King Olaf's Kinsman<br />A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in the Days of Ironsid by Charles W. Whistler (free novel 24 txt) 📗

pleased with this? I went from Streone's presence with a light heart, until I came to the great hall, and there sat in the high place the Lady Algitha herself and her maidens. Very beautiful she was, but very sad looking. And when I crossed the floor before her I bowed, and she beckoned to me.

So I came near, and knelt on one knee before her.

"You are Redwald, Olaf's kinsman and messenger?" she asked.

"Yes, lady," I answered.

"I have heard of your coming. Have you spoken with the earl--Streone?" she said, while a wrinkle crossed her fair forehead as she named him.

"I have but just left him, lady."

She sunk her voice very low, and bent a little towards me.

"Were his words pleasant and fair spoken?" she said.

"They could not have been more so--at the last," I replied, the memory of my anger coming back to me of a sudden.

"You crossed him once, then?"

"But a little; he crossed me rather," I said plainly.

"Wear your mail, Redwald," she said whisperingly. "Farewell."

Then she was once more herself again, the lady whose hand I might kiss reverently and look at afar. But in those few moments she had been as a friend who warned me of a danger unforeseen. Even thus had Edric Streone spoken with Sigeferth, fairly and pleasantly.

I left the house, feeling uneasy therefore; but I could not think that Edric would deem me worth crushing, and it seemed that the lady would let her hatred of Edric go far.

They had given me lodging in the town across the river, where there was a large guest house that had been made in the days of OEthelfloed {11}, the brave lady of the Mercians who won back the Five Boroughs from the Danes. One could see the great fort she made rising from the river banks over the whole town. No other thane was in guest quarters there with me, and I and my men had the place to ourselves. Nor was there anyone in Stamford at the time whom I knew, apart from the people of Eadmund's household.

So I went along the street slowly enough, and presently I passed a house where through the open window I saw a goldsmith working, and I thought that he could do somewhat for me. I would have the penny of St. Eadmund set in a gold band on the scabbard of sword Foe's Bane, where I should see it continually. There was much gilt silver work over all the scabbard from end to end--wrought by what skilful artists in the Norseland, or how long ago, I cannot tell--and there was a place among the other work where such a fitting would go well.

But I had placed the coin in safety in the house, and I must go and fetch it, and I passed on for the time. Then I loitered on the bridge, for the old town and its grim earthworks looks very fair thence, and so a thane sent from Eadmund caught me up and took me back to the great house, for he had some word for me. It was near sunset by this time.

"Redwald, my friend," the Atheling said, when I stood before him, "I would have you go back to Olaf. You have done your errand well, and your kinsman will want to have you with him. You will fight for us no less well with him than here."

Now I could speak plainly with the Atheling ever, and I said, being anxious to know more of Streone's meanings:

"I am glad that you tell me so, my prince, for Edric the earl would have it that our king fears that Olaf's good faith may be little."

"That is new to me," Eadmund said, frowning; "but, as you know, my father and I have had little to say to each other of late."

"Then you doubt him not?" I asked.

"I would as soon doubt Edric himself," he said, "and him I trust as I would trust myself."

"That is well," answered I. "For I feared that you also might have been doubtful of Olaf."

"Why, what should the king think of Olaf but that he has been his best friend?"

"The earl tells me that he has heard that Cnut will offer Olaf some under-kingship if he will take his part," I said.

"I cannot tell how he has heard that," Eadmund said, and he looked puzzled.

"By your spies in Cnut's court," said I.

"We have no spies there. I hate spying," the Atheling said. "What means he?"

Then I saw that for some reason which was beyond me Streone had let me know more than was safe. It was plain that if he spoke truth, he had more dealings with Cnut than were known to the Atheling. Yet the earl might, for Ethelred's sake, watch thus on Cnut, rightly enough, and think it safer to say nought to Eadmund, whose wisdom was not so great as his valour. It was a poor watch enough though, I thought, if he knew the talk about Olaf and not the plans for sailing, which should surely have been told him first of all.

"Maybe he minded him of some old plan of Cnut's that he heard when you were in Lindsey," I said, that being all that I could imagine. "That were enough to return to the mind of our king in his sickness, and trouble him."

"Aye, I think my father fears treachery from all men," the Atheling answered. "But Olaf has done well for us both at the first and now in sending word by you."

Then the sword I was wearing caught Eadmund's eyes, for he was ever fond of goodly war gear.

"So--you have a new sword instead of that I gave you," he said. "And I think you have made a good exchange. Let me see this."

"I broke the other blade strangely enough," I told him. "But this was my father's sword, and it has come back to me."

Now I must tell him all about our great fight, and at the end he said:

"I would that I had been there. It was a good fight." Then he laughed, and added: "Now, I will say this, that Streone noted this fine sword of yours, and wondered who had given it you, and why."

