Wulf the Saxon Part 12

Accordingly he and Guy were transported in litters to the baron's residence, where Wulf steadily recovered his health and strength.

OsG.o.d, who had received a heavy purse of gold from the baron, had at the end of that time entirely recovered; Guy still lay pale and feeble on his couch.

"I scarcely wish to live," he said one day to his father. "I can never be a warrior now. What have I got to live for?"

"You have much to live for, Guy," his father said, "even if you never bestride a war-horse. You have made a name for yourself for bravery, and will always be held in respect. It is not as if you had been from your birth weak and feeble. You will in time, I hope, come to be lord of our estates and to look after our people, and be beloved by them; and, if you cannot yourself lead them in the field, you can see that they go well equipped, and do honour to your banner. There are other things besides fighting to live for."

"I would that you had had another son, father, and that Wulf had been my brother. I should not so much have minded then that I could not myself carry the banner of De Burg into the field."

"Had he been one of ourselves, Guy, that might have come about,"

his father said, "for if I have no other son I have a daughter. But this young Saxon has his own estates in his own country. He would not settle down here as a Norman baron, and I would not lose Agnes nor be willing that she should go from us to dwell in a foreign land. But no one can say what the future will bring about. The duke has promised one of his daughters to Harold, and should the marriage come off it will bind the two peoples more closely together. Besides, you know, Edward of England has promised to Duke William that he should succeed him."

"I was speaking to Wulf about that one day, father, and he said that Edward had no power to make the gift, for that the people of England chose their king themselves, and that Edward's promise would go for nothing with them. It is not with them as it is with us, where a prince can name his successor."

"That may be Saxon opinion, Guy, but it is not Norman, and a.s.suredly it is not the duke's; and friendly as are the relations between him and Harold, it is clear that until this question is settled no permanent friends.h.i.+p can be looked for between the two nations."

Wulf was sorry when the time came that he could no longer linger at Baron de Burg's chateau. The earl had more than once sent over to say that his presence was looked for at court as soon as he was sufficiently recovered to attend there, but he stayed on until he felt so thoroughly strong and well that he could not make his health any longer an excuse. On leaving, De Burg and his wife both pressed him to come over whenever he could spare time.

"You know, Wulf," the former said, "how warm is the affection Guy has for you, and he will look very eagerly for your visits. Just at present he has very few pleasures in life, and chief among them will be your comings. We are all dull here, lad, and Agnes will miss you sorely."

"I will ride over whenever I can. I should be ungrateful indeed did I not do so, after the great kindness you and Lady de Burg have shown me; but even putting this aside I will come every day if I can, if only for half an hour's talk with Guy."

"I am glad to see you back again, Wulf," Earl Harold said as the lad entered his room. "You look strong and well again, and might, methinks, have come to us before now."

"I could have done so, doubtless, my lord, but it pained me to leave Guy, who is still on his couch, and will, I fear, never be strong and well again."

"We heard but a poor account of him from the duke's leech," Harold said. "It is a sad thing; for one, who as a lad has shown such bravery, would have turned out a gallant knight. I should have let you linger there for some time yet, but the duke has frequently asked after you, and I thought it were best that you came over; though, in truth, there will be little for you to do here, and you will be able to ride and see your friend when you will."

"Are we likely to go back to England soon, my lord?"

"I trust it will not be long. I have spoken of it more than once to the duke, but he chides me for being weary of his company; which indeed I am not, for no man could have treated another better than he has done me. Still," he said, walking up and down the room, "I am impatient to be off, but I am no more free to choose my time here that I was at Beaurain. It is a velvet glove that is placed on my shoulder, but there is an iron hand in it, I know right well."

"Is there no possibility of escaping, my lord?"

Harold looked keenly at the boy. "No, Wulf, treated as I am as a guest I cannot fly without incurring the reproach of the basest ingrat.i.tude, nor even if I wished it could I escape. Under the excuse of doing me honour, there are Norman soldiers at the gate, and a Norman sentry stands at my door. I must go through with it now, and if need be promise all that William asks. This time there is nowhere to send you to fetch aid for me. You have heard, I suppose, that William has promised me his daughter in marriage?"

"Yes, my lord, I have heard it. Is the marriage to take place soon?"

