Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune<br />A Tale of the Days of Saint Dunstan by A. D. Crake (books to read romance .TXT) 📗

of bag, tied to her person, in which she had evidently accumulated great store. Her eyes were roaming about, until the light suddenly was reflected from the poor lad’s brilliant accoutrements, and she advanced towards him.

He groaned, and sank backwards, and her hand was upon the dagger, while she cast such a look as the fabled vampire might cast upon her destined victim, loving gold much, but perhaps blood most, when all at once she turned and fled.

Elfric knew not what had saved him; when voices fell upon his ear, and the baying of a dog.

“Which way has that hag fled? Pursue her, she murders the wounded.”

The sound of rushing feet was heard, and Elfric felt that help was near, yet leaving him, and he cried aloud, “Help! help! for the love of God.”

One delayed in his course, and came and stood over the prostrate form. It was a monk, for the boy recognised the Benedictine habit, and his heart sank within him as he remembered how pitilessly he had helped to drive that habit from Glastonbury.

“Art thou grievously wounded, my son?”

“I feel faint, even unto death, with loss of blood. Oh! remove me, and bear me home; if thou art a man of God leave me not here to perish in my sins.”

The piteous appeal went to the heart of the monk, and he knelt down, and by the aid of a small lamp, examined the wounds of the sufferer.

“Thou mayst yet live, my son,” he said; “tell me where is thy home; is it in Mercia?”

“It is! it is! My home is Æscendune; it is not far from here.”

“Æscendune—knowest thou Father Cuthbert?”

“I do indeed; he was my tutor, once my spiritual father.”

“Thy name?”

“Elfric, son of the thane Ella.”

The monk started, then raised a loud cry, which speedily brought two or three men in the dress of thralls (theows) to his side.

“She will murder no more, father; the dog overtook her, and held her till we came; she was red with blood, and we knocked her down; Oswy here brained her with his club.”

“It is well—she deserved her fate; but, Oswy, look at this face.”

“St. Wilfred preserve us!” cried the man “it is the young lord. He is not dying, is he? She hadn’t hurt him—the she-wolf?”

“No, we were just in time, and only just in time; we must carry him home to his father.”

The monk had started for the expected scene of battle, intent on doing good, with a small party of the thralls of Æscendune, just after Edwy had left the hall; consequently, he knew nothing of the death of the thane or the subsequent events. Oh, how sweetly his words fell upon Elfric’s ears, “Carry him home to his father.”

A litter was speedily made; one of the thralls jumped into a willow tree which overhung the stream, and cut down some of the stoutest boughs. The others wove them with withes into a kind of litter, threw their own upper garments thereon in their love, placed the poor wounded form as tenderly upon it as a mother would have done, and bore him from the field, ever and anon stopping to relieve some other poor wounded sufferer, and to comfort him with the intelligence that similar aid was at hand for all, as the various lights now appearing testified.

For themselves, they felt all other obligation fade before their duty to their young lord. He was object of their solicitude.

So they bore him easily along, until they reached a stream; there they paused and washed the heated brow, and allowed the parched lips to imbibe, but only slightly, the pure fresh beverage, sweeter far than the stimulant the good monk had poured down his throat on the field. Then they arranged his dress—bound up his wounds, for the Benedictine was an accomplished surgeon for the times; after which, having satisfied himself that his patient was able to bear the transit, he departed, with a cheerful benediction, to render the like aid to others.

So comforted was Elfric, and so relieved from pain, that he slept all through the following hours, as they bore him along through woodland paths; and he dreamt that he had met his father and was clasped lovingly in his forgiving arms.

At daybreak they were six or seven miles from the camp, and they rested, for the continued effort had wearied the bearers. They made a fire, cooked their breakfast, and tried to persuade Elfric to eat, which he did, sparingly.

Then they resumed their journey; they kept as much in the shade as possible, for it was a bright day; rested again at noontide, with only five or six miles before them; started when the heat was a little overpast, and just after sunset came in sight of the halls of Æscendune, from the opening in the forest whence Elfric had beheld them that night when he first brought Prince Edwy home in company with his brother Alfred.

The wounded youth raised himself up, looked with intense affection at the home of his youth, and sank back contented on his couch, thinking only of father and mother, brother and sister, and the sweet forgiveness he felt sure awaited him. Poor boy!

It was almost dark when they reached the gate of the castle, and the drawbridge was up. One of the bearers blew his horn loudly, and the summons brought the warder to the little window over the postern gate.

“Who are you, and what do you seek?” was the cry.

“We are bringing my young lord, Elfric of Æscendune, home from the battlefield wounded.”

“Wait a while.”

