A King's Comrade Part 33

Then Hilda answered very bravely, "So it shall be. Bid your men free us, and we shall harm none."

The leader spoke in Welsh, and his men fell back from us. Then he came to my side and asked what we did here so late. And as he spoke it came to me that the best thing to do would be to tell him the very truth. No more than himself were we friends of Offa and Quendritha.

"To tell the truth, we are flying from Sutton," I said. "We belonged to the train of Ethelbert of East Anglia."

"Why fly, then?"

"Have you heard nothing of what has been done?" I asked.

"No. We heard that there was a king with Offa; that is all."

Then I told him what our trouble was, and the men round me--for I spoke in Welsh, learned when I was a child from our thralls--understood me; and more than once I heard them speak low words of pity for the young king. They had no unfriendliness for East Anglia.

"Then that is all that the gathering was for?" asked the leader.

And then he suddenly seemed suspicious, and said sharply, with his hand on the neck of my horse:

"But to come hither from Sutton you had to cross the river. Your horse is dry. He has not had time to shake the water from him yet."

"That is a longer story," I said. "But he was on this side; we had to wade to reach him."

The chief set his hand on my leg and gripped it. Then he laughed.

"Reach down your arm," he said.

I did so, and he laughed again.

"Very wet," he said. "But the lady?"

"Very wet also," answered Hilda. "I pray you, sir, let us pa.s.s on, if only for that reason. I would fain get to the archbishop at Fernlea shortly."

"Why to him, lady?"

"Because even Quendritha will fear to take me thence."

"Eh, but you are flying from her! Then speed you well, lady and good sirs. We have little love for Offa, but he is a warrior and a man; whereas--Well, I will bid you promise to say no word of this meeting, and you shall go."

That promise we gave freely, as may be supposed. If the Welsh chose to swarm over the border and burn Sutton Palace, it might be but just recompense for what those walls had seen; but I thought that, with their fear of the gathering at an end, the man who had lit yonder hillside fires would disband his levies for the time. So we parted very good friends, in a way, and this chief bade one of his men guide us for the mile or so which he could pa.s.s in safety. We were closer then to Fernlea than I thought, and in half an hour we were at the gates.

Where our Welshman left us I cannot say. Somewhere he slipped from my side into the darkness, and when next I spoke to him there was no answer.

Now we had to wait outside the town gates--for the place was, as might be supposed, strongly stockaded against the Welsh--until one went to the town reeve and fetched him, seeing that we had not the pa.s.sword for the night. But at last they let us in, and took us to the house of the reeve himself, for the archbishop was there. And there is no need to say that when he heard our story he welcomed us most kindly, promising Hilda his protection. There, too, the good wife of the reeve cared for the maiden as if she were her own daughter, and I saw her no more that night.

As for myself, I sat down at supper, which they had but half finished, with the archbishop and his little train; and glad enough I was of it, and I and Erling ate as famished men who do not know when their next meal may be.

The archbishop watched us, smiling at first, and then grew thoughtful. After I had fairly done, he said:

"My son, I thought you had come to me with news of the finding of the body of your poor king. That is a matter which lies heavily on my mind. It must be done."

"I think I can tell you within a few yards, father, where it must needs be, for today I and my comrade have searched where it was taken. We have found, at least, the cart Gymbert used, and it cannot be far thence. We think that the cart was left close to the hiding place."

Then one of the priests said eagerly:

"Father, the moon lies bright on all the meadows, and we might well seek in the place the thane has found. This is a thing done at night in most seemly wise, as I think."

"Ay," answered the archbishop thoughtfully. "Yet it were hard to ask the thane to turn out once more."

"This is a quest which lies close to my heart, lord," I said, rising. "I will go gladly if you will let me guide your folk."

"Yet you are weary, and need rest."

"I have slept for long hours in the open today," I said. "I am fed and rested. Let us go."

For indeed, now that Hilda was in safety, the longing to end the quest came on me, and I should have slept little that night for thinking of it. Moreover, I should have no fear of Gymbert and his men spying me, and thereby making fresh trouble.

So in the end the archbishop said that we might go, and with that four of his priests and the reeve with half a dozen men made ready, and in a very short time we rode out of the gates again in the moonlight, on our way back toward Sutton. The river was between us and the Welsh we had met, and they were not to be feared. The monks were riding their sumpter mules, and the reeve and we were mounted on horses from his own stable or lent by his friends, and his men trotted after us, some bearing picks and spades.

