How the Conqueror deals with Rebels.

THE SIEGE OF NORWICH CASTLE

A STORY OF THE LAST STRUGGLE AGAINST THE CONQUEROR

BY

M. M. BLAKE

With Illustrations by the Author

LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED
Essex Street, Strand
1893

TO

MY FATHER

THIS STORY

IS

AFFECTIONATELY

INSCRIBED

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE SIEGE OF NORWICH CASTLE

CHAPTER I.

THE SUZERAIN'S 'NAY.'

It was towards the close of the year of our Lord 1073. As we now reckon, it would have been some way into 1074, but in those old times they began their twelve-month on March 25th. So, notwithstanding that the daffy-down-dillies were pushing their grey-green blades through the softening earth, and that the partridges had chosen their mates for the season, it was the end of 1073, and just before Easter.

The fair Emma Fitzosbern, sister and ward of Roger, Earl of Hereford, a young damsel of splendid beauty, in whose honour the chivalric champions of Normandy and Bretagne were busy cracking each other's heads, according to the fashion of the times, had followed the example of the partridges, and promised her hand in marriage.

The mate she had chosen was splendid and brave, and, after the king, was equalled in power and wealth but by two other men in all England. Ralph de Guader or Wader had received the earldom of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the post of Constable of Norwich Castle, from the Conqueror, in return for his services at Hastings and his prowess in beating back the Danes from the eastern coast.

His father and grandfather had held lands in England, and he claimed English blood when it suited his purpose, being the only Englishman who bore the rank of earl, save Waltheof Siwardsson, Earl of Huntingdon, Northampton, and Northumberland; but, to his shame be it spoken, he was also the only Englishman against whom it could be told that he fought on William's side at Hastings.

He had been deprived of the lands of his father, Ralph the Staller, the chronicles record not wherefore, but it might well be that the house of Godwin, when they wrought on King Eadward the Confessor, of sainted memory, to drive his Norman favourites from the land, included Ralph amongst them on account of his Breton mother, whose influence, doubtless, inclined the lad to love the folks from over the sea, and who would have taught him to speak French and demean himself in French ways, and, that so, a very bitter and personal feud lay between him and Harold Godwinsson.

He had retired to his mother's estates of Guader and Montfort, in Bretagne, and had returned thence with a proud following of Breton knights and fighting men, under William of Normandy's banner, making the Norman invasion his opportunity to win back his lands at the sword's point, and to gain other broad acres with them.

In 1073, he, and the man whose brother-in-law he wished to become, young Roger Fitzosbern, Earl of Hereford, and Earl Waltheof, nephew-in-law to the king, were the three most powerful nobles in the country. Their estates almost met across England, and, united together, they might have done much as they wished with the kingdom. The Conqueror by no means desired their closer alliance, as we shall see.

But to Ralph de Guader and Roger of Hereford nothing seemed more reasonable and in every way satisfactory than the union of their houses by marriage. The former especially was wildly eager to cement their friendship by this solid bond, for the very good reason that he was deeply in love with the beautiful and high-spirited Emma, and had carried her favour in tilt and tourney with such determination and fury, that champions were shy of accepting his challenge when he took his place in the lists.

A slight hindrance had marred the progress of the fiançailles. William, the Conqueror of England, was also Duke of Normandy, and his restless vassals across the straits were apt to get weary of his continued absence in his new kingdom. Robert of Flanders, his ancient enemy, in battle with whom Emma's father, the famous William Fitzosbern, whom Holingshed calls the king's coosine, had lost his life, was always ready to foment any little disputes that might arise amongst them, and King Philip of France had now joined the troublesome Frisian hand and glove. So William thought it wise to go in person to Normandy, to keep guard over the movements of the twain.

Of course the marriage could not take place until the king's consent was obtained, and messengers had been despatched to Normandy by the two earls, praying his consent.

Their return was more than due, and was awaited with some anxiety, as Lent was so near at hand, during which, according to the Roman Church, no marriage could take place. However, travelling in those days was very different to what it is in ours. The Channel could not be crossed in all weathers and all winds, and it was supposed that unfavourable breezes detained the messengers. Not for a moment was there any doubt that the answer, when it did come, would be in the affirmative. Permission had been asked merely as a matter of form.

Meanwhile, every effort was made to entertain the guests at Hereford Castle, and to prevent the time of their prolonged sojourn from hanging heavy on their hands.

