Wulf the Saxon Part 25

"I am not good at the telling of tales, as you know, my lord, and I thought it better that you should tell him just as much or as little as you chose."

"You don't like your work at the forge, Ulf?" for that Wulf had learned was the boy's name.

"I think that I like it better than it likes me," the boy replied. "When I get to do the fine work I shall like it, but at present it is 'fetch this tool, Ulf, or file that iron, or blow those bellows,' and if I do but smile I get a cuff."

"No, no, Ulf," OsG.o.d said. "Of course, at present you are but a beginner, and at your age I too had to fetch and carry and be at the bidding of all the men; and it is not for smiling that you get cuffed, but for playing tricks and being away for hours when you are sent on a message to the next street, and doing your errands wrongly. My father tells me you will be a good workman some day. You will never be strong enough to wield a heavy hammer or to forge a battle-axe, but he says your fingers are quick and nimble, and that you will some day be able to do fine work such as clumsy hands could not compa.s.s. But that is not to the point now."

"You will be glad to be out of the forge for a bit, Ulf?" Wulf asked.

"That should I, but not always."

"It will not be for very long. I want a watch set upon a Norman in order to know where he goes, and whom he meets, and what he purposes. OsG.o.d tells me that he thinks you could play the part rarely, and that you would be willing for his sake to do our bidding."

The boy looked up into OsG.o.d's face with an expression of earnest affection.

"I would do anything for him," he said, "even if I were to be cut to pieces."

"OsG.o.d is as much interested in the matter as I am, Ulf; and as he has a.s.sured me that you are to be trusted, I will tell you more as to the man, and my object in setting you to watch him."

"You can trust me, my lord," the boy said earnestly. "I will do your bidding whatever it is."

"You know, Ulf, that the Duke of Normandy desires the crown of England?"

"So I have heard men say, my lord."

"Were King Harold out of the way, his chances of obtaining it would be improved."

The boy nodded.

"I am sure that the duke himself would take no hand in bringing about Harold's death, but there are many of his people who might think that they would obtain a great reward were they to do so."

The boy nodded again.

"The man I wish you to watch is Walter Fitz-Urse, who is in the train of the bishop. I have no particular reason for suspecting him, beyond the fact that he has but just come over here, and this is scarcely a time a Norman would come to London; though as the bishop is a relation and patron of his he may have come merely to visit him. Still he has, as he thinks, a cause for enmity against the king. He is needy, and, as I know, somewhat unscrupulous. All this is little enough against a man; still it seems to me that his coming bodes danger to the king, and this being so I desire that he shall be watched, in order that I may find out what is his real object in coming over here. I want you to post yourself near the gate of the bishop's palace, and whenever he comes out to follow him save when he is in the train of the bishop--most of all if he sallies out alone or after dark.

"It will not do for you to be always dressed as an apprentice. OsG.o.d will procure for you such clothes as you may require for disguises. One day you can be sitting there as a beggar asking alms, another as a girl from one of the villages with eggs or fowls. You understand that you will have to follow him, to mark where he goes in, and especially, should he be joined by anybody when out, to endeavour to overhear something of what they say to each other. Even a few words might suffice to show me whether my suspicions are true or not. Do you think you can do that? OsG.o.d tells me that you are good at playing a part."

"I will do it, my lord, and that right gladly. It is a business after my own heart, and I will warrant that those who see me one day will not know me when they see me the next."

"OsG.o.d will go with you now, and will stay near the bishop's palace until the man you are to watch comes out, and will point him out to you. In a day or two I may be going away with the king; when we return you will tell us what you have found out. Till we go, OsG.o.d will meet you here each morning as the abbey bell rings out the hour of seven. You can tell him anything that you have learned, and then he will give you such further instructions as may seem needful; and remember you must be cautious, for Walter Fitz-Urse would not hesitate to use his dagger on you did he come upon you eaves-dropping."

"I will give him leave to do so if he catches me," the boy said.

