[Illustration]




The Ward of King Canute

A Romance of the Danish Conquest

by Ottilie A. Liljencrantz


Contents

 Acknowledgment
 Foreword

 CHAPTER I. The Fall of the House of Frode
 CHAPTER II. Randalin, Frode’s Daughter
 CHAPTER III. Where War-dogs Kennel
 CHAPTER IV. When Royal Blood Is Young Blood
 CHAPTER V. Before The King
 CHAPTER VI. The Training of Fridtjof The Page
 CHAPTER VII. The Game of Swords
 CHAPTER VIII. Taken Captive
 CHAPTER IX. The Young Lord of Ivarsdale
 CHAPTER X. As The Norns Decree
 CHAPTER XI. When My Lord Comes Home From War
 CHAPTER XII. The Foreign Page
 CHAPTER XIII. When Might Made Right
 CHAPTER XIV. How The Fates Cheated Randalin
 CHAPTER XV. How Fridtjof Cheated The Jotun
 CHAPTER XVI. The Sword of Speech
 CHAPTER XVII. The Judgment of The Iron Voice
 CHAPTER XVIII. What The Red Cloak Hid
 CHAPTER XIX. The Gift of The Elves
 CHAPTER XX. A Royal Reckoning
 CHAPTER XXI. With The Jotun as Chamberlain
 CHAPTER XXII. How The Lord of Ivarsdale Paid His Debt
 CHAPTER XXIII. A Blood-stained Crown
 CHAPTER XXIV. On The Road to London
 CHAPTER XXV. The King’s Wife
 CHAPTER XXVI. In The Judgment Hall
 CHAPTER XXVII. Pixie-led
 CHAPTER XXVIII. When Love Meets Love
 CHAPTER XXIX. The Ring of The Coiled Snake
 CHAPTER XXX. When The King Takes a Queen
 CHAPTER XXXI. The Twilight of The Gods
 CHAPTER XXXII. In Time’s Morning




Acknowledgment


For the facts of this romance I have made free use of the following
authorities: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; The Venerable Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of England; Ingulph’s History of the Abbey of
Croyland; William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle of the Kings of England;
The Chronicles of Florence of Worcester; Lingard’s History and
Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, and Lingard’s History of
England; Dean Spencer’s The White Robe of Churches; Collier’s
Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain; Montalembert’s Monks of the
West; Thrupp’s Anglo-Saxon Home; Hall’s Queens Before the Conquest;
Kemble’s Saxons in England; Ridgway’s Gem of Thorney Island; Brayley
and Britton’s History of the Ancient Palace and Late Houses of
Parliament; Loftie’s Westminster Abbey and Loftie’s History of London;
Allen’s History and Antiquities of London; Lappenberg’s History of
England Under the Anglo-Saxon Kings; Sharon Turner’s History of the
Anglo-Saxons; Knight’s Old England; Hume’s History of England; Green’s
Conquest of England; Thierry’s History of the Conquest of England by
the Normans; Freeman’s History of the Norman Conquest.

For the translations of Hávamál, etc., used at the beginnings of the
chapters, I am indebted to Professor Rasmus B. Anderson and Mr. Paul du
Chaillu.

O. A. L.

Chicago, April 1, 1903.




Foreword


There is an old myth of a hero who renewed his strength each time he
touched the earth, and finally was overcome by being raised in the air
and crushed. Whether or not the Angles risked a like fate as they
raised themselves away from the primitive virtues that had been their
life and strength, no one can tell; but it has been well said that when
Northern blood mingled with English blood at the time of the Danish
Conquest, the Anglo-Saxon race touched the earth again.




CHAPTER I. The Fall of the House of Frode


Full stocked folds
I saw at the sons of Fitjung,
Now they carry beggars’ staffs;
Wealth is
Like the twinkling of an eye,
The most unstable of friends.
                    Hávamál.


As the blackness of the midsummer night paled, the broken towers and
wrecked walls of the monastery loomed up dim and stark in the gray
light. The long-drawn sigh of a waking world crept through the air and
rustled the ivy leaves. The pitying angel of dreams, who had striven
all night long to restore the plundered shrine and raise from their
graves the band of martyred nuns, ceased from his ministrations, softly
as a bubble frees itself from the pipe that shaped it, and floated away
on the breath of the wind. Through a breach in the moss-grown wall, the
first sunbeam stole in and pointed a bright finger across the cloister
garth at the charred spot in the centre, where missals and parchment
rolls had made a roaring fire to warm the invaders’ blood-stained
hands.

As the lark rose through the brightening air to greet the coming day, a
woman in the tunic and cowl of a nun opened what was left of the
wicket-gate in the one unbattered wall. A trace of the luxury that had
dwelt under the gilded spires survived in her robes, which had been of
a royal purple and embroidered with silken flowers; but the voice of
Time and of Ruin spoke from them also, for the purple was faded to a
rusty brown, and the silken embroideries were threadbare. She struck a
note in perfect harmony with her surroundings, as she stood under the
crumbling arch, peering out into the flowering lane.

Stretching away from her feet in dewy freshness, it made a green link
between the herb-garden of St. Mildred’s and the highway of the Watling
Street. Like the straggling hedges that were half buried under a net of
wild roses, red and white, the path was half effaced by grass; but
beyond, her eye could follow the straight line of the great Roman road
over marsh and meadow and hill-top. If grass had gathered there also,
during the Anglo-Saxon times, there were no traces of it now, in the
days of Edmund Ironside when Canute of Denmark was leading his war-host
back and forth over its stones. Between the dark walls of oak and
beech, it gleamed as white as the Milky Way. The nun was able to trace
its course up the slope of the last hill. Just beyond the crest, a pall
of smoke was spread over a burning village. Though it was miles away,
it seemed to her that the wind brought cries of anguish to her ear, and
prayers for mercy. Shivering, she turned her face back to the desolate
peace of the ruins.

“Now is it clear to all men why a bloody cloud was hung over the land
in the year that Ethelred came to the throne,” she said. “I feel as the
blessed dead might feel should they be forced to leave the shelter of
their graves and look out upon the world.”

Rising from its knees beside a bed of herbs, a second figure in faded
robes approached the gate. Sister Sexberga was very old, much older
than her companion, and her face was a wrinkled parchment whereon Time
had written some terrible lessons.

She said gently, “We are one with the dead, beloved sister. Those who
lie under the chancel lay no safer than we, last night, though the
Pagans’ passing tread shook the ground we lay on, and their songs broke
our slumbers. Let us cease not to give thanks to Him who has spread
over us the peace of the grave.”

The shadows deepened in the eyes of Sister Wynfreda as she turned them
back toward the lane, for her patience was not yet ripe to perfect
mellowness. She was but little past the prime of her rich womanhood,
and still bore the traces of a great beauty. She bore in addition, upon
cheek and forehead, the scars of three frightful burns.

“The peace of the grave can never be mine while my heart is open to the
sorrows of others,” she answered with sadness. “Sister Sexberga, that
was an English band which passed last night. I made out English words
in their song. I am in utmost fear for the Danes of Avalcomb.”

“‘They that take the sword shall perish with the sword,’” the old nun
quoted, a little sternly. “An Englishman was despoiled of his lands
when Frode the Dane took Avalcomb. If now Frode’s turn has come—”

Her companion made a gesture of entreaty. “It is not for Frode that I
am timorous, dear sister, nor for the boy, Fridtjof; it is for
Randalin, his daughter.”

Sister Sexberga was some time silent. When at last she spoke, it was
but to repeat slowly, “Randalin, his daughter. God pity her!”

Sister Wynfreda was no longer listening. She had quitted her hold upon
the gate and taken a step forward, straining her eyes. They had not
deceived her. Out of a tall mass of golden bloom at the farther end of
the lane, an arm clad in brown homespun had tossed itself for one
delirious instant. Trailing her robes over the daisied grass, the nun
came upon a wounded man lying face downward in the tangle.

There was little in that to awaken surprise; it would have been
stranger had warriors passed without leaving some such mute token in
their wake. Yet when the united strength of the four arms had turned
the limp weight upon its back, a cry of astonishment rose from each
throat.

“The woodward of Avalcomb!”

“The hand of the Lord hath fallen!”

After a moment the younger woman said in a trembling voice, “The
whisper in my heart spoke truly. Dearest sister, put your arm under
here, and we will get him to his feet and bring him in, and he will
tell us what has happened. See! he is shaking off his swoon. After he
has swallowed some of your wine, he will be able to speak and tell us.”

It was muscle-breaking work for women’s backs, for though he tried
instinctively to obey their directions, the man was scarcely conscious;
his arms were like lead yokes upon his supporters’ shoulders. Just
within the gate their strength gave out, and they were forced to put
him down among the spicy herbs. There, as one was pulling off her
threadbare cloak to make him a pillow, and the other was starting after
her cordial, he opened his eyes.

“Master!” he muttered. “Master? Have they gone?”

In an instant Sister Wynfreda was on her knees beside him. “Is it the
English you mean? Did they beset the castle?”

Slowly the man’s clouded eyes cleared. “The Sisters—” he murmured. “I
had the intention—to get to you—but I fell—” His words died away in a
whisper, and his eyelids drooped. Sister Sexberga turned again to seek
her restorative. Sister Wynfreda leaned over and shook him.

“Answer me, first. Where is your master? And young Fridtjof? And your
mistress?”

He shrank from her touch with a gasp of pain. “Dead,” he muttered.
“Dead—At the gate—Frode and the boy—The raven-starvers cut them down
like saplings.”

“And Randalin?”

“I heard her scream as the Englishman seized her—Leofwinesson had her
round the waist—they knocked me on the head, then—I—I—” Again his voice
died away.

Sister Wynfreda made no attempt to recall him. Mechanically she held
his head so that her companion might pour the liquid down his throat.
That done, she brought water and bandages, and stood by, absent-eyed
and in silence, while Sexberga found his wounds and dressed them. It
was the older woman who spoke first.

“The fate of this maiden lies heavy on your mind, beloved,” she said
tenderly; “and I would have you know that my heart also is sorrowful.
For all that she is the fruit of darkness, it was permitted by the Lord
that Randalin, Frode’s daughter, should be born with a light in her
soul. It was in my prayers that we might be enabled to feed that light
as it were a sacred lamp, to the end that in God’s good time the
spreading glory of its brightness might deliver her from the shadows
forever.”

Staring before her with unseeing eyes, Sister Wynfreda nodded an absent
assent. “To me also it seemed that the Lord had led her to us... I keep
in mind how she looked when she came that first morning... a bit of
silk was in her hand, which Frode had given her for a present, because
a golden apple was wrought upon it. She came on her horse, with the boy
Fridtjof, to offer us bread from the castle kitchen if we would agree
to teach her the secret of such handiwork. And when we said that for
the sake of bread to lighten the evil days we would comply with her in
the matter, she laughed with pleasure, and her laughter was as grateful
to the ear as the chime of matin bells. I can see her again as she sat
above us in her saddle, laughing: her long hair blew about her, and the
red blood glowed in her cheeks, and her eyes were like pools that the
sun is shining on—” Suddenly the Sister’s voice broke, and she hid her
face in her hands.

The old nun regarded her compassionately. Hers had been a long hard
life, and she was very near the mountain-top from whose summit the
mystery of the valleys is revealed.

After a time she spoke with tender reverence: “Almighty Father, who
hast given us strength to endure our own trials without murmuring,
grant us also the grace to accept patiently the chastening of those we
love.”

The bowed head of Sister Wynfreda sank lower, and slowly the heaving of
her breast was stilled. In the chapel four feeble old voices raised a
chant that trembled and shook like a quivering heart-string.

“I beseech thee now,
Lord of Heaven,
And pray to thee,
Best of human-born,
That thou pity me,
Mighty Lord!
And aid me,
Father Almighty,
That I thy will
May perform
Before from this frail life
I depart.”


Tremulously sweet it drifted out over the garden and blended with the
aroma in the air. The wounded man smiled through his pain.

Raising her tear-stained face at last, Sister Wynfreda said humbly,
“God pardon me if I sin in my grief, but to me it seems so bitter a
thing when trouble comes upon the young. The first fall of the young
bird in its flight, the first blow that startles the young horse,—I
flinch before them as before my own wounds. When the light of the fair
young day dies before the noon, I feel the shadow in my heart; and it
saddens me to find a flower that worms have eaten in the bud and robbed
of its brief life in the sun. How much more, then, shall I grieve for
the blighting of this human flower? I declare with truth that the first
time I saw her my heart went out to her in a love which taught me how
mothers feel. Her freshness and gladness have fed my starved heart like
wine. I cannot bear that trouble should crush them out of her in the
very flower of her youth; I cannot bear that tears should wear channels
down her soft cheeks and dim the brightness of her eyes. Sooner would I
give what remains to me of life! Sister, do I sin? Do I seem to murmur
against His will? But I have grown used to suffering, while she—what
has she known but love? Oh, have I not suffered enough for both? Could
she not have been spared?” Her voice mounted to a cry of exceeding
bitterness.

