Long is and indirect the way
To a bad friend’s,
Though by the road he dwell.
Hávamál.
The fact that King Edgar had slept under its uneven on some visit to
Dunstan’s monkish colony, was scarcely sufficient to make a palace of
the rambling rookery which a wall separated from the West Minster. It
was an irregular one-storied building,—or, rather, group of buildings
connected by covered passages,—and every kind of material had been used
in its construction,—brick and stone and wood,—while some of the
smaller offices were even straw-thatched and wattled.
“It is the waste-place of ruins,” Elfgiva said on the day of their
arrival, when the monk who guided them proudly identified the brick
portions as fragments of the old Roman Temple to Apollo, the wooden
door-posts as beams from the Saxon Seberht’s refectory, and the stone
walls as contributions from Dunstan’s chapel, which the Danes of the
year one thousand and twelve had reduced to a crumbling pile.
To-day, a fortnight later, Randalin repeated the comment with a
despondent addition: “It is the waste-place of ruins, and ruins have
come to dwell in it. I can believe that it is no lie about the Fates to
call them women, when they put like with like in so housewifely a
manner.”
She was alone in one of the bare mouldering rooms, leaning against the
deep-set small-paned window which had become her accustomed post. It
offered no pleasanter outlook than the snow-powdered thicket beyond the
wall and a glimpse of the Thames, spreading silently over the
surrounding marshes; but from it her fancy’s eye could follow the
mighty stream around its eastern bend to the point where the City walls
began, and Saint Paul’s shingled steeple reared itself in lofty pride.
The Palace stood in the shade of that steeple,—the real Palace, where
the King sat deciding over the fate of his new subjects, taking their
lands from them, when he did not take their lives, and banishing them
across the sea to live and die in beggary. Her fingers tapped the glass
in desperation as she realized her helplessness even to get news of his
judgments.
“The King will never come to this rubbish heap,” she told herself
despairingly. “Here we are buried no less than if we lay in a mound. It
is not likely that we shall get news by an easier way than by going to
him.”
Straining her eyes out over the mist-robed river, she tried for the
thousandth time to think of some bait alluring enough to tempt Elfgiva
to that point of daring. Hope the Lady of Northampton had every morning
when she awoke and looked in her mirror, and Wrath lay down with her
every night, but the rashness which had prompted her first attempt,
Thorkel must have taken away with him, a trophy tied to his saddle-bow.
She made big plans and she talked big words,—but always she put off
their fulfilment until the morrow.
“At this gait, he could be dead and in his grave without my knowing
it!” Randalin cried in despair, and her voice made it quite clear that
“he” no longer meant the King. Since there was no one to see it, she
even allowed her head to fall forward on her arms, and let the ache in
her throat ease itself in a little sob. “Now it is open to me that I
was foolish to let what happened in the garden, that day, cause so much
sadness in my heart,” she sighed. “It should have been a great joy to
me that he was still safe and happy... and I should have found some
hope in it, also, for as long as he is in England there would always be
the chance that I might see him again... And perhaps, after a long
while, when he had quite forgotten how I looked as Fridtjof... if I
should be able to learn many graceful woman’s ways from Elfgiva... and
if he should come upon me when I had on a very beautiful kirtle... so
long as he likes my hair...”
But even as the smile budded on her lips, she plucked it from them,
trembling. “How dare I think of such things, when already they may have
driven him across the sea! It would be quite enough if I could know
that the same land is to hold us both, if I could have the hope of
seeing him again to make it seem worth while for me to go on living.
Oh, I did not dream how much I leaned on that, until it was taken from
me!” In the utter loneliness of her despair, she crushed her face
against her arm, pressing back the burning tears, and her heart rose in
a prayer to the Englishman’s God, since her own no longer answered her:
“Oh, Thou God, if Thou art kind and helpful as he says, it is easy for
Thee to let him remain here where I can sometimes see him! Leave me
this one hope, and I also will believe in Thee.” With her face hidden,
she stood there praying it until it rang so strong through her soul
that it seemed to her the Power could not but hear. And after He had
heard, it would be so simple,—if He was as helpful as Sebert said.
There was new resolution in her movements when at last she left the
window and went toward Elfgiva’s bower. “I will try once more to entice
her to the Palace, so that I can get tidings,” she determined. “Perhaps
it will be easier if at first I suggest no more than a ride, and after
that allure her by degrees. I wonder what kind of humor she is in.”
