Chapter 31

Moderately wise Should each one be, But never over-wise; For a wise man’s heart Is seldom glad If he is all-wise who owns it. Hávamál.

Out under the garden’s spreading fruit trees, the little gentlewomen of Elfgiva’s household were amusing themselves with the flock of peacocks that were the Abbey’s pets. In a shifting dazzling mass of color—blended blue and green and golden fire—all but one of the brilliant birds were pressing around Candida, who scattered largess from a quaint bronze vase, while the one whose vanity was greater even than its appetite was furnishing sport for Dearwyn as she strutted after him in merry mimicry, lifting her satin-shod feet mincingly and trailing her rosy robes far behind her on the grass. The old cellarer, to whose care the birds fell except during those hours when the brethren were free for such indulgences, watched the scene in grinning delight; and Leonorine laughed gaily at them over the armful of tiny bobbing lap-dogs, whose valiant charges she was engaged in restraining. The only person who seemed out of tune with the chiming mirth was the Lady Elfgiva herself. Among the blooming bushes she was moving listlessly and yet restlessly, and each rose she plucked was speedily pulled to pieces in her nervous fingers. A particularly furious outburst from the dogs, followed by peals of ringing laughter, brought her foot down in a stamp of utter exasperation.

“Will you not observe my feelings, if you have none of your own?” she demanded. “Leonorine, take those wretched dogs out of my hearing. Dearwyn, lay aside your nonsense and go ask Gurth if he has heard anything yet of Teboen.” She stamped again, angrily, as her eye went from one to another of the merry-makers. “I suppose it would gladden all of you to feel safe from her hand, but I will plainly tell you that if harm has happened to her, you will find a lair-bear pleasanter company than I shall be.”

The dull red that mottled her face and neck was a danger signal whose warning her attendants had learned to heed, and they scattered precipitately. Only the old cellarer, herding his gorgeous flock with waving arms, ventured to address her.

“Is it the British woman you are enquiring after, lady? The woman who comes to the lane-gate, of a morning, to get new milk for your drinking?”

Elfgiva turned quickly. “Yes,—Teboen my nurse. Have you seen her?” “I saw her between cockcrowing and dawn, noble one, when I let down the bars for the cattle to come in to the milking. The herd-boy who drives them said something to her,—it seemed to me that he named a Danish name and said that person was waiting in the wood to speak with her,—whereat she set down her pitcher and went up the lane. I have not seen her since.”

The lady’s little white hands beat the air like a frightened child’s. “Three candles have burned out since then; it is certain that evil has befallen her. Never since I was born has she left me for so long. I—” She paused to gaze eagerly toward a figure that at this moment appeared in the low arch of the door-way. “Tata! do you bring me news of her?”

Though she shook her head, Randalin’s manner was full of suppressed excitement as she advanced. “Not of her, lady, yet tidings, great tidings! The King has sent—”

“His Marshal again? I will not see him.”

“Nay, the Marshal but accompanies the messenger. In truth, lady, it is my belief that the token has accomplished its mission. The message is brought by Thorkel Jarl, as this has not been done before.”

“Earl Thorkel?” Elfgiva cried. “By the Saints, it can be nothing less than the token!” She dropped down upon the rustic seat that stood under the green canopy of the old apple tree and sat there a long time, staring at the grass, her cheeks paling and flushing by turns. Presently, she drew a deep breath of relief. “I was foolish to fret myself over Teboen. Since she is clever enough to bring this to pass, she is clever enough to take care of herself. Without doubt it was the Danish wizard, and he informed her of some new herb, and she has gone to fetch it.”

After a while, an enchanting smile touched her lips. “Surely, a rose garden is a fitting place to receive the ambassadors of a lover,” she said, and straightened herself on her rustic throne, sweeping her draperies into more graceful folds. “Bring them to me here, ladybird. Candida, fetch hither the lace veil from my bower, and call the other maids as you go, and all the pages you can find. Since Teboen is not by, I want all of you behind me. I cannot help it that the Tall One always gives me the feeling of a lamb before a wolf.”

Even had the likeness never occurred to her before, it would not have been strange if she had thought of it to-day as, followed by the Marshal and preceded by their fair usher, the old warrior came across the grass to the little court under the apple tree. The keenness of the hooded eyes that looked out at her from his grizzled locks, the gleam of the white teeth between his bearded lips as he greeted her, was unmistakably wolfish. She relapsed into a kind of lamb-like tremor as she invited them to be seated and commanded the attendance of her cup-bearer. When she caught sight of the misery of discomfort in Sebert’s frank face, she lost her voice entirely and waited in utter silence while they drank their wine.