Sister Sexberga rose, stretching toward her a tremulous pitying hand.
The light that shines on the mountain-top was very bright on her
wrinkled old face. She said softly, “It is not for me to say that you
sin in your grief, most dear sister. But I give you this thought for
your comfort: if you, who are tied to her by no bond of the flesh can
feel for her so great and brooding an affection, what then must be the
love of Him who fashioned her fair young body and lit the light of her
glad spirit? Of a surety its tender yearning can be no less than yours.
It may be that with tears He would wash the dust of the world from her
eyes, that her sight may be clear for a vision of holier things. But
believe that, even as you would shelter her, so will He not forsake her
in her helplessness. Believe, and be eased of your fear.” A rustling of
her robe across the grass, and she was gone.

The chant ceased, the wavering treble dying away in a note of haunting
sweetness. The man moaned and clutched at his wound; and the bowed
figure by his side roused herself to tend him. Then a grating of rusty
hinges made her turn her head.

Under the crumbling arch, relieved against the green of the lane
beyond, stood the figure of a slender boy wrapped in a mantle of
scarlet that bore a strangely familiar look. His hair fell upon his
shoulders in soft wavy locks of raven blackness; but his face was
turned away as his hands fumbled at the fastening.

Sister Wynfreda rose and took a step forward, staring at him in
bewilderment.

“Fridtjof?” she questioned.

At the sound of her voice, the boy turned and hastened toward her. Then
a great cry burst from Sister Wynfreda, for the face under the black
locks was the face of Randalin.




CHAPTER II. Randalin, Frode’s Daughter


At a hoary speaker
Laugh thou never.
Often is good that which the aged utter;
Oft from a shrivelled hide
Discreet words issue.
                    Hávamál.


She made a convincing boy, this daughter of the Vikings. Though she was
sixteen, her graceful body had retained most of the lines and slender
curves of childhood; and she was long of limb and broad of shoulder.
Her head was poised alertly above her strong young throat, and she was
as straight as a fir-tree and as supple as a birch. A life out-of-doors
had given to her skin a tone of warm brown, which, in a land that
expected women to be lily-fair, was like a mask added to her disguise.
The blackness of her hair was equally unconnected with Northern dreams
of beautiful maidens. “Dark-haired women, like slaves, black and bad,”
was the proverb of the Danish camps. Some fair-tressed ancestor back in
the past must have qualified his blood from the veins of an Irish
captive; in no other way could one account for those locks, and for her
eyes that were of the grayish blue of iris petals.

The eyes were a little staring this morning, as though still stretched
wide with the horror of the things they had looked upon; and all the
glowing red blood had ebbed away from the brown cheeks.

She said in a low voice, “My father... Fridtjof...” then stopped to
draw a long hard breath through her set teeth.

For the moment Sister Wynfreda was not a nun but a woman,—a woman with
a great yearning tenderness that might have been a beautiful
mother-love. She ran to the girl and caught her tremblingly by the
hands, feeling up her arms to her shoulders and about her face, as if
to make sure that she was really unharmed.

“Praise the Lord that you are delivered whole to me!” she breathed.
“Gram told us—that they had taken you.”

Gazing at her out of horror-filled eyes, Randalin stood quite still in
her embrace. Her story came from her in jerks, and each fragment seemed
to leave her breathless, though she spoke slowly.

“I broke away,” she said. “They stood around me in a ring. Norman
Leofwinesson said he would carry me before a priest and marry me, so
that Avalcomb might be his lawfully, whichever king got the victory. I
said by no means would I wed him; sooner would I slay him. All thought
that a great jest and laughed. While they were shouting I slipped
between them and got up the stairs into a chamber, where I bolted the
door and would not open to them, though they pounded their fists sore
and cursed at me. After a while the pounding became an exertion to
them, and one began to talk about the mead that was waiting below. And
after that they whispered together for a space. At last they began to
laugh and jeer, and called to me that they would go down and drink my
wedding toast before they broke in the door and fetched me; and then
they betook themselves to feasting.”

Sister Wynfreda bent her head to murmur a prayer: “God forgive me if I
have lacked charity in my judgment on the Pagans! If they who have seen
the light can do such deeds, what can be expected of those who yet
labor under the curse of darkness?”

“I do not understand you,” Randalin said wearily, sinking on the grass
and passing her hands over her strained eyes. “When a man looks with
eyes of longing upon another man’s property, it is to be expected that
he will do as much evil as luck allows him. Though he has got Baddeby,
Norman was covetous of Avalcomb. When his lord, Edric Jarl, was still
King Edmund’s man, he twice beset the castle, and my father twice held
it against him. And his greed was such that he could not stay away even
after Edric had become the man of Canute.”

It was the nun’s turn for bewilderment. “The man of Canute? Edric of
Mercia, who is married to the King’s sister? It cannot be that you know
what you say!”

“Certainly I know what I say,” the girl returned a little impatiently.
“All English lords are fraudulent; men can see that by the state of the
country. Though he be thrice kinsman to the English King, Edric Jarl
has joined the host of Canute of Denmark; and all his men have followed
him. But even that agreement could not hold Norman back from Avalcomb.
He lay hidden near the gate till he saw my father come, in the dusk,
from hunting, when he fell upon him and slew him, and forced an
entrance—the nithing! When he had five-and-fifty men and my father but
twelve!”

She paused, with set lips and head flung high. The nun got down stiffly
beside her and laid a gentle hand upon her knee.

“Think not of it, my daughter,” she urged. “Think of your present need
and of what it behooves us to do. Tell me how you escaped from the
chamber, and why you wear these clothes.”

“They were Fridtjof’s.” She spoke his name very softly. “I found them
hanging on the chamber wall. In the night the men began to entertain
themselves with singing, and it could be heard that they were getting
drunk. It had been in my mind that I would stay where I was until they
forced the door; then, because I would like it better to die than to
marry any of them, I would throw myself out of the window, and the
stones below would cause my death. But now it came to me that if I
could dress so that they would not notice me, there were many good
chances that I might slip past them and get out through the postern. I
waited till they were all still, and then I crept into the women’s
room, and found the bondmaids huddled in their beds. They got afraid at
the sight of me, for they thought I was Fridtjof’s ghost; and they
dared not move. So I had to go down alone.” She shuddered in spite of
herself. “Never did I think that darkness could be so unpleasant,—when
one is listening for sounds and fears to put out a hand lest it touch
something alive! But I got past the door and through the guard-room,
where the Englishmen were snoring so loud that they would not have
heard if I had stamped. In a niche in the wall outside I found Almstein
the steward hiding, full of fear. I made him follow me out of the
postern and around to the gate where...my father...and...Fridtjof...”
Her voice broke, but she struggled on. “The English dogs had left them
there... My father’s face was...wounded...and the moon made his hair
all silver round it, so that the blood looked to be black blots... And
Fridtjof’s sword was in his hand... Always he had wished to go into
battle, though he was no more than fourteen winters old... There was a
smile on his lips... I made Almstein dig two graves. He is a cowardly
fellow, and it is likely that he would have left them there till the
English were gone. I kissed Fridtjof’s mouth...and...and I laid...my
father’s cloak...over...over his...face.”

It was useless trying to go on; a deep sob shut off her voice and
threatened to rend her when she tried to hold it back. Sister Wynfreda
strove with gentle arms to draw her down upon her breast.

“Suffer the tears to come, my daughter,” she urged her tenderly, “or
sooner or later they must.”

Randalin pulled away almost roughly, dashing the drops from her eyes.

“They shall not!” she cried brokenly. “They shall not! Am I a
weak-minded English woman that I should shed tears because my kin are
murdered? I will shed blood to avenge them; that is befitting a Danish
girl. I will not weep,—as though there were shame to wash out! They
died with great glory, like warriors. I will fix it in my mind that I
am a kinswoman of warriors. I will not weep.”

The older woman shrank a little. To ears attuned to the silence of the
grave, such an outburst was little less than terrifying; she was at a
loss how to soothe the girl. To gain a respite, she stole away and
renewed the wounded man’s bandages.

After a moment Randalin rose and followed, buckling her cloak as she
went.

“Since I am become this man’s lord, I think it right for me to see how
he fares before I leave him,” she explained. Once more she spoke
gently, though the fire of her pride had quite dried her tears.

“Before you leave him?” The form in the faded robes turned inquiringly
toward the erect young figure in its brave scarlet cloak. “What is it
you say, my child?”

But Randalin was bending low over the green couch. “Do you know who I
am?” she was asking urgently of the woodward. “Fix your eyes on me and
try to gather together your wits.”

Slowly the man’s wandering gaze focussed itself; a silly laugh welled
up in his throat. “It would be no strange wonder if I did not,” he
chuckled. “Odin has changed you greatly; your face was never so
beautiful. But this once you cannot trick me, Fridtjof Frodesson.”

There came a time when this mistake was a source of some comfort to
Randalin, Frode’s daughter; but now she stirred impatiently.

“Look again, and try to command your tongue. Tell me the state of your
feelings. Can you live?”

The man shook with his foolish laughter. “You cub! Will not even being
killed cure you of your tricks? If you who have been in Valhalla do not
know what Odin intends about my life, how can I know, who have stayed
on earth?”

Sister Wynfreda’s hand fell upon the girl’s arm. “Disquiet yourself no
further,” she whispered. “It is useless and to no end. If it please the
Lord to bless our labors, the wound will soon be healed. Come this way,
where he cannot hear our voices, and tell me what moves you to speak of
leaving. Is it not your intention to creep in with us?”

As she yielded reluctantly to the pressure, Randalin even showed
surprise at the question. “By no means. My errand hither was only to
ask for bread. I thought it unadvisable to venture into the castle
kitchen, yet it is needful that I keep up my strength. I go direct to
the Danish camp to get justice from King Canute.”

The nun reached out and caught the gay cloak, gasping. “The Danish
camp? You speak in a raving fit! Better you thrust yourself into a den
of ravenous beasts. You know not what you say.”

Offense stiffened the figure under the cloak. “It is you who do not
know. Now, as always, you think about Canute what lying English mouths
have told of him. I know him from my father’s lips. No man on the
Island is so true as he, or so generous to those who ask of him. Time
and again have I heard my father bid Fridtjof to imitate him. He is the
highest-minded man in the world.” Her voice as she ended was a stone
wall of defiance. Sister Wynfreda made a desperate dash down another
road.

“My daughter, I entreat that you will not despise my offer. The yoke is
not so heavy here. Here is no strict convent rule; how could there be?
We are but a handful of feeble old women left living after those who
led us are gone, to the end that heathen fog smother not utterly the
light which once was so bright. In truth, most dear child, you would
have no hard lot among us. A few hours’ work in the garden,—surely that
is a pleasure, watching the fair green things spring and thrive under
your care. And when the tenderness of the birds and the content of the
little creeping creatures have filled your heart to bursting with a
sense of God’s goodness, to come and stand before the Holy Table and
pour out your joys in sweet melody—”

But Randalin’s head was shaking too decidedly, though she was not
ungentle in her answering. “I give you thanks, Sister Wynfreda, but
such a life is not for me. My nature is such that I do not like the
gloomy songs you sing; nor do I care for green things, except to wear
in my hair. And it seems to me that I should be spiritless and a coward
if I should like such a life. I am no English girl, to tremble and hide
under a mean kirtle. I am a Norse maiden, the kinswoman of warriors. I
think I should not show much honor to my father and my brother were I
to leave them unavenged and sit down here with you. No, I will go to my
King and get justice. When he has slain the murderer and given me the
castle again, I will come back; and you shall come and live with me,
and eat meat instead of herbs, and—”

In her desperation, Sister Wynfreda caught her by the wrists and held
her. “My daughter, my daughter, shake off this sleep of your wits, I
entreat you! The men you are trusting in are dreams which you have
dreamed in the safety of your father’s arms. They among whom you are
going are barbarians,—yea, devils! It were even better had you married
the son of Leofwine. Think you I know nothing of the Pagans, that you
set my words at naught? Who but Danish-men laid low these walls, and
slaughtered the holy nuns as lambs are torn by wild beasts? Have I not
seen their horrid wickedness? You think a nun a coward? Know you how
these scars came on my face? Three times, with my own hands, I pressed
a red-hot iron there to destroy the beauty that allured, else had the
Pagans dragged me with them. Was I a coward?”

