Book: Harold, Book 8.
E >>
Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Harold, Book 8.
This eBook was produced by Tapio Riikonen
and David Widger, widger@cecomet.net
BOOK VIII.
FATE.
CHAPTER I.
Some days after the tragical event with which the last chapter closed,
the ships of the Saxons were assembled in the wide waters of Conway;
and on the small fore-deck of the stateliest vessel, stood Harold,
bareheaded, before Aldyth, the widowed Queen. For the faithful bard
had fallen by the side of his lord; . . . the dark promise was
unfulfilled, and the mangled clay of the jealous Gryffyth slept alone
in the narrow bed. A chair of state, with dossel and canopy, was set
for the daughter of Algar, and behind stood maidens of Wales, selected
in haste for her attendants.
But Aldyth had not seated herself; and, side by side with her dead
lord's great victor, thus she spoke:
"Woe worth the day and the hour when Aldyth left the hall of her
fathers and the land of her birth! Her robe of a queen has been rent
and torn over an aching heart, and the air she has breathed has reeked
as with blood. I go forth, widowed, and homeless, and lonely; but my
feet shall press the soil of my sires, and my lips draw the breath
which came sweet and pure to my childhood. And thou, O Harold,
standest beside me, like the shape of my own youth, and the dreams of
old come back at the sound of thy voice. Fare thee well, noble heart
and true Saxon. Thou hast twice saved the child of thy foe--first
from shame, then from famine. Thou wouldst have saved my dread lord
from open force, and dark murder; but the saints were wroth, the blood
of my kinsfolk, shed by his hand, called for vengeance, and the
shrines he had pillaged and burned murmured doom from their desolate
altars. Peace be with the dead, and peace with the living! I shall
go back to my father and brethren; and if the fame and life of child
and sister be dear to them, their swords will never more leave their
sheaths against Harold. So thy hand, and God guard thee!"
Harold raised to his lips the hand which the Queen extended to him;
and to Aldyth now seemed restored the rare beauty of her youth; as
pride and sorrow gave her the charm of emotion, which love and duty
had failed to bestow.
"Life and health to thee, noble lady," said the Earl. "Tell thy
kindred from me, that for thy sake, and thy grandsire's, I would fain
be their brother and friend; were they but united with me, all England
were now safe against every foe, and each peril. Thy daughter already
awaits thee in the halls of Morcar; and when time has scarred the
wounds of the past, may thy joys re-bloom in the face of thy child.
Farewell, noble Aldyth!"
He dropped the hand he had held till then, turned slowly to the side
of the vessel, and re-entered his boat. As he was rowed back to
shore, the horn gave the signal for raising anchor, and the ship,
righting itself, moved majestically through the midst of the fleet.
But Aldyth still stood erect, and her eyes followed the boat that bore
away the secret love of her youth.
As Harold reached the shore, Tostig and the Norman, who had been
conversing amicably together on the beach, advanced towards the Earl.
"Brother," said Tostig, smiling, "it were easy for thee to console the
fair widow, and bring to our House all the force of East Anglia and
Mercia." Harold's face slightly changed, but he made no answer.
"A marvellous fair dame," said the Norman, "notwithstanding her cheek
be somewhat pinched, and the hue sun-burnt. And I wonder not that the
poor cat-king kept her so close to his side."
"Sir Norman," said the Earl, hastening to change the subject, "the war
is now over, and, for long years, Wales will leave our Marches in
peace.--This eve I propose to ride hence towards London, and we will
converse by the way."
"Go you so soon?" cried the knight, surprised. "Shall you not take
means utterly to subjugate this troublesome race, parcel out the lands
among your thegns, to hold as martial fiefs at need, build towers and
forts on the heights, and at the river mouths?--where a site, like
this, for some fair castle and vawmure? In a word, do you Saxons
merely overrun, and neglect to hold what you win?"
"We fight in self-defence, not for conquest, Sir Norman. We have no
skill in building castles; and I pray you not to hint to my thegns the
conceit of dividing a land, as thieves would their plunder. King
Gryffyth is dead, and his brothers will reign in his stead. England
has guarded her realm, and chastised the aggressors. What need
England do more? We are not like our first barbarous fathers, carving
out homes with the scythe of their saexes. The wave settles after the
flood, and the races of men after lawless convulsions."
Tostig smiled, in disdain, at the knight, who mused a little over the
strange words he had heard, and then silently followed the Earl to the
fort.
