the cool of the eventide, hied me home, weening that somewhat ailed my
lady, and sought her in her own small chamber. I found her therein,
crouched low upon the floor, white as sheeted ghost, her eyes a-stare,
her mouth round-agape. Seeing me, she stumbled to her feet, and with
one great sob, flung her arms about my neck and held me as she would
never let me go.
"Winifred, sweet friend," then said mine alderliefest lady, "fail me
not now, thou that hast followed me through weal and woe! For now must
I to a deed before which my whole being quails. Know then--Earl
Beorn--he hath wooed me long to his own ends, and I withstood him,
minding me that my troth is to Christ our Lord, even though I be now
desecrate. But ever he spake of the King, and of how he, Beorn, had
lately besought him that Sweyn might come again into England, and be
made once more lord and earl, as beseemeth his father's son. And King
Edward, said he, seemed like to yield. And oh! I have but now plighted
me, that if Sweyn be inlawed by his means, I will go unto Beorn
whensoever he shall send for me.... O Winifred, thou wilt yet stand by
me? Thou wilt go with me--on that day...? To what end my soul's weal?
Is not Sweyn's life wrecked through me?"
Seeing how it was with her, I wrestled not with her resolve, but
soothed her crying, and swore to stand or fall by her. In the town of
Pevensey I had a friend, a trusty good-wife who had been whilom of Earl
Godwin's household, and loved Lord Sweyn as her own bairn. Indeed, I
had but now learned of her that Sweyn, with his Danish ships, hung even
then about the shores of Kent. And in his father's lordship of Bosham
were some, as I knew, that gave him food and shelter when he willed to
set foot on English ground. To one of these I sent, bidding him tell
Sweyn the outlaw that I had that for his ear alone which must be said,
and quickly. Three days later I found him, Earl Godwin's first-born,
within a filthy hovel, wherein must he ever stoop that his head hit not
against the thatch.
Straightway I fell on my knees before him, not knowing what I
uttered--only saying over and over:
"Lord Sweyn, Lord Sweyn, this must not be!"
And I told to him the guilty bargain made by my Lady Algive with Beorn
the Earl, for sake of him, Sweyn Godwinson.
Scarce was my meaning clear ere his fell wrath began to gather like a
thunder-storm.
"May he burn in hell-fire!" cried Sweyn. "May earth spue forth his
body, that he come never to no burial! May the ravens of Odin pick his
bones for ever, and each day may the flesh grow upon them anew! The
toad! The rat!--Aye, I too have trafficked with Beorn Estrithson of
late, and found him kindly and loving enough. Speak for me to the King!
Shall I be inlawed? I do think for a day: and then, if I but yawn at
mass, or smile at a pretty wench by the roadside, they will drive me
once more forth!"
Then growing calmer he said:
"Into thy keeping give I Algive. Watch well; and when Beorn would work
his wicked will, send me tidings, and I will be with them ere harm can
come to that lady."
Honeyed words spake Earl Beorn in King Edward's ear, and within the
week was Sweyn Godwinson inlawed, and of the King bidden come and
welcome.
On the self-same night my lady bade me wit that the hour of her dread
was nigh. Now the King's ships were out, ready to fight with Baldwin
the Flemish Earl, but in the end King Edward willed not to war with
Baldwin, so must the seamen to their own homes. It had so befallen that
the King had sent for Harold Godwinson to Sandwich, where he was then
dwelling. Earl Harold's seamen were of Devon, and would make Dartmouth
on the next day, and thus must Earl Beorn be over them in their ship of
war, in Harold's stead. At eventide would Earl Harold yield up his
command to Beorn his kinsman, in the haven of Pevensey; and at eventide
would Beorn have my Lady Algive come to him aboard this ship.
Then I sent a trusty one in haste with these tidings unto Sweyn.
As the sun was setting, my lady, hooded altogether, and leaning upon my
arm, went down to the water-side. In a shed, behind heaped-up timber,
crouched we hidden, and watched Earl Harold and his household men land
from the tall warship when the shades of night were fast drawing down,
and set out for the court of the King. Earl Beorn was left, and four of
his men, and they had all eaten and drunken well.
When all was once more still, we crept out, she and I, clomb the ladder
that yet hung adown the side, and so aboard the ship of Earl Beorn. In
the bows lay the four seamen, heavy with the ale they had drunken: they
seemed scarce to mark our going. Now Beorn awaited her astern, in a
tent-room strung upon poles and screened on all sides with thick
hangings, wherein he had feasted with Harold a little before. At the
door of this tent I left her, and ran with all my haste to the ship's
side. Beneath my cloak I had carried, so warily, a little lanthorn,
whose horn I had shrouded with a scrap of thin red silk. This I waved
thrice to and fro, for a token to Lord Sweyn without.