Randalin’s eyes were very wide. “It seems to me that you were
simple-minded,” she breathed. “Why did you not thrust the iron in _his_
face?”

But Sister Wynfreda’s expression changed so strangely that the girl
foresaw an attack along another line, and hastened to forestall it. “It
is not worth while to tell me further about the matter. Do you not see
that it is by no means the same? I shall be a Danish woman among Danish
men. I shall not be a captive, to be made a drudge of and beaten. It is
altogether different. I shall be with my own people, my own King. Let
us end this talk. Give me the bread and let me go. The sun is getting
high.”

She glanced at it as she spoke, and found it so much higher than she
had realized that her haste increased.

“No, I dare not wait for it. It is necessary that I get a good start,
or they will overtake me. They are to join Canute near Scoerstan; I
heard it talked among them. My horse is somewhat heavy in his
movements, for he is the one Gram rode yesterday; I found him grazing
by the road. Let me go, Sister Wynfreda. Bid me farewell and let me
go.”

Clutching at her belt, her arm, her cloak, the nun strove desperately
to detain her. “Randalin! Listen! Alas! how you grieve me by talking
after this manner! Wait, you do not understand. It is not their cruelty
I fear for you. Child, listen! It is not their blows—”

But Randalin had wrenched herself free. “Oh, fear, fear, fear!” she
cried impatiently. “Fear your enemies; fear your friends; fear your
shadow! Old women are afraid of everything! You will see when I come
back. No, no, do not look at me like that; I do not mean to behave
badly toward you, but it will become a great misfortune to me if I am
hindered; it will, in truth. See now; I will kiss you—here where your
cheek is softest. I cannot allow you to take hold of my cloak again.
There! Now lay your hand upon my head, as you do with the children when
you wish them good luck.”

Because there was nothing else to do, and because the thought of doing
this gave her some comfort, Sister Wynfreda complied. Laying her
trembling hands upon the bared black head, she raised her despairing
face to heaven and prayed with all the earnestness that was hers. Then
she stood at the gate in silence and watched the girl set forth. As
Randalin turned into the sunny highway, she looked back with a brave
smile and waved her cap at the faded figure under the arch. But the
nun, left in the moss-grown garden, wrapped in the peace of the grave,
saw her through a blur of tears.

“God guard you, my fledgeling,” she whispered over and over. “My
prayers be as a wall around you. My love go with you as a warm hand in
your loneliness. God keep you in safety, my most beloved daughter!”




CHAPTER III. Where War-dogs Kennel


Openly I now speak
Because I both sexes know:
Unstable are men’s minds toward women;
‘T is when we speak most fair,
When we most falsely think:
That deceives even the cautious.
                    Hávamál.


This morning there were few travellers upon the Street. South of the
highway the land was held by English farmers, who would naturally
remain under cover while a Danish host was in the neighborhood; while
north of the great dividing line lay Danish freeholds whose masters
might be equally likely to see the prudence of being in their
watch-towers when the English allies were passing. Barred across by the
shadows of its mighty trees, the great road stretched away mile after
mile in cool emptiness. At rare intervals, a mounted messenger
clattered over the stones, his hand upon his weapon, his eyes rolling
sharply in a keen watch of the thicket on either side. Still more
rarely, foraging parties swept through the morning stillness, lowing
cows pricked to a sharp trot before them, and squawking fowls slung
over their broad shoulders. Captured pigs gave back squeal for squawk,
and the voices of the riders rose in uproarious laughter until the very
echoes revolted and cast back the hideous din.

The approach of the first of these bands caused Randalin’s heart to
leap and sink under her brave green tunic. For all that she could tell
from their dress, they might as well be English as Danish. If her
disguise should fail! As they bore down upon her, she drew her horse to
the extreme edge of the road and turned upon them a pale defiant face.

On they came. When they caught sight of a sprig of a boy drawn up
beside the way with his hand resting sternly on his knife, they sent up
a shout of boisterous merriment. The blood roared so loudly in
Randalin’s ears that she could not understand what they said. She
jerked her horse’s head toward the trees and drove her spur deep into
his side. Only as he leaped forward and they swept past her, shouting,
did the words reach home.

“Look at the warrior, comrades!” “Hail, Berserker!” “Scamper, cub, or
your nurse will catch you!” “Tie some of your hair on your chin, little
one!”

As the sound of hoof-beats died away, and the nag settled back to his
steady jog-trot, the girl unclenched her hands and drew a long breath.

“Though it seems a strange wonder that they should not know me for a
woman, I think I need give myself no further uneasiness. It must be
that I am very like Fridtjof in looks. It may be that it would not be
unadvisable now for me to ask advice of the next person how I can come
to the camp.”

The asking had become a matter of necessity by the time she found
anyone capable of answering the question. Three foreign merchants whom
she overtook near noon could give her no information, and she covered
the next five miles without seeing a living creature; then it was only
a beggar, who crawled out of the bushes to offer to sell the child
beside him for a crust of bread. The petition brought back to Randalin
her own famished condition so sharply that her answer was unnecessarily
petulant, and the man disappeared before the question could even be put
to him. Two miles more, and nothing was in front of her but a flock of
ragged blackbirds circling over a trampled wheat-field. Already the
sun’s round chin rested on the crest of the farthest hill. In
desperation, she turned aside and galloped after a mailed horseman who
was trotting down a clover-sweet lane with a rattle and clank that
frightened the robins from the hedges. He reined in with a guffaw when
he saw what mettle of blade it was that had accosted him.

“Is it your intention to join the army?” he inquired. “Canute will
consider himself in great luck.”

“I am desirous to—to tell him something,” Red Cloak faltered.

His grin vanishing, the man leaned forward alertly. “Is it war news? Of
Edric Jarl’s men?”

Before her tongue could move, Randalin’s surprised face had answered.
The warrior smote his thigh resoundingly.

“You will be able to tell us tidings we wish to know. Since the fight
this morning we have been allowed to do no more than growl at the
English dogs across the plain, because it was held unadvisable to make
an onset until the Jarl’s men should increase our strength. It is to be
hoped they are not far behind?”

“You make a mistake,” Randalin began hesitatingly. “My news does not
concern the doings of Edric Jarl, but the actions of his man Norman—”

A blow across her lips silenced her.

“Hold your tongue until you come in to the Chief,” the man admonished
her, with good-humored severity. “Have you not learned that babbling
turns to ill, you sprouting twig? And waste no more time upon the road,
either. Yonder is your shortest way, up that lane between the barley.
When you come to a burned barn, do you turn to the left and ride
straight toward the woods; it should happen that an old beech stock
stands where you come out. Take then the path that winds up-hill, and
it will bring you to the war booths before you can open your foolish
mouth thrice. Trolls! what a cub to send a message by! But get along,
now; you will suffer from their temper if they think it likely that you
have kept them waiting.” He gave the horse a stinging slap upon the
flank, that sent him forward like a shaft from a bow.

Snatching up her slackened rein with one hand, his rider managed to
secure her leaping cap with the other; and after the first bounce, she
caught the jerky gait instinctively and swayed her body into its uneven
swing. But her heart was all at once a-throb in a wild panic. Was this
what a boy must expect? This challenging brutal downrightness, which
made one seem to have become a dog that must prove his usefulness or be
kicked aside? Her spirit felt as bruised as a fledgeling fallen upon
stony ground. She shivered as the old beech stock loomed up before her.

“If these other men behave so, it is in my mind to tell them that I am
a woman,” she decided. “Since they are my own people, no evil can come
of their knowing; and I dislike the other feeling.”

The recollection that she had always this escape open gave her a new
lease of boldness. Her courage rose as fast as her body when they began
to climb the hillside toward the ruddy light that slanted down between
the tree-trunks. When a sentinel stopped her near the top, she faced
him with a fairly firm front.

“I have war news for King Canute,” she told him haughtily; and he let
her pass with no more than a grin.

The camp appeared to be strung through the whole beech grove that
covered the crest of the hill. The first sign of it began less than ten
yards beyond the sentry, where a couple of squatting thralls were
skinning a slain deer; and as far as eye could swim in the flood of
sunset light, the green aisles were dotted with scattered groups. Every
flat rock had a ring of dice-throwers bending over it; every fallen
trunk its row of idlers. Wherever a cluster of boulders made a passable
smithy, crowds of sweating giants plied hammer and sharpening-stone.
The edges of the little stream that trickled down to the valley were
thronged with men bathing gaping wounds and tearing up the cool moss to
staunch their flowing blood. Never had the girl dreamed of such chaos.
It gave her the feeling of having plunged into a whirlpool. She
threaded her way among the groups as silently as the leaf-padded ground
would permit.

She had come in by the back door, but now she began to reach the better
quarters. Her nose reported sooner than her eyes that a meal was in
making; and a glow of anticipation braced her famished body. Here, in
this green alcove, preparations were just beginning; a white-robed
slave knelt by the curling thread of smoke and nursed the flickering
flame with his breath, while his circle of hungry masters pelted him
with woolly beech-nuts and cursed his slowness. There, a dozen yards to
the left, the meal was nearly over; between the gnarled trunks the fire
shone like a red eye; and bursts of merriment and snatches of
boisterous song marked the beginning of the drinking.

Sometimes a woman’s lighter laughter would mingle with the peal.
Sometimes, through the sway-ing branches, Randalin caught sight of the
flower-fair face of an English girl, bending between the shaggy yellow
heads of the captors. Once she came upon a brawny Viking employing his
huge fingers to twine a golden chain around a white throat. The girl’s
face was dimpling bewitchingly as she held aside her shining hair.
Randalin had an impulse of triumph.

“I wish that Sister Wynfreda could see that, now, since it is her
belief that Danes are always overbearing toward their captives,” she
told herself. “This one has no appearance of having felt blows or known
hard labor. She could not have been entertained with greater liberality
in her father’s house—”

She broke off suddenly, as the words suggested a new train of thought.
This girl must have been driven from her father’s house by Danes, even
as she herself had been driven forth by the English. Yet here was she
eating with her foes, taking gold from their hands! Could she have
honor who would thus make friends with the slayers of her kin? Randalin
watched her wonderingly until leaves shut out the picture.

Another sentinel hailed her, and she gave him absently her customary
answer. He pointed to a great striped tent of red and white linen,
adorned with fluttering streamers and guarded by more sentries in
shining mail; and she rode toward it in a daze.

More revellers sprawled under these trees, and she looked at them
curiously. The women here did not seem to be amusing themselves so
well. One was weeping; and one—a slip of a girl with a face like a
rose—was trying vainly to rise from her place beside a drunken warrior,
who held her hands and strove to pull her lips down to his wine-stained
mouth. In imagination Randalin felt again Norman’s arm around her
waist, and a wild pity was quickened in her. This was worse than
drudgery, worse than blows! For the credit of Danish warriors, it was
well that Sister Wynfreda could not see this.

Again her own words raised a startling apparition. What had been the
Sister’s last cry of warning? “It is not their cruelty I fear for you.
Child, listen! It is not their blows—” Could it be possible that this
was what—

Like a merciless answer came a scream from the girl,—a short piercing
cry of horror and loathing and agonized appeal as she was drawn down
upon the leering face. At that cry, childhood’s blind trust died
forever in Randalin. As she rode past the pair, with clenched hands and
flashing eyes, she knew without reasoning that tortures would not tear
from her the secret of her disguise.

When the sentinel before the tent challenged her roughly, it was her
tongue, not her brain, that answered him.

“I have war news for the King.”

In a twinkling he had dropped his spear, plucked her from her saddle,
and was marching her toward the entrance by her collar.

“In the Troll’s name, get in to the Chief, and let nothing hinder you!”
he growled. “From your snail’s pace I got the idea that you had come
a-begging. Get in, and set your tongue wagging as speedily as you can!
Why do you draw back? I tell you to make haste!”

Before she could so much as catch her breath, he had raised the
tent-flap, pushed her bodily through the entrance, and dropped the
linen door behind her.




CHAPTER IV. When Royal Blood Is Young Blood


The mind only knows
What lies near the heart;
That alone is conscious of our affections.
No disease is worse
To a sensible man
Than not to be content with himself.
                    Hávamál.


Three richly dressed warriors, clinking golden goblets across a
table,—so much Randalin caught in her first glance. On the spot where
the sentinel had released her she stopped, stock-still, and with eyes
bent on the ground tremblingly awaited the royal attention.

Clink-clank,—the golden goblet lips continued their noisy kissing. The
hum of the low-toned voices droned on without interruption. Minute
after minute dragged by. She ventured to shift her weight and steal an
upward glance.

