Читать книгу Below the Salt - Thomas B. Costain - Страница 37

The night before Richard and his companion were to leave, Edward the Saxon leaned over and touched his son’s forearm during the evening meal. “Tonight,” he confided in a whisper, “I shall place in your hands the trust that has been mine since the death of my father. You see, my son, I have no illusions. I do not expect to see you again.”

Richard looked at the thin, lined face of the prematurely aged man and a sense of fear gripped his heart. “I will be allowed to return,” he protested. “There will be times when I am not needed and then I shall ride back to see you. If this were not so, I would change all the plans and not go with the marshal at all.”

Edward shook his head. “It may be so. But I know it will be better for you to put this life far back in your memory and think only of the future. Nothing must stand between you and the winning of your spurs. It may be that the Lord and His blessed Son will be kind and grant me a longer time to live, in which case I might hope to see you come riding down the old road on a tall black horse under a curling banner and the gold glittering at your heels. But I am not asking such a boon. There is a hand which beckons me to the life beyond. I speak the full truth, Richard, when I say that I will welcome the chance to—to wear the cross a second time.” There was a long moment of silence between them. “And so tonight you must hear the story and see—what there is to see.”

When that harsh but just man, Henry, the youngest son of William the Conqueror, came to the throne of England (said Edward the Saxon) there was much rejoicing among the Saxon people. It was not only because Henry had made vows at his coronation to rule well and to have regard for the rights of all men, even the lowliest, but because this also was known of him: he had seen the fair Saxon princess Matilda, the great-granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, and wanted her for his wife. There was some doubt about the rightness of this, because the princess had been living in a convent under the stern rule of an aunt. Had she taken the vows of heaven? The princess said no, she had made no pledges, and in this she was upheld by the court that the good Archbishop Anselm held at Lambeth. And so, in due course, she rode beside the new king to Westminster, her eyes filled with happiness, her flaxen hair glistening like gold under its rich woven net, and was crowned queen of England.

She was a good woman and a good queen and, had she lived longer, things might have been much different in England. But after no more than a brief span of years as queen she felt the hand of death reaching for her shoulder, and she performed a brave and farseeing act before her death which made it possible to preserve for all time the benefits of the king’s earlier intentions. And this (continued Edward the Saxon) leads us to a story of some strangeness.

On a stormy spring night in the year 1118, Cuthbert of Rawen was sitting longer than usual over his wine. Cuthbert was a man of strong character and it irked him more than it had his father and grandfather before him that the great domain of the family had been taken from him. The small house which stood against the walls of Rawen was like a prison cell to this bold and ambitious man. He had faith in his destiny and he believed he would march in the van when a certain long-awaited signal came.

As he sat and glowered unhappily at the dying fire on the hearth there came a knock on the gate in the barricade of stakes which then stood high and strong. He sat up at once. The hour was late. No ordinary visitor would come knocking at his door when the night was as far advanced as this. Cuthbert knew a moment almost of fear. The Devil was said to come to men’s gates in the dead of night and knock loudly.

He heard the cautious voice of his servant raised in a note of interrogation. In a matter of seconds the door in the oaken screen swung open and an old man came in.

Old age does either one of two things to men: it shrinks them into useless, wrinkled husks or it intensifies the qualities which have been in them from the beginning. The visitor was very old but he stood in the door and looked at Cuthbert with eyes which had lost none of their fire. His almost fleshless hands were clasped over the end of a staff and in the bend of his back there was no hint whatever of surrender to time.

“My son,” he said, “I come at a late hour. It was necessary.”

Cuthbert of Rawen went down on one knee in front of the holy man to receive his blessing and to ask a question which tingled on his tongue and sent waves of excitement racing through his body.

“Father Aelred!” he whispered tensely. “Has it happened? Does this mean that the bell is rungen?”

The old priest answered in an equally low tone, although they had the room completely to themselves. “No, my son. The time is not yet. The bell will not ring until we are ready.”

“I am ready. Are not all other men equally so?”

“It is not a question of what is in men’s hearts, my son. Our oppressors are still too strong. We must have more men, more weapons, more money.”

Cuthbert got to his feet and for several moments the blazing black eyes of the old priest stared hard into those of the Saxon thane, which were bold and of a steely blue. They had ceased to be priest and layman. They were members of a captured race which lived on for one thing only.

“I won’t hear the bell, my son,” said Father Aelred, after several moments had passed. “My days are numbered. The leader will not come in my time. But you should live to hear it, and to follow the leader, whoever he may be.”

“God grant it, Father Aelred!” The voice of the thane was deep and fervent. “God grant me this boon, to live long enough to draw my sword and stain it deep with Norman blood on that day of days!”

