Chapter 8

Seeing that Carl the Great was at this time, and I suppose always will be, the model of what a king should be, Ethelbert had many things to ask me of him, and out of the hours which he spent in questioning me it came to pass that he took pleasure in my company at other times as well, treating me as a close comrade. That sort of thing is apt to be perilous in time, for it makes jealousies about a court if there is favour for one more than for another of the courtiers; but as I was no more than a passing stranger, who had not the least intention of biding here, I escaped that. Nor do I think that any one was jealous of me, for the honour which Carl had set on me for the sake of Ecgbert hung about me, as it were, and I suppose that half the court thought that I had to take some message on to Offa from my late lord.

Moreover, for good and wise reasons of his own, Ethelbert had no close companions of his own age, and maybe longed for such, finding in myself one to whom he could speak his mind of his own affairs without any thought of favour or policy rising up to cloud my answers to him, as his guest.

So in a few days I told him of Ecgbert, and gave him those messages of which I have spoken, being sure that with him they were safe. And I was glad that I did so, for his joy on hearing of his friend was good to see. As for the rest of the hopes of our atheling, he may have had his own thoughts, but he said plainly that the day when Wessex would need him might come, and that if it did none would more willingly welcome him home again.

"But," he said, "I think that best of all Ecgbert would wish to come home in peace at once, and set all ambition aside. Presently, if we are careful, I may be able to speak to Offa of him again. Nay, but have no fear; I understand how matters are with Bertric, and will risk naught. I think we may find that Offa, who is friendly with King Carl, knows more of Ecgbert than you might guess."

So that matter dropped, and I had done my errand. But for the sake of Ecgbert I was all the more welcome to the king, for I had to tell him of the wars and the deeds of his friend. I do not think that any will wonder that thus I saw more of the king than otherwise might have been my lot.

Now there was another of whom I saw much at this time before we started to ride westward, and that, of course, was the Lady Hilda. She, I found, was going to Fernlea, rather that she might be one of the ladies who should attend the bride whom it was hoped that the king would bring home, than as going to remain with Quendritha, and I must say that I was glad thereof. With her and her father I rode many a mile hawking, and both of them seemed to hold me as an old friend by reason of that lucky chance which brought about our first meeting; and the only fault I had to find with the journey we looked for was that in Offa's court would end my friendship with them.

So it happened one day as we rode thus that while the thane had crossed a stream, beating up the far bank for a heron, we fell into talk of the journey and its ending.

"What is amiss with it all?" she asked. "The good queen seems terribly downcast about it. Is not the princess her choice?"

"Altogether so, as the king tells me. Perhaps the queen has mother-like fears for the safety of this only son of hers, and lets them get on her mind overmuch."

"That would be hardly like our queen," she answered, laughing; "she is above that foolishness. No, but there is somewhat more."

"Then," said I, thinking that this was fancy, "it will be some trouble of state which is at the bottom of her anxiety. That none of us can mend."

"It may be that," she said; "but it is some heavy trouble. I have never seen her so downcast until yesterday. It is a sudden thing."

There we left the subject, and I thought little more of it until the next morning, which was that of the day before we started. It had become a custom that I should wait on the king at his first rising, when he had most leisure to talk with me, and this time I found the queen with him in his chamber. She looked sad and anxious, as I thought.

"Wilfrid," she said to me when the fitting greetings were over, "you are a stranger here, and no thought of policy will come into your mind. Tell me truly what you think of this; it may be that your word will have some weight with my son."

Ethelbert smiled, but it was not quite his usual untroubled smile at all.

"It is not fair to ask Wilfrid," he said; "maybe he puts much faith in these omens."

"No, but he is of Wessex," she said. "He cares naught for alliance or court, or for any of those things which blind our eyes. I want him to answer me as if I were just a franklin's wife who is in doubt.

"Listen, then, if you will."

She turned to me with a sort of appeal, and spoke quietly, though I saw that she was almost weeping.

"Last night I dreamed a dream, and in it I waited in the church here for the bells to ring for the wedding of my son and Etheldrida, whom he loves. It was in my mind that all the good folk would come in their best array, and that so we should sing a great 'Te Deum' for the happiness of all. And indeed there was a voice from the belfry--but it was of the great bell alone, as of a knell for the dead. And indeed it seemed that the people came--but they came softly and weeping, and they were clad all in black. And then they sang--but it was the psalm 'De Profundis.'"

