Now we were just about to ride off the ancient road into the woods
when we heard the muffled sounds of a party coming along the way.
For a moment I thought that we were pursued, but then I knew that
whoever came was bound in the direction of the palace. The causeway
was straight as an arrow, as these old Roman roads will be, but the
track men used on its crest was not so. Here and there a great tree
had grown from acorn or beech nut, and had set wayfarers aside
since it was a sapling, to root up which was no man's business. So
we could not see who came, there being a tree and bushes at a
swerve of the way. The horses heard, and pricked up their ears, and
told us in their way that more steeds were nearing us.
"Ho!" said Erling suddenly. "Mayhap it is just as well that these
good folk should see us in flight eastward. Spur past them, and
look not back, master."
I laughed, and let my horse have his head, and glad enough he was.
Round that bend of the track we went at a swinging gallop, and saw
a dozen foresters ahead of us, bearing home some deer, left in the
woodlands wounded, no doubt, after the great hunt, on ponies. They
reined aside in haste as they saw us coming, while their beasts
reared and plunged as the thundering hoofs of our horses minded
them of liberty; and through the party we went, leaving them
shouting abuse of us so long as they could see us. And so long as
that was possible we galloped as in dire haste, nor did we draw
rein for a good mile.
Then we leaped from the causeway, and went northward through the
woodlands, sure that the chase for us would hear from the foresters
whither we were heading, and would pass on for many a mile before
they found that no other party had seen us. Whereon they would
suppose that we had struck southward to pass Worcester by the other
road, even as we had said in the hearing of the thrall in the
house.
Then I thought that the chase for us was not likely to be kept up
long, for it would grow difficult; but Erling shook his head. He
had a deadly fear of Quendritha.
Now we rode for all the forenoon in a wide curve, northward and
then westward, across the land which the long border wars had
ravaged so that we saw no man save once or twice a swineherd. More
than once we passed burned farmsteads, over whose piled ruin the
creepers were thriving; and all the old tracks were overgrown, and
had never a wheel mark on them, save ancient ruts in which the
water stood, thick with the growth of duckweed, which told of long
disuse.
And at last we came to the valley of the little Lugg river which we
sought, and then were perhaps ten miles north of Sutton and its
palace stronghold. The day had grown dull, and now and then the
rain swept up from the southwest and passed in springtime showers,
just enough to make us draw our cloaks round us for the moment,
soft and sweet. In the river the trout leaped at the May flies that
floated, fat and helpless, into their ready mouths, and the
thrushes were singing everywhere above their nests.
Those were things that I was ever wont to take pleasure in, and the
more since I had been beyond the sea. But today I had little heart
to heed them, for the heaviness of all the trouble was on me.
Maybe, however, and that I do believe, I should have been more
gloomy still had I been one of those who have no care for the
things of the land they look on, lovely as they are. I dare say
Erling the viking took pleasure in them, if he would have preferred
the wild sea birds and the thunder of the shore breakers to all
this quiet inland softness. At all events, he had no mind that I
should brood on trouble overmuch, and strove to cheer me.
"Thane," he said presently, even as I began to quest hither and
thither by the riverside for the track of the cart, which indeed I
hardly thought would have come thus far, "it seems to me that food
before search will be the better, an you please."
"Why," said I, having altogether forgotten that matter, "twice men
have told me that when Quendritha is at a man's heels he had better
not wait for aught. Yet I blame myself for having forgotten. It is
not the way for a warrior to be heedless of the supplies."
"When the warrior is a seaman also he cannot forget," quoth Erling.
"Had you bided with Thorleif for another season, you had found that
out. I have not forgotten. Dismount, and we will see what is hidden
in the saddlebags."
We went into a sheltered nook among the water-side trees, and he
brought out bread and venison enough for two meals each, and I was
glad of the rest and food. He had helped himself at breakfast, he
said, being sure that sooner or later we should have to fly the
palace.
"Well, and if we had not had to fly?" I asked.
"Betimes I wax hungry in the night," he answered, smiling broadly.
"It would not have been wasted."
When that little meal was done I leaned myself against a tree
trunk, and said naught for a time. Nor did Erling. The horses
cropped the grass quietly at a little distance, and the sound of
the water was very soothing.
The next thing that I knew was that Erling was bidding me wake, and
I opened my eyes to see that the sun was not more than two hours
from setting, and that therefore I had had a great sleep, which
indeed I needed somewhat sorely after that last night. The sky had
cleared, but here and there the rain drifted from the sky over the
hills to the west. I sprang to my feet, somewhat angry.