Her first thought was that a king’s tent was very like a trader’s
booth. Spears and banners and gold-bossed shields decorated the walls,
while the reed-strewn ground was littered with furs and armor, with
jewelled altar-cloths and embroidered palls and wonder-ful gold-laced
garments. The rude temporary benches were spread with splendid covers
of purple and green, upon which silver lilies and gold-eyed peacocks
had been wrought with exquisite skill. And the rough-hewn table bore
such treasures as plunderers dream of when their sleeping-bags are
lying the most comfortably,—ivory relique caskets, out of which the
sacred bones had been unceremoniously turned, gemmed chalices from
earls’ feasting-halls, and amber chains and silver mirrors and strings
of pearls from their ladies’ bowers. Randalin’s gaze lingered, dazzled,
then slowly rose to examine the master of all this wealth.

He was not so easy to pick out. Of the three men around the table, only
one was a graybeard; and of the two striplings left, either might have
been the son of Sven of Denmark. Both were finely formed; both were
dressed with royal splendor, and the hair of each fell from under a
jewelled circlet in uncut lengths of shining fairness. The hair of the
shorter one, though, was finer; and no red tainted the purity of its
gold. When one came to look at it, it was like a royal cloak. Perhaps
he might be the King! She wished he would raise his face from his
hands, that she might see it. Then she noticed that his shoulders
lacked the breadth of his companion’s by as much as a palm’s width; and
her mind wavered. Surely so great a king as Canute must be
broader-shouldered than any of his subjects! This youth was hardly
brawny at all; as Vikings went, he was even slender. She turned her
attention to the other man. He was big enough, certainly; the fist that
he was waving in the air was like nothing so much as a sledge-hammer,
and there was a likeness to the Jotuns in his florid coarse-featured
face.

As she watched it, Randalin felt a coldness creep over her. His great
jaws were like the jowl of a mastiff. His thick-lipped mouth—what was
it that made that so terrible, even in smiling? Watching it with the
fascination of terror, it occurred to her to endow him with the
appetite of the drunken warrior at the table outside the tent. Suppose,
just as they stood now, he should take the fancy to turn and kiss her
lips; would anything stop him? In the drawing of a breath, her
overwrought nerves had painted the picture so clearly that she was sick
with horror. Sister Wynfreda’s red-hot iron would not keep him back,
instinct told her. That sacrifice of beauty had not been simple-minded;
it had been the one alternative. The girl’s light-hearted boldness went
from her in a gasp. Her shaking limbs gave way beneath her, so that she
sank on the nearest bench and cowered there, panting.

Though the men were too intent to notice her, in some sub-conscious way
her moving seemed to rouse them. Their discussion had been growing
gradually louder; now the bearded man and the young Jotun rose suddenly
and faced their companion, whose voice became audible in an obstinate
mutter,—

“Nevertheless, I doubt that it was wise to join hands with an English
traitor.”

The older man said in a tone of slowly gathering anger, “I told you to
make the bargain, and I stand at the back of my counsels. Have you
become like the wind, which tries every quarter of the sky because it
knows not its own mind?”

While the young man warned in his heavy voice, “You will have your will
in this as in everything, King Canute; but I tell you that if you keep
the bargain, you will act against my advice.”

Randalin had been mistaken in her deductions. It was not the brawny
body that was King of the Danes; the leader’s spirit lodged in the
slender frame of the youth with the cloak of yellow hair.

He raised from his hands now a face of boyish sullenness, and sat
glaring over his clenched fists at his counsellors.

“Certainly it would become a great misfortune to me if I should act
against the advice of Rothgar Lodbroksson,” he made stinging answer.
“He is as wise and long-sighted as though he had eaten a dragon’s
heart. It was he who gave me the advice, when the English broke faith,
to vent my rage upon the hostages. Men have not yet ceased to lift
their noses at me for the unkingliness of the deed.” His eyes blazed at
the memory. They were not pleasant eyes when he was angry; the blue
seemed to fade from them until they were two shining colorless pools in
his brown face.

The son of Lodbrok shrugged his huge shoulders in stolid resignation;
but the wrinkled forehead of the older man became somewhat smoother.
There was nothing Jotun-like about his long, lean features, yet his
expression was little pleasanter on that account. From under his
lowering shaggy brows he appeared to see without being seen; and one
distrusted his hidden eyes as a traveller in the open distrusts a
skulker in the thicket.

He said in his measured voice, “In that matter my opinion stands with
Canute. When bloodshed is unnecessary, it becomes a drawback. Craft is
greatly to be preferred. One does not cross deep snow by stamping
through it on iron-shod feet; one slides over it on skees.”

Over the brown fists, the fierce bright eyes bent themselves upon him
in his turn. The biting young voice said, “It is likely that Thorkel
the Tall speaks from experience. It stands in my memory how well craft
served him when he had deserted my father for Ethelred and then became
tired of the Englishman. To procure himself peace, he was forced to
creep back to my feet like a dog that has been kicked. Was there gold
enough in his bribe to regild his fame?”

The gnarled old face of Thorkel the Tall grew livid; growling in his
grizzled beard, his hand moved instinctively toward his sword. But
Rothgar caught his arm with a boisterous laugh.

“Slowly, old wolf!” he admonished. “Never snarl at the snapping of the
cub you have raised.”

The King had not moved at the threatening gesture, and he did not move
now, but he echoed the laugh bitterly. “In that, you say more truth
than you know, foster-brother. He is a wolf, and I am a wolf’s cub, and
you are no better. We are all a pack of ravening beasts, we Northmen,
that have no higher ambition than to claw and use our teeth. Talk of
high-mindedness to such—bah!” He flung his arms apart in loathing;
then, in a motion as boyishly weary as it was boyishly petulant,
crossed them on the table before him and pillowed his head upon them.

His companions did not seem to be unused to such outbursts. Rothgar
appeared to find it more amusing than anything else, for his mouth
expanded slowly in a grin. A snort of impatience distended the nostrils
of Thorkel the Tall. “At such times as these,” he said, “are brought to
my mind the words of Ulf Jarl, that a man does not really stand well
upon his legs until he has lived twenty-five winters.”

Up came the young King’s yellow head. There was no question now about
his temper. A spot of fiery red marked each cheek-bone, and his
colorless eyes were points of blazing light.

“Better is it to stand unsteadily upon two legs than to go naturally
upon four,” he retorted. “If I also am a beast, at least there is a
man’s mind in me that tells me to loathe myself for being so. Even as I
loathe you—both of you—and all your howling pack! Make me no answer or,
by the head of Odin, you shall feel my fangs! You say that my will is
like the wind’s will. Can you not see why, dull brutes that you are?
Because it is not my will, but yours,—now Rothgar’s beast-fierceness,
now your low-minded craft. Because I am not content with myself, I
listen to you. And you—you—Oh, leave me, leave me, before I lose my
human nature and go mad like a dog! Leave—You laugh!” As he caught
sight of Rothgar, he interrupted himself with a roar. His hand shot to
his belt and plucking forth the jewelled knife that hung there, hurled
it, a glittering streak, at the grinning face. If it had reached home,
one of Rothgar’s eyes would have gone out in darkness.

But the son of Lodbrok had known his royal foster-brother too long to
be taken by surprise. Throwing up a wooden platter like a shield, he
caught the quivering blade in its bottom, whence he drew it forth with
good-humored composure.

“If you wish to give a friend a present, King, you should not throw it
at him so angrily,” he suggested. “Had you given me the sheath too,
your gift would have been doubly dear.”

The fiery spots in Canute’s cheeks deepened and spread. He turned away
without answering, and stood a long time beating his fingers on the
table in a sharp tattoo.

What does it mean, the pause that follows the storm, when Nature’s
accumulated discontent has vented itself in a passionate outbreak? The
trees stand motionless, with hanging heads; the blue of the clearing
sky is divinely tender; under the spangling drops, the flowers look up
like tear-filled eyes. Does it mean repentance, or only exhaustion?

Gradually the color flowed back to the young King’s eyes and softened
them; gradually his mouth relaxed from its fierce lines and drooped in
bitter curves. When at last his fingers stopped their nervous beat, it
was to unfasten the sheath of chased gold which was attached to his
waist, and stretch it out to Rothgar.

“Have it your own way,” he said gravely. “It is right that I pay some
fine; I have a troll’s temper. Take the sheath. But do not make the
mistake again of laughing at me because you cannot understand me. But
one person may do that and live; and that person is a woman, and my
wife... There is a strange feeling in my heart that we have begun to
travel different paths, you and I,—and that it is because we no longer
walk on the same level of ground, that we no longer see any object in
the same light... And my mind tells me that in time to come your path
will lead you down into the valley and my road will take me up the
mountain-side,...until even our voices shall no longer reach across.”
He came out of his dreaming abruptly. “It is not worth while to speak
further. I do not blame my foster-father that he is lifting the corner
of his mouth at me. And you—you think I am talking in my sleep. Leave
me, as I ordered you. There is no unfriendliness in my mind at this,
but I can command myself no further. Go.”

Rothgar said, with some approach to formal courtesy, “I ask you to
pardon it that I have done what you dislike, for I wish that the least
of all the world. And I give you thanks for your gift.” Their hands
clasped strongly as the trinket passed from grasp to grasp.

Then the sage and the soldier turned and strode past the cowering
figure of Randalin and out of the linen doorway.




CHAPTER V. Before The King


Know if thou hast a friend
Whom thou little trustest
Yet wouldst good from him derive
Thou shouldst speak him fair,
But think craftily,
And leasing pay with lying.
                    Hávamál.


When the curtain had fallen behind his advisers, the young King threw
himself back upon his rude high-seat and rested motionless among its
cushions, his head hanging heavily upon his breast.

Crouching on her bench near the door, Randalin watched him as a fly
caught in a web watches the approaching spider. She had forgotten her
errand; she had forgotten her disguise; she had forgotten where she
was; her one conscious emotion was fear. Her eyes followed his roving
glance from spear to banner, from floor to ceiling, in terrible
anticipation. It approached her; it turned aside; it passed above her,
hesitated, sank, touched her! Ashen-white, she staggered to her feet
and faced him.

A lithe boyish figure with wide boyish eyes and a tanned boyish
face,—Canute gazed incredulously; rubbed his eyes and looked again.

“In the Troll’s name, who are you?” he ejaculated. “How came you here?”

The pale lips moved, but no sound came from them.

Their fruitless twitching seemed to irritate him. He made a petulant
gesture toward the half-filled goblet. “Why do you stand there making
mouths? Drink that and get a man’s voice into your throat, if you have
anything to say to me.”

“A man’s voice!” The girl stared at him. “A _man_’s voice?” Then, like
lungfuls of fresh air, it entered into her that she was not really the
naked fledgeling she felt herself. She was in the toils, surely, but
there was a shell around her. Glad to hide her face for a moment, she
seized the goblet and drained it slowly to the last drop. If only she
could remember just how Fridtjof had borne himself! As she swallowed
the last mouthful, a recollection came to her of the thrall-women
grumbling over Fridtjof’s wine-stained tunics; and she carefully drew
her sleeve across her mouth as she set down the cup.

Leaning back in his seat, the King took frowning measure of his guest,
from the toe of her spurred riding-boot to the top of the green cap
which she had forgotten to remove. His mood seemed wavering between
annoyance and amusement; a word could decide the balance. With her last
swallow he repeated his challenge.

“Are you capable now of giving me any reason why I should not have you
flogged from the camp? Is it your opinion that because I choose to
behave foolishly before my friends, I am desirous to have tale-bearing
boys listening?”

“Boys” again! Randalin’s sinking spirit rallied at the assurance as her
fainting body had revived under the rich warmth of the mead.

She managed to stammer out, “I entreat you not to be angry, Lord King.
It was the fault of the man on guard that I came in as I did. And I did
not understand six of the words you spoke,—I beseech you to believe
it.”

That she had in truth been too frightened for intelligent
eavesdropping, the remaining pallor of her face made it easy to
believe. The scales tipped ever so little.

“Did you think you had fallen into a bear pit?” the King asked with a
faint smile, that sharpened swiftly to bitterness. “After all, it would
matter little what anyone told of me. Without doubt your kin have
already taught you to call me thrall-bred and witless. Little more can
be said.”

That from the warrior whose foot was already planted on the neck of
England! In her surprise, Randalin’s eyes met his squarely. “By no
means, King Canute; my father called you the highest-minded man in the
world.”

The young leader flushed scarlet, flushed till he felt the burning, and
averted his face to hide it. He said in a low voice, “Many things have
been told of me that I count for naught, but this—this has not been
said of me before. Tell me his name.”

