The Ward of King Canute Part 10

As it obeyed, every one of the yeomen-soldiers strained his eyes in that direction, as though hoping to surprise in the great traitor's face some secret of his power, the power that had made three kings as wax between his fingers! But just short of the fire-glow the Gainer paused, and the hooded cloak which shrouded him merged him hopelessly into the shadow.

Only the hand that rested on his sword-hilt protruded into the light.

It was a broad hand, and thick-fingered as a butcher's, but it was milk-white and weighted with ma.s.sive rings.

Meanwhile, the King was speaking affably: "As you did not favor us with your presence among the Wise Men, my lord, it is likely that you do not know of the good luck which has befallen our cause. This prudent Earl, who before the battle had concluded with himself that England had so little to hope for from our reign that he was willing to throw his weight against us, has found his victory so without relish that he has become our sworn ally."

As he paused,--perhaps to leave s.p.a.ce for an answer,--the complacency of his face was heightened by a smile, faintly shrewd, touching the corners of his mouth. But when Sebert limited his reply to a respectful inclination of his head, the smile vanished abruptly. Under the affability there became evident a certain stern insistence.

"In former days, I think there was some hostile temper between the Earl and you. But I expect you will see that under the stress of a foreign war all lesser strife must give way. So I desire that you will repeat in my presence the troth already plighted by these others."

He made a slight gesture, and the Gainer took a step forward. The light that fell back from his hooded face played curiously about his jewelled hand; as it rose from the gilded hilt, it could be seen that to remedy the bluntness of the thick fingers the nails had been allowed to grow very long, which gave it now, in its half-curve, the look of a claw, upon which the red gems shone like blood-drops.

Hesitating, the Etheling went from red to white. Then, with a swift motion, he unsheathed his sword and stretched it out, point-foremost.

"King Edmund," he said, "in no other way does my hand go forth toward a traitor."

This time there was no sound of breaths drawn in; it was as though the whole world had ceased breathing. The sternness that had underlain the King's manner rose slowly and spread over the whole surface of his person, as he drew himself up in towering offence.

"Lord of Ivarsdale, bethink yourself to whom you speak!"

He was royally imposing in his displeasure; the Etheling flushed like a boy before his master; but he had his answer ready, and his head was steadily erect as he gave it.

"King of the Angles, the right of open speech has belonged to my race as long as the right to the crown has belonged to yours. So my father's fathers spoke to yours under the council-tree, and so I shall speak to you while I live."

Back in the shadow, each yeoman laid one hand upon his weapon, and with the other, thrust an exulting thumb into his neighbor's ribs. But they did not turn to look at each other; every eye was fastened upon the two by the fire. Freeman and his leader, or feudal lord and his dependant?

For the moment they stood forth as representatives of a mighty conflict, and every breath hung upon their motions.

After a time the King made a slight movement with his shoulders.

"I should have remembered," he said, "that your father was ruined by rebellion."

In a flash the rebel's son had forgotten boyish embarra.s.sment. "Whoso told you that, royal lord, told you lies. My father stood upon his right. Steel to turn against the Danes, Ethelred had a right to require; and steel my father was ready to pay. But Ethelred demanded gold, and the Lord of Ivarsdale would not stoop to bribe. Nor has it been proven that his policy was wrong," he added under his breath.

Then there was no longer any doubt concerning the position of Ethelred's son. He said with deliberate emphasis, "The only policy which concerns those of your station is obedience."

If there was enough of the old free blood left in the King's thanes to redden their cheeks, that was all there was. But while they stood in silence, a mutter ran like a growl through the ranks of yeomen; the gaze they bent upon their leader had in it almost the force of a command.

He was young, their chief, too young for impa.s.sivity. Despite himself, his hands trembled with excitement. But there was no tremor in his words.

"We of Ivarsdale do not profess such obedience, King Edmund. That is for thanes and for the unfree, who owe their all to your generosity. Our land we hold as our fathers held it--from G.o.d's bounty and the might of our swords. When we have paid the three taxes of fort-building and bridge-building and field-service, we have paid all that we owe to the State."

At last they stood defined, the first of the feudal lords and the last of the odal-born men. Even through the King's loftiness it was suddenly borne in that, behind the insignificance of the revolt, loomed a mighty principle, mighty enough to merit force. For the first time he stooped to a threat, though still it was tinged with scorn.

"I observe that the men of your race have not been of great importance in the land. It appears that Ethelred was able to do without the rebel Lord of Ivarsdale."

"I admit that he was able to lose his crown without him," the rebel's son retorted swiftly.

The King's wounded dignity bled in his cheeks; he was stung into a movement that brought him to his feet.

