The Rival Heirs; being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune by A. D. Crake (best desktop ebook reader .txt) 📖

This his visitor soon perceived, and by the example of those dying words, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," he gently impressed upon the penitent the duty of forgiving those who had wronged him--however deeply.

"But how can I forgive the murderers of my mother?"

"Thou believest that mother is in Paradise?"

"Indeed I do."

"Dost thou not wish to be with her at last?"

"As the hart desireth the water brooks."

"Then ask thyself what she would have thee do. Canst thou hope for the pardon of thine own grievous sins, unless thou dost first forgive all who have offended thee?"

"I will try. See me again tomorrow, father."

"I will do so: I remain at St. Frideswide's for--a day or two."

Wilfred understood the hesitation.

A different scene transpired simultaneously in the dungeons below, which, with their accustomed ruthless policy, the Normans had hollowed out of the soil.

The Jew, Abraham of Toledo, was resting uneasily, full of fears--which experience too well justified--as to his personal safety in this den of lions, when he also heard steps, this time descending the stairs, and Geoffrey of Coutances was ushered in.

"Leave the cell," said the bishop to the gaoler, "but remain in the passage. Close the door; I would speak with this penitent, as I trust he will prove, in private."

"Never fear, your holiness," said the gaoler with somewhat undue familiarity; "I care little for a Jew's patter, and this fellow will need a long shrift before they make a roast of him--for that, I suppose, will be the end of it."

The door slammed.

It was a miserable cell, composed of rough stones, lately put together, oozing with the moisture from the damp soil around, for the river was close by and the dungeon beneath its level.

"Art thou prepared to meet thy fitting end?"

"What crime have I committed to deserve death?"

"Thou hast knowingly and wilfully abetted, not one but many poisoners, and the stake is the fitting doom for thee and them."

"Oh! not the stake, God of Abraham. If ye must slay, at least spare the agonising flames; but what mercy can we hope for, we faithful children of Abraham, from Nazarenes?"

"What price art thou willing to pay for thy forfeit life, if thy sentence is commuted to exile from this land?"

"Price? Canst thou mean it? I will fill thy chambers with gold."

"I seek it not--albeit," added the worthy bishop, "some were fitly bestowed on the poor--but that thou, whose former crime hast brought a worthy youth to the block, shouldst undo the mischief as far as thou art able."

"But what can I do? who would heed me?"

"Dost thou not know of a drug, which shall throw the drinker thereof into a trance, so like death that all shall believe him dead?"

"I do indeed."

"And art thou sure of thy power to revive the sleeper from this seeming death, after the lapse of days--after men have committed him as a corpse to the tomb?"

"I can do so with facility if I have the necessary drugs; but I am stripped of all. Were I in London--"

"Hast thou no brethren in Oxenford?"

"Yea, verily, I remember Zacharias the Jew, who lives hard by the river, in the parish of St. Ebba."

"Canst thou trust him with thy life?"

"He is a brother."

"Ye are better brothers than many Christians. I will send him to thee, and he shall supply thee with the necessary medicaments. If the experiment succeed, and absolute secrecy be observed, I will cause thy sentence to be commuted to banishment, with the forfeiture of some portion of thine ill-gotten goods; otherwise there remaineth but the stake."

And Geoffrey of Coutances departed.

An hour later, Zacharias of St. Ebba's parish entered; the two conferred a long time--Zacharias departed--returned again--and in the evening of the following day sought the bishop and placed a packet in his hand.

It was the last night on which poor Wilfred was allowed by Norman mercy to live. The archbishop was with him.

He was penitent and resigned; his last confession was made, and it was arranged that on the morrow he should receive the Holy Communion at St. George's Chapel, within the precincts, from the hands of Lanfranc, ere led forth to die, as now ordered, upon that mound the visitor to Oxford still beholds, hard by that same donjon tower.

"I thank thee, father," he said to Lanfranc--"I thank thee for the hope thou hast given me of meeting those I have lost, in a better and brighter world."

