Chapter 10

Great was the welcome which Ethelbert of East Anglia had from Offa of Mercia when we reached the great stronghold of Sutton Walls on the next morning, riding there in all state and due array in our best holiday gear, with those Mercian thanes who had met us as escort before and after us. The morning was bright and clear, and I thought I had never seen so fair a procession as this with which the king went to meet his bride.

I had heard much of this palace of Offa's from the Mercians and from Ethelbert himself, but it was a far stronger place than I had expected. Seeing that here, on the newly-conquered Welsh border lands, no man could tell when the wild Britons might swarm across the ford, and bring fire and sword in revenge on the lands they had lost, if the king would have a palace here, it must be a very strong hold, and Offa had indeed made one.

The Romans had chosen the place long ago, having the same foe to watch and the same ford to keep, and on the low hill, which they saw was best for strength and position alike, they had set a great square camp with high earthen walls and deep moat below them. Once they had had their stone houses within it, but they had gone. The last of them were cleared when Offa drove out the Welsh and set his own place there after our fashion. Then he had repaired the earthworks, and crowned them afresh with a heavy timber stockade, making new gates and bridges across the moat.

Across the bridge which faces toward Wales we rode, between lines of country folk, who thronged outside the stockading to see our coming; and so with their cheers to greet us we came into a great open courtyard, with long buildings for thralls and kitchens and the like on either side of it, and right opposite the gate, facing toward it, the timber hall of the king itself. A little chapel, cross crowned, stood on its left, and the guest house and guard rooms for the housecarls to the right, stretching across the centre of the camp where once the Roman huts had been.

The hall was high and long, and had a wide porch and doorway in the end which faced the gate. Behind it one could see the roofs of other buildings which joined it, and beyond it again were stables, and byres, and kennels, and barns, and the countless other offices which a great house needs, filling up the rest of the space the stockade enclosed. Nor were they set at random, as one mostly sees them; but all having been built at once, they stood in little streets, as it were, most orderly to look on, with a wider street running from the back of the hall to the gate which led toward Mercia through the midst.

Presently I learned that the queen's bower was a lesser hall, which joined the back of the great palace hall itself, and that there were other buildings, which were not to be seen at first. It was the greatest palace in all England, and I wished that the Franks, who had little praise for our dwellings, had seen this before they went back home. It is true that all was built of timber, while the Franks used stone; but that last no Angle or Saxon cares for while good oak and ash and chestnut are to be had.

I did not pay much heed to the place at the time when we rode in, beyond a swift glance round me. There was that which held my eyes from the first on the wide steps that led to the hall door. There stood Offa and his queen to meet their guest, with the nobles of Mercia round them in a wondrous gathering, blazing with colour, and gold, and jewels, and the white horse banner of Mercia over them.

To right and left along the front of chapel and guest house were lines of the scarred housecarls who had followed Offa and won the land for him, bright with flashing helms and weapons; and close behind the group on the steps were some black-robed priests, who had a vested bishop in their midst.

So they waited while we dismounted, and then Ethelbert went forward alone toward the king and queen, carrying his helm in his hand, and with only a little golden circlet round his fair hair. I mind that the bright sun flashed from it as he went till there seemed a halo round his head, like to the ring of light they paint round the heads of the saints in the churches. And I thought that even Offa seemed less kingly than did he, though the great king was fully robed and wearing his crown. I think he had on a white tunic with a broad golden hem, and a crimson cloak fastened on his shoulder with cross-shaped brooch, golden and gemmed, while his hose were of dark blue, cross-gartered with gold.

And then I must look at the queen, and I saw the most wonderfully beautiful lady who ever lived outside of a gleeman's tale, so that hardly could Guinevere herself, King Arthur's queen, have been more beautiful. She was tall and yet not thin, and her golden hair fell in two long plaits almost to the ground over her pale green dress. From her shoulders hung a cloak of deeper green, wondrously wrought with crimson and gold and silver, and fastened with golden brooches. She also wore her crown; but even if she had not had it, none could mistake her for any but the queen among all the ladies who stood behind her, and they were of the noblest of that land.

I thought that the Princess Etheldrida would be there also, for beside the king was Ecgfrith the atheling; but she was not. They say that she had some maidenly fear of meeting this husband of hers, who was to be, in the open court thus.

