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For the first time, she spoke to the son of Lodbrok, who had silently taken his place at her side. "This is not the Watling Street! Yet we have not turned Where are we?" Rothgar gnawed at his heavy moustache as though the answer were difficult to frame; and before he had time to evolve it, Elfgiva, who had caught the exclamation, had broken off her prattle. "That is true!
"You speak well, for he will get great fame on account of his wisdom." So they filled the air with marvelling admiration. Standing in silent listening, Canute's gaze travelled from face to face until it came to the spot where Elfgiva fluttered among her women, holding her exquisite head as if it already wore a crown. An odd gleam flickered over his eyes, and he made a step toward her.
To say "sign" to Elfgiva was something like saying "cream" to a cat. Gradually she ceased trying to free her hands, to gaze at her captor. "What do you mean by that? Or have you any meaning except only trying for an excuse to get this hussy off from punishment?"
She stands under a gateway, while Harold is riding forth with her father, in witness, perhaps, of her having been betrothed to Harold; or perhaps Matilda felt a mother's yearning to commemorate the first of her flock who had been laid in the grave, for Elfgiva died a short time after the contract, which Harold would hardly have fulfilled, since he had at least one wife already at home.
"You prove a good guesser to know that it was not his crime," the King said dryly. "A little while ago, I found out that he got it from the British woman who is nurse to Elfgiva of Northampton." To this, the new Marshal volunteered no answer whatever, but drew his breath in sharply as though he found himself in deep water; and the King spoke on.
Alftruda was beautiful, too, exceedingly, and precocious, and, it may be, vain enough to repay his attentions in good earnest. Moreover she was English as he was, and royal likewise; a relation of Elfgiva, daughter of Ethelred, once King of England, who, as all know, married Uchtred, prince of Northumberland and grandfather of Gospatrick, Earl of Northumberland, and ancestor of all the Dunbars.
The crowding of the highway became more noticeable as they neared the point where the Watling Street swerved from its old course, toward the ford and the little Isle of Thorns, to bend eastward toward the New Gate. Some obstruction at the forking of the roads impeded their progress almost to a walk. After a brief experience of it, Elfgiva spoke impatiently to the nearest soldier.
Elfgiva fell from her height of injured dignity with a piercing scream. "What is it you say, King? Now by the splendor of heaven, you depart not for London without me! Be it known to you that I am going to be your Queen." At first he looked at her in genuine astonishment; after that he laughed, neither angrily nor bitterly, but with the quietness of utter contempt.
After one look, however, she let it fall with an expression of awe upon her dimpled face. "The ring Canute gave Elfgiva that he won from the giant Rothgar? Heaven forbid that I should press upon her secrets! My ears tingle yet from the cuff I got only for looking at yonder dirty scroll. Yet how long is it since you were taken into their councils, Tata?
While they waited for the bondwomen to restore to the hampers the crystal goblets and gold-fringed napkins that even in the wood wastes must minister to such delicate lips, one merry little lady was launching fleets of beech-nut rinds down the stream; another, armed with a rush-spear, was making bold attack on the slumbers of some woodland creature which she had spied out basking on the sunny side of a stump; and in the centre of the open, the Lady Elfgiva was amusing herself with the treasures of red and gold leaves which silk-clad pages were bringing from the thicket.
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