A Thane of Wessex | Page 9

and
also of the stout leathern jerkin he wore beneath it, for I was clad in the
rags of feasting garb, as I have said, and hated them even as I threw
them aside. The man was of my own height and build, as it chanced,
and his gear fitted me well. So I took his hide shoes also, casting away
my frayed velvet foot coverings into the underwood.
Now once more I stood clad in the arms of a free man and how good it
was to feel again the well known and loved weight of mail, and helm,
and sword tugging at me I cannot say. But this I know, that, like the
strong man of old our old priest told me of, as I shook myself, my
strength and manhood came back to me.
But now, whereas I had been haled from my feasting a careless boy,
and had stood before my judges as an angry man, as I look back, I see
that from that arming I rose up a grim and desperate warrior with
wrongs to right, and the will and strength to right them.
So I stood for a little, and the savage thoughts that went through my
mind I may not write. Then I turned to my captive and looked at him,
though I thought nothing concerning him. But what he saw written in
my face as it glowered on him from under the helmet bade him cry
aloud to me to spare him.
And at that I laughed. It was so good to feel that this enemy of mine
feared me. At that laugh--and it sounded not like my own, even to
myself--the man writhed, and besought me again for mercy. But I had
no mind to kill him, and a thought crossed me.

"Matelgar bade you slay me," I said, "that I know. Tell me why he has
sought my life and I will spare you."
"Master," said the man hastily, "I knew not whom I was to slay.
Matelgar bade me follow Gurth yonder, and smite whom he smote."
"It would have mattered not--you would have slain me as well as any
other."
"Nay, master," the man said earnestly, "that would I not."
"You lie," I answered curtly enough; "like master like man. Tell me
what I bade you."
"Truly I lie not, Heregar," cried he, "for I love my mistress over well to
harm you."
Now at that mention of Alswythe the blood rushed into my face, for I
had held her false with the rest, and this seemed to say otherwise,
unless the plot had been hidden from such as this man. But I would fain
learn more of that, for the sake of the hope of a love I had thought true.
"What is your mistress to me?" I asked. "Ye are all alike."
I think the man could see well at what I aimed, for he spoke of the Lady
Alswythe more freely than he would have dared at other times, nor
would I have let him name her lightly.
"Our mistress has gone sadly since the day you were taken, master;
even asking me to tell her, if I could, where you were kept, thinking me
one of those who guarded you, mayhap. But I knew not till today what
had chanced to you. Men may know well from such tokens what is
amiss."
Hearing that, my heart lightened within me, for I saw that the man
spoke truth. However, I would not speak more of this to such as he, and
I bade him cease his prating, and answer plainly my first question,
laying my hand on my seax as if to draw it.

"Gurth could have told you; master," he cried, "but he is dead. Matelgar
held no counsel with me. I can but tell you what the talk is among the
men."
"Tell it."
"Because Matelgar had taken charge, as he said, of your lands while
you were away, and knowing well that in your taking he had had some
hand, men say it is to get possession thereof; and the women say that,
while you were near, the Lady Alswythe would marry no other, so that
he had had you removed."
The first I had guessed by the token of the sword that I had regained.
That last was sweet to hear.
"Go on," I said. "How came Matelgar to have power to hold my lands?"
"There came one from the king, after you were taken, giving him
papers with a great seal thereon, and these he read aloud in your hall,
showing the king's own hand at the end. So men bowed thereto, and all
your men he drove out if they would not serve him, and few remained.
The rest have