“A messenger!” “A messenger from Oxford—” “From Edric—” “Edmund is—” “—Edmund—” “A messenger!” one cancelled another in the wild excitement.
Elfgiva caught the nearest and shook him until his teeth chattered; and in the lull, the swelling shout reached them for the first time unbroken: “Honor to the King! Hail to the King of the Danes and the Angles!”
From the Lord of Ivarsdale came a cry, sharp as though a heart-string had snapped in its utterance, the tie that for generations had bound those of his blood to the house of Cerdic.
“Edmund?”
The mob of soldiers and servants that burst through the doorway answered his question with exultant shouts: “Edmund is dead! Edmund is dead! Long live Canute the King! King of the Danes and the Angles!”
Unbidden, memory raised before Randalin a picture of the English camp-fire in the glade, with the English King standing in its light and the hooded figure bending from the shadow behind him, its white taloned hand resting on his sleeve. An instant she shivered at it; then again her foot stirred with unendurable restlessness. If he was dead, he was dead, and there was no more to be said. Was the Etheling always going to stand as though he were turned to stone? Would he never——
Ah, at last he was moving! As if the news had only just reached home to him, she saw him draw himself together sharply and stride toward the door; and she watched feverishly to see if anyone would think to stop him. One group he passed—and another—and another—now he was on the threshold. Her pulses leaped as she recognized Rothgar, in the throng pouring into the garden with the messenger, but quieted again when she saw that the two passed shoulder to shoulder without a look, without a thought, for each other. Now he was out of sight.
She let her suspended breath go from her in a long sigh. “It is good that everyone is too excited to notice what I do,” she said to herself. And even as she said it she realized that her limbs were shaking under her, that she was sick unto faintness. “I am going to finish dying now, and I welcome it,” she murmured. Staggering to a little bench under one of the old oaks, she sank down upon it and leaned her head against the tree trunk and waited.
CHAPTER XXIII. A Blood-stained Crown
He is happy
Who in himself possesses
Fame and wit while living;
For bad counsels
Have oft been received
From another’s breast.
Hávamál.