"Hast thou heard the saying of Calwaladr,King of all Britain?The best crooked thing is the crooked handle of a plough."
"Hast thou heard the saying of Calwaladr,King of all Britain?The best crooked thing is the crooked handle of a plough."
"Hast thou heard the saying of Calwaladr,
King of all Britain?
The best crooked thing is the crooked handle of a plough."
There was a hasty footfall behind and Gildas stood beside him.
"Thy pardon, David," he said, very humbly, hanging his head. "Indeed, indeed, I know not why—but I have always a dark humour before breakfast!"
"Oh, Gildas, Gildas," cried David, as he wrung both the other's hands. "I am too hot-mettled, I fear, in the early hours!"
When they were within an hour's walk of the town of Brefi, David left them and disappeared into the woods.
"There will be enough to talk and enough to listen," said he to Aidan. "I feel a great need to pray."
The rest of the party proceeded without him. Now upon and around the hill of Brefi vast numbers of people were assembled. Certain questions disquieted the land of Cymru. Some hundred and fifty years before, Morgan the Briton, who is also called Pelagius, being at Rome, where he lived ascetically and reasoned unceasingly, hatched from his brain a subtle heresy. Adam's sin was his alone, and brought no curse upon his children; the will of a man to do good was enough to secure him from sin; Christ died only that His example might prompt and incite the well-disposed to greater efforts, and that those baptized in His Name might enter after death into a heaven superior to that of unbelievers. Now, of all the races of the earth, the race which set most store by the sayings of Morgan was his own nation of the Briton, who love discussion before all things, and especially discussion of the properties of the soul. Even so late as this, the Pelagians in Britain were many, and tampered with the faith of many, exhorting their fellow-Christians to forego the aid of the sacraments, as tending to superstitious bondage. And that some even of the clergy led gross and scandalous lives, we have Saint Gildas to witness.
The day of the synod was hot to oppression. From early morning until past noon, one after another, bishop and priest addressed the gathering. There was as much embroidered rhetoric, impassioned argument, and brilliant, aimless quotation as always abound wherever the Cymry are met together; but to no one came the trenchant words that would sever the knots of their problems. As for the greatest among them, Dyfrig, and Deiniol, and Gildas, they seemed tongue-tied by the heavy weather, and hopelessly dreary.
Then said Dyfrig the aged saint:
"One who was made bishop by the Patriarch of Caer Salem is not present amongst us, a man who is eloquent, full of grace, and approved in religion, who has spread the Gospel far and wide in the desert regions of Britain, and has thoroughly purged the pagan land of Dyfed: David the son of Sandde, of Mynyw in Pebidiog. Let us send for him."
Gildas, Dyfrig, and Deiniol, and the young Aidan, sought and found David, and to Brefi hill they led him. Now the sides of the hill were white as a flowering orchard with the bleached garments of the priests and bishops who crowded thereon, and for a mile or more on every hand stretched the great throng of the people. When David came among them, the holy men made a pile of their cloaks, satchels, and books that he might mount upon it, for he was a short man (they say three cubits in height). So he stood up before them in all his greatness, and he seemed to tower high above them all.
He spoke to them in his voice of silver; he smote at error with strong strokes, which called forth both tears and laughter; he pleaded sweetly with the recalcitrant; his arguments were sound, his metaphors lively and concise. How can it be supposed, said he, that the nature of man can of itself engender righteousness to salvation? He told of his own laborious days: of his long discipleship with Illtyd; his missionary journeys throughout the west of Britain; his struggle, scarcely ended, with hostile princes and heedless people in his native province; his temptations, contests, watchings, and privations; his experiences as a ruler of religious and a trainer of youth. "If a man glorify his will, there follows pride; and pride drops dead in the presence of God mocked and crucified!"
Then he talked of discipline, of the need of it in human life, and of how it must be loving and carefully contrived, that the heart of the delinquent be not hardened.
Of those who listened, not one moved from his place until the end of David's discourse, and scarcely one stirred hand or foot. And some there were who saw a spirit near the saint, like to a dove, with gleaming bill, who sometimes perched upon his shoulder and whispered in his ear. And to many in that assembly his words brought comfort entire and ease from mental strife, and left in their hearts a pathway of peace and light.
They acclaimed him with rapturous tongues; far and wide they noised it that David of Mynyw was the treasure of the Cymry, the prince of all the saints of Britain. Gildas muttered congratulations, and hurried away to his interminable writing. His heart was not free from envy for a little while.
As David was leaving the synod, he heard the sound of heartbroken sobs from a little gathering upon the banks of the Teify. It was a poor woman lamenting by the body of her son.
"Dewi, Dewi!" she cried, "have pity upon my affliction! He was my only little weakly child, and I have striven so sorely to rear him! God cannot reave him from me. Entreat Him for me, Dewi Sant!"
The tears rose to David's eyes as these sorrowful words were uttered; he knelt down by the body, and began to rub the hands and the feet, and to pray aloud in this wise.
"O Lord, my God, who didst descend to this world from the bosom of the Father for us sinners, that Thou mightest redeem us from the jaws of the old enemy, have pity on this widow, and give life to her only son, that Thy Name may be magnified in all the earth!"
He felt the limbs growing gradually warmer beneath his touch, and he continued to pray, and to call upon the boy in tender, soothing tones. By and by the eyelids flickered; then the boy opened his eyes, raised himself for the space of a second, and looked full into the eyes of David. They gave him wine, and life was secured to him.
When they had escaped from the grateful outpourings of the mother, David said to Teilo:
"Brother, an awful thing is death! For after death, we come no more; and judgment follows. It has been given to me once or twice to behold the Angel drawing near to those who themselves were unaware; and power has even then come upon me that I might put them in mind of their latter end. I pray often, Teilo, that neither thou, nor I, nor any of the brethren, nor any of all my beloved people, may be cut off without timely warning."
Wherefore, say the ancients, is the Corpse Candle foretelling dissolution oftenest seen in the diocese of Mynyw.
