CHAPTER III.

JEST AND EARNEST.

'That means,' said Ralph de Guader thoughtfully, when Emma had left the room, '"Let me consult my ghostly counsellor." Who is the Lady Emma's director, Fitzosbern? Is not Father Theodred of Crowland thine almoner?--he who was the pet of our East Anglian Bishop Æthelmær, and who was recommended to thee by thine English-loving uncle of Exeter?'

'That is so,' assented Hereford; but added impatiently, 'I prithee truce to thy plans and plottings. I am no moonstruck lover, and cannot subsist on air, however well such unsubstantial fare may suit thy humour. Here we have ridden a good thirty miles, and talked a candle to the sconce, and I vow to thee, I had liefer satisfy my hunger than my ambition. What boots a fat earldom to a man if he is to die of starvation before he gets it?'

De Guader glanced rather contemptuously at his companion, but prepared to follow him.

'Let me have speech with thine almoner this night, nevertheless,' he said, 'in my chamber when I retire from the hall. It may make or mar our undertaking.'

'As thou wilt,' answered Roger carelessly; 'but thou canst scarce expect to find the good man in the best of humours if thou hast so little grace as to waken him up in the dead of night. I warrant me he has been snug under his coverlet this two hours.'

'I have that to say which will wake him,' said Ralph grimly. 'But of a truth the hours have sped. It would be better, perhaps, to pray the good father to give me audience with him in the morning, before he sees any other. Wilt thou have such message delivered?'

Earl Roger called a menial and gave the necessary order, and summoned his armourer, whom he bade to attend his guest, and then wait on himself; and they retired to their chambers to be unharnessed of their armour,--a process requiring aid of hammer and tongs,--and to indulge in the refreshment of the bath, a luxury the Normans loved as dearly as the Romans.

The hour was not far past nine, and, to our way of thinking, would not have been late; but the Norman fashion was to begin the day early, dinner being served at nine in the morning, and a second meal only being usual. When a third meal was desired, as on this occasion, it was informal, and consisted usually of cold meats, being called _liverie_.

Accordingly, when the two earls met again, clad in the flowing robes which replaced their military accoutrements, they had no companions at the table save a couple of fine bloodhounds, which were pets of the Earl of Hereford, and had invited themselves when they smelt the good cheer; the Countess of Hereford remaining in her bower, where her husband had visited her, and delighted her by his unexpected return.

The table was covered with fine linen; tall candles, in golden candlesticks handsomely wrought, gave light to the scene; and the dishes of gold and silver containing the meats were presented on the knee by pages, whose tunics were embroidered with the Hereford cognisance, gules, a bend azure and a fesse or.

Before commencing their meal, a silver basin containing scented water was offered to the earls in which to wash their hands. De Guader called for a napkin on which to dry the fingers he had daintily dipped into the scent, whereat the page opened wide eyes, though he obeyed the order, for the Norman fashion was to wave the hands in the air till they were dry, so that the scent might not be lost, and to wipe them on a cloth was considered Saxon and barbaric.

'I am cultivating English ways, thou seest,' observed the Earl of the East Angles. 'It is well to begin at once.' Whereat Hereford laughed.

The fare was dainty rather than bountiful. A cold venison pasty, and a young heron, larded, roasted, and eaten with ginger, forming the most important dishes; with simnel and wastel cakes, and sundry sweetmeats, and wines rejoicing in the strange names of pigment and moral.

The earls carved for themselves with their daggers, and used neither forks nor spoons.

Hereford, although he had declared himself in such a famished condition, showed no great prowess as a trencherman, but seemed more inclined to help himself from the wine-cup. He was obviously in an unsettled and irritable mood, while his companion inclined to the taciturn.

Suddenly Earl Roger exclaimed,--

'By the mass! this meal is not sprightly. Did I not see thy jester Grillonne amongst thy _meinie_? Send for the rogue and for my Marlette, and let the twain hold a tourney of wit. Though I wager thy knave will win.'