But when Harold gained his chamber, he found there an express, arrived
in haste from Chester, with the news that Algar, the sole enemy and
single rival of his power, was no more. Fever, occasioned by
neglected wounds, had stretched him impotent on a bed of sickness, and
his fierce passions had aided the march of disease; the restless and
profitless race was run.
The first emotion which these tidings called forth was that of pain.
The bold sympathise with the bold; and in great hearts, there is
always a certain friendship for a gallant foe. But recovering the
shock of that first impression, Harold could not but feel that England
was free from its most dangerous subject--himself from the only
obstacle apparent to the fulfilment of his luminous career.
"Now, then, to London," whispered the voice of his ambition. "Not a
foe rests to trouble the peace of that empire which thy conquests, O
Harold, have made more secure and compact than ever yet has been the
realm of the Saxon kings. Thy way through the country that thou hast
henceforth delivered from the fire and sword of the mountain ravager,
will be one march of triumph, like a Roman's of old; and the voice of
the people will echo the hearts of the army; those hearts are thine
own. Verily Hilda is a prophetess; and when Edward rests with the
saints, from what English heart will not burst the cry, 'LONG LIVE
HAROLD THE KING?'"
CHAPTER II.
The Norman rode by the side of Harold, in the rear of the victorious
armament. The ships sailed to their havens, and Tostig departed to
his northern earldom.
"And now," said Harold, "I am at leisure to thank thee, brave Norman,
for more than thine aid in council and war;--at leisure now to turn to
the last prayer of Sweyn, and the often-shed tears of Githa my mother,
for Wolnoth the exile. Thou seest with thine own eyes that there is
no longer pretext or plea for thy Count to detain these hostages.
Thou shalt hear from Edward himself that he no longer asks sureties
for the faith of the House of Godwin; and I cannot think that Duke
William would have suffered thee to bring me over this news from the
dead if he were not prepared to do justice to the living."
"Your speech, Earl of Wessex, goes near to the truth. But, to speak
plainly and frankly, I think William, my lord, hath a keen desire to
welcome in person a chief so illustrious as Harold, and I guess that
he keeps the hostages to make thee come to claim them." The knight,
as he spoke, smiled gaily; but the cunning of the Norman gleamed in
the quick glance of his clear hazel eye.
"Fain must I feel pride at such wish, if you flatter me not," said
Harold; "and I would gladly myself, now the land is in peace, and my
presence not needful, visit a court of such fame. I hear high praise
from cheapman and pilgrim of Count William's wise care for barter and
trade, and might learn much from the ports of the Seine that would
profit the marts of the Thames. Much, too, I hear of Count William's
zeal to revive the learning of the Church, aided by Lanfranc the
Lombard; much I hear of the pomp of his buildings, and the grace of
his court. All this would I cheerfully cross the ocean to see; but
all this would but sadden my heart if I returned without Haco and
Wolnoth."
"I dare not speak so as to plight faith for the Duke," said the
Norman, who, though sharp to deceive, had that rein on his conscience
that it did not let him openly lie; "but this I do know, that there
are few things in his Countdom which my lord would not give to clasp
the right hand of Harold and feel assured of his friendship."
Though wise and farseeing, Harold was not suspicious;--no Englishman,
unless it were Edward himself, knew the secret pretensions of William
to the English throne; and he answered simply:
"It were well, indeed, both for Normandy and England, both against
foes and for trade, to be allied and well-liking. I will think over
your words, Sire de Graville, and it shall not be my fault if old
feuds be not forgotten, and those now in thy court be the last
hostages ever kept by the Norman for the faith of the Saxon."
With that he turned the discourse; and the aspiring and able envoy,
exhilarated by the hope of a successful mission, animated the way by
remarks--alternately lively and shrewd--which drew the brooding Earl
from those musings, which had now grown habitual to a mind once clear
and open as the day.
Harold had not miscalculated the enthusiasm his victories had excited.
Where he passed, all the towns poured forth their populations to see
and to hail him; and on arriving at the metropolis, the rejoicings in
his honour seemed to equal those which had greeted, at the accession
of Edward, the restoration of the line of Cerdic.
According to the barbarous custom of the age, the head of the
unfortunate sub-king, and the prow of his special war-ship, had been
sent to Edward as the trophies of conquest: but Harold's uniform
moderation respected the living. The race of Gryffyth [174] were re-
established on the tributary throne of that hero, in the persons of
his brothers, Blethgent and Rigwatle, "and they swore oaths," says the
graphic old chronicler, "and delivered hostages to the King and the
Earl that they would be faithful to him in all things, and be
everywhere ready for him, by water, and by land, and make such renders
from the land as had been done before to any other king."