Under the little hill whereon the palace stands we rode presently, and I suppose that we were taken for a train of belated chapmen, or that the guards saw we were headed by monks, and would not trouble us. Maybe, however, the disorder of the palace had put an end for the time to much care in watching, but at any rate we pa.s.sed without challenge.

And so we came to the riverside track which should lead us to the end of our journey, and, as I hoped with all my heart, to the end of our quest. Already I could see the trees under which the cart stood.

Out of the southwest came one of those showers which had been about all day, and which had not yet quite cleared off from the hills round us. It drew across the face of the moon, which had been sending our long shadows before us as if they were in as great haste as we, and for a few minutes we stayed in the dark to let it pa.s.s. And as it pa.s.sed there came what men sometimes hold as a marvel.

The rain left us, pa.s.sing ahead of us like a dark wall, and the moon shone out suddenly from the cloud's edge, and then across the land leaped a great white rainbow, perfect and bright, so that one could dimly see the seven colours which should be in its span. And one end rested on the river bank close under the place where the cart stood among the trees, and the other was away beyond the forest, eastward somewhere.

"Lo," said the monk who had bidden us come, "yonder is the sign of hope, leading us as it were the pillar of fire of Holy Writ!"

"Men say there is ever treasure hidden under the end of a rainbow,"

said the reeve; "but never yet did I meet with a man who had found it. Yet I have never seen the like of this. I have heard that they may be seen at night."

And so said another and another; for indeed men look to their feet rather than to the sky at night, and thereby miss the things they might see. But a strange thought came to my mind, and I spoke it.

"Under the end of that pillar does indeed lie the treasure we seek.

See, it is not on the wood, but on the river bank. We searched not there, comrade."

"Ay, we shall find it there," Erling answered. "It is Bifrost--Allfather's bridge. He takes his son home across it."

The rainbow faded and pa.s.sed to the north and east with the rain, and it went across the land through which Ethelbert had ridden so gaily but a few days agone. Sometimes I love to think that its end rested here and there on house or village or church which had been the happier for the bright presence of the king, and betimes I think that a strange fancy for a rough warrior like myself. Yet I had ridden with Ethelbert, and the thoughts he set in the minds of men are not as common thoughts. I hold that once I rode and spoke with a very saint.

There fell a sort of awe and a silence on us after that. Silently we went on up the riverside track, for I was leading with Erling, and that strange belief that by the river we should find what we sought would not leave me; and when we came below the place where the cart was, I saw marks where its wheels had riven the soft earth close to the water. Without a word I signed my companions to spread abroad and search, and I dismounted, and with the bridle of my horse over my arm, I went scanning each foot of the ground in the moonlight.

Twenty yards, not more, from the water, where some winter flood had left a wide patch of sand and little pebbles, I saw the marks of the cart again. It had stopped there, and round the spot were deep footprints of men. They went on for a few yards, and then there was a little fresh-turned place. Out of that lapped a piece of cloth, plain to be seen in the light of the moon, but easily overlooked in the haste of those who had left it. And then I knew that I had indeed found the king.

Now I lifted my hand, and the rest saw me, one by one, and came to my side, and for a moment we stood still, not daring to disturb that resting. Then I took the spade one man had, and gently turned the gravel from that bit of cloth, and there was surety. They who set him there had but covered him hastily, no doubt because they heard our friends after them.

Little by little, and very reverently, we uncovered, and so took him from that strange resting, and the water welled into the place where he had lain. And as we thought, his head had been smitten from his body, and it was that which we found first, wrapped in the cloak whose end had betrayed his hiding. Yet had it not been for the token of the rainbow we had hardly thought to seek here, so near the water.

Men speak today of the finding of Ethelbert the saint by reason of the pillar of fire which shone from where he was hidden, and they tell the truth in a way, if they know not how that marvel came from the heaven before our eyes who saw it. Let the tale be, for from the heaven the sign came in our need and it is near enough, so that it be not forgotten. There is many a man who has seen the like, but not at such a time or as such a portent; and, again, for one man who has seen the bow in the clouds over against the moon are mayhap a thousand who may go through long lives and never set eyes thereon. Whereby it happens that there are some who will not believe that such a thing can be.

Now we wondered how to bear back this precious burden, until we bethought ourselves of that cart which had been used before. Erling and two of the reeve's men went to seek it, and it stood untouched where we found it. Moreover, those who fled from it in haste left the rough harness still hanging anywise from the shafts, and we were able, therefore, to set one of the horses in it without trouble. Then we made a bed of our cloaks in the bottom, and thereon laid the body, covering it carefully; and so we went our way toward Fernlea, silently and slowly, but with hearts somewhat lightened, for we had done what we might.