"Little jest was there in the matter, lord king, let me tell you," he said, trying to draw his arm away.
"Nay, I am not angry with you, kinsman; indeed, I am not. We have been young and eager that bright eyes should see our valour ourselves ere now," and he shook his finger at the earl gaily. "I only wonder that you induced that fiery Welshman to take a rating in the hearing of the princess quietly."
"What I had to say to him I said apart. I will not say that he did take it quietly."
"Meaning -- that you had a good laugh over it;" and Alsi shook the earl"s arm as in glee. "There now, you have made a clean breast, and I am not one to spoil sport. Go and meet Goldberga at the gates, and bring her to me in state, and you shall be lodged here, if you will. Quite right of you to tell me this, or Griffin would have been in trouble. But I must not have the lady scared again, mind you."
He turned quickly away, then, with a sort of stifled laugh, as if he wanted to get away to enjoy a good jest, and left Ragnar staring speechless at him as he crossed the high place and went through the private door.
Then the earl turned to me, "By Loki, fellow countryman, there is somewhat wrong here. What does he mean by feigning to think the whole affair a jest? It won"t be much of a jest if Griffin and I slay one another tomorrow, as we mean to do, because of what was not done, and what was said about it."
"It has seemed to me, jarl," I said plainly, "that all this is more like a jest between the king and Griffin."
"Call it a jest, as that is loyal, at least. But I think that you are right. If Goldberga had been carried off -- Come, we shall be saying too much in these walls."
I had only been told to wait while the king and earl spoke together, and so I opened the door and followed him out. The horse was yet there waiting for him, and it was plain that the king had not meant him to stay.
"Bid the grooms lead the horse after us, and we will go to your captain. Then you shall take me to one of my friends, for you will know where their houses are."
But at that moment a man from the palace ran after us, bringing an order from the king that I was to go back to him. So Ragnar bade me farewell.
"Come to me tonight at the gatehouse," he said. "I will speak to the captain to let you off duty."
"Say nothing to him, jarl, for it is needless. I am only with him for a time, and am my own master. I have no turn on watch tonight, and so am free."
So I went back, and found the king in the hall again, and he was still smiling. If he had looked me straight in the face, I suppose that he might have seen that I was not a man to whom he was used, but he did not. He seemed not to wish to do so.
"So, good fellow," he said, "you have heard a pleasant jest of our young kinsman"s contriving, but I will that you say nothing of it. It is a pity to take a good guardroom story from you, however, without some recompense, and therefore --"
With that he put a little bag into my hand, and it was heavy. I said nothing, but bowed in the English way, and he went on, "You understand; no word is to be said of what you have heard unless I bid you repeat it. That I may have to do, lest it is said that Griffin the thane is "nidring" 9 by any of his enemies. You know all the story -- how the earl and he planned a sham attack on the princess"s party, that Ragnar might show his valour, which, of course, he could not do if Griffin was there. Therefore the thane held back. But maybe you heard all, and understood it."
"I heard all, lord king, and I will say naught."
The king waved his hand in sign that I was dismissed, and I bowed and went. There were five rings of gold in the bag, worth about the whole year"s wage of a courtman, and I thought that for keeping a jest to myself that was good pay indeed. There must be more behind that business, as it had seemed to me already.
Now, as I crossed the green within the old walls on my way to the gate, it happened that Havelok came back from the town, and as he came I heard him whistling softly to himself a strange wild call, as it were, of a hunting horn, very sweet, and one that I had never heard before.
"Ho, brother!" I said, for there was no one near us. "What is that call you are whistling?"
He started and looked up at me suddenly, and I saw that his trouble was on him again.
"In my dream," he said slowly, "there is a man on a great horse, and he wears such bracelets as Ragnar of Norwich, and he winds his horn with that call, and I run to him; and then I myself am on the horse, and I go to the stables, and after that there is nothing but the call that I hear. Now it has gone again."
And his hand went up in the way that made me sad to see.
"It will come back by-and-by. Trouble not about it."
"I would that we were back in Grimsby," he said, with a great sigh. "This is a place of shadows. Ghosts are these of days that I think can never have been."
"Well," said I, wanting to take him out of himself, "this is no ghost, at all events. I would that one of our brothers would come from home that I might send it to them in Grimsby. We do not need it."
So I showed him the gold, and he wondered at it, and laughed, saying that the housecarls had the best place after all. And so he went on, and I back to the gate.
Surely he minded at last the days when Gunnar his father had ridden home to the gate, as the Danish earl had ridden even now, and had called his son to him with that call. It was all coming back, as one thing or another brought it to his mind; and I wondered what should be when he knew that the dream was the truth. For what should Havelok, foster-son of the fisher, do against a king who for twelve long years had held his throne? And who in all the old land would believe that he was indeed the son of the lost king? Better, it seemed to me, that this had not happened, and that he had been yet the happy, careless, well-loved son of Grim, with no thought of aught higher than the good of the folk he knew.
When I got back to the gate, we were marched down the town, that we might be ready to receive the princess; and as I went through the market, I saw one of the porters whom I knew, and I beckoned to him, so that he came alongside me in the ranks, and I asked him if he would go to Grimsby for me for a silver penny. He would do it gladly; and so I sent him with word to Arngeir that I needed one of them here to take a gift that I had for them. I would meet whoever came at the widow"s house, and I set a time when I would look for them. I thought it was well that the king"s gold should not be wasted, even for a day"s use, if I could help it. And I wearied to see one of the brothers, and hear all that was going on.
