Now Algive was a right comely maiden. Like the blush of the wild rose on milk was the skin of her cheek: red as the wild rose-berries her soft lips; her hair yellow as the heart of the honeysuckle, and long and curling before they shore it; and her eyes were blue and grey together, as the onyx-stone in my Lord Bishop's great ring. She was hale, blithe, and unmoody, mild and forgiving; she worshipped God as do most women; she had ever a most sweet ruth for all that ailed or sorrowed; boughsome was she unto the rule of St. Benedict, in so far as the Abbess willed: yet I do mind me of thinking always that Heaven had not called her to be a nun. Howsoever, these thoughts kept I to myself. Twenty sisters were we, a few good enough, many less good than the best that lead the life of the world. We dwelt together in peace as far as might be; but there were no saints among us, such as King Edward loved. Nor was there such learning at Leominster as many of our English sisterhoods did boast of; but of such things I cannot speak cunningly, nor was I ever drawn to lettered lore. For me, the things of the household: let me cook and mend, heal and bind, and all happiness is mine. Our sister Algive had small learning enough. But because she was sunny ever, and none hated her, and because, moreover, her kin were mighty folk, when the Abbess Mildred came to die, we made her Abbess over us. Algive was then in her one-and-twentieth year. I do think that from first to last her rule was overmild. Many of us left prayer for idle talking—an ill thing where there are many women! Me she took from the kitchen, wherein I had wrought since my coming to the convent, to be sub-prioress, and sent me often as her trusted bode about the farm and garden.
Those were the days when holy King Edward sat upon the throne in Thorney Island, by London town, and doughty Earl Godwin swayed the land. Many hated this Godwin; not a few feared, but ever followed him; but I who knew him can tell you so much of him: Were he greedy of wealth and grasping after means to might, yet had he a stout English heart, and none loved better than he the English land, or kenned better the wants of English folk. Churl's son or childe's son, I wit not, but King Edward took his daughter, fair Edith, as Lady of the English; and the children of Godwin were of the blood of kings, for he wedded Gytha the Danish Lady, kinswoman of King Canute. But though foremost in Witan and in leaguer, two of his own sons might Earl Godwin never rule. Of the six sons of Godwin, with three have I, Winifred, had my dealings, and of those three this is my reckoning: Sweyn the eldest was a man, for all his wilfulness and his sinful wrath. Harold the next-born was a noble prince. Woe worth the day wherein the arrow slew him! As for Tostig, fair of face as Michael Archangel, he was a devil.
Now the Abbey of Leominster stood in the old land of Offa, some fourteen miles from the Hereford, where the king's armies are wont to pass over Wye into the fastnesses of the Welsh. Some three years before my lady Algive became our Abbess, Sweyn the first-born son of Godwin was made Earl, and given as Earldom much of the old kingdom of the March—to wit, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, and more beside. Ere long there spread from mouth to mouth tales of the wildness of our young Earl, even such wildness as Godwin his father bore with never in any other lord in England. More viking he seemed than Englishman, which made some to wonder, and to put abroad a groundless slander. And with brooding brows and foreboding nods, folk would tell of how he spurned the wise words of the old, or of how he would at times drink deep, and then fall to singing, fighting, or love-making maybe. Yet was he a righteous lawgiver, and open-handed ever: loving a daring deed, a hearty lay, a tale of the great ones of bygone years. Few there were that wished him not well, and few that prayed not God to bring him through the storms of youth to a steady manhood. Alack! alack for Lord Sweyn! tallest, proudest, most gifted of all the Godwinsons!
It was on the twenty-sixth day of May—the self-same day of our profession—in the year of Our Lord One Thousand, Forty and Seven, when the hawthorn was in full bloom, and the bleak blossoms of the blackthorn hung withered and tattered on their swart stems, and all our broad meadows shone golden with the buttercup, that we of the convent of Leominster heard a clatter of many horses' hooves upon the cobble-stones before our door. And there before the door was Sweyn our Earl, with twenty Danish house-carles that followed him, and at his side some of the wealthiest and worthiest thanes of our smiling shire of Hereford. He was much above the mean height, long-limbed and lithe, with a swift and noiseless tread; not ruddy, as are the most of the English, but dark of hair and milk-white of skin as his mother the Dane, and browned about the face and neck by wind and sun; with a nose like the beak of a hawk, and eyes like the hawk's for brightness, and a sudden, rare smile such as God gives to few. And a most beguiling tongue had Earl Sweyn—the tongue of a sagaman.
I saw his coming, peeping from an upper window, and went in haste with the tidings to the Lady Abbess.
He strode into her little parlour, and louted low before her. Then many a strange thing happened. I was standing by at this their first meeting, and what there befell can I forget never. For ye must bear in mind that for six years I had toiled without end within the convent kitchen, and beheld no man, young or old, goodly or wizen, but Godmund the priest. It was a fair sight that greeted the Earl, that of Algive Aldred's daughter, now full-grown to womanhood—two and twenty years had she—fair even in her weeds of black, with her eyes lowered, yet she peering, as I knew, all the while from beneath her lashes. And so, when he then beheld her, Sweyn Godwinson grew pale beneath his bronze, and stood stock-still before her, his look all wonder. Algive raised her grey-blue eyes to his for one short moment. Of a sudden she dropped her gaze once again to the hem of her kirtle, and felt fumblingly for the crucifix at her waist. Then Sweyn flushed deep red, and his fingers clenched on the handle of his boar-spear; and taking another step forward, he bowed him down once more, and gave her greeting in words. Thereafter these twain talked together in courtly wise, as befitted them.
From that day forth came Earl Sweyn often to our Abbey. Twice or thrice had he with him his near kinsman, Beorn, late made Earl of the Middle English, sister's son to King Canute. This was a handsome man enough, but methought his eyes were treacherous. After a while Earl Sweyn brought Beorn no more, but himself came, and was much with the Abbess alone.
My lady had indeed grounds for beseeching help of him: her churls were unruly, and who could rede the Abbess so well as the Earl? Howsoever, within the sisterhood was there great tattle of talk, and light hinting anent their two names. I but waited, and prayed, feeling sharp woe, and sorrowed in my heart—Mary forgive me!—as much for him as for her.
Then one day late in June, the Lady Abbess rode forth, with only a band of weapon-bearing churls, to Hereford, where Sweyn the Earl then dwelt. A week's stay made she there, then rode back again to her Abbey. No more was she the woman that she had been—even Algive the fair, sparkling as a beam of the sun. Wan as the dead was she now, with tight-drawn lips. All day long would she walk up and down the cloister, up and down the garden paths, oft-times wringing her hands together. The evil mutterings grew, and tongues waxed ever louder and bolder; and some sisters forbore not openly to cast gibes at their Abbess almost before her back was turned.