The Little Duke: Richard the Fearless by Charlotte M. Yonge (classic fiction .TXT) 📕

was to tell.  “And, Richard,” said he at last, “have you nought to tell me of Father Lucas, and his great book?  What, not a word?  Look up, Richard, and tell me how it goes with the learning.” [3]

“Oh, father!” said Richard, in a low voice, playing with the clasp of his father’s belt, and looking down, “I don’t like those crabbed letters on the old yellow parchment.”

“But you try to learn them, I hope!” said the Duke.

“Yes, father, I do, but they are very hard, and the words are so long, and Father Lucas will always come when the sun is so bright, and the wood so green, that I know not how to bear to be kept poring over those black hooks and strokes.”

“Poor little fellow,” said Duke William, smiling and Richard, rather encouraged, went on more boldly.  “You do not know this reading, noble father?”

“To my sorrow, no,” said the Duke.

“And Sir Eric cannot read, nor Osmond, nor any one, and why must I read, and cramp my fingers with writing, just as if I was a clerk, instead of a young Duke?”  Richard looked up in his father’s face, and then hung his head, as if half-ashamed of questioning his will, but the Duke answered him without displeasure.

“It is hard, no doubt, my boy, to you now, but it will be the better for you in the end.  I would give much to be able myself to read those holy books which I must now only hear read to me by a clerk, but since I have had the wish, I have had no time to learn as you have now.”

“But Knights and Nobles never learn,” said Richard.

“And do you think it a reason they never should?  But you are wrong, my boy, for the Kings of France and England, the Counts of Anjou, of Provence, and Paris, yes, even King Hako of Norway, [4] can all read.”

“I tell you, Richard, when the treaty was drawn up for restoring this King Louis to his throne, I was ashamed to find myself one of the few crown vassals who could not write his name thereto.”

“But none is so wise or so good as you, father,” said Richard, proudly.  “Sir Eric often says so.”

“Sir Eric loves his Duke too well to see his faults,” said Duke William; “but far better and wiser might I have been, had I been taught by such masters as you may be.  And hark, Richard, not only can all Princes here read, but in England, King Ethelstane would have every Noble taught; they study in his own palace, with his brothers, and read the good words that King Alfred the truth-teller put into their own tongue for them.”

“I hate the English,” said Richard, raising his head and looking very fierce.

“Hate them? and wherefore?”

“Because they traitorously killed the brave Sea King Ragnar!  Fru Astrida sings his death-song, which he chanted when the vipers were gnawing him to death, and he gloried to think how his sons would bring the ravens to feast upon the Saxon.  Oh! had I been his son, how I would have carried on the feud!  How I would have laughed when I cut down the false traitors, and burnt their palaces!”  Richard’s eye kindled, and his words, as he spoke the old Norse language, flowed into the sort of wild verse in which the Sagas or legendary songs were composed, and which, perhaps, he was unconsciously repeating.

Duke William looked grave.

“Fru Astrida must sing you no more such Sagas,” said he, “if they fill your mind with these revengeful thoughts, fit only for the worshippers of Odin and Thor.  Neither Ragnar nor his sons knew better than to rejoice in this deadly vengeance, but we, who are Christians, know that it is for us to forgive.”

“The English had slain their father!” said Richard, looking up with wondering dissatisfied eyes.

“Yes, Richard, and I speak not against them, for they were even as we should have been, had not King Harold the fair-haired driven your grandfather from Denmark.  They had not been taught the truth, but to us it has been said, ‘Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.’  Listen to me, my son, Christian as is this nation of ours, this duty of forgiveness is too often neglected, but let it not be so with you.  Bear in mind, whenever you see the Cross [5] marked on our banner, or carved in stone on the Churches, that it speaks of forgiveness to us; but of that pardon we shall never taste if we forgive not our enemies.  Do you mark me, boy?”

Richard hesitated a little, and then said, “Yes, father, but I could never have pardoned, had I been one of Ragnar’s sons.”

“It may be that you will be in their case, Richard,” said the Duke, “and should I fall, as it may well be I shall, in some of the contests that tear to pieces this unhappy Kingdom of France, then, remember what I say now.  I charge you, on your duty to God and to your father, that you keep up no feud, no hatred, but rather that you should deem me best revenged, when you have with heart and hand, given the fullest proof of forgiveness to your enemy.  Give me your word that you will.”

“Yes, father,” said Richard, with rather a subdued tone, and resting his head on his father’s shoulder.  There was a silence for a little space, during which he began to revive into playfulness, to stroke the Duke’s short curled beard, and play with his embroidered collar.

In so doing, his fingers caught hold of a silver chain, and pulling it out with a jerk, he saw a silver key attached to it.  “Oh, what is that?” he asked eagerly.  “What does that key unlock?”

“My greatest treasure,” replied Duke William, as he replaced the chain and key within his robe.

“Your greatest treasure, father!  Is that your coronet?”

“You will know one day,” said his father, putting the little hand down from its too busy investigations; and some of the Barons at that moment returning into the hall, he had no more leisure to bestow on his little son.

The next day, after morning service in the Chapel, and breakfast in the hall, the Duke again set forward on his journey, giving Richard hopes he might return in a fortnight’s time, and obtaining from him a promise that he would be very attentive to Father Lucas, and very obedient to Sir Eric de Centeville.