The next day, before they had travelled many miles, earth and sky took on a mysterious aspect. A heavy blight hung in the air; and a strange, watery column, with its head in the clouds, trailed over the earth, discharging raindrops which were hot to the touch and yet struck chill. A few men and women fell sick by the roadside; their bodies shrivelled and turned yellow, and in a few hours they died. David remained among the sufferers, nursing and consoling. The Yellow Plague hourly increased its ravages. Some recounted that the advance of the pest could be seen in the form of a female spirit—a frightful hag, hairless, with flavescent features and long pointed teeth, who clutched at her prey. Ere many days, the land was choked with unburied corpses.
"Maelgwn the King is dead!" they told David.
"Then is Gildas content!" said he. "Hasten we to Mynyw."
In Dyfed, for all his loving zeal, he could not dwell long, because of the Plague which followed him there. So David and all his surviving brethren and all the inhabitants of Pebidiog whom he could gather together set sail for Lesser Britain. There he laboured greatly for five years and more at Leon, Saint Ivy, and Loquivy, preaching the word of God and founding churches and houses of religion.
In the last year but one of the fifth century after Christ, when David was a very old man, Cynyr son of Cyngen, a scholar in Teilo's Côr upon the Taff, being unable to bear the stern rule of Teilo, fled from the college and wandered until he came upon Llywel the hermit of Selyf in Brycheiniog, who entertained him and kept him under his protection. And a little after Llywel died, and Cynyr dwelt still in the former cell of Llywel. That year was cold and frosty, and the fruits of the earth were nipped in the ear and in the bud. At the autumn equinox great storms of wind and rain arose, followed early by snow, and the flocks of the men of Brycheiniog were lost and starved for the most part. As soon as the thaw set in at the beginning of the next year, Llyr Merini, lord of Talgarth, laid claim to a cantref in the lordship of Rhaint son of Brychan, his wife's brother, as belonging to his own tribe, and publicly reproached King Rhaint with being the cause of the late disastrous weather through his harbourage of an apostate religious. The men of Llyr fell upon the lands of Rhaint, seized his men, broke their ploughs, and carried off the little grain they had ready to sow. Some of the seed-corn with which they could not escape they cast into the stony bed of the brook Cilieni. Rhaint and his people proceeded to fitting reprisals. And so things continued until the spring had come indeed. It was then that David of Mynyw, as he journeyed through Brycheiniog, declared his will to judge between the warring princes.
On the morning of the first of May, a white-robed monk, with horny hands, and a tanned face whose pointed nose and patient brown eyes made it resemble the face of a dog, stood in the dingle through which the Clydach flows. Upon a gradually-sloping bank, where primroses and small blue violets bloomed in the damp and mossy grass, he had just spread three sheep-skins, and was regarding their position with doubtful look. He appeared oblivious of two other persons who occupied the little glen at the same moment, though these were no less than Llyr Merini, lord of Talgarth, and his wife Gwen, daughter of King Brychan. At a seemly distance were their household attendants.
"O Lily, servant of David," said Llyr, "I have heard that he thy master holds the keys that do lock and unlock the portals of heaven!"
"Very righteous saint is David," replied Lily. He did no more than glance at the lord and lady.
"Surely he does consider that the perjury of one tonsured to God is of all things the most abominable?"
"David has a key to all of heaven that is in the world," David's servant continued. "Where he scattereth, there does the good corn spring. When the Yellow Plague had run its course, and we returned from Llydaw, a crushing labour was before him, for men were lax and weary, and religion wellnigh forgotten. But this task he fulfilled, for the blessing of God was upon him, and he and his disciples journeyed far afield, hither to Brycheiniog, and into Gwent, Ewyas, and Erging, and sowed the seed of the Gospel in plenty. Every holy thing does David foster and honour. And he reads plainly the hearts of men, and traces the springs of their actions. A fountain of justice is the heart of David."
"Many fair churches owns David. Loves he not gifts of gold, and silver, and polished jewels," said Gwen eagerly, "for the adornment of his foundations? They say that the praise of beauty is ever upon his lips."
"This will not do for my master!" cried Lily, snatching one of the fleeces from the ground. "How can he, whose years are ninety and more, huddle upon the moss like a lithe-limbed stripling? He must have a seat conformable to his dignity, myn Duw!"
"See, see!" Gwen cried. "A heap of logs for the great May fire! We will fetch one of them, husband, for the use of the powerful saint."
They carried a log between them to the foot of the bank. Lily approved it, after scrutiny, and spread one of his cherished sheepskins upon it. Then David came slowly into the glen towards them, leaning upon the arm of King Rhaint of the Red Eyes. With a quick gesture of greeting to all there assembled, he seated himself in the tribunal prepared for him. He seemed smaller than ever now, for his form was bowed and his skin was abundantly wrinkled, and all his life and energy centred in his gleaming dark-hazel eyes.
Teilo, abbot-bishop of Llandaff, and Ismael, one of David's own bishops, were with him, and some of their attendant monks; and the courtiers and fighting-men of Rhaint followed. A few of the villagers had made their way to the place of meeting.
"Speak you now your causes, my children," said David, in his clarion tones, which the years had scarcely weakened.
"This one has attacked my lands," cried Rhaint, "and has broken the ploughs of my men, and destroyed their valuable corn-seed!"
"This one," cried Llyr, "keeps from me a cantref which was my father's and the father of my father's; and Brycheiniog brings forth no sustenance, for Rhaint mab Brychan protects the renegade Cynyr!"
Two armed men, shouting and threatening, dragged a youth in monastic garb, tonsured, his countenance pallid and his eyes dim with watching and fasting, to the feet of the bishops.
"Here is Cynyr, between my men," said Rhaint. "Examine him, father, upon his matter."
"O stinging viper!" exclaimed Teilo. "Obedience didst thou vow to me in my college upon the Taff! And thou didst manifest such notable dispositions in the early days of thy pupilage!"
"May the penalty be heavy and bitter, we pray you, holy bishops," said Gwen, "that the curse be lifted from us. Always very ill fortune dogs the breach of a vow!"