Harold smiled. "The duke will not wish it to take place until he sees that he can secure my services by the marriage. If that time should never come I shall probably hear no more of it. Engagements have been broken off before now many a time, and absolution for a broken promise of that kind is not hard to obtain. You must attend the court this evening, Wulf."

Wulf bowed and withdrew, and in the evening attended the court in the suite of Harold. As soon as the duke's eye fell upon him he called him up.

"Messieurs," he said to the barons present, "this lad is Wulf, Thane of Steyning, and a follower of Earl Harold. He it was who, with the young Guy de Burg, and aided only by a Saxon man-at-arms, withstood the first rush of the Bretons, and so gained time by which I myself and my barons were able to prepare ourselves to resist the attack.

Had it not been for them we should all have been taken by surprise, and maybe slain. The Saxon and the two lads, Wulf and De Burg, all fell wounded well-nigh to death, but not before twenty-one Bretons lay dead around them. This was indeed a feat of arms that any of you, valiant knights and barons as you are, might have been proud to perform.

"Already I had promised him any boon that in reason he may ask for having borne to me the news that Earl Harold, my honoured guest and brother-in-arms, had been cast on our sh.o.r.es, and I promise him now, that should at any time it happen that I have any power or influence in England, his estates shall remain to him and to his heirs free from all service or dues, even though he has withstood me in arms;--nay, more, that they shall be largely added to. Should such issue never arise, and aught occur to render him desirous of crossing the seas. .h.i.ther, I promise him a baron's feu as a token of my grat.i.tude for the great service he rendered me; and I am well a.s.sured that, whether to a King of England or to a Duke of Normandy, he will prove himself a true and faithful follower. I call on you all here to witness this promise that I have made, and should there be need, to recall it to my memory."

The Normans above all things admired valour, and when Wulf, after kneeling and kissing the duke's hand, retired shamefacedly to a corner of the room, where he was joined by Beorn, one after another came up to him and said a few words of approbation.

"You have done well, young sir," Fitz-Osberne, one of the duke's most trusted councillors said to him. "The duke is not given to overpraise, and a.s.suredly no one of your age has ever won such commendation from his lips. After making so fair a commencement, it will be your own fault indeed if you do not make a great name for yourself in the future. There is not one of us who was in the duke's camp that evening but feels that he owes you much for the few minutes' delay that saved us from being taken altogether by surprise. You are young, and may think but little of the promise the duke has given you this evening, but the day may come when you will find it stand you in good stead."

Harold said nearly the same thing to Wulf when he saw him the next morning.

"But there is no chance of the duke ever having power in England, my lord,"

Wulf said.

"I trust not, Wulf, but there is no doubt that his whole mind is bent upon obtaining the throne of England. He has spoken to me openly about it, and has more than hinted to me that I, if married to his daughter, would still, as Earl of Wess.e.x, be the foremost man in the land next to its sovereign should he ever gain the kingdom."

"And what said you, my lord, if I may be so bold as to ask?"

"I said but little, lad. I am a prisoner, and I am well a.s.sured that I shall never return to England until William thinks that he can depend upon me. It is needful that I should return, and that quickly, for I hear that there is fresh trouble in Wales, and I have received an urgent message from the king to hasten to his side. It is hard to see what it is best to do."

Four days later a grand ceremony was announced to take place, but few knew what its nature was to be. That it was something beyond the ordinary was certain by the number of barons and knights that were bidden to attend. A dais was erected in the courtyard of the palace, and on this a table covered with a cloth was placed.

"I don't like this business," Wulf said to Beorn, as with the other Saxons they took their place near the dais. "There is something very mysterious about it, and I believe that at last we are going to see what William's full intentions are."

A religious ceremony was first held, and then the duke rose to his feet and addressed the barons. He first recalled to them the promise that Edward of England had made to him, and then went on: "The saints have worked in my favour," he said, "by sending here as my guest my well-beloved brother-in-arms, the great Earl of Wess.e.x. Between us there is the closest friends.h.i.+p, and to cement and make even closer the bonds between us, he has become betrothed to my daughter, and through the lands I shall bestow upon her he will become a baron of Normandy. Relying upon his affection and friends.h.i.+p, I have called you here together to hear him swear in public that which he has already told me privately--that he will be my faithful feudatory, and will in all ways aid me to gain my lawful rights."

Harold changed colour. The matter had come upon him as a surprise.