"You should have waked me earlier," I said. "Now it grows late for
our quest."
"About time to begin it, master," the Dane said, "if we do not want
to run our heads into parties from the palace. Maybe they will be
out also on the same business. What we seek cannot be far from
thence."
Then we mounted and rode down stream, quickly at first, with a wary
eye for any comers, searching the banks for traces of wheels,
carelessly for a few miles, and afterward more closely. But we saw
nothing more than old marks. The track ended, and we climbed the
rising ground above the river, and sought it there, found it, and
went back to the water, for no cart had newly passed to it here.
And so we went until we were but a mile or two from the palace, and
then we were fain to go carefully.
In an hour I was due in the copse to meet Selred, and then men
would be gathered in the palace yards in readiness for supper, so
that we might have little trouble in being unseen there. Now, on
the other hand, men from the forest and fields might be making
their way palaceward for the same reason.
"I would that we could find some place where we might hide the
horses for a while," I said. "What is that yonder across the
river?"
There was some sort of building there, more than half hidden in
bushes and trees. Toward it a little cattle track crossed the
water, showing that there was a ford.
"The track passes the walls, and does not go thereto," said Erling.
"It may be worth while to see if there is a shelter there."
So across the ford we rode, with the trout flicking in and out
among the horses' hoofs. The building, whatever it was, stood a
hundred yards or more from the river on a little southern slope
which had been once terraced carefully. Over the walls, which were
ruinous, the weeds grew rankly, and among them a young tree had
found a rooting. The place had been undisturbed for long years; and
I thought that it seemed as if men shunned it as haunted, for of a
certainty not a foot had gone within half arrowshot of it this
spring.
We stood in the cattle track and looked at it, doubting, for no man
cares to pass where others have feared to step for reasons not
known.
"It is an uncanny place," said Erling; "which may be all the better
for us. At any rate, we will go and look into it. Stay, though; no
need to make a plain track to it hence."
The cattle tracks bent round and about it, and as we followed one
it seemed at last to lead straight into the ruin. So we went with
it, and found the entrance to the place. Last year the cattle had
used it for a shelter, but not this, and there were no signs that
any man had followed them into it. And then I knew what the place
was, and wondered at its desertion little, for it was a Roman
villa. Any Saxon knows that the old heathen gods those hard folk
worshipped still hang about the walls where their images used to
hold sway, not now in the fair shapes they feigned for them, but as
the devils we know them to have been, horned and hoofed and tailed.
Minding which a fear came on me that the marks we took for those
made by harmless kine were of those unearthly footsteps, and I
reined back.
"What is there to fear?" said Erling--"fiends? Well, they make no
footmarks like honest cattle, surely. Moreover, I suppose that a
good Christian man need not fear them; and Odin's man will not, so
long as the horses do not. The beasts would know if aught of that
sort was about."
Whereon I made the holy sign on my breast, and rode to the gap in
the white walls which had been the doorway, and looked in. I
suppose that some half-Roman Briton had made the house after the
pattern his lords had taught him, or else that it did indeed belong
to the Roman commander of that force which kept the border, with
the Sutton camp hard by for his men. If this was so, the Briton had
kept the place up till Offa came and burnt the roof over it, for
the black charcoal of the timbers lay on the floors. Only in one
place the pavement of little square stones set in iron-hard cement
still showed in bright patches of red and black and yellow
patterning, where a rabbit had scratched aside the gathered
rubbish. Across walls and floors the brambles trailed, and the
yellow wallflower crowned the ruins of the stonework everywhere.
One could see that there had been many rooms and a courtyard, bits
of wall still marking the plan of the place. And in this one corner
there was shelter enough in a stone-floored room whose walls were
more than a man's height. The cattle had used that for long.
"This is luck," said my comrade. "Here we can leave the horses, and
if one does happen past here before dark and spies a pied skin, he
will but deem that kine are sleeping here. After dark, who will
come this way at all?"
"We shall have to," said I, somewhat doubtfully.
Erling leaped from his horse and laughed. "We may hide here for a
week if we must," he said. "I think that the trolls have all gone
to the old lands where men yet believe in them; and seeing that we
are on a good errand, your fiends should not dare come near us. I
care not if I have to come back here alone to fetch the horses when
you will."