'If thy sleepy almoner might not be summoned from his slumber to hold converse on a weighty matter, methinks it is somewhat hard that my poor jester should be called upon to cudgel his wits!' said Ralph. 'But as thou wilt.'

'I'll waken the varlet up with a cup of moral,' answered Hereford; and a few moments later the two fools were introduced, in obedience to his order,--Marlette rubbing his eyes and yawning; Grillonne awake and eager-eyed.

Marlette was a poor imbecile, with a heavy face and clumsy figure, who caused laughter more by the incongruity of his short, puzzle-headed interjections, than by any real humour in his sayings. But the Earl of East Anglia's jester was a born buffoon, who would have made a comfortable living, if not a fortune, in the circus in these days. Little, alert, wiry, his lithe body seemed to be always in motion, and the bells on his peaked cap rarely ceased to jingle. He was nearly sixty, and his scant white hair, straggling from under his whimsical headgear, gave him an elfish look, enhanced by the wizened, wrinkled countenance beneath it, and his oblique, twinkling eyes. He was a Breton, who had come over in the train of Ralph the Staller's Breton bride in good King Eadward's days, and he had loved the gentle lady, who was always kind to him, and well pleased to hear him troll French ballads when she grew weary of hearing the strange Saxon tongue, and felt forlorn and homesick. And he had loved her handsome boy, who inherited her dark face and eagle nose, though not her bright dark eyes, and had followed him back to Brittany, when, for some reason the chroniclers do not report, he had suffered banishment and confiscation of his estates. And he had returned with him when he helped the Conqueror to win England. De Guader knew and valued his fidelity, and took him with him whithersoever he went.

'How now, fool Grillonne!' was the Earl of Hereford's greeting. 'I promised to pour out a full cup of moral to wake thee up withal, but it seems thou art by far too much awake already. I had best give two cups to Marlette here.'

'Nay, good uncle,' cried the jester, 'that would be but sorry sport! I do but walk in my sleep. Give me the wine, and thou wilt see me in my waking state.'

The earl signed to a page to pour out a cup of wine, and handed it to him. He drank it, not hastily, but sipping it, and smacking his lips with the air of a judge; and when he had drained the cup he turned it bottom upwards. He then performed a series of somersaults from one end of the long banqueting-hall to the other, and finished by springing upon the shoulders of Marlette, standing erect with one foot upon the table, and the other on his brother fool's neck.

'Ha! Good nuncles, I am like our lord King William astride of two kingdoms!' he cried, waving his bauble as if it were a sceptre, and aping an air of majesty, rendered most ridiculous by his effort to keep his balance on his unequal and, on one side, unsteady footing.

Marlette, astonished and quite at a nonplus, sought only to free himself from the weight on his shoulder, and with a yell dropped his half-empty goblet of wine, and dashed away, leaving the saucy Grillonne sprawling on his back on the table, while the pages sprang forward to rescue the dishes, and the bloodhounds snarled in fierce surprise.

'Help, help, good nuncles!' cried the jester. 'Mine island gives me the slip. Ah, well, I'll content myself with the continent! It hath good cheer upon it.' So saying, he began to help himself to the dainties in his reach.

The Earl of Hereford burst into a roar of laughter, but the jester's master, smiling grimly, bade him beware of unseemly subjects. 'Crowned heads are no fit themes for thy cracks, Sir Fool!' he said.

'Chide me not, my Earl of earls!' replied the jester, who saw that his lord was not seriously displeased. 'I meant no damage or irreverence. I have too great a respect for my hide, and would fain save it a tanning!' Wherewith he descended from the table with an air of the most sage gravity, calmly filling his pockets the while with simnels.

'Go to! Thou art an impudent knave!' cried De Guader; and Earl Roger, laughing more heartily than before, pulled out a penny (equal to about seventeen shillings and sixpence of our money) and tossed it to him.

'Thou art the prince of fools!' he exclaimed. 'Would I had thee in my following. Thou art of some worth to drive dull care away.'

