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

seemed unfamiliar, but with heavy gold bracelets on his arms, long haired and bearded, was Vebba, the Kentish thegn, who had served as nuncius from Godwin to Edward.

“Troth and faith!” said Vebba, wiping his brow, “this crowd is enow to make plain roan stark wode. I would not live in London for all the gauds in the goldsmith’s shops, or all the treasures in King Edward’s vaults. My tongue is as parched as a hay-field in the weyd-month. 140 Holy Mother be blessed! I see a Cumen-hus 141 open; let us in and refresh ourselves with a horn of ale.”

“Nay, friend,” quoth Godrith, with a slight disdain, “such are not the resorts of men of our rank. Tarry yet awhile, till we arrive near the bridge by the river-side; there, indeed, you will find worthy company and dainty cheer.”

“Well, well, I am at your hest, Godrith,” said the Kent man, sighing; “my wife and my sons will be sure to ask me what sights I have seen, and I may as well know from thee the last tricks and ways of this burly-burly town.”

Godrith, who was master of all the fashions in the reign of our lord King Edward, smiled graciously, and the two proceeded in silence, only broken by the sturdy Kent man’s exclamations; now of anger when rudely jostled, now of wonder and delight when, amidst the throng, he caught sight of a gleeman, with his bear or monkey, who took advantage of some space near convent garden, or Roman ruin, to exhibit his craft; till they gained a long low row of booths, most pleasantly situated to the left of this side London bridge, and which was appropriated to the celebrated cookshops, that even to the time of Fitzstephen retained their fame and their fashion.

Between the shops and the river was a space of grass worn brown and bare by the feet of the customers, with a few clipped trees with vines trained from one to the other in arcades, under cover of which were set tables and settles. The place was thickly crowded, and but for Godrith’s popularity amongst the attendants, they might have found it difficult to obtain accommodation. However, a new table was soon brought forth, placed close by the cool margin of the water, and covered in a trice with tankards of hippocras, pigment, ale, and some Gascon, as well as British wines: varieties of the delicious cake-bread for which England was then renowned; while viands, strange to the honest eye and taste of the wealthy Kent man, were served on spits.

“What bird is this?” said he, grumbling.

“O enviable man, it is a Phrygian attagen 142 that thou art about to taste for the first time; and when thou hast recovered that delight, I commend to thee a Moorish compound, made of eggs and roes of carp from the old Southweorc stewponds, which the cooks here dress notably.”

“Moorish!—Holy Virgin!” cried Vebba, with his mouth full of the Phrygian attagen, “how came anything Moorish in our Christian island?”

Godrith laughed outright.

“Why, our cook here is Moorish; the best singers in London are Moors. Look yonder! see those grave comely Saracens!”

“Comely, quotha, burnt and black as a charred pine-pole!” grunted Vebba; “well, who are they?”

“Wealthy traders; thanks to whom, our pretty maids have risen high in the market.” 143

“More the shame,” said the Kent man; “that selling of English youth to foreign masters, whether male or female, is a blot on the Saxon name.”

“So saith Harold our Earl, and so preach the monks,” returned Godrith. “But thou, my good friend, who art fond of all things that our ancestors did, and hast sneered more than once at my Norman robe and cropped hair, thou shouldst not be the one to find fault with what our fathers have done since the days of Cerdic.”

“Hem,” said the Kent man, a little perplexed, “certainly old manners are the best, and I suppose there is some good reason for this practice, which I, who never trouble myself about matters that concern me not, do not see.”

“Well, Vebba, and how likest thou the Atheling? he is of the old line,” said Godrith.

Again the Kent man looked perplexed, and had recourse to the ale, which he preferred to all more delicate liquor, before he replied:

“Why, he speaks English worse than King Edward! and as for his boy Edgar, the child can scarce speak English at all. And then their German carles and cnehts!—An I had known what manner of folk they were, I had not spent my mancuses in running from my homestead to give them the welcome. But they told me that Harold the good Earl had made the King send for them: and whatever the Earl counselled must, I thought, be wise, and to the weal of sweet England.”

“That is true,” said Godrith with earnest emphasis, for, with all his affectation of Norman manners, he was thoroughly English at heart, and now among the staunchest supporters of Harold, who had become no less the pattern and pride of the young nobles than the darling of the humbler population,—“that is true—and Harold showed us his noble English heart when he so urged the King to his own loss.”

As Godrith thus spoke, nay, from the first mention of Harold’s name, two men richly clad, but with their bonnets drawn far over their brows, and their long gonnas so worn as to hide their forms, who were seated at a table behind Godrith and had thus escaped his attention, had paused from their wine-cups, and they now listened with much earnestness to the conversation that followed.

“How to the Earl’s loss?” asked Vebba.

“Why, simple thegn,” answered Godrith, “why, suppose that Edward had refused to acknowledge the Atheling as his heir, suppose the Atheling had remained in the German court, and our good King died suddenly,—who, thinkest thou, could succeed to the English throne?”

“Marry, I have never thought of that at all,” said the Kent man, scratching his head.

“No, nor have the English generally; yet whom could we choose but Harold?”

A sudden start from one of the listeners was checked by the warning finger of the other; and the Kent man exclaimed:

“Body o’ me! But we have never chosen king (save the Danes) out of the line of Cerdic. These be new cranks, with a vengeance; we shall be choosing German, or Saracen, or Norman next!”

“Out of the line of Cerdic! but that line is gone, root and branch, save the Atheling, and he thou seest is more German than English. Again I say, failing the Atheling, whom could we choose but Harold, brother-in-law to the King: descended through Githa from the royalties of the Norse, the head of all armies under the Herr-ban, the chief who has never fought without victory, yet who has always preferred conciliation to conquest—the first counsellor in the Witan—the first man in the realm—who but Harold? answer me, staring Vebba?”

“I take in thy words slowly,” said the