It was not necessary to go far to obtain a hint as to that. Even as she
entered the passage, she heard from the bower-chamber the crash of a
chair overturned, the scramble of scurrying feet, and then screams and
the thud of blows.
“Now it is heard that she is not sulking among her cushions,” Randalin
observed. “When her temper is up she is little afraid of doing things
which she else would not dare do.”
According to that her expectations should have mounted high, as she
drew aside the door curtain, for the Lady of Northampton was far from
sulking. Partially disrobed, as she had sprung up from before her
mirror, she was holding the luckless Dearwyn with one hand while with
the other she administered pitiless punishment from a long club-like
candle which she had snatched from its holder. Between her entreaties
for mercy, the little maid was shrieking with pain; now, at sight of
Randalin, she redoubled her struggles so that the belt by which her
mistress grasped her burst and left her free to dart forward and fling
herself behind the Danish girl.
“Help me, help me!” she gasped; as Elfgiva swooped upon both of them,
her streaming hair taking on a resemblance to bristling fur, her eyes
showing more of opal’s fire than of heaven’s blue.
“Come not betwixt, or I will treat you in a like manner,” the mistress
panted. “Do you understand the evil she has wrought? She has broken the
wing off my gold fly, besides tearing the hair half out of my head. It
is not to be borne with!”
But the Valkyria’s fear of Elfgiva’s tongue did not extend to Elfgiva’s
hands. Catching the dimpled wrists, she held them off with perfect
coolness, as she said soothingly, “Now you tire yourself much, lady;
and you will tire yourself more if you consent to the entertainment I
came hither to propose.” She laughed, a little excitedly, as a thought
struck her. “It may even be that you will not blame her for this, but
rather take it as a sign that my advice is good.”
To say “sign” to Elfgiva was something like saying “cream” to a cat.
Gradually she ceased trying to free her hands, to gaze at her captor.
“What do you mean by that? Or have you any meaning except only trying
for an excuse to get this hussy off from punishment?”
“No, in truth, for I thought of it before I knew that trouble had
happened to her,” Randalin answered; and now she knew that it was safe
to release the wrists. “I will show you. I was thinking how it might
cause amusement to us to ride into the City and see what the goldsmiths
have in their booths. And then I came in here and found you in need of
goldsmiths’ mending! Does not that look like a sign that my thought is
good?”
Elfgiva threw aside the candle to come close and lay her hands upon the
girl’s breast. “Good for what?” she demanded. “Do you think it likely
that I might fall in with the King somewhere in the City?”
This was going a bit faster than Randalin had planned, and her breath
came quickly, but she took the risk and admitted it. “I did hope that
it might happen that we would see the King,” she said, “and—what is
more important to us—that the King might see you.”
Slowly, the King’s wife went back to her seat before the mirror, and
sat there fingering and turning the jewelled rouge-pots in a deep
study.
“Deliver me your opinion of this, Teboen?” she said, at last, to the
big raw-boned British woman who was her nurse and also the female
majordomo of her household.
Teboen was enough mistress of the magic art to give anything like an
omen its due weight,—and perhaps she was also human enough to be weary
of a fortnight’s imprisonment with a porcupine. After becoming
deliberation, she replied that she thought rather favorably of the
plan, that certainly it could do no harm, since a visit to the booths
had never been forbidden to them, while it would be almost as sure to
do good if the King could be reminded of how beautiful a woman he was
neglecting.
Elfgiva’s laughter was like returning sunshine. “How! You say so? Then
will we make ready without delay! Leonorine, come hither and finish
clothing me,—Dearwyn would shake too much. Lay aside your whimpering,
child; the scourging is forgiven you. Tata, I could find it in my mind
to scold you for not thinking of this before. You must mouth the order
for the horses, though,” she added as an afterthought. “I should expect
it would be told me that I am a prisoner, whereat I should weep for
rage.”
Another flash of daring lighted Randalin’s eyes, though her mouth
remained quiet. “A good way to keep them from thinking you a prisoner,
lady, is to act like a free woman,” she said. “I shall tell them that
you are going to the Palace to see your husband.” Sowing her seed, she
left it to take root, and went away to convince the head of the grooms.
As she had foretold, he was too uncertain regarding their position to
dare contest their order, little as he liked it. In something less than
an hour, the five women, fur-wrapped and flanked by pages and soldiers,
were riding across the little stone bridge and up the wooded slope of
the Tot Hill. In something more than an hour after that, they were
passing under the deep arch of the New Gate into the great City itself.