"Lady, I would have silence about me," said David, "that I may pray Our Lord for grace to discern rightly between Teilo my son and my brother and Llywel who is in Paradise." … After a brief pause: "What pleadest thou, Cynyr? By whose permission hast thou betaken thyself to the life of a solitary? Wilt thou confess thy sins, and return to the faithful congregation?"
"Dewi mab Sandde, with you will I go," the young man replied.
"With me? but not with Teilo? Speak out thy mind, and fear not."
"Not with Teilo. His rule is too harsh: I cannot bow myself to such authority."
"Thou must go with my brother Teilo, being his pupil and servant."
"I will abide here in Llywel's cell, and gather about me my own Côr, and rule it. Or I will live beneath the ordinance of David. Let him[10]not cast me away; for of all saints he is the most efficacious! I would be a holy man, even as he is. But, look you, the legions of Satan do compass me about, and make hideous my nights and my days. There is also an evil, fair woman, Indeg daughter of Maenarch, who plagues me whenever I do meet with her; and her spirit is with me continually, to trouble me, when she herself is absent! Pray for me, for the love of the Lord!"
"O Cynyr," said David meditatively, "hast thou the gift of obedience, I wonder?… Thou hast taken thy final vows before the Holy Sacrament?" he added suddenly.
Cynyr hung his head, and grew even paler than he had been before.
"No, no. My consecration should have been at the Paschal Feast of last year. I fled Llandaff the week before. This I told to blessed Llywel before he took me in."
"Why, Teilo," said the bishop of Mynyw, "I had heard that this Cynyr had deserted the furrow that he had undertaken to plough. Where is the truth in this?"
"My overseer of the disciples did speak of his consecration," was the other bishop's answer.
"Thou hast said that his vows were taken?"
"I did think that they were," said Teilo.
"Llandaff has done the youth great wrong!" cried David.
A dull red crept into the face of Teilo, but he did not utter a word.
"Come you here, Llyr and Rhaint," David said sternly. "This is my judgment, princes, upon you. It is written that cursed is he who oppresses the poor and helpless. Ye have brought contention and bloodshed to pass. Your people are slain, or wounded, or they pine in captivity; those that remain unhurt and free are starving, their fields being waste; and great is your guilt, for their livelihood is given into your charge! Ye have just heard the conclusion of your affair. Cynyr son of Cyngen is no vowed monk; how can heaven have sent a blight upon your lands for his sake? Greed it was that made Llyr to plunder the Lordships of Rhaint. And Rhaint has hated his brother, though I say not that his hatred had no cause. Ye two shall swear to be friends, and to keep peace, and maintain good government. And half of Selyf shall be thine, O Rhaint, for Brychan thy father did win it in fair fight; and half shall be Llyr's, for thy sister is his wife, and he is thy brother. So shall the lords of Gwent not spoil Brycheiniog when its chief men are divided."
The princes exclaimed together:
"Wondrous his judgment! There is content we are!"
"Gwen daughter of Brychan, wilt thou swear to this also?"
"Yes, yes!" the Lady Gwen replied. "No love of warfare have I!"
"In the name of God, ye do promise to hold to peace and fellowship?"
"In the name of God, we do promise to hold to peace and fellowship one with another!"
"Prosperity be upon you, and upon your children and your children's children, and upon all that is yours and theirs, while ye do observe this solemn compact!" said David then. "And if so be ye scorn and break it, may lightning and storm devastate your territories, may sickness and famine stalk throughout them, and may rottenness take hold upon your bodies! Amen, amen!"
Rhaint and Llyr held each other's hands and shook them up and down; they almost danced upon the springy sod in the exhilaration that their reactive emotion had quickened.
"I am old donkey, Llyr!" shouted Rhaint. "I forgive thee thy ravages. My people will have no bread this year; but doubtless thou wilt provide?"
"Donkey and cuckoo am I!" roared Llyr. "I will feed thy people. We will make a great feast to-night, and forget our differences."
And they two and Gwen sat down upon the bank, and laughed and gossipped together.
Cynyr flung himself at David's feet.
"Forsake me not!" he wailed. "I am as firmly resolved as ever to lead the life of a saint. Let the little holy one of Mynyw be aiding to me!"
The abstraction of age was upon David; he sat gazing at and through the kneeling youth.
Lily approached him, carrying something square wrapped in a cloth.
"What wouldst thou say, my servant?" the bishop murmured. "Well, well, indeed, what hast thou there?"
"My father's official," answered Lily. He removed the cloth, and disclosed a book, with cover worn and water-stained, and laid it upon his master's knees.
David turned the pages, caressing them with his numb old fingers.
"Once I was harsh with a boy,"[11]said he. "And my harshness was because of this blemished volume. I thank thee, Lily, for bringing that sin of anger to my mind. The child, whom I had permitted to read my office-book, left it out of doors upon a rainy day. For penance I sent him to lie at full length upon the sand of the shore at Porth Mawr; and in the press of business I forgot for many hours where I had bidden him bide. When at last I ran to find him, the waves were licking his body, and half-drowned was he…. My son," the saint continued, addressing Cynyr, "hast thou not told me that the direst of thy assailant demons is a living woman, and no bloodless spirit?"
"Indeg daughter of Maenarch pesters and torments me, so that the thought of her is an ever-present temptation. Great hate and scorn has she for me, and her strength she spends in striving for my downfall. She does come bringing bannuts,[12]for she knows I love to eat them!"
"My father," Lily interposed, "they say that the girl is here."
"Well, indeed, now," said David, "let her come forth."
Several women pushed a maiden into the middle of the ring formed by the assembly. She seemed to have been weeping, for her eyelids were flushed; she shook her dark hair over her face, and clutched her hands together and plucked at a ring she wore.
"Daughter," said David, "why do you torment and pester Cynyr son of Cyngen, a hermit seeking God?"
Her lips moved. Some thought she whispered hoarsely:
"I do not!"