Now Offa smiled and came down the steps to meet Ethelbert, and set his hand on his shoulder and kissed him in a royal greeting, and so led him to the queen, who waited him with a still face, which at least had naught but friendliness in it. One would say that it was such a look as a fond mother might well turn on the man who would take her loved daughter from her, not unwilling, but half doubting for her. There seemed no look of ill, and none of guile, in her blue eyes as Ethelbert bent and kissed her hand; and she too bent and kissed his forehead.

And at that moment from my shoulder growled Erling, and his face was white and troubled:

"Yonder is she!"

Then he shrank away behind me, and so took himself beyond her sight. I did not see him again until the queen had left.

The words struck a sort of chill into me, and I looked more closely at the queen. Maybe I was twenty paces from her, and one of many, so that she paid no heed to me. And as I looked again I seemed to see pride, and mayhap cruelty, in the straight, thin lips and square, firm chin. It was a face which would harden with little change, and the blue eyes would be naught but cold at any time.

And it came to me that it was a face to be feared; yet I did not know why one should fear aught for Ethelbert from her.

Now those greetings were over, and Offa led Ethelbert into the hall. Then Gymbert the marshal came and took us to our quarters, that we might prepare for the feast, giving some of us in charge of his men, while he led away the leaders of the party himself toward the guest hall by the palace.

One took charge of me, and led me round the little church to the back of the hall, telling me that the king had given special orders that the Frankish noble was to have some lodging of his own. It did not seem to be worth while for me to explain the case to this man, who would, doubtless, be sorely put out if I wanted to remain with the other thanes; so I said nothing, but followed him to the rear of the great hall, where a long building with a lean-to roof had been set against it, behind the chapel, and as it were continuing it. Inside it was like a great room, rush-strewn, and with a hearth in its midst, round which the servants of those who were lodged there might sleep, and along one side of it were chambers, small and warm, with sliding doors opening into the room. I found Father Selred there before me, and it seemed that he also was to have one of these chambers, the priest's house being full, and I was glad of it. Soon after that they brought Sighard, Hilda's father, there also, and I thought I was in good company, and had no wish to go further.

I told the man to bid Erling the Dane come hither when his work in the stables was done, and so he left me. Sighard's men, of whom there were two, had followed him with his packs.

Now they take Ethelbert to his chamber, and Offa and Quendritha seek their own in the queen's bower.

"A gallant son-in-law this of ours, in all truth," says the king gaily.

"Ay. And now you hold East Anglia in your hand, King Offa."

"Faith, I suppose so," he answers, laughing--"that is, if Etheldrida can manage him as you rule me, my queen! She is ever a dutiful daughter."

"If this young king were to die, the crown he wears with so good a grace would then fall to you," says the queen, coldly enough.

"Heaven forbid that so fair a life were cut short! Do not speak so of what may not be for many a long year, as one may hope."

"Then if he outlives you, he will make a bid for Mercia."

"Nay, but he is loyal, and Ecgfrith will be his brother. It will be good for our son that he has two queens for sisters--Wessex and Anglia are his supporters. But there is no need to speak thus; it is ill omened."

"Nay, but one must look forward. There would be no realm like yours if East Anglia were added thereto," says the queen slowly.

"We are adding it, wife, by this marriage, surely, as nearly as one may."

"It were better if it were in your own hands," she persists.

"Truly, you think that none can rule but yourself. Let it be, my queen. You will have a new pupil in statecraft in your son-in-law."

So says Offa, half laughing, and yet with a doubt in his mind as to what the queen means. Then he adds, for her face is cloudy:

"Trouble not yourself over these matters which are of the years to come; today all is well."

"Ay, today. But when the time comes that Ethelbert knows his strength? I will mind you that East Anglia has had a king ere this nigh as powerful as yourself. He will have other teachers in king-craft besides ourselves."

"Why, you speak as if you thought there would be danger to our realm from Ethelbert in the days to come?"

"So long as there is a young king there, who can tell?"

Then says Offa, "I am strong enough to take care of that. Moreover, he will be our son-in-law. I wit well that not so much as a mouse will stir in his court but you will know it;" and he laughs.

At that she says plainly in a low voice:

"You have East Anglia in your hands. If Ethelbert did not return thither, it is yours."