A few minutes passed; then the drawbridge was lowered, and the bearers bore their burden into the courtyard. Every moment Elfric expected to see the beloved faces bending over him; but all seemed strange, till he remembered that Redwald had remained behind at the hall; the four bearers spoke uneasily to one another, and Oswy disappeared in the dusky twilight.

At length three or four men, in the military costume so familiar to Elfric, approached the litter; and raising him, bore him into the interior of the building, up the stairs, into the gallery, which partly ran round at the height of the first floor. The door of a room was opened, a familiar room; it had been his father’s bedroom, and Elfric was placed on the bed.

“Ask them to come to me,” he said “father, mother, Alfred, Edgitha!—where are they?”

But minute after minute passed by, and no one came near; there was no light in the room, and it was soon very dark. Elfric became very uncomfortable; it was not the kind of reception he had promised himself.

“Why does not my father come,” he muttered impatiently, “to see his wounded boy?” and he felt at one moment his pride revive, then a sickening feeling of anxiety filled his heart.

But it was not until an hour had passed that he heard a heavy step on the stairs, and soon the door opened, and Redwald appeared.

Elfric gazed upon him with surprise; especially when he noted the stern cold look which sat on his features. As Redwald did not speak, Elfric took the initiative.

“Why is not my father here? I want to see him, Redwald; do send him to me; say I must see him, I must—I cannot endure this longer; it is more than I can bear.”

“Calm yourself and listen to me, for I have a strange story to unfold to you.”

“Not now; some other time; do send them to me.”

“It must be heard now; and perhaps when you have heard it, you will comprehend why they do not come.”

“But they will come?”

“Elfric, there was, two generations back, a man who had two sons; he was a noble thane of high descent, his eldest son was worthy of his father, high souled, impetuous, brave, fiery, and in short, all a warrior’s son should be: the younger son had the heart of a monk, and was learned in all pious tricks; he stole the father’s heart from his elder brother.”

Elfric began to listen at this point.

“At last, misjudgment and unkindness drove the elder brother from home, and he sought food and shelter from men who had the souls of conquerors. With them he lived, for his father disinherited him; he had no father, he had no country.”

Elfric began to draw his breath quickly.

“At length war arose between those who had sheltered and protected him, and the people who should have been his own people; say what side was the exile to be found on?”

“He should have fought with his own people.”

“His own people were those who had really adopted him when his father and family disowned him, and with them he fought for victory; but the fates were unpropitious, the people with whom his father and brother fought were successful; the son was taken prisoner, and adjudged to die a traitor’s death, his own father and brother consenting.”

Elfric began to comprehend all.

“They put him on board an open boat, and sent him out to sea, at the mercy of winds and waves; but not alone; he had married amongst the people who had adopted him, and his boy would not forsake his sire, for he had one boy—the mother was dead. This boy besought the hard-hearted executioners of a tyrant’s will to let him share the fate of his sire, so earnestly, that at last they consented.”

“The boat, as it pleased fate, was driven by wind and tide on the shore of Denmark, and there the unhappy exile landed; but he had been wounded in the battle, and his subsequent exposure caused his early death; before he died he bequeathed one legacy, and only one, to his son—

“Vengeance.”

Elfric was pale as death, and trembled visibly.

“Then you are—”

“Elfric, I am your cousin, and the deadly foe of you and yours!”

“Then my poor father; but if you must find a victim seek it in me; spare him! oh, spare him!”

Redwald smiled; but such a smile.

“At least let me see him now, and obtain his forgiveness. Redwald, he is my father; you were faithful to your father; let me atone for my unfaithfulness to mine.”

“You believe there is another world, perhaps?”

Elfric only answered by a look of piteous alarm.

“Because, in that case, you must seek your father there; although I fear Dunstan would say there is likely to be a gulf between you.”

Elfric comprehended him, and with a cry which might have melted a heart of stone, fell back upon the bed. For a moment he lay like one stunned, then began to utter incoherent ravings, and gazed vacantly around, as one who is delirious.

Redwald seemed for one moment like a man contending with himself, like one who felt pity struggling with sterner emotions; yet the contest was very short.

“It is of no use—he must die; if hearts break, I hope his will break, and save me the task of shedding his blood, or causing it to be shed; there must be no weakness now; he has been sadly wounded; if he is left alone, he will die; better so—I would spare him if I were not bound by an oath so dread that I shudder to think of it. The others have escaped: he must die.”

Still he walked to and fro, as if pity yet contended with the thirst for vengeance in his hardened breast: perhaps it was his day of grace, and the Spirit of Him, Who has said “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” pleaded hard with the sinner. Yet the gentle Voice pleaded in vain; still he walked to and fro, until his resolution seemed firmly made; and he left the chamber, fastening it on the outside.