In explanation of the fool's dangerous jest, we may relate how William of Normandy dealt with the Angevins when they dared to remind him that his mother was the daughter of a tanner, by ornamenting the walls of Alençon with hides, and shouting '_La Pel! à la Pel!_' in ridicule, when he came to besiege their town. They had formed a _tête-du-pont_ to cover the passage of the river, from which William dislodged them by filling up the moat with wood and firing it, so that the unfortunate Angevins were surrounded by flames, through which gleamed the swords of the mocking Normans, barring their passage to the river beyond. The half-roasted garrison fought with unavailing valour, but twenty surviving for a still worse fate from their relentless foe. William ordered their hands and feet to be cut off and their eyes to be put out, and despatched an Angevin soldier, who had previously been made prisoner, and who had witnessed the punishment, to tell the garrison how their comrades had fared, and to promise them a similar fate unless they surrendered before night. That they might not doubt the veracity of the messenger, he had the hands and feet which had been struck from the prisoners put into his mangonels, and shot them on to the walls, which so impressed the townsmen that they surrendered at once.

When the two earls had finished their repast, they retired to their sleeping chambers; but as Ralph de Guader reached his apartment, he was met by the Earl of Hereford's almoner.

'I am come, noble earl, in obedience to thy summons,' he said, 'understanding that thy wish was to have speech of me before any other; and I venture to intrude on thee to-night, because the Lady Emma has desired me to attend her at daybreak.'

'Ha! just as I expected,' said the earl to himself. 'I thank thee, reverend father,' he replied. 'It is courteous and kind, and my wish was to have speech with thee to-night, but that I feared to break in upon thy rest. Take me, I pray thee, to thy sanctum, where we may be together without audience.'

Theodred bowed his assent, and the earl, having dismissed his attendants, followed the almoner to his private apartment, a small but snug room in a recess in one of the towers of the castle. In the centre stood a small table bearing a silver crucifix, covered with parchments and materials for writing and illuminating, a page of an unfinished missal lying on the writing-desk, and showing what the occupant's last business had been.

Father Theodred offered to the earl the carved settle which stood before his writing-desk, and De Guader sank into it with a sigh, and for a time was silent. Theodred, meanwhile, acceding with rare delicacy to his guest's mood, turned to a corner of the room in which was fitted up a small shrine of the Virgin, and busied himself by trimming the little lamp of oil which burned before it perpetually.

He was a man of about fifty years of age, strongly built, and of the very fair complexion characteristic of the Anglo-Danes, the ring of hair upon his tonsured head being lighter in colour than the shaven crown, with a ruddy, healthy face, and kind, frank blue eyes.

'Thine occupation, father, reminds me that I am the guest of a holy man,' said the earl, as the almoner turned to him again. 'I prithee give me thy blessing.'

'Thou hast it, my son,' answered the priest, extending his hands and making the sign of the cross over Ralph's bent head, and murmuring a benediction.

'Thou sayest,' Ralph began, after a time, 'that the Lady Emma has expressed her desire to consult thee. The matter on which she desires thy guidance is one of some weight.'

Theodred seated himself on a wooden stool at a short distance from the earl.

'Doubtless the matter on which the noble Earl of East Anglia would consult me is one of importance also?' he said.

'The matter on which we twain seek thee, father, is one and the same,' said Ralph, with a smile, 'as thy shrewd wits have doubtless already opined.'

'I had some such notion,' answered the almoner gravely.

'Father Theodred,' said Ralph, grave in his turn, 'thou hast the reputation of an honourable man, and I am about to repose in thee a trust that will put the fortunes, and even the lives, of more than one noble personage, including myself, in thy hands.'

Theodred sprang up hastily.

'Stay thy tongue, noble earl!' said he; 'trust neither thy fortune nor thy life in my hands. Thou knowest my English sympathies, and how thou hast outraged them. How can I bear goodwill to the only English noble who fought beside the Norman on the fatal field where Harold Godwinsson--whom God assoilzie!--lost his precious life?'

