The Siege of Norwich Castle Part 13

His features softened with a winning smile. 'What hast thou to say to me, my son?' he asked in a gentle voice. 'Why hesitate? Dost thou not know me for a true friend?'

'Alas, father! I have a sad tale of sin and weakness to reveal to thine ears,' said the son of Siward at length. 'But I pray thee advise me. I have taken an oath, and since then, heated with wine, and somewhat overawed by numbers, I have taken a second contrary thereto. By which am I bound? Am I forsworn in that, notwithstanding this second oath, I sent the messenger to thee, who, if nought mischanced, reached Canterbury some four days agone?'

'Thou hast sinned, my son, answered the archbishop gravely; 'but not so heavily but that, after due penance, the offence may be pardoned. An unwilling oath, taken under the compulsion of an excited crowd, can scarce bind as that which was the fruit of calm reflection and sober judgment. Rather must it be accounted evil in thee, that thou didst consort with a man who was anathema of the Holy Church.' His mobile face grew stern, but it was a sternness not unmixed with sorrow.

'Nay,' answered Waltheof eagerly, 'I knew not of that till the banquet was well-nigh ended, when it was impossible to turn back.'

He was relieved at the tone of the archbishop, yet could not keep reflecting bitterly in his heart, that this light treatment of a forced oath when taken by the son of Siward _against_ William, was very different to the view taken of that made by the son of G.o.dwin _for_ William. Harold had been branded a perjurer for abjuring a forced oath.

'Nevertheless,' said the archbishop, not yet relaxing his face, 'thou hadst knowledge that the men whose bread was broken for thee were acting in direct opposition to the mandate of thy king-lord and kinsman, whose clemency had pardoned thy former misdeeds against him, whose hand had been reached to thee in fellows.h.i.+p, and whose niece had been given to thee to be bone of thy bone, flesh of thy flesh.'

'In good sooth, father,' replied Waltheof reluctantly, and with the air of a schoolboy repeating a lesson by rote, 'I thought mine uncle and king-lord was playing a somewhat tyrannical part in dividing two true lovers. I see now that he had reasons which I little suspected.'

This defence had been suggested by Judith.

Lanfranc's fine sensitive face grew sad. Speaking in a low, sorrowful voice, as though the subject caused him inexpressible pain, he said, 'My son, it was not for light or frivolous reasons that William our king-lord interfered to thwart the wishes of his earls. Nor was it without cause, or, in truth, without grievous necessity, that I declared the anathema of the Holy Church against the son of the man who did more than any other to crown our Norman duke an English king. Had it been but a question of a marriage,' the archbishop continued in the same strain, but in a still softer tone, and rather as if speaking to himself than to the earl, 'G.o.d forbid that I should have parted whom He had elected in His all-seeing wisdom to unite!' He sighed deeply, for in his youth he had been the husband of a much-loved wife, whose death had taken all flavour from earthly joy for him, and had been the cause of his precipitate retreat from a position of wealth and fame, to seek consolation in the cloister. 'I have loved Roger Fitzosbern as a son! I have striven with him in affection! But, alas! in vain. One folly was added to another, until at last foolishness swelled into crime. He denied justice to the injured. He invaded the property of his king-lord, and of his peers; and now he has crowned all by this attempted treason, brought to the light at the unholy banquet at which thou wert thyself tempted to evil, Waltheof! Ah! I have wept tears of blood over this lost sheep. Would that my efforts had recalled him to the fold! But the time is past.'

He stretched out his thin, transparent hands before him, his dark eyes fixed upon s.p.a.ce, as if contemplating a vision of the bloodshed to come.

He was silent, and Waltheof, being a man of few words, was silent also.

Suddenly the Lombard turned his gleaming eyes upon the Northumbrian earl. Waltheof started, for in his heart was no repentance for having attended the banquet, nor for any of his treasonable designs, but only a fierce wrath against the Norman wife who had defeated his plans, and brought him more tightly under the yoke he hated, and it seemed to him as if those dark eyes could read his most secret thoughts. He s.h.i.+fted his huge frame uneasily, so that the bracelets which ringed his tattooed arms almost to the elbow, clanged together, and his large fingers sought the jewelled haft of the hunting-knife which hung at his baldric, not threateningly, but from habit.

Yet if his thoughts were read, they were ignored.

'But thou at least art here!' Lanfranc exclaimed, his mobile features lighted by a brilliant smile. 'Thy better angel has prevailed, and, by the mercy of Our Lady, has brought thee back to the fold at the eleventh hour.'

Waltheof looked relieved, and he lifted his head and tossed back the yellow mane which had fallen over his face.

'I pray thee, father,' he said earnestly, encouraged by the Primate's smile; 'stand by me in my trouble, and plead my cause with William of Normandy. _Thou_ hast the power to influence him. Advise me how I may best act to win his pardon for my transgression; how best a.s.sure him of the sincerity of my return to allegiance.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: Waltheof's Humiliation.]

'I will stand by thee, my son,' replied the archbishop, clasping Waltheof's great hand in his slender fingers. And he fulfilled his promise with unswerving fidelity, even to the last, when the unfortunate son of Siward lay doomed to death in prison; nor, if Lanfranc could have prevented it, would William have consummated that greatest blot upon his reign, the execution of the Northumbrian earl.

'Thou art impulsive, my son, and simple-minded, and therefore easily snared. But I believe not that thy heart is evil, or that thou wouldst be other than a pious son of our Holy Mother Church.'

'No, indeed!' said Waltheof, much affected by the appeal, which roused all the natural piety and humility of his nature. He crossed himself with much fervour. 'Tell me what to do, father. Whatever thou wilt command I will perform.'