"Dost thou hate Cynyr?"
"I hate him in my heart!" cried she.
"I will hang him from yonder ash-tree," said David with a mocking twinkle, "to-morrow at dawn."
"No, no!" she shrieked. "Mercy, mercy! Holy David, there is cruel he is! Spare him—spare Cynyr——"
"Peace, woman!" David's face had become a mask of fury, but his voice was mellifluous. "Nothing will thy tongue avail thee. Thou hast wrought devilish magic, and surely we shall slay thee as a witch!"
"Myn Duw!" shouted Cynyr the novice, tossing his arms on high. "Do not so! I was mistaken—there is mad I have been. David has cleared the covering from my eyes! I love Indeg…."
"And thou, Indeg," said David softly, "dost thou love Cynyr?"
Said she, more softly still:
"I like him … as well as I like any man."
"Our Lord God lays hold upon His own," cried David, "and, Teilo, there is no need to grab souls for him. Rhaint mab Brychan, wilt thou adopt this Cynyr into thy tribe, when he shall have sojourned with thee the accustomed number of years? He will make a brave fighting-man, though not in the picked army of heaven."
"Yes, indeed!" replied Rhaint the King. "I am David's servant, to do his bidding."
"Now, upon blessed Llywel's land, where he lived and died," the saint continued, "we will set a new church, and Llywel, Teilo, and I, we three, will own it in perpetuity. And of the three thou, Teilo, shalt have the pre-eminence. Willingly wilt thou fast forty days upon this spot, for our church's hallowing. A small omission troubles thy conscience, I know. Children," turning from the Abbot of Llandaff to the man and woman before him, "I would see all well with you before I depart. Give me thy ring, Indeg."
She put her ring in the palm of David.
"It is not yet the noon-hour," said he. "Lily, where is my altar, and the other things I now require?"
"Here is your altar, my father," was Lily's reply, "and the sacred elements, look you!—ready for the swearing of oaths."
He brought David's portable altar and placed it before him, and set bread and wine upon it.
David rose to his feet, and, supported by Teilo and Ismael, said mass as it was celebrated for a marriage.
"Cynyr," said he in the British tongue, "wilt thou have Indeg as thy wife?"
"Yes, yes!" Cynyr answered.
"And, Indeg, wilt thou have Cynyr as thy husband?"
She nodded her head several times.
"Then I declare before all these, men and women of the Plant y Cymry, that ye be man and wife together. And, Cynyr, thou shalt love Indeg as long as her life shall last; and thou, Indeg, shalt love Cynyr and obey him. The blessing of God is upon you; and ye shall go with my blessing, and with the blessing of Teilo."
Hand in hand the lovers wandered away over the young, green grass.
"Sixty days and no less will I fast before I consecrate Llywel's church," cried Teilo, his native generosity breaking forth, "and those two shall have my prayers at each day's offering!"
Gwhir, Teilo's bard at Llandaff, unslung his harp from his shoulder, and struck a triumphant prelude from the strings. He began to chant the praises of his master:
"Thrice a hundred servants of Christ does Teilo feed in his Bangor.The fierce old dragon he drove to the seas—potent is our father.Miracles are all about the little ones of Teilo."With Brynach aforetime did angels company in the wilderness about Nant Nimer.No harvest had Llandaff but flower of the broom, the gold-finch of the meadows.Surely white messengers were at hand for the succour of the Côr of Teilo!"
"Thrice a hundred servants of Christ does Teilo feed in his Bangor.The fierce old dragon he drove to the seas—potent is our father.Miracles are all about the little ones of Teilo.
"Thrice a hundred servants of Christ does Teilo feed in his Bangor.
The fierce old dragon he drove to the seas—potent is our father.
Miracles are all about the little ones of Teilo.
"With Brynach aforetime did angels company in the wilderness about Nant Nimer.No harvest had Llandaff but flower of the broom, the gold-finch of the meadows.Surely white messengers were at hand for the succour of the Côr of Teilo!"
"With Brynach aforetime did angels company in the wilderness about Nant Nimer.
No harvest had Llandaff but flower of the broom, the gold-finch of the meadows.
Surely white messengers were at hand for the succour of the Côr of Teilo!"
David listened at first with a slight frown, but by the end of the second triad his countenance had softened.
"Truth governs the tongue of Gwhir," said he. "Hearken! there is also music over yonder. Give me thy arm, my Ismael—I would hear the children sing."
They left the dingle, David and his followers, and ascended a gentle slope that led to an open stretch of level, sheep-cropped sward. Here stunted cowslips grew, and daisies, and a few stray tufts of thyme greeted the footsteps of each comer with their tonic perfume. Young men and girls, partnered in couples, were dancing about a blossoming hawthorn. At their shoulders and wrists, their knees or their ankles, coloured ribbons fluttered; and as they sprang, with outstretched arms, to touch the tree-trunk they hissed between tongue and palate. A man played shrilly upon a pipe, and a number of elderly women, seated upon the ground, were singing:
"Arianrod's battlements light the pathless waste of the sky.Oak for power, and ash for aid, and birch for constancy!Bird calls to bird that gone is winter, the time of hunger and fear.Bless the thorntree, maidens and boys, and bless the spring of the year!"
"Arianrod's battlements light the pathless waste of the sky.Oak for power, and ash for aid, and birch for constancy!Bird calls to bird that gone is winter, the time of hunger and fear.Bless the thorntree, maidens and boys, and bless the spring of the year!"
"Arianrod's battlements light the pathless waste of the sky.
Oak for power, and ash for aid, and birch for constancy!
Bird calls to bird that gone is winter, the time of hunger and fear.
Bless the thorntree, maidens and boys, and bless the spring of the year!"
David watched them indulgently, for the days of the Druids were far off. When their dance was over, they rushed in a body to his feet, begging his blessing, and crying out compliments, sincere though extravagant, upon his sanctity and his fame.
"Dewi Sant! Dewi Sant! Father of the Saints of Britain! May he live amongst us for ever!"
