He is happy
Who in himself possesses
Fame and wit while living;
For bad counsels
Have oft been received
From another’s breast.
Hávamál.
“Tata!” That was the pet name which Elfgiva had given to her Danish
attendant because it signified lively one. “Tata! I have looked
everywhere for you!” The pat of light feet, a swish of silken skirts,
and Dearwyn had thrown herself upon the bench under the oak tree, her
little dimpled face radiant. “What are you doing here in this corner
where you can see nothing? How! Are you not overcome with delight? Only
think that Elfgiva will be a queen and we shall all go to London!” As
the only adequate means of expression, she threw her arms around her
friend in a rapturous embrace.
Something in the touch of her soft body, the caress of her satin hands,
was indefinably comforting. Randalin’s arms closed about her and
pressed her close, while the little gentlewoman chided her gayly.
“What is the matter with you that you are so silent as to your tongue,
when you must needs be shouting in your heart? You are as bad as the
King, who stands looking from one to another and speaks not a word.
Does your coldness arise from dignity? Then let me lose all the state I
have and be held for a farmer’s lass, for I am going to stand up here
where I can see everything.” Disengaging herself gently, she climbed
upon the bench as she chattered. “The messenger had a leather bag
around his neck which I think likely contains Edmund’s crown and—Ah,
Tata, look l look! Thorkel is holding it up!”
As cries of savage rejoicing mingled with the uproar, Randalin found
herself dragged up, whether she would or no, until she stood beside her
companion, gazing over the heads of the shouting throng.
Yes, it was Edmund’s crown. Again, a picture of the English camp-fire
rose before her, and she shivered as she recognized the graceful
pearled points she had last seen upon the Ironside’s stately head. Now
Thorkel was setting them above the Danish circlet on Canute’s shining
locks, while the shouts merged into a roar of acclamation. Like blowing
flowers, the women bent before him, and the naked swords of his nobles
made a glittering arch above him.
“But why does he look so strange?” Randalin said suddenly.
And Dearwyn laid a finger on her lip. “Hush! At last he is going to
speak.”
For now it was plain that Canute’s attention was given neither to the
nobles nor to the fluttering women. He was bending toward the
messenger, holding him with his glance. “Tell more news, messenger,” he
was saying sternly. “Tell about the cause of my royal brother’s death.”
The messenger seemed to lose what little breath his ride on the
shoulders of the crowd had left him. “My errand extends no further,” he
panted. “It is likely that the Earl will send you more news—I am but
the first—” His breath gave out in an inarticulate gasp, and he began
to back away.
But the King moved after him. “Stop—” he commanded,—“or it may be that
I will cause you to remain quiet for the rest of time. You must know
what separated his life from his body. Tell it.”
Stammering with terror, the man fell upon his knees. “Dispenser of
treasures, how should I know? The babblings of the ignorant durst not
be repeated. Many say that the Ironside was worn sick with fighting.”
“You lie!” Canute roared down upon him. “You know they say that Edric
murdered him.”
At that, the poor fool seemed to cast to the winds his last shred of
sense. “They do say that the Earl poisoned him,” he blubbered. “But
none say that you bade him to do it. No one dares to say that.”
“How could they say that?” Randalin cried in amazement, while the King
drew back as though the grovelling figure at his feet were a dog that
had bitten him.
“I bid him do it?” he repeated. All at once his face was so terrible
that the man began to crawl backward, screaming, even before Canute’s
hand had reached his hilt.
Before the blade could be drawn, Rothgar had stepped in front of his
royal foster-brother with a savage sweep of his handless arm. “Do not
waste your point on the churl, King,” he said in his bull’s voice. “If
you want to play this game further, deal with me, for I also believe
that you bade the Gainer murder Edmund.”
As though paralyzed by his amazement, Canute’s arm dropped by his side.
“You also believe it?”
Little Dearwyn hid her face on the Danish girl’s breast. “Oh, Randalin,
would he do such a deed?” she gasped. “The while that he seemed so kind
and gentle with us! Would he do such horrid wickedness?”
“No!” Randalin cried passionately. “No!”
But even as she cried it, Thorkel the Tall dared to lean forward and
give the royal shoulder a rallying slap. “Amleth himself never played a
game better,” he said; “but is it worth while to continue at it when no
Englishmen are watching?” And his words seemed to open a door against
which the others were crowding.
“King Canute, I willingly admit myself the block-head you called me.”
Ulf Jarl hastened to declare in his good-natured roar. “When I saw you
take your point away from Edmund’s breast, that day, my heart got
afraid that you were obliged to do it to save yourself. Even after I
heard how you had made a bargain to inherit after each other, I never
suspected what kind of a plan was in your mind.”