'My son, I would bid thee cross the sea to Normandy and seek William in person, confessing all frankly, and throwing thyself on his mercy. Nor would it be detrimental to thy suit if thy hands bore somewhat of the produce of the lands and honours he has bestowed upon thee with so lavish a generosity.'

Waltheof shuddered. It was no pleasant prospect to the powerful earl, whose head had of late been so filled with schemes of ambition, thus to humble himself a second time to the conqueror of his people.

But Waltheof's courage was more of the physical order than the moral.

He was, besides, of gentle disposition, and sincerely desired to avert bloodshed, and he thought that his defection from the ranks of the conspirators would prevent any attempt to meet William in the field.

Therefore he bowed his head. 'Thine advice is meet, father,' he said; 'I will cross the seas and seek William, bearing rich presents to testify my regret for the past, and present goodwill.'

CHAPTER XI.

THE CASTELLAN OF BLAUNCHEFLOUR.

Ralph de Guader had said little to his bride of the proceedings at the marriage festivities, but a time came when it was necessary for him to break in upon their brief honeymoon with rumours of war, for it was not possible to hide the fact that he must take the field in defence of life and liberty.

The defection of Waltheof had been a great blow to the conspirators; his untimely betrayal of their plans was more serious still, as their chance of success lay chiefly in the hope of taking the king's forces by surprise.

Waltheof himself had supposed that his course would altogether put a stop to the undertaking, seeing that his two brother earls had represented that to place him on the throne was its chief object.

But De Guader and Fitzosbern were too proud to give up their hopes of aggrandis.e.m.e.nt so easily, and, moreover, their case was desperate. If they submitted at once and unconditionally, they could only look forward to disgrace and imprisonment, whereas the chances of battle might still be in their favour. It was not wonderful, therefore, that they elected to fight it out, notwithstanding the odds against them.

The Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk had a.s.sembled his forces, and held all in readiness for departure on the morrow. The dreaded moment had come, and he sought his wife's bower, feeling that he would much liefer meet William's men-at-arms.

It was a sunny little room on the east side of the palace, looking over the marshes of the low holme which then bordered the Wensum with a wilderness of sedges and white water-lilies, and upon which, some eleven years later, Herbert de Losinga erected the cathedral which is our present pride and joy.

Emma loved to watch the high-prowed galleys pa.s.sing to and fro upon the river, with sails spread, and oars flas.h.i.+ng, and stout rowers bending to their work; and to see them lading and unlading at Lovelly's Staithe, a wharf situated about a third of the distance between the present ferry and Foundry Bridge.

Here Eadgyth would entertain her with stories of her girlhood, and tell how she had seen her cousin, Harold G.o.dwinsson, land at that wharf, when he came to Norwich after his imprisonment in Normandy; and how Leofric, Earl of Mercia, to whom the sainted King Eadward had given the East Anglian earldom in Harold's absence, met him with all honour; and of the magnanimous strife between the two, when Leofric would give back the earldom, and Harold would fain have had him keep it; and how Harold took it for a time, but returned it on ascending the throne.

And when the white swans came sailing amongst the reeds, bending their long necks from side to side, the Saxon maiden would tell her friend of Harold's beloved, her namesake Eadgyth Swannehals, the most beautiful woman in Norfolk, or, for the matter of that, in all England, and would burst into tears when she thought of the sad ending of that fair romance.

And Emma would smile at her enthusiasm, but yet grew in sympathy with this English people, the smoke of whose dwellings was rising around her, and almost found it in her heart to wish that her hero William had been a little less successful, and to question whether it had not been more virtuous of him to stay at home in his native Normandy. Somehow she had never admired him so freely since he had endeavoured to part her from her betrothed.

In such a mood as this was Emma when her husband sought her, with the intention of telling her the secret of his bold enterprise, but he little guessed how much her sympathies had turned against William, for, as is often the case when convictions are changing, she had made up for her coldness of feeling by warmth of speech, and had sought so to atone for her act of rebellion in marrying Ralph against the king's mandate.

Therefore the earl knew not how to begin his explanation, and sat before her embroidery frame almost as deeply embarra.s.sed as Waltheof had been before the archbishop. 'Tis true he had told her ere their wedding that the quarrel must needs be fought out, yet it seemed not the easier to say,'My standard is lifted.'

His face was ashy pale, for it was to him cruel as death to leave his young bride before a month had pa.s.sed, although he had known that the parting must come.

Emma, looking at him, dropped her silks in horror, and, throwing her arms round his neck, asked coaxingly what ailed him.

And Ralph turned his head away without speaking.

'Can it be that I have offended thee in aught?' asked the young countess anxiously.

'Nay, Emma, I am the offender, if offender there be. Methinks the worst of all ailments is mine, for I must leave thee, and perchance anger thee also.'

'Leave me?' Her breath caught in a sob of terror.

Ralph faced her desperately. 'My love, thou knowest our wedding was against the express mandate of the king. Lanfranc, the king's man, whom he made Primate of all England,--in place of the holy Stigand, whom he unjustly deprived, and who yet languishes in prison,--hath turned bitterly against thy brother of Hereford, whom whilom he was wont to treat as a son, and has set a ban of excommunication upon him.'

A low cry of horror escaped from Emma.

Ralph's eyes flashed fire. He caught his wife's white hands as they were sliding down from his neck, half withdrawn at the fear that her love had led her into deadly sin, since the brother who had countenanced her marriage, and urged her to its fulfilment, was cast out by the Church.

He understood the loosening of her clasp, and caught her hands as a protest.