Whereon Offa rises, and his face grows red with wrath.

"Hold your peace!" he says. "What is this which you are hinting? Far from me be the thought of the death of Ethelbert, in whatever way it may come."

And so, maybe knowing only too well what lies behind the words of the queen, he goes his way, wrathful for the moment. And presently he forgets it all, for the spell of his love for Quendritha is strong, and by this time he knows that her longing for power is apt to lead her too far, in word at least, sometimes.

But we knew naught of this. It was learned long afterward from one to whom Offa told it, and I have set it here because it seems needful.

Nor can I tell, even if I would, how Ethelbert met Etheldrida, his promised bride. We saw them both at the great feast to which we were set down in an hour or so, and the great roar of cheering which went up was enough to scare the watching Welshmen from the hills beyond the river, where all day long they wondered at the thronging folk around the palace, and set their arms in order, lest Offa should come against them across the ford of the host again. Their camp fires were plain to be seen at night, for they were gathering in fear of him.

All the rest of that day we feasted; and such a feast as that I had never seen, nor do I suppose that any one of those present will ever see the like of it. Three kings sat on the high place, for Ecgfrith reigned with his father; and there was the queen, and she who should be a queen before many days had gone by. It was the word of all that those two, Ethelbert and the princess, were the most royal of all who were present, whether in word or in look, and in all the wide hall there was not one who did not hail the marriage with pleasure. It was plain to be known that there was no plot laid by these honest Mercian nobles against their guest. One feels aught of that sort in the air, as it were, and it holds back the tongues of men and makes their eyes restless.

There were some fifty or more who sat with the kings on the high place at the end of the hall opposite the great door, thanes and their ladies, of rank from earl to sheriff. They set me at one end of the high table also, as a stranger of the court of Carl, asking me nothing of my own rank, but most willing to honour the great king through his man. And that was all the more pleasant because next above me was the Lady Hilda, so that I was more than content. She had found that she was indeed to ride home with the new-made bride, and had spoken with her already.

"See," she said, "the omens have come to naught. We were most foolish to be troubled by them. Saw you ever a fairer face than Etheldrida's?"

And that was the thought of all of us who so much as remembered that such a thing as a portent of ill had ever crossed the path of the king on his way hither.

So the business of eating was ended at last, and then the servants cleared the long boards which ran lengthwise down the hall for the folk of lesser rank, and there was a great shifting of places as all turned toward the high seats to hear what Offa had to say to his guests. And when that little bustle was ended he welcomed Ethelbert kindly and frankly, and so would drink to him in all ceremony.

Then Quendritha rose from her seat and took a beaker from the steward, and filled the king's golden horn from it. As she did so I saw Offa look at her with a little questioning smile, as if asking her somewhat; but she did not answer in words. She passed him, and filled the cup of the young king who was her guest, and so sat down again. Then Offa and Ethelbert pledged each other, and the cheers of all the great company rose to hail them.

Not long after that the queen and the ladies went their way, and we were left to end the evening with song and tale, after the old fashion. Those gleemen of Offa's court were skilful, and he had both Welsh and English harpers, who harped in rivalry. Soon Ethelbert left the hall, and men smiled to one another, for they deemed that he was seeking some quiet with the princess. But he was only following his own custom, and I knew that he would most likely be in the little chapel for the last service of the day.

Offa sat on, and it seemed to me that his face grew flushed, and his voice somewhat loud, as the time passed. His courtiers noted it also.

"Our king is merry," one said to me. "It is not often that he will drink the red wine which your Frankish lord sent him."

"Ay," said another Mercian. "I saw him lift his brows when the queen filled his horn with it awhile ago. But he has kept to it ever since."

I did not heed this much, but there was more in it than one would think. What the drinking of that potent wine might lead to was to be seen. I hold that Offa was not himself thereafter, though none might say that he was aught but as a king should be--not, like the housecarls at the end of the hail, careless of how the unwonted plenty of that feast blinded them and stole their wits.

Presently, indeed, the noise and heat of the hall irked me, and I found my way out. It was a broad moonlight night, and the shadows were long across the courtyard. There was a strong guard at the gate, which was closed, and far off to the westward there twinkled a red fire or two on hill peaks. They were the watch fires of the Welshmen, and I suppose they looked at the bright glare from the palace windows as I looked at their posts.