I dismounted also, for he shamed me, and I said so. Then we tied
the steeds carefully, loosening the girths, and managed to get a
sapling or two from the undergrowth set across the door to keep
wandering cattle out. More than that we could not do, but at least
the horses were safe till we needed them, and that would hardly be
long, as we hoped. They had well fed as I slept.
Then we went away from the ruin, passing behind it up the little
slope on which it stood, meaning, if we were seen, to come down as
if we had not been near the place. And from the top of that slope
we could see the walls of the palace, with the white horse banner
of Mercia floating over them. From the roof of his villa the Roman
captain could have seen his camp, and maybe that deadly passage
into its midst was for his use. It led this way.
We waded through the ford again, and wandered down stream once
more, looking as we went for the first sign of wheel marks. I was
on the banks above the water by twenty yards, and Erling was at
their foot, close to the stream, when we had the first hope of
finding what we sought. I spied a rough farm cart standing idle and
deserted fifty yards away from me and the river, in the brushwood,
half hidden by it, as if thrust hastily there out of sight; and the
very glimpse of the thing, with its rough-hewn wheels of rounded
tree-trunk slices, iron bound, made my heart beat fast and thick,
for I feared what I might see in it.
I called Erling, and as he ran to me I pointed, and together,
without a word, we went to the cart and looked into it. It was
empty, but on its rough floor were tokens, not to be mistaken,
which told us that it was indeed the cart which Gymbert and his men
had used. And so we knew that we could not be far from the place
where they had hidden the king's body.
Now, if there had been traces of that burden which would once have
led us to its hiding place, the rain had washed them away, and we
had naught to guide us. The turf held no footmarks of men, and it
was not plain how the cart had come to this place; for men had been
hauling timber and fagots hence, so that tracks were many, and some
new. All round us was wooded, and it seemed most likely that
somewhere among the bushes they had found a place; and so for half
an hour we went to and fro, but never a sign of upturned ground did
we see.
"They brought the cart far from the place," said I presently.
And at that moment from the palace courtyard the horns called men
to their supper, and I started to find how near we were to the
walls. We had wandered onward as we searched, and it is a wonder we
had seen no man. But perhaps it was because this place was mostly
deserted, being out of the way to anywhere, that Gymbert chose it.
The traffic of the palace went along the road to Fernlea and the
ford of the host there, away from here. The carting of the wood cut
during winter was over now, and it was too near the palace for the
deer to be sought in these woods.
"Selred will be waiting me, and all men else will be within the
walls," I said. "I must go to him. Will you bide here and search,
or risk coming with me, comrade?"
"I come with you, of course," Erling answered. "The search can
wait. There is moonlight enough for us to carry it on again this
night, if we will, between these showers."
It rained again as we went through the thickets. Under cover of the
driving squalls we might pass unseen to where the little copse we
sought came close to the river. And we cloaked ourselves against
the shower, pulling the hoods over our helms. None, if we were
seen, would take us for aught but belated men hurrying to the hall.
Unseen, so far as we could tell, we came to the edge of the little
copse and entered it. The whole breadth of it lay between us and
the palace; and under its trees was pretty dark, for the sun had
set. We turned into the path where I had walked with Hilda, and I
half hoped to see the priest there, but it was lonely. Down that
path we hurried and turned the corner, but an arrow shot from the
ramparts, and again I saw no one coming.
"We must bide and wait," I said. "He will come when the men are in
hall."
"I don't like it," Erling answered, speaking quietly. "You were to
meet him at the same time as before; yet he cannot have come. None
would wonder at a priest staying out after the supper call, but
maybe men might wonder at his leaving after it had sounded."
For a quarter of an hour we walked to and fro in the wood, down one
path and up another. Then we thought that we might be following the
priest round the wood as he looked for us, and we dared not call.
The watch on the ramparts was set already. Now the loneliness of
the wood had made us bold, and we thought we had best go one each
way, and so make sure that we should find Selred if he were here.
At that time we were at the far corner of the wood, which was
square, with a path all round it and one each way across. It was a
favourite walk of Offa's during summer, men told me.
Erling turned to the left and I to the right, and we walked fast
away from each other. It was getting very dim in these overarched
paths under the great trees, but not so dim that one could not see
fairly well if any figure came down the way. There was no wind to
speak of, and it was all very silent. One could hear the noises
from the palace plainly at times, and in one place the red light
from the hall shone from a high window through the trees. Just at
this time the clouds fled from off the face of the moon, and it was
light, with that strange brightness that comes of dying day and
brightening night mingled.
