King Olaf's Kinsman<br />A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in the Days of Ironsid, Charles W. Whistler [free ebook reader for android .txt] 📗

"What is amiss?" he asked, hesitating. "Is the king dead?"

"Nay, worse than that," I answered shortly, and the officer stared at me in horror.

"Oh, fool!" I said; "Cnut is landed, and it is Eadmund only who can save our land. Let me to him."

The warrior clutched his sword hilt with a sort of groan, and turned and took me into the house without a word. We went across the great hall, where the housecarles slept around the walls, sword under pillow, and spear at side. They raised their heads when their captain spoke the watchword, and looked at me curiously, but did not stir more than enough for that. They were not bidden.

We crossed a room where a few young thanes' sons slept, as I had slept before the king's door when I was first at court, and these leapt up, sword in hand.

"What will you?" one said in a low voice, setting his back against the door.

"I must see Eadmund, our atheling, on king's business," I said gently, remembering how I should have felt when on the same duty, if one had come thus.

"He may not be waked," the boy said.

Then I spoke loudly, so as to end the business without troubling these faithful guards.

"I am Redwald of Bures. I think that Eadmund will see me."

"Hush! hush! thane," the boy said.

But there was no need to say more, for the long camp life had sharpened Eadmund's ears to aught unusual. Now I heard the bar of the door thrown down, and Eadmund came out with a cloak round him and his sheathed sword in his left hand.

"Redwald--friend--what is it?" he said.

"Even what we have feared, my prince," I answered, looking at him.

"Where has the blow fallen?"

"At Sandwich. Olaf is there, and the Kentishmen have risen. His word is that he has not enough men."

"Surely Kent and London and Olaf--" he said.

"Eight hundred ships lie in Ebbsfleet. A ship may hold a hundred or but twenty men--not less."

Then Eadmund made a sign to his people, and they went out and left us together, and we looked on one another.

"Let me send for the earl," he said; but I put my hand on his arm.

"You are enough, my prince. But for sending for him your levies would be here, and we should march together even now to London."

He groaned.

"You are right, and I am a fool," he said.

"Wait for the earl no longer," I urged; "raise your own levy, and bid him follow you or the king as he will. There must be a raising of all England. Send to the king tonight."

"What will Cnut do?" he asked me.

"Olaf thought that if he landed in Kent he would make for London and besiege it. If so, you have time yet."

"There shall be no delay. Bide here and help me."

"I cannot," I said, and told him plainly of Edric's message to me, and the way in which it was sent; and I ended: "Let me go to Olaf, therefore, and take word from you that you come in haste. The earl doubts me yet."

"I do not understand it," Eadmund said, "but it must be so. Go back and tell Olaf to hold Cnut under London walls, and I will be there in a day before he expects, gathering forces as I come."

I kissed his hand and went, and as I did so I heard him bid his followers arm him. So I knew that he was roused, and that if he were himself all might yet be well.

Then I got to horse, and I and my two men rode down the street as fast as we had come. No man was about, and the bridge gates swung open for us.

"They are in a hurry to get rid of us," said Thrand, as we went through and passed the last houses of the town beyond the river.

Then the road lay white in the moonbeams before us until it ran among the trees of the first woodland, and there in the black shadow was a sparkle as of armour in the shafts of light that came through the leaves into the over-arched hollow of the track.

If any man was there he could see us clearly, though we could not well see him, for we were in full brightness.

Then Guthorm spoke, peering under his hand.

"Four men across the road, lord--horsemen standing still."

Then said I:

"If they are friends they will stand aside for us. If not, they will expect us to halt and argue matters with them. Any way, they have no right to the whole road, even if they mean us no harm. Ride on steadily, one on either side of me, and when we are twenty paces from them, if they yet bar our way, spur your horses and we will clear the road."

"Swords out, master?" said Thrand.

"No, spear butts ready; maybe they are friends. But I am in a hurry."

So we rode over those four men, and I fear they were hurt, for we left two rolling horse and two men in the road. Nor did I ever know if they were Edric's men or not. Howbeit, their swords were drawn, and so I think we were not wrong in what we did, though the Colchester men smote hard, and my spear shaft was badly sprung over a helm.

After that we did not draw rein till we came to our comrades, and they were halfway back to Stamford looking for me. Then we took the road to London, for we would not tarry now at Peterborough.

Maybe my story would have had a different end had I gone there--but it was not to be. Yet, though I knew it not, I was close to Hertha at that time.

I came back to Olaf while he gathered his ships in the Pool below London Bridge, and I found him ill at ease and angry with Ethelred and Eadmund, and when I told him all, most angry with Streone.

"Now you must stay with me, cousin, for that man will have you slain if he can. There is no doubt that he works for Cnut. And this word of his about a bribe for me is not his own invention; he has been told to make it."