"Very well, then; OsG.o.d will go with you to buy such clothes as may be necessary, and remember that you will be well rewarded for your work."

"I want no reward," the boy said, almost indignantly. "I am an apprentice, and as my master has bid me do whatever OsG.o.d commands, he has a right to my services. But this is nothing. There is not one in London who would not do aught in his power for Harold, and who would scorn to take pay for it. As this is a matter in which his very life may be concerned, though I am but a boy, and a small one at that, there is nought that I would not do, even to the giving of my life, to spoil these Norman plots."

OsG.o.d was about to chide the boy angrily for this freedom of speech, but Wulf checked him.

"You are right, lad; and I am sorry I spoke of a reward. I myself would have answered the same at your age, and would have died for Harold then as I would now. I should have bethought me that the feelings of Englishmen, gentle or simple, are the same towards the king, and I crave your pardon for treating your loyal service as a thing to be paid for with money."

The boy's eyes filled with tears; he dropped on one knee, and seizing Wulf's hand placed it to his lips, and then without a word sped away, halting a hundred yards off till OsG.o.d should join him.

"You have made a good choice," Wulf said; "the boy is wholly trustworthy, and unless his face belies him he is as shrewd as he is faithful. My only fear in the matter is, that he may be over rash in his desire to carry out the trust we have given him. Warn him against that, and tell him that should he be discovered and killed it would upset all our plans."

CHAPTER XV.

A MEETING BY THE RIVER.

During the three days that elapsed between Ulf's being set upon the track of Walter Fitz-Urse and the departure of the king for the North, the boy had no news to report to OsG.o.d. The young Norman had not left the bishop's palace alone. He had accompanied the prelate several times when he went abroad, and had gone out with some of his countrymen who still held office at the court. In one or other of the disguises Wulf had suggested, the boy had hung about the gate of the bishop's palace until late in the evening, but Walter Fitz-Urse had not come out after dark. On the day before starting, Wulf was with OsG.o.d when the latter met the boy at the rendezvous.

After he heard Ulf's report Wulf said: "As we leave to-morrow this is the last report you will have to make to us. So far it would seem that there is nothing whatever to give grounds for suspicion, and if, after a few days, you find that the Norman still remains quietly at the bishop's, there will be no occasion for you to continue your watch until the time is approaching for the king's return."

"Yes, my lord. But I cannot say surely that he does not go out of an evening."

"Why, I thought you said that he certainly had not done so?"

"No, my lord; I said only that I had not seen him. He has certainly not gone out through the great gates in his Norman dress, but that it seems to me shows very little. As the bishop's guest he would pa.s.s out there, but there is another entrance behind that he might use did he wish to go out un.o.bserved. Even at the main entrance I cannot tell but that, beneath the cowl and frock of one of the many monks who pa.s.s in and out, Walter Fitz-Urse may not be hidden. He would scarce go about such a business as we suspect in his dress as a Norman n.o.ble, which is viewed with little favour here in London, and would draw attention towards him, but would a.s.sume, as I do, some disguise in which he could go about unremarked--it might be that of a monk, it might be that of a lay servitor of the palace."

"You are right, Ulf; I had not thought of that. That is indeed a difficulty, and one that I do not see how you can get over. Are you sure that he has not pa.s.sed out by the main gate?"

"I have marked his walk and carriage closely, my lord. He steps along with a long stride, and unless he be a better mummer than I judge him to be, I should know him whether in a monk's gown or a servitor's cloak. It is no easy thing to change a knight's stride into the shuffle of a sandalled monk, or the noiseless step of a well-trained servitor in a bishop's palace."

"You are a shrewd lad indeed, Ulf," Wulf said warmly; "and I feel that you will fathom this matter if there be aught at the bottom. But, as you say, you cannot watch more than one place."

"The other entrance is not altogether unwatched, my lord. The first day you gave me my orders I went to one of my cronies, who has shared with me in many an expedition when our master deemed that we were soundly asleep.