"As God wills," said he, as he turned to leave them. "Beautiful the May tree—more beautiful the groves of Paradise. There is a hard task, my brothers, for Ismael."
His companions remembered well what he had spoken of Ismael in two months less than a year from that hour.[13]
One February day in the year Six Hundred and One, many folk, rich and poor, flocked to the walls of Ty Ddewi, David's monastic enclosure. A rumour had gone abroad that the saint had had heavenly premonition that his end was near at hand. So, weeping and lamenting, these men and women came from the regions around, crying upon their bishop to take their sadness from them. Within Ty Ddewi there was a wonderful silence and peace; and in the streets of Mynyw were heard the flutterings of invisible wings.
"Look you, this mourning must cease, now!" said blessed David.
"Well, well, true is what ye have heard. Merry tidings have reached me! In a little while from now, on the first day of March, I must go hence to the place where is life without end, rest without labour, and joy without sorrow—where is health and no pain, youth and no old age, peace and no contention, music and no discord. I charge you pray always, in all your undertakings, spiritual and bodily; and be good, little people, for the best usage is goodness."
His last words on earth were just as simple:
"Take me with Thee!"
Star of Mercia
"Hic regina detestaturAmplexus illicitos;Spreta mortem machinaturOb amores vetitos."
"Hic regina detestaturAmplexus illicitos;Spreta mortem machinaturOb amores vetitos."
"Hic regina detestaturAmplexus illicitos;Spreta mortem machinaturOb amores vetitos."
"Hic regina detestatur
Amplexus illicitos;
Spreta mortem machinatur
Ob amores vetitos."
"Nay, Ethelfrith, bide thou here in quiet!" said Cynerith. "Tush, girl! art no child now, at sixteen years old! Why, thou hast witnessed the death of many a fledgling rook. The sun must not stain thy cheeks this day, and that thou knowest! The young man cannot now be afar off, God help! Nay, good lack! I will not have such pouting! It is my behest that thou stay at home."
In reality, the Lady Ethelfrith could scarcely be said to pout; and she knew her mother too well to venture a protest. The party set forth—Offa the King, the imperious Cynerith his Queen, their son the Atheling, and Eadburh their handsome elder daughter, wife of Beorhtric, King of Wessex, and now on a visit to her parents' court—and the young Ethelfrith, debarred from the sport, climbed to the upper room which was her own sleeping-chamber, and looked out over the shire of Hereford.
If she leant out and turned sideways, her window commanded a view of the highway that ran by the gates of King Offa's palace of Sutton. She peered idly in that direction, without emotion of any sort—even anger, or curiosity. Below her lay the orchard-close, bright green under foot, and rosy overhead with the vernal glory of the apple-trees. It was the fairest day of the fair month of May; but its beauty awoke in Ethelfrith a dull, continuous pain. She was seldom happy, poor little princess: she thought much, but there was no one to whom she could tell her ideas, or who would give her sympathy. The King was always occupied; her brother was as spare of speech as herself; her mother was the Queen and unapproachable, except when she jested coarsely; and she feared her sister, the Queen of Wessex. There were many puzzling things in her everyday world which had only just begun to claim her attention.
She was a very fairy-like being, so small and slim and fragile; her complexion was as delicate as the apple-blossom; she had soft eyes, grey as the plumage of a dove and a soft mouth with an obstinate curve; her hair was of the purest, palest gold, just saved from being flaxen and colourless. A strange child, surely, for those two robust persons, Offa and Cynerith. Just now she was wondering why they had not told her before yesterday of Ethelbert of East Anglia, his coming and its purpose. Every one about the palace had known of it but herself. She had overheard what had been whispered to a servant of her sister's from Wessex, in the orchard, upon the foregoing afternoon, by one of her father's henchmen, whose eyes had shed a marvellously tender light while he gazed upon her, King Offa's daughter.
"She is the star and flower of all Mercia," this henchman had said, "and she is to wed Lord Ethelbert, the star of the Eastern Angles."
Although she had remarked it, the expression of the speaker's countenance had in no wise stirred her sensibilities; she had been a little ruffled in temper, perhaps—no more. For Ethelfrith had no affinities with the courtiers; the overfed, voluptuous women and their satellites filled her with a cold disgust. The nuns of Marden, she thought, led peaceful lives, and bore in their faces a truly joyous light. Yet she had no longing for the seclusion of a religious house. She would sometimes, however—though very rarely—go to visit the sisters and spend a day in their company. The reverend mother was a motherly woman indeed; she was very gentle with the princess, and careful to refrain in her presence from any allusion to her life or her kinsfolk that might dash her girlish, half-childish dreams. When the maiden returned to her ordinary surroundings, how the glare and the chatter tired her head and oppressed her whole dainty frame! So it came about that the Lady Ethelfrith was little accounted by the great folk of Mercia: she was always silent, usually prim, and sometimes brusque; and to some she seemed a cross, spoilt child, and to others, witless.
Then there had been her mother's half-teasing words of the evening before; that was really all she knew! At the thought of King Ethelbert, a sharper pain than the ache of loneliness amid natural beauties struck through her heart. She remembered the Queen's parting injunctions. Her childhood was surely at an end. This Ethelbert would be coming by the highway to the halls of Sutton before long.
Impatiently she turned away from the dusty road. Her eyes lighted upon the flowering gorse-bushes that blazed upon the outskirts of an upland covert in the distance. There ran through her head a riddle of her nursery days, couched in the rhyming metre which the Mercians had begun to imitate from the neighbouring Welsh.
"Yellow and green,Sharp and keen,Grows in the mene.The King can't ride it, no more can the Queen."
"Yellow and green,Sharp and keen,Grows in the mene.The King can't ride it, no more can the Queen."
"Yellow and green,
Sharp and keen,
Grows in the mene.
The King can't ride it, no more can the Queen."
Song after song, carol after carol, lay after lay, came tripping after—some of God and the saints and ghostly blessedness; some of love and mirth; others of woe. A smile hovered about the lips of Ethelfrith. She loved songs—they were often her only solace.
