Book: Harold, Book 12.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Harold, Book 12.




The torches flashed in the court below; the church was again deserted;
the monks passed in mute procession back to their cloister; but a
single man paused, turned aside, and stopped at the gate of the
humbler convent: a knocking was heard at the great oaken door, and the
watch-dog barked. Edith started, pressed her hand on her heart and
trembled. Steps approached her door--and the abbess, entering,
summoned her below, to hear the farewell greeting of her cousin the
King.

Harold stood in the simple hall of the cloister: a single taper, tall
and wan, burned on the oak board. The abbess led Edith by the hand,
and at a sign from the King, withdrew. So, once more upon earth, the
betrothed and divided were alone.

"Edith," said the King, in a voice in which no ear but hers could have
detected the struggle, "do not think I have come to disturb thy holy
calm, or sinfully revive the memories of the irrevocable past: where
once on my breast, in the old fashion of our fathers, I wrote thy
name, is written now the name of the mistress that supplants thee.
Into Eternity melts the Past; but I could not depart to a field from
which there is no retreat--in which, against odds that men say are
fearful, I have resolved to set my crown and my life--without once
more beholding thee, pure guardian of my happier days! Thy
forgiveness for all the sorrow that, in the darkness which surrounds
man's hopes and dreams, I have brought on thee (dread return for love
so enduring, so generous and divine!)--thy forgiveness I will not ask.
Thou alone perhaps on earth knowest the soul of Harold; and if he hath
wronged thee, thou seest alike in the wronger and the wronged, but the
children of iron Duty, the servants of imperial Heaven. Not thy
forgivenness I ask--but--but--Edith, holy maid! angel soul!--thy--thy
blessing!" His voice faltered, and he inclined his lofty head as to a
saint.

"Oh that I had the power to bless!" exclaimed Edith, mastering her
rush of tears with a heroic effort; "and methinks I have the power--
not from virtues of my own, but from all that I owe to thee! The
grateful have the power to bless. For what do I not owe to thee--owe
to that very love of which even the grief is sacred? Poor child in
the house of the heathen, thy love descended upon me, and in it, the
smile of God! In that love my spirit awoke, and was baptised: every
thought that has risen from earth, and lost itself in heaven, was
breathed into my heart by thee! Thy creature and thy slave, hadst
thou tempted me to sin, sin had seemed hallowed by thy voice; but thou
saidst 'True love is virtue,' and so I worshipped virtue in loving
thee. Strengthened, purified, by thy bright companionship, from thee
came the strength to resign thee--from thee the refuge under the wings
of God--from thee the firm assurance that our union yet shall be--not
as our poor Hilda dreams, on the perishable earth,--but there! oh,
there! yonder by the celestial altars, in the land in which all
spirits are filled with love. Yes, soul of Harold! there are might
and holiness in the blessing the soul thou hast redeemed and reared
sheds on thee!"

And so beautiful, so unlike the Beautiful of the common earth, looked
the maid as she thus spoke, and laid hands, trembling with no human
passion, on that royal head-that could a soul from paradise be made
visible, such might be the shape it would wear to a mortal's eye!
Thus, for some moments both were silent; and in the silence the gloom
vanished from the heart of Harold, and, through a deep and sublime
serenity, it rose undaunted to front the future.

No embrace--no farewell kiss--profaned the parting of those pure and
noble spirits--parting on the threshold of the grave. It was only the
spirit that clasped the spirit, looking forth from the clay into
measureless eternity. Not till the air of night came once more on his
brow, and the moonlight rested on the roofs and fanes of the land
entrusted to his charge, was the man once more the human hero; not
till she was alone in her desolate chamber, and the terrors of the
coming battle-field chased the angel from her thoughts was the maid
inspired, once more the weeping woman.

A little after sunrise the abbess, who was distantly akin to the house
of Godwin, sought Edith, so agitated by her own fear, that she did not
remark the trouble of her visitor. The supposed miracle of the sacred
Image bowing over the kneeling King, had spread dismay through the
cloisters of both nunnery and abbey; and so intense was the
disquietude of the two brothers, Osgood and Ailred, in the simple and
grateful affection they bore their royal benefactor, that they had
obeyed the impulse of their tender credulous hearts, and left the
monastery with the dawn, intending to follow the King's march [255],
and watch and pray near the awful battle-field. Edith listened, and
made no reply; the terrors of the abbess infected her; the example of
the two monks woke the sole thought which stirred through the
nightmare dream that suspended reason itself; and when, at noon the
abbess again sought the chamber, Edith was gone;--gone, and alone--
none knew wherefore--one guessed whither.