In Domesday Book there figures a certain Adelina, a female juggler, as having received lands in the county of Hants, having previously enjoyed fee and salary from one Roger, a Norman earl.

The talents of this lady were in requisition, and, a heavy downpour of rain and sleet having rendered outdoor sports unpleasant, a large company of knights and ladies were watching her agile movements and ingenious deceptions; shouts and ripples of laughter testifying to their appreciation of her cleverness.

She performed at one end of the great banqueting-hall, and was clad in a scarlet dress made Eastern fashion, having a gold-broidered jacket of the shape we are accustomed to call Zouave, with loose trousers, and slippers turned up at the toes; she wore a turban upon her head, from beneath which her long black hair streamed unconfined to her waist, around which she wore a girdle of snake-skins; her bare arms were covered with bangles, and in her hand she held a wand on which a child's skull took the place of the Punch's head which adorns the staff of a Polichinello.

She had for assistants two brown-skinned, almond-eyed, white-toothed boys, evidently of Moorish origin, and active as the leopards, whose skins they wore, had been when alive in their native jungle; and the bowls, spheres, and other appliances she used were marked with cabalistic signs in the Arabian alphabet. Evidently, whether or no she was herself of Moorish blood, she had learned her trade from the jugglers of the East, whose skill therein still surpasses all others.

In those days the dark-skinned races were identified with Antichrist, and the entertainment therefore afforded that flavour of the forbidden which seems so necessary to the enjoyment of some folks. A gibbering monkey, which perched on her shoulder, and performed strange antics at her bidding, alternately with wild freaks of mischief of its own invention, added to the air of diablerie which made the exhibition attractive.

The young Earl of Hereford, his countess, and their two little sons, were foremost among the spectators, the earl laughing heartily at the tricks of his favourite, and rewarding her skill with praise and largesse when any special feat called forth the applause of the guests.

Tall and commanding in figure, his face, clean-shaven after the Norman fashion, was both proud and weak, the features handsome, clear-cut, aquiline, but the chin receding too greatly to betoken a strong character. His dress was of the richest, his tunic of tawny samite, sewn thickly with gems, and his long cloak lined with costly furs, his earl's coronet on his brow.

Beside him sat his beautiful sister, in whose honour all the guests were assembled;—like him, yet showing, in spite of all feminine grace and softness, signs of that strength of will in which he was deficient. Her features, like his, were clear-cut and aquiline, but the full round chin stood out boldly from the white, flawless throat, unadorned by any necklace save the delicate crease which Nature had marked on it, and which some folks call Venus' necklace. Her auburn hair was simply braided in two long plaits, and hung below her waist, and was bound by a fillet of goldsmiths' work. Her arched brows were almost black, and the dark-blue eyes beneath them were full of gentleness and fire. Her tightly-fitting green kirtle was rounded at the base of the slender neck and edged with drawn lawn, and showed the graceful contour of her young figure; and her embroidered skirt, which had been 'looted' by her noble father from the house of some rich Saxon in his Hastings campaign, bore witness to the artistic powers of the Saxon ladies, and also to their industry, for its subtly blended hues had taken years of labour to produce, and such skill as was possessed only by the women of their nation.

Standing near her, with his hand upon her chair, was the hero of the occasion. Ralph de Guader's Breton mother had Southern blood in her veins, and he had inherited from her a swart complexion, coal-black hair which curled crisply on his well-formed head, and the hawk nose and pointed chin which is common in Brittany now, though the Bretons of that day had for the most part the characteristics of the red-haired, blue-eyed Celts, who had left Wales but a short time before. From his English father he had inherited a pair of keen grey eyes, hawk-like as the nose between them, and deep set under cavernous brows, black, and somewhat given to frowning.

His figure was firmly knit, broad-shouldered, but not very tall, and his apparel was as brave as that of his brother earl, his tunic being of ivory silk edged with sable and wrought with gold thread, and the baldric blazed with jewels which supported his miséricorde, or dagger of mercy,—a weapon always worn by a Norman noble, and serving to put his wounded enemies out of misery—whence its name,—to protect him from treachery, and to carve his meat and that of the lady he 'took in' to dinner withal.

