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

of mail, which was worn stronger and heavier by the Normans, as fighting usually on horseback, than by Dane and Saxon, who, mainly fighting on foot, could not have endured so cumbrous a burthen: and if strong and dour generally with the Norman, judge what solid weight that mighty Duke could endure! With his own hand William placed the mail on the ruined Druid stone, and on the mail the helm.

Harold looked long and gravely at the edge of the axe; it was so richly gilt and damasquined, that the sharpness of its temper could not well have been divined under that holiday glitter. But this axe had come to him from Canute the Great, who himself, unlike the Danes, small and slight 195, had supplied his deficiency of muscle by the finest dexterity and the most perfect weapons. Famous had been that axe in the delicate hand of Canute—how much more tremendous in the ample grasp of Harold! Swinging now in both hands this weapon, with a peculiar and rapid whirl, which gave it an inconceivable impetus, the Earl let fall the crushing blow: at the first stroke, cut right in the centre, rolled the helm; at the second, through all the woven mail (cleft asunder, as if the slightest filigree work of the goldsmith,) shore the blade, and a great fragment of the stone itself came tumbling on the sod.

The Normans stood aghast, and William’s face was as pale as the shattered stone. The great Duke felt even his matchless dissimulation fail him; nor, unused to the special practice and craft which the axe required, could he have pretended, despite a physical strength superior even to Harold’s, to rival blows that seemed to him more than mortal.

“Lives there any other man in the wide world whose arm could have wrought that feat?” exclaimed Bruse, the ancestor of the famous Scot.

“Nay,” said Harold, simply, “at least thirty thousand such men have I left at home! But this was but the stroke of an idle vanity, and strength becomes tenfold in a good cause.”

The Duke heard, and fearful lest he should betray his sense of the latent meaning couched under his guest’s words, he hastily muttered forth reluctant compliment and praise; while Fitzosborne, De Bohun, and other chiefs more genuinely knightly, gave way to unrestrained admiration.

Then beckoning De Graville to follow him, the Duke strode off towards the tent of his brother of Bayeux, who, though, except on extraordinary occasions, he did not join in positive conflict, usually accompanied William in his military excursions, both to bless the host, and to advise (for his martial science was considerable) the council of war.

The bishop, who, despite the sanctimony of the Court, and his own stern nature, was (though secretly and decorously) a gallant of great success in other fields than those of Mars 196, sate alone in his pavilion, inditing an epistle to a certain fair dame in Rouen, whom he had unwillingly left to follow his brother. At the entrance of William, whose morals in such matters were pure and rigid, he swept the letter into the chest of relics which always accompanied him, and rose, saying, indifferently:

“A treatise on the authenticity of St. Thomas’s little finger! But what ails you? you are disturbed!”

“Odo, Odo, this man baffles me—this man fools me; I make no ground with him. I have spent—heaven knows what I have spent,” said the Duke, sighing with penitent parsimony, “in banquets, and ceremonies, and processions; to say nothing of my bel maneir of Yonne, and the sum wrung from my coffers by that greedy Ponthevin. All gone—all wasted—all melted like snow! and the Saxon is as Saxon as if he had seen neither Norman splendour, nor been released from the danger by Norman treasure. But, by the splendour Divine, I were fool indeed if I suffered him to return home. Would thou hadst seen the sorcerer cleave my helmet and mail just now, as easily as if they had been willow twigs. Oh, Odo, Odo, my soul is troubled, and St. Michael forsakes me!”

While William ran on thus distractedly, the prelate lifted his eyes inquiringly to De Graville, who now stood within the tent, and the knight briefly related the recent trial of strength.

“I see nought in this to chafe thee,” said Odo; “the man once thine, the stronger the vassal, the more powerful the lord.”

“But he is not mine; I have sounded him as far as I dare go. Matilda hath almost openly offered him my fairest child as his wife. Nothing dazzles, nothing moves him. Thinkest thou I care for his strong arm? Tut, no: I chafe at the proud heart that set the arm in motion; the proud meaning his words symbolled out, ‘So will English strength guard English land from the Norman—so axe and shield will defy your mail and your shafts.’ But let him beware!” growled the Duke, fiercely, “or——”

“May I speak,” interrupted De Graville, “and suggest a counsel?”

“Speak out, in God’s name!” cried the Duke.

“Then I should say, with submission, that the way to tame a lion is not by gorging him, but daunting. Bold is the lion against open foes; but a lion in the toils loses his nature. Just now, my lord said that Harold should not return to his native land——”

“Nor shall he, but as my sworn man!” exclaimed the Duke.

“And if you now put to him that choice, think you it will favour your views? Will he not reject your proffers, and with hot scorn?”

“Scorn! darest thou that word to me?” cried the Duke. “Scorn! have I no headsman whose axe is as sharp as Harold’s? and the neck of a captive is not sheathed in my Norman mail.”

“Pardon, pardon, my liege,” said Mallet, with spirit; “but to save my chief from a hasty action that might bring long remorse, I spoke thus boldly. Give the Earl at least fair warning:—a prison, or fealty to thee, that is the choice before him!—let him know it; let him see that thy dungeons are dark, and thy walls impassable. Threaten not his life—brave men care not for that!—threaten thyself nought, but let others work upon him with fear of his freedom. I know well these Saxish men; I know well Harold; freedom is their passion, they are cowards when threatened with the doom of four walls.” 197

“I conceive thee, wise son,” exclaimed Odo.

“Ha!” said the Duke, slowly; “and yet it was to prevent such suspicion that I took care, after the first meeting, to separate him from Haco and Wolnoth, for they must have learned much in Norman gossip, ill to repeat to the Saxon.”

“Wolnoth is almost wholly Norman,” said the bishop, smiling; “Wolnoth is bound par-amours, to a certain fair Norman dame; and, I trow well, prefers her charms here to the thought of his return. But Haco, as thou knowest, is sullen and watchful.”

“So much the better companion for Harold now,” said De Graville.

“I am fated ever to plot and to scheme!” said the Duke, groaning, as if he had been the simplest of men; “but, nathless, I love the stout Earl, and I mean all for his own good,—that is, compatibly with my rights and claims to the heritage of Edward my cousin.”