CHAPTER XII.

THE MARRIAGE AND THE AMBUSCADE.

It was agreed on all sides that too much happiness had been lost already in their long separation, and that Alftrude and Hereward ought now to be married as quickly as possible; the great heiress whose lands were so coveted could be safe only under the protection of a warlike lord and devoted husband; and who was there in the land so brave and likely to be so devoted as the Lord of Brunn, who had known and loved her from his youth, and who had gotten her troth-plight? If the ladie remained single, and the fortune of war should prove for a season unfavourable, the Normans, by mixing fraud with force, might carry her off, as they carried off and forcibly wedded other English heiresses; but if she were once united to Hereward, even the Normans might hesitate ere they broke the sacred tie of the Church. Time was not needed for wooing, for there had been good and long wooing long ago; and but for the Normans would not Hereward and Alftrude long since have been husband and wife?[143] Thus reasoned all the kinsmen and kinswomen of the Ladie Alftrude; and yielding to their good advice, the Saxon heiress consented that her good old household priest should prepare the little church on the hill by the linden-grove, and that the wedding should take place on the morrow.

Hereward was urged by a pleasant spirit of revenge to be thus urgent; for Ivo Taille-Bois was coming on the morrow with his men-at-arms and with his brother Geoffroy, that unmannerly and unlucky wooer; and so the Lord of Brunn would fain bid them to his marriage feast, if so it might be. But Hereward kept this pleasant thought to himself, or explained it to none but Elfric and Girolamo of Salerno. The morning after that happy meeting in the linden-grove was a bright winter’s morning. The sun rarely shines so bright in the summer time in the fen country. The little church was ready, the good old English priest was robed and at the altar; the path leading from the manor-house to the church, in lack of flowers, was strewed with rushes, and the serfs of the Ladie Alftrude were ranged on either side of the path; the lady herself was attired[144] as became a bride (a Saxon bride in the good old time before our fashions were corrupted); her fair young kinswomen, who were to stand by her side at the altar, were dressed and ready, and all other persons and things were ready about two hours before noon. There was music and there were fresh shouts of joy in the hall and outside of the manor-house when Lord Hereward stepped forth with his blushing bride on his arm and headed the gay procession. But though gay, the attendance was not so great as it might have been, for a great many of the armed men were not there, and even the sword-bearer and the Salernitan were both absent. Maid Mildred thought it very strange and very wrong that Elfric should be away at such a happy juncture; but the truth is that Elfric and Girolamo, and many of the fighting men, had something else to do. The goodly procession soon reached the church porch, and then all entered that could find room without over-crowding their betters. But most of the armed men who had followed the procession either remained in the porch or stationed themselves on the hill side outside the church. It was noticed afterwards that these bold men often looked to their weapons, and that all the hinds and serfs that had been standing by the pathway had bills and bows, or long fen-poles loaded and spiked with iron. The household priest had scarcely said the Benedicite ere the alert Elfric came running up the hill and through the linden-grove and into the porch, and up to his lord’s side in the body of the church; and when Elfric had whispered a few words Hereward said, “Alftrude, let thy heart rejoice! I have caught as in a trap the villains that would have wronged thee! Saxons, all rejoice, and remain here, and move not until I return!” And so bowing to the priest, and praying his patience, the Lord of Brunn strode out of the church, leaving the fair ladie of Ey looking all astonishment and somewhat pale. Behind the church Elfric helped the lord to his armour and arms. While putting on his mail, Hereward said, “Are they well in? Art thou sure that thou hast caught this Ivo and his brother?”

“Well in!” said Elfric; “as many as we let come over the bridge are in up to their chins, and Ivo and his brother came on first!”

“It pleaseth me well,” quoth Hereward, as he ran down the hill followed by his sword-bearer; “it pleaseth me right well! I did not expect the two caitiffs quite so soon; but since they are come, I vow by every saint that ever spoke the Saxon tongue, that they shall be witnesses to my marriage, and after they shall be bidden to my wedding feast!”

“I wish them a good appetite,” said Elfric.