The deft Adelina had swallowed swords, and made snakes dance to her piping, and produced intact bracelets which had seemed to be utterly crushed to powder before the spectators' eyes, and had danced herself with marvellous agility and grace, and, in short, had performed many feats which have been rivalled before and since by jugglers ancient and modern, when a young baron stood forth and said to Earl Roger,—

'I have heard, my lord, that yonder Paynim witch hath shrewd skill to read the stars. I prithee, command her that she may tell the fates of those who list to know what shall befall them.'

Then Adelina turned round swiftly, so that the gibbering monkey, which sat on her shoulder, sprang down with a screech.

'I prithee, Sir Earl,' she cried, 'give me no such order, for the spirits I summon have a knack of telling the truth, and there are fates in store for some folks they would ill brook to hear. "Enough for the day is the evil thereof."'

'Nay, take not to quoting Scripture, witch; it hath an awkward sound from thy graceless lips,' returned the earl banteringly. ''Tis a left-handed compliment to pay to the valour of any noble gentleman here, that he should shrink to know the worst the devil can do to him. Summon thy spirits! I wager we will face them.'

Adelina's brown face turned yellow as parchment, her knees shook together for fear.

'I beg thee, spare me, Sir Earl!' she entreated in a low voice.

But her opposition only raised the earl's obstinacy, of which, like most weak people, he had a large share, and he insisted.

So Adelina gave orders to her attendant sprites, who fetched her a big box, and a tripod with a metal mirror above it, and a brazier hung from chains like a censer, and a skull, and a tame raven.

And out of the box she dragged a huge, sluggish snake. The creature rolled and writhed upon the floor in a fashion that caused the ladies to scream and the knights to lay hold of the hilts of their daggers; but after a while it rolled itself in a ring round the tripod, with its tail to its head, and so lay still.

'Whoever hath courage to step within my magic circle may learn the secrets of the future!' cried the sorceress.

But the young baron who had been so eager to learn his fate did not relish the conditions, and made no move.

Ralph de Guader, seeing his hesitation, stepped forward out of sheer bravado, without having any particular desire to know his fate, or belief in Adelina's power to tell it, for he was happy, and all the future appeared to him steeped in rosy hues of hope.

'Oh, Ralph, deal not with the Evil One!' cried Emma, laying a restraining hand on his arm. 'Trust not that horrible beast, I pray thee!'

Ralph gave some careless excuse, and Emma accepted it; for, to say truth, her young head was full of fiery ambition, and her curiosity was great to know what honours her splendid lover would win for her in the days to come. William of Normandy had carved a throne with his sword for Matilda of Flanders; who knew what Ralph de Guader's good blade might carve for her? Everything seemed possible in those days.

So the Earl of the East Angles stepped down from the daïs to the end of the great hall, where the sorceress stood, and stepped across the spotted body of the snake into the charmed circle it enclosed, bidding Adelina summon her allies, be they fair or foul.

But not without remonstrance from the fortune-teller.

'Pause, De Guader and Montfort, Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk! Thy head is heaped with honours, and thy hands are full of fat manors, and—best of all gifts!—the heart of the fairest lady in the hall is openly bestowed on thee! What more canst thou ask of the future? Take what thou hast, and go barefoot to the chapel and thank the white Christ for His bounty! Stay thy questioning, lest what thou hast shall be reft from thee!'

'A brave man defies fortune,' answered De Guader, tossing back his dark head proudly.

'Then if the prophecy be not to thy liking,' returned Adelina, 'if the spirits foretell evil days, I pray thee blame not their mouthpiece.' Her agitation was extreme, which was not surprising, as the fierce nobles of those days were apt to deal harshly with the messengers of unpleasing news.

She chanted a wild incantation, dancing round the tripod and the earl, and swung her censer to and fro till it gave forth strange fumes and clouds of smoke, by which her face and the earl's were veiled from the spectators. Now and again her turbaned head was seen through the vapours, her eyes intently fixed on her mirror, but none could tell what was passing.

Presently the earl returned to the daïs with a somewhat white face. Emma's eyes were bent upon him with anxious inquiry.

'She has promised me that which I covet most, dear lady,' whispered De Guader in answer to her look: 'my bridal with thee is to come to fulfilment. I am to pass my life with thee, and die with thee, near the blessed city of Jerusalem.'

'The Holy Virgin be praised!' answered Emma devoutly; 'and pardon thee for asking the future, if sin be in it.' Then, recognising the admission she had made by acknowledging her joy in the prophecy, she blushed and turned away from De Guader's happy eyes.