And Eric of Norway smote his thigh with the half resentful laugh of a
man who has been told the answer to a riddle which he has given up. “I
will confess that your wit surpasses mine in matters of cunning. I did
suspect that you might think it unfeasible to kill him before the face
of his army, but I had no idea that it would be possible to get the
land from him both according to law and without further fighting or
loss of men. On a lucky day is the King born who has a mind like this!”
One after another, all the nobles echoed the sentiment; until even the
mob of soldiers found courage to voice their minds.
“His wit is made out of Sleipnir’s heels!” “Skroppa herself could not
be foreknowing about him!” “I am as glad now as I was disappointed when
I saw him take his blade off the Ironside—” “When I saw that, I thought
I would turn English—” “They will try now to turn Danish.” “You speak
well, for he will get great fame on account of his wisdom.” So they
filled the air with marvelling admiration.
Standing in silent listening, Canute’s gaze travelled from face to face
until it came to the spot where Elfgiva fluttered among her women,
holding her exquisite head as if it already wore a crown. An odd gleam
flickered over his eyes, and he made a step toward her. “You!” he said.
“What do you believe?”
Pealing her silvery laughter, she turned toward him, her eyes peeping
at him like bright birds from under the eaves of her hood. “Lord, I
believe that I am afraid of you!” she coquetted. “When I bethink me
that all the time I have been chiding you for being unambitious for
glory, you have had this in your mind! I shall never presume to compass
your moods again. Yes. Oh, yes! I shall see daggers in your smile and
poison in your lightest word.” Laughing, she stooped and kissed his
hand with the first semblance of respect which she had ever shown him.
In the Danish girl’s embrace, Dearwyn shivered and nestled closer.
“Randalin, you hear her? She thinks he did it.”
“She is a foolish woman,” Randalin said impatiently, “and if she do not
take care, she will feel it for speaking so. See how his fingers tap
his belt for all that his face is so still.”
His face was curiously still as he regarded the beautiful Elfgiva,—and
stilly curious, as though he were examining some familiar object in a
new light. “You believe then that I had him murdered?” he asked. “And
you find pleasure in believing it?”
“Now it is not murder!” she protested. “When a king kills—in war—”
“But this is not war,” he said slowly. Lifting one of the jewelled
braids from her shoulder, he played with it as he studied her. “This is
not war, for I had reconciled myself to him. I had plighted faith with
Edmund Ethelredsson and vowed to avenge his death like a brother.”
Her white forehead drew itself into a puzzled frown. “But you were not
so foolish as to swear it on the holy ring were you?” When he did not
answer, she raised her shoulders lightly. “What should I know about
such matters? Have you not told me, many times and oft, that it
behooves a woman to shun meddling with great affairs?”
He gave a short laugh, “And when were you ever before content to follow
that advice?” Letting the braid slip from his fingers, he stood looking
her up and down, his lips curling with scorn. “Yet this was not needful
to show me that the elves felt they had done their full day’s work when
they had made you a body,” he said. And whether he did not see her
bridling displeasure, or whether he saw and no longer cared to appease
it, the result was the same.
Randalin spoke abruptly to her companion. “Dearwyn, I can tell you
something. Elfgiva will never get the queenship over England.”
“What moves you to say that?” the little English girl asked her,
startled.
But Randalin’s attention had gone back to the King, who had turned
where the son of Lodbrok waited regarding him over sternly-folded arms.
“Brother,” he was saying gravely, “your opinion is powerful with me, so
I will openly tell you that you are wrong in your belief. I was
satisfied with the crown of an under-king, satisfied to pass the time
as I had been doing. Never have I so much as hinted to yonder
peace-nithing a word of harm against Edmund Ironside.”
From Thorkel the Tall came one of his rare laughs,—a sound like the
grating of a rusty hinge,—and Rothgar unfolded his arms to fling them
out in angry rejection.
“This is useful to learn!” he sneered. “Do you think I could not guess
that you had no need to put your desire into words after you had shown
Edric by your actions that your mind and his are one, after you had
admitted by your bond with him that you hold the same curious belief
about honor?”
This time it was Randalin who clutched the English girl. “Oh!” she
gasped.
For Canute’s eyes were less like eyes than holes through which light
was pouring, while his fingers opened and shut as though he had
forgotten his sword and would leap upon the scoffer with bare hands.
Thorkel left off laughing to grasp the Jotun’s arm and try to drag him
backwards.
“Do you want to drive it from his mind that he has loved you? Go hide
yourself in Fenrir’s mouth!”