"Thou diest penitent for thy sins, and forgiving thy foes?"

"I do, indeed; it has been a struggle, but thou hast conquered."

"Not I, but Divine grace;" and the mighty prelate turned aside to hide a tear.

Another visitor was announced, and Geoffrey of Coutances drew near.

"Thou art resigned, my Wilfred?"

"I am, by God's grace."

"Yet thou lookest feeble and ill. Drink this tonic; it will give thee strength to play the man tomorrow."

He emptied the contents of a phial into a small cup of water. Wilfred drank it up.

"And now, my son, hast thou any message to leave behind thee?"

"When thou seest Etienne, tell him I forgive, as I trust he forgives also--we have much to pardon each other--and beg him to be a merciful lord to such poor English as yet dwell in Aescendune."

"I will, indeed, and so second your last appeal that I doubt not to prevail."

"And my sister--Hugo sent her, as he said, to be educated in the convent of The Holy Trinity at Caen; convey her my last love, and a lock of hair as a memento of her only brother. Poor Editha! she will be alone now. Thou wilt care for her future fortunes; she has a claim on the lands of Aescendune. Oh, Aescendune!--bright sky, verdant fields, deep forest glades, pleasant river--thou passest to Norman hands now."

It was the last moment of weakness.

"May I lie there beside my father?"

"Yes, thou shalt," said Lanfranc.

"After many years," muttered Geoffrey to himself, for he had a secret, which he concealed from his more scrupulous brother.

Lanfranc rose to depart.

"Commend thyself to God in prayer; then sleep and dream of Paradise. I will be with thee ere the October dawn."

And Lanfranc departed.

"How dost thou feel, my son?" said Geoffrey.

"Well, but strangely sleepy, as if control were leaving me and my frame not my own. Was it a strengthening dose thou gavest me?"

"One which will, perchance, save thee. Lie on this bed; now sleep if thou wilt--thou wilt arise the better for it."

And in a few minutes, all anxiety forgotten, Wilfred slept--slept heavily. Geoffrey watched him awhile, then departed.

The morrow, and a great multitude of spectators had arranged themselves around the slopes of the mound, just before sunrise.

On the tower itself stood Etienne de Malville, eager to see the end of his hated rival, and to make sure, by ocular evidence, of his death.

The morning was clear, after high dawn. The spectator on the tower looked towards the eastern hills, over the valley of the Cherwell, to see the sun arise above the heights of Headington.

It came at last--the signal of death: a huge arc of fire, changing rapidly into a semi-circle, and then into a globe. All the earth rejoiced around, but a shudder passed through the crowd.

The headsman leaned upon his axe, but no procession yet approached.

The sun was now a quarter of an hour high, when a murmur passed through the crowd that something had happened. At length the murmur deepened into a report that Wilfred had been found dead in his bed.

"Died," said some, "by the judgment of God."

"The better for him," said others.

And there were even those who murmured bitterly that they were disappointed of the spectacle, which they had left their beds to witness. Such unfeeling selfishness is not without example in modern times.

Etienne left the roof, burning with indignation, suspecting some trick to cheat him of his vengeance.

"Come into this cell," said the soft voice of Lanfranc.

Etienne obeyed.

There lay his young rival, cold and pale. Etienne doubted no longer; death was too palpably stamped upon the face.

"Canst thou forgive now?" said Lanfranc. "His last message was one of forgiveness for thee."

"I know not. An hour ago I thought no power on earth could make me; but we have each suffered wrongs."

"Ye have."

"I do forgive, then; requiescat in pace."

"So shall it be well with thee before God," said the good prelate.

So Wilfred was buried in the vaults of St. Frideswide's church. The Archbishop Lanfranc celebrated the funeral mass. It was noticed with surprise that Bishop Geoffrey absented himself from the function and the subsequent burial rites.