'Aha! sister of mine, it seems my sorceress has pleasured thee with her prophecies,' remarked Earl Roger. 'I will see if she can be equally gracious to me.'

'Thou hadst best brace thy nerves for a shock, man,' cried De Guader after him as he left the daïs. 'Those spirits have verily a knack of telling home truths without mincing matters.'

Adelina's agitation increased when she saw her master appearing as the next candidate. She trembled from head to foot.

'I prithee spare me this, Roger Fitzosbern,' she said in a scarce audible voice. But the earl insisted.

Then followed the same preliminaries as before,—the dance, and the chant, and the smoke-wreaths, then the whispered mysteries. But this time sharp, angry interjections and round Norman oaths were mingled with the murmurings of Adelina's voice, and all at once the unhappy fortune-teller threw up her bangled arms and fell backwards fainting, while the Earl of Hereford, with an angry stamp, broke out of the charmed circle and rushed back to his seat.

Adelina's neophytes ran forward to the rescue, for her garments had caught fire from the censer, and all was bustle and confusion. The huge snake lay calmly through it, however, for, to say truth, it was stuffed, and worked with wires.

The Countess of Hereford sprang up to greet her lord, and the two little boys burst out a-wailing, sore frightened at their father's altered face, while Emma also rose to greet her brother with terror in her eyes, trembling at the evidence he gave that evil had been foretold him.

But he soon regained his calmness, and laughed as he saw the reflection of his mood in their agonised faces.

'Pah! it is all nonsense!' he said, wiping the sweat from his brow. 'I believe the witch must be in league with the devil to have so wrought on me.'

He looked round the hall, and gave another forced laugh.

'I am to lose all my lands, to be despoiled of my earldom, and die in prison, she says.'

The ladies exclaimed in horror, and the men laughed derisively; but Earl Ralph's jester, Grillonne, whispered sagely to his neighbour, 'Good nuncle! when they promised me a swishing at school, I made effort to keep it to myself. But I am a fool.'

No one seemed inclined to consult such a fortune-teller for his own part, and the Earl of Hereford ordered a Welsh minstrel, who had been sent him in compliment by one of the Welsh chiefs on the Marches, whom Hereford had lately beaten and made terms with, to regale the company with some of his ballads.

At this juncture a great shout was heard from the castle-yard, and a moment later a servitor announced the return of the messenger who had been sent to the king; and, the Earl of Hereford bidding him enter, a knight and squire, travel-stained and showing signs of a hasty journey, advanced up the hall and bowed before the daïs.

The knight dropped on his knee, and presented the earl with a missive tied with purple silk and sealed with the royal seal.

'How now, Sir Neel! how comest thou so tardily?' demanded the earl, taking the letter from the knight with eager hands and severing the silk with his dagger.

'I was detained, my lord, at Rouen to wait the king's good pleasure.'

The faces of the two earls darkened, and Roger Fitzosbern tore open the king's missive.

Scarce reading it, he flung it to De Guader with a savage oath, stamping his foot upon the ground.

'William shall rue this insult!' he hissed between his shut teeth, his face scarlet and convulsed with rage; 'and to my father's son.'

De Guader, not less moved, held the parchment with hands that so shook with anger that the dangling seals clattered against each other. His broad chest heaved, and his steel-grey eyes flashed fire as sword strikes fire on helm.

Emma, with pale cheeks and wide eyes, turned from her brother to her lover, and the East Anglian earl, exercising a huge command over himself, kept silence, and returned the letter to Roger Fitzosbern.

Hereford shook it in the air, clenching his fingers, while all the guests hung wonderingly on his actions.

Suddenly he tore the king's letter into fragments.

'Thus has William rent in sunder the ties that bound me to him!' he shouted furiously.

Osbern, Bishop of Exeter, the Earl of Hereford's uncle, who, though he had refused the sanction of his presence to the performances of Adelina, had entered the hall when the king's messenger arrived, made his way through the noble crowd that surrounded his nephew.

'Hist, my Roger! Anger is short madness. Keep a hold over the unruly member, lest words spoken in wrath be thy bane in time of peace. I know not the contents of the missive that hath moved thee so greatly, but I prithee be calm.'

'Calm!' cried Roger. 'Calm! De Guader, art thou calm?'