I think that I paled, for I minded those other things which Erling had told me. The lady, who looked in my face, saw it, and she grew white also--whiter than she had been before.

"Lady," I stammered, "I have no wit to read these things. It were well to ask the good bishop, for he is wise."

"Ay, too wise," she said. "I would hear simplicity."

Then Ethelbert rose up and set his arm round his mother very gently, and said gravely:

"Mother, know you not of what you have dreamed? Even as you told it first to me, and now again, I seemed to be back on that day, not so long past, when we buried my father. So it was in the church at that time, and it was the most terrible thing which you have known.

"Is it wonderful, Wilfrid, that it should come back thus in the night watches?"

"It is not wonderful," I said.

"Lady, I think that the king is right.

"But, King Ethelbert, if I am to say my mind, I would put off the journey for the sake of the peace of the queen your mother."

"And thereby offend Offa, and maybe hurt that little playmate of mine? No, it cannot be. And what should the dream be but that we say?"

Then the queen said plainly:

"I fear for you, my son--I fear Quendritha. In the days gone by your wise father was wont to say that if ever danger came from Mercia to East Anglia, it would be by reason of her ambition and longing for power and width of realm."

"Why, mother, then surely in gaining the East Anglian throne for her daughter she gains all she would. And she is Offa's queen, and in his court can be no danger to me or any man. Presently you shall surely dream again, and that dream shall show you the old sorrow turned to joy, for you will have a fair daughter to drive away your loneliness. She will be all you need, for I know that I can be of little help to you. The dream was of the sorrow which is passing to make way for joy to come."

Then the queen made shift to smile, and told him that she deemed that her fears might be foolish. But to me it seemed that even as she had said, the thought of policy and state came first of necessity, setting aside such a vision as any simple thane would surely have thought held him from a journey he would take. Indeed, many a one would have given it up for far less, for I have known men turn back when already started, because a harmless hare crossed their path or a lone magpie sat on a wayside tree. Maybe I minded such like myself once, but service with Carl mended that. If he bade a man do a thing, that man had to do it, omen or none. Whereby I found that mostly these journey tokens, as one may call them, came to naught, and certainly I should not have done that if I had been able to mind them. And yet I do not know if aught would turn a true lover from the way which leads him toward the lady of his choice.

"One thing only I do fear from this dream of yours, my mother," the king said after a little while. "Can it mean harm to Etheldrida? Was it for her that the knell passed, and shall I find her gone from me? It is many days since I heard from her or of her."

Now when it came to that, I knew that nothing would stay the king, and so also did his mother. Whereon she was eager as himself to say that the dream was but wrought of her sorrow.

"Why, then," said Ethelbert, "you and Wilfrid may laugh at me if you will; for I have dreamed a dream to set against yours, because I think it has a good meaning. I thought that I was in a city, and that from its marketplace rose heavenward a great beam of light, like a pathway. And so I would climb it, but I could not. Then I had wings, and up it at last I sailed as a ship sails on the path of sunlight on an evening sea. Surely that promises a happy journey for me. Fear no more, therefore, my mother."

Then we went from him, for state business called him, and I would take the queen across the garden to the bower door. There was little ceremony in this quiet court, and no waiting ladies were biding her return outside. And when we were alone there she turned to me, and her eyes were dim and pitiful.

"Friend," she said, "yon beam of light led to heaven. I do not know what it all means, but I fear--I fear terribly."

"Lady," I said, "many a time I have known men who thought they had ill dreams on the night before a battle, and naught came of them. I have forgotten to trouble myself much therewith."

"Nay, but they are sent at times for our warning."

"It may be so. I should be foolish if I did not believe what wiser men than I tell me of their messages. But if there is ill before the king, can it be anywise turned aside? What if he were persuaded not to go?"

"Oh," she said, with a little sob, "then his troth would be broken, and that in itself would bring ill. It seems dark all round me."

Then I said, for she was in sore distress:

"Lady, I am a stranger and hardly known to you, but I am to ride with your son. Will it be aught if I tell you that I will watch him as if he were my own atheling, and if need be die for him, with his own thanes?"

"It is much," she said eagerly, "much; for in that court where I fear for him you will be a stranger, and may hear and note more than our folk, for if ill is plotted they may be careless of you. I shall have less fear now that I may feel that one at least shares in my dread. I do not know how to thank you for the promise."