Yet Thorkel’s manner was unwontedly genial when at last he broached his errand. “You lack the eagerness that is to be expected, lady,” he said as he gave his mouth a last polish with the delicate napkin. “How comes it that you have not guessed I bring you a message from the King?”

She answered doubtfully that the King had not behaved to her so that his messages were apt to be anticipated with much pleasure.

“But it has never occurred that I brought you this kind of news before,” he tempted her. “Will it not interest you to hear that at last the Palace is ready for a Queen?”

That startled her a little out of her wariness, crying the last two words after him with an eagerness of inflection that was as pathetic as though her heart were concerned.

His lips gave out a flash as he nodded. “A Queen. Canute is going to give the Angles a ‘gift of the elves.’”

For an instant, she was betrayed into believing him, and bent forward, her flushing face transfigured with delight. She was starting to speak when the Etheling rose abruptly from his seat.

“Lord Thorkel,” he said angrily, “this cat-play would bring you little thanks from your King, nor will I longer endure it. I pray you to explain without delay that the name of ‘Elfgiva’ is borne also by Emma of Normandy.”

Then the old man snarled as a wolf does whose bone has been seized. “Lord of Ivarsdale, you act in the thoughtless way of youth. I was bringing the matter gently—”

But the young man accomplished his purpose in spite of the elder. He did not address the King’s wife—indeed, he refrained even from looking at her—but he spoke swiftly to the dark-haired girl who stood beside the seat. “Randalin, I beg you to tell your lady that Elfgiva Emma, who is Ethelred’s widow and the Lady of Normandy, arrives at Dover to-morrow to be made Queen of the English.”

As all expected, the Lady of Northampton started up shrieking defiance, screaming that it should not be so, that the King was her husband and the soldiers would support her if the monks would not, that he was hers, hers,-and more to that effect, until the plunging words ran into each other and tears and laughter blotted out the last semblance of speech. That she would end by swooning or attacking them with her hands those who knew her best felt sure, and maids and pages crept out of her reach as hunters stand off from a wounded boar. But at the point where her voice gave out and she whirled to do one or perhaps both of these, her eyes fell on the house-door, and her expression changed from rage to amazement and from amazement to horror. Catching Randalin’s arm in fear, not anger, she began to gasp over and over the name of Teboen the nurse.

Those whose glance had not followed hers, thought her mad and shrank farther; but the eyes of those who saw what she did reflected her look. In the doorway the British woman was standing, wagging her head in time to a silly quavering song that she was singing with lips so distorted as to be almost unrecognizable. Her once florid face was ashen gray, and now as she quitted the door post and came toward them she reeled in her \walk, stumbling over stones and groping blindly with her huge bony hands. But still she kept on singing, with twisted lips that strove to simper, and once she tried to sway her ungainly body into an uncouth dancing-step that brought her floundering to her knees.

“A devil has possession of her,” Elfgiva shrieked. “Take her out of my sight, or I shall go mad! Take her away—take her away!” Shrieking in wildest terror she fled before her, and for a moment the garden seemed given over to a grotesque game of blind-man’s buff as women and boys scattered with renewed screaming at each approach of the ghastly face. It did not stop until the two soldiers who had been made keepers of the wretched creature came running out of the house and led her away.

Then it was Thorkel’s sardonic voice that brought the Lady of Northampton back to herself. “Now, is this how you take the sight of your own handiwork? Or is it because you regret that the King is not in this plight? One mouthful and no more has she had of the blood of the coiled snake.”

Stopping where she was, Elfgiva gazed at him, and with a dawning comprehension came back her interrupted fury. “The coiled snake,” she repeated slowly; and after that, in a rush of words, “Then it was you who enticed her away and mistreated her? But what does it concern _you_ that I sent a snake? Where saw you it? How knew you it had blood?” Without waiting for an answer, she turned upon the Marshal, her lids contracted into narrow slits behind which her eyes raged like prisoned animals. “It is you who are to blame for this! You who miscarried my message. You have betrayed me, and I tell you—” Hysterical tears broke her voice, but she pieced it together with her temper and went on telling him all the bitter things she could think of, while he stood before her in the grim silence of one who has long foreseen the disagreeable aspects of his undertaking and made up his mind to endurance.

When she stopped for breath, he said steadily, “I declare with truth that you cannot dislike what I have done much more than I, Lady of Northampton. I hope it will be an excuse with you, as it is a comfort to me, that instead of fetching you into trouble—”

Thorkel took the words from his lips, and no longer with sinister deliberation but with a ferocity that showed itself in the gathering swiftness of his speech. “Trouble—yes! By the Hammer of Thor, I think you deserve to have trouble! Had any of your witches’ brew done harm to the King, I can tell you that you would not have lived much longer. What! Are the plans of men to be upset by your baby face, and a king-dom lost because a little fool chooses to play with poison as a child with fire?”