“He was called Frode, the Dane of Avalcomb.” The red mouth trembled a
little. “He is dead now. He was slain last night, by Norman
Leofwinesson, who is Edric Jarl’s thane.”

As both horseman and sentinel had started at that name, so now the King
straightened into alertness, forgetting everything else.

“Leofwinesson? What know you of him or his Jarl? Where are they? When
saw you them?”

“Last night; when they lay drunk in my father’s castle at Avalcomb,
after—”

“Avalcomb? Near St. Alban’s? The swine!” The monarch was a soldier now,
shooting his questions like arrows. “After I bade them at Gillingham
come straight to me! How many were they? Where is the Jarl?”

“He was not with them. It was Norman of Baddeby who led, and he had no
more than five-and-fifty men. It was spoken among them that they would
join you at sunset to-day—”

Canute’s hand shot out and gripped her arm and shook it. “You know this
for certain? I will have your tongue if you lie to me! You are sure
that they intend coming,—that it is not their intention to play me
false and return to Edmund?” His voice was stern, his gaze mercilessly
direct. An hour before, the girl would have shrunk from them both.

One can learn life-lessons in an hour. She faced the roughness now as
one faces a rush of bracing north wind. “I know what I heard them say,
Lord King. They said that Edric Jarl had marched on to St. Alban’s to
lie there over-night. Leofwinesson stopped at Avalcomb because he
wished to vent his spite upon my father. It was their intention to meet
at the city gate at noon and come on to join you. They will be here
before the sun is set.”

Canute released her arm to reach for his goblet. “I wish I could know
it for certain,” he muttered. “But it is as the saying has it, ‘Though
they fight and quarrel among themselves, the eagles will mate again.’”
He looked at her with a half-smile as he refilled his cup, motioning
toward the other flagon. “Fill up, and we will drink a toast to their
loyalty and to your beard; they appear to be equally in need of
encouragement.” Draining it off, he sat staring down into the dregs,
twirling the stem thoughtfully between his fingers.

By the time she had shifted her weight twice for each foot, the
petitioner ventured to recall him.

“It gives me some hope, to hear what you say about suspecting Edric
Jarl,” she said timidly; “for that makes it appear more likely that you
will be willing to give me justice on his man.”

“Justice?” The King’s mind came back to her slowly, as from an immense
distance. “By Thor, I had forgotten! There have not been so many to me
on that errand... Though I take it well that you should trust me...
Yes, certainly; I will be king-like once. Stand here before me, while I
question you.”

She caught her breath rather sharply as she stepped forward. Would she
be able to tell a straight story? She stood with fingers interlacing
nervously.

“Tell me first how you are called?”

“I am called Fridtjof Frodesson.”

“Frode of Avalcomb! Now I know where I have heard that name; my father
spoke it often, and always with great respect. It will go hard with me
if I must return an unfavorable answer to his son. Tell me how his
death was brought about.”

Randalin thrust the sobs back from her throat; the tears back from her
eyes. Only a clear head could deliver her out of the snare. She began
slowly: “Leofwinesson set upon him last night, at the gate of the
castle, and slew him. The Englishman had long been covetous of
Avalcomb, so that even his fear of you was not so great as his greed.
He had five-and-fifty men, and my father but twelve—besides me;
he—we—had just come in from hunting. Then he rode over my father’s body
into the castle.” She stopped uncertainly to glance at her listener.

The brightness of his eyes startled her, though they were not turned in
her direction. They were blazing down into the cup that he was turning
and pinching between his fingers. He said, half as though to himself:
“Vermin! What would I give if I might take them in my teeth and shake
them like the filth-fed rats they are! Ten hundred such do not reach
the value of one finger of a warrior like Frode! I knew that the
fetters of Thorkel’s craftiness would pinch me some-where—” He broke
off and flung the goblet from him, burying his hands in his yellow
hair. “How I hate them!” he breathed between his teeth. “How I hate
their smooth-tongued Jarl, and all their treacherous hides! Oh, for the
day when I no longer need their aid; when I am free to strike!” The joy
of his face was a terrible thing to hold in one’s memory.

Perhaps he saw its awfulness reflected in the wide blue eyes, for he
checked himself abruptly. When he spoke again, he had himself well in
hand.

“I act like a fool to let you hear my ravings. Poor cub! it is likely
you will call me a worse name when you find out how I am hindered! Yet
go on and tell me the rest. How comes it that you escaped unharmed?”

With Gram’s experience to follow, it was not hard to frame that answer.
“They knocked me on the head with a spear-butt and left me for dead.
When I got my senses again, I found my way to the nuns of St.
Mildred’s; and they gave me food, and I rode hither.”

“It is the Troll’s luck! I—yet, go on. The day will come! Did they
further harm within the castle? Have you women-kin?”

Randalin hesitated. Would it not be safer if she could deny altogether
the existence of a daughter of Frode? But no, that was not possible, in
the face of what Norman might reveal. She began very, very carefully:
“It happened that my mother died before we came to Avalcomb; and my
father had but one daughter. She was called Randalin. I did not see
what became of her, for I was outside; but I think that she is dead.
A—her thrall-woman told me that Leofwinesson pursued her to a chamber
in the wall. And and because she could not escape from him—she—she
threw herself from the window, and the stones below caused her death.”

The King’s hands clenched convulsively. “It is like them!” he muttered.
“It has happened as I supposed. If the master be like his men, I ask
you in what their God is to be preferred to ours? Have no fear but that
I will avenge your kinswoman. Those of her own blood-ties could do no
more. And Frode also. You need not wait long for me when the day comes;
the last hair of the otter-skin shall be covered, though I take from
them the Ring itself. You shall see! Have patience, and you shall see!”

Upon burning ears the word “patience” falls coldly.

“Patience!” the child of Frode repeated.

Perhaps in days gone by the young King himself had rebelled at the
tyranny of that word. Perhaps the smart of its scourge was still upon
him. He put forth a kindly hand and drew the boy down beside him.

“Listen, young one,” he said, “and do not blame me for what I cannot
help. Had I come hither only to get property and go away again, as
Northmen before me have come, it would not matter to me whom I killed,
and I would slay Leofwinesson more gladly than I would eat; may the
Giant take me if I lie! But I have come to the Island to set up my
seat-pillars and get myself land. I think no one guesses how much I
have the ambition at heart; even to me it appears a strange wonder. But
it is true that I look upon the fair rolling meadows with such eyes of
love that when it is necessary that I should set fire to them, it is as
though I had laid the torch to my hair. And because of that, in order
that I be not kept destroying them until they are not worth the having,
I have made a bargain with Edric Jarl, who is dissatisfied with his
king, that we are to support each other in the game. There it is all
open to you. Leofwinesson is the man of Edric. Until such time as I get
the kingship firmly in my hands, it would be unadvisable for me to
reckon with him though he had slain my foster-brother. You see? It is
the way the Fates order things. I must submit to them, though I am a
king. Can you not, then, bend your head without shame, and wait with
me?”

Reasoning was lost on Randalin. The bitterness of failure had swept
over her and maddened her. Was she mistaken, then, about everything?
Could those trembling old women behind the broken wall read the world
like witches? Was everyone false or a beast? Oh, how her father had
been wronged! She shook off the King’s hand and faced him with blazing
eyes, seeking for words that should bite like her thoughts. Then she
became conscious that a word would precipitate a flood of hysterical
tears, to the eternal disgrace of her warrior kin. All that was left
for her was to get away without speaking. Out in the woods there would
be no one to see; and the grass would hide the quivering of her lips.
She put up her hand now to hide it and, struggling to her feet, began
groping toward the door.

She did not stop when Canute’s voice called after her,—not until she
had reached the entrance, and the rattle of crossing spears, without,
had told her that her way was barred. Then she whirled back with a
sharp cry.

“Let me go! I hate you! Let me go!”

He did not bid his guards kill her, as she half expected. Instead, he
said patiently, “I foresaw that you would take it ill; there is the
greatest excuse for you. In your place I should be equally unruly.
Indeed, there is a likeness about our luck, which causes my heart to go
out to you as it has done to no one else. I will grant your boon in
time to come; so sure as I live, I will. And until then, since all your
stock has been cut off, I will be your guardian and you shall be my
ward, as though you were my own brother. Come, sit here, and I will
tell you.”

She repulsed him sharply. “No, no, you shall do nothing for me! I am
going back. I ask you to let me go.”

“Let you go, to starve under a hedge?”

“I shall not starve; Avalcomb is mine.”

“What food will that put in your mouth, since Leofwinesson has
conquered it and driven out your servants and set his own in their
place?”

Her heart sickened within her. Once more the impulse came to creep
away, like a wounded animal, and fight it out alone. She turned again
to the door.

“I will starve, then. Let me go.”

Leaning at his ease in the great chair, the young King regarded his
ward thoughtfully. “It is not possible that the son of Frode the
Fearless should be a coward,” he said at last; “but you are
over-peevish, boy. That you have never known government is easily seen.
Listen now to the truth of the matter. If you were a maiden, it would
be easy for me to—Are you listening?” He paused, for the slim figure
had suddenly become so statue-like that he suspected it of plotting
another attack upon the door.

The boy answered very low, “Yes, Lord King, I am listening.”

Canute went on again: “I say that if you were a maiden,—if you were
your sister, to tell it shortly,—I could easily dispose of you in
marriage. Thus would you get protection, and your father’s castle would
gain a strong arm to fight for it. I would wed you to my
foster-brother, Rothgar Lodbroksson, and thus bring good to both of—Are
you finding fault with that also?”

But the lad stood before him like a stone. If a faint cry had come from
him, it was not repeated; and there was nothing offensive about a
hidden face and shaking limbs.

The King continued more gently: “But since you were so simple as to be
born a boy, such good luck is not to be expected. It is the best that I
can do to offer you to become my ward and follow me as my page, until
the sword’s game has decided between me and Edmund of England. But I do
not know where your ambition is if that does not content you. There are
lads in Denmark who would give their tongues for the chance. What say
you, Fridtjof the Bold?”

For a time it looked as if “Fridtjof the Bold” did not know what to
say. He stood without raising his hanging head or moving a muscle.
Silence filled the tent, while from outside leaked in the noise of the
revel. Then, through that noise or above it, there became audible the
notes of far-away horns. Edric Jarl was fulfilling his pledge. Cheers
answered the blast. An exclamation broke from the King’s lips, and he
leaped up. At that moment, “Fridtjof the Bold” fell at his feet with
clasped hands and supplicating eyes.

“Let me go, Lord King,” he besought passionately. “Let me go, and I
will ask nothing further of you. I will never trouble you again. Let me
go!—only let me go!”

Canute of Denmark is not to be blamed that he stamped with exhausted
patience.

“Go into the hands of the Trolls!” he swore. And again, “In the Fiend’s
name!” And at last, “By the head of Odin, it would serve you well did I
take you at your word! It would serve you right did I turn you out to
starve. Were it not for your father’s sake, and for the sake of my own
honor, I vow I would! Now hearken to this.” Bending, he picked the boy
up by his collar and shook him. “Listen now to this, and understand
that you cannot move me by the breadth of a hair. I shall not let you
go, and you shall be my ward, whether you will or no. And if you run
away, soldiers shall go after you and bring you back, as often as you
run. And if you answer me now or anger me further—but I will not say
that, for it is your misfortune that makes you unruly, and you are
weak-spirited from hunger. Take this bread now for your meal, and that
bench yonder for your bed, and trouble me no more to-night. I would not
be hard upon you, yet it would be advisable for you to remember that I
have sufficient temper for one tent. Go as I bid you. I must meet with
the Jarl. Go! Do you heed my orders?”

Only one answer was possible. After a moment the page gave it in a low
voice.

“Yes, Lord King,” he whispered, and crept away to his corner.




CHAPTER VI. The Training of Fridtjof The Page


A foolish man
Is all night awake,
Pondering over everything;
He then grows tired,
And when morning comes
All is lament, as before.
                    Hávamál.


Who that has youth and a healthy body is not made a new being by a
night of dreamless slumber? What young heart is so despairing that to
waken into a fair day does not bring courage? Wakened by the sun’s
caress, to the morning song of blowing trees, Randalin faced her future
as became the kinswoman of warriors.

“I do not know why it was that fear crept into my breast last night,”
she told herself severely, when the first wave of strangeness and grief
had broken over her, and she had come up again into the sparkling air.
“Great dangers have threatened me, but I have escaped them all with
great luck; it is poor-spirited of me to despair. And it must be that
witches had thinned my blood with water that I should have thought of
running away. To do that would be to lose my revenge forever. I should
become a creature without honor, like the girl with the necklace. To
stay is no less than my duty. If I think all the time of Fridtjof, it
is certain that I can hide it that I am a girl.” Turning in her furry
bed, she rose cautiously upon her elbow and looked about.