The venerable priest made his way to a bench before the fire and sat down. He brushed away Cuthbert’s offer of wine.

“My son, I am the bearer of bad news,” he said. “The queen has not long to live.”

When Cuthbert joined him at the fire, seating himself on a log of wood, the old priest amplified his statement. “She has been ill for a long time. The king neglects her and runs after foreign women. She is unhappy because of this but her greatest regret is that she sees in him a tendency to forget the promises he made.” Father Aelred studied the pattern of the slow flames. “I have been with her now for many years and she has often sought my advice. Often she has followed it.” (Often, indeed! It was known everywhere that it had been his wise counsels which guided her.) “You know, of course, that after his coronation vows the king prepared one hundred copies of the promises he made and sent them out to all parts of the kingdom. He was a zealous young king then, and his bride was at his side to whisper sound advice in his ear; and so he wanted it known to all men that he intended to be a just ruler. He regrets this now, having no further wish to be bound by the generous impulses of his youth. It is in the queen’s mind that, as soon as she is gone, he will take steps to regain all copies of the written Charter and to destroy them. She has asked me to act to this end, that one copy at least will be placed beyond his reach. This, my son, is the errand which brings me here, like a thief in the night.”

The priest fumbled in a leather bag under his girdle and produced a gold ring which he handed to the thane.

“The pledge of our good queen. So you may know that I come at her command and that you may put full trust in me.”

It was a plain gold band, with the royal initials and insignia stamped on the inside. The master of Rawen studied it with a reverent eye while the priest went on to explain his mission.

“I have brought a copy of the Charter with me. Unbeknown to the king, she has always kept this one in her own possession. It is her wish now that it be placed in other hands. I mentioned you to her and she agreed that a better custodian could not be selected. I shall leave it with you and it must be so well hidden away that no one, except you and I, may know where it is.”

Father Aelred drew then from a capacious pocket on the inside of his robe a plain wooden container which he placed in the hands of the thane.

“It is short,” he said. “But it contains the wisest precepts ever laid down for the guidance of a king. It may well serve as a covenant to be exacted of all future kings. You must guard it with your life, if necessary, Cuthbert of Rawen. You are to surrender it only if someone comes to demand it who bears a replica of this ring. Give me your promise to be true to this trust which has been placed in you.”

“I swear,” said Cuthbert solemnly, “to guard the Charter with my life and to reveal the secret of its existence to no one, as long as there is breath in my body; save if it should be necessary when I come to the end of my days to hand the secret on to my eldest son.”

“Your willingness to become the custodian of this paper has lifted a weight from my heart. I know that it is in the best of hands.” The priest studied the travel-stained condition of his sandals with a weary eye but rose nevertheless to his feet. “So that no word may be noised abroad of my having been here tonight, I think it wise to ride on to St. Wulstan’s.” He allowed his voice to fall to a whisper. “Do not despair, Cuthbert of Rawen, the bell will be rungen in God’s own good time. Our fathers thought it would be Hereward when he sent out the war arrow and resisted the Conqueror so long on the Isle of Ely but the people of England were too badly beaten down to respond. There will be another Hereward or a brave Harold to rise up and lead you. It must be seen to that the English king who rules after the ringing of the bell has agreed to all the terms in this paper I leave with you.”

Such was the story that Edward the Saxon told his son on the eve of the boy’s departure. When he came to the end, noting with satisfaction the rapt interest with which the boy had listened, he added: “No messenger has come since with the other ring and, of course, the bell has not been rung. The masters of Rawen have continued to save whatever they could for the day when the bell will ring and money will be needed. The contributions have been smaller as the years passed. I have been able to add no more than a few pennies.”

“And the Charter is still here?” asked the boy. “In this house?”

“It is still here.”

“Your father told this story to you?”

“On his deathbed, Richard. I am the fourth to be told the story and to learn of the place where the Charter is hidden. You, my son, the fifth, must adhere to the same oath that Cuthbert swore.”

“I swear,” said the boy eagerly.

The small household had scattered while father and son talked at the head of the table. Sigurd had already made his way up to his straw pallet above and no doubt was sound asleep. Dirk had disappeared. Old Godgifu was in the kitchen and they could hear her muttering to herself over her tasks. Only Tostig remained and he had betaken himself to the far end of the table. The torches placed at the head and foot of the table had burned down low and the drafts threatened momentarily to extinguish them.

Edward the Saxon rose to his feet. “And now,” he said, “it remains to show you the place where the Charter has been kept. I think,” he added after a moment’s hesitation, “that we must make some use of Tostig. He will accompany us, for part of the way, at least.”