All the pomp of the English army burst upon Harold's view, as, in the
rising sun, he approached the bridge of the capital. Over that bridge
came the stately march,--battle-axe, and spear, and banner, glittering
in the ray. And as he drew aside, and the forces filed before him,
the cry of; "God save King Harold!" rose with loud acclaim and lusty
joy, borne over the waves of the river, startling the echoes in the
ruined keape of the Roman, heard in the halls restored by Canute, and
chiming, like a chorus, with the chaunts of the monks by the tomb of
Sebba in St. Paul's--by the tomb of Edward at St. Peter's.

With a brightened face, and a kindling eye, the King saluted his
lines, and then fell into the ranks towards the rear, where among the
burghers of London and the lithsmen of Middlesex, the immemorial
custom of Saxon monarchs placed the kingly banner. And, looking up,
he beheld, not his old standard with the Tiger heads and the Cross,
but a banner both strange and gorgeous. On a field of gold was the
effigies of a Fighting Warrior; and the arms were bedecked in orient
pearls, and the borders blazed in the rising sun, with ruby, amethyst,
and emerald. While he gazed, wondering, on this dazzling ensign,
Haco, who rode beside the standard-bearer, advanced, and gave him a
letter.

"Last night," said he, "after thou hadst left the palace, many
recruits, chiefly from Hertfordshire and Essex, came in; but the most
gallant and stalwart of all, in arms and in stature, were the lithsmen
of Hilda. With them came this banner, on which she has lavished the
gems that have passed to her hand through long lines of northern
ancestors, from Odin, the founder of all northern thrones. So, at
least, said the bode of our kinswoman."

Harold had already cut the silk round the letter, and was reading its
contents. They ran thus:--

"King of England, I forgive thee the broken heart of my grandchild.
They whom the land feeds, should defend the land. I send to thee, in
tribute the best fruits that grow in the field, and the forest, round
the house which my husband took from the bounty of Canute;--stout
hearts and strong hands! Descending alike, as do Hilda and Harold
(through Githa thy mother,) from the Warrior God of the North, whose
race never shall fail--take, O defender of the Saxon children of Odin,
the banner I have broidered with the gems that the Chief of the Asas
bore from the East. Firm as love be thy foot, strong as death be thy
hand, under the shade which the banner of Hilda,--under the gleam
which the jewels of Odin,--cast on the brows of the King! So Hilda,
the daughter of monarchs, greets Harold the leader of men."

Harold looked up from the letter, and Haco resumed:

"Thou canst guess not the cheering effect which this banner, supposed
to be charmed, and which the name of Odin alone would suffice to make
holy, at least with thy fierce Anglo-Danes, hath already produced
through the army."

"It is well, Haco," said Harold with a smile. "Let priest add his
blessing to Hilda's charm, and Heaven will pardon any magic that makes
more brave the hearts that defend its altars. Now fall we back, for
the army must pass beside the hill with the crommell and gravestone;
there, be sure, Hilda will be at watch for our march, and we will
linger a few moments to thank her somewhat for her banner, yet more
justly, methinks, for her men. Are not yon stout fellows all in mail,
so tall and so orderly, in advance of the London burghers, Hilda's aid
to our Fyrd?"

"They are," answered Haco.

The King backed his steed to accost them with his kingly greeting; and
then, with Haco, falling yet farther to the rear seemed engaged in
inspecting the numerous wains, bearing missiles and forage, that
always accompanied the march of a Saxon army, and served to strengthen
its encampment. But when they came in sight of the hillock by which
the great body of the army had preceded them, the King and the son of
Sweyn dismounted and on foot entered the large circle of the Celtic
ruin.

By the side of the Teuton altar they beheld two forms, both perfectly
motionless: but one was extended on the ground as in sleep or in
death; the other sate beside it, as if watching the corpse, or
guarding the slumber. The face of the last was not visible, propped
upon the arms which rested on the knees, and bidden by the hands. But
in the face of the other, as the two men drew near, they recognised
the Danish Prophetess. Death in its dreadest characters was written
on that ghastly face; woe and terror, beyond all words to describe,
spoke in the haggard brow, the distorted lips, and the wild glazed
stare of the open eyes. At the startled cry of the intruders on that
dreary silence, the living form moved; and though still leaning its
face on its hands, it raised its head; and never countenance of
Northern Vampire, cowering by the rifled grave, was more fiendlike and
appalling.