“Do you purpose to visit the Palace first, noble one?” the leader of
the guards inquired with a respectful if uneasy salute.
The seed had rooted so far that Elfgiva did not disclaim the intention;
but she hesitated a long time, pulling nervously at the embroidered top
of her riding glove. “In what direction lie the goldsmiths?” she asked
at last.
“Straight ahead, lady. Nothing very pleasant is at the beginning;
neither the shambles which lie across the way, nor the wax chandler’s
which is opposite; but when you get beyond Saint Martin’s to the
Commons, you will find—”
The lady’s nose wrinkled disdainfully. “Which way lies the Palace?”
“Down the lane on your left, noble one. You can see where the wall of
the King’s garden makes one side of Paternoster Row. You can reach the
Cheapside along the road also,” he added, “if you do not turn in your
way until you come where the Churchyard joins the Folk—”
“Turn then to the left.”
They obeyed her, but their gay chatter died on their lips. If the road
bore none of the repulsiveness of the shambles, it was still little
more cheerful than the graveyard. On their right, an ice-stiffened
marsh reached to the great City wall, while a remnant of the primeval
beech forest lay along their left, leafless, wind-lashed and groaning.
Ahead, behind its walls and above its gardens of clustering
fruit-trees, rose the towers and gilded spires of the King’s Palace.
As they neared the arched gateway, red with the cloaks of the royal
guards, it seemed to Randalin that an icy hand had closed about her
heart. The blood was ebbing from Elfgiva’s face, and it could be seen
that she was forced to keep moistening her lips with her tongue.
Nearer—now they were in front of the entrance—All at once, the lady
thrust a spur into her horse as he was slackening his pace in obedience
to her tightened rein.
“To the goldsmiths’ first,” she ordered. “On our way back—” Her words
were lost on the frosty wind.
The master of the first booth in the row of wretched little stalls was
humped with steaming breath over a brazier of glowing coals. He leaped
to greet such splendid ladies with a profusion of salaams and a
mouthful of pretty speeches that brought some of the color back to
Elfgiva’s cheeks.
“Do not have me in contempt, Tata,” she admonished with a laugh of some
unsteadiness. “It is not certain that I am going to belie you to the
guards, or that I have lost faith in your sign. Let me sharpen my
weapon for some space among these precious things, and it may be that I
shall go hence panting for the field.”
“Ah, gracious lady, you must needs buy my whole stock,” the merchant
cried with ingratiating smiles, “for I can never endure to sell to
another what I have once seen near your face.”
Elfgiva laughed beautifully then, and the Danish girl took a fresh grip
upon her patience. Certainly the jewelled bugs, the golden snakes, the
strands of amber and jet and pearl, seemed to act as tonics upon the
Northampton lady. If she had not traded away, at the first two stalls,
every ornament in her possession, she would have investigated each
booth in the square. She came out in bubbling spirits to the waiting
horses and the half-frozen guards.
“This Cheapside is a very fairy garden,” she prattled, lingering with
her foot in the hand of the kneeling groom. “Everything in beds and
rows as they were herbs,—milk down this lane, soap down that, jewels,
fabrics—” She turned with a sudden inspiration. “Maidens, would not
this be a merry thought? To find out where the fabrics are kept and try
some cloth of gold against these pearls?”
As the servile murmur answered, Randalin’s brow darkened. Cloth of gold
and pearls,—when a wolf was tearing at her heart! She spoke
desperately, “I wish that the way to the fabrics might lie past the
King’s House, lady.”
The King’s wife sent her a glance, half resentful, half questioning.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because if Canute could see you as you look now, with your cheeks
a-flower and that ermine, like snow, upon your hair, there is nothing
in the world he could refuse you.”
Elfgiva’s mouth curved bewitchingly. “You speak as though you had
jewels to sell. What fine manners they have, these London merchants!
Tell me, Candida, Leonorine, does she speak the truth? On your crosses,
has not the cold reddened my nose? Or pinched the bloom off my lips?”
If the murmur that answered lacked any heartiness, their mistress did
not perceive it, for every man within earshot swelled it with
reassurance,—thinking perhaps of the hot spiced wine in the King’s
cups.
After a moment of hesitation, she flew up to her saddle like a bird.
“Do you all think so?” she laughed. “Certainly I never felt in lustier
spirits. I declare that I will try it. Hasten, before the roses wilt in
my cheeks. Forward! To the Palace!”