Without, as you may be sure, giving any reason, I told him that I had come to believe that the Norman I pointed out to him was in the habit of going out in disguise, and that I was mightily curious to find whither he went and why, and therefore wanted him to watch, at the entrance behind the palace. I bade him mark the walk of the persons that went out, and their height, for the Norman is tall, and to follow any who might come out of lofty stature, and with a walk and carriage that seemed to accord ill with his appearance. So each evening, as soon as his house was closed and the lights extinguished, he has slipped out, as he knows how, and has watched till ten o'clock at the gate. It seemed to me that that would be late enough, and indeed the doors are closed at that hour."

"You have done well, Ulf; but has not the boy questioned you as to your reasons for thus setting a watch on the Norman?"

"I have told him nought beyond what I have said, my lord. He may guess shrewdly enough that I should not myself take so much trouble in the matter unless I had more reason than I have given; but we are closely banded together, and just as I should do, without asking the reasons, any such action did he propose it to me, so he carried out my wishes. I cannot feel as sure as if I had watched him myself that Fitz-Urse has not pa.s.sed out in disguise unnoticed, but I have a strong belief that it is so. At any rate, my lord, you can go away with the a.s.surance that all that is possible shall be done by us, and that even if he pa.s.s out once or twice undiscovered there is good hope that we shall at last detect him."

After again commending the boy, Wulf returned to the palace with OsG.o.d.

"I feel half ashamed of having entertained a suspicion of Fitz-Urse on such slight grounds, OsG.o.d."

"I think you have done quite right, my lord. You know how the fellow gave a false report to the bishop of that quarrel with you. At any rate, should nothing come of it, no harm will have been done. As to the boys, so far from regarding it as a trouble, I feel sure that they view it as an exciting pleasure, and are as keenly anxious to detect the Norman going out in a disguise as you yourself can be. When they get tired of it they will give it up."

Ulf, at any rate, was determined not to relax his watch during the absence of the king. The more he thought of it the more certain he felt that if Walter Fitz-Urse went out on any private business after nightfall he would use one or other of the entrances at the rear of the palace, and accordingly next day he arranged that one friend should watch the front entrance of an evening, while he himself took post behind. As soon as it was dark he lay down by the wall close to the entrance at which the servitors generally pa.s.sed in and out. The moon was up but was still young, and the back of the palace lay in deep shadow; a projecting b.u.t.tress screened him to a great extent from view, while by peeping round the corner he could watch those who came out and see them as they pa.s.sed from the shadow of the building into the comparatively light s.p.a.ce beyond.

Many came in and out. The evening was bitterly cold, and his teeth chattered as he lay, cautiously putting his head beyond the edge of the stonework every time he heard any one leaving the palace. The heavy bell had just struck eight, when a man wrapt up in a cloak pa.s.sed out. He differed in no respect from many of those who had preceded him, save that he was somewhat taller. The hood of the cloak was drawn over his head. Ulf raised himself to his knees and gazed after the figure. The man was walking more slowly than the others had done, for most of them had hurried along as if in haste to get their errands finished and to be in shelter again from the keen wind.

"If that is Fitz-Urse, he is walking so as to avoid the appearance of haste in case anyone should be looking after him," Ulf muttered to himself. "At any rate I will follow him, he is more like the Norman than anyone I have yet seen, though he carries his head forwarder and his shoulders more rounded." As he watched him, the boy saw that as he increased the distance from the palace the man quickened his pace, and when he came into the moonlight was stepping rapidly along.

"That is my man," Ulf exclaimed. "He knows well enough that no one is likely to be standing at the door, and thinks he need no longer walk cautiously." Feeling sure that even if the man looked back he would not be able to see him in the shadow, he started forward at a run, paused before he reached the edge of the moonlight, and then, as soon as the figure entered a lane between some houses, ran forward at the top of his speed.