'Yes,' answered De Guader shortly, his breath breaking in quick pants, and a strange green light not pleasant to witness gleaming in his eyes, so that all who saw him felt that his calmness was more terrible than Roger's fury.

'Then, by the rood! if thou art so calm,' retorted Hereford, 'tell my guests how they have been befooled. Tell my sister she has bestowed her hand on one who can resign it "calmly."'

'My son, my son,' remonstrated the bishop, 'thou art unjust to thy noble brother, whose stake in this matter is even greater than thine.'

'Nay, my brother he is forbid to be!' stormed Roger, with another terrific curse.

De Guader turned to the beautiful girl to whom he had come to bind himself in solemn betrothal, and who, having accepted his wooing, had made no secret of her love.

His face was pallid almost as his ivory robe, his lips trembled as he held out his hands to her, but for some moments he was dumb. When at last he compelled speech, his voice was dull with pain and quivering with measureless indignation.

'My lady,' he said, holding one of her hands in each of his, but not trusting himself to look in her face, 'I must bid thee farewell. I have no right to remain longer in this castle. The king has forbidden our marriage. I had hoped to make thee my bride. Bride of my heart thou wilt always be!'

Before the startled, frightened girl could frame a reply, he had stooped and kissed her, sprung from the daïs, and was striding down the hall, with the many barons and bannerets, knights and squires, who formed his meinie, following behind him.

The Countess of Hereford led her young sister-in-law from the hall; while the remainder of the noble company, feeling their presence somewhat awkward, as guests at a betrothal which could not be consummated, found excuses to depart, and gathered into clusters, each lord summoning his following and the ladies of his household.

So that goodly company broke up in hurry and confusion and dismay, and the insult the king had inflicted on his two powerful earls was the talk of every mouth.

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 dreamily at the misty outlines of the distant Welsh hills, behind which the sun was setting in golden splendour. Her favourite bower-maiden sat on a low stool at her feet, and the glory of the sunset poured over the graceful figures of the two girls, and gilded the maundry work of rushes at their feet and the rich tapestry which covered the walls around them, while the gorgeous clouds were piled into battlemented towers, mocking with their vapoury illusion the solid masonry below them.

Emma's companion was looking up at her face with an expression of tender love and sympathy. She was a girl of seventeen, some four years younger than her lady, and wore the Saxon headrail; the little rings of hair which escaped from its close cover were of Saxon gold, while her pale blue robe was made in the fashion of that nation, full and flowing, with large, hanging sleeves. The girdle with which it was bound was ornamented with jewels, and the hems were edged with fur. Her face was less animated and striking than that of the noble Norman, but had 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 Norwich had lived in a Norman household since she was ten, she had perseveringly acquired the special accomplishment of her countrywomen in spite of difficulties, and Emma fitfully worked at it also under her guidance.

Eadgyth was a cousin in some sort, second or third, perhaps, to Harold Godwinsson, and made it a point of honour to keep his memory green, though she had grown to love dearly the generous Norman maiden, who treated her more as a sister than a dependent.

Many relatives of Harold had property in Norwich, and when Ralph de Guader had received his earldom of Norfolk and Suffolk, which Harold's death on the field of Senlac had rendered vacant, he had taken pity on the forlorn condition of the little damsel, whose male relatives had been slain in the contest, and who was thus left without protection from the insolent conquerors. De Guader had been amused by the patriotic defiance the bereaved maiden of ten had flung at him, rating him as a renegade and a murderer, with other terms of equal politeness which had sounded oddly from her flower-like mouth, and perhaps his conscience smote him, and told him they were not untrue. Her courage moved his admiration and generosity, and, having no women-folk of his own to whom he could confide her, he had induced William Fitzosbern the Norman Earl of Hereford, to take her into his castle as a playmate and lady-in-waiting for his daughter Emma. So began a companionship which was to endure for their lives.

The tide of sad reflection was flooding Emma's heart to the brim. Since the cruel day on which the king's mandate had been received, the subject of her interrupted betrothal had been buried in dead silence. Her brother and guardian, the young Earl of Hereford, had set out on a journey a day or two later, but had left even his wife in ignorance of its 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 loved her. 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, and her blue eyes flashed.