She would walk in the garden—no, she would not. The sun was too hot—the wind was too cold. She had just decided to wile away the time by strumming upon her cither, when she descried figures approaching along the road. They were horsemen, many horsemen; a mighty train. And there, unmistakably, was the banner of some great one. It was not a lord of Mercia, nor a lord of Wessex! Ethelfrith rushed from her room, down the stairs, and headlong into the orchard-close, in a fit of wild shyness.
There was her waiting-maid, and there were several aged ladies who cared not to look on at the shooting of the rooks. All confused, she stammered to them of her surmise—how that the King of East Anglia was even at their gates. What should they do, with her parents away?
"Why, lady, there is no need for fear," said one kind-hearted matron. Even as she spoke a servant appeared in the orchard doorway, ushering with every token of respect a company of nobly-attired, travel-stained men. In another moment the little group beneath the trees had become aware of the leader of the party—a young man, very lithe, very muscular, with an energetic open countenance, and the bluest, brightest eyes that Ethelfrith had ever seen. Their glance wandered from one to another of the women, and came to rest upon King Offa's youngest daughter.
It seemed to her that the universe whirled around her: she had to strain at her insteps in order to keep herself upright. Then she heard him saying:
"O lady, forgive me that I know not whom I should greet! Do I speak to the high and mighty lady, the Lady Ethelfrith of Mercia?"
She curtsied, and hung her head; she was pallid now, who had been crimson the instant before; her tongue refused to utter audible sound.
"I am Ethelbert of East Anglia," continued the stranger. "Here am I at King Offa's bidding. They have told you of my coming?"
"Indeed, I am Ethelfrith," said she. "I do greatly grieve—my father and mother…. Oh, my lord, will ye not be seated? I had forgotten…. Ye will deem me unmannerly…."
"Nay, lady, surely nay," said Ethelbert earnestly; and he seated himself beside her upon a bench built round the trunk of an ancient apple-tree. He had begun to address her once more in his kindly tones, when a bustling noise reached them from within the palace, and in another moment the whole court was about them. Offa, the welcoming host, Cynerith, with her ready, witty talk. And Eadburh, whose person and taste in adornment made her give the effect of a full-blown poppy. Ethelfrith felt faded and nerveless beside her. She shrank into the background.
"In a good hour!" cried Offa. "Ye have spoken with my little daughter, I see: no need to make you known one to another. I trow ye are weary from your wayfaring. Come with me, and ye shall bathe you, and have meat and drink. And then, Ethelbert Etheldred's son, I will show you my horses, my hounds, and my hawks, and ye shall say whether ye have other such in East Anglia."
And they all departed into the house, leaving the princess alone.
She, pondering dazedly, thought that a thunderstorm had broken.
But the sun was shining as it had shone all day: the little stream which bounded the orchard from the meadows beyond was as blue as the sky whose colour it borrowed. The earth beneath her feet seemed to pant forth the scent, sweet and languorous, of white wild violets. A cuckoo shouted insistently. The air was vibrant with the voices of created things. A glimmering sulphur-moth came fluttering before her. Ethelfrith began to run. About and about she chased it, screaming in her excitement; and presently she fell on her knees, panting, by the brookside, her arms clasped around a clump of meadowsweet and forget-me-not.
Summer was summer once again.
They were all upon a green knoll, sheltered by ash and elm. They had flown their hawks with some success, and were now enjoying shade and repose, while their attendants laid the midday meal before them.
Ethelfrith looked often at Ethelbert. He was listening somewhat impatiently to Eadburh, whose florid beauty was evidently little to his taste.
"Lord King," she was saying, "ye seem to me in no wise a monkish man. I thought, from what I had heard, that surely ye would betake you to the life of the cloister, or else bind yourself to all of a saint's life in your kingly halls. I beseech you say, had ye ever such a meaning?"
"They were my youthful thoughts," said Ethelbert. "But I have put them far from me. A king's life is for a king, and no monk's life. Besides, I am the last of my father's house."
He rose, and crossed to Ethelfrith, offering to pour mead into her drinking-horn.
Now Cynerith had looked often and long at Ethelbert since his coming.
"A harmless boy!" she remarked to her daughter Eadburh; and then she said "Fore heaven! the handsomest boy I have seen this many a year!"
Eadburh laughed her horse-laugh.
"Are all things to thy liking, fair lady?" said Ethelbert to Ethelfrith.
"Why, greatly to my liking, O King!" answered she.
Suddenly Cynerith called out, "Child, where is thine amethyst brooch? Is it lost, then, thou naughty one?"
"My lady," said the girl, trembling, "I did give it…. Ye saw the beggars. One there was that might have been a leper; and there were little children. O mother, be not wroth! I could not do else—woeful was their crying. I sent them unto the sisters, who will feed them and care for them this night; and I gave my brooch unto the woman with the baby in her arms."
"Fie upon thee, fie upon thee!" cried the Queen. "Is my daughter altogether a fool? I will not have thee go among such filthy folk, to touch them belike! Precious stones give I not thee for this!"
"All beggars and such scum should be whipped and branded," said Eadburh, little guessing that in years to come she herself would roam a foreign city,[14]begging her bread. "Lord father, think ye not that it would be well that when a bondman have not work enough, or when he feign himself a cripple, his lord might sell him beyond seas? So do I often tell King Beorhtric."
"Why, why," Ethelbert broke in, "I miss my ring of onyx!"
"Was it loose upon thy finger?" said Queen Cynerith. "Often in unhooding a hawk——"
"Nay," said he, smiling, "I do think it is where the Lady Ethelfrith's sweet charity would have it be!"
Cynerith bit her lip.
"Have ye indeed bestowed your ring upon the beggars?" Ethelfrith whispered.
"Surely, aye," answered he. "The sad, sorry souls! These do fear lest they be besmirched by fellowship with the mean and ailing. But I think that a king, before all men in the earth ought to be lowly." Bending towards her, he said softly, "Tell me now, are all things truly to thy liking?"