But the King did not spring upon his foster-brother. Even as they
looked, the fire went out in his eyes, spark by spark, until they were
lustreless as ashes, and at last he put up his hand and wiped great
drops from his forehead. “Never had you the keenness to father that
judgment,” he said in a strangely dull voice. “It must be that a god
spoke through your mouth.” Leaving them, he moved forward to the well
and stood gazing into it, his fingers mechanically raking together and
crushing the dead leaves that had fluttered down upon the curbing.
Dearwyn’s pretty lips began to quiver with approaching tears.
“Randalin, I am miserably terrified. The air feels as though awful
things were about to happen.”
“It seems that the world has begun to fall to pieces everywhere,”
Randalin said wearily. The momentary forgetfulness which the happenings
around her had created was beginning to give way before the weight in
her breast. She drew herself up listlessly. “Is it of any use to remain
up here, Dearwyn?”
But Dearwyn’s grasp had tightened. “See! the King is beginning to
speak.”
Whom he was addressing was not quite clear even though he had turned
back to the group of nobles, for his eyes still gazed into space, but
his words sounded distinctly: “Heavy is it to lose faith in others, but
heavier still to lose faith in one’s self... I know that no word of
mine urged Edric to this deed, but what my eyes may have said, or some
trick of my voice or my face, is not so sure... It may be that I wanted
this thing to happen without knowing it. When I see what it has brought
me, I cannot understand how I could help wanting it... It is true that
I do not always know for certain what I have at heart.” His eyes came
back from space to rest musingly on Elfgiva. “When I began this
feasting-time, I thought I had grasped heaven with my hands, but now—”
he spread out his fingers and released the little bunch of dead leaves
that he had been rolling against his palm—“now I let not this go from
me more easily... You see that a man is not sure even of his own mind.”
Again his head was sinking on his breast, when he raised it with a
fierceness that startled them. “One thing only I am sure of, and that
is that I have done forever with craft. Hereafter, if a man is a
hindrance to me, Rothgar’s axe shall send him to Hel while it is broad
daylight and all his friends are looking. Such is my luck with craft as
though I had grasped a viper by the tail, in the belief that I had
seized its snout... I have been finely treated... Not only have I been
betrayed by all of you who have thought such thoughts of me, but now
some troll has got into me and turned me false to myself so that I
cannot give you punishment for your treason! Certainly the gods must
think this crown of great value since, before they give it to me, they
take from me all that I have thought my happiness, and rob me of my
honor as well!”
He dashed his fist against the tree beside him and did not seem to feel
it when his hand was bleeding. “Here I take oath that they shall cause
their gift to prove its value! It shall be meat and drink to me, and
honor and life itself. Many happenings shall spring from this gift, for
I will put my whole strength into the holding of it; Odin himself shall
not wrest it from me! I will be such a king that there will not be many
to equal me; such a king that they will wish they had given me
happiness and left me a man.”
Whirling, he flung out his bleeding hand toward Elfgiva, and his mouth
was distorted with its bitterness. “Hear that, you who were so mad to
have your lord the King of England that you could not spend a thought
on the love of Canute of Denmark! You have got your wish,—go back now
to your Northamptonshire castle and think whether or not you are
gladdened by it.”
“Go back!” Elfgiva fell from her height of injured dignity with a
piercing scream. “What is it you say, King? Now by the splendor of
heaven, you depart not for London without me! Be it known to you that I
am going to be your Queen.”
At first he looked at her in genuine astonishment; after that he
laughed, neither angrily nor bitterly, but with the quietness of utter
contempt. “I will have the London goldsmiths send you a crown if you
wish,” he said. “That is all you understand about being a queen.”
She tried to protest, to cajole, to threaten. She tried to do so many
things at once that she accomplished none of them. Her speech became
less and less intelligible until tears and hysterical laughter reduced
it to mere mouthings, while her tiny hands beat the air with fingers
bent hook-like.
But the young King did not look at her again. He had rejoined his
nobles and was leading them toward the door, giving rapid orders as he
walked. “Do you, Rothgar, see to it that the horses are saddled.
Kinsman Ulf, it is my will that you join us some while later, when you
have seen these women returned in safety. You, my chiefs, get you ready
to ride to Oxford as quick as is possible.” His voice was lost in the
trampling as they stepped from the turf upon the flagging of the
gallery.
When the echoing tread was gone at last from the cloister, the garden
seemed strangely silent in spite of the hurrying servants,—silent and
empty. In the stillness, it came slowly to Randalin that life was not
so simple as she had supposed; that she was not going to die of her
grief but to live with it,—live with this dead emptiness in her breast.
The years seemed to stretch before her like the snow wastes of the
North,—white, white, white, without a break of living green.