A scant mile beyond the church hill and the linden-grove there ran a narrow but very deep stream, which was crossed by an old wooden bridge. All persons coming from Stamford must pass this river; and Hereward had been properly advised of all Ivo’s intentions and of all his movements. Girolamo had been hard at work over-night upon the bridge, and by his good science the timbers of the bridge were so cut into pieces and put together again, that he could allow any given number of persons to cross, and then by a simple operation disjoint the bridge and pull it to pieces so that no more should pass. To contain the water within its bed some broad embankments of earth had been made in very old times near to the bridge; and under cover of these embankments nearly all the armed Saxons had been mustered by Lord Hereward at a very early hour in the morning, yet not until divers other traps and pitfalls had been prepared for the Normans. As the Lord of Brunn and the Ladie Alftrude were walking from the manor-house to the church, the good men lying in ambush by the river side discovered a great troop pressing along the half-inundated road towards the bridge. These Normans had not been able to get their horses across the fens, and therefore were they all coming on afoot, cursing the bogs and pools and making a loud outcry when they ought all to have been silent. Girolamo and Elfric, who were holding some coils of rope in their hands behind the embankment, presently heard Ivo Taille-Bois say to his brother, “Vive Notre Dame, the wooden bridge is standing! The fools have not had wit enough to see that it ought to be cut down! Set me down this Hereward for an ass! Come on Geoffroy, this detestable footmarch is all but over. Behind that hill and grove stands thy manor-house, and therein thy bride.”

“We shall soon see that,” said Elfric to himself, “and thou shalt soon see whose bride the Ladie Alftrude is.”

This while Girolamo was peeping at the head of the Norman column; and he kept peeping until Ivo Taille-Bois and his brother Geoffroy and some half-score men-at-arms came upon the bridge and fairly crossed it. And then, as the rest of the diabolical band were about to follow, Elfric gave a shrill whistle, and tugged at his rope, and other good Saxons pulled hard at other ropes, and in the twinkling of an eye the bridge fell to pieces, and Ivo and his brother and such as had followed them remained on this side of the bridge, and the rest of the Normans remained on the other side of the bridge. And then a score of horns sounded lustily along the ambuscaded line, and fourscore well-armed Saxons vaulted from their wet lair to the top of the embankments, and set up a shout, and sent such a flight of arrows across the river as put the Normans on the other side to a rapid flight along the causeway. Ivo and his brother and the rest that had crossed the bridge ran along the inner bank of the river followed by hearty laughter and a few sharp arrows from the Saxons; but they had not gone far when what seemed hard and dry ground broke in under their feet, and let them all drop into a quagmire or pool, one not quite so foul as some of those by Crowland Abbey, but still foul enough.[145] It was not until he saw them safely deposited in this place that Elfric went in search of his master; and as he went off for the church he enjoined the Saxons, in Lord Hereward’s name, to do the Normans no further hurt.

Now, as the Lord of Brunn strode down from the hill towards the river side, and as the Saxons on the embankment shouted, “Hereward for England!” Ivo Taille-Bois, all in his woeful plight, looked hard at the Saxon warrior, and as Hereward came nearer Ivo said, “Peste! brother Geoffroy, but this Hereward is the very man that shivered my shield with his battle-axe and unhorsed me at Hastings. An I had thought he had been so near I would not have come with thee on thy accursed wooing!”

“Brother Ivo,” said Geoffroy, “it is thou that hast brought me into this evil with thy mad talk about Saxon heiresses. But let us confess our sins, for our last moment is at hand. My feet are sinking deeper and deeper in the mud: I can scarcely keep my mouth above the surface of this feculent pool!”

When the Lord of Brunn came up to the edge of the pool with Elfric and Girolamo, and all his merry men who had been standing on the embankments, and who could no longer see the Normans who had fled from the opposite side of the river,[146] the Norman men-at-arms that were floundering in the pool with their leader set up a cry about misericorde and ransom; and even the great Taille-Bois himself called out lustily for quarter; while his brother, who was a shorter man, cried out that he would rather be killed by the sword than by drowning, and piteously implored the Saxons to drag out of that foul pool no less a knight than Geoffroy Taille-Bois.

“Verily,” said Elfric, who understood his French, “verily, Master Geoffroy, thou art in a pretty pickle to come a-wooing to the fairest and noblest maiden in all England.”

“That is he!” said the Lord of Brunn, who at first took more notice of Geoffroy, nay, much more notice than he took of Ivo; “and I believe that if he were in better case, and a Saxon, and no Norman, he would not be a very dangerous rival.”

“Hereward of Brunn,” said Ivo, whose teeth were chattering with cold, if not with fear; “Hereward the Saxon, an[147] thou be he, bid thy churls draw us from this pool, and I will settle with thee the terms of ransom. Thou canst not wish that we should be smothered here; and if thou art a soldier, thou wilt not put to the sword two knights of name, who have been most unfairly entrapped by a set of boors.”

“Ivo Taille-Bois the Norman, an[147] thou be he,” said Hereward, “I wish neither to drown nor to slay thee by the sword; at least not at this present; but I would fain humble thy pride and arrogance, and give thee some reason to remember thy foul attempt to seize and force the will of a noble maiden whom thou believedst to be defenceless!”

