CHAPTER XVII.
HOW RALPH CAME HOME.
'Sweet nuncle, methinks some of thy wits adhered to my cap, and that, when I put the same upon thy noble skull, they found an entrance into it by that crack the worshipful bishop's mace rove therein, else thou hadst never assayed this mad journey! Why, thou hast scarce taken a step without giving a groan.'
'Have I been so weak, Grillonne?' Earl Ralph asked, a faint smile brightening his pale, worn face.
He was on horseback, but rode at a foot's pace, and bent over the neck of his hacquenée like an aged and decrepit man. He was dressed in a loose flowing Saxon blouse, and had not a link of mail on his person from top to toe. On his left rode Grillonne, who strove to cheer him with loving banter; on his right the young Anglo-Dane, Leofric Ealdredsson, the son of his late host in the Fenland refuge; a little behind came a small band of men-at-arms, a squire leading Ralph's Spanish destrier, and a mule bearing the earl's harness, making some score in all.
'In good sooth,' continued the earl, 'it hath not seemed to me that my path was strewn with rose-leaves, but only with the thorns stripped bare of flowers. Yet would I go through it seven times over to see my lady's face again.'
'Well-a-day, nuncle! and a pretty galliard thou art, forsooth, to figure before a gracious dame, with thy hollow cheeks and thy hawk's eyes glaring out of caverns deep eno' for pixies to bide in,' replied the privileged jester. 'Cogs bones! thou hadst done better to go to Denmark first as thou didst intend, there to have picked up a few stout followers and a little flesh to cover thy worn framework withal. The women ever love the signs of power.'
A jealous pang flushed the earl's gaunt face with a faint hue of red. What if the fool spoke truth, and Emma should turn from him in his defeat, and embitter his humiliation by fresh reproaches? She had sent him forth with a doubting heart, scarce wishing him success, in that he fought against her kinsman and suzerain, William of Normandy. All his feudal pomp and glory, at the head of the eager army he then led to battle, had failed to move the bosom of the daughter of William Fitzosbern, who, young as she was, had seen many a fair host go forth with streaming pennons and noisy clarions. How, then, would she greet the weary, wounded wight who crept back to his castle like a thief in the night, with a poor remnant of faithful followers in little better plight than himself?
Truth is seldom palatable to men in high places, and the jester's light words had struck home too surely.