Английские легенды / English Legends - Страница 9

“Are you that Hereward who killed the Fairy Bear? No wonder that you managed to kill the Pictish monster and set me free[71].”

Then master and man left the chapel, after carefully turning the key in the lock. They succeeded in getting a ship to carry them to Ireland, and eventually reached Waterford.

The Danish kingdom of Waterford was ruled by King Ranald, whose only son, Sigtryg, was about Hereward’s age, and was as noble-looking a youth as the Saxon hero. The king was at a feast, and Hereward, entering the hall with the captain of the ship, sat down at one of the lower tables. But he was not one of those who can pass unnoticed. The prince saw him and his noble bearing, and asked him to come to the king’s own table. Hereward gladly did so, and as he drank to the prince and their goblets touched together he dropped the ring from the Cornish[72] princess into Sigtryg’s cup. The prince saw and recognised it as he drained his cup, and soon left the hall, followed by his guest.

Outside in the darkness Sigtryg turned hurriedly to Hereward, saying, “You bring me a message from my betrothed?”

“Yes, if you are that Prince Sigtryg to whom the Princess of Cornwall was promised.”

“Was promised! What do you mean? She is still my lady and my love.”

“Yet you leave her there without your support, while her father gives her in marriage to a horrible Pictish giant, breaking her betrothal, and driving the helpless maid into despair[73]. What kind of love is yours?”

Hereward said nothing yet about the killing of the giant, because he wished to test Prince Sigtryg’s sincerity, and he was satisfied, for the prince burst out[74]: “I wish to God I had gone to her before! but my father needed my help against foreign invaders and native rebels. I will go immediately and save my lady or die with her!”

“No need of that, for I killed that giant,” said Hereward coolly, and Sigtryg embraced him in joy and they swore blood-brotherhood together.

Then he asked: “What message do you bring me, and what means her ring?”

The other replied by repeating the Cornish maiden’s words, and asking him to start at once if he wanted to save his betrothed from some other hateful marriage.

The prince went to his father, told him the whole story, and got a ship and men to journey to Cornwall and rescue the princess; then, with Hereward by his side, he set sail, and soon landed in Cornwall, hoping to reach his bride peaceably. Alas!—he learnt that the princess had just been promised to a wild Cornish leader, Haco[75], and the wedding feast was to be held that very day. Sigtryg was greatly enraged, and sent forty Danes to King Alef demanding the fulfilment of the promise, and threatening vengeance if it were broken. To this the king returned no answer, and no Dane came back to tell of their reception.

Sigtryg would have waited till morning, trusting in the honour of the king, but Hereward disguised himself as a minstrel and got to the wedding feast, where he soon won applause by his beautiful singing. The bridegroom, Haco, offered him any gift he liked to ask, but he demanded only a cup of wine from the hands of the bride. When she brought it to him he put her betrothal ring inside, the very token she had sent to Sigtryg, and said: “I thank you, lady, give back the cup, richer than before.”

The princess looked at him, then into the goblet, and saw her ring; then, looking again, she recognised her deliverer and knew that rescue was at hand[76].

While men feasted, Hereward listened and talked, and found out that the forty Danes were prisoners, to be released in the morning when Haco was sure of his bride, but released useless and miserable, since they would be blinded. Haco was taking his lovely bride back to his own land, and Hereward saw that any rescue, to be successful, must be attempted on the march. Yet he knew not the way the bridal company would go, and he lay down to sleep in the hall, hoping that he might hear something more. When everything was still, a dark shape came through the hall and touched Hereward on the shoulder. It was the princess’s old nurse. “Come to her now,” the old woman whispered, and Hereward went, though he knew not that the princess was still true to her lover. In her tower, which she was soon to leave, Haco’s aggrieved bride awaited the messenger.

She smiled sadly on the young Saxon: “I knew your face again in spite of the disguise, but you come too late. Give my farewell to Sigtryg, and say that my father’s will, not mine, makes me forget my promise.”

“Have you not been told, lady, that he is here?” asked Hereward.

“Here?” the princess cried. “I have not heard. He loves me still and has not abandoned me?”

“No, lady, he is too true a lover for falsehood. He sent forty Danes yesterday to demand you of your father.”

“And I did not know of it,” said the princess softly; “yet I had heard that Haco had taken some prisoners, whom he wants to blind.”

“Those are our messengers, and your future subjects,” said Hereward. “Help me to save them and you. Do you know Haco’s plans?”

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