Not long after this, Mallet de Graville returned to Normandy, with
gifts for William from King Edward, and special requests from that
prince, as well as from the Earl, to restore the hostages. But
Mallet's acuteness readily perceived, that in much Edward's mind had
been alienated from William. It was clear, that the Duke's marriage
and the pledges that had crowned the union were distasteful to the
asceticism of the saint king: and with Godwin's death, and Tostig's
absence from the court, seemed to have expired all Edward's bitterness
towards that powerful family of which Harold was now the head. Still,
as no subject out of the House of Cerdic had ever yet been elected to
the Saxon throne, there was no apprehension on Mallet's mind that in
Harold was the true rival to William's cherished aspirations. Though
Edward the Atheling was dead, his son Edgar lived, the natural heir to
the throne; and the Norman, (whose liege had succeeded to the Duchy at
the age of eight,) was not sufficiently cognisant of the invariable
custom of the Anglo-Saxons, to set aside, whether for kingdoms or for
earldoms, all claimants unfitted for rule by their tender years. He
could indeed perceive that the young Atheling's minority was in favour
of his Norman liege, and would render him but a weak defender of the
realm, and that there seemed no popular attachment to the infant
orphan of the Germanised exile: his name was never mentioned at the
court, nor had Edward acknowledged him as heir,--a circumstance which
he interpreted auspiciously for William. Nevertheless, it was clear
that, both at court and amongst the people, the Norman influence in
England was at the lowest ebb; and that the only man who could restore
it, and realise the cherished dreams of his grasping lord, was Harold
the all-powerful.
CHAPTER III.
Trusting, for the time, to the success of Edward's urgent demand for
the release of his kinsmen, as well as his own, Harold was now
detained at the court by all those arrears of business which had
accumulated fast under the inert hands of the monk-king during the
prolonged campaigns against the Welch; but he had leisure at least for
frequent visits to the old Roman house; and those visits were not more
grateful to his love than to the harder and more engrossing passion
which divided his heart.
The nearer he grew to the dazzling object, to the possession of which
Fate seemed to have shaped all circumstances, the more he felt the
charm of those mystic influences which his colder reason had
disdained. He who is ambitious of things afar, and uncertain, passes
at once into the Poet-Land of Imagination; to aspire and to imagine
are yearnings twin-born.
When in his fresh youth and his calm lofty manhood, Harold saw action,
how adventurous soever, limited to the barriers of noble duty; when he
lived but for his country, all spread clear before his vision in the
sunlight of day; but as the barriers receded, while the horizon
extended, his eye left the Certain to rest on the Vague. As self,
though still half concealed from his conscience, gradually assumed the
wide space love of country had filled, the maze of delusion commenced:
he was to shape fate out of circumstance,--no longer defy fate through
virtue; and thus Hilda became to him as a voice that answered the
questions of his own restless heart. He needed encouragement from the
Unknown to sanction his desires and confirm his ends. But Edith,
rejoicing in the fair fame of her betrothed, and content in the pure
rapture of beholding him again, reposed in the divine credulity of the
happy hour; she marked not, in Harold's visits, that, on entrance, the
Earl's eye sought first the stern face of the Vala--she wondered not
why those two conversed in whispers together, or stood so often at
moonlight by the Runic grave. Alone, of all womankind, she felt that
Harold loved her, that that love had braved time, absence, change, and
hope deferred; and she knew not that what love has most to dread in
the wild heart of aspiring man, is not persons, but things,--is not
things, but their symbols.
So weeks and months rolled on, and Duke William returned no answer to
the demands for his hostages. And Harold's heart smote him, that he
neglected his brother's prayer and his mother's accusing tears.
Now Githa, since the death of her husband, had lived in seclusion and
apart from town; and one day Harold was surprised by her unexpected
arrival at the large timbered house in London, which had passed to his
possession. As she abruptly entered the room in which he sate, he
sprang forward to welcome and embrace her; but she waved him back with
a grave and mournful gesture, and sinking on one knee, she said thus:
"See, the mother is a suppliant to the son for the son. No, Harold,
no--I will not rise till thou hast heard me. For years, long and
lonely, have I lingered and pined,--long years! Will my boy know his
mother again? Thou hast said to me, 'Wait till the messenger
returns.' I have waited. Thou hast said, 'This time the Count cannot
resist the demand of the King.' I bowed my head and submitted to thee
as I had done to Godwin my lord. And I have not till now claimed thy
promise; for I allowed thy country, thy King, and thy fame to have
claims more strong than a mother. Now I tarry no more; now no more
will I be amused and deceived. Thine hours are thine own--free thy
coming and thy going. Harold, I claim thine oath. Harold, I touch
thy right hand. Harold, I remind thee of thy troth and thy plight, to
cross the seas thyself, and restore the child to the mother."