"Did he think that Cnut had bribed me also?" I said. "Such a sword as this is to a simple thane as much as a petty kingdom to Olaf."

Then Eadmund spoke in the old tone of comradeship that we had been wont to use in Normandy.

"On my word, I believe he did! But you have often spoken to me of this sword, and you described it well. I think had I found it on a Dane I should have claimed it for you. But I never thought you would see it again."

"Would you have believed that I was bribed, my prince, had it not chanced that you had heard of the sword from me beforetime?" I asked, being bitterly hurt that the earl should have put this into Eadmund's mind.

Did he want to make him doubt all his former friends?

"Not I, Redwald," the Atheling said. "Streone is over careful for our safety, I think, and lets his love for us make him suspect all men. I told him as much, and he said that perhaps it was so. Then I said that Olaf had doubtless given you the weapon, and he would have me ask you. He thought that you should not have lightly set aside my gift."

Now I was sure that the earl strove to break Eadmund's friendship with Olaf, for to anger me would help to do so. The next thing would be to have me made away with, for that would turn Olaf into a foe, and he would leave England maybe. I thought that the earl would stand alone in Eadmund's counsels, and did not dream yet that he was indeed working for Cnut in order to take the first place in England as Thorkel did in Denmark. But that was plain enough ere long, and all men know it now. At this time, however, these matters puzzled me, and had it not been for the slaying of Sigeferth and Morcar and one or two others, maybe I should have thought little of danger to myself. It was only as Olaf's kinsman that I was worth a thought of the man whose deep statecraft I could not pretend to understand.

So I said:

"The earl's life must be uneasy with all these doubts. But so long as you yourself have none of King Olaf and myself, it is little matter what he thinks. His doubts will be proved false in time, and he will have fretted for nought."

"That is true," Eadmund answered. "I would that he troubled me not with his suspicions."

So the matter passed, and we spoke for a little while of the fleet and of Olaf's plans, and then I left him, saying that I would ride back to London with the first light of morning.

"We shall have one good fight, and then peace," said Eadmund. "Farewell, and trouble nought about my foster father and his ways of doubting. He will doubt me next, maybe."

He laughed lightly, and I went away down the street with a troubled mind, and was willing to get back to my lodgings through the dusk as quickly as I might.

And when I came there I put on my mail, as the lady had bidden me--rather blaming myself for doing so for all that, for it seemed to show fear of somewhat that I could not name.

Then I thought of the goldsmith again, and sent a man for him, thinking that he could do the work here in hall, so that I could be sure of having the scabbard, which was very valuable, when I rode away.

When he came I showed him what I would have done, and he said that it was no long business, and took his tools into a corner and lighted a wax taper and began to work by its light. The sword stood by my chair as I ate my supper at the head of the long tables where my men sat.

The goldsmith ended his work soon after the men had gone out to the stables to tend their horses for the night, and only he and I and my headman Thrand were left in the hall. He had put a flat band of chased gold round the scabbard, and the silver penny showed through a round setting that was in it.

I gave him one of the gold pieces that Earl Wulfnoth had taken from the treasure for me, and the man weighed it, wondering at its weight and fineness. Then he said that he was overpaid, and must give me money for the overweight, and asked that one should go back to his house with him and return with it.

"There were men lurking in the porches and on the bridge," he said, "when I came down here. I suppose there will be a fray when they meet the men they wait for, so I fear to go back alone. A goldsmith is ever fair prey."

Then came a knocking on the door, and my man went to see what was wanted. Then one said to him:

"Edric the earl bids Redwald the thane to speak with him at his house before he sleeps."

Now the goldsmith stood where he could see the long streak of light that shone from the door across the street, and he said to me in a low voice:

"There are a dozen armed men outside, lord."

Thrand turned round to tell me this message, and as he did so Streone's messenger pushed by him into the hail, rudely enough.

"To the stables and call my men," I whispered to the goldsmith, pointing to the door which led thither, and he went out slowly, not knowing why I sent him.

"Where is Redwald, Olaf's man?" the newcomer said, and his tone was so rough that at the uncivil words I glanced at him sharply and made no answer. He was fully armed, I saw.

But my follower would not bear this.

"Yonder is Redwald the thane," he said; "mind how you speak, man."

"Thane or not, I have come to take him to Edric the earl," was the answer.

"Ho, thane! hear you the earl's message?"

Now when this began, I had taken up the scabbard with my right hand and was looking at the work, and the sword was in my left, hidden by my cloak as it fell to my side. I suppose the earl's housecarle thought I was unarmed.

"I am Redwald," I said, putting the scabbard on the table, and so leaving my right hand free. "I hear an uncivilly-given message enough. And I think the earl has not sent for me in such terms as those."

The man raised his hand