She set forth her hand to mine, and I bent and kissed it; but she pressed my great fingers as my own mother used to press them. Then she said in a low voice:

"I do not fear Offa, for he is noble in all he does. I fear Quendritha."

"I have heard that she is to be feared. Can you tell me more of her?"

"You will see her as the fairest woman in all the land, and will but know her as the softest spoken. Once or twice I have seen what looks may lie under that fair outward show, and I know that in her heart is the rage for power and ever more power, let it be what it may. It goes ill with the lady of her train who shares a secret with her, if the secret is the lady's. I cannot think how harm may come to Ethelbert from her; but none know how it may not. I pray you remember that."

I promised, and then she led me to her doorway; and there I left her, but not before she had thanked me again. I suppose that to share a burden even with me helped somewhat to lighten it. And in all truth I meant to do my part in watching, and if possible guarding, the king. Perhaps it would be as the queen said, that being in and yet not of his train I might be able to look on at all that went on more easily.

To that end I kept my Frankish dress, though I had meant to take to plain Saxon wear once more, with the knowledge that none would wonder that Carl's man was kept near the king, and that in Offa's court I should not be taken for an Anglian of his train.

Now the day came when we should set out on the long ride across England to the Welsh border, where Offa had set his throne for the time. As may be supposed, we went first of all on that morning to the church in the dim daybreak, and there heard mass and sought for blessing on our going and returning, and then I went and saw all ready for the ride. I had bought two more horses, good enough for change of mount now and then, one brown and the other black; and Erling was to lead them, with our belongings on a pack. The king would travel steadily, but no more slowly than might be managed, and we were to have no wagons or the like to hinder us, though there were three ladies besides the Lady Hilda who were to go with us.

It was past sunrise when I went to find Erling, but the morning was dull and dark. It was hot, too, for no breath of wind stirred the trees, and I seemed to notice a silence around me. That was because the thrushes and blackbirds were not singing after their wont in the dewy daybreak of May time, and I thought they waited for the sun to break out.

When I came to the stables there was bustle everywhere, of course; but the grooms seemed troubled in some way out of the common, and Erling himself came to meet me with a puzzled face which told me that all was not well.

"There is thunder in the air, thane," he said. "If I mistake not, we shall have somewhat out of the way, too. The horses are feeling it--unless some thrall has poisoned the whole stable."

Truly the horses were looking strangely. Their coats stared, and their ears were cold and damp, while they seemed glad of the company of the men, whinnying low and rubbing themselves against them as they came into the stalls. I heard one thrall say to another that the whole stable had surely been witch ridden in the night.

"Get the horses into the open," I said. "It is stifling in this stable. Maybe that is what is wrong."

My own horse was standing ready, and he greeted me, after his wont, with a little neigh; but he was wet, and his coat had lost the gloss of which Erling was so proud. I did not like it at all, but as every horse in the place seemed to be in the same way or worse, I put it down to the thundery feel in the air. I led him out myself, and there were two thanes of our party, who had come for their horses.

"Why, paladin," said one, "what is amiss with the skew-bald? You can't ride him today if he is as bad as he looks."

I told him that his own horse was much in the same case, and added that I thought with Erling that it was the thundery weather which upset the stable, though I had never known the like before.

"I suppose that the king will not start until it clears," I said.

"Ay, but he will," said the other thane, looking at the gray sky. "Seldom does he put off a start, and today of all days there is a strong cable pulling him westward."

Now Erling came out with the other horses, and the thane and his comrade glanced at them, and hurried to see to their own steeds. There was no sound of pawing hoofs and coaxing voices to be heard as one by one the horses were led out. It might have been the clearing of a sheep fold for all the spirit there was in the beasts.

I mounted, and rode with Erling after me out of the courtyard into the open. On the green were gathering the twenty thanes or so who made up the party, and across it was drawn up the mounted escort. There was the usual gathering of onlookers, and by the gate stood the king's own huntsmen, with hawks and hounds.

The first thing I noticed was that the birds were dull and uneasy, and that the dogs were still more so. The hooded hawks sat with ruffled feathers, and one or two of the hounds lay on their backs, with paws drawn to them as if they feared a beating, while the rest whined, and had no eagerness in them. It seemed closer here than in the courtyard even, and every one was watching the sky and speaking in a low voice. Each sound seemed over loud, and overhead the hot haze brooded without sign of breaking.