"Oh, rise, rise!" exclaimed Harold, deeply moved. "Patient hast thou
been, O my mother, and now I will linger no more, nor hearken to other
voice than your own. I will see the King this day, and ask his leave
to cross the sea to Duke William."
Then Githa rose, and fell on the Earl's breast weeping.
CHAPTER IV.
It so chanced, while this interview took place between Githa and the
Earl, that Gurth, hawking in the woodlands round Hilda's house, turned
aside to visit his Danish kinswoman. The prophetess was absent, but
he was told that Edith was within; and Gurth, about to be united to a
maiden who had long won his noble affections, cherished a brother's
love for his brother's fair betrothed. He entered the gynoecium, and
there still, as when we were first made present in that chamber, sate
the maids, employed on a work more brilliant to the eye, and more
pleasing to the labour, than that which had then tasked their active
hands. They were broidering into a tissue of the purest gold the
effigy of a fighting warrior, designed by Hilda for the banner of Earl
Harold: and, removed from the awe of their mistress, as they worked
their tongues sang gaily, and it was in the midst of song and laughter
that the fair young Saxon lord entered the chamber. The babble and
the mirth ceased at his entrance; each voice was stilled, each eye
cast down demurely. Edith was not amongst them, and in answer to his
inquiry the eldest of the maidens pointed towards the peristyle
without the house.
The winning and kindly thegn paused a few moments, to admire the
tissue and commend the work, and then sought the peristyle.
Near the water-spring that gushed free and bright through the Roman
fountain, he found Edith, seated in an attitude of deep thought and
gloomy dejection. She started as he approached, and, springing
forward to meet him, exclaimed:
"O Gurth, Heaven hath sent thee to me, I know well, though I cannot
explain to thee why, for I cannot explain it to myself; but know I do,
by the mysterious bodements of my own soul, that some great danger is
at this moment encircling thy brother Harold. Go to him, I pray, I
implore thee, forthwith; and let thy clear sense and warm heart be by
his side."
"I will go instantly," said Gurth, startled. "But do not suffer, I
adjure thee, sweet kinswoman, the superstition that wraps this place,
as a mist wraps a marsh, to infect thy pure spirit. In my early youth
I submitted to the influence of Hilda; I became man, and outgrew it.
Much, secretly, has it grieved me of late, to see that our kinswoman's
Danish lore has brought even the strong heart of Harold under his
spell; and where once he only spoke of duty, I now hear him speak of
fate."
"Alas! alas!" answered Edith, wringing her hands; "when the bird hides
its head in the brake, doth it shut out the track of the hound? Can
we baffle fate by refusing to heed its approaches? But we waste
precious moments. Go, Gurth, dear Gurth! Heavier and darker, while
we speak, gathers the cloud on my heart."
Gurth said no more, but hastened to remount his steed; and Edith
remained alone by the Roman fountain, motionless and sad, as if the
nymph of the old religion stood there to see the lessening stream well
away from the shattered stone, and know that the life of the nymph was
measured by the ebb of the stream.
Gurth arrived in London just as Harold was taking a boat for the
palace of Westminster, to seek the King; and, after interchanging a
hurried embrace with his mother, he accompanied Harold to the palace,
and learned his errand by the way. While Harold spoke, he did not
foresee any danger to be incurred by a friendly visit to the Norman
court; and the interval that elapsed between Harold's communication
and their entrance into the King's chamber, allowed no time for mature
and careful reflection.
Edward, on whom years and infirmity had increased of late with rapid
ravage, heard Harold's request with a grave and deep attention, which
he seldom vouchsafed to earthly affairs. And he remained long silent
after his brother-in-law had finished;--so long silent, that the Earl,
at first, deemed that he was absorbed in one of those mystic and
abstracted reveries, in which, more and more as he grew nearer to the
borders of the World Unseen, Edward so strangely indulged. But,
looking more close, both he and Gurth were struck by the evident
dismay on the King's face, while the collected light of Edward's cold
eye showed that his mind was awake to the human world. In truth, it
is probable that Edward, at that moment, was recalling rash hints, if
not promises, to his rapacious cousin of Normandy, made during his
exile. And, sensible of his own declining health, and the tender
years of the young Edgar, he might be musing over the terrible
pretender to the English throne, whose claims his earlier indiscretion
might seem to sanction.
