by M. M. Blake
CHAPTER II.
LOVE OR LOYALTY.
Shortly after Easter, on the day that would have been her wedding-day,Emma Fitzosbern sat in her bower in Hereford Castle, looking dreamilyat the misty outlines of the distant Welsh hills, behind which the sunwas setting in golden splendour. Her favourite bower-maiden sat on alow stool at her feet, and the glory of the sunset poured over thegraceful figures of the two girls, and gilded the maundry work ofrushes at their feet and the rich tapestry which covered the wallsaround them, while the gorgeous clouds were piled into battlementedtowers, mocking with their vapoury illusion the solid masonry belowthem.
Emma's companion was looking up at her face with an expression oftender love and sympathy. She was a girl of seventeen, some four yearsyounger than her lady, and wore the Saxon headrail; the little rings ofhair which escaped from its close cover were of Saxon gold, while herpale blue robe was made in the fashion of that nation, full andflowing, with large, hanging sleeves. The girdle with which it wasbound was ornamented with jewels, and the hems were edged with fur. Herface was less animated and striking than that of the noble Norman, buthad a winsome beauty of its own, the blue eyes frank and affectionate,and the rounded features not wanting in character.
An embroidery frame stood before them; for though Eadgyth of Norwichhad lived in a Norman household since she was ten, she hadperseveringly acquired the special accomplishment of her countrywomenin spite of difficulties, and Emma fitfully worked at it also under herguidance.
Eadgyth was a cousin in some sort, second or third, perhaps, to HaroldGodwinsson, and made it a point of honour to keep his memory green,though she had grown to love dearly the generous Norman maiden, whotreated her more as a sister than a dependent.
Many relatives of Harold had property in Norwich, and when Ralph deGuader had received his earldom of Norfolk and Suffolk, which Harold'sdeath on the field of Senlac had rendered vacant, he had taken pity onthe forlorn condition of the little damsel, whose male relatives hadbeen slain in the contest, and who was thus left without protectionfrom the insolent conquerors. De Guader had been amused by thepatriotic defiance the bereaved maiden of ten had flung at him, ratinghim as a renegade and a murderer, with other terms of equal politenesswhich had sounded oddly from her flower-like mouth, and perhaps hisconscience smote him, and told him they were not untrue. Her couragemoved his admiration and generosity, and, having no women-folk of hisown to whom he could confide her, he had induced William Fitzosbern theNorman Earl of Hereford, to take her into his castle as a playmate andlady-in-waiting for his daughter Emma. So began a companionship whichwas to endure for their lives.
The tide of sad reflection was flooding Emma's heart to the brim. Sincethe cruel day on which the king's mandate had been received, thesubject of her interrupted betrothal had been buried in dead silence.Her brother and guardian, the young Earl of Hereford, had set out on ajourney a day or two later, but had left even his wife in ignorance ofits aim and direction. Emma, on her own part, had shrunk from speech.Her wounds were too sore to bear the probing even of those who lovedher. But at length, on this bright May evening, she spoke.
'This was to have been my wedding-day, Eadgyth,' she said.
A cloud of scornful anger passed over the face of the Saxon girl, andher blue eyes flashed.
'So William of Normandy has ruined both our lives!' she said hotly, heryoung voice quivering with passion. 'I would that the earth had openedand swallowed him up when he first set foot on English ground, insteadof only catching him by the ankle, to enable him to make a jest andfind a good omen!'
Emma bent down, laughing, that she might not cry.
'Hush!' she said; 'little rebel, thou art talking treason!'
'Nay,' returned Eadgyth, 'for I have never vowed fealty.'
'Ah, well,' answered Emma, sighing, 'my forbears have fought forWilliam's forbears for generations! It is bred in my blood to beobedient to him. He would never have been King of England, had not myfather lavished wealth and activity, and roused the barons and theburghers by example and ruse.'
'A fine reason, truly, for making thy father's daughter miserable,'quoth Eadgyth. 'Nevertheless, if thou art bred to obedience, it seemethnot less irksome to thee! Perhaps it is because he owes the keeping ofthe English crown to the valour with which Ralph de Guader beat backthe Danes, that he thwarts _him_! Not that I can spare any pity forRalph. If he had not played my cousin Harold false, how different allthings might have been. He, the grand-nephew of the sainted KingEadward! It seems a just retribution that William should thwart him.'
'On my part, I cannot account it a crime in Ralph to have sided with mycountrymen,' Emma said, with a gentle smile; 'but we cannot look onthose things with the same eyes.'
'No; I think it is perhaps a good thing that thou sittest here, insteadof being Ralph de Guader's bride, though I had lief have gone with theeto my dear old Norwich,' said Eadgyth. 'My dear old Norwich!' sherepeated, with a sigh. 'I should scarce know it again, with its finenew castle, and its streets full of Normans and Bretons, and foul,greedy Jews.'