The king's chaplain came out, and a lay brother brought him his mule. He looked at it as I had looked at my horse just now, and his brow knitted. He was rather a friend of mine.

"Father," I said, "there is somewhat strange in the air. Look at all the beasts; they feel more than we can."

He nodded to me gravely. Then he said, with his hand smoothing the wet coat of his mule, which at any other time would have resented the touch with a squeal, but now did not heed him:

"It minds me of one day in Rome when I was a lad there, at college, learning. There is a great burning mountain at Naples, and it was smoking at the time. Then there came--"

"Way for the king!" cried the marshal who waited at the gate, and the good father had to stand aside with his tale unfinished.

Ethelbert came forth with a smiling return to our salute, and with him came his mother and the four ladies who were to bear us company on the way. One of these was, of course, the Lady Hilda, and I dismounted and left my horse to a groom for the time, having promised myself the pleasure of helping her to mount.

At that moment the marshal, who was a thane set over all the ordering of the journey, went to the king and asked him if it might not be his pleasure to wait for an hour to see if the weather broke. I think that the king was so taken up with parting words to the queen that he had hardly noticed the gloom and heat, and certainly he had not noted the uneasiness of the horses, which was growing more and more. So he only turned for a moment to the thane, signing to the man to bring his horse.

"Nay, but a dull start often forebodes a bright ending to a journey. We will go," he said, laughing.

"Now farewell, mother, for the last time."

He bent his knee for her blessing, doffing his cap as he did so. And even as he bent I was aware of a dull rumble, not loud or like thunder, but as if all the wains of the host of King Carl were passing toward us from far off. Hilda stood by me at that moment, and she heard it.

For the life of me, though I knew that no wagons were near us, I could not help glancing round for them, and as I did so I saw the end of a thrall's mud hut across a field fall out. The king leaped up and set his foot in the stirrup, and at that moment the earth heaved and shook under us, and the whole oaken hall and buildings round us creaked and groaned like a ship in a ground swell, while Hilda clung to my arm in terror. Her horse, which the thane, her father, held, trembled and broke out into white foam all over, stumbling forward.

I do not think that the king felt it; indeed, as he was swinging himself into the saddle at the moment, he could not have done so. But his horse reared almost on end with terror, and any less perfect rider must have had a heavy fall. All around us were plunging horses and shouting men, but he did not seem to heed them. He had all he could do to get his horse in hand again, and I think his eyes were misty with that parting.

He gave the horse the rein, crying to us to follow, and so passed down the dim street and out under the green arches of the lane beyond at a gallop, as gay and hopeful a lover as heart could wish. Doubtless to him the shouts seemed but the cries of good speed, and the plunging of the maddened horses but the sounds of mounting; for the way had been left clear for him westward, and he did not look back.

Out of the houses of the town I saw the folk running and crying, not in farewell to him, but in wild terror of rattling roofs and crumbling walls. They did not heed him; but I saw him wave his hand to them, for he thought they cheered him, as he passed too swiftly to note either pale faces or woeful cries.

Then after him rode their hardest the men of the escort and others who were already mounted, and the tumult stilled suddenly. They say that the queen swooned there on the pavement at the gate; and I do not doubt it, though her ladies took her so quickly away that I did not see her. Hilda was almost fainting on my arm, and I had to drag her away from the wild frenzy of her horse, which the thane could hardly hold.

I saw two or three men stand staring at Erling, who was in trouble with his charges, and then they went to his help. And next I was aware that somewhat soft rubbed my sleeve, and I started and turned. It was my own horse, who sought me in danger, and would tell me in his own way that he was there. In that glance I noted that his eye was bright again, and in a minute or two he shook himself heartily. Thereby I knew that there was no more of this terror to come, or he would have felt it yet.

"Thane," I said, "see. The skew-bald has not lost his senses like that beast. Let us set Hilda on him. The marshal will help to shift the saddle."

But Hilda came to herself again, and tried to laugh, saying that there was never yet a horse of which she was afraid. Nor would she hear of a change, for when her horse grew more quiet it was plain that its terror had passed away. She took herself gently from my arm, and spoke bravely now.

"What was it?" she asked me while Sighard soothed the beast.

