I seek to tell of a Danish hostage, called Valgard the Fair, that in his
youth was ceded to our great Alfred by the Danish king Guthrum when they
two made peace together in the year eight hundred and seventy-eight.
From Denmark young Valgard came to England in the following of Ogmund
Monks-bane, who was his elder brother and Guthrum’s first war chief; and
though no warrior of more accursed memory than this same Ogmund ever fed
the ravens, it was known that toward his young brother alone of all
living things he showed a human heart. Wherefore those on whom it lay to
choose the hostages were swift to name the comely boy as the one pledge
that might clinch the Monks-bane’s shifty faith. And that nothing might
be lacking, they further fixed it in the bond what would be the fate of
Valgard and the eleven other hostages if they that gave them should
break any part of their oath; and it was this—that the discipline of the
Holy Church should take hold of them, and after that they should die a
shameful death.
A snared and a savage man was Ogmund Monks-bane when they brought this
word to the tent of skins in which he laired; and it saddened him
besides that the boy Valgard strove to contend him, saying:
“It will be no hindrance to you, kinsman. Never will you so much as
think of me when the battle-lust comes on you. And I shall bear it
well.”
In our king’s will at London, therefore, young Valgard grew into man’s
estate and, contrary to his expectations, throve mightily, discovering a
rare aptitude for gentle accomplishments. And for that his heart was
noble as well as brave and he was as _débonaire_ as he was comely, the
king and the royal household came to love him exceeding well until—as
the years went by and the peace held—they scarcely remembered that he
might one day stand as a scapegoat for loathsomest crimes against them.
Only Valgard himself never for the span of one candle’s burning forgot
it. Like poison at the bottom of a honeyed cup it lay behind every honor
he achieved. Yet even as he had promised his brother, he bore it well
and gallantly enough—until, in the sixth year of his captivity, it
fortuned to him to fall in love.
She of whom he become enamoured was a young maid in the queen’s service,
whose rightful name was Adeleve but whom men called Little Nun both by
virtue of the celestial sweetness of her face and because of her being
but newly come from a cloister school. And in this cloister they had
taught her so much of heaven and so little of earth that whenso her
heart was taken by Valgard’s brave and _débonaire_ ways she knew neither
fear nor shame therein, but continued to demean herself with the lovely
straightforwardness of an angel or a child. Wherefore Valgard, who was
used to women that smiled at him from under heavy lids or drew full red
lips into rosebuds of enticement, might not dream that she felt more
than friendship. And since in her presence he was always silent and
humble as he had been before Our Blessed Lady herself, though elsewhere
light speeches sparkled on his lips as bubbles on the clear wine, he
wist not for a long time the true name of what he felt.
But one day at that season of the year when the king’s household rode
often to hunt the wild boar in the woody groves that compassed London
round, it happened to Valgard to become separated from the rest and
stray alone through still and shadowy glades. There in the solitude, as
was ever his unhappy case, his gayety fell away and his forebodings
climbed up behind and went with him heavily. Riding thus, it chanced to
him to approach the spot where the queen and her maidens tarried and so
to come upon the Little Nun herself, that also rode apart, following a
brook which sang as it went. Then at last was he made aware of his love,
for suddenly it was neither a dislike of death nor any rebellious wish
to flee therefrom that possessed him, but solely the dread of being
parted from her, which so racked him that he was in very agony.
Now as soon as ever Little Nun perceived that a great trouble was upon
him she spoke straight from her heart, though timidly as a child knowing
the narrowness of its power, and prayed him to say whether his distress
were aught which her love might assuage. When he heard her speak thus
sweetly and marked the angelic tenderness of her eyes under her little
dove-colored hood, lo! everything fell clean out of his mind before one
almighty longing. Descending from his horse, he took her hands and spoke
to her passionately, so:
“Tell me whether you love me. My heart cries out for you with every
beat. Must it be as the voice of one calling into emptiness? Tell me
that you return my love and my life will be whole though it end
to-night.”
The Little Nun’s face of cloistral paleness flushed deeply like an
alabaster vase into which is being poured the red wine of the sacrament,
but her crystalline eyes neither fell nor turned aside.
“I love you as much as you love me—and more,” she answered softly.
Whereupon he would have caught her in passionate arms, but that even as
he reached this pinnacle of bliss it came back to him how he was a
doomed man; and he was as one that is cast down from a height and
stunned by the fall.