'Oh, Eadgyth! Eadgyth! I will have no more to say to thee, if thoutakest part against my knight!' said Emma, withdrawing her hands andfolding them on her lap.
'I did not mean to wound thee, Emma!' exclaimed the Saxon, claspingboth hands affectionately round Emma's right arm. 'I must needs begrateful to the earl, since I owe to him my happy home with thee. Yet,'she added sadly, 'forgive me if I cannot quite forget that such arefuge would not have been needful to me, if he had been firm to theDragon standard. Disguise it as thou wilt, I am but thyserving-maiden.'
'When I strive so carefully to disguise it, dost thou think it generousthus to pull it forth to the light of day?' asked Emma, and the tears,which she had till then kept back with difficulty, would no longer berestrained, and rolled rapidly down her cheeks.
'No, it is not generous!' cried Eadgyth, full of ruth. 'And I am notworthy to lace thy shoe latchet! Forgive me, dear Emma!'
As she spoke, the ring of a mailed footstep sounded in the corridorwithout, and the door was unceremoniously opened, and gave entrance tothe young Earl of Hereford, clad in a whole suit of mail, but unhelmed.
'What! sitting in darkness, maidens?' and, turning to a varlet with atorch, who had accompanied him to the door, he took it from the lad'shold, and placed it with his own hands in a sconce beside the hearth.'I love the light,' he said, laughing. 'Leave darkness to the bats andowls.'
Emma had risen, and ran to him gladly, kissing him on the cheek. 'Oh,Roger!' she said, 'I am so glad of thy return!'
But the joy that had come into her face at his unexpected appearancedid not dry the tears which she had forgotten to wipe away in hersurprise, and he saw them.
'Tears, Emma, tears? What! is my little sister weeping?' he asked in atone that was half banter, half tenderness. 'This is a thing that mustbe inquired into. I can have no weeping damsels in castle of mine.'
'Eadgyth and I were quarrelling,' said Emma gaily, 'because we were solonely in thine absence, and could find nothing better to do.'
'By the mass! that won't serve thee for an excuse, Emma,' answered theearl; then, taking her hands and looking searchingly in her face, hesaid somewhat sternly, as if to compel an answer, 'Art thou fretting atthe breaking of thy troth with Ralph de Guader?'
Emma turned away blushing from his scrutiny.
'The wound is fresh yet, Roger!' she said. 'It will bleed. Time willperchance heal it.'
'And by all the saints! a very short time too!' said Herefordtriumphantly. 'Thou shalt plight a new troth to-night.'
Emma started with apprehension. In those days, damsels of rank wereoften disposed of in marriage by their male relatives with very littleregard to their prejudices or affections, a girl's whimsies appearingof small consequence in their eyes beside the importance of a goodpolitical alliance, and Emma feared lest her brother might intend todemand a summary transference of her affections. Hitherto, it was truethat the young earl had been tender and indu
lgent, and had regarded herwishes the more readily perhaps in this matter, that Ralph de Guader,the powerful Earl of East Anglia, was the very man of all others tosuit his views of a desirable brother-in-law. But Emma knew him to beboth impulsive and obstinate, and visions of a fierce struggle withhim, ending in the cloister, the haven of refuge for women in thosedays, passed through her mind.
The earl, however, took no notice of her trepidation. 'Come,' he said,and led the way down the wide stone staircase. Emma followed trembling,and wondering what ordeal was before her. They entered a small room setapart near the great banqueting-hall, which was the earl's specialsanctum.
The next moment she found herself with her two hands clasped in thoseof Ralph de Guader, while he was looking down at her with a hunger ofentreaty in his eyes; and in the minds of both was the unspokenthought, that if all had gone well they would have been husband andwife that day.
The revulsion from apprehension to joy was so great as to be almost apain.
'Is it thou indeed, Ralph?' she faltered; and the young Earl ofHereford laughed.
'Didst think I had brought home an ogre to be my _beau-frere_,' heasked, 'that thou wast so sore afraid?'
Emma turned anxiously to De Guader.
'The king, then, has relented?' she said quickly. 'In sooth, I doubtednot his heart would soften. He could not be so cruel as to part us!'
De Guader shot a questioning glance at Hereford.
'Plead thine own cause, valiant knight!' said Roger a littlesarcastically. 'I was never a maker of speeches, and, by the HolyVirgin! thy eloquence has twisted me round thy little finger. See ifthou canst vie with a woman's sharp wits. To say truth, I care not tobreathe thy plan to the vagrant air, it has such a treasonable savour.'
Emma looked from one to the other for a solution of the mystery, butshe did not see much in De Guader's dark, handsome face to help her toread riddles.
'Thy brother bids me proffer my own petition, dear lady,' he said. 'IfI hesitate, be merciful to my unreadiness, for it is no easy boon Icome to ask of thee.'