The tent was empty, though scattered furs along the benches showed
where sleepers might have rested. But from outside, a clatter of
hurrying feet and excited voices broke suddenly upon her. Did it mean a
battle? She sat up, straining eye and ear. The jubilant voices shouted
greetings that just missed being intelligible. The sun, glancing from
moving weapons, flashed through the doorway in fantastic shapes.

While she was trying to unravel it all, one pair of the hurrying feet
halted before the entrance. After a muttered word with the sentinel,
they came on and brought the son of Lodbrok into view. The girl started
up with a gasp of alarm, then made the strange discovery that she was
no longer afraid of him. Though he showed against the linen wall as
brawny and big of jowl as he had loomed up the night before, she found
herself moved only to dislike. What had been the matter last night?
Understanding nothing of the clairvoyant power of sharpened nerves, she
set it down to cowardice, and put on an extra swagger now as her eyes
met his.

Rothgar surveyed the sprig of defiance with no more than a perfunctory
interest. “It seems that you are the son of Frode the Dane,” he said in
his heavy voice. “Frode was a mighty raven-feeder; for his sake I am
going to support you until you can go well on your legs. Have you had
anything to eat?”

As she shook her head, Randalin’s heart rather softened toward him. But
it hardened again when the thralls had brought the food, and he had sat
down and begun to share it. Seen in a strong light, his rich tunic
proved to be foul with beer stains, while his great hands reeked with
grease. His thick lips, his heavy breathing—bah, he was revolting!
Before she had finished the meal, she had come to the conclusion that
she hated him.

Perhaps it was as well that there was something to add firmness to her
bearing. As he swallowed his last mouthful of food, Rothgar said
abruptly, “Canute has put your training into my hands. It is his will
that I find out how much skill you have with weapons.”

It was nothing more than she should have expected, yet it came upon her
with the suddenness of a blow. She could only stammer, “Weapons?”

The Jotun’s voice rumbled hideously as he talked into his goblet. “Have
you the accomplishment to wield a battle-axe or throw a spear? Can you
shoot straight?”

“No,” she faltered.

He rolled his eyes around at her as he threw back his head to catch the
last drop that clung to the golden rim. “Can you handle a sword?”

Randalin hesitated, uncertain how far her idle play at fencing with her
brother would bear her out; she provided as many loop-holes as she
could devise. “I think you will find my skill slight. I have—I have
grown so fast that I lack strength in my arms. And I have not exercised
myself as much as I should have done.”

“It is in my mind that you have been a lazy cub,” the warrior
pronounced deliberate sentence, as he set down his goblet. “It is
easily seen that Frode has been over-gentle with you. But you will pay
now for your laziness, by receiving a cut each time I pass your guard.
Stand forth, and show what your skill is worth. This sword will not be
too heavy.” Selecting the smallest of the jewelled blades upon the
floor, he thrust it into her hands.

It is good to have in one’s veins the liquid fire of the North, blood
to which the presence of peril is like the touch of the Ice King to
water. At the first clash of the blades, strange tingling fires began
to flash through Randalin,—and then a hardness, that burnt while it
froze. The first pass, her hands had parried seemingly by their own
instinct; now she flung back her tumbling curls and proceeded to give
those hands the aid of her eyes. They were marvellously quick eyes; for
Fridtjof’s thrusts, consulting no rule but his own will, had required
lightning to follow them and something like mind-reading to anticipate
them. Three times her blade met Rothgar’s squarely, and deftly turned
it aside. The big warrior gave a grunt of approval and tried a more
complicated pass. Her backward leap, the sudden doubling of her body,
and the excited clawing of her free hand, were not graceful
swordsmanship, certainly, but her steel was in the right place. The
next instant, she even drew a little clink from one of the Jotun’s
silver buttons.

As she was recovering herself, she felt something like a pin prick her
wrist; and she wondered vaguely what brooch had become unfastened. But
she gave it scant attention for the big blade was threatening her from
a new direction. She leaped to meet it, and for the next minute was
kept turning, twisting, dodging, till her breath began to come in
gasps, and her exhausted hand to relax its hold. Her weapon was almost
falling from it by the time the son of Lodbrok lowered his point.
Imitating him, she stood leaning on her sword, making futile gasps
after her lost breath.

A grin slowly wrinkled his face as he watched her. “It appears that one
who is no bigger around than a willow twig may be capable of a berserk
rage,” he said. “Do you not feel it that you are wounded?”

Following his eyes down to her hand, she found blood trickling from her
sleeve. Oh, and pain! Now that she had wakened to it—pain! pricking,
stinging, stabbing. Dropping her sword, she caught at her wrist.

“How did it happen? I thought a pin had pricked me!”

Roaring with laughter, he caught her under the arms and tossed her in
the air.

“A pin!” he shouted. “A pin! That is Frode himself! A beard on your
chin, and you also will be a feeder of wolves! For that you shall have
a share in the battle. I swear it by the hilt of the Hanger!”

For the moment, the girl forgot her wound and hung limp in the great
hands. “The battle?” she gasped. “I—I fight?”

Roaring afresh, the Jotun gave her another jubilant toss. “You
blustering field-mouse! Showing your teeth already? Who knows? If you
meet a blind Englishman without a weapon, you may even kill him. Here,”
he tumbled her roughly to the ground, “tie up your pin-scratch and then
come after me. I must go up yonder to Canute, under the oak tree. If
you are too tired to wield the sword, tie your hand to the hilt, and no
man shall have a better will to do harm to the English. Frode the Dane
will experience great pride when he looks out of Valhalla to-day.”
Putting out one great hand, he patted her soft curls as though she were
some shaggy dog, then hurried out to his chief.

It was a respite to be alone, and she accepted it gratefully, sinking
among the cushions with closed eyes and a hand on her throbbing wrist.
But it was only a respite; she never for a moment lost sight of that.
The battle must be faced, and faced boldly. One word of reluctance
would be the surest betrayal of her secret. And betrayal meant Rothgar!
She shivered as she fancied she still felt his greasy touch upon her
hair. To become his property that he might even kiss! With a gasp of
relief, she turned her thoughts back to the battle.

After all, it was not unthinkable. Her riding would never betray her;
and in the confusion, who would notice whether or not she used her
sword? She did grow a little cold as the possibility of being killed
occurred to her; but even that darkness gave birth to a light. Being
dressed in man’s garments, it was likely that the Valkyrias would
mistake her for a boy; if she bore herself bravely, it was possible
that they might carry her up to Valhalla. Should she once reach her
father’s arms, he would not let Odin himself drive her forth. The hot
tears gathered under her lids. If only she could get to her father! He
would be glad to see her, and he would be proud of her; Rothgar himself
had said it. Even Fridtjof would not be ashamed that she had borne his
name. She must be very careful about that, she realized suddenly. He
had never known what the word “fear” meant; even in Valhalla he would
turn from her, should she disgrace him. It would become an unheard-of
wickedness to borrow a name from the helpless dead if you could not
wear it worthily. Her conscience smote her now, for her shirking, and
she struggled to her feet.

None too soon; above the outside din a horn clarioned, loud and clear.
Through the hush that followed could be heard the voice of Canute,
assigning their positions to the different bands.

“I and my kinsman, Ulf Jarl, shall be foremost. To the right of my
standard Edric Jarl shall stand, and the men with whom he joined us. He
shall have another standard. To the left of my bodyguard shall stand
the men of Eric of Norway. Friends and kinsmen shall stand together.
There each will defend the other best.”

Then Rothgar’s harsh voice sounded, shouting her name,—Fridtjof’s name.
Giving her scarf a hasty twist about her arm, she knotted it with her
teeth; and seizing the sword in her little brown hand clotted with her
own blood, she ran out into the tumult.




CHAPTER VII. The Game of Swords


It is better for the brave man
Than for the coward
To join in the battle.
It is better for the glad
Than for the sorrowing
In all circumstances.
                    Fafnismál.


It would have been a dull soul that would not have been stirred by a
sight of Danish camp. The host was like a forest of mighty trees
tossing and swaying before the approach of a storm. Lines of moving
shot lightning flashes through the dusk of the shady grove; while the
hundreds of jubilant voices blended into rumbling thunder. Through the
tumult, the blaring horns thrilled like pulse-beats.

Flaring crimson under her brown skin, Randalin’s Viking blood leaped to
answer the call. For Rothgar’s shout she gave another, and laughed out
of sheer delight when he tossed her upon the back of a pawing horse.
Away with woman’s fears! The world was a grand brave place, and men a
race of heroes. To ride by their sides, and share their mighty deeds,
and see their glory,—what keener joy had life to offer? Away with fear,
with foreboding! The present was all-glorious, and there would be no
to-morrow.

Shrill and clear from the opposite hill came the notes of the English
horns, as down the green slope moved the ranks of English bowmen. The
hum of Danish voices sank in a breathless hush; through the stillness,
Tovi, the royal bannerman, galloped to his post. A rustle, a boom, and
the great standard was unfurled, giving to the breeze the dread Raven
of Denmark. Anxious eyes scanned its mien; should it hang motionless,
drooping—but no, it soared like a living bird! Exultation burst from a
thousand throats.

Down the line came the young King upon his white war-horse, clad for
the battle as for a feast. The sun at noonday is not more fiercely
bright than was his face. His long locks flowed behind him on the wind
like tongues of yellow flame; and like northern lights in a blue
northern sky, the leader’s fire flashed in his eyes. So Balder the
Beautiful might have come among the Jotuns. So the brawny sweating
hard-breathing giants might have jostled and crowded toward him,
expectant, adoring.

As he came, he was calling out terrible reminders: words that were to
the ears of his champing host what the smell of blood is to the
nostrils of wolves.

“Free men, true men, remember that ye face oath-breakers! Remember how
they have spoken fine words to us of plighted faith...and when we have
believed them and laid down our arms...they have stolen upon us in our
sleep..and murdered our comrades! And our kinswomen whom they had taken
to be their wives! Remember Saint Brice’s day! Remember our murdered
kin!”

On he went down the line; and like a trail in his wake, rose an
answering chorus of growls and clashing steel. Down some of the
battered old faces tears of excitement began to flow, like the water
out of the riven rock; while the delirium of others took the form of
mirth, so that they sent forth wild terrible laughter to swell the
uproar.

Above the tumult his voice rang like a bell: “Heroes and sons of
heroes, remember you fight cowards! Remember that, since the days of
our fathers, they have made gold do the work of steel. To get gold to
buy peace, they will sell their children into slavery. Sooner than look
our swords in the face, they will yield us their daughters to be our
thralls! Oath-breakers, nithings! Will you be beaten by such? Vikings,
Odinmen, forward!”

His answer was the bursting roar of the Danish battle-cry. Like an
avalanche loosed from its moorings, they swept down the hillside upon
the English bow-men. From that moment, Randalin rode in a dream.

At first it was a glorious dream. On, on, over the green plain, with
the wind fresh in her face and the music of the horns in her ears. The
son of Lodbrok was beside her, singing as he went, and tossing his
great battle-axe in the air to catch it again by the handle. In front
of them rode Canute the King; in his hand his gleaming blade, whose
thin edge he tried now and again on a lock of his floating hair, while
he laughed with boyish delight. Once he turned his bright face back
over his shoulder to call gayly to the Jotun:

“Brother, you were right in despising craft. When the battle-madness
fills a man, he becomes a god!” On, till the bowmen’s faces were plain
before them; then suddenly it began to hail,—“the hail of the string.”
Arrows! One hissed by the girl’s ear, and one bit her cloak, to hang
there quivering with impotent fury. The man on her right made a
terrible gurgling sound and put up his hand to tear a shaft from his
throat. Would they be slain before—Canute rose in his stirrups with a
great shout. The horns echoed it; the trot became a gallop, and the
gallop a run. On, on, into the very heart of the hail-cloud. How the
stones rattled on the armor! And hissed! There! a man was death-doomed;
he was falling.

Her cry was cut short by the flashing of a blade before her. They had
passed through the hail and reached the lightning! Throwing up her
sword, she swerved to one side and escaped the bolt. Another faced her
in this direction. The air was shot with bright flashes. Swish—clash!
they sounded behind her; then a sickening jar, as Rothgar’s terrible
axe fell. A yell of agony rent the air. Swish—clash! the blows came
faster; her ear could no longer separate them. The thud of the falling
axes became one continuous pound. Faster and faster, heavier and
heavier,—they blended into a discordant roar that closed around her
like a wall. Here and there and to and fro, Rothgar’s great charger
followed the King; and here and there and to and fro, on her
foam-flecked horse, Randalin followed the son of Lodbrok, staring,
dazed, stunned.