In the twinkling of an eye, he came on out of the darkness, ten of his
Danish followers in his wake: swiftly and soundlessly they leapt
aboard. They took hold on three of Beorn's men ere they could struggle
or cry, gagged them, and bound them fast. The fourth saw we not at all
at that time.
Swiftly sped Sweyn towards the Earl's tent, the great battle-axe of a
viking in his hand, and I beside him. Even fleeter was I, for I forged
ahead, and had torn aside the hangings even as he came up with me. Earl
Beorn stood within, flushed and lowering: at his feet knelt Algive, her
hood wrested away, and the fingers of his right hand clasped in the
short golden curls of her hair. Beside him, as though thrust from his
way, was a light trestle-board, yet strewn with bread, broken meats,
and drinking-horns: upon this board he leant unsteadily with his other
hand. Said he thickly, swaying a little:
"By the hammer of Thor, who dare----"
Then Sweyn glided within, and called full softly and sweetly: "Ho,
Beorn Estrithson! Here is Sweyn Godwinson!"
"Is it so?" said Beorn. "Is it so indeed? Sweyn the Outlaw! Sweyn the
Nithing!" His voice rose in a drunken laugh. "Godwin's son! Sweyn the
son of King Canute, and of Gytha the spotless princess."
It was the last hiss of that wicked worm. The Danish war-axe of Sweyn
whistled once through the air, and smote Earl Beorn right between the
brows, and he fell heavily along the deck, and by his blood was Algive
all foully bespattered as she lay.
And Sweyn sang loud and hoarse and high; hoarse and high and loud sang
he:
"Utters the axe: of Sweyn the sea-rover;
Lifeless he lies: the wiler of women!
Blood of betrayer: is it not a sight full seemly?
Haro! Haro!
Aie! Haro!
Lo! cries his lord: Weapon unworthy,
Lop I thy head leifer, than 'gainst brave and true men bear thee!
Hempen death rather his, that was sib-folk's slanderer.
'Cowards come not: To the halls of the Chosen!
Haro! Haro!..."
But of all that followed I nothing saw nor heard, for a great blow was
stricken me behind the head, and black darkness rushed down upon mine
eyes and ears.
The blood beat dully against my brow, and my head ached as it would
split in twain. I lay on a day-bed, pillowed with down.
On the ship? There had been a ship.... The fourth man! He must have
fallen upon me as I stood in the tent-door.
Nay, I was once again within four walls. There were voices of men and
women about me. I opened mine eyes. Near-by saw I some that I kenned
full well, though they kenned not me, for often had I gazed upon the
great ones of the land, since coming into Kent. On a settle over
against me sat proud Lady Gytha, Earl Godwin's wife: her grief had made
her stony; her eyes were heavy, and her lips a thin, tight streak. Earl
Tostig stood before the empty hearth, clanking ever at the golden chain
about his neck. At the feet of his mother, upon a stool, sat Harold,
holding on his knee the child Haco Sweynson.
"Stirs she yet?" said Lady Gytha.
"Nay, not yet," Tostig answered. I shut mine eyes, for his harsh tones
jarred and sickened me.
"Was it Algive?" she said, right mournfully. "Has this woman once again
brought my Sweyn to nought?"
"Lady mother," spake Earl Harold, "I was, as ye know, at Dartmouth
town, when, at dead of night, came one of my men to me. In a dark wynd,
he said, armed men set upon him and held him fast, and one, whose voice
seemed the voice of Sweyn, gave into his arms this child, son of Sweyn
Godwinson, and bade him take him thence unto me, or be slain where he
stood. 'And look thou beneath the shed of Oswald the shipman, by his
wharfside,' quoth he that might be Sweyn, 'and there wilt thou behold
more which beareth on this matter.' My man and his fellows sought the
sheds of Oswald, and lo! bound hand and foot, four seamen of Beorn's
ship, which Sweyn my brother sailed out of Pevensey, and the body of
Beorn Estrithson our kinsman, mangled fearfully, and eke yon poor soul,
whom the men of Beorn call the Lady Algive's woman."
Then I guessed that I was now in the house of Earl Godwin at
Dorchester.
"Slain by my son!" moaned Lady Gytha. "Beorn, who won for him the
King's forgiveness!"
"Fore God and His host of hallows!" cried Tostig bitterly. "Heavy is
now our shame! Such wantonness knows no end. Outcast of Holy Church was
Sweyn Godwinson--and now black murder done on him who had befriended
him. Shall the whole house of Godwin fall for the strayings of one?