'So William of Normandy has ruined both our lives!' she said hotly, her young voice quivering with passion. 'I would that the earth had opened and swallowed him up when he first set foot on English ground, instead of only catching him by the ankle, to enable him to make a jest and find 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 for William's forbears for generations! It is bred in my blood to be obedient to him. He would never have been King of England, had not my father lavished wealth and activity, and roused the barons and the burghers 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 seemeth not less irksome to thee! Perhaps it is because he owes the keeping of the English crown to the valour with which Ralph de Guader beat back the Danes, that he thwarts him! Not that I can spare any pity for Ralph. If he had not played my cousin Harold false, how different all things might have been. He, the grand-nephew of the sainted King Eadward! 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 my countrymen,' Emma said, with a gentle smile; 'but we cannot look on those things with the same eyes.'

'No; I think it is perhaps a good thing that thou sittest here, instead of being Ralph de Guader's bride, though I had lief have gone with thee to my dear old Norwich,' said Eadgyth. 'My dear old Norwich!' she repeated, with a sigh. 'I should scarce know it again, with its fine new 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 thou takest part against my knight!' said Emma, withdrawing her hands and folding them on her lap.

'I did not mean to wound thee, Emma!' exclaimed the Saxon, clasping both hands affectionately round Emma's right arm. 'I must needs be grateful 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 a refuge would not have been needful to me, if he had been firm to the Dragon standard. Disguise it as thou wilt, I am but thy serving-maiden.'

'When I strive so carefully to disguise it, dost thou think it generous thus 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 be restrained, and rolled rapidly down her cheeks.

'No, it is not generous!' cried Eadgyth, full of ruth. 'And I am not worthy to lace thy shoe latchet! Forgive me, dear Emma!'

As she spoke, the ring of a mailed footstep sounded in the corridor without, and the door was unceremoniously opened, and gave entrance to the young Earl of Hereford, clad in a whole suit of mail, but unhelmed.

'What! sitting in darkness, maidens?' and, turning to a varlet with a torch, who had accompanied him to the door, he took it from the lad's hold, 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 and owls.'

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 appearance did not dry the tears which she had forgotten to wipe away in her surprise, and he saw them.

'Tears, Emma, tears? What! is my little sister weeping?' he asked in a tone that was half banter, half tenderness. 'This is a thing that must be inquired into. I can have no weeping damsels in castle of mine.'

'Eadgyth and I were quarrelling,' said Emma gaily, 'because we were so lonely in thine absence, and could find nothing better to do.'

'By the mass! that won't serve thee for an excuse, Emma,' answered the earl; then, taking her hands and looking searchingly in her face, he said somewhat sternly, as if to compel an answer, 'Art thou fretting at the 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 will perchance heal it.'

'And by all the saints! a very short time too!' said Hereford triumphantly. 'Thou shalt plight a new troth to-night.'

Emma started with apprehension. In those days, damsels of rank were often disposed of in marriage by their male relatives with very little regard to their prejudices or affections, a girl's whimsies appearing of small consequence in their eyes beside the importance of a good political alliance, and Emma feared lest her brother might intend to demand a summary transference of her affections. Hitherto, it was true that the young earl had been tender and indulgent, and had regarded her wishes the more readily perhaps in this matter, that Ralph de Guader, the powerful Earl of East Anglia, was the very man of all others to suit his views of a desirable brother-in-law. But Emma knew him to be both impulsive and obstinate, and visions of a fierce struggle with him, ending in the cloister, the haven of refuge for women in those days, 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 set apart near the great banqueting-hall, which was the earl's special sanctum.

The next moment she found herself with her two hands clasped in those of Ralph de Guader, while he was looking down at her with a hunger of entreaty in his eyes; and in the minds of both was the unspoken thought, that if all had gone well they would have been husband and wife that day.

The revulsion from apprehension to joy was so great as to be almost a pain.

'Is it thou indeed, Ralph?' she faltered; and the young Earl of Hereford laughed.

'Didst think I had brought home an ogre to be my beau-frère,' he asked, 'that thou wast so sore afraid?'

Emma turned anxiously to De Guader.

'The king, then, has relented?' she said quickly. 'In sooth, I doubted not 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 little sarcastically. 'I was never a maker of speeches, and, by the Holy Virgin! thy eloquence has twisted me round thy little finger. See if thou canst vie with a woman's sharp wits. To say truth, I care not to breathe 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, but she did not see much in De Guader's dark, handsome face to help her to read riddles.

