Star of Mercia Part 16

"It is many a day since I have wondered how ye bore with them."

"Since ye press me, Richard, I will own that my lot is hard. I have been widowed these five years. Since Winge my husband died, the land and goods with which he left me--aye, and mine own goods which I brought him--I may not call mine own. The first they till and order as they will, and the yield thereof they put with the yield of their land.

As for the goods, they all lay hands upon them with never a 'by your leave' to me! Ulwin would have sold my mirror of steel last week, but I hid it.... Richard Scrob's son, there are two of thine oxen among the cattle at the Moor. At least, I am sure I saw them at Martin's Fair within thy pen."

"Let them be. I have enemies enough at this time. To claim your goods!

To sell your mirror!"

"They grudge me this my new cloak," Alftrude continued, drawing a fold of periwinkle blue from beneath her winter wrapping. "True, it is not of my weaving; but mine own corn did I sell to buy the cloth. I believe they grudge me my mother's own jewels! Ulwin, and Alward, and Ednoth, and their mother, and the wives of the three. There would be no pleasure for any but Ulwin, if he could have his way: others must sc.r.a.pe and lack for him. A bad husbandman, too, is Ulwin. Men will give him but little for his crops and cattle. And that little leaves his poke that he may feast and game, and bet on sparring-c.o.c.ks. But I think the women are the worst to dwell with."

"And the housewife--your husband's mother? Has she no kindness for thee, who wert wife to her son?"

"We were childless, Winge and I."

"By holy Stephen! it is a weary life ye tell me of!"

"I am well wonted to such weariness. I am four and twenty. A great age, Richard."

"Madame, I am thirty-two, and I think that the sweetest of my life is yet before me."

"Here is Ludford. Now, G.o.d speed you, lord," said she, holding out her hand to him. The next instant she withdrew it in confusion, exclaiming: "I know not why I clepe you lord!"

"I know," said Richard, and took her hand. "Alftrude, I will see to it that thou become a very great lady."

From the thicket bordering the pathway proceeded gasping, panting, maudlin complaints, and thickly-uttered curses; then came the sound of a feeble struggle as though a heavy body strove vainly to extricate itself from glutinous, liquescent soil. Richard the Scrob got down from his horse, handed the reins to Perot, who walked beside him, and strode in among the alders. The light of the sinking moon revealed a man lying face downwards, his legs submerged in a marshy pool, his hands clinging to a tuft of rushes. Having chosen a firm foothold, Richard seized the unfortunate by the scruff of the neck, and hauled him on to more or less solid ground. The bloated visage, streaming with mud, was just recognizable as that of Ulwin of the Moor.

"Oh, oh--ah--oh!" he blubbered. "I am a dead man! Drowned dead--frozen to the inwards! One had bewitched the accursed nag that she might throw me!"

Richard heard a horse cropping the wet fern a little distance away. He captured the offending animal without difficulty, and gave it into the care of his servant. Then he approached Ulwin once more, and took him by the arm in order to help him to his feet.

"Dost thou dare?" cried the Englishman, striking aimlessly in the direction of his rescuer's chin. "I have no gold upon me--nought upon me! Murder! Murder by our lord the King's highway! Fellow, I am a thane, and my wergild a thane's wergild--twelve hundred s.h.i.+llings worth!"

"No robber am I. Ulwin, I am Richard of Overton. Ye have known me this many a year--I am Richard the Scrob."

"Scrob? Scrob? Eh, what is Scrob?" said the thane of the Moor. "Oh, aye--I mind--thou art the Frenchman--Richard--neighbour Richard. Well, Richard, my old nag tossed me off--bewitched is she, the jade! And Alward and Ednoth and the others--to h.e.l.l with them for selfish churls!

they rode on and left me here--would not wait for me--rode on and left me lying here.... I called--I called! Wending home from Wigmore....

Cakes and ale had we--good eating and drinking at Wigmore, Richard....

Left me here to drown! What think ye of that?"

"Belike they missed thee not!" replied the other grimly. "Here is your horse. Try to get upon her. I think your bones are whole."

Ulwin remained sitting in the mud.

"Wa--la! wa--la!" He was weeping again now. "Wa-la-la and woe the day!

Beggared am I and all undone! They set two worthy c.o.c.ks to fight....

Oh, a fair sight to see them at war! When all around would wager upon them, how might I not do likewise? One hundred s.h.i.+llings have I lost to the men of Wigmore! And, Richard, I am burdened with debt: one hundred and forty s.h.i.+llings in all do I owe among my neighbours. I must sell myself into thralldom--my wife--my hapless bairns! Let me flee the s.h.i.+re...."

Richard brought a leather wallet from beneath his mantle.