"Oh, my lord…." said she. Here, amongst all these people—before all her kindred!
"'High and mighty' I greeted thee," he pursued. "Dearest, I knew not then to whom I spake. 'Soft and lovely lady' hail I thee now!"
He handed her down the slope and together they wandered slowly through the fields.
The royal party followed immediately, and they proceeded, mostly on foot, along the path which leads through the lush meadow-land. Presently Cynerith called the King of East Anglia to her, and they in their turn headed the company.
"May-tide is God's gift to lovers," she said. "The Queen's words are sooth," was his rejoinder.
"Hearken to the live things, and to the birds," said Cynerith, and her eyes were languishing. "Ethelbert, a woman's heart blooms blithe and tender in this month of May!"
Eadburh looked her sister from head to foot.
"Art not a fine woman," she remarked. "Belike thou wilt yet grow."
"Think ye I must needs become a fine woman?" said the other, smiling.
"Men like them," replied Eadburh. "All men," she added, with a meaning glance towards Ethelbert.
"What wouldst thou hint?" cried Ethelfrith; but Queen Eadburh was gone from her side.
The younger sister was not easy in heart or mind. Lately she had become aware of circumstances which she did not care to think on; and now, her sister's words! She was used to the moods of her mother; but there was also Sexwolf, the young lord who had been the Queen's constant companion for two years—he was full of smouldering fury, it was evident, and would speak to no one. Her brother was near at hand, but he always snubbed her when she talked inquisitively; he would be no help. There was thane Edric, the honest old man, seneschal of the court; she was certain he would tell her plainly anything he thought she ought to know. Why should she not take her perplexities to him? Alack! here was Eadburh again! Her she could not question. She would consult old Edric later on.
"Is a woman ever too old to love?" said Cynerith the Queen.
Ethelbert looked up quickly, surprised and a little amused. They were walking along the edge of a springing cornfield.
"Look, the bonny blossoms!" cried she.
She stooped over a patch of poppies, whose bowls seemed to burn with liquid scarlet fire. As she did so, her hand brushed against Ethelbert's as though by accident.
"Bonny, for sure," answered the young man.
"Pity they have no smell—as it were, no soul. They are rank, too, I think. O lady mother, this morning I heard Ethelfrith singing to herself…."
"Why, Leofgythe, whither away?" said Ethelfrith.
Said the waiting-maid: "Lady, there is great mirth afoot to-night for us of the household. The Queen hath given us leave that we may go to the dancing at Aegelstane the Thane's. I beseech you, my lady, that ye forget not to comb your locks right thoroughly; they must shine like gold for King Ethelbert."
"Good luck go with thee, Leofgythe," cried the Lady gaily. "I would we might have dancing too. But I fear me we shall be too few." And she passed on up the staircase.
In the palace hall King Ethelbert and Queen Cynerith sat facing one another across a little table, playing at chess. All was not well between them. The Queen leant very far over the board, and her lips were pouting. Her fingers rested lightly upon the head of a chessman. Suddenly she withdrew her hand, and launched a side-long look at her opponent from beneath drooping lashes. Ethelbert's brow was black, and for an instant there appeared in his eyes a glint of loathing.
Then Cynerith surveyed the board once more and played her piece.
It was checkmate.
As by a common impulse, they both rose, making no comment upon the game. The Queen was flushed and quivering. Ethelbert bowed to her and strode hurriedly from the hall.
Cynerith went then to King Offa's private chamber. The King was there alone: he smiled at sight of her, and greeted her lovingly. Cynerith stood before him, rapping one foot upon the earthen floor.
"My lord," she burst forth at last, "what will ye do if things fall out even so as your dearest wishes be undermined?"
Offa spread wide his hands.
"How now, sweetheart?" he queried, laughing.
"It were well to be ready. If East Anglia become our foe—if Ethelbert will not wed with Ethelfrith——?"
"Not wed with Ethelfrith! Not wed my little maid! How, wife, what meanest thou?"
"I understand not, for my life," said Cynerith, "which way things are faring between them twain! It is my belief that Ethelbert is here to pick a quarrel with thee, Offa."
"Tush, woman, woman! I have marked nought of this."
"Thou wilt own that my woman's wit is ever quicker than thine own, husband. I think he beareth little love to our daughter, and none to thee or me, or any of us. For all he is so mild, and his tongue so smooth, he is a man to scheme deep undertakings. Why hath he brought with him so great an armed train—greater far than a wedding warranteth? Offa, I tell thee this youth will some day spread his sway in England, even so far as thou hast spread thine!"
"If I thought he truly scorned my daughter…."
"Shall we let him go forth, husband, wed or unwed? Thou shouldst set him straightway in ward, the wheedling knave! or there are other ways, maybe!"
"Lady wife," said Offa, "do thou bear in mind that this man is our guest!"
"My lord, Ethelbert is young, and as for thee, thou hast looked thy last upon the height of thy manhood. And Egbert our son will never be the man that thou art. I say, beware! Come tell me now, if so be that Ethelbert of East Anglia wriggle from out of this pact he is come to make with us—if he make of us laughing-stocks from Iceland unto Caisar Charles's court—aye, and beyond—say ye will strike, O Offa of Mercia, so that your kingly dignity be upheld in the land!"
"God knoweth I will strike, and right heavily!" cried Offa. "I give my word I will not fail thee. But, lady, I hold thee mistaken—all this can scarcely be."
And as he was in gleeful humour, he put the matter from his mind, and began contentedly to examine and polish his boar-spears. He had suffered one or two envious pangs through Ethelbert's youth and vigour. Moreover, strong man though he was, he had never been able to bridle Cynerith.
Hardly had the Queen left the room than Sexwolf, her neglected favourite, sprang out upon her; and bitterly he upbraided her, raging, expostulating, pleading, outside the very door of King Offa's cabinet.
"Hold thy tongue, young man!" said she loudly, in her stateliest tones; and she swept from before him into the hall, where some were setting out the evening meal.
