Part 5 (2/2)

Then he smiled and looked Owen in the face.

”I know you well, Owen, though it is plain that you would not have it so. Mind you the day when I met Gerent at the Parrett bridge? I do not often forget a face, and I saw you then, and asked who you were. Now there is good and, as I hope, lasting peace between our lands, thanks to the wisdom of our good Aldhelm here, and I will ask you somewhat, for I know that you also wrought for that peace while you might. Come to me, and be of the n.o.bles who guard me and mine, and so wait in honour until the time comes when you may return to your place. Then you will be with the boy also.”

So it came to pa.s.s that we took leave of that good friend the abbot, and went from Malmesbury in the train of Ina of Wess.e.x.

Thereafter for six years I served Ethelburga the queen, being trained in all wise as her own child, and after that I was one of the athelings of the court in one post or another, but always with the king when there was war on the long frontier of the Wess.e.x land.

CHAPTER III. HOW KING INA'S FEAST WAS MARRED, AND OF A VOW TAKEN BY OSWALD.

At this time, when I take up my story again, I was two and twenty, not very tall indeed, but square in the shoulder, and well able to hold my own, at the least, with the athelings who were my comrades, at the weapon play or any of our sports. It would have been my own fault if I were not so, for there was no better warrior in all Ina's following than Owen, and he taught me all I knew. And that knowledge I had tested on the field more than once, for Ina had no less trouble with his neighbours than any other king in England, whether in matters of raiding to be stopped or tribute to be enforced. Since I was too old to serve the queen as page any longer I had been of his bodyguard, and where he went was not always the safest place on a field for us who s.h.i.+elded him.

A court is always changing, as men come and go again to their own places after some little service there, but Owen and I were of those to whom the court was home altogether. Owen was the king's marshal now, and I was in command of the house-carles, and had been so for a year or more. It was no very heavy post, nor responsible after all, for Ina's guard was the love of his people, and beyond these warriors from the freemen who served as palace guard and watch, were the athelings of the household, from whose number I had been chosen for this post by right of longest service more than for any other reason, as I think. I knew all the ins and outs of every house where Ina went, and had nothing fresh to learn in the matter.

Still, if the men under me were few, the post had its own privileges, and was always held to lead to somewhat higher, and I was more than content therewith, for it kept me near Owen and the king, whom I loved next to my foster father.

I do not think that by this time any one knew, save the king, that I was not Owen's own son. I was wont to call him father always, and I cannot be blamed, for he was foster father and G.o.dfather to me, and well did he take the father's place to the orphan whom he had saved. And I had forgotten Eastdean, save as one keeps a memory of the home where one was a child. I never thought of it as a place that should have been mine, for neither the king nor Owen ever spoke to me concerning it. Sometimes, in remembrances of my father, I would wonder into whose hands the manors had pa.s.sed, but rather in hopes that some day those who owned them now would suffer me to see that the grave where he lay was honoured, rather than as a matter which at all concerned me in any closer way.

For, since I was but a child, the court had been my home, with Owen as my father, and Ina the king as the loved guardian for whom I would gladly give my life in need. All my training and thoughts were centred here, not as what one calls a courtier at all, but as one of the household who feared the king and queen no more than Owen himself, and yet reverenced all three as those to whom all homage was due since he could remember.

Thus things were with us at the end of the tenth year after we left Aldhelm at Malmesbury, and now the court was at Glas...o...b..ry in fair Somerset, keeping the Christmastide there in the place that is the holiest in all England by reason of the coming thither of Joseph of Arimathea, and the first preaching of the Gospel in our land by him. It was not by any means the first time I had been in the place, and here I had some good friends indeed; for Ina loved the vale of Avalon well, and often came hither with a few of us, or with the whole court, to the house which he had made that he might watch the building of the wondrous church which he was raising over the very spot where the little chapel of the saint had been in the old days.

Fair is the place indeed, for it lies deep among green hills, and from the westward slope where the church stands, at their foot stretch great meres to lesser hills toward the sunset beyond. Very pleasant are the trees and flowers of the rich meadows of the island valley, and the wind comes but gently here even at Yuletide, hardly ruffling the clear waters that have given the place its name, ”Inys Vitryn,” and ”Avalon” men called the place before we Saxons came, by reason of those still meres and the wondrous orchards which fear no frost among the hills that shelter them. The summer seems to linger here after it has fled from the uplands.

There was a goodly company gathered in Ina's hall for the twelfth night feasting. Truly, the hall was not so great as that in the palace at Winchester, but it was all the brighter for that reason.

It was hard to get that great s.p.a.ce well lighted and warmed at times, when the wind blew cold under eaves and through narrow windows; but here all was well lit and comfortable to look on and to feel also, as one sat and feasted with the sweet sedges of the mere banks deep under foot on the floor and the great fire in the hall centre near enough to every one. I think that this hall in Glas...o...b..ry was as pleasant as any that I know in all Wess.e.x.