Were I King----"
"Hold!" Harold thundered. "Never aught underhand did Sweyn, and that
thou well wittest, Tostig!"
At this I strove to sit upright on my bed, but could not, and fell
back.
"See, she swoons no more," said Lady Gytha, and was at my side,
bringing wine in a flask.
Then there broke in upon us Godwin the Earl, with fumbling step, his
eyes wild, his grey locks tangled and unkempt.
"Woe worth the day!" he cried aloud unto his lady. "Woe worth the hour
wherein he saw the light, this son of thine! Twice outlaw he, and
Nithing by the word of the armed Gemot! Foul blows where thanks were
owing--that was well done, O Sweyn! No child of mine art thou
henceforward. Harold, stand thou in his stead: thine are all the rights
of the first-born."
He sank upon a settle, shading his countenance with his hands. Lady
Gytha went to him, and her tears began fast to flow. Then came Tostig's
whisper, sudden and clear as the cracking of ice:
"What, Harold, so soon? I did think----"
But Harold chode not with him, for the boy Haco whimpered, and he fell
to soothing him in most kind wise.
Then, by God's favour, I rose from my bed, and knelt at the feet of the
Earl and his lady, and spake to them of the shameful saying of Beorn,
the which had goaded Sweyn Godwinson to smite him to death. In after
years, Lord Harold knew, but so softly spake I there that my tale was
heard of Godwin and Gytha only, and no word reached the ear of Tostig.
When I had ended, Lady Gytha arose, to pass from us all into an inner
room. And Earl Godwin arose too, and caught her arm as she went.
"Gytha--wife"--said he--"here is it at an end! I am old, I am old,
Gytha!"
It was sooth he spake, the once stout Earl. He was an old man from that
hour. But Gytha held her head high, and I knew that in her heart she
was glad for her son.
Good folk, ye say that ye would hear yet further of Earl Sweyn and of
the Lady Algive, who are now no more, and of how they came to their
ends. Men say that King Edward would once more have pardoned this lord,
Edith the Lady besought him so. But when Sweyn had put the body of Earl
Beorn on shore at Dartmouth, of his eight ships, six then left him, for
his men, both Danes and English, now beheld him stained with the blood
of a kinsman. And as he sailed towards the east, in the warship of
Beorn, with one of his own ships faithfully following, the men of
Hastings set forth from their haven, and hunted these craft until they
overtook and seized them. But Sweyn Godwinson they took not, nor Lady
Algive that was with him; and they twain hied them into Flanders, and
there abode all that winter. Thereafter Lord Sweyn went once more
a-sea-roving, seeking forgetfulness, as I have heard.
In the year One Thousand Fifty and One, when the townsfolk of Dover,
greatly wroth, did wreak the wrongs done to them by Eustace the French
Earl upon the said Earl and his men, Godwin withstood the King upon the
men of Dover's behalf, and was banished by King Edward beyond seas, he
and all his house. Then went they also unto Baldwin's land, and Sweyn
met them there, and abode with them, for he had long yearned for sight
of his kindred.
When Godwin was called back into England, they were for bringing Sweyn
with them, to be inlawed, and received back into the King's trust, But
Sweyn's pride was broken. He would come no more to the land of his
birth, who had so fouled the fair fame of Godwin's house. Harold should
stand in his stead: he would fare afar, pilgrim to the Holy Grave and
Calvary Hill, that haply he might find the forgiveness of heaven. When
the children of Godwin returned, they had in their keeping Algive my
dear lady. All this while had she been in the city of Bruges, in the
ward of Baldwin's daughter, Mahault, that is now Queen of the English,
wife to King William. They sent for me to her, and put us to dwell
together in the house of my kinsman at Pevensey, where we had woned
aforetime.
Now in two years from that time began my Lady Algive to wane and to
wither, as a green bush when the sap no more rises. She spake little,
and prayed long hours together. At last came the day, when she went
abroad no more, and often kept her bed. Then one morning early, she
called me to her side and thus quoth she:
"O Winifred, this month agone dreamed I a dream, one that is sooth and
no vanity. I dreamed that Sweyn, my lord and my love, stood before me,
the rime in his hair, his feet bruised and bleeding, and beckoned me.
So I know--ask me not how--that he is no longer on life, and that God
in his goodness sendeth death to me also. But lo! another marvel. Each
morn, as I awaken, I hear the ring of footsteps that come from a far
frozen land. Each morn, I say, are these footsteps louder and nigher;
but Sweyn comes not at all any more."