I came to the corner where my path turned, and before me there was
a figure, as it were of some one who had just turned into the wood
from toward the ramparts. The way by which Selred and I came here
last night was there. And it was surely the cassocked priest
himself, though I could not see his face. I hurried toward him with
a little word of low greeting which he could hardly have heard. My
foot caught a dry twig in the path, and it cracked loudly, and with
that the figure stopped suddenly and half turned away.
Then I said, "Stay, father; it is but I."
And with that came a little cry from the figure, and it turned and
came swiftly to me.
It was Hilda herself, and how she came here alone thus I could not
guess. She had on a long black cloak which was like enough to the
garb of the chaplain to deceive me at first in the dim light, so
that I made no movement to meet her. I think that frightened her
for the moment, for she stayed, as if she doubted whether I were
indeed he whose voice she thought she knew, until I spoke her name
and went toward her.
And then in a moment she had sought the safety of my arms, and was
weeping as if she would never stop; while I tried to stay her
fears, and bid her tell me what had befallen her. And it was many a
minute before I could do that.
As we stood so Erling came hastily, having heard the hushed voices.
More than that he had heard also, for his sword was drawn. He half
halted as he saw who was here, and pointed over his shoulder toward
the palace gate, and then held up his hand to bid me hearken.
I lifted my head and did so. There were footsteps in the stillness,
and a gruff word or two, and the steps came this way, and nearer,
fast.
"Hilda," I said, "are you likely to be pursued?"
For I could think of nothing but that she had managed to fly from
Quendritha, and that perhaps Selred had bidden her seek me here.
"I cannot tell," she said, and her voice was full of terror. "Take
me hence quickly--anywhere. That terrible queen told me that you
had fled, and so thrust me out to seek you--"
I did not wait to hear more, for the steps came on. Between us
Erling and I half carried the poor maiden back toward the place
where we had entered the wood, and we went swiftly enough. Yet we
could not help the noises that footsteps must needs make in the
dark of a cover, where one cannot see to pick the way.
Nor, of course, could those who came, as they tried to follow us.
We heard them plainly entering the wood as we came to the edge of
it and passed out toward the river bank.
"We must get back to the horses, and then ride to Fernlea and the
archbishop," I said, under my breath.
"Ay, if we can," Erling answered; "but that is more easily said
than done."
He pointed to the river and up it. The moonlight was flooding all
its valley, and the last of the day still lingered in the sky. If
these men came to the place where we stood, they could see us
before we had time to get to any cover.
As we came hither we had gone easily, under the shelter of the gray
rain, because no man was at this place to spy us. It was different
now. The men were in the wood at this time as we stood and doubted.
Next we heard them running to right and left, that they might be
sure to meet whoever it was they sought; and plainly that could be
none but Hilda, unless we had been seen. Yet we could hardly have
been suspected to be any but late comers homeward.
"There is but one thing," I said suddenly. "We must cross the
river. They will be here in a moment and looking into the open."
Hilda shrunk close to me in terror, and Erling looked at the
stream. It was coming down in full volume after the rain, for up in
its hills there had been much more than here. Across the stream
were bushes enough to hide us.
"You have your mail on, and there is the lady. But it is not far;
maybe we two could manage. We can't fight these men, or we shall
have the whole place out on us like a beehive."
So said Erling, looking doubtfully at the water. I asked Hilda if
she feared, and she shivered a little, but answered that aught was
better than to bide and be taken by Quendritha.
"I can trust you," she said quietly. "Do what you will."
"Faith," said Erling, "one must do somewhat to stay these men, or
else little chance shall we have of aught but a good fight here
against odds. I count six of them by the voices. Wait a moment and
we will try somewhat. Get you to the water, thane, ready."
I set my arm round Hilda and led her to the water's edge. Erling
went to the very verge of the wood and listened for a moment. The
men from either side were nearing each other, but as yet neither
party could see the other. Then, of a sudden, Erling lifted his
voice and called, as if hastily:
"Back, back! Get round the far end--quick!"
The footsteps stopped, and voices cried in answer. Each party
thought the other called to them. Erling gave a hunter's whoop, as
if he saw the quarry, and cried them back again. Then there were a
quick rush away on either side, and more shouts, and at that Erling
came to us, laughing.
"There will be a bit of a puzzlement at the other end of the
cover," he said. "Now, master, let me see what water there is."