Her wits were like a flock of birds loosed from the cage of her will,
alighting here, upstarting there, without let or hindrance. Sometimes
they stooped to so foolish a thing as a notch on her horse’s ear, and
spent whole minutes questioning dully whether the teeth of another
horse had made the wound or whether a sword had nicked it in battle.
Sometimes they followed the notes of the horns, as the ringing tones
passed the order along. From the blaring blast at her ear, the sound
was drawn out on either side of her as fine as silver wire, far, far
away toward the hills. It gave her no conscious impression of the
vastness of the hosts, but it brought a vague sense of wandering, of
helplessness, that caused her fluttering wits to turn back, startled,
and set to watching the pictures that showed through rifts in the
swirling dust clouds,—an Englishman falling from his saddle, his
fingers widespread upon the air; a Danish bowman wiping blood from his
eyes that he might see to aim his shaft; yonder, the figure of
Leofwinesson himself, leaping forward with swift-stabbing sword. But
whether they were English who fell or Danes who stood, she had no
thought, no care; they meant no more to her than rune figures carved in
wood.

The sun rose higher in the heavens, till it stood directly overhead,
and sweat mingled with the blood. Suddenly, the girl awoke to find that
Rothgar’s singing had changed into cursing.

“Heed him not, King,” he was bellowing over his horse’s head. “We have
no need of trick-bought victories. We bear the highest shields;
warrior-skill will win. We need not his snake-wisdom.”

To the other side of the young leader, Thorkel the Tall was spurring,
bending urgently from his saddle. “Craft, my King! Craft! It will take
till nightfall to decide the game. Why spill so much good blood? Listen
to Edric the Gainer—”

Canute’s furious curse cut him short. “To the Troll with your craft!
Swords shall make us, or swords shall mar us. Use your blade, or I will
sheathe it in you.”

Only the wind that took it from his lips heard the Tall One’s answer;
for at that moment his horse reared and sheered away before a
spear-prick, and into the rift a handful of English rushed with shouts
of triumph.

There were no more than half-a-dozen of them, and all were on foot, the
two whose gold-hilted swords proclaimed their nobility of birth sharing
the lot of their lesser comrades according to the old Saxon war-custom;
but it needed not the daring of the attack to mark them as the very
flower of English chivalry. The young noble, who hovered around his
chief much as Rothgar circled about Canute, would have been lordly in a
serf’s tunic; and the leader’s royal bearing distinguished him even
more than his mighty frame.

At the sight of him, Rothgar uttered a great cry of “Edmund!” and moved
forward, swinging his uplifted axe. But the Ironside caught it on his
shield and delivered a sword-thrust in return that dropped the Dane’s
arm by his side. As it fell, Rothgar’s left hand plucked forth his
blade, but the English king had pressed past him toward his master.

Canute’s weapon had need to dart like a northern light. The noble and
one of the soldiers had forced their way to the side from which Thorkel
had been riven, and a third threatened him from the rear. Three blades
stabbed at him as with one motion.

It was a strange thing that saved him,—Randalin could explain it least
of all. But in a lightning flash it was burnt into her mind that, while
her King’s sword was a match for the two in front of him, the one
behind was going to deal him his death. And even as she thought it, she
found that she had thrown herself across her horse’s neck and thrust
out her sword-arm,—out with the force of frenzy and down into the
shoulder of the Englishman. In a kind of dazed wonder, she saw his
blade fall from his grasp and his eyes roll up at her, as he staggered
backwards.

Canute laughed out, “Well done, Berserker!” and redoubled his play
against those before him.

A turn of his wrist disarmed the soldier, and his point touched the
young noble’s breast; but before he could lunge, the mighty figure of
Edmund rose close at hand, his blade heaved high above his head.

For such a stroke there was no parry. A kingdom seemed to be passing.
Canute threw his shield before him, while his spur caused his horse to
swerve violently; but the blade cleft wood and iron and golden plating
like parchment, and falling on the horse’s neck, bit it to the bone.
Rearing and plunging with pain, the animal crashed into those behind
him, missed his footing and fell, entangling his rider in the
trappings. Bending over him, the Ironside struck again.

But the son of Lodbrok had still his left arm. Bearing his shield, it
shot out over the body of his King. The falling brand bit this screen
also, and lopped off the hand that held it, but the respite was
sufficient. In a flash Canute was on his feet, both hands grasping the
hilt of his high-flung sword.

It was a mighty blow, but it fell harmless. A sudden surge in the tide
of struggling bodies swept the Ironside out of reach and engulfed him
in a whirlpool of Danish swords. He laid about him like mad, and was
like to have cleared a passage back, when a second wave carried him
completely from view.

Canute cursed at the anxious faces that surrounded him. “What means it,
this swaying? What is herding them? Who are flying? Fools! Can you not
tell a retreat? Bid the horns blow—”

“The English!” bellowed Rothgar. “The English are flying—Edmund’s head!
Yonder!”

Frode’s daughter had Viking blood, but she hid her face with a cry.
There it was, high upon a spear-point, dripping, ghastly. Could the sun
shine upon such a thing?

Ay, and men could rejoice at it. Above the panic scream she heard cries
of savage joy. But Canute sat motionless, on the new horse they had
brought him. “It is not possible,” he muttered. “The flight began while
he still faced me. It was their crowding that saved him.”

To stare before him, Rothgar let the blood pour unheeded from his
wounded arm. “Yonder Edmund rides now!” he gasped. “You can tell him by
his size—Yonder! Now he is tearing off his helmet—” Nor was he
mistaken; within spear-throw the mighty frame of the Ironside towered
above his struggling guard. As he bared his head, they could even
distinguish his face with its large elegantly-formed features and
Ethelred’s prominent chin. Brandishing his sword, shouting words of
reassurance, exposing his person without a thought of the darts aimed
at him, he was making a heroic effort to check the rush of his
panic-stricken host. There was no question both that he was alive and
that he knew who was belying him; even as they looked he hurled his
spear, with a cry of rage, at the form of Edric Jarl.

Missing the Mercian, it struck down a man at his side; and high above
the voice of the ill-fated King rose the shrill alarms of the traitor’s
heralds.

“Fly, ye men of Dorsetshire and Devon! Fly and save yourselves! Here is
your Edmund’s head!”

Randalin stared about her, doubting her senses. But light had begun to
dawn on Canute. He wheeled sharply, as Thorkel pushed his horse to
their sides.

“Whose head was that?” he demanded.

Thorkel’s face was a lineless mask. “I believe his name was Osmaer,” he
answered without emotion.

“It was unheard-of good fortune that he should be so like Edmund in
looks.”

The young King’s face was suffused with bitterness. “Good fortune!” he
cried sharply. “Good fortune! Am I a fool or a coward that I am never
to win except by craft or good fortune? Had you let me alone—” His
voice broke, so bitter was his disappointment.

His foster-father regarded him from under lowered lids.

“Would you have won without them to-day?” he inquired.

“Yes!” Canute cried savagely, “had you given me time. Yes!”

But what else he answered, Randalin never knew. Some unseen obstacle
turned in their direction the stream of rushing horsemen. In an instant
the torrent had caught them in its whirling eddies, and they were so
many separate atoms borne along on the flood. To hold back was to be
thrown down; to fall was to be trampled into rags. The battle had
changed into a hunt.

Thundering hoof-beats, crashing blows, shrieks and groans and falling
bodies,—a sense of being caught in a wolf pack took possession of the
girl; and the feeling grew with every sidelong glance she had of the
savage sweating dust-grimed faces, in their jungles of blood-clotted
hair. The battle-madness was upon them, and they were no longer men,
but beasts of prey. Amid the chaos of her mind, a new idea shaped
itself like a new world. If she could but work her way to the edge of
the herd, she might escape down one of those green aisles opening
before them. If she only could! Every fibre in her became intent upon
it.

A little opening showed on her right. Though she could not see the
ground before her, she took the risk and swung her horse into the
breach. His forefeet came down upon the body of a fallen man, but it
was too late to draw back. Gripping her lip in her teeth, she spurred
him on. The man turned over with a yell, and used his one unbroken arm
to thrust upward his broken sword. The blade cut her leg to the bone,
and she shrieked with the pain; but her startled horse had no thought
of stopping. Making his way with plunges and leaps, he carried her out
of the press sooner than she could have guided him out. Once on the
edge, he broke into a run. The agony of the shaken wound was
unbearable. Shrieking and moaning, she twisted her hands in the lines
and tried to stop him. But her strength was ebbing from her with her
blood. By and by she dropped the rein altogether and clung to the
saddle-bow.

They reached the woods at last, cool and sweet and hushed in holy
peace. The frantic horse plunged into one of the arching lanes, and the
din of the hunt died behind her; silence fell like a curtain at their
heels; even the thudding hoof-beats were softened on the leafy ground.
Randalin lay along the horse’s neck now, and her senses had begun to
slip away from her like the tide from the shore. It occurred to her
that she was dying, and that the Valkyrias could not find her if she
should be carried too far away from the battle-field. Trying to hold
them back, she stretched a feeble hand toward the trees; and it seemed
to her that they did not glide past quite so rapidly. And the green
river that had been rushing toward her, that passed under her more
slowly too. Sometimes she could even make out violets amid the waves.
But the waves were rising strangely, she thought,—rising, rising—

At last, she felt their cool touch upon her fore-head. They had risen
and stopped her. Somewhere, there was the soft thud of a falling body;
then the cool greenness closed around her and held her tenderly, a
crumpled leaf that the whirlwind had dropped from its sport.




CHAPTER VIII. Taken Captive


No one turns from good,
if it can be got.
                    Hávamál.


Lying drowned in cool silence, the girl came slowly to a consciousness
that someone was stooping over her. Raising her heavy lids, eyes rested
on a man’s face, showing dimly in the dusk of the starlight.

He said in English, “Canute’s page, by the Saints!”

A chorus of voices answered him: “The fiend’s brat that pierced your
shoulder?”—“Choke him!”—“Better he die now than after he has waxed
large on English blood.”—“Finish him!”

Opening her eyes wider, she found that heads and shoulders made a black
hedge around her.

The victim of her blade straightened, shaking his shaggy mane. “Were I
a Pagan Dane, I would run my sword through him. But I am a Christian
Englishman. Let him lie. He will bleed his life out before morning.”

“Come on, then,” the chorus growled. “The Etheling is asking what
hinders us.”—“Make haste!”—“The Etheling is here!”

While the warrior was turning, a new voice spoke.

“Canute’s page?” it repeated after some unseen informant. “Is he dead?”

It was a young voice, and deep and soft, for all the note of quiet
authority ringing through it; something in its tone was agreeably
different from the harsh utterance of the first speaker. Randalin’s
eyes rose dreamily to find the owner. He had ridden up behind the
others on a prancing white horse. Above the black hedge, the square
strength of his shoulders and the graceful lines of his helmed head
were silhouetted sharply against the starry sky. Why had they so
familiar a look? Ah! the noble who had followed Edmund—

So far she got, and then all was blotted out in a flash of pain, as the
man nearest her put out a hand and touched her torn limb.

“Wriggling like a fish, lord,” he answered the new-comer.

A sound on the soft turf told that the horseman had alighted. “The
bantling is of too good quality to leave,” he said good-naturedly.
“Catch my bridle, Oswin. Where is he wounded?”

He made a quick step toward her, then paused as suddenly, his chin
thrust out in listening. A gesture of his hand imposed a sudden
silence, through which the sound became distinct to all ears,—a
trampling and crashing in the brush beyond the moonlit open. As they
wheeled to face it, a shout came from that direction.

“What ho! Does the Lord of Ivarsdale go there?”

He whom they had called the Etheling drew himself up alertly. “I make
no answer to hedge-creepers,” he said. “Come out where you can be
seen.”

The voice took on a mocking edge. “There is no gainsaying that I feel
safer here. I am the messenger of Edric of Mercia.”

Only a warning sign from the Lord of Ivarsdale restrained an angry
chorus. He said with slow contempt, “I grant that it is well fitting
the Gainer’s deeds that his men should flinch from the light—”

“Misgreet me not,” the mocking voice interrupted. “Before cockcrow we
shall be sworn brothers. I bear a message to King Edmund. And I want
you to further me on my way by telling which direction will fetch me to
his camp.”

Derisive laughter went up from the band of King’s men. Their leader
snapped his fingers. “That for your slippery devices! Is the Gainer so
ill-advised as to imagine that he is dealing with a second Ethelred?”