This was at the winter-tide. Early in the next summer, my good friend,
she who had been of the household of Gytha, sent to let me wit that an
holy priest and pilgrim was lately come from the East, bearing tidings
which my lady should hear. To our house-door came he, and I led him
within to my lady, where she lay. And this was his tale, told in few
words:
"Good wives, as I journeyed hither from the Holy City, I traversed the
land of Lycia, where they have a winter more bitter than any winter we
English know. And one evening came one to our fellowship, saying that
yonder, beneath the roof of an holy hermit, lay a man of the north,
they thought of the Island of the Angles, sick unto death. I followed
this Lycian, seeking my countryman, and found him, a mighty man
aforetime, I ween, but now so wasted with his wanderings that he seemed
to have no flesh, but only skin and bone. And when I would shrive and
housel him, thus he spake: 'Priest, know that I am Sweyn the Nithing,
first-born son of Earl Godwin, and whilom Earl in fair England, from
Hereford even unto Oxenford! Woe for the sins of unbridled youth! I
have profaned the Holy Church of Christ, and have wrought murder, even
upon my kinsman, when the red wrath boiled in my blood--aye, and the
guilt of mine own father's death is also upon me, most wretched! Since
these things done have I known no peace until this hour, wherein I
leave my life.'
"Soon after died he of the cold."
Now about an hour after this pilgrim had given over speaking, Algive
Aldred's daughter went forth from the bitterness of the world to the
unbounded mercy of God.
As for Haco Sweynson, he fell fighting by King Harold upon Senlac
field.
And I, Winifred, daughter of Ebba, yet live on, and pray in each hour
to Our Lord Christ and to Mary mild, His Mother, that the souls of
these twain, Sweyn and Algive, may be cleansed of every foul stain. For
though their sins were many and great, yet scorned they none, nor lied,
nor ever betrayed any but themselves, neither ground down the needy
when that might was theirs; and verily and indeed they loved much; and
I, who have sinned my share, God wot! do faithfully hope to meet them
both again ere long in the fair, shining meads of Paradise.
Edith's Well
"_Sicut spina rosam genuit Goduinus Edivam._"
So, Gundred my son's daughter, thou hast been to London town; and thou
hast seen this new Queen Edith, whom men in the French tongue call
Maulde; and she is the fairest lady who ever in all the world sat
beside king in high-seat; the most gracious, the meekest, the
freest-handed, the most ruthful! Edith, quoth the child? Long ago there
was an Edith.... Well, daughter, a queen once spoke to thy grandfather,
and he to her; and a mighty wonder marked their meeting, which will be
remembered while time shall last. Young folk love tales, and the old
are fain to the telling of tales. Sit down by my feet, and hear how
once upon a day Edith came to her Well yonder by the highway.
I have witnessed frost and snow, storm and lightning, pest and famine,
in my nigh-on-eighty years; I have known drought and burning also, but
never such drought as befell us in the year One Thousand Sixty and
Five. This was a great year in its beginnings: a marvellous year for
the apple-bloom; we had carried two crops of hay before July was out;
the wheat-ears were so heavy that they leant together as they grew,
like unto folk in a crowd that swoon, and even the barley would
scarcely bestir itself at the coming of a welcome wind. Oh, the heat of
that summer! We had three showers in all between April and the end of
August, and they but soft and slender. The earth cracked in places into
gaps full many a foot wide; the grass was no more green, but the colour
of the baked earth in which it had root: small weeds died, and the moss
withered on stock and stone; half a day was the life of a brier-rose.
Rabbits, hares, and some birds starved all about us; the field-mice
were a scourge to us at the first, but later even they and the
hedgehogs gave up the breath of life. The brooks dwindled and ceased to
flow but in a trickle: many an age-old spring sent forth water no more.
The morning dews were heavy, but soon gone; and the earth could drink
them in no farther than a hen may scratch. Though we dug dew-ponds, the
little moisture they gathered was not worth our toil. We cut the corn
in haste, for the wild fowl rifled it day and night. Many an one that
laboured did the sun strike dizzy. One man and one boy were slain by
the heat-stroke, and some tottered from the fields to work no more that
year. With those that remained, it was mug to mouth ten times in the
hour! My cider was gone within the first three days; and then my goodly
beer must follow! And in the second week in August they sent from
Ledbury to tell me that Edith the Lady, King Edward's wife, would pass
near by my dwelling as she went to visit her brother, Harold Godwinson
the Earl, at Hereford, and begged that I in charity would give her
refreshment upon her wayfaring.
