When I awoke I was both hungry and well. Indeed, it was the scent of breakfast that roused me. But, alas! the meal was none of mine. The little table had been cleared, and at it, on clean white napkins, were places for three or four people. There were wooden platters with steel knives upon them, oaten loaves, great wooden tankards of wine and mead, with fish and fowl flesh in abundance. Surely my entertainer was going to turn out a jolly fellow, now the night’s vigils were over! But as I speculated in my retired couch there fell the beat of marching men, a clatter of arms outside and a shouting of many voices in clamorous welcome, the ringing of stirrup-irons and the champing of bits, and then, to my infinite astonishment, in stalked as comely a man as I had ever seen, and leading by the hand a fair, pale, black-haired girl, who looked jaded and red in her eyes.
“There, my Adeliza,” he said; “now dry those lashes of yours and cheer up. What! A Norman girl like you, and weeping because two hosts stand faced for battle! What will our Saxon maids say to these shining drops?”
“Oh, Harold!” the girl exclaimed, “it is not conflict I fear, or I would not have come hither to you, braving your anger; but think of the luckless chance that brings my father from Normandy in arms against my Saxon love! Think of my fears, think how I dread that either side should win—surely grief so complicated should claim pardon for these simple tears.”
“Well, well,” said he—whom I, unobserved in the shadows, now recognized as the English monarch himself—“if we are bound to die, we can do so but once, and at least we will breakfast first,” and down he sat, signing the girl to get herself another stool in rough Saxon manner.
And a very good meal he made of it, putting away the toasted ortolans and cheese, and waging war with his fingers and dagger upon all the viands, washing them down with constant mighty draughts from the wooden flagons, and this all in a jolly, light-hearted way that was very captivating. Ever and anon he called to the “churls” outside, or gave a hasty order to his captains with his mouth full of meat and bread, or put some dainty morsel into the idle fingers of his damsel, as though breakfasting was the chief thing in life, and his kingdom were not tottering to the martial tread of an invader.
But even gallant Harold, the last King of the Saxons, had finished presently, and then donning his pointed casque and his flowing silken-filigreed cloak, thrusting his whinger into his jeweled girdle, he threw his round steel target on his back—then held out both his arms. Whether or not his Norman love, the reluctant seal of a broken promise, had always loved him, it is not for me to say, but, woman-like, she loved him at the losing, and flew to him and was enfolded tight into his ample chest, and mixed her raven tresses with his yellow English hair, and sobbed and clung to him, and took and gave a hundred kisses, and was so sweet and tearful that my inmost heart was moved.
When Harold had gone out, and when presently the clatter of arms and shouting proved he was moving off to the field of eventful battle, Adeliza the proud bowed her head upon the table, and abandoned herself to so wild a grief that I was greatly impelled to rise and comfort her. But she would not be consoled, even by the ministrations of two of her waiting maidens, who soon entered the place; and seeing this I took an opportunity when all three were blending their tears to slip out into the open air.
There I found my friendly Saxon monk in great tribulation, with a fragment of vellum in his hand.
“Ah, my son,” he said—“the very man. Look here, the air is heavy with event. Yonder, under the sheen of the sun, William of Normandy is encamped with sixty thousand of his cruel adventurers, and there, down there among the trees, you see the gallant Harold and his straggling array, sorry and muddy with long marching, on the way to oppose them. But the King has not half his force with him, nor a fourth as many as he needs! Take this vellum, and, if you ever put a buskin in speed to the grass, run now for the credit of England and for the sake of history—run for that ridge away there behind us, where you will find the good Earl of Mercia and several thousand men encamped—and, if not asleep, most probably stuffing themselves with food and drink,” he added bitterly under his breath. “Give him this, and say Harold will not be persuaded, say that unless the reserves march at once the fight will be fought without them—and then I think Dane and Saxon will be chaff before the wind of retribution. Run! my son—run for the good cause, and for Saxon England!”