was rapidly a.s.suming sway in other men"s minds.
A council met before daybreak--the reeve or mayor, the chief burgesses, two or three thanes then in the town, the officers of the royal guard, Elfwyn, Herstan, and Edric. After a few preliminaries Edric rose and spake as follows:
"We have met together under the most awful responsibility which could fall upon subjects. Edmund, our king, has been murdered, and by whom we know not."
All were silent.
"I grieve to say," he continued, "that there is but one upon whom our suspicions can now fall with any shadow of probability-- one who is now absent, for I thought it well not to summon him to this council; and before naming him, I must recall to you, Elfwyn, and to you, Herstan, the solemn oath we have all three taken to disregard all appeals of natural affection, and to ascertain the truth, G.o.d being our helper."