"This is insufferable!" he cried. It was evident that the crisis had come. While the Etheling faced him with a defiance that in its utter abandon was a little mad, a sensation as of bracing muscles and setting teeth went around the group. Several of the thanes laid their hands upon their swords. And the half-dozen ealdormen present bent toward one another in hasty consultation. At an almost imperceptible sign from the old cniht, the henchmen made a noiseless step nearer their master.

There were not more than a dozen of them, but behind them loomed some two-score yeomen-soldiers, with a score more in the brush at their back; and the faces of all told more plainly than words what it would mean to attack them.

But the blood of Cerdic, once fired, burned too rapidly for policy.

Edmund's jaw was set in savage menace as he turned and beckoned to his guard. Had he spoken the words on his lips, there is little doubt what his order would have been.

Interruption came from an unexpected quarter. Even as his lips were opening, that white taloned hand reached out of the shadow and touched his arm.

"Most royal lord! If it may be permitted me?" Earl Edric said swiftly.

His voice was very low, and every roughness had been filed away until it flowed like oil. Upon the King's wounded temper it appeared to fall as softly as drops of healing balm. With his mouth still set, he paused and bent his ear. There was a murmur of whispered words.

What they were no one ever knew, and each man had a different theory; but their result was plain to all. Slowly Edmund's knitted brows unravelled; slowly his mouth relaxed into its wonted curves. At last he had regained all his lofty composure and turned back.

"Lord of Ivarsdale, I am not rich of time, and my present need is too great to spare any of it to the chastising of rebellious boys. Go back to your toy kingdom, and lord it over your serfs until I find leisure to teach you who is master." Making a disdainful gesture of dismissal, he turned with deliberate grace and entered into conversation with the Mercian.

At the moment, it is likely that the young n.o.ble would have preferred arrest. The utter scorn of word and act lashed the blood to his cheeks and the tears to his eyes. With boyish pa.s.sion, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the sword from its sheath, and breaking it in pieces across his knee, flung the fragments clinking into the dead embers.

But if he had hoped to provoke an answer, it was in vain; the King deigned him no further notice. Resuming his seat, Edmund continued to talk quietly with the Earl, a half-smile playing about his complacent chin.

The old cniht bent forward and whispered in his chief's ear: "Make haste, Lord Sebert; they will be cheering in a moment, the churls; so pleased are they at the thought of going home. Hasten with your retiring."

It was a clever appeal. Forgetting, for the moment, humiliation in responsibility, the young leader whirled to his men. A gesture, a muttered order, and they were drawing back among the trees in silent retreat. A few steps more, and the bushes had blotted out the Ironside and his thanes.

Chapter XI. When My Lord Comes Home From War

One's own house is best, Small though it be; At home is every one his own master.

Bleeding at heart is he Who has to ask For food at every mealtide.

Ha'vama'l.

Slowly the bleak light warmed into golden radiance and the touch of dawn strung the scattered bird-notes into a chain of joyous song. Pa.s.sing at last from the forest shades, the men of Ivarsdale came out into the gra.s.sy lane-like road that wound away over the Middles.e.x hills.

The Destroyer had not pa.s.sed this way, it seemed, for the oat-fields stretched before them in unbroken silvery sheen; and the straight young corn dared to rustle its green ribbons boastfully. Fowls still uncaptured crowed l.u.s.tily in adjacent barnyards; and now and again, sweet as echoes from elfin horns, came the tinkling music of cow-bells.

Here and there, the little shock-headed boys who were driving their charges afield paused knee-deep in rosy clover to watch the band ride by.

"Yon must be a mighty warrior," they whispered as they stared at the sober young leader. "Take notice how his eyes gaze straight ahead, as though he were seeking more people to overcome." And they spoke enviously of the red-cloaked page who sat on the croup of the leader's white charger.

"See the sword he wears in his gay clothes. Likely he also has been in battle. He must needs be happy who can strike out into the world like that." Envying, they gazed after him until the horses' hoofs threw up a yellow wall between.

They would have opened their wide mouths wider had they known that the red-cloaked page was looking wistfully at them and their kine and the nodding clover.

"It must be very enjoyable to wander all day in the peace of the meadows and hear nothing louder than cow-bells," she was thinking. "It is good to see creatures that no man is stabbing or doing harm to."

Through warm suns.h.i.+ne, tempered by fresh breezes, they came yet deeper into the drowsy farmland. Gradually the yeomen-soldiers, who had been wrangling over the mystery of Edric's actions, dropped one by one into lazy silence, or set their tongues to whistling cleverly turned answers to the bird-calls in the hedges. Another mile, and from somewhere in the fields came the swinging chant of a ploughman, as he turned the soil between the rows of rustling corn,--

"Hail, Mother Earth, thou feeder of folk!