Anon his voice returned, and sinking to his knee he begged her in broken
words to forgive the wrong he had done her in gaining her love, that
well knew himself to be set aside for shame and dole and apart from the
favor of woman.
To which the Little Nun listened as it might be one of God’s angels,
bending over the golden bar of Heaven, would listen to the wailing in
the Pit. And so soon as he paused she spoke with halting breath.
“Alas, could anything so cruel happen? Ah, no! The peace has held six
years—the king believes it firm—and every night and morning I will pray
to Our Lady to change your brother’s heart.”
As she said this, her face bloomed again with her hope. But Valgard only
bowed his head upon his hands and groaned; for that albeit he had faith
in the Virgin, he knew the nature of Ogmund Monks-bane.
Soon after, constraining himself to hardness for her sake, he rose and
drew her away and continued to speak with the dulness of one in great
pain, schooling her how she must put him from her heart and forget him.
But to that, when she had listened a while with widening eyes, the
Little Nun cried out piteously:
“Alas! what then shall I do with my love? It came into being before you
called it—it cannot cease at your bidding. Oh, if it be God’s will that
we shall have a long life together, then God’s will be done, but make
not a thwarted useless thing out of the love which He has permitted me!
Let me give it to you. Even though it be too poor to ease you much, yet
let me give it! How else shall I find comfort?”
Suddenly, as their eyes met, she stretched out her hands to him with a
little sobbing cry that was half piteous and half pitying. And so drew
him back, _malgre_ his will, until he had put his arms about her where
she sat in the saddle above him, when she gathered his head to her
breast and cherished it there, with little soft wordless sounds of
comforting.
Thus, for that he was so well-nigh spent with struggling, he leaned a
while upon her love. And it heartened him. And he lifted his head,
thinking to set burning lips to her sweet mouth.
But even as he thought to do this, something in himself or her checked
him, so that he kissed instead her small ministering hands. Wherefore
the Little Nun remained unstartled and blessedly trustful, and raising
her eyes to the blue heavens of which they seemed so much a part prayed
softly to Our Dear Lady to keep true the heart of Ogmund Monks-bane.
The fourth morning after this, the queen’s maiden Adeleve was wedded to
Valgard the Hostage. And that day at noon did our benignant king and his
housewifely queen make a marriage feast for the young pair that both of
them held dear. A marriage feast, well-a-way!
It happened to the sweet bride to come to it last and alone, for that
she had lingered above to pray once more to her on whom she fixed her
faith. Blissfully enough she began the descent of the stairs that cored
the massive wall; but ere she reached the foot, where a door gave upon
the king’s hall, dead was her joy. For this is what befell.
First, a quavering shriek as of an aged woman stabbed by evil tidings;
and after that a deathlike stillness. Then the door opened and a girl
staggered forth up the stairs, her hands groping before her as her
staring eyes had been sightless, the while she moaned over and over the
name of her soldier lover.
Though she knew not why, little Adeleve shrank from the groping hands
and crept by them down the stairs. Whither rose these words in a man’s
loud voice:
“—but last week came a load of Danish pirates to the shore, reeking of
slaughter and gorged with Irish spoil. And every night thereafter a band
of them sat at drink with the Monks-bane, stirring his fighting lust,
until——”
Here the voice was lost in the outburst of many voices, till it
overleapt them hoarsely to answer a question from the king.
“The twoscore English soldiers I named to your grace; besides all the
nuns of Saint Helena’s that lie stark in their blood——”
Then once again the tumult rose, which now there was no overleaping, and
the bride cowering against the wall saw how all heads turned toward him
who stood opposite the king in the mockery of gay feasting clothes. And
suddenly one called down Christ’s curse on the race of Ogmund
Monks-bane, and a second echoed the cry. Whereat the other Danish
hostages—to show that their hands were clean—took up the shout more
fierce than any, and smote Valgard so that he reeled under their fists.
And the aged woman whose son had been slain flung her cup of wine in his
face.
Thereafter the young wife saw only the figure of her doomed lord upon
whom it seemed that the curses descended as a visible blight, withering
to ghastliness his fresh beauty and blasting his spirit so that he
shrank farther and farther from the damning looks and tongues till he
might no longer in any wise endure them, but calling in agony upon his
God strove with his hands to stop his sight and his hearing. And when
presently he became aware of the Little Nun approaching, he cried out to
know whether she also was come to curse him, and bent his arms around
his head as against a blow.
