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Read books online » Fiction » Wulf the Saxon: A Story of the Norman Conquest by G. A. Henty (macos ebook reader .TXT) 📖

Book online «Wulf the Saxon: A Story of the Norman Conquest by G. A. Henty (macos ebook reader .TXT) 📖». Author G. A. Henty



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pleasure came into them, and he smiled faintly.

"I am alive, Osgod, and glad indeed to find that you are also. Beorn has also escaped. Take a draught of wine; you have lost a lot of blood and had none to spare."

They lifted him into a sitting position, and held the cup to his lips while he drank a long draught.

"That is better," he murmured. "I can feel it going through my veins. I shall be able to wield an axe yet again. This comes of fighting with a weapon you don't know. The shaft broke as I was guarding my head, and I don't remember anything after."

"It saved your life though, Osgod, for it broke the force of the blow which would otherwise have cleft your skull. As it is, it has not gone very deep, and the blood you have lost has run chiefly from a wound on your left shoulder."

"How is it that you are here?" Osgod asked, looking round at the Normans.

"We are prisoners, though we have not surrendered," Wulf replied. "We were saved by our good friend Lord de Burg, who has joined us in our search for you. We are to be taken to Normandy as prisoners, and to remain in charge of Lady de Burg."

"You shall go too, Osgod," De Burg said. "You will find it hard to be nursed here, and my wife will see that your wounds are well cared for. Your master will stay with you for the present, for I have matters to see about before we start for the coast."

In half an hour he returned. "I have to ask you to perform a last service to your dead king," he said. "The bodies of Gurth and Leofwin have been found and borne away by your people for burial, but none can find the body of Harold. All the dead that were near the standard were removed last night by the soldiers, and among the great pile of dead none can recognize that of your king."

Well as they knew him, Wulf and Beorn were unable to recognize the body of Harold among the ghastly heap of mutilated corpses. After a time Wulf said:

"There is one who might recognize it when all others failed. It is Edith, whom he so long loved as his wife. She may recognize it by some mark or sign unknown to others. If you will give me leave I will ride to Lewes, where she is staying, and bring her hither."

"Certainly, Wulf; I will obtain a safe conduct for you from the duke."

Wulf had ridden, however, but a mile along the western road when he saw a litter approaching borne by four men. He reined in his horse by its side. An order was given from within, and as the bearers lowered it to the ground Edith stepped out. She was deadly pale. Her eyes were red with weeping, and she seemed to Wulf to have aged years since he saw her a week before.

"My presentiments have come true, Wulf," she said. "It was no surprise to me when last night the news came that the battle was lost and Harold slain. I had looked and waited for it. You were coming to fetch me?"

"Yes, lady; Harold's body has not been found. Early this morning two monks of Waltham, who had followed the army and seen the fight afar off, came into camp, and with them Gytha, Harold's mother. She saw the duke, and begged for Harold's body, offering its weight in gold if she might carry it for burial to the Abbey of Waltham. The duke refused, saying that an excommunicated man could not be buried in a holy place; she might remove the bodies of her other two sons, but Harold's, when found, should be buried by the seacoast. The monks searched in vain for the body. Beorn and I have done the same, but have failed to recognize it in so vast a heap of slain."

"I shall know it," Edith said. "Among a thousand dead I should know Harold."

"It is a terrible sight, lady, for a woman to look upon," Wulf said gently.

"I shall see nothing but him," she replied firmly.

He accompanied her back to the battle-ground, where the two monks joined her. Wulf, who was greatly shaken by the sight of her set and white face, left her with them.

What the eye of friendship had failed to accomplish, that of love detected unerringly. There were marks on Harold's body by which Edith recognized it. One of the monks bore the news to the duke, who charged Sir William Malet to superintend the burial, and to do it with all honour. The remains were collected and reverently placed together. They were wrapped in a purple robe, and laid on a litter. Beorn and Wulf and the two monks lifted it; Edith walked behind, followed by Lord de Burg and several other Norman knights and barons who had known Harold in Normandy, and could admire and appreciate the valour of the dead hero. The little procession went down to the shore, where Norman soldiers had already dug a grave, and there by the coast he had defended so well Harold was laid to rest, and over his body a great cairn of stones was raised by order of the duke.







CHAPTER XXII. — THE LORD OF BRAMBER.

Edith stood by while the Norman soldiers piled the stones over the grave. No tear had fallen from her eyes from the time that she had reached the field of battle. Her face was as pale as marble, and looked almost as rigid. When the last stone was placed on the top of the cairn she turned to Wulf and Beorn:

"Farewell, Wulf! farewell, Beorn! I am glad you were here. I am glad that beside me stood two of his most trusted thanes, and two of the monks from the abbey he founded, and whose welfare was so dear to him. I go to Lewes, and when the doors of the convent close on me I shall be dead to the world. Would that I were lying beneath that cairn by the side of my dear lord. I cannot weep for him now, the springs of my heart seem frozen, but I have time for that. Farewell, thanes! I shall remember you in my prayers." So saying she turned away, and walked back to the litter.

"Poor lady!" Beorn exclaimed as he watched the litter, escorted by the two monks, carried along the road.

"Poor lady indeed!" Wulf repeated; "and yet there are thousands in England and Normandy who were widowed yesterday, and maybe she is better off than many. She lost Harold the day she resigned him to another, and it was harder perhaps to be parted from him in that fashion than to know that he is dead now. She can think of him as his true widow, for assuredly the queen who never cared aught for him is a widow but in name. Before, Edith was tortured by the desire to see him and to comfort him, and yet his marriage stood as a gulf between them, a gulf that she would never have passed. Now she can think of him as her very own, as the man who had loved her even as she had

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