In the little chapel the lamp burned as ever, but no one stirred near it. I thought I would find Father Selred in our lodging, and turned that way; and as I passed the corner of the chapel I met a man who was coming from the opposite direction.

"Ho!" he said, starting a little; "why, it is the Frank. What has led you to leave the hall so early?"

Then I knew that it was Gymbert the marshal.

"I might ask you the same," I said, laughing. "I have not learned to keep up a feast overlong in the camps of Carl, however, and I was for my bed."

"Nay, but a walk will bring sleep," he said. "I have my rounds to make, and I shall be glad of a companion. Come with me awhile."

So we visited the guard, and with them spoke of the fires I had seen, and laughed at the fears of those who had lighted them.

"All very well to laugh," said the captain at the gate; "but if the Welsh are out, it will be ill for any one who will ride westward tonight. Chapman, or priest, or beggar man, he is likely to find a broad arrow among his ribs first, and questioned as to what his business may be afterward."

Then we went along the ramparts to the rearward gate; and it seemed as if Gymbert had somewhat on his mind, for he fell silent now and then, for no reason which I could fathom. However, he asked me a few questions about the life in Carl's court, and so on, until he learned that I was a Wessex man, and that I was not going back to him.

"Then you are at a loose end for the time?" he said. "Why not take service here with Offa?"

"I am for home so soon as this is over," I said. "If all is well there, I have no need to serve any man."

"So you have not been home yet," he said slowly, as if turning over some thought in his mind. "What if I asked you to help me in some small service here and now? You are free, and no man's man, as one may say."

"Nor do I wish to be," I answered dryly.

I did not like this Gymbert.

"No offence," he said quickly. "You are a Frank as one may say, and a stranger, and such an one may well be useful in affairs of state which need to be kept quiet. I could, an you will, put you in the way of some little profit, on the business of the queen, as I think."

"Well, if the queen asks me to do her a service, that may be. These matters do not come from second hand, as a rule."

He glanced sidewise at me quickly, and I minded the face of another queen, whose hand had been on my arm while she had spoken to me with the tears in her eyes.

"Right," he said, laughing uneasily. "But if one is told to seek for, say, a messenger?"

"I am a thane," I said. "To a thane even a queen may speak directly."

"You Wessex folk are quick-tempered; or is that a Frankish trick you have picked up?" he sneered. "Nay, but I will not offend you."

Then he was silent for a time while we walked on. I thought that the queen had hardly sent a message to me in that way, and that he had made some mistake. I would leave him as soon as we turned back toward the hall. We were alone on the rampart, with the stables below us on one side and the high stockading on the other; and then he dropped that subject, and talked of my home going in all friendly wise.

"There are always chances," he said. "Come and take service with Offa if aught goes amiss at home."

"I have promised to go to Ethelbert, if so I must," I answered, thinking to end his seemingly idle talk.

I had put up with it because I was his guest in a way, seeing that he was the marshal, and it does not do to offend needlessly those who hold one's comfort in their hands.

End his talk this did, suddenly, and why I could not tell.

"Why," he said, "then you are his man after all! I deemed that you had but ridden westward with him for your own convenience."

"So it was, more or less," I said, somewhat surprised at his tone.

And when I looked at him his face seemed white in the moonlight.

"Of his kindness he bade me bear him company."

But he made no answer, and half he halted and made as if to speak. Again he went on, but said naught until we came to the steps which led down from the rampart to the rear gate. On the top of them he turned and said in a low voice, staying me with his hand on my arm:

"Say naught to any man of what I said concerning a state need of the queen's, for mayhap I took too much on myself when I spoke thereof; there may be no need after all."

I laughed a little, for I did but think that he had been trying to make out that he held high honour in the counsels of Quendritha, out of vanity, not knowing what my rank was.

"If she does send for me, I shall remember it, not else," I answered.

And then, as he had the guard to visit, I left him, and went across the broad street, from the gate to the hall through the huts, back to my lodging. There I found Father Selred, and together we waited for Sighard. Erling sat on the settle by the door, with his weapons laid handy to him, on guard.

"All seems well, father," I said; "there is naught but friendliness here."

