ETHELBERT OF KENT.
The day of the feast had dawned. Ethne had long left her bed, and
was now surrounded by her women at her toilet-table. She slipped the
bronze case from her mirror and looked at herself attentively. The
days of warfare and anxiety had left no impression upon her; the
white skin was as fair as ever, the lips as red, the hair as glossy
in its blue-blackness. Fresh from the bath, satin-like from delicate
unguents, never had the fair and beautiful skin appeared to greater
advantage--this she believed she owed to the elaborate system of
bathing Roman Britain had taught her to love, and which she could now
enjoy to the utmost; for she had put the baths of the villa into order
after much trouble. In her bathing she was a true Sybarite--luxuriating
in hot air and vapour, and in summer in sun-baths--spending much time
in passing, by almost imperceptible degrees, from cold to the utmost
degree of heat she was capable of enduring; after which she plunged
into new milk, or was anointed with costly and perfumed oil. She could
endure hardship and privation, but her love of luxury and wealth was a
passion with her. The toilet table at which she sat was scattered with
accessories of the most perfect kind. The silver unguent vases, filled
with Celtic spikenard, were in the form of the sacred lotus-flower; the
caskets and mirror-cases were ornamented with beautiful honeysuckle
pattern, and her own portrait was supported by cupids of priceless
workmanship.
Ethne’s magnificent toilette was almost completed--one woman was tying
some dusky British pearls about the throat, and another was staining
the fingers with henna when Gelert rushed into the room searching and
sniffing into every corner and behind every hanging; whining piteously
meanwhile. He pushed against the tiring-woman engaged on painting the
fingers, and the vase of henna was thrown on Ethne’s robe.
Ethne flew into a rage immediately; she rose and kicked the creature
so savagely that it became necessary to change her embroidered shoe as
well as repair the damaged robe.
“Ah, brute!” she cried. “Always at hand to annoy me--why did you not
follow your mistress?”
Contrary to his usual custom, the hound showed no ill-feeling to Ethne,
in spite of her treatment of him; and stretched himself on the ground
beside her, although she tried to beat him off. When she rose to leave
the room he still hung about her; when her women would have driven him
away he snarled and bit at them savagely.
He had been seeking for Elgiva and, unable to find her, was determined
to remain by Ethne’s side, where he hoped his mistress would, sooner or
later, return.
There was no time for delay; the candle-bearers stood waiting outside
the door--for Ethne, doing all things in royal state, had ordered
that a great candle, six feet in height, should precede her in the
procession.
She knew that all was in readiness. The hall of the feast was swept,
and garnished, and sprinkled with vervain-water; ivy wreaths to
ward off the effects of drinking were ready for each feaster. The
door opened, the great candle shed its rays on her, the procession
waited--she rose and followed.
She glanced exulting over the scene as she sank into her seat of
honour.
The leaders of the party, both Briton and Saxon, occupied an elevated
position; the dishes and plates from which they ate were of pure
gold; all fashioned, as Roman taste had demanded, from ancient and
beautiful Greek models. The stage on which they sat had once been an
upper chamber of the Roman villa, but its walls had suffered in the
Saxon destruction, and it now stood open to the halls and courts below.
From her position Ethne had a view of much of the great banquet she
had prepared. The half-ruined mansion had lent itself readily to her
purpose. In their ravages the heathen had thrown down so many of the
walls that the lower rooms and halls formed, with the outer courts, an
almost continuous apartment; in many places there was no roof at all,
but this proved an advantage in the eyes of the rude chieftains on
either side; in the open air they found greater space for the hounds
and body-slaves it was their pleasure should attend them. Clad in skins
of goat and sheep, hot with mead and gluttony, the warriors gave no
thought to autumn gust and passing raindrop; and cared not that wasp
and bee mingled with the viands before them.
Ethne’s eye travelled proudly over the scene before her. To her
feet the throng of feasters swept; and on through broken courts and
halls--branching off here and there to fill unseen side-aisles--and
on again to the great opening arch where their figures showed clear
against the distant dusk of the forest. A mighty feast even in those
days. Where it overflowed into the outer air it gained a fringe of
slaves, with here and there a favourite horse called by his master to
partake of Roman pulse or oaten cake; to the uproar would be added
the shrill neigh of some Hibernian racer, or the deep note of a Saxon
war-horse.