“Poison?” she screamed. She had been facing him with whitening lips, and now the little breath that she had left went from her in a sharp cry. “Not poison; love-philtres! To win him back! Love-philtres,—can you not hear?”

“Love-philtres!” The old warrior’s voice made the words bite with contempt. “Did the mouthful she swallowed have that effect upon your woman? Or do you think you planted love in the breasts of the dead scullions? Had you seen their writhings I think you would have called it by another name.”

He was standing over her now, and she was cowering before him, her shaking hands rising as though to ward off his eyes. “I meant no harm,” she was wailing with stiff lips. “The scroll said not a word that it was hurtful. Do not kill me. I meant no—” The word ended in an inarticulate sound and she swayed backward.

It was Randalin who caught and eased her down upon the rustic chair, and Randalin who turned upon the Tall One. “Saw I never a meaner man!” she cried. “Certainly I think Loke was less wolf-minded than you. You know very well that if Teboen had thought it would become a cause of harm to her, she would have refused to swallow it. I will go to the King myself and tell him how despisable you are.” She stamped her foot at the united ministry of the Kingdom as she turned her back upon its representatives to speak reassuringly to her mistress.

Her lover did not blame her that her flashing eyes seemed to include him among the objects of their wrath. He said fiercely to the Jarl, “For God’s sake, tell her that no one suspects her of seeking his life, and give her his true message, or I will go and hang myself for loathing.”

“Tell her yourself!” the old Dane snapped. “It is seen that you are as rabbit-hearted as the boy who makes her such an offer. Were I in his place, I would have them all drowned for a litter of wauling kittens.” He looked very much indeed like a wolf in a sheepfold as he stamped to and fro, grinding his spurred heels into the patches of clover and growling in his beard.

The young soldier had been known to ride into battle with a happier face, but the sudden gritting of his teeth implied that he would do anything to get the matter over with; and having braved the outburst of hysterics that redoubled at his approach, he managed to slip a soothing word into the lull.

“Lady, the King sends you none but good greetings. It would make you feel better if you would listen to them.”

“Then he—he does not blame me for this?” Elfgiva quavered at last.

“He does not blame you,” the Marshal hastened to reassure her. “And in token thereof he sends you your heart’s desire.”

Plainly, the elves had endowed their “gift” with a wit to match her soul. Her beautiful eyes were simple as an injured child’s as she raised them to his, “can that be, lord, when Emma of Normandy is to get the crown of England? A woman ten years older than he, to put the best face on it! Who can expect me to bear with this insult?” Her scorn went so far toward reviving her that for the first time she drew herself away from the support of her women, and even made one of them a sign to rearrange the locks she had disturbed.

Lest it revive her beyond the point of docility, Sebert spoke the rest of his message in some haste. “It is true, noble one, that for state reasons the King has consented to this union with Emma of Normandy, who will bring him the friendship of Duke Richard besides causing pleasure to the English. But the crown of Denmark is also at his disposal, lady, and this he purposes to bestow upon your son Sven, for whom he has much love. And it is his will and pleasure that you accompany the boy across the sea and, together with the earls of his guardianship, hold the power for him until his hands shall be big enough to grasp it alone. For this he gives you the name of ‘queen’ and all the honor you shall desire.” He paused, more at the wonder of watching her face than because he had finished.

It was as though a rainbow had been set in her showery eyes. “He purposes this?” she murmured; and rose out of her seat in a kind of ecstasy,—then caught at its back, glooming with doubt. “I cannot believe it,—it is too beautiful. Swear that you are not mocking me.”

“I swear it,” he said gravely, but his lips curled a little as he watched her delight bring back her color, her smiles, her every fairy charm.

Throwing her arms about Dearwyn, who chanced to be nearest, she kissed her repeatedly. “Think, mouse,—a queen! a queen! It was not for naught that I dreamed an eagle flew over my head. Ah, how I shall cherish the dear little one who has brought me this!” With her pleasure overflowing as of old in rippling laughter, she turned to greet the King’s foster-father who came stalking toward her. “Now your ill humor no longer appears strange to me, noble wolf, than which no better proof could be had that I have come into good fortune! I pray you tell me when I am to leave, and who goes with me, and every word of the plan, for I could eat them like sweets.”