"Why," answered Father Selred for me, "just what I was going to tell the paladin--such an earthquake as I felt on a like day in Rome years ago. But why it comes here in quiet England, where is no fiery mountain to disquiet the earth, I cannot say."

"Father, it is the end of the world!" said a thrall, forgetting our presence in his terror.

"Not so, my son. The thousand years of prophecy are not at an end yet; and there are more foretellings of Holy Writ yet to be fulfilled. It is just the old earth shaking herself after a sleep."

The man's face cleared, and he shrank back with a low bow, frightened at his own boldness. All seemed to have found their tongues again, and were telling how the matter had seemed to them without waiting to know whether they were listened to.

"No hurry," said Sighard; "the king cannot keep up that pace, and anywise will have to wait the pack-horse train somewhere. Let us see all well first."

Maybe we waited for half an hour after that, for the ladies were sorely frightened. We had the horses walked to and fro for a while, and presently they were themselves again. And there came no more trembling of the ground, while the clouds grew blacker, and a short, sharp thunderstorm swept over us. It was good to feel the cleared air again, and to smell the scent that rises after rain, and to hear the song of the birds break out around us.

Yet on every face was a fear that would not be put aside. Men thought that the earthquake boded ill for the journey of the king and what might come thereof.

So when the rain had passed we rode away after the king, followed by the pack horses, and before noon caught him up. He had heard then what had happened to set his steed beyond control, and his face was grave also. Even he could not help fearing that the earthquake, coming at that moment as it did, might be sent as a token which he must hear though the dreams of his mother went for naught.

"And yet," he said to Father Selred and myself as we rode beside him, "I am doing what I deem best for throne and realm, and I have no thought of guile or harm to any man. Nor can I see that I have to fear any from Offa, or that at his court can be danger to me."

"Journey and reason therefor are alike good so far as man can see or plan," said Selred the priest. "I would that every journey was undertaken as fully innocently. I cannot think that any tokens have been sent to warn you from it. Yet if there had been aught amiss in your plans, it is true that there have been tokens enough to scare any man from evil."

"Maybe it all means naught but danger on the journey. Well, we knew there was always that in any ride. For the rest, we are in the hands of Him who orders all and can see beyond our ken. We will go on till the tokens, if tokens they be, are plain in their meaning."

Father Selred approved, gravely. Then he muttered somewhat to himself, and laughed. It was Latin, but the king told me afterward what it meant. Some old Roman poet had made a song in which he said that a man who was just and straightforward in his purposes need not fear if the world fell, shattered in ruins, around him.

It was a good saying, and surely that was the way of Ethelbert of East Anglia. Maybe the one thing which did trouble him was his thought of the terror of his mother, and of her anxiety for him.

But it was a long while before the rest of us shook off the fear of what all this might betoken. Perhaps of all I had the most reason to think that ill was before the king, for Erling, though he said no more to me, was plainly full of bodings. And I have heard that other men dreamed dreams of terror and told them to one another. Only Ethelbert was always cheerful, singing as he rode and laughing with us, so that we ought to have been ashamed to be dull.

Save for what was in my mind, I cannot say that the miles went slowly. The days were bright and warm, and ever did I take more pleasure in the old home land. And always when Ethelbert had his counsellors round him I rode with Hilda and her father, and I think that I wished that journey might never end, after a while.

For I was going homeward to where mother and father waited me, in the first place. Then I had pleasant companions, and most of all this one of whom I have just spoken. I had a good horse under me, and a comrade in Erling who served me silently with that best of service that is given for love. I was high in honour with this wonderful young king, for the sake of Ecgbert first, I think, then of King Carl, and lastly because he did indeed seem to like my own company. I do not think that one could need more to add to pleasure.

I have seen the progresses of kings before this and since, and often it has been that after their passing there has been grumbling, and the hearty hope that the long and greedy train which ate men out of house and home, borrowed their best horses, and otherwise made a little famine in their wake, might never come that way again. But this Ethelbert left, as it were, a track of happiness across England, in hall and in village, in cot and in forest. He had ridden with so small a train that he might overburden none of those who had to entertain him on his way, and he stayed nowhere overlong. Everywhere he seemed to leave smiles and wishes that he would honour that house or that town again on his return, and not a man to whom he had spoken, if it were but a word of thanks, would ever forget how Ethelbert the Anglian looked on him with that kindly glance of his.