As the Lady willed, so must I do, for our King's sake, and for the sake
of other some. In my boyhood I had been one year a henchman of Godwin
her father's; Gytha her mother had nursed me in some slight sickness; I
had ridden out with Sweyn to fight with Griffith the Welsh king. I had
not seen this Edith since she was a young maiden in her father's hall:
men had told of her as both merry and learned; but I had never been
near her, to speak one word. It was said that she led a gleeless life
with her pious old lord. She would not pass right before my door, I
deemed, on her way to the Hereford: I would take food and drink, and
meet her upon the road that runs through Ledbury to Gloucester, and
ride with her some deal of her journey, if she should wish for my
company. So I set out about the ninth hour of the morning, with four of
my men: my good wife, thy grandmother, I bade abide within doors, for
fear of the deadly heat. We bore with us a pie and wheaten bread--no
butter, for it would have melted. Little beer and no cider had I by
then; but we took two skins of ripe mead, fit for queen or king.
The sun was shining so strongly that we could almost hear the shooting
of his beams. The air was seen to throb. White dust lay thickly over
grass, bush and tree. There was a dreadful stillness; the only sound
that ourselves made not was the sickening hum of flies. We went slowly,
with bracken-leaves bound about our heads and twined within our horses'
browbands. When we had gone some two miles, there befell a great
mishap. The stopper flew from the mead-flask at the saddle-bow of
Anflete the reeve, and the mead gushed out. We had not time to catch
any of it ere it lay frothing in the dust. And then, as though the
devil strove to plague us, the other bottle, which mine own horse
carried, burst also, and left us likewise liquorless.
But we bore on, until we came to a spot a few yards off the Ledbury
highway, where the banks were steep and the bushes shady: indeed, all
about was the woodland of the vill of Stoke, belonging to this same
Edith the Lady, who had set a reeve therein to see to her rights and
her profits. Seemingly she would not stay to look upon her own land, so
fain was she for sight of Harold her brother. Near the joining of the
ways, then, we waited. Our throats were as dry as a smith's bellows. My
men had swallowed what little beer we had left before I could forbid
them. At once I made the blockheads seek for water, thinking of the
wants of those we had come to meet. Not one drop within a hundred yards
in every quarter, though God knows there are springs and streams enough
thereabouts in any common year! We stretched ourselves in what there
was of shade, and soon we beheld them coming, a goodly company of
ladies and armed men.
We went forward to greet them; the foremost of them got down from their
saddles; the Lady of the English came stately towards me, smiled, and
put her small hand in mine.
"Odda, right glad am I to meet with thee," she said. "Dost thou mind
thee how at Winchester I let my head-rail fall from a window into the
buckthorn-tree, and how thou didst climb in and get it again, and didst
send it me by my mother's woman?"
I remembered. Being but a henchman of the stable, I could not myself go
with it.
How gracious her smile! How mild her condescension! Great wonder was it
throughout the land, I knew, that she should be so lowly-sweet. The
Lady Edith was little like to Earl Godwin her father, the rugged, grim
old man! Although at this time about forty-four years old, as I think,
she was an exceedingly fair woman still. Her skin was white as
walrus-bone, and very little wrinkled; her hair long, thick, and
red-golden as ever it had been, for though she was now hooded and
staidly wimpled, I saw it uncovered later on that morning, and I could
find therein no grizzled strand. Her clothing? She was cloaked and
hooded, meseemeth, in fallow hue--and a little cross, finely-wrought in
silver, hung at her throat; but how can a man speak of women's
garments? I know that her mouth was soft and kindly, and quivered a
little sometimes when she was not speaking; and there were now black
shadows beneath her big grey eyes--maybe from the hardship of her
journeying.
"My lady," I answered, "I beg that ye will rest awhile, and eat of the
food that I have here. Alack! I have no drink to set before you! We
brought mead, but in the heat an hour agone it burst our bottles; and
there is no water near at hand--we have but lately sought it."
The lady raised her hands to her brows in most weary wise.
"Good Odda," she said, notwithstanding, "I thank thee much for thy
kindness in thus coming, and for all the pains that thou hast taken.
And since thy mead was lost on my behalf, I thank thee for it also. Let
us sit here awhile and eat, as thou sayest; we are sore anhungered,
that is sure. And later we will go find my reeve at Stoke over yonder.
He will doubtless have one drop of somewhat for us each to drink. We
also emptied our flasks an hour ago, silly souls that we were!"
She had with her her mass-priest, her women, her men-at-arms, her
thralls. We sat down upon the ground, and broke the pasty into
portions, and dealt out my fine wheaten bread.