There was a great door midway in the southern side of the hall, and as one entered, to right and left along that wall ran the tables for the house-carles and other men of the lower ranks, and for strangers who might come in to share the king's hospitality and had no right to a higher place. Then at either end of the hall were cross tables, where the thanes and their ladies had their places in due order, above the franklins whose cross tables were next to those of the house-carles. And then, right over against the south wall and across the fire on the hearth, was the longest table of all, and in the midst of that was the high place for the king and queen and a few others. That dais was the only place where the guests did not sit on both sides of the tables, for the king's board stood open to the midst of the hall on its three low steps that he might see and be seen by all his guests, and be fitly served from in front.

On the hearth a great yule log burnt brightly, and all round the wall were set torches in their sconces, so that the hall was very bright. On the walls were the costly hangings that we took everywhere with us, and above them shone the spare arms and helms and s.h.i.+elds of the house-carles, mixed with heads of boar and stag and wolf from the Mendips and Quantocks where Ina hunted, each head with its story. Up and down in the s.p.a.ces between the tables hurried the servants who tended the guests, so that the hall was full of life and brightness from end to end. There was peace in all Wess.e.x at this time, and so here was a full gathering of guests to the little town.

Ina and Ethelburga the queen were on the high place, and to their left was Herewald, the Somerset ealdorman, who lived in Glas...o...b..ry, and was a good friend of mine, as will be seen, with his fair daughter Elfrida, and on the right of the king was Nunna, his cousin, and his wife. Owen was next to Herewald, at one end of the high place, and at the other end was Sigebald, the Dorset ealdorman, under whom I had fought not so long ago. There were many others of high rank in the west to the right and left of these again at the long tables.

Indeed, there was but one whom I missed in all the gathering. My old friend Aldhelm was gone. He died in the last year, after having been Bishop of Sherborne for a little while. I missed him sorely, as did every man who knew him.

I do not think that if one searched all England through there could have been found a more n.o.ble looking group than that at Ina's high table. It is well known that our king and queen were beyond all others for royalty of look and ways, and I will venture to say that neither of the ealdormen had their equals, save in Nunna, anywhere.

But it is not my word only, for it was a common saying, that Owen seemed most royal next to the king himself. Grave he always was, but with a ready smile and pleasant, in the right place, and though he was now about five-and-forty he had changed little to my eyes from what he was twelve years ago, when he saved me from the wolves. He was one of those men who age but slowly.

One other on the high place I have not mentioned in this way. That was Elfrida, the Somerset ealdorman's daughter, of whom it was said that she was the fairest maiden in all Wess.e.x. Certainly at this time I for one would have agreed in that saying. She was two years younger than I, if I dare say it, and it seemed to me that in the last three years she had suddenly grown from the child that I used to play with to a very stately lady, well fitted to take the place of her mother, who used to be kind to me when I first came here as the queen's somewhat mischievous page, and had but died a year or so ago. I think that this feast was the first Elfrida and her father had been present at since then, and at least, that was the reason I heard given for her presence on the high place.

Now I must say where my place was in the hall, for it may make more plain what happened hereafter. The young n.o.bles of the court who had no relatives present sat at one of the cross tables at the king's right hand, and at the head of these tables was my seat by reason of my post as captain of the house-carles. So I sat with my back to the long chief table, with its occupants just behind me, and to my left was the open s.p.a.ce in the centre of the hall, so that if I was needed, or had to go out for the change of guard or other house-carle business, all that I had to do, being at one end of the bench, was to get up and go my way without disturbing any one. At the same time I could see all the hall before me, and a half turn of the head would set my eyes on the king himself.

The door of the hall was closed when the king entered from his own chambers and took his place, so that the cold, and the draughts, which might eddy the smoke of fire and torches about the guests too much, was kept out. But it was closed against weather only, for any man might crave admittance to the king's ball at the great feast, whether as wayfarer or messenger or suppliant, so that he had good reason for asking hospitality. Several men had come in thus as the feast went on, but none heeded the little bustle their coming made, nor so much as turned to see where they were set at the lower tables, except myself and perhaps Owen. There was merriment enough in the hall, and room and plenty for all comers, even as Ina loved to have it.

Now there is no need to tell aught of that feast, until the meat was done and the tables were cleared for the most pleasant part of the evening, when the servants, whether men or women, sat down at their tables also, and the harp went round, with the cups, and men sang in turn or told tales, each as he was best able to amuse the rest. There was a little bustle while this clearance went on, and men changed their seats to be nearer friends and the like, for the careful state of the beginning of the feast was over in some degree; but at last all was ready, and the great door, which had been open for a few minutes as the servants took out into the courtyard the great cauldrons and spits, was closed, and then there fell a silence, for we waited for a custom of the king's.

Here at Ina's court we kept up the old custom of drinking the first cup with all solemnity, and making some vows thereover. This cup was, of course, to be drunk by the host, and after him by any whom he would name, or would take a vow on him. In the old heathen days this cup was called the ”Bragi bowl,” and the vows were made in the names of the Asir, and mostly ended in fighting before the year was over. We kept the old name yet, but now the vows were made in the name of all the Saints, and if Ina or any other made one it was sure to be of such sort that it would lead to some worthy deed before long, wrought in all Christian wise. Maybe the last of the old pattern of vow was made when Kentwine our king swore to clear the Welsh from the Parrett River to the sea, and did it.

<script>