Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

On the following day Athelwold was occupied with preparations for the
king's reception and for the next day's boar-hunt in the forest. At the
same time he was still somewhat anxious as to his wife's more difficult
part, and from time to time he came to see and consult with her. He then
observed a singular change in her, both in her appearance and conduct.
No longer the radiant, loving Elfrida, her beauty now had been dimmed
and she was unsmiling and her manner towards him repellant. She had
nothing to say to him except that she wished him to leave her alone.
Accordingly he withdrew, feeling a little hurt, and at the same time
admiring her extraordinary skill in disguising her natural loveliness
and charm, but almost fearing that she was making too great a change in
her appearance.

Thus passed the day, and in the late afternoon Edgar duly arrived, and
when he had rested a little, was conducted to the banqueting-room, where
the meeting with Elfrida would take place.

Then Elfrida came, and Athelwold hastened to the entrance to take her
hand and conduct her to the king; then, seeing her, he stood still and
stared in silent astonishment and dismay at the change he saw in her,
for never before had he beheld her so beautiful, so queenly and
magnificent. What did it mean--did she wish to destroy him? Seeing the
state he was in she placed her hand in his, and murmured softly: I know
best. And so, holding her hand, he conducted her to the king, who stood
waiting to receive her. For all she had done that day to please and to
deceive him had now been undone, and everything that had been possible
had been done to enhance her loveliness. She had arrayed herself in a
violet-coloured silk gown with a network of gold thread over the body
and wide sleeves to the elbows, and rope of gold round her waist with
its long ends falling to her knee. The great mass of her coiled hair was
surmounted with a golden comb, and golden pendants dropped from her ears
to her shoulders. Also she wore gold armlets coiled serpent-wise round
her white arms from elbow to wrist. Not a gem--nothing but pale yellow
gold.

Edgar himself was amazed at her loveliness, for never had he seen
anything comparable to it; and when he gazed into her eyes she did not
lower hers, but returned gaze for gaze, and there was that in her eyes
and their strange eloquence which kindled a sudden flame of passion in
his heart, and for a moment it appeared in his countenance. Then,
quickly recovering himself, he greeted her graciously but with his usual
kingly dignity of manner, and for the rest of the time he conversed with
her and Athelwold in such a pleasant and friendly way that his host
began to recover somewhat from his apprehensions. But in his heart Edgar
was saying: And this is the woman that Athelwold, the close friend of
all my days, from boyhood until now, the one man in the world I loved
and trusted, has robbed me of!

And Athelwold at the same time was revolving in his mind the mystery of
Elfrida's action. What did she mean when she whispered to him that she
knew best? And why, when she wished to appear in that magnificent way
before the king, had she worn nothing but gold ornaments--not one of the
splendid gems of which she possessed such a store?

She had remembered something which he had forgotten.

Now when the two friends were left alone together drinking wine,
Athelwold was still troubled in his mind, although his suspicion and
fear were not so acute as at first, and the longer they sat
talking--until the small hours--the more relieved did he feel from
Edgar's manner towards him. Edgar in his cups opened his heart and was
more loving and free in his speech than ever before. He loved Athelwold
as he loved no one else in the world, and to see him great and happy was
his first desire; and he congratulated him from his heart on having
found a wife who was worthy of him and would eventually bring him,
through her father, such great possessions as would make him the chief
nobleman in the land. All happiness and glory to them both; and when a
child was born to them he would be its godfather, and if happily by that
time there was a queen, she should be its godmother.

Then he recalled their happy boyhood's days in East Anglia, that joyful
time when they first hunted and had many a mishap and fell from their
horses when they pursued hare and deer and bustard in the wide open
stretches of sandy country; and in the autumn and winter months when
they were wild-fowling in the great level flooded lands where the geese
and all wild-fowl came in clouds and myriads. And now he laughed and now
his eyes grew moist at the recollection of the irrecoverable glad days.

Little time was left for sleep; yet they were ready early next morning
for the day's great boar-hunt in the forest, and only when the king was
about to mount his horse did Elfrida make her appearance. She came out
to him from the door, not richly dressed now, but in a simple white
linen robe and not an ornament on her except that splendid crown of the
red-gold hair on her head. And her face too was almost colourless now,
and grave and still. She brought wine in a golden cup and gave it to the
king, and he once more fixed his eyes on her and for some moments they
continued silently gazing, each in that fixed gaze seeming to devour the
secrets of the other's soul. Then she wished him a happy hunting, and he
said in reply he hoped it would be the happiest hunting he had ever had.
Then, after drinking the wine, he mounted his horse and rode away. And
she remained standing very still, the cup in her hand, gazing after him
as he rode side by side with Athelwold, until in the distance the trees
hid him from her sight.