'Thy brother bids me proffer my own petition, dear lady,' he said. 'If I hesitate, be merciful to my unreadiness, for it is no easy boon I come to ask of thee.'

He led her to a carved settle which stood beside the fireplace, and when she was seated, he stood before her silently a moment or two, the firelight scintillating on the rings of the mail in which he was sheathed from head to foot, and sparkling on the jewels of his baldric and the golden hilt of his great two-handed sword, for, like her brother, he was still in his harness.

'Noble Emma, I have come to ask thee to share with me danger and difficulty,' he said. 'The king has not relented. But his mandate is unjust, and I beg thee to disregard it, and to give me once more the sweet promise that thou wilt be my bride.'

'Dost thou mean that thou wouldst ask me to defy the king?' faltered Emma, a great terror chasing away the short-lived joy which had flooded her heart. She turned wide, anxious eyes upon her brother.

'Dost thou not see, Emma, we are sick of spending our lives for William, and getting nothing but kicks and curses from him?' explained the prosaic Roger. 'By the mass! it is hard on Ralph and on me, after so much faithful service, and so maint hard blows given and taken in William's business, that he should mar all our plans and spoil all our pleasure by putting his veto on your marriage. A curse on loyalty! If this 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 he had bidden him to do. Ralph's appeal to Emma to share danger with him had touched her generous spirit. Her brother's outburst against his sovereign 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 lashes as 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 little copiously at the wine-cup.'

'Nay, Emma, that is an injustice!' cried Hereford, bursting into laughter, and clapping his hand down upon De Guader's mailed shoulder; 'when this poor love-lorn galliard would not break fast till he had seen thee, albeit he had been in selle all day, so fire-hot was he to mend his broken troth.'

'It may well seem strange converse to the gentle damsel,' said Ralph gravely. 'The earl your father almost worshipped William of Normandy, who, in good sooth, would never have been King of England but for his stalwart aid, and she has never heard whisper of aught against the king. We who have writhed under his imperious tyranny, and groaned in spirit so fiercely,'—here the level brows were knitted and the entreating face grew stern, while the green light shone in the deep-set eyes,—'can scarce conceive the shock she feels at our sudden speech.'

'She will have to get used to it,' said Earl Roger dryly, 'for my patience is at an end. Beshrew me! she will hear a good deal of such talk. William has ever popped upon me like a cat on a mouse whenever any scheme which promised me well was in hand. And what has he given me but ravaged land that the Welsh run over and harry at will? I say he only gives away what he must needs pay a garrison to defend if he kept it himself. What is your earldom of Norwich, Ralph, but sea-washed dunes or waste corn lands? He is ever nibbling at our power. Earls, indeed! Poor earls are we beside Godwin, Leofric, and Siward! But I tell thee he has gone too far this time. I'll not be thwarted in my plan to be thy brother-in-law; no, neither by king-lord or foolish damsel!' He turned to Emma somewhat fiercely. 'Hark ye, sister of mine, by the little finger of St. Nicholas, to whom De Guader has dedicated his castle of Blauncheflour, thou hadst better make no mincing about accepting a man thou hast already pleaded guilty to loving, or I shall have a crow to pluck with thee!'

'Nay, nay!' exclaimed the courteous De Guader, smiling affectionately at the bewildered and somewhat frightened Emma, and not a little pleased by this crude revelation of his lady's favour. 'Thy noble sister 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 any man else but of my own free will! Did they stretch me on the rack, or persuade me ever so by such-like loving persuasions, I would have none I did not choose!'

The two earls laughed.

'Well crowed, fair hen!' cried her brother, and Ralph regarded her with admiring eyes.

'There spoke the true daughter of William Fitzosbern, eh, Roger?' he exclaimed. 'Methinks if the Lady Emma had felt the Conqueror's heel as heavy as we, her blood would boil as easily. But in sooth, dear lady, the minstrels and romaunt writers fill damsels' heads with fine notions which we poor knights find it hard to carry out in the vulgar battle of everyday life. Thy hero William, our lord-king himself, rebelled when he was ordered to give up the chosen of his heart, the beautiful Matilda of Flanders; and—saints defend us!—it was the Holy Father himself that he disobeyed!' Here the earl crossed himself.

'Thou hast a noble example, Emma; make haste to follow it,' said her brother jestingly.

'Oh,' said Emma, 'your converse brings me to perplexity. Give me till the 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.