"Who and what art thou?" said the King; "and how, thus unhonored in
the air of heaven, lies the corpse of the noble Hilda? Is this the
hand of Nature? Haco, Haco, so look the eyes, so set the features, of
those whom the horror of ruthless murder slays even before the steel
strikes. Speak, hag, art thou dumb?"

"Search the body," answered the witch, "there is no wound! Look to
the throat,--no mark of the deadly gripe! I have seen such in my
day.--There are none on this corpse, I trow; yet thou sayest rightly,
horror slew her! Ha, ha! she would know, and she hath known; she
would raise the dead and the demon; she hath raised them; she would
read the riddle,--she hath read it. Pale King and dark youth, would
ye learn what Hilda saw, eh? eh? Ask her in the Shadow-World where
she awaits ye! Ha! ye too would be wise in the future; ye too would
climb to heaven through the mysteries of hell. Worms! worms! crawl
back to the clay--to the earth! One such night as the hag ye despise
enjoys as her sport and her glee, would freeze your veins, and sear
the life in your eyeballs, and leave your corpses to terror and
wonder, like the carcase that lies at your feet!"

"Ho!" cried the King, stamping his foot. "Hence, Haco; rouse the
household; summon hither the handmaids; call henchman and ceorl to
guard this foul raven."

Haco obeyed; but when he returned with the shuddering and amazed
attendants, the witch was gone, and the King was leaning against the
altar with downcast eyes, and a face troubled and dark with thought.

The body of the Vala was borne into the house; and the King, waking
from his reverie, bade them send for the priests and ordered masses
for the parted soul. Then kneeling, with pious hand he closed the
eyes and smoothed the features, and left his mournful kiss on the icy
brow. These offices fulfilled, he took Haco's arm, and leaning on it,
returned to the spot on which they had left their steeds. Not
evincing surprise or awe,--emotions that seemed unknown to his gloomy,
settled, impassible nature--Haco said calmly, as they descended the
knoll:

"What evil did the hag predict to thee?"

"Haco," answered the King, "yonder, by the shores of Sussex, lies all
the future which our eyes now should scan, and our hearts should be
firm to meet. These omens and apparitions are but the ghosts of a
dead Religion; spectres sent from the grave of the fearful
Heathenesse; they may appal but to lure us from our duty. Lo, as we
gaze around--the ruins of all the creeds that have made the hearts of
men quake with unsubstantial awe--lo, the temple of the Briton!--lo,
the fane of the Roman!--lo, the mouldering altar of our ancestral
Thor! Ages past lie wrecked around us in these shattered symbols. A
new age hath risen, and a new creed. Keep we to the broad truths
before us; duty here; knowledge comes alone in the Hereafter."

"That Hereafter!--is it not near?" murmured Haco.

They mounted in silence; and ere they regained the army paused, by a
common impulse, and looked behind. Awful in their desolation rose the
temple and the altar! And in Hilda's mysterious death it seemed that
their last and lingering Genius,--the Genius of the dark and fierce,
the warlike and the wizard North, had expired for ever. Yet, on the
outskirt of the forest, dusk and shapeless, that witch without a name
stood in the shadow, pointing towards them, with outstretched arm, in
vague and denouncing menace;--as if, come what may, all change of
creed,--be the faith ever so simple, the truth ever so bright and
clear,--there is a SUPERSTITION native to that Border-land between the
Visible and the Unseen, which will find its priest and its votaries,
till the full and crowning splendour of Heaven shall melt every shadow
from the world!




CHAPTER V.


On the broad plain between Pevensey and Hastings, Duke William had
arrayed his armaments. In the rear he had built a castle of wood, all
the framework of which he had brought with him, and which was to serve
as a refuge in case of retreat. His ships he had run into deep water,
and scuttled; so that the thought of return, without victory, might be
banished from his miscellaneous and multitudinous force. His outposts
stretched for miles, keeping watch night and day against surprise.
The ground chosen was adapted for all the manoeuvres of a cavalry
never before paralleled in England nor perhaps in the world,--almost
every horseman a knight, almost every knight fit to be a chief. And
on this space William reviewed his army, and there planned and
schemed, rehearsed and re-formed, all the stratagems the great day
might call forth. But more careful, and laborious, and minute, was he
in the manoeuvre of a feigned retreat. Not ere the acting of some
modern play, does the anxious manager more elaborately marshal each
man, each look, each gesture, that are to form a picture on which the
curtain shall fall amidst deafening plaudits than did the laborious
captain appoint each man, and each movement, in his lure to a valiant
foe:--The attack of the foot, their recoil, their affected panic,
their broken exclamations of despair;--their retreat, first partial
and reluctant, next seemingly hurried and complete,--flying, but in
flight carefully confused:--then the settled watchword, the lightning
rally, the rush of the cavalry from the ambush; the sweep and hem
round the pursuing foe, the detachment of levelled spears to cut off
the Saxon return to the main force, and the lost ground,--were all
directed by the most consummate mastership in the stage play, or
upokrisis, of war, and seized by the adroitness of practised veterans.