He led her to a carved settle which stood beside the fireplace, andwhen she was seated, he stood before her silently a moment or two, thefirelight scintillating on the rings of the mail in which he wassheathed from head to foot, and sparkling on the jewels of his baldricand the golden hilt of his great two-handed sword, for, like herbrother, he was still in his harness.
'Noble Emma, I have come to ask thee to share with me danger anddifficulty,' he said. 'The king has not relented. But his mandate isunjust, and I beg thee to disregard it, and to give me once more thesweet promise that thou wilt be my bride.'
'Dost thou mean that thou wouldst ask me to defy the king?' falteredEmma, a great terror chasing away the short-lived joy which had floodedher heart. She turned wide, anxious eyes upon her brother.
'Dost thou not see, Emma, we are sick of spending our lives forWilliam, and getting nothing but kicks and curses from him?' explainedthe prosaic Roger. 'By the mass! it is hard on Ralph and on me, afterso much faithful service, and so maint hard blows given and taken inWilliam's business, that he should mar all our plans and spoil all ourpleasure by putting his veto on your marriage. A curse on loyalty! Ifthis is all it brings, we may as well be a little disloyal.'
Roger had better have allowed his friend to plead his own cause as hehad bidden him to do. Ralph's appeal to Emma to share danger with himhad touched her generous spirit. Her brother's outburst against hissovereign roused all her loyalty.
'I know not what to reply to such converse,' said Emma indignantly;then added, between jest and earnest, the tears trembling on her lashesas she looked at her brother, 'I would fain let it pass as a bad joke,or to think that perchance ye twain have been drinking a littlecopiously at the wine-cup.'
'Nay, Emma, that is an injustice!' cried Hereford, bursting intolaughter, and clapping his hand down upon De Guader's mailed shoulder;'when this poor love-lorn galliard would not break fast till he hadseen thee, albeit he had been in selle all day, so fire-hot was he tomend his broken troth.'
'It may well seem strange converse to the gentle damsel,' said Ralphgravely. 'The earl your father almost worshipped William of Normandy,who, in good sooth, would never have been King of England but for hisstalwart aid, and she has never heard whisper of aught against theking. We who have writhed under his imperious tyranny, and groaned inspirit so fiercely,'--here the level brows were knitted and theentreating face grew stern, while the green light shone in the deep-seteyes,--'can scarce conceive the shock she feels at our sudden speech.'
'She will have to get used to it,' said Earl Roger dryly, 'for mypatience is at an end. Beshrew me! she will hear a good deal of suchtalk. William has ever popped upon me like a cat on a mouse wheneverany scheme which promised me well was in hand. And what has he given mebut ravaged land that the Welsh run over and harry at will? I say heonly gives away what he must needs pay a garrison to defend if he keptit himself. What is your earldom of Norwich, Ralph, but sea-washeddunes or waste corn lands? He is ever nibbling at our power. Earls,indeed! Poor earls are we beside Godwin, Leofric, and Siward! But Itell thee he has gone too far this time. I'll not be thwarted in myplan to be thy brother-in-law; no, neither by king-lord or foolishdamsel!' He turned to Emma somewhat fiercely. 'Hark ye, sister of mine,by the little finger of St. Nicholas, to whom De Guader has dedicatedhis castle of Blauncheflour, thou hadst better make no mincing aboutaccepting a man thou hast already pleaded guilty to loving, or I shallhave a crow to pluck with thee!'
'Nay, nay!' exclaimed the courteous De Guader, smiling affectionatelyat the bewildered and somewhat frightened Emma, and not a littlepleased by this crude revelation of his lady's favour. 'Thy noblesister must take me of her own free will or not at all. Holy Virgin!her will is my law.'
Emma raised her head with a proud and splendid gesture.
'Ay,' she cried, 'Sir Earl of Norwich! I will have neither thee nor anyman else but of my own free will! Did they stretch me on the rack, orpersuade me ever so by such-like loving persuasions, I would have noneI did not choose!'
The two earls laughed.
'Well crowed, fair hen!' cried her brother, and Ralph regarded her withadmiring eyes.
'There spoke the true daughter of William Fitzosbern, eh, Roger?' heexclaimed. 'Methinks if the Lady Emma had felt the Conqueror's heel asheavy as we, her blood would boil as easily. But in sooth, dear lady,the minstrels and romaunt writers fill damsels' heads with fine notionswhich we poor knights find it hard to carry out in the vulgar battle ofeveryday life. Thy hero William, our lord-king himself, rebelled whenhe was ordered to give up the chosen of his heart, the beautifulMatilda of Flanders; and--saints defend us!--it was the Holy Fatherhimself that he disobeyed!' Here the earl crossed himself.
'Thou hast a noble example, Emma; make haste to follow it,' said herbrother jestingly.
'Oh,' said Emma, 'your converse brings me to perplexity. Give me tillthe morning, and let me ponder on your words. They are sudden.'
Ralph raised her hand respectfully to his lips.
'We can do no less, dear lady,' he said.