"Well indeed," he answered. "It is good to hear the talk of priests and nobles alike; they know the worth of our young king."

"Well, and what is the talk of the housecarls, Erling?" I asked.

"Good also," he growled. "But I would that I kenned the talk of her of whom I have seen overmuch in the days gone by."

Then he remembered that of this matter Father Selred knew nothing, and he swore under his breath at his own foolishness; but the good father had not heard him, or his rough Danish prevented his understanding.

"What says he of the men?" he asked.

And when I told him he was well content, saying that from high to low all had a warm welcome for our king.

But even now Offa rises from the table and leaves the hall, all men rising with him. So he passes out of the door on the high place and seeks his own chamber, and there to him comes Quendritha.

"I have dreamed a dream, my king," she says, standing before him, for he has thrown himself into a great chair, wearily. "I have dreamed that your realm stretched from here on the Wye and the mountains of the Welsh even to the sea that bounds the lands from the Wash to the Thames. What shall that portend?"

"A wedding, and a son-in-law whom you may bend to your will," answers the king; but his eyes are bright, and there comes a flash into them.

That would be a mighty realm indeed, greater than any which had yet been in our land. If the East Anglian levies were his, he would march across Wales at their head, with the Mercian hosts to right and left of him. He might even wrest Northumbria from the hold of her kings.

Quendritha sees that flash, and knows that the cup has done its work. The mind of the king is full of imaginings. So she sits by him, and her voice seems to blend with his thoughts, and he does not hinder her as she sets before him the might and glory of the kingdom that would be his if that dream were true. And so she wakes the longing for it in the mind of Offa, and plays on it until he is half bent to her will; and her will is that the dream should come true, and that shortly.

Then at last she says, "And all this is but marred because of a niddering lad who will leave the hall at a feast for the whining of the priests yonder! In truth, a meet leader of men, and one who will be a source of strength to our realm! It makes me rage to think that but he is in the way. It is ill for his own land, as it seems to me."

"Ay, wife," says Offa. "But he is in the way, and there is an end thereof."

"He is in your hand, and there are those who would say that Heaven itself has set him there. Listen. He hunts with you tomorrow. Have you never heard of an arrow which went wide of its mark--by mischance?"

Again the eyes of the king flash, but he does not look on the queen.

"Who would deem it mischance?" he says. "No man. And I were dishonoured evermore."

"Not your arrow, not yours, but another's--mayhap yonder Frank's. He is a stranger, and would care naught if reward was great; then afterward he should be made to hold his peace."

And at that she smiles evilly. A stray Frank's life was naught to her if he was in her way.

"Say no more. The thing is not possible for me; it is folly."

"Folly, in truth, if you let Ethelbert keep you from the realm which waits you. Were he gone, there is not so much as an atheling who would make trouble there for you."

"Peace, I say. Ethelbert is my guest, and more than that. He shall go as he came--in honour. What may lie in the days to come, who shall know?"

"He who acts now shall see. Until the Norns set the day of doom for a man, he makes his own future. Surely they set his end on Ethelbert when he came here."

So she says in the old heathen way, but Offa does not note it. It is in his mazed mind that Ethelbert wrongs him by living to hold back the frontier of Mercia from the eastern sea.

"He is my guest, and I may not touch him," he says dully. "All the world would cry out on me if harm came to him here. And yet--"

"You shall not harm him," Quendritha says quickly. "There are other ways. Your own name shall be free from so much as shadow of blame. Now I would that I myself had made an end before ever I said a word to you."

"Had you done so--Peace. Let it be. You set strange thoughts, and evil, in my mind, wife."

Then she leaves him, and in her face is triumph, for Offa has forbidden her nothing. Outside the door waits Gymbert, as if on guard, alone.

"All goes well. Have you sounded yon Frank?" she says.

"He is no Frank, but a Wessex thane and a hired man of Carl's; moreover, he is Ethelbert's friend."

"Fool!" she says. "How far went you with him? What does he know--or suspect?"

"Naught," answers Gymbert stiffly.

And with that he tells her what passed between us.

"Come to me tomorrow early," Quendritha says, and goes her way.

But we slept in peace, deeming all well. Only Erling, sleeping armed across my door, was restless, for the cold eyes of the queen seem to be on him in his dreams.