"Then I will go with it myself; my heart is in it. But, Alfred, you look very ill; you cannot proceed tonight. When did you sleep last?"
"Three nights ago."
"Then it would be madness to proceed; you must sleep, and at early dawn you shall precede us on my own charger--which has been led all the way --if your own is too wearied, and with an attendant or two in case of danger from man or beast. Nay, it must be so."
Alfred, who could scarcely stand for very fatigue, was forced to yield, and that night he slept soundly in the camp of Edgar. At the first dawn they aroused him from sleep, and he found a splendid warhorse awaiting him--a gift, they told him, from Edgar. Two attendants, well mounted, awaited him in company with Oswy. He would willingly have dispensed with their company; but he was told that the king, anxious for his safety, had insisted upon their attending him, and that they were answerable for his safe return to Aescendune, the country being considered dangerous for travellers in its present disturbed state.
So he yielded; and before the king had arisen he left the camp, after a hasty meal, and rode as rapidly as the roads would permit towards his desolated home.
CHAPTER XXIII. LOVE STRONG AS DEATH.
Meanwhile Father Swithin had gone alone and unprotected, save by his sacred character, into the very jaws of the lion; or rather, would have gone, had he been suffered to do so; for when he approached the hall he found the drawbridge up, and the whole place guarded as in a state of siege.
He advanced, nothing daunted, in front of the yawning gap where the bridge should have been, and cried aloud--"What ho! porter; I demand speech of my lord Redwald."
"You may demand speech--swine may demand pearls--but I don"t think you will get it. Deliver me your message."
"Tell your lord, rude churl, that I, Father Swithin, of the holy Order of St. Benedict, have come, in the name of the rightful owners of this house, and in the power of the Church, to demand that he deliver up Elfric of Aescendune to the safe keeping of his friends."
"I will send your message; but keep a civil tongue in your mouth, Sir Monk, and don"t begin muttering any of your accursed Latin, or I will see whether the Benedictine frock is proof against an arrow."
In a short time Redwald appeared on the roof, above the gateway.
"What dost thou require, Sir Monk?" said he; "thy words sound strange in my ears."
"I am come, false traitor," said Father Swithin, waxing wroth, "to demand the person of Elfric of Aescendune, whom thou detainest contrary to G.o.d"s law and the king"s."
"Elfric of Aescendune! right glad am I to hear that he is alive; my followers have brought me word that they saw him fall in battle."
"Nay, spare thy deceit, thou son of perdition, for well do we know that he was brought home wounded last night. One of his bearers escaped thy toils, even as a bird the snare of the fowler, and is now with us."
"a.s.suredly the loon has lied unto you. Rejoiced should I be to see the unhappy youth, and to know that he yet lived. I but hold this place, faithful to his lord and mine, Edwy, King of all England."
"Then why hast thou expelled the rightful dwellers therein from their house and home? We know Elfric is with thee, and that thou art a traitor, wherefore, deliver him up, or we will even excommunicate thee."
"Thou hadst better not begin in the hearing of the men who sit upon the wall; for myself, excommunication cannot hurt a man who never goes to church, and does not company over much with those who do."
"Infidel! heretic! pagan! misbeliever! accursed Ragnar!" began the irate monk, when an arrow, perhaps only meant to frighten him (for they could hardly have missed so fair a mark), glanced by him.
He retreated, but still continued his maledictions.
"_Excommunicabo te, et omnes tibi adhaerentes_; thou art an accursed parricide, who hast raised thine hand against thy father"s house. _Vade retro, Sathanas_, I will shake off the dust of my feet against thee,"-- another arrow stuck in his frock--"thou shalt share the fate of Sodom, yea of Gomorrha; _in ma.n.u.s inimici trado te_;" by this time his words were inaudible; and he departed, not having accomplished much good, but having nevertheless informed Redwald of two great facts--the first, that Elfric"s return was blazed abroad; the second, that his own ident.i.ty was more than suspected.
"Ragnar!" said he, "What fiend has told them that? how came they to suspect? Confusion! it will foil all my plans, and my vengeance will be incomplete. At least this one victim must not escape, and yet I had sooner he should escape than any other member of the house. Poor boy!
the sins of the fathers are heavy upon the children, as these Christians have it; but my oath, my oath taken before a dying father! no; he must die!"
So spake the avenger of blood, a man whose heart was evidently not all of iron; yet from childhood had he striven to restrain every tender impulse, and had bound himself to vengeance. Long years of peace in England had come between him and the execution of his projects, and he had prepared himself for the task he never lost sight of, by acquiring all the accomplishments of a knight and warrior, and even of a man of letters, at that court of Rouen, now rapidly becoming the focus of European chivalry, where the fierce barbarian Northmen were becoming the refined but ruthless Normans. Then, in England, he had wormed himself into the confidence of the future king with singular astuteness, and at length had found the occasion he had long sought, in a manner the most unforeseen save as a possible contingency.
