Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete by Lytton (an ebook reader TXT) 📖

is the roan I bestride,” said the Duke; “but a bold rider curbs it with the steel of the bit, and guides it with the goad of the heel.”

And now, as they neared the gate, a band of minstrels in the pay of the Norman touched their instruments, and woke their song—the household song of the Norman—the battle hymn of Roland, the Paladin of Charles the Great. At the first word of the song, the Norman knights and youths profusely scattered amongst the Normanised Saxons caught up the lay, and with sparkling eyes, and choral voices, they welcomed the mighty Duke into the palace of the last meek successor of Woden.

By the porch of the inner court the Duke flung himself from his saddle, and held the stirrup for Edward to dismount. The King placed his hand gently on his guest’s broad shoulder, and, having somewhat slowly reached the ground, embraced and kissed him in the sight of the gorgeous assemblage; then led him by the hand towards the fair chamber which was set apart for the Duke, and so left him to his attendants.

William, lost in thought, suffered himself to be disrobed in silence; but when Fitzosborne, his favourite confidant and haughtiest baron, who yet deemed himself but honoured by personal attendance on his chief, conducted him towards the bath, which adjoined the chamber, he drew back, and wrapping round him more closely the gown of fur that had been thrown over his shoulders, he muttered low,—“Nay, if there be on me yet one speck of English dust, let it rest there!—seizin, Fitzosborne, seizin, of the English land.” Then, waving his hand, he dismissed all his attendants except Fitzosborne, and Rolf, Earl of Hereford 49, nephew to Edward, but French on the father’s side, and thoroughly in the Duke’s councils. Twice the Duke paced the chamber without vouchsafing a word to either, then paused by the round window that overlooked the Thames. The scene was fair; the sun, towards its decline, glittered on numerous small pleasure-boats, which shot to and fro between Westminster and London or towards the opposite shores of Lambeth. His eye sought eagerly, along the curves of the river, the grey remains of the fabled Tower of Julius, and the walls, gates, and turrets, that rose by the stream, or above the dense mass of silent roofs; then it strained hard to descry the tops of the more distant masts of the infant navy, fostered under Alfred, the far-seeing, for the future civilisation of wastes unknown, and the empire of seas untracked.

The Duke breathed hard, and opened and closed the hand which he stretched forth into space as if to grasp the city he beheld. “Rolf,” said he, abruptly, “thou knowest, no doubt, the wealth of the London traders, one and all; for, foi de Gaillaume, my gentil chevalier, thou art a true Norman, and scentest the smell of gold as a hound the boar!”

Rolf smiled, as if pleased with a compliment which simpler men might have deemed, at the best, equivocal, and replied:

“It is true, my liege; and gramercy, the air of England sharpens the scent; for in this villein and motley country, made up of all races,—Saxon and Fin, Dane and Fleming, Pict and Walloon,—it is not as with us, where the brave man and the pure descent are held chief in honour: here, gold and land are, in truth, name and lordship; even their popular name for their national assembly of the Witan is, ‘The Wealthy.’ 50 He who is but a ceorl to-day, let him be rich, and he may be earl to-morrow, marry in king’s blood, and rule armies under a gonfanon statelier than a king’s; while he whose fathers were ealdermen and princes, if, by force or by fraud, by waste or by largess, he become poor, falls at once into contempt, and out of his state,—sinks into a class they call ‘six-hundred men,’ in their barbarous tongue, and his children will probably sink still lower, into ceorls. Wherefore gold is the thing here most coveted; and by St. Michael, the sin is infectious.”

William listened to the speech with close attention. “Good,” said he, rubbing slowly the palm of his right hand over the back of the left; “a land all compact with the power of one race, a race of conquering men, as our fathers were, whom nought but cowardice or treason can degrade,—such a land, O Rolf of Hereford, it were hard indeed to subjugate, or decoy, or tame—”

“So has my lord the Duke found the Bretons; and so also do I find the Welch upon my marches of Hereford.”

“But,” continued William, not heeding the interruption, “where wealth is more than blood and race, chiefs may be bribed or menaced; and the multitude—by’r Lady, the multitude are the same in all lands, mighty under valiant and faithful leaders, powerless as sheep without them. But to my question, my gentle Rolf; this London must be rich?” 51

“Rich enow,” answered Rolf, “to coin into armed men, that should stretch from Rouen to Flanders on the one hand, and Paris on the other.”

“In the veins of Matilda, whom thou wooest for wife,” said Fitzosborne, abruptly, “flows the blood of Charlemagne. God grant his empire to the children she shall bear thee!”

The Duke bowed his head, and kissed a relic suspended from his throat. Farther sign of approval of his counsellor’s words he gave not, but after a pause, he said:

“When I depart, Rolf, thou wendest back to thy marches. These Welch are brave and fierce, and shape work enow for thy hands.”

“Ay, by my halidame! poor sleep by the side of the beehive you have stricken down.”

“Marry, then,” said William, “let the Welch prey on Saxon, Saxon on Welch; let neither win too easily. Remember our omens to-day, Welch hawk and Saxon bittern, and over their corpses, Duke William’s Norway falcon! Now dress we for the complin 52 and the banquet.”