The powerful De Guader, famed for his pride and haughtiness, and his impatience of all rebuke, even from his royal master, bore this bold speech from the Earl of Hereford's almoner with bent head and dejected mien.

'What if I repent?' he asked softly, his rich voice quavering as he spoke.

Theodred gazed at him with astonished and doubtful eyes, and came back to his stool and sat down again opposite to him.

The earl raised his head and looked the almoner in the face with a keen, appealing glance.

'What if it is to those very English sympathies that I appeal?' he asked.

Theodred, considerably affected, answered, 'Nay then, speak out.'

'And if thou canst not support me, what I say shall be as unspoken?'

'Even so.'

'Swear thou that on the bones of St. Guthlac!'

'The son of Ralph the Staller should know that an Englishman's word is as good as his oath.'

'I will trust thy good faith. A half confidence is but a fool's wisdom. The point on which the Lady Emma will ask thy guidance is as to whether she shall yet deign to be my wife.'

'Ah!' said Theodred, almost involuntarily, in a low tone; 'hast thou ventured so far? Against the king's veto?'

'By St. Eadward, yes!'

Theodred's face darkened. 'Take not the name of that holy saint, who was world-king and heaven-king also, to witness to thy sin! Thinkest thou I will aid thee in treachery to thy liege lord?'

'Sin or no sin, there are those high in the Church who will aid me. Dost thou esteem thyself holier than these?'

The earl leaned forward and whispered in Theodred's ear the names of several high dignitaries of the English Church, including several abbots and bishops.

Theodred betrayed great astonishment.

'What meanest thou?' he asked.

'I mean that there is more in this matter than is at present understanded of thee,' said De Guader. 'Perhaps some insight into my own standpoint would best help thee to the whole question.'

The almoner assumed an attitude of respectful attention.

'Thou dost me great honour, noble earl,' he said. 'Nevertheless I must protest that as a simple priest I had rather keep to matters more within my province.'

'These matters must be within thy province, since thy guidance will be asked by the noble demoiselle whose part in them is of such import,' urged De Guader; and the priest sighed deeply, for he had a great love for the gentle girl whose adviser he must needs be in this the chief step of her young life. He saw nothing but strife before her, and was sorely perplexed as to whether he should forward her happiness, or, still more, her spiritual welfare, by aiding or hindering the suit of the turbulent man who was thus seeking to win him to his side, and whom he scarcely knew whether to abhor for his part at Senlac, or to love as the son of Ralph the Staller. Certes De Guader's show of contrition had strangely moved him, and the bruised and bleeding patriotism which was his strongest passion waked into painful life at the sight.

'Thou knowest,' said Earl Ralph, 'how, when my noble father, Ralph the Staller, died, Earl Godwin, in his hate of the Normans, or any from across the straits, worked with the blessed King Eadward against my Breton mother and myself, her stripling son, or rather, I should say, so wearied him out with complaints against us, made by his daughter Eadgyth, the king's wife, that at last the good king gave ear to a trumped-up story of treasonable practices on our innocent parts, and took my father's lands from his widow and orphan, so that we had to go beyond the sea to my mother's estates in Bretagne.'

'I have heard a version of the matter,' said Theodred--'somewhat differing!' he added, under his breath.

'Canst thou wonder, then, that my love for Harold Godwinsson was not overflowing? the more so as he claimed for himself those dear lands of Norfolk and Suffolk, where my boyhood had been passed. Canst thou wonder that, when he broke his oath to William of Normandy, whom he had sworn not to hinder in his claims to the English throne,--sworn, as thou knowest, on the most sacred relics'--

Theodred groaned. 'Harold knew not that the relics were there till after he had sworn,' he murmured.

'An Englishman's word should be as good as his oath, thou hast said it,' rejoined the earl. 'Canst thou wonder, I ask, that I ranged myself under the banner of the leader whose accolade had given me knighthood to win back those lands of my father's?'

'How couldst thou? How couldst thou fight thy father's countrymen, even to win back thy father's lands?' cried the priest, with irrepressible emotion.