But in the midst of her triumph Ethne was moved to disgust. In days
gone by she had entertained her guests--polished Greeks and Romans--at
flower-strewn tables to the music of singing maidens; the air sweet
from perfumed fountains and the wine-flagons garlanded with roses.
Now her guests fought with their food as animals with their prey;
they scrambled together for the possession of tit-bits, and swallowed
great junks of flesh with the ease and rapidity of the hounds at their
feet; to the perpetual discord of dirk on platter there was a harsh,
pervading accompaniment of men munching their food as animals munch
their corn. Like animals, too, she thought they looked, clad wholly in
sheep and goat-skins--even their trews of hide; their yellow hair swart
from neglect, their fine skins chafed and roughened by sun and air;
with grass and hay bound round their feet. And to these savages she
must sue! Filthy, unwashed, barbarous--feasting in the ruins they had
made.
“A goodly sight, O King!” she said, turning to the Anglo-Saxon
in a seat of honour at her side. “These fine warriors are the
admiration of the Britons, even on our only meeting-ground, the
battle-field--therefore, a thousand times more at festival!”
“And yet I thought but just now, from your manner of looking at them,
and from your nostrils’ twitching that you would sooner my warriors
were at battle-distance than with you at cup and meat!”
Many of the Saxon thanes at the upper table had added a unique ornament
to their appearance--the waving length of a peacock’s feather. For
when the servers had entered bearing aloft these dainties with their
gorgeous tails outspread--a wild scramble had ensued that each might
obtain one of the feathers.
“Now, indeed, O King, you wrong me!” returned Ethne, in her sweetest
manner, “and for your words you must needs at once pledge me in this
loving-cup, and pledge me in the ale you love so well.”
From a beautiful slave she took a golden bowl that glittered with
emeralds, and drinking from it first, held it herself to the lips of
her companion.
But he took it coldly into his own hand, turning it with particular
care that he might drink from the very spot which her lips had pressed.
He returned it to the slave--spilling clumsily the remainder on Ethne’s
sweeping robes.
A sound between a chuckle and a grunt escaped him.
“I drink from the same spot with you,” he said, “but I give you no
fair words, but the truth, as my reason. You look at me so honey-sweet
and mouth your words so smoothly--and I have heard full many tales of
sweet words and poisoned cup!”
Ethne sighed audibly; she leaned towards him with seductive grace.
“Let us continue, then, as we have begun, O King Ethelbert! Give me the
truth only, or what you deem the truth--and leave me to find the sweet
words myself.” She smiled and her ugly tusks showed themselves.
He had seized upon a dish of rosy apples and was devouring them,
shredding the floor and her dress with pip and core. His eyes,
narrowed with the relish of the fruit, glanced sideways upon
her--half-contemptuously, half-suspiciously. He knew it was through
this woman, and not through her foster-brother, that the alliance
with the Kymry had been formed. To his stern Saxon mind it seemed a
meaningless prelude to the business in hand, thus to bandy what seemed
to him baby speeches. Ethne’s beauty also was not altogether to his
liking; her small and slender proportions, the blue-black of her hair,
and the ivory pallor of her skin were far removed from his ideal of
womanly beauty; and to him her delicate manner and bird-like appetite
were unnatural. He glanced from her to the scene below, at the Saxon
women--large, fair, and feasting bravely.
His Thor and Odin religion of terror supplied him with a host of
elves and sprites--pale, dark-haired, bright-eyed--and he could not
dissociate the thought of them from this small, dark woman at his side.
Instinctively, he said a charm to himself, and muttered incantations
between each mouthful.
As to Ethne, she was experiencing some disappointment in this meeting
between herself and the great Ethelbert of Kent.
She looked on him with more favour than he on her. He had not yet grown
coarse from overfeeding and drinking; and his figure had the majesty of
the gods, to whom he traced his origin. His long hair and golden beard
sparkled, almost as brightly as the massive crown upon his head. Much
of his dress was of a splendour Ethne had seldom seen surpassed; but
through the openings of his upper garments she could see that, under
rich robes embroidered and jewelled, he wore the close-fitting dress
of sheep-skin that was the garb of the meanest serf; the thongs, which
bound the sandals together, were pointed with jewels and gold, and gold
formed every fastening of his garments.