He stepped into it, trying the depth with his spear as he went. For
ten paces it deepened gradually, and then more quickly. He passed
on, up to his waist, then to his elbows, and so to his neck. Then
he disappeared suddenly, and Hilda almost cried out. His head came
up again in a moment, and he swam for three strokes or so, and then
he was on his feet again.
Now he turned toward us, and felt about with his spear once more,
and so walked steadily back to us--not quite in the same line, but
with the water hardly more than to his shoulders.
"It is easy enough," he said. "I did but step into a hole, and so
lost my footing. Pass me the cloaks, for we will have them over
dry."
I took his from where he left it by me, and rolled up mine and
Hilda's in it. Silently, but with a little wan smile, she took a
scarf from her neck and gave it me to tie them with. Then Erling
took them on his spear and waded back till he could toss them to
the far bank, and so turned to my help.
By that time I had taken up Hilda as best I might, holding her
high, bidding her fear not, and clutch me as little as possible.
She said nothing, being very brave, but nearly choked me once when
the water struck cold as it reached her.
The rising flood water swirled and beat on me as I went deeper and
deeper, and glad enough I was when Erling came to my side upstream
and helped to steady me. Once we stopped and swayed against the
rush for a long moment, half helpless; but we won, and struggled
on. Then a back eddy took the pressure from us, and we went more
quickly and steadily, and so found the shallows, and at last the
bank.
Thankful enough I was, for it had nearly been a matter of swimming
at one time; and if that had happened, I hardly care to think how
we should have fared.
I set Hilda down and gasped. She was not light when we started, but
with each step from the deeps to the shallows she had grown heavier
with the dragging weight of wet skirts; and that had puzzled me in
a foolish way, so that I thought that the weeds were holding her
down. Now we three stood and dripped, and were fain to laugh at one
another; while the men we had escaped from were talking loudly at
the far end of the cover, where they had met.
"That will not last long," I said; "they will be back at the
water's edge in a minute."
Thereat we took to the bushes, which were thick here, in a little
patch. Beyond them was a clear space of turf a hundred yards wide,
which we must cross to reach more wooded land, where we might go as
we pleased back to the ruin where the horses waited. Hilda went
slowly, for the wet garments clogged her, and were heavy still.
We must bide here till the men went away, or till it grew darker;
for there was no need--though they would hardly follow us--to let
them know who was with their quarry, or that she was anywhere but
on their side of the water. We might find our way to Fernlea cut
off. We took Hilda into the thicket, and crept back to see what
happened, leaving the dry cloaks with her.
The loud voices had stopped suddenly, and we knew that it meant
that the men were coming back through the wood, beating it
cautiously. We lay flat under the nut bushes and alders, watching,
and the edge of the cover was not more than an arrow flight from
us.
Presently there was a rustle in it, and a man looked out, but we
could not see much of him. He spoke to another, and then came into
the open, peering up and down the moonlit river. Another joined
him, and this newcomer wore mail which glistened as he turned. A
third man came from the other side of the wood and saw these two,
and came to them, and there they stood and wondered.
"I could swear the girl went into the wood," said one; "I saw her
plainly."
"Then she must be there still," answered the second comer. "Get
back and look again."
"We have beaten the wood as if for a hare," said the third. "Unless
she has climbed a tree she is not there."
"Well, then, look in the trees," said the mailed man, and with that
he came down to the water, and turned his face toward us.
It was Gymbert himself.
"Mayhap she has drowned herself," said one of the men sullenly.
Gymbert growled somewhat, and turned sharply, going back to the
wood. The other men looked after him, and one chuckled.
"Best thing she could do," he said. "Gymbert would surely have sold
her to the Welsh."
"Maybe made her his own slave, which were worse."
"No, but he is out of favour just now. The money she would fetch
will be more to him maybe. He dare not let Offa see him."
They turned away slowly. At least it did not seem that these two
were much in earnest in the matter. As they went, one asked the
other who cried the chase back after all.
"Some fool on the other side who doesn't care to own to it now,
seeing that he must have fancied he saw her," was the answer.
Then they turned into the wood again and were gone. Still we
waited; and it was as well, for suddenly Gymbert came back, leaping
out into the open as if he thought to surprise the lost object of
his search. He glanced up and down, and then went back. I heard him
call his men together and rate them, and so they seemed to pass
back to the palace. Their voices rose and died away, and we were
safe.