Whatever his thoughts, they were dark and sinister, as at length he
said, slowly:
"Is thine oath indeed given to thy mother, and doth she keep thee to
it?"
"Both, O King," answered Harold, briefly.
"Then I can gainsay thee not. And thou, Harold, art a man of this
living world; thou playest here the part of a centurion; thou sayst
'Come,' and men come--'Go,' and men move at thy will. Therefore thou
mayest well judge for thyself. I gainsay thee not, nor interfere
between man and his vow. But think not," continued the King in a more
solemn voice, and with increasing emotion, "think not that I will
charge my soul that I counselled or encouraged this errand. Yea, I
foresee that thy journey will lead but to great evil to England, and
sore grief or dire loss to thee." [175]
"How so, dear lord and King?" said Harold, startled by Edward's
unwonted earnestness, though deeming it but one of the visionary
chimeras habitual to the saint. "How so? William thy cousin hath
ever borne the name of one fair to friend, though fierce to foe. And
foul indeed his dishonour, if he could meditate harm to a man trusting
his faith, and sheltered by his own roof-tree."
"Harold, Harold," said Edward, impatiently, "I know William of old.
Nor is he so simple of mind, that he will cede aught for thy pleasure,
or even to my will, unless it bring some gain to himself [176]. I say
no more.--Thou art cautioned, and I leave the rest to Heaven."
It is the misfortune of men little famous for worldly lore, that in
those few occasions when, in that sagacity caused by their very
freedom from the strife and passion of those around, they seem almost
prophetically inspired,--it is their misfortune to lack the power of
conveying to others their own convictions; they may divine, but they
cannot reason: and Harold could detect nothing to deter his purpose,
in a vague fear, based on no other argument than as vague a perception
of the Duke's general character. But Gurth, listening less to his
reason than his devoted love for his brother, took alarm, and said,
after a pause:
"Thinkest thou, good my King, that the same danger were incurred if
Gurth, instead of Harold, crossed the seas to demand the hostages?"
"No," said Edward, eagerly, "and so would I counsel. William would
not have the same objects to gain in practising his worldly guile upon
thee. No; methinks that were the prudent course."
"And the ignoble one for Harold," said the elder brother, almost
indignantly. "Howbeit, I thank thee, gratefully, dear King, for thy
affectionate heed and care. And so the saints guard thee!"
On leaving the King, a warm discussion between the brothers took
place. But Gurth's arguments were stronger than those of Harold, and
the Earl was driven to rest his persistence on his own special pledge
to Githa. As soon, however, as they had gained their home, that plea
was taken from him; for the moment Gurth related to his mother
Edward's fears and cautions, she, ever mindful of Godwin's preference
for the Earl, and his last commands to her, hastened to release Harold
from his pledge; and to implore him at least to suffer Gurth to be his
substitute to the Norman court. "Listen dispassionately," said Gurth;
"rely upon it that Edward has reasons for his fears, more rational
than those he has given to us. He knows William from his youth
upward, and hath loved him too well to hint doubts of his good faith
without just foundation. Are there no reasons why danger from William
should be special against thyself? While the Normans abounded in the
court, there were rumours that the Duke had some designs on England,
which Edward's preference seemed to sanction: such designs now, in the
altered state of England, were absurd--too frantic, for a prince of
William's reputed wisdom to entertain. Yet he may not unnaturally
seek to regain the former Norman influence in these realms. He knows
that in you he receives the most powerful man in England; that your
detention alone would convulse the country from one end of it to the
other; and enable him, perhaps, to extort from Edward some measures
dishonourable to us all. But against me he can harbour no ill design
--my detention would avail him nothing. And, in truth, if Harold be
safe in England, Gurth must be safe in Rouen? Thy presence here at
the head of our armies guarantees me from wrong. But reverse the
case, and with Gurth in England, is Harold safe in Rouen? I, but a
simple soldier, and homely lord, with slight influence over Edward, no
command in the country, and little practised of speech in the stormy
Witan,--I am just so great that William dare not harm me, but not so
great that he should even wish to harm me."