Then he told me of the vast host that had poured into Kent. It was the greatest host that had ever landed on English shores--greater even than had been ours when we Angles left our old home a desert, and came over to this new land and took it. Olaf and the Kentish levies had fought and had been driven back, and now day by day we looked to see Cnut's armies before London, and also for the coming of Eadmund with his men. But neither came, for the Mercian levies would not fight unless the king himself headed them, and Cnut passed through Surrey into Wessex and none could withstand him.

Aye, they fought him. Wessex is covered with nameless battlefields; but ere long half of Cnut's fleet was sent round to the Severn, and Ethelred, sick and despairing, came back to London with but a few men.

It angers me even to think of what befell after that. Eadmund and Streone gathered each a good force, and came together within touch of Cnut. And then on the eve of battle, Edric made known his plan to his Mercian thanes, and that was nothing more nor less than that they should go over bodily to Cnut when the fight began. Which treachery so wrought on the honest Mercians that they would fight not at all, and so disbanded in sight of the enemy, leaving Eadmund with but enough men to make good his retreat. And Cnut was master of all the land from Kent to Severn shores, Ethelred's own country. So Edric Streone went over to Cnut, and with him many thanes who despaired of help from Ethelred, and chose rather peace under a king who was strong enough to give it them. And one night forty of the English ships slipped away from us down the tide and joined the Danes at Sandwich. The men had been bribed by Streone, as we found.

Almost then did Olaf make up his mind to leave England, but he pitied Ethelred, who turned to him again in this new trouble, and he did not go.

"But my men will not bide patiently much longer," he told me; "here is neither honour nor gold to be won, and I need them for my going to Norway when the time comes."

For every day Olaf looked for some sign that should bid him go back and take his own land from Cnut's hand.

Now Ethelred would not stir from London, fearing treachery everywhere. And again Eadmund's levies melted away for want of their king's presence, and at last we persuaded him to meet Eadmund at Coventry, and I went with him. There was a good levy that would have followed him, but some breath of suspicion came over him, and suddenly he left them and fled back to London and the citizens, whom he trusted alone of all England. And he would not suffer me to bide with Eadmund, but I must go back with him. So the levies melted, and Eadmund went north to Earl Utred of Northumbria for help.

Then when the winter wore away, and April came in calm and bright, the most awesome thing befell England that had been yet. For in the north Eadmund and Utred marched across the country, laying waste all as they went, lest the north should rise for Cnut; and going east as they went west, Cnut ravaged and burnt all the southern midlands. Then rose the wail of all England, for friend and foe alike had turned on her, and her case was at its hardest. And from that time forwards I know that none who chose Cnut for king should be blamed.

Then Cnut fell on York, and Utred of Northumbria, whose wife was Danish, submitted to him, and was slain by Streone's advice, as men say, though some say that he was slain by Thorkel the Jarl when he took the ships that tried to escape from the Humber. It may be thus. The shipmen fought well, and were all slain--sixty ships' crews.

Now all England was open to Cnut, and Eirik the jarl fell on Norwich and drove Ulfkytel back on us, and from him we heard of this trouble.

On the eve of St. George's day, Ethelred sent for me to his chamber, for he would speak with me. I found him sitting in a great chair before the fire, wrapped in furs, though the day was warm and sunny, and he was very feeble, so that his thin hands had little strength in them. The queen, Emma, was with him, looking young and handsome as ever, and in the light of a narrow window sat Eadward the Atheling, the sunshine falling on his strange white hair and on the pages of a great book over which he pored. He just lifted his pale eyes from his reading as I went in and saw who it was, and smiled pleasantly at me, and then turned to his book again. I thought that the troubles of the time passed lightly on the proud lady and the boy, whose learning was all that she cared for.

"Come near, Redwald, my son," the king said, in his voice that had grown so faint of late. "I have a charge to lay on you."

I went and knelt by him, and he put his hand on my shoulder, and the tears came to my eyes at the kindly touch, for it was the same as, and yet so unlike, that which had been a promise of friendship to me at the first time that I saw him.

"All things are slipping from me, Redwald," the king said; "nor is there aught that I grieve to lay down when the day comes on which I must pass through the gate of death. Crown and sceptre have been heavy burdens to me, for with them has been the weight of the sword also. I have borne those ill, and used that cruelly. I am the Unredy; but I have listened to ill counsels, having none of my own, nor wit to see what was best."

He ceased for faintness, and my heart ached to hear him speak thus to me, his servant. But Emma the queen turned half away from him, her face growing hard and scornful as she heard. Then Eadward set his book down gently, and, looking sadly at his mother, came and stood over against me at the other side of the king, and took his wan hand and said:

"There are laws which you have