It was a hot evening, even sultry. They opened the doors, and such windows as had swinging frames, and the red glow of sunset shone in upon them for a brief hour. Though few of their court were to be present, they decked themselves that night in their full finery. Cynerith, clad in wine-purple, was as handsome, seen by twilight, as she had ever been in the days of her prime. Eadburh, in green and crimson, was gorgeous and blatant. Ethelfrith wore white, exquisitely embroidered with silver and gold.
Star of Mercia was she indeed that night. Eadburh seemed a burning brazier by contrast; Cynerith a painted shrew. No more was the Lady Ethelfrith silent; merry words flowed from her lips; time and again her laughter rippled out, soft and joyous. King Offa began, as was his custom, to talk of his wars, and of the stupendous dyke, boundary between his dominions and the lands of the wild Welsh, which the March folk, at his bidding, had dug in the sweat of their brows; but he soon hushed his voice, and listened proudly while his youngest-born told of her new-found pleasure in hunting, dancing, and friendly company. Even the Atheling, a stalwart, somewhat sullen youth, was seen once or twice to smile.
They brought her cither, and she sang them all her store of songs, with an art and confidence of which none had ever thought her capable. King Ethelbert applauded her and cast fond looks upon her, and at the end of every ditty he prayed her for more.
By and by, when the light faded and the torches were kindled, Offa the King began to yawn, and to doze in his chair. The Queen then conversed apart with Ethelbert. She bore herself meekly towards him, was innocent and child-like in manner and speech. Presently Offa awoke. His wife was beside him, bearing a brimming tumbler.
"What—what—sweetheart?" said he.
"It is mine own brew that thou lovest so well," Cynerith replied. She waited while he drank, and noted how the potion increased his drowsiness.
"Husband," she whispered, "I have sure proof that it is even as I guessed. He will go hence upon the morrow, leaving us pledges which he hath no mind to fulfil. Then will he stir up the men of his own kingdom, without doubt, hoping to take thee defenceless in thine old age. The hour is ripe, Offa my King! Shall he live to work our undoing?"
"I shall be nithing in the eyes of all men," murmured Offa.
"Lo, no man shall know how the end did come about," said the Queen. "I, thy wife, will be thy handmaid in this as in all things, aye, and bear the blame, if blame be to follow. Trust in me. O son of Woden, it profiteth not a man to spare his enemies. Hereafter shall thy sway reach from the hills of Wales even unto the eastern sea."
And Offa nodded his head.
She took another cup in her hand, and beckoned to Ethelbert, who rose to meet her midmost in the hall.
"We will talk together of the wedding day," said she. "The King leaves all such business unto me." Then they drank to one another, very gravely, where they stood.
Eadburh, sitting by her sister, nudged her, with sneering lips.
"Let us now to bed, children," cried Cynerith.
"I trow we are all full weary, even as our lord the King."
As she passed out, she said in the ear of a trusted servant: "Gymbert, be ready against I need thee!"
Edric the seneschal stayed behind, searching the floor and the tables for property mislaid, smothering the torches himself with meticulous care. He heard a light step brush across the strewn rushes. Ethelfrith stood before him, darkly cloaked and hooded.
"My little hare was ailing this evening," said she. "I might not find thee, Edric, though I sought. But even now he is better than I could earlier have hoped."
"I will go see him early to-morrow," said Edric, "if ye do think he will live through this night." He was a man of few words.
"He will live through the night…. Edric, I have no wish to sleep. I have thoughts and fears which break through my rest…. And then … Eadburh said … at least I do fancy that she meant to say…."
"Her tongue wags ever too fast," Edric rejoined. "Well, lady, what said she?"
"It was of my lord King Ethelbert she spake…. I am sorely troubled. Meseemeth that the Queen and King Ethelbert love each other not, or mayhap…. And there is strife between my mother and Sexwolf…. I hate Eadburh!" cried Ethelfrith. "God forgive me!" she added, horrified.
Surprise and interest went far to conquer Edric's wonted reserve. The little princess irked him usually; but now—yes, and formerly throughout that evening—she showed signs of a spirit that he had never suspected to exist in her.
"Listen, lady," said he. "King Ethelbert should go his ways, taking you with him. He loveth you dearly, as all may see. Here hath he been three weeks, and is no nearer the settlement of that which brought him hither. Ye are scarce even a moment together. This is a drear betrothal."
"Alack! how can I help?" said she. "Can a maid beg a man to wed her?"
"And fret not yourself too greatly over what Queen Eadburh may say or do. Her mind is evil, and all that she looketh upon doth take on for her the same ill hue."
"O Edric, good Edric, dear Edric, say to me that all must be well! My heart sinks within me. Tell me—tell me truly whether my father's court be fair and clean, as I have heretofore dreamed it to be!"
Edric turned away his face, and began to poke, with the staff which he always carried, in the rushes beneath a little table standing under one of the windows. A faint clink resounded. He stooped and picked up a small, finely-wrought key with a handle curiously bent.
"That is my mother's wry-necked key!" exclaimed Ethelfrith. "Great store sets she by it. Thou knowest she weareth it ever upon the chain at her waist."
"She leant much upon the board this evening, playing at chess with Ethelbert," said the old man, "Belike it was rubbed loose, or the chain broke."
"It openeth the garden door of the chamber, built down into the earth, beneath the Queen's bedroom," the Lady continued. "I have never been within, nor hath any that I have heard of. But Gymbert may go sometimes: he hath another key like unto this. Once, one of the maids did whisper…. But I will not believe it!"
"Neither have I ever seen into that chamber," said Edric the seneschal; and both together they uttered the same words:
"This night spake she into the ear of Gymbert, even as she left the hall!"
"O child, be strong!" said Edric. He stopped and coughed. "There would be no harm," he ventured, "in learning to be strong."
They were both silent for a little while. Then "Take thou the Queen's key, Ethelfrith Offa's daughter," said he. "She shall deem it utterly lost. It may serve thee at need."
She slipped it into her bosom, and went softly from the room.