“As for being entrapped by boors,” said Girolamo of Salerno, “thou art mistaken, oh Taille-Bois! in that, for I, thine equal, laid the trap into which thou art fallen.”

“And foul designs deserve foul traps,” said Elfric.

“I know not what design thou layest to my charge,” said Ivo. “I am true liege man to King William, the lawful heir of King Edward, of happy memory: the heiress of these lands is in the king’s peace, and under the protection of the primate Lanfranc; and I, the Vicomte of Spalding, hearing that there were troubles in these parts, was coming only to place the lady in security.”

“Aye, such security as the wolf giveth to the lamb,” said Hereward. “But Ivo, add not more guilt and dishonour to thy soul by lying! The intent of thy coming, and the object for which thou hast brought thy brother with thee, are as well known to me as to thyself. Ye Normans be all too talkative to keep a secret, and if King Harold had Saxon traitors that betrayed him, so have ye men in your camps and in your stations that think it no sin to betray you Normans. Have a heed to it, Ivo! and bethink thyself in time that all Saxons be not so dull-witted as thou imaginest.”

Geoffroy Taille-Bois, greatly encouraged by the Lord of Brunn’s assurance that death was not intended either by drowning or by the sword, spoke out as boldly and as clearly as the chattering of his teeth would allow, and said, “Saxon, methinks that thou talkest at an unfair vantage, and that we might settle the matter of ransom the sooner if we were on dry land.”

“’Tis well thought,” replied Hereward, “for I have small time to lose in parley. This is my wedding day, Sir Geoffroy. My bride, the Ladie Alftrude, is in the church, and the priest is waiting for me with open book at the altar. My humour is that thou and thy brother shall be witnesses to our marriage ceremony. Come, my good Saxons, drag me this pond, and pull out those big Norman fish!”

A score of Saxons instantly threw strong fishing-nets and coils of rope across the pool. The men-at-arms, seeing that quarter was to be given, gladly caught hold of the ropes, and so were landed; but the mention of the marriage, and of Hereward’s humour to have them both present at it as witnesses, had so filled the minds of Ivo and his brother with trouble and shame, that they caught neither at the ropes nor at the nets, seeming to prefer tarrying where they were to going up to the church. The Lord of Brunn waxed impatient; and making a sign to Elfric, that nimble sportsman threw a noose over the surface of the pool, and threw it with so good an aim that he caught Geoffroy round the neck; and then giving his coil a good tug, which brought the head of the unlucky rival of his master under water, Elfric shouted, “Come out, thou false Norman, come out, and to the wedding, or be drowned or hanged—I care not which.”

Geoffroy, thus hardly entreated, waded and struggled to the brink as best he could, and was there pulled out all covered with mud, or with the green mantle of the pool. Ivo, apprehending a rope round his own neck, caught hold of one of the nets that the shouting and laughing Saxons kept throwing at him, and he too was dragged out of the water, all bemired or green, and almost breathless.

Such of the men-at-arms as had kept their weapons had laid them at the feet of Lord Hereward, in token of unconditional surrender. Geoffroy, the unlucky wooer, had no weapon to give up, having left his sword in the pool; but his brother Ivo had his broad blade at his side, and when called upon to surrender it, he made a wry face and said that a knight ought to surrender only to a knight, meaning hereby to taunt the Lord of Brunn with his not having been admitted into the high military confraternity.

“Ivo,” said Hereward, “I told Raoul, that dispossessed usurper and robber, and I now tell thee, that I shall soon be a knight, meaning that I shall be one according to usage and rites and ceremonies. True knighthood is in the heart and soul of man, and not in the ceremonies. Were I not already a truer knight than thou, I would hang thee and thy brother to these willow-trees, and butcher thy men here, even as too many of ye Normans have butchered defenceless Saxon prisoners after surrender. Give up thy sword, man, or it may not be in my power to save thee from the fury of my people! Give up thy sword, I say!”

Ivo began a long protest, which so incensed Elfric and Girolamo that they drew their own blades; but the Lord of Brunn bade them put up their weapons, and then said to the proud Norman knight, “Traitor and spoiler as thou art, talk no more of dark stratagem and treachery! A people, struggling for their own against numerous and organised armies, must avail themselves of the natural advantages which their soil and country, their rivers and meres, or mountains, may afford them. No stratagem is foul: the foulness is all in the invaders and robbers. Armies are not to be bound by the rules of thy chivalry. Until my forces be both increased and improved, I will risk no open battle, or adventure any number of my men in an encounter with the trained troops from Normandie, and from nearly all Europe besides, that have been making a constant occupation and trade of war for so long a season. This I frankly tell thee; but at the same time I tell thee to thy teeth, that if I and thou ever meet on a fair and open field, I will do thee battle hand to hand for that sword which thou must now surrender. Norman! I would fight thee for it now, but that the field is not fair here—but that these rough fen-men would hardly allow fair play between us—but that this is my wedding-day, and the priest and my bride are waiting. Man, I will brook no more delay—give me thy sword or die!”