Not now, O Harold! hast thou to contend against the rude heroes of the
Norse, with their ancestral strategy unimproved! The civilisation of
Battle meets thee now!--and all the craft of the Roman guides the
manhood of the North.

It was in the midst of such lessons to his foot and his horsemen--
spears gleaming--pennons tossing--lines reforming--steeds backing,
wheeling, flying, circling--that William's eye blazed, and his deep
voice thundered the thrilling word; when Mallet de Graville, who was
in command at one of the outposts, rode up to him at full speed, and
said in gasps, as he drew breath:

"King Harold and his army are advancing furiously. Their object is
clearly to come on us unawares."

"Hold!" said the Duke, lifting his hand; and the knights around him
halted in their perfect discipline; then after a few brief but
distinct orders to Odo, Fitzosborne, and some other of his leading
chiefs, he headed a numerous cavalcade of his knights, and rode fast
to the outpost which Mallet had left,--to catch sight of the coming
foe.

The horsemen cleared the plain--passed through a wood, mournfully
fading into autumnal hues--and, on emerging, they saw the gleam of the
Saxon spears rising on the brows of the gentle hills beyond. But even
the time, short as it was, that had sufficed to bring William in view
of the enemy, had sufficed also, under the orders of his generals, to
give to the wide plain of his encampment all the order of a host
prepared. And William, having now mounted on a rising ground, turned
from the spears on the hill tops, to his own fast forming lines on the
plain, and said with a stern smile:

"Methinks the Saxon usurper, if he be among those on the height of yon
hills, will vouchsafe us time to breathe! St. Michael gives his crown
to our hands, and his corpse to the crow, if he dare to descend."

And so indeed, as the Duke with a soldier's eye foresaw from a
soldier's skill, so it proved. The spears rested on the summits. It
soon became evident that the English general perceived that here there
was no Hardrada to surprise; that the news brought to his ear had
exaggerated neither the numbers, nor the arms, nor the discipline of
the Norman; and that the battle was not to the bold but to the wary.

"He doth right," said William, musingly; "nor think, O my Quens, that
we shall find a fool's hot brain under Harold's helmet of iron. How
is this broken ground of hillock and valley named in our chart? It is
strange that we should have overlooked its strength, and suffered it
thus to fall into the hands of the foe. How is it named? Can any of
ye remember?"

"A Saxon peasant," said De Graville, "told me that the ground was
called Senlac [256] or Sanglac, or some such name, in their musicless
jargon."

"Grammercy!" quoth Grantmesnil, "methinks the name will be familiar
eno' hereafter; no jargon seemeth the sound to my ear--a significant
name and ominous,--Sanglac, Sanguelac--the Lake of Blood."

"Sanguelac!" said the Duke, startled; "where have I heard that name
before? it must have been between sleeping and waking.--Sanguelac,
Sanguelac!--truly sayest thou, through a lake of blood we must wade
indeed!"

"Yet," said De Graville, "thine astrologer foretold that thou wouldst
win the realm without a battle."

"Poor astrologer!" said William, "the ship he sailed in was lost. Ass
indeed is he who pretends to warn others, nor sees an inch before his
eyes what his own fate will be! Battle shall we have, but not yet.
Hark thee, Guillaume, thou hast been guest with this usurper; thou
hast seemed to me to have some love for him--a love natural since thou
didst once fight by his side; wilt thou go from me to the Saxon host
with Hugues Maigrot, the monk, and back the message I shall send?"

The proud and punctilious Norman thrice crossed himself ere he
answered:

"There was a time, Count William, when I should have deemed it honour
to hold parle with Harold the brave Earl; but now, with the crown on
his head, I hold it shame and disgrace to barter words with a knight
unleal and a man foresworn."

"Nathless, thou shalt do me this favour," said William, "for" (and he
took the knight somewhat aside) "I cannot disguise from thee that I
look anxiously on the chance of battle. Yon men are flushed with new
triumph over the greatest warrior Norway ever knew, they will fight on
their own soil, and under a chief whom I have studied and read with
more care than the Comments of Caesar, and in whom the guilt of
perjury cannot blind me to the wit of a great general. If we can yet
get our end without battle, large shall be my thanks to thee, and I
will hold thine astrologer a man wise, though unhappy."

