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

his door, and looked forth. A lanthorn swung on high from the groined roof of the corridor. By the lanthorn stood a tall sentry in arms, and its gleam fell red upon an iron grate that jealously closed the egress. The Earl closed the door, and sat down on his bed, covering his face with his clenched hand. The veins throbbed in every pulse, his own touch seemed to him like fire. The prophecies of Hilda on the fatal night by the bautastein, which had decided him to reject the prayer of Gurth, the fears of Edith, and the cautions of Edward, came back to him, dark, haunting, and overmasteringly. They rose between him and his sober sense, whenever he sought to re-collect his thoughts, now to madden him with the sense of his folly in belief, now to divert his mind from the perilous present to the triumphant future they foretold; and of all the varying chaunts of the Vala, ever two lines seemed to burn into his memory, and to knell upon his ear, as if they contained the counsel they ordained him to pursue: “GUILE BY GUILE OPPOSE, and never Crown and brow shall Force dissever!”

So there he sat, locked and rigid, not reclining, not disrobing, till in that posture a haggard, troubled, fitful sleep came over him; nor did he wake till the hour of prime 202, when ringing bells and tramping feet, and the hum of prayer from the neighbouring chapel, roused him into waking yet more troubled, and well-nigh as dreamy. But now Godrith and Haco entered the room, and the former inquired with some surprise in his tone, if he had arranged with the Duke to depart that day; “For,” said he, “the Duke’s hors-thegn has just been with me, to say that the Duke himself, and a stately retinue, are to accompany you this evening towards Harfleur, where a ship will be in readiness for our transport; and I know that the chamberlain (a courteous and pleasant man) is going round to my fellow-thegns in your train, with gifts of hawks, and chains, and broidered palls.”

“It is so,” said Haco, in answer to Harold’s brightening and appealing eye.

“Go then, at once, Godrith,” exclaimed the Earl, bounding to his feet, “have all in order to part at the first break of the trump. Never, I ween, did trump sound so cheerily as the blast that shall announce our return to England. Haste—haste!”

As Godrith, pleased in the Earl’s pleasure, though himself already much fascinated by the honours he had received and the splendor he had witnessed, withdrew, Haco said, “Thou has taken my counsel, noble kinsman?”

“Question me not, Haco! Out of my memory, all that hath passed here!”

“Not yet,” said Haco, with that gloomy and intense seriousness of voice and aspect, which was so at variance with his years, and which impressed all he said with an indescribable authority. “Not yet; for even while the chamberlain went his round with the parting gifts, I, standing in the angle of the wall in the yard, heard the Duke’s deep whisper to Roger Bigod, who has the guard of the keape, ‘Have the men all armed at noon in the passage below the council-hall, to mount at the stamp of my foot: and if then I give thee a prisoner—wonder not, but lodge him—’ The Duke paused; and Bigod said, ‘Where, my liege?’ And the Duke answered fiercely, ‘Where? why, where but in the Tour noir?—where but in the cell in which Malvoisin rotted out his last hour?’ Not yet, then, let the memory of Norman wile pass away; let the lip guard the freedom still.”

All the bright native soul that before Haco spoke had dawned gradually back on the Earl’s fair face, now closed itself up, as the leaves of a poisoned flower; and the pupil of the eye receding, left to the orb that secret and strange expression which had baffled all readers of the heart in the look of his impenetrable father.

“Guile by guile oppose!” he muttered vaguely; then started, clenched his hand, and smiled.

In a few moments, more than the usual levee of Norman nobles thronged into the room; and what with the wonted order of the morning, in the repast, the church service of tierce, and a ceremonial visit to Matilda, who confirmed the intelligence that all was in preparation for his departure, and charged him with gifts of her own needlework to his sister the Queen, and various messages of gracious nature, the time waxed late into noon without his having yet seen either William or Odo.

He was still with Matilda, when the Lords Fitzosborne and Raoul de Tancarville entered in full robes of state, and with countenances unusually composed and grave, and prayed the Earl to accompany them into the Duke’s presence.

Harold obeyed in silence, not unprepared for covert danger, by the formality of the counts, as by the warnings of Haco; but, indeed, undivining the solemnity of the appointed snare. On entering the lofty hall, he beheld William seated in state; his sword of office in his hand, his ducal robe on his imposing form, and with that peculiarly erect air of the head which he assumed upon all ceremonial occasions 203. Behind him stood Odo of Bayeux, in aube and gallium; some score of the Duke’s greatest vassals; and at a little distance from the throne chair, was what seemed a table; or vast chest, covered all over with cloth of gold.

Small time for wonder or self-collection did the Duke give the Saxon.

“Approach, Harold,” said he, in the full tones of that voice, so singularly effective in command; “approach, and without fear, as without regret. Before the members of this noble assembly—all witnesses of thy faith, and all guarantees of mine—I summon thee to confirm by oath the promises thou mad’st me yesterday; namely, to aid me to obtain the kingdom of England on the death of King Edward, my cousin; to marry my daughter Adeliza; and to send thy sister hither, that I may wed her, as we agreed, to one of my worthiest and prowest counts. Advance thou, Odo, my brother, and repeat to the noble Earl the Norman form by which he will take the oath.”

Then Odo stood forth by that mysterious receptacle covered with the cloth of gold, and said briefly, “Thou wilt swear, as far as is in thy power, to fulfil thy agreement with William, Duke of the Normans, if thou live, and God aid thee; and in witness of that oath thou wilt lay thy hand upon the reliquaire,” pointing to a small box that lay on the cloth of gold.

All this was so sudden—all flashed so rapidly upon the Earl, whose natural intellect, however great, was, as we have often seen, more deliberate than prompt—so thoroughly was the bold heart, which no siege could have sapped, taken by surprise and guile—so paramount through all the whirl and tumult of his mind, rose the thought of England irrevocably lost, if he who alone could save her was in the Norman dungeons—so darkly did all Haco’s fears, and his own just suspicions, quell and master him, that mechanically, dizzily, dreamily, he laid his hand on the reliquaire, and repeated, with automaton lips:

“If I live, and if God aid me to it!”

Then all the assembly repeated solemnly:

“God aid him!”

And suddenly, at a sign from William, Odo and Raoul de Tancarville raised the gold cloth, and the Duke’s voice bade Harold look below.