Ivo Taille-Bois stretched out his unwilling arm, and holding the point of his sword in his own hand, he put the hilt of it into the hand of the English champion, who threw it among the heap of Norman swords that lay at his back. At this new mark of contempt, Ivo muttered, “Was ever knight treated in so unknightly a manner! Must I really be dragged to the church by these dirty clowns?”

To this my Lord Hereward replied, “Did ever knight engage in such unknightly deed! Yea, Ivo, and thou, Geoffroy, likewise, I tell ye ye must to the church; and if ye will not go but upon compulsion, these honest men and clean shall drag ye both thither.”

“Then,” said Geoffroy, speaking mildly, “permit us at least to wipe this mud from our hose, and this green slime from our coats.”

“It needs not,” said the Lord of Brunn, with a laugh; “thine hose are not so dirty as the motive which brought thee hither, and thine head is as green as thy coat. So close up, my men, and let us march.”

The Lord Hereward, however, did not prevent Ivo from rubbing himself down with the skirt of a coat appurtenant to one of his men-at-arms. As for Geoffroy, Elfric would not permit a Norman to approach him; and when he would have stopped by the hill-side to rub himself against a tree, as our fen swine use when they would clean themselves from the mud of the marshes, Elfric or some other zealous Saxon got between him and the tree and pushed him forward.

In this wise—the Normans groaning and distilling, and the Saxons laughing and shouting—the whole mixed party ascended the hill and came to the church. The Lord Hereward’s absence from the church had been but short—it had not lasted an hour in all—yet were the priest and the goodly company assembled growing very impatient, and the Ladie Alftrude very much alarmed, albeit she was a maiden of high courage, as befitted one who lived in troublous times, and she had been opportunely advised that the Lord Hereward had only gone to an easy triumph. But bright, though bashfully, beamed her blue eye when Hereward appeared in the porch. But who were these two forlorn Norman knights walking close behind him with their heads bent on their breasts and their eyes on the ground? Ha, ha! sweet Ladie Alftrude, thine own eye became more bashful, and thy blush a deeper red, when thou didst see and understand who those two knights were, and why they had been brought into the church! The dames and damsels of the company all stared in amaze; and the Saxon priest, still standing with open book, started and crossed himself as he looked at Ivo Taille-Bois and his brother Geoffroy.

“They be but two witnesses the more,” said bold Hereward. “We will tell thee at the feast how proper it is that they should be here; but now, good priest, go on with that which their arrival interrupted. Elfric, make space here near the altar for our two unbidden guests. Dames, come not too near them, for they be very cold strangers!”

The marriage ceremony then went on to its happy completion, Ivo Taille-Bois and his brother Geoffroy grinding their teeth and groaning inwardly all the while: and even thus was it made to come to pass that those who would have carried off the Ladie Alftrude were forced to be witnesses to her union with her old and true love. It was a tale for a menestrel; and a pretty tale Elfric made of it, at a later date, to sing to his four-stringed Saxon lyre.

“And now,” shouted the bountiful Lord of Brunn, as they all quitted the church, “now for the wassail-bowl and the feast in hall! Ivo Taille-Bois, and thou, Geoffroy, much as thou wouldst have wronged us, we bid thee to the feast—the Ladie Alftrude and I bid thee to our marriage feast!”

“Throw me rather into thy dungeon,” said Geoffroy.

“Enough of this farcing,” said Ivo. “Hereward the Saxon, name the terms of the ransom, and let us be gone from thy presence. Ladie Alftrude, remember that I am thy cousin by marriage.”

“Methinks,” replied Alftrude, “that thou oughtest to have remembered that same fact before coming with thy men-at-arms against me.”