The week ended, as all weeks come to an end. Lanfranc had gone to Canterbury. The Conqueror, assured by trusty reporters of the death of Wilfred, rejoiced that so satisfactory an accident had befallen, sparing all publicity and shame to one he could but admire, as he ever admired pluck and devotion.

Geoffrey alone remained a guest at a monastic foundation hard by St. Frideswide's.

The midnight bell has struck twelve--or, rather, has been struck twelve times by the sexton, in the absence of machinery.

All is silence and gloom in the church of St. Frideswide, and upon the burial ground around.

Three muffled figures stand in a recess of the cloisters.

"This is the door," said the sexton; "but, holy St. Frideswide, to go down there tonight!"

"Thou forgettest I am a bishop; I can lay spirits if they arise."

The sexton stood at the open door--a group of the bishop's retainers farther off--that iron door which never opened to inmate before.

Geoffrey and the Jew advanced to the grave, amidst stone coffins and recesses in the walls, where the dead lay, much as in the catacombs.

They stopped before a certain recess.

There, swathed in woollen winding sheets, lay the mute form of Wilfred of Aescendune.

"Let him see thee when he arises. The sight of this deathly place may slay him. He will awake as from sleep. Take this sponge--bathe well the brow; how the aromatic odour fills the vaults!"

A minute--no result. Another.

"Dog, hast thou deceived me and slain him? If so, thou shalt not escape."

"Patience," said the Jew.

A heavy sigh escaped the sleeper.

"Thank God, he lives," said the bishop.

"Where am I? Have I slept long?"

"With friends--all is well.

"Cover his face; now bear him out to the air."

. . . . .

A barque was leaving the ancient port of Pevensey, bound for the east. Two friends--one in the attire of a bishop, and a youth who looked like a recent convalescent--stood on the deck.

"Farewell to England--dear England," said the younger.

"Thou mayest revisit it after thou hast fulfilled thy desire to pray at thy Saviour's tomb, and to tread the holy soil His sacred Feet have trodden; but it must be years hence."

"My best prayers must be for thee."

"Tut, tut, my child; thy adventures form an episode I love to think of. See, Beachy Head recedes; anon thou shalt see the towers of Coutances Cathedral across the deep."

CHAPTER XXV. IN THE FOREST OF LEBANON.

Thirty years had passed away since the events recorded in our last chapter, and the mighty Conqueror himself had gone to render an account of his stewardship to the Judge of all men.

The thoughts and aspirations of all Christian people were now attracted to far different subjects from the woes or wrongs of the English nation. The Crusades had begun. Peter the Hermit had moved all Christendom by his fiery eloquence, and sent them to avenge the wrongs the pilgrims of the cross had sustained from Turkish hands, and to free the holy soil from the spawn of the false prophet.

Since the Caliph Omar received the capitulation of Jerusalem, in 637, and established therein the religion of Mahomed, no greater calamity had ever befallen Christendom than the conquest of Asia Minor, and subsequently Syria, by the Turks.

The latter event, which occurred about nine years after the Norman Conquest of England, transferred the government of Palestine, and the custody of the holy places, from a race which, although Mahometan, was yet tolerant, to a far fiercer and "anti-human" government The "unspeakable Turk" had appeared on the scene of European politics.

For, under the milder rule of the Fatimite Caliphs, who reigned over Jerusalem from A.D. 969 to 1076, a peculiar quarter of the holy city had been assigned to the Christians; a fair tribute secured them protection, and the Sepulchre of Christ, with the other scenes identified with the Passion, were left in their hands. Greeks and Latins alike enjoyed freedom of worship, and crowds of pilgrims flocked from all the western nations.

Then appeared our Turks on the scene. They first ravished Asia Minor from the weak grasp of the later Roman Empire, and established their capital and worship--the abomination of desolation--where the first great Christian council had drawn up the Nicene Creed, that is, at Nicaea in Bithynia.

Then, later on, under the Sultan Malek Shah, they attacked Syria and Egypt, and the Holy Land passed under that blighting rule, which has ever since withered it in its grasp, with