Now when they had ridden a distance of three miles or more into the
heart of the forest, they came to a broad drive-like stretch of green
turf, and the king cried: This is just what I have been wishing for!
Come, let us give our horses a good gallop. And when they loosened the
reins, the horses, glad to have a race on such a ground, instantly
sprang forward; but Edgar, keeping a tight rein, was presently left
twenty or thirty yards behind; then, setting spurs to his horse, he
dashed forward, and on coming abreast of his companion, drew his knife
and struck him in the back, dealing the blow with such a concentrated
fury that the knife was buried almost to the hilt. Then violently
wrenching it out, he would have struck again had not the earl, with a
scream of agony, tumbled from his seat. The horse, freed from its rider,
rushed on in a sudden panic, and the king's horse side by side with it.
Edgar, throwing himself back and exerting his whole strength, succeeded
in bringing him to a stop at a distance of fifty or sixty yards, then
turning, came riding back at a furious speed.

Now when Athelwold fell, all those who were riding behind, the earl's
and the king's men to the number of thirty or forty, dashed forward, and
some of them, hurriedly dismounting, gathered about him as he lay
groaning and writhing and pouring out his blood on the ground. But at
the king's approach they drew quickly back to make way for him, and he
came straight on and caused his horse to trample on the fallen man. Then
pointing to him with the knife he still had in his hand, he cried: That
is how I serve a false friend and traitor! Then, wiping the stained
knife-blade on his horse's neck and sheathing it, he shouted: Back to
Salisbury! and setting spurs to his horse, galloped off towards the
Andover road.

His men immediately mounted and followed, leaving the earl's men with
their master. Lifting him up, they placed him on a horse, and with a
mounted man on each side to hold him up, they moved back at a walking
pace towards Wherwell.

Messengers were sent ahead to inform Elfrida of what had happened, and
then, an hour later, yet another messenger to tell that Athelwold, when
half-way home, had breathed his last. Then at last the corpse was
brought to the castle and she met it with tears and lamentations. But
afterwards in her own chamber, when she had dismissed all her
attendants, as she desired to weep alone, her grief changed to joy. O,
glorious Edgar, she said, the time will come when you will know what I
feel now, when at your feet, embracing your knees and kissing the
blessed hand that with one blow has given me life and liberty. One blow
and your revenge was satisfied and you had won me; I know it, I saw it
all in that flame of love and fury in your eyes at our first meeting,
which you permitted me to see, which, if he had seen, he would have
known that he was doomed. O perfect master of dissimulation, all the
more do I love and worship you for dealing with him as he dealt with you
and with me; caressing him with flattering words until the moment came
to strike and slay. And I love you all the more for making your horse
trample on him as he lay bleeding his life out on the ground. And now
you have opened the way with your knife you shall come back or call me
to you when it pleases you, and for the rest of your life it will be a
satisfaction to you to know that you have taken a modest woman as well
as the fairest in the land for wife and queen, and your pride in me will
be my happiness and glory. For men's love is little to me since
Athelwold taught me to think meanly of all men, except you that slew
him. And you shall be free to follow your own mind and be ever strenuous
and vigilant and run after kingly pleasures, pursuing deer and wolf and
beautiful women all over the land. And I shall listen to the tales of
your adventures and conquests with a smile like that of a mother who
sees her child playing seriously with its dolls and toys, talking to and
caressing them. And in return you shall give me my desire, which is
power and splendour; for these I crave, to be first and greatest, to
raise up and cast down, and in all our life I shall be your help and
stay in ruling this realm, so that our names may be linked together and
shine in the annals of England for all time.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Edgar slew Athelwold his age was twenty-two, and before he was a
year older he had married Elfrida, to the rage of that great man and
primate and more than premier, who, under Edgar, virtually ruled
England. And in his rage, and remembering how he had dealt with a
previous boy king, whose beautiful young wife he had hounded to her
dreadful end, he charged Elfrida with having instigated her husband's
murder, and commanded the king to put that woman away. This roused the
man and passionate lover, and the tiger in the man, in Edgar, and the
wise and subtle-minded ecclesiastic quickly recognised that he had set
himself against one of a will more powerful and dangerous than his own.
He remembered that it was Edgar, who, when he had been deprived of his
abbey and driven in disgrace from the land, had recalled and made him so
great, and he knew that the result of a quarrel between them would be a
mighty upheaval in the land and the sweeping away of all his great
reforms. And so, cursing the woman in his heart and secretly vowing
vengeance on her, he was compelled in the interests of the Church to
acquiesce in this fresh crime of the king.

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