Ralph sprang up and paced about the room. 'Nay, I would give my right hand I had not done it,' he said; 'but,' he added bitterly, 'I am sufficiently punished! After all my valour and manifold services, the haughty Bastard deems me not good enough to become his kinsman, and insults me by forbidding me the hand of his kinswoman.'

His face was dark with scorn, and the peculiar gleam of green was in his eyes which gave so strange an expression to his anger, while the level brows met above them. Evidently wounded pride had more to do with his repentance than patriotic contrition.

But it was not convenient to admit so much even to himself. 'Blood is stronger than water, in good sooth,' he continued, 'and my father's blood rebels in my veins when I see the hungry Normans ousting staunch English families from their holdings, and revelling in the fat of the land. I had not thought of all that must follow the setting of William on the throne, for I dreamt not that Harold's following had been so strong, or that the tussle would be so bitter. And now that William is away, the curs snuffle and snarl and tear the quarry like hounds without a huntsman, while Hereford and I, through his silly jealousy, have our hands tied, and are powerless to keep order in the land. I tell thee it is galling beyond endurance to see the base churls, whom never a knight would have spoken to in Normandy but to give them an order, ruffling it with the best, and strutting as they had been born nobles, lording it over high-born English dames and damsels, whose fathers and husbands they have slain, and whose fortunes they are wasting in riot!'

'Galling beyond endurance!' repeated Theodred, springing up with a gesture of anguish. 'Christ grant me pardon for the hate that springeth in my heart for the doers of such wrong, for it bids fair to overflow the barriers of my control whenever I let my thoughts wander from the comfort of heavenly things to earthly miseries!'

De Guader's eyes gleamed with triumph as he saw his companion so deeply moved. Stopping in his tiger walk up and down the room, he laid his strong hand upon Theodred's arm.

'Then help me to redress the wrong and repair the mistake!' he said.

Theodred turned on him fiercely. 'Repair the mistake! Canst thou bring then the dead to life, or gather from the soil one drop of the noble blood that has been poured forth upon it like water, the dark stains of which still scare the traveller, and call to Heaven for vengeance?'

'Nay, St. Nicholas defend me!' answered the earl, 'I can do neither of these things. There is that which cannot be undone, and can only be atoned by bitter penance and humble contrition. But there is that which may be restored. Ruined men may have their own again. Prisoners can be set free. Doth not Archbishop Stigand still languish in durance? Is not thine own beloved bishop and Stigand's brother, Æthelmær, living in poverty and shame, since William's tyrannical deprivation of his see on false and scandalous charges?'

'Alas, yes!' admitted the priest.

Then the earl, bending towards him, and fixing his piercing eyes on the good-humoured and yielding eyes of Theodred, said in a low, clear voice, every syllable of every word thrilling the silent night,--

'An English king may yet fill the throne. Waltheof Siwardsson lives!'

Theodred covered his face with his hands, and staggered into his chair. After a while he murmured, 'And doth the holy Frithic, Abbot of St. Albans, favour this, and Thurstan, Abbot of Ely?'

'Ay; nor is Fitzosbern, Bishop of Exeter, opposed. He groans for the woes of the English people, whose ways he has always loved, and whose manners he has adopted; neither brooks he tamely this insult of William's to his nephew. When such favour me, wilt not thou?'

Theodred extended his palm without uncovering his face. 'I cannot answer thee thus at a moment's notice. The issues are too great.'

'Waltheof, Hereford, and I,' the earl continued, his face lighted with a lofty pride, and his gesture such as might have befitted the Conqueror himself, 'William absent. Who could withstand our combination?'

'I pray thee mercy! This matter needeth meditation and prayer. Leave me. Whether I help or hinder thee, be sure I will not betray thee. The Holy Virgin have both thee and me in her keeping!'

'Amen,' said the earl, and left the apartment. As he walked down the passage, stepping softly lest he should disturb those who had slumbered while he plotted, he heard the strokes of the flagellum with which Father Theodred was lacerating his shoulders.