Doubtless he had in a vague way when discussing his future relations as son-in-law to the duke, expressed his warm friends.h.i.+p and a general willingness to be of service to him, but to be called upon to take an oath publicly was a different matter. Most of those present had taken oaths of allegiance to William and had broken them again and again, and William himself had not less frequently broken his feudal oaths to his suzerain, the King of France. But Harold was a man with a deep sense of religion, and did not esteem as lightly as these Norman barons an oath thus sworn; but he felt that he had fallen into a trap, and that resistance would but consign him to a prison, if not a grave.

He at once understood how hollow had been the pretended friends.h.i.+p of his host; but he was in William's power, and unless as a friend the duke would never permit so formidable a rival to quit his sh.o.r.es. As he hesitated he saw a movement on the part of the Norman knights near the dais, and understood that they had been previously informed of William's intentions, and were there to enforce them. Their brows were bent on him angrily as he hesitated, and more than one hand went to the hilt of the wearer's sword.

There was no drawing back, and placing his hand on the table he swore the oath William had dictated. When he concluded William s.n.a.t.c.hed the cloth from the table, and below it were seen a number of bones and sacred relics that had been brought from the cathedral.

Enlightened as Harold was, he was not altogether free from the superst.i.tions of the age. For a moment he shuddered slightly and grew paler than before, then he drew himself up to his full height, and looked calmly into the exulting face of William.

"I call you all to witness," the duke said in a loud voice, "that Harold, Earl of Wess.e.x, has taken a solemn oath upon the holy relics to be my faithful feudatory."

The shout that answered him was by no means universal, for there were many among the Norman n.o.bles who were shocked at the base trick that the duke had played upon a guest for whom he had professed the warmest friends.h.i.+p.

The Saxon thanes could scarce contain their expressions of indignation, but Harold as he sat down among them made a gesture commanding silence.

"We sail for England to-morrow night," he said in low tones. "The duke told me so as we came hither. The two s.h.i.+ps will be in readiness for us to embark in the morning. I did not understand then the price I was to pay.

Restrain yourselves now; when we are free men we can talk this over."

An hour later they returned to the palace, where there was a brief and formal interview between Harold and the duke. Both dissembled their real feelings. The duke said that he regretted that the King of England's wishes forced his guest to start so suddenly, and that he much regretted his departure. Harold thanked him for the hospitality he had shown him, but neither made any allusion whatever to the scene that had taken place in the courtyard. Wulf rode over to say good-bye to Guy and his father. The latter was walking up and down the hall with a gloomy face.

"I blush for what has taken place to-day, Wulf," he said. "Tell the earl that had we known what was going to occur there are few indeed who would have attended at the ceremony, and that I for one shall hold him in no way dishonoured if he breaks the vow that has thus been dishonourably extorted from him. It was a trick and a base one, and I would tell Duke William so to his face. What will men think of Norman faith when guests are thus tricked to their disadvantage?"

For an hour Wulf remained talking with the baron and his family.

"I hope to see you again, Wulf," De Burg said, as the lad rose to take leave. "Guy regards you as a brother, and though a.s.suredly no Saxon will set foot on Norman soil after to-day's doings, we may yet meet again."

"I shall come over to England to see you, Wulf, if you come not here," Guy said. "I begin to think that I shall get over this, although I may never be really strong again. We shall often think and talk of you, Agnes and I; and I should like, of all things, to come and stay in your Saxon home."

"No one would be so welcome, Guy. If we are never to be brothers-in-arms as we once talked of, we shall surely be brothers in heart, whether absent or present."

A few more words and Wulf took leave of them all and rode back to Rouen. In the morning the duke accompanied Harold to the river bank and there took a courteous farewell of him. It is not probable that he thought for a moment that Harold would observe the oath, but he saw that its breach would be almost as useful to him as its fulfilment, for it would enable him to denounce his rival as a perjured and faithless man, and to represent any expedition against England as being a sort of crusade to punish one who had broken the most solemn vows made on the holy relics. Harold himself preserved his usual calmness of demeanour, and stood talking quietly to the duke while the latter's presents of hawks and hounds were taken on board the s.h.i.+p, and the Saxons, silent and sullen, had pa.s.sed over the gangway.

Then an apparently affectionate embrace was exchanged between the two rivals. Harold crossed on to the s.h.i.+p, the great sails were hoisted, and the two vessels proceeded down the river.