"Certes," said De Graville gravely, "it were discourteous to the
memory of the star-seer, not to make some effort to prove his science
a just one. And the Chaldeans----"

"Plague seize the Chaldeans!" muttered the Duke. "Ride with me back
to the camp, that I may give thee my message, and instruct also the
monk."

"De Graville," resumed the Duke, as they rode towards the lines, "my
meaning is briefly this. I do not think that Harold will accept my
offer and resign his crown, but I design to spread dismay, and perhaps
revolt amongst his captains; I wish that they may know that the Church
lays its Curse on those who fight against my consecrated banner. I do
not ask thee, therefore, to demean thy knighthood, by seeking to
cajole the usurper; no, but rather boldly to denounce his perjury and
startle his liegemen. Perchance they may compel him to terms--
perchance they may desert his banner; at the worst they shall be
daunted with full sense of the guilt of his cause."

"Ha, now I comprehend thee, noble Count; and trust me I will speak as
Norman and knight should speak."

Meanwhile, Harold seeing the utter hopelessness of all sudden assault,
had seized a general's advantage of the ground he had gained.
Occupying the line of hills, he began forthwith to entrench himself
behind deep ditches and artful palisades. It is impossible now to
stand on that spot, without recognising the military skill with which
the Saxon had taken his post, and formed his precautions. He
surrounded the main body of his troops with a perfect breastwork
against the charge of the horse. Stakes and strong hurdles interwoven
with osier plaits, and protected by deep dykes, served at once to
neutralise the effect of that arm in which William was most powerful,
and in which Harold almost entirely failed; while the possession of
the ground must compel the foe to march, and to charge, up hill,
against all the missiles which the Saxons could pour down from their
entrenchments.

Aiding, animating, cheering, directing all, while the dykes were fast
hollowed, and the breastworks fast rose, the King of England rode his
palfrey from line to line, and work to work, when, looking up, he saw
Haco leading towards him up the slopes, a monk, and a warrior whom, by
the banderol on his spear and the cross on his shield, he knew to be
one of the Norman knighthood.

At that moment Gurth and Leofwine, and those thegns who commanded
counties, were thronging round their chief for instructions. The King
dismounted, and beckoning them to follow, strode towards the spot on
which had just been planted his royal standard. There halting, he
said with a grave smile:

"I perceive that the Norman Count hath sent us his bodes; it is meet
that with me, you, the defenders of England, should hear what the
Norman saith."

"If he saith aught but prayer for his men to return to Rouen,--
needless his message, and short our answer," said Vebba, the bluff
thegn of Kent.

Meanwhile the monk and the Norman knight drew near and paused at some
short distance, while Haco, advancing, said briefly:

"These men I found at our outposts; they demand to speak with the
King."

"Under his standard the King will hear the Norman invader," replied
Harold; "bid them speak."

The same sallow, mournful, ominous countenance, which Harold had
before seen in the halls of Westminster, rising deathlike above the
serge garb of the Benedict of Caen, now presented itself, and the monk
thus spoke:

"In the name of William, Duke of the Normans in the field, Count of
Rouen in the hall, Claimant of all the realms of Anglia, Scotland, and
the Walloons, held under Edward his cousin, I come to thee, Harold his
liege and Earl."

"Change thy titles, or depart," said Harold, fiercely, his brow no
longer mild in its majesty, but dark as midnight. "What says William
the Count of the Foreigners, to Harold, King of the Angles, and
Basileus of Britain?"

"Protesting against thy assumption, I answer thee thus," said Hugues
Maigrot. "First, again he offers thee all Northumbria, up to the
realm of the Scottish sub-king, if thou wilt fulfil thy vow, and cede
him the crown."

"Already have I answered,--the crown is not mine to give; and my
people stand round me in arms to defend the king of their choice.
What next?"

"Next, offers William to withdraw his troops from the land, if thou
and thy council and chiefs will submit to the arbitrement of our most
holy Pontiff, Alexander the Second, and, abide by his decision whether
thou or my liege have the best right to the throne."

"This, as Churchman," said the Abbot of the great Convent of
Peterboro', (who, with the Abbot of Hide, had joined the march of
Harold, deeming as one the cause of altar and throne), "this as
Churchman, may I take leave to answer. Never yet hath it been heard
in England, that the spiritual suzerain of Rome should give us our
kings."

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