“Ulf Jarl will feed your ears later,” Thorkel said gruffly. “Your safety on the road is the charge of this battle-sapling.” He jerked his head toward the young Marshal. “You will leave for Northampton this afternoon, to get the boy—and to get rid of you before the Lady of Normandy arrives.”

The shaft fell pointless as she turned her sparkling face toward her women. “You hear that, my lambs? This afternoon,—not one more night in this prison! You cannot apply yourselves too soon to the packing, Candida, Leonorine. And I must see if Teboen’s wits have come back to her. If she should not be restored to them, that would be one bee in the honey. Randalin, learn what disposal is to be made of you, and that, quickly. Nobles, if I am not yet enough queen to dismiss you, still am I queen enough to depart without your leave. I desire you will thank your King as is becoming; and tell him that I am right glad he was not poisoned,—and I trust he will not wish he had been, after he has seen his ancient bride.” Chiming the sweet bells of her laughter, she glided away among her excited attendants, the silver mockery reaching them after she had vanished into the house.

Randalin awoke to a sense of bewilderment. “It is true that I do not know where to go, now that this place is upset.”

The question was repeated in her lover’s attitude; but Thorkel Jarl answered it, coming between them and drawing her aside.

“I will remedy that,” he said. “My men are to fetch you to the Palace so soon as ever your lady has left. The King has a use for you.” The rest he spoke into her ear, but its effect was to blanch her cheeks and cause her hands to clasp each other in terror as she started back.

“I cannot!” she cried. “I cannot.” “You must,” he said harshly. “Or you will do little credit to the blood that is in you. Do you no longer think your father and brother of any importance?”

“They are pitiless to demand it of me,” she murmured, and buried her face in her hands.

Anger leaped from the young noble’s eyes as, in his turn, he came between her and the Jarl. He said forcefully, “No one shall ask anything of you that you do not want, nor shall any king compel you. Yet I think I have a right to know what his will is with you.”

“You have not,” the Dane contradicted. “Do you think the King’s purposes are to be opened to the sight of every Angle who becomes his man? Nor have you ally right soever over her who is the King’s ward. End this talk, maiden, and give me your promise to be obedient.”

She gave it in a cry of despair, “I must—I know I must!” then sought to make peace with her lover by laying caressing hands on his breast. “And he is right, love, that I ought not to tell any one. It is another one of those things that you must trust.”

But for once the Etheling’s will did not bend to her coaxing; his mouth was doggedly set as he looked down upon her. “I trust no man I do not know,” he answered, “and I do not know Canute the man,—nor do I greatly like what I have heard of him, or this plan of sending me from the City at this time. You have no cause to reproach me with lack of faith in you, Randalin, for when every happening—even your own words—made it appear as if it were love for Rothgar Lodbroksson which brought you into the camp, I looked into your eyes and believed them against all else.” In the intensity of the living present he forgot the dead past—until he saw its ghosts troop like gray shadows across her face.

“Love for Rothgar Lodbroksson?” she repeated, drawing back. “Then you did believe that I could love Rothgar?” Her voice rose sharply. “You believed that I followed him!”

Too late he saw what he had done. “I said that I did not believe it,” he cried hastily. “What I thought at first in my bewilderment,—that could not be called belief.” Now it was the present that he had forgotten in the past, as he strove desperately to recapture the phantoms and thrust them back into their graves.

But she did not seem to hear his explanation as she stood there gazing at him, her mind leaping lightning-like from point to point. “It was that which made you behave so strangely in the garden,” she said, and she spoke each phrase with a kind of breathless finality. “You thought that I—I was like those—those other women in the camp.” As he tried to take her hand she drew farther away, and stood looking at him out of eyes that were like purple shadows in her white face. It was with a little movement of anger that she came to herself at last. “And what are you thinking of me now? Do you dare to dream that the King—” Turning, she confronted the old warrior fiercely. “Thorkel Jarl, I ask you to tell the Lord of Ivarsdale as quick as you can what the King wants with me.”

“That I will not do,” the Jarl said quickly. “You know no prudence, maiden. The Lord of Ivarsdale is also English; a mishap might occur if—”

She flung the words at him; “I care not if it lose Canute his crown! If you will not risk it, I will tell him that the King settles to-night with Edric of Mercia and his men, and that it is to witness the punishment of my kinsmen’s murderer that he has sent for me. As for my camp-life, ask Rothgar himself, or Elfgiva, or the King—or any soldier of the host! Of them all, you alone have thought such thoughts of me.” She flung up her hands against him in a kind of heart-broken rage. “You! To whose high-mindedness I trusted everything I have!” Hiding her face, she ran from them, sobbing, into the house.