CHAPTER XI. THE COMING OF THE PRINCESS.
There is no need for me to tell aught of the entry of the Lady Goldberga into the town, for anyone may know how the people cheered her, and how the party were met by the Norfolk thanes and many others, and so rode on up the hill to the palace. What the princess was like I hardly noticed at that time, for she was closely hooded, and her maidens were round her. And I had something else to think of; for foremost, and richly dressed, with a gold chain round his neck, rode a man whose strange way of carrying his head caught my eye at once, so that I looked more than a second time at him.
And at last I knew him. It was that man of ours whose neck had been twisted by the way in which he had been hauled on board at the time of the wreck, and had afterwards gone to Ethelwald"s court. One would say that this Mord had prospered exceedingly, for he was plainly a man of some consequence in the princess"s household. He did not know me, though it happened that he looked right at me for a moment; but I did not expect him to do so after twelve years, seeing that I was but a boy when we parted. I thought that I would seek him presently.
Then I saw Griffin, the Welsh thane, and I did not like the looks of him at all. He was a black-haired man, clean shaven, so that the cruel thinness of his lips was not hidden, and his black eyes were restless, and never stayed anywhere, unless he looked at Ragnar for a moment, and then that was a look of deadly hatred. He wore his armour well, and had a steady seat on his horse; but, if all that I had heard of him was true, his looks did not belie him. Men had much to say of him here, for, being some far-off kin to Alsi"s Welsh mother, he was always about the court, and was hated. He had gone to Dover to fetch the princess before we came here, but it happened that I had once or twice seen him at other times when I was in Lincoln, so that I knew him now.
There was great feasting that night in the king"s hall, as one may suppose, and I sat with the housecarls at the cross tables beyond the fire, and I could see the Lady Goldberga at Alsi"s side. Tired she was with her long journey, and she did not remain long at the table; but I had never seen so wondrously beautiful a lady. Griffin sat next to her on the king"s right hand, for Ragnar was at the king"s left, in the seat of next honour; and I saw that the lady had no love for the Welsh thane. But I also thought that I saw how he would give his all for a kindly glance from her; and if, as Alsi had seemed to hint, Ragnar was a favoured lover, I did not wonder that Griffin had been ready to do him a bad turn. I had rather that the thane was my friend than my foe, for he would be no open enemy.
I left the feast when the first change of guard went out, for I saw that the ale cup was pa.s.sing faster than we Danes think fitting, being less given to it than the English. And when the guard was set I waited alone in the guardroom of the old gate, for Eglaf was yet at the hall, and would be there all night maybe. And presently Earl Ragnar came in and sat down with me.
He was silent for a while, and I waited for him to speak, until he looked up at me with a little laugh, and said, "I told you that I had to fight Griffin tomorrow?"
"You did, earl. Is that matter settled otherwise?"
"Not at all," he answered. "I believe now that he was acting under orders, but I have said things to him which he cannot pa.s.s over. I called him "nidring" to his face, and that I still mean; for though I thought of cowardice at the time, he is none the less so if he has plotted against the princess. So naught but the sword will end the feud."
He pondered for some moments, and then went on, "It is a bad business; for if I slay Griffin, he is the king"s favourite; and if he slays me, the Norfolk thanes will have somewhat to say. And all is bad for the Lady Goldberga, who needs all the friends that she has, for in either case there will be trouble between the two kingdoms that Alsi holds just now."
"If Griffin is slain," I said, "I think that the lady has one trouble out of the way."
"Ay; and the king will make out, as you heard him do even now, that I am looking that way myself. It is not so, for I will say to you at once that to me there is but one lady in all the world, and she is in Norfolk at this time. Now I am going to ask you something that is a favour."
I thought that he would give me some message for this lady, in case he fell; but he had more to ask than that. Nothing more or less than that I should be his second in the fight, because I was a fellow countryman, while to ask an East Anglian thane would he to make things harder yet for Goldberga.
"I am no thane, earl," I said plainly. "This is an honour that is over high for me."
"It seems that you own a town, for I asked Eglaf just now," he answered; "and that is enough surely to give you thane"s rank in a matter like this. But that is neither here nor there; it is as Dane to Dane that I ask you. If I could find another of us I would ask him also, that you might not have to stand alone. I am asking you to break the law that bids the keeping of the peace at the time of the meeting of the Witan."
"That is no matter," I said. "If I have to fly, it will be with you as victor; and if it is but a matter of a fine, I have had that from the king today which will surely pay it."
And I told him of the gift for silence, whereat he laughed heartily, and then said that the secret was more worth than he thought. This looked very bad, and like proof that the king was at the bottom of the whole business.
Now I had been thinking, and it seemed better that there should be two witnesses of the fight on our side, and I thought that Havelok was the man who would make the second. So I told Ragnar that I could find another Dane who was at least as worthy as I, and he was well pleased. Then he told me where the meeting was to be, and where we should meet him just before daylight; and so he went back to the hall, where the lights were yet burning redly, and the songs were wilder than ever.
And I found Havelok, and told him of the fight that was to be, and asked him to come with us. His arms were at the widow"s, and he could get them without any noticing him.
There is no need to say that he was ready as I to help Ragnar, and so we spoke of time and place, and parted for the night.
Very early came Havelok to the house, for I lodged at the widow"s when I was not on night duty; and we armed ourselves, and then came Ragnar. He greeted me first, and then looked at Havelok in amaze, as it seemed, and then bowed a little, and asked me to make my friend known to him.