"No need," said he. "See here," and he unfastened the string which closed the wallet.

"What?" shouted Ulwin, scrambling to his knees. "Money? Money? How comest thou by money? Art surely a sorcerer--a warlock--leagued with Satan and all his devils! Why, it is not three years since we--since thy cattle was driven loose and thy silver scattered and lost beneath the feet of Ludford folk!... Richard Scrob's son--good neighbour----"

"Now, cease thy whimpering of a dog, Ulwin of Moor, if man thou be,"

said Richard. "Shalt not sell thyself for debt. One hundred and forty s.h.i.+llings--such shalt thou borrow of me.... Nay, not now. At thine own dwelling, in the afternoon.... Give me Alftrude thy brother's widow to wife: that she will have me I know well. Half thy brother's morning-gift to her of land shalt thou keep; and if within ten years from this day thou owe me still that which I do pledge me here and now to lend thee, I will take again Ashford and its mill. They were truly holden of the Abbot, all the time."

"So they have crowned French William at Westminster?" said Ulwin.

"Aye, so was I told by one of Harold's men who came alive through Senlac slaughter," Grim replied. "This William is a stark man, they say; but he has sworn to abide by our old laws."

The men of mark were gathered about Ludford elm. It was a warm, misty day in February. There was a fair upon the green for the sale of chickens, ducks, and geese.

"I do think that these be lying tidings," said Tori the priest of Ludford. "Two kings dead within a year, and English and Welsh at peace in Herefords.h.i.+re! I will believe there is such a William when I have set eyes upon him, and in the deaths of kings when I see kings lying dead. I am a stickler for the good old ways: I do not waste my prayers upon an unknown outlander, but beseech heaven for Edward and for his Lady as I have been wont all the days of my life!"

"Under seven kings have I dwelt," Ingelric the ancient murmured dreamily. "First Ethelred, then Sweyn, then Canute. Canute was a Dane, but a better man than Ethelred. Then Harefoot, then Hardicanute, then Edward whom they call the Blessed. Well, well, peace to his soul! There were no more righteous folk in England after his crowning than before.

And so the son of G.o.dwin is cast down and slain! It is a little thing, children, where or of whom a king be born, if so be he govern strongly and wisely."

"Now, Childe Edric, what say ye to this?" cried Ulwin of the Moor.

"Father Ingelric, ye know that my mind is quite other," said a hoa.r.s.e, far-carrying voice. The speaker, a weather-tanned young man, with bright grey eyes and a resolute chin, bent towards Ulwin and whispered:

"The poor old man--he doteth!"

"A fair tide for the ploughing," Kenric's elephantine tact prompted him to observe. "I think there will be no more frost nor snow."

"We have one Norman here," said Ulwin to Edric. "Spared when the others were banished, through the might of the greedy Abbot. He has the Fiend's own luck. Frost and snow! I would the earth were ice-bound for his sake! I would the frost would shatter his plough-shares! I would he might drop dead as doth a sparrow!"

"Richard is a good fellow," Ingelric interjected stubbornly. "And one king is much as another king."

"Is it nothing to you all," cried Edric the Wild, "that England shall be no more England, but Normandy? What of Harold, our King and our Earl of late, and his b.l.o.o.d.y end? Must we all bow to the robber, because the men of the South loved their harvest-beer better than their motherland?"

"We are free Englis.h.!.+" said one; and another: "What shall we do?"

"We have our hills and our woodlands," Edric continued. "When William sends his warriors amongst us, we will lead them jack-o'-lantern's dance, and utterly undo them. My men are all armed and ready to come forth whensoever I bid them; and I have the word of the Welsh lords that they will give us help."

"If Howel of Irchenfield were here," Kenric remarked ruminatively, "he would tell you to put no trust in the word of a Welshman. And Howel is right: they do never cleave to us, though time and again have they sworn faith and truth unto our kings. And I have not seen Howel this day...."

"Howel, Richard's man, say ye?" panted the ale-wife, as she deposited mugs of beer before two of her customers. "Howel pa.s.sed the ford three weeks ago, or nearer four. I know not whither he went."

"Richard also crossed over this day at dawn," said Munulf the maltman, "and with him his firstborn boy. They took the road to Stretton."

"Hey? it is not like Richard to miss the fair," said Ulwin. "I see bondmen of his who watch his wares."

"But not the goodwife?" said Kenric. "How not? She loves the mirth of the market."

"Why, he liketh not that Alftrude bestir herself overmuch, or rub shoulders with all and sundry," answered Ulwin contemptuously. "Treats her as she were the Mother of G.o.d herself, or a queen at the least. And they have been wed eleven years!"