But even as he did this, he met the anguished love in her eyes and saw
how she was laboring to make of her fragile self a buckler for him
against the press of crowding bodies; whereupon he caught hold of her
shoulder and held to her as a man sinking into Hell might hold to the
robe of an angel. Until brutal hands thrust her one way and dragged him
the other.
Now the sentence was that he should die at sunrise, unto which time the
Church should have him to chasten. And this sentence our king might not
alter, for that he was called the Truth-teller and had sworn to take the
atonement of life for any breach of the faith. But this much he granted,
out of the pity and love he had toward the young pair, that they might
be together when the end drew near. And stranger than betrothal or
marriage feast was this vigil of their wedding night!
Strange was all the world now to the Little Nun, since the arch of her
Heaven had fallen about her with the destruction of its keystone, which
was her faith in the Virgin. As the white dove of the Ark hovering over
a changed earth whereon it might see no familiar foothold, she hung
falteringly on the threshold of the king’s chapel, while the bells
tolled the midnight hour, gazing at the group of deathful men looming
amid blended smoke and starlight and torch-glare, at the pitiless
shining figure of Our Lady above the altar, at him who stood in grim
endurance before it, stripped to naked feet and a single garment of
horsehair.
When Valgard felt her eyes and turned his set face toward her, she
fluttered to him as the dove to the Ark. But no longer to brood or
minister; only to cling to him in utter helpless woe of her helpless
love. And when it happened to her hand to touch his horsehair shirt
where it was wet with the blood of his atonement, she screamed sharply
and was like to go wild with weeping over him and lamenting that she
might not bear any of his punishment on her own soft flesh. It was he
that kneeling on the stones gathered her to his breast and cherished
her, speaking to comfort her such words of resignation as no priest’s
scourge had drawn from him with his life-blood.
Lo! it was so that from the very helplessness of her love he drew his
best strength, that he no longer cared anything at all for his own woe
but only for lightening hers. When she cried out piteously that she must
always fear Christ’s Mother now her whole life long, and all the world
saving him alone, he spoke with tenderest artfulness, thus:
“For my sake then, heart beloved of my heart! Be brave for my
sake—because your tears are the only part of my doom that is heavier
than I can bear.”
Which was the one plea in all the world that had a meaning for her, so
that she tried obediently to choke down her sobs.
Yet which was the easier to bear, her courage or her tears, it were hard
to say. When the time of parting came and she had suffered him to loosen
her clinging hands and fold them upon her breast and leave her, a little
white and shaking figure at the Virgin’s feet, it seemed to Valgard
looking back that death was easier to him than life, and he pressed with
mad haste upon those who went before him to the door.
Now in this vill it was that the king’s chapel was hollowed out of the
wall of the king’s hall; wherefore the opening of the door permitted
Valgard and those surrounding him to look down into the great dim room
wherein our king kept sorrowful vigil with his knights, and to behold
also a man that stood before the high-seat with the mud and mire of the
road yet besmirching him. Upon whom Valgard’s glance fell amazedly for
that he knew him to be a Danish thrall and his brother’s trusted slave,
albeit the Monks-bane had used him so cruelly that some of his features
were lacking.
As the door opened, the thrall began speaking, thus, in the dull voice
of one who has neither wit nor will but only dogged faithfulness:
“This is the message of Ogmund Monks-bane, that because as soon as he
got into his senses again he disliked the thought that he should cause
the death of his brother whom he loved, he sends you this atonement.”
Saying which, he thrust his hand under his cloak and drew therefrom, by
the knotted yellow hair, a bloody head. And the ashen face on the head
was the face of Ogmund Monks-bane.
Through stillness, the thrall spoke again. “Do you accept this
atonement, king?”
To whom, after a little time has passed, our king answered in a strange
voice: “I accept this atonement.”
Then, his task being accomplished, the thrall loosed an awful discordant
sound of grief; and raising the head between his palms kissed it on
either cheek, crying:
“I slew you and I brought you hither because I have never dared go
against your will in anything, but even you cannot hinder me from
following you now!”
Wherewith he slew himself with the knife he had at his belt. And the
sound of his falling body broke the spell, so that the bars of silence
were let down and men’s voices rushed in like lowing cattle.
Excepting only in the little chapel in the wall. There Valgard stood as
a man in a dream, gazing on the dead face of his brother; while the
Little Nun, clasping him close, yet lifted awe-filled eyes to Our Lady
that thus in her own inscrutable way answered the prayer to keep alive
in the nature of an evil man its one good part.
Let us all give thanks that there is such a Lady, and pray that she may
harken to us in our need!
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