And now he turned from the battlements to his own chamber, but on the way he paused, for he pa.s.sed the door of the late thane"s room, where poor Elfric lay. He pa.s.sed the sentinel and entered. The unhappy boy was extended on the bed, in a raging fever; ever and anon he called piteously upon his father, then he cried out that Dunstan was pursuing him, driving him into the pit, then he cried--"Father, I did not murder thee; not I, thy son! nay, I always loved thee in my heart. Who is laughing? it is not Dunstan; break his chamber open, slay him: is a monk"s blood redder than a peasant"s? O Elgiva hast thou slain my father? See, I am all on fire; it is thy doing. Edwy, my king, Dunstan is burning me: save me!"
Then there was a long pause, and Redwald or Ragnar as we may now call him stood over his unhappy cousin. The fair head lay back on the pillow, with its profusion of golden locks; the face was red and fiery, the eyes weak and bloodshot.
"Water! water! I burn!" he said.
There was no cooling medicine to alleviate the burning throat, no gentle hand to smooth the pillow, no mother to render the sweet offices of maternal love, no father to whisper forgiveness to the dying boy.
"Better he should die thus," said Ragnar, "since I cannot spare him without breaking my oath to the dead."
Then he left the room hastily, as if he feared his own resolution. The sentinel looked imploringly at him, as the cries of the revellers came from below.
"Go!" said Ragnar, "join thy companions; no sentinel is required here.
Go and feast; I will come and join you."
So he tried to drown his new-born pity in wine.
At a late hour of the day, Alfred and his attendants arrived, bringing news of the coming succour to Father Cuthbert and the other friends who awaited him with much anxiety. They had contrived to account for his absence to the lady Edith, from whom they thought it necessary to hide the true state of affairs.
But everything tended to increase Alfred"s feverish anxiety about his brother. The relieving force could not arrive for hours; meanwhile he knew not what to do. No tidings were heard: Father Swithin had failed and Elfric might perhaps even now be dead.
So Alfred, taking counsel only of his own brave, loving heart, left the priory in the dusk, attended by the faithful Oswy, and walked towards his former home. The night was dark and cloudy, the moon had not yet arisen, and they were close upon the hall ere they saw its form looming though the darkness. Neither spoke, but they paused before the drawbridge and listened.
Sounds of uproarious mirth arose from within; Danish war songs, shouting and cheering; the whole body of the invaders were evidently feasting and revelling with that excess, of which in their leisure moments they were so capable.
"It is well!" said Alfred; and they walked round the exterior of the moat, marking the brightly lighted hall and the unguarded look of the place; yet not wholly unguarded, for they saw the figure of a man outlined against a bright patch of sky, pacing the leaded roof, evidently on guard.
And now they had reached that portion of their circuit which led them opposite the chamber window of the lamented Ella, and Alfred gazed sadly upon it, when both he and Oswy started as they heard cries and moans, and sometimes articulate words, proceeding therefrom.
They listened eagerly, and caught the name "Dunstan," as if uttered in vehement fear, then the cry. "Water! I burn!" and cry after cry, as if from one in delirium.
"It is Elfric! it is Elfric!" said Alfred.
"It is my young lord"s voice," said the thrall; "he is in a fever from his wound."
"What can we do?" and Alfred walked impatiently to and fro; at last he stopped.
"Oswy! if it costs me my life I will enter the castle!"
"It shall cost my life too, then. I will live and die with my lord!"
"Come here, Oswy; they do not know the little postern door hidden behind those bushes; the pa.s.sage leads up to the chapel, and to the gallery leading to my father"s chamber, where Elfric lies dying. I remember that that door was left unlocked, and perhaps I can save him. They are all feasting like hogs; they will not know, and if Ragnar meet me, why, he or I must die;" and he put his hand convulsively upon the sword which was dependent from his girdle.
"Lead on, my lord; you will find your thrall ready to live or die with you!" said Oswy.
At the extreme angle of the building there was a large quant.i.ty of holly bushes which grew out of the soil between the moat and the wall, which itself was clothed with the thickest ivy; the roof above was slanting-- an ordinary timber roof covering the chapel--so that no sentinel could be overhead. Standing on the further side of the moat, all this and no more could be observed.
The first difficulty was how to cross the moat in the absence of either bridge or boat. It was true they might swim over; but in the event of their succeeding in the rescue of Elfric, how were they to bear him back? The difficulty had to be overcome, and they reflected a moment.