CHAPTER II

One evening Fru Astrida sat in her tall chair in the chimney corner, her distaff, with its load of flax in her hand, while she twisted and drew out the thread, and her spindle danced on the floor.  Opposite to her sat, sleeping in his chair, Sir Eric de Centeville; Osmond was on a low bench within the chimney corner, trimming and shaping with his knife some feathers of the wild goose, which were to fly in a different fashion from their former one, and serve, not to wing the flight of a harmless goose, but of a sharp arrow.

The men of the household sat ranged on benches on one side of the hall, the women on the other; a great red fire, together with an immense flickering lamp which hung from the ceiling, supplied the light; the windows were closed with wooden shutters, and the whole apartment had a cheerful appearance.  Two or three large hounds were reposing in front of the hearth, and among them sat little Richard of Normandy, now smoothing down their broad silken ears; now tickling the large cushions of their feet with the end of one of Osmond’s feathers; now fairly pulling open the eyes of one of the good-natured sleepy creatures, which only stretched its legs, and remonstrated with a sort of low groan, rather than a growl.  The boy’s eyes were, all the time, intently fixed on Dame Astrida, as if he would not lose one word of the story she was telling him; how Earl Rollo, his grandfather, had sailed into the mouth of the Seine, and how Archbishop Franco, of Rouen, had come to meet him and brought him the keys of the town, and how not one Neustrian of Rouen had met with harm from the brave Northmen.  Then she told him of his grandfather’s baptism, and how during the seven days that he wore his white baptismal robes, he had made large gifts to all the chief churches in his dukedom of Normandy.

“Oh, but tell of the paying homage!” said Richard; “and how Sigurd Bloodaxe threw down simple King Charles!  Ah! how would I have laughed to see it!”

“Nay, nay, Lord Richard,” said the old lady, “I love not that tale.  That was ere the Norman learnt courtesy, and rudeness ought rather to be forgotten than remembered, save for the sake of amending it.  No, I will rather tell you of our coming to Centeville, and how dreary I thought these smooth meads, and broad soft gliding streams, compared with mine own father’s fiord in Norway, shut in with the tall black rocks, and dark pines above them, and far away the snowy mountains rising into the sky.  Ah! how blue the waters were in the long summer days when I sat in my father’s boat in the little fiord, and—”

Dame Astrida was interrupted.  A bugle note rang out at the castle gate; the dogs started to their feet, and uttered a sudden deafening bark; Osmond sprung up, exclaiming, “Hark!” and trying to silence the hounds; and Richard running to Sir Eric, cried, “Wake, wake, Sir Eric, my father is come!  Oh, haste to open the gate, and admit him.”

“Peace, dogs!” said Sir Eric, slowly rising, as the blast of the horn was repeated.  “Go, Osmond, with the porter, and see whether he who comes at such an hour be friend or foe.  Stay you here, my Lord,” he added, as Richard was running after Osmond; and the little boy obeyed, and stood still, though quivering all over with impatience.

“Tidings from the Duke, I should guess,” said Fru Astrida.  “It can scarce be himself at such an hour.”

“Oh, it must be, dear Fru Astrida!” said Richard.  “He said he would come again.  Hark, there are horses’ feet in the court!  I am sure that is his black charger’s tread!  And I shall not be there to hold his stirrup!  Oh!  Sir Eric, let me go.”

Sir Eric, always a man of few words, only shook his head, and at that moment steps were heard on the stone stairs.  Again Richard was about to spring forward, when Osmond returned, his face showing, at a glance, that something was amiss; but all that he said was, “Count Bernard of Harcourt, and Sir Rainulf de Ferrières,” and he stood aside to let them pass.

Richard stood still in the midst of the hall, disappointed.  Without greeting to Sir Eric, or to any within the hall, the Count of Harcourt came forward to Richard, bent his knee before him, took his hand, and said with a broken voice and heaving breast, “Richard, Duke of Normandy, I am thy liegeman and true vassal;” then rising from his knees while Rainulf de Ferrières went through the same form, the old man covered his face with his hands and wept aloud.

“Is it even so?” said the Baron de Centeville; and being answered by a mournful look and sigh from Ferrières, he too bent before the boy, and repeated the words, “I am thy liegeman and true vassal, and swear fealty to thee for my castle and barony of Centeville.”

“Oh, no, no!” cried Richard, drawing back his hand in a sort of agony, feeling as if he was in a frightful dream from which he could not awake.  “What means it?  Oh!  Fru Astrida, tell me what means it?  Where is my father?”

“Alas, my child!” said the old lady, putting her arm round him, and drawing him close to her, whilst her tears flowed fast, and Richard stood, reassured by her embrace, listening with eyes open wide, and deep oppressed breathing, to what was passing between the four nobles, who spoke earnestly among themselves, without much heed of him.

“The Duke dead!” repeated Sir Eric de Centeville, like one stunned and stupefied.

“Even so,” said Rainulf, slowly and sadly, and the silence was only broken by the long-drawn sobs of old Count Bernard.

“But how? when? where?” broke forth Sir Eric, presently.  “There was no note of battle when you went forth.  Oh, why was not I at his side?”

“He fell not in battle,” gloomily replied Sir Rainulf.

“Ha! could sickness cut him down so quickly?”

“It was not sickness,” answered Ferrières.  “It was treachery.  He fell in the Isle of Pecquigny, by the hand of the false Fleming!”

“Lives the traitor yet?” cried the Baron de Centeville, grasping his good sword.

“He lives and rejoices in his crime,” said Ferrières, “safe in his own merchant towns.”

“I can scarce credit you, my Lords!” said Sir Eric.  “Our Duke slain, and his enemy safe,