But, after saying these words, the gentle and kind-hearted Saxon bride, stepping aside from the throng, spoke for a while in Lord Hereward’s ear; and after that the Lord of Brunn, who was radiant with joy as ever was knight that sat with King Arthur at the Round Table, turned to Ivo and Geoffroy, and said, “Unwilling guests mar a feast. Since ye will not come willingly, ye need not come at all. A Saxon manor-house hath no dungeon in it or near it, and at present I have no wish to keep ye in duresse. Saxon chiefs were ever generous on their happy days, and when shall I find a day so happy as this? I will ask no ransom, for thou, Sir Geoffroy, art but a pauper; and thou, oh Ivo, albeit thou callest thyself Vicomte of Spalding, thou wilt soon find thyself as moneyless and as landless as thy brother! I will ask for no vows or promises, for well I ween ye would break them all. I will only ask of thee, oh Ivo, that if we twain meet on some field of battle, thou wilt not turn from me! Thy half score men-at-arms we will send to the Camp of Refuge, that they may be exchanged for a like number of Saxon prisoners; but for thyself, and for thy brother, I say get ye gone, and tell your Normans in Stamford town, aye, and in London city, all that you have seen and heard this day, and all that they may expect if they come to make war in the fen country.”

“How can we get gone? The bridge is broken, and we cannot cross that cursed river,” said Ivo.

“Thy Saxon boors will murder us on the road,” said Geoffroy.

“Not on our lands; not within the bounds of Ladie Alftrude’s domains. Elfric, Girolamo, conduct these Norman knights across the river, and send a few good men to escort them to the edge of the fen country. Let not a drop of blood be spilt, nor so much as a hair of their head be injured. It were of ill omen that blood should be shed on this day. There will be a time for that hereafter. Come, make good speed, for the feast will be but dull until Elfric returns.”

“But wilt thou not give us back our swords, that we may defend ourselves with them in case of attack?” said Ivo.

“No, no,” quoth the Lord of Brunn; “we must keep the swords to show that ye have been here-about—that ye have been our surrendered prisoners. As for self-defence, ye had better not think of that until ye get back to Stamford town. Ye must trust to my escort, and to the respect and obedience paid to me by all this fen country. If our fenners were to fall upon ye, it is not your brace of swords that would be of any use.”

“Then I say again we shall be murthered on the road,” said Geoffroy.

“And I again say nay,” quoth the Lord of Brunn. “I tell ye again, that ye shall have safe escort to the edge of the fens, and that not a hair of your head shall be injured—provided only ye do not insult homely honest folk by calling them foul names, or by otherwise treating them discourteously, for if ye offend in that way the Saxon blood may boil up and cause my orders to be forgotten. So now go!—and if I cannot say Fare ye well for aye, I say May ye fare well as far as Stamford, and until we meet on a fair field, where thou and I, Sir Ivo, may prove which is the better man or the better knight.”

As the two Normans walked off the ground, they looked so crestfallen and woe-begone that the Ladie Alftrude quite pitied them, and chided her maid Mildred for so loudly laughing at them and pointing the finger of scorn at them. But others wanted this chiding as much as Mildred, seeing that every Saxon maid and every Saxon matron present were laughing and tittering at Geoffroy Taille-Bois’ unlucky wooing, and his damp and dismal case.

The marriage feast in the hall was sumptuous and most joyous. It was enlivened and lengthened by tricks of jugglery and legerdemain, by the recitation of tales, legends, and romances, and by lays sung to musical instruments, for although the notice given had been so short, many jugglers and menestrels had hurried to Ey from different parts of the fen country. In nearly all the rest of broad England the art of the Saxon menestrel was now held in scorn; and the menestrel himself was oppressed and persecuted, for his tales and songs all went to remind the Saxon people of their past history, of their heroes and native saints, and of their past independence. But this persecution had driven many towards the eastern coasts, and thus it was that the fen country and the Camp of Refuge as much abounded with Saxon menestrels as with dispossessed Saxon monks. Of those that flocked in troops to the manor-house at Ey, to sing at the marriage feast, it may be judged whether they did not exert their best skill on so solemn an occasion! Loudly and nobly did they sing Athelstane’s Song of Victory,[148] which related how Athelstane the King, the Lord of Earls, the rewarder of heroes, and his brother Edmund of the ancient race, triumphed over the foe at Brunanburg,[149] cleaving their shields and hewing their banners; how these royal brothers[150] were ever ready to take the field to defend the land and their homes and hearths against every invader and robber; how they had made the Northmen sail back in their nailed ships, on the roaring sea, over the deep water, after strewing the English shore with their dead, that were left behind to be devoured by the sallow kite, the swarth raven, the hoary vulture, the swift eagle, the greedy goshawk, and that grey beast the wolf of the weald. And as the menestrel sang, the drinking-horn, capacious as became the hospitality of that old Saxon house, was handed quickly round by page and waiting-man, who carried great vessels in their hands, and filled the dark horn right up to its silver rim with mead, or wine, or pigment, every time that they presented the horn to gentle or simple.