“I tell you to keep in mind,” the voice retorted, “that before the cock
crows we shall be sworn brothers.”

The Etheling’s anger leaped out like a flame; even in the starlight it
could be seen how his face crimsoned.

“No, as God lives!” he answered swiftly. “It is not to Edmund alone
that the Gainer is loathful. Should he pass the King’s sword, a hundred
blades wait for him, mine among them. Seek what he may seek, he shall
not have peace of us. When I guide a wolf to my sheep-fold, I will show
you the way to Edmund’s camp. Take yourself out of reach if you would
not be sped with arrows.”

A jeering laugh was the only answer, but the tramping of hoofs
suggested that his advice was being taken.

When the sound had faded quite away, the Lord of Ivarsdale breathed out
the rest of his resentment in a hearty imprecation, and, turning, came
on to his patient. His voice was as gentle as a woman’s as he dropped
on his knee beside the slim figure.

“What is your need, little fire-eater?”

A memory of her haunting terror stirred in the girl. Shrinking from
him, she made a desperate effort to push away his outstretched hand,
threatening him in a broken whisper.

“If you touch me—I will—kill you.”

They were brave men, those Englishmen. The Etheling only smiled, and
one of his warriors chuckled. With a touch as gentle as it was strong,
he put aside her resisting hands and began swiftly to cut away the
blood-stiffened hose. Darkness closed around Randalin again, darkness
shot with zigzag lightnings of pain, and throbbing with pitiful moans.

The idea took possession of her that she was once more on the
battle-field, that it was the cries of the men who were falling around
her which pierced the air, and their weapons that stabbed her as they
fell. Then their hands clutched her in a dying grip. Horse-men loomed
up before her and came nearer, and she could not get out of their path,
though she struggled with all her force. The hoofs were almost upon
her... Uttering a wild scream, she put forth all her strength in a last
effort.

“It will be like holding a young tiger, lord,” a harsh voice suddenly
reached her ear. She came to herself to find that soldiers were lifting
her up to the horseman, where he sat again in his saddle. She
recognized the squareness of his shoulders; and she knew the gentleness
of his touch as he slipped his free arm around her and drew her
carefully into place, making of his stalwart body a support for her
weakness. No strength was in her to struggle against him; only her wide
bright eyes sought his, with the terror of a snared bird.

Meeting the look and understanding a small part of its question, he
said a reassuring word in his pleasant low-pitched voice: “Be of good
cheer, youngling; there is no thought of eating you. I will bring you
to a cup of wine before moonrise, if you hold fast.”

It is doubtful if the girl so much as heard him. Her eyes were passing
from feature to feature of his face, as the stars revealed it above
her,—from the broad comely brow to the square young chin, from the
clean-cut fine-tempered mouth to the clear true eyes. One by one she
noted them, and shade by shade her strained look of fear relaxed.
Slowly she forgot her dread; and forgetting, her mind wandered to other
things,—to memories of her father, and of the happy evenings by the
fire when she had nestled safe in his arms,—safe and sheltered and
beloved. With eyes still turned up toward his face, her lids drooped
and fell; and her head sank upon his breast and lay there, in the peace
of perfect faith.




CHAPTER IX. The Young Lord of Ivarsdale


Brand is kindled from brand
Till it is burnt out;
Fire is kindled from fire;
A man gets knowledge By talk with a man,
But becomes wilful by self-conceit.
                    Hávamál.


Tap—tap, tap—tap, like dripping water dripping slowly. Drop by drop the
sound filtered through the thick wrappings of Randalin’s slumber, till
she knew it for the beat of horses’ hoofs, and stirred and opened her
eyes.

The silver shimmer of starlight falling through purple deeps had given
way to the ruddy glare of a camp fire, and she was lying just beyond
its heat, cloak-wrapped, on a bed of leaves. Above her, interlacing
beech boughs made an arching roof, under which the shadows clustered as
swallows under eaves. Before her, green tree-lanes opened out like
corridors. As far as the fireglow could reach, they were flooded with
golden light; where it stopped, they were closed across by darkness as
by gray-black doors. Within the sylvan alcove, some four-score
battle-stained warriors were taking their ease after a hard day. Some
of them were engaged in the ghastly business of bandaging wounds, and
some were already asleep; but the greater number lounged in the
firelight, drinking and feasting on strips of venison which serfs had
cooked in the flames.

Through the fog of her drowsiness Randalin recognized them slowly.
Yonder was the Englishman who had found her in the bushes. Beyond him,
across the fire, the soldiers who had lifted her up to the horse-man.
Here, just in front of her, was the leader himself. Her gaze settled
upon him dreamily.

He had finished his meal, if meal it could be called, and was making
some attempt at a toilet. While one serf knelt beside him, scrubbing at
his muddy riding-boots with a wisp of wet grass, another held a gilt
shield up for a mirror, and before this the Etheling was carefully
parting his shining hair. His captive’s eyes were not the only ones
upon him, and the bright metal showed that he was laughing a little at
the comments his performance drew forth from the three old cnihts
lounging near him.

“Tending by five hairs to the sword-side, Lord Sebert,” one of them was
offering quizzical criticism over his drinking-horn.

“The Etheling must needs have extraordinary respect for the endurance
of Harald Fairhair, for it is said that to accomplish a vow he went
three years without barbering himself,” another said gravely. While a
third became slyly reminiscent, as he chewed his venison.

“These are soft days, comrades. The last time I followed the old chief,
of honored memory, we held our war-council standing knee-deep in a fen.
We had neither eaten nor drunk for two days, and three days’ blood was
on our hands.”

The young chief took it all with careless good-humor.

“When you leave off eating, in memory of that brave time, I will leave
off washing,” he returned. “Would you have me go into a royal council
looking as though birds had nested in my hair?” With a parting scrutiny
of his smooth locks, he motioned the shield-bearer aside and turned
back to them his comely face, rosy from his recent ablutions and alight
with a momentary enthusiasm.

“I tell you, nothing but a warrior’s life becomes ethel-born men,” he
said as he straightened himself with a gallant gesture. “Nor
sluggishness nor junketings, but days under fire and nights among the
Wise Men of the council; that, in truth, becomes their station. By
Saint Mary, I feel that I have never lived before! One week at the
heels of Edmund Ironside is worth a lifetime under the banner of any
other king.”

A pause met his warmth somewhat coldly; and the warrior who broke the
silence lowered his voice to do it.

“Keep in mind, lord, that it is no more than a week that you have been
at his heels,” he said.

“Likewise bear in mind whose son he is,” the man with the drinking-horn
added grimly. He was a stout white-bearded old cniht with an obstinate
old face that looked something like a ruddy apple in a snow-bank.

Flushing, the young noble ceased examining his sword-edge to meet the
eyes bent upon him.

“I hope you do not think I stand in need of a rebuke for lukewarmness,
Morcard,” he said gravely. “I have no more forgot that King Edmund’s
father gave the order for my father’s murder than I have forgot that
Edric was the tool who did the deed. May Saint Peter exterminate him
with his sword! Did I not live even as a lordless man the while that
Ethelred remained upon the throne? But what sense to continue at that
after Ethelred was dead, and the valor of his son was to that degree
exalted as if he had sprung from Alfred? Yourself counselled me to join
him at Gillingham, and take the post under his banner that my fathers
have always held beside his fathers.”

Two of the three warriors made no other answer than to gurgle their
drink noisily in their throats; but the one whom he had called Morcard
answered dryly, “It is not against testing the new king that we would
advise you, Lord Sebert; it is against trusting him. But we will not be
troublesome.” He lifted his hand suddenly to his ear. “Horses’ feet!
And stopping by the King’s fire—”

What else he said, Randalin did not hear. Her wits had crawled heavily
after the sound of the hoofs. Now the beat changed to a champing and
stamping among dry leaves not many rods to her right. She wondered
indifferently if there was any likelihood of their running over her;
then forgot the query before she had answered it.

The Etheling was speaking again, with all the earnestness of
hero-worship. “—the battles he has fought, the abundance of warriors he
has gathered together, the land he has won back since his father’s
death! Only take to-day—”

“Ay, take to-day!” the old man snapped him up with unexpected
vehemence. “And the Devil take me if I ever heard of such witless
folly! What! To go plunging off into the thick of the enemy,
endangering in his person the hope of the whole English nation—”

The young noble relaxed from his earnestness to laugh. “Now has habit
outrid your manners, Morcard. So long have you been wont to use your
tongue on my heedlessness, that it begins mechanically to perform the
same office for Edmund. In a king, such courage inspires—”

“Courage!” Morcard’s fingers snapped loudly. “Did not the henchman who
followed you have courage? Yet do we think of crowning him? I tell you
that a king needs to have something besides courage. He needs to have
judgment. Then will he know better than to leave his men like sheep
without a leader. The old proverb has it right, ‘When the chief fails,
the host quails.’ It was when they had become frightened about him that
they began to give way, and after that it was easy for any oaf to jump
out of the bushes and put them to flight.”

This time the Etheling’s smile was rather unwilling. “Oh! If you think
fit to set at naught a brave deed because nothing arose from it! After
his father’s cowardice, such energy and dauntlessness alone—”

“Dauntlessness!” the old cniht snorted again. “It is the dauntlessness
of the man in Father Ingulph’s story, who was so much wiser than his
advisers that he must try to drive the sun a new way, till it came so
nigh as it nighest may to setting the world afire.” So hot was his
scorn that he was obliged to cool it in his ale, coming to the surface
slightly mollified. “However, Lord Sebert, you have cast your
colt’s-teeth, and I have no desire to tread upon the toes of your
dignity. If I have been over-free, excuse it in your father’s old
servant and comrade who has guarded and guided you since—since you have
had teeth to cast.”

The young man laughed good-humoredly as he straightened himself for
action. “Too often has my dignity bent under your rod, Morcard, to hold
itself very stiff against you now. Never fear; I will be an owl of
discretion. Give you favorable dreams over your horns!” He picked up
his cloak and was turning to depart, when one of the warriors flung up
a hand.

“Soft, my lord. Yonder comes Wikel making strange signs to you.” All
heads but Randalin’s turned in the direction he was looking. She was
still too lethargic for curiosity; and she found a kind of dreamy
content in lying with her eyes upon the Etheling’s handsome face.
Though its prevailing characteristic was the easy amiability of one who
has known little of opposition or dislike, there was no lack of steel
in the blue eyes or of iron in the square chin; now and then a spark
betrayed them, thrilling pleasantly through her drowsiness.

Presently, however, between her and the comely apparition there
intervened the brawny figure of a yeoman-soldier. He said breathlessly,
“Chief—before you go to the King—be it known to you that those
horse-feet you heard—belong to the mounts of Edric of Mercia and his
men—and he is with King Edmund now!”

The three stolid old warriors got to their feet with curses. The
Etheling bent forward to gaze incredulously into the man’s face.

“Edric of Mercia? With the King? Why do you think so?”

“I was a little way beyond the King’s fire, watching a fellow who was
showing how he could jump over the flames, when I saw the Gainer ride
past; and I followed him, as near as the guards would permit—near
enough to see that the King received him—let him settle it with Saint
Cuthbert!”

There was a pause of utter stupefaction; then, from all within hearing,
a clamorous outburst: “It is the Gainer’s luck again!”—“The messenger
knew what he was saying!”—“No sharpness of wit can comprehend it!”—“It
is the magic of his flattering tongue.”—“A hundred tongues had done no
harm if Edmund—” The voices sank into a snarling undertone: “Ay, there
it is!”—“Ethelred’s blood!”—“It is no more to be counted on than is
water—” “What could have moved him to it?”

Morcard’s throat emitted a sound that might have been a chuckle or
might have been a growl. “I will tell you plainly for why; it is his
dauntlessness. He is going to pit his green wit against Edric’s, that
has made two kings as wax between his fingers! And he has begun by
letting the wolf into the fold.”

It appeared that the Etheling had recovered from his surprise, for now
he said steadily, “I will not believe it. Until their oaths have been
spoken and their hands have clasped and my own eyes have witnessed it,
I will not believe it of him.”

Motioning them from his path, he was starting forward a second time,
when the old cniht laid a hand lightly upon his shoulder.

“Hear me, Lord Sebert! If then,—to weigh all perils like a soldier,—if
then, you do witness it with your own eyes?”

The blue gave out a flash of smitten steel.

Morcard answered as to words: “You will be one against many, lord.”

“You cannot mean that the Witan will comply with him!” the Etheling
cried.

“How is it possible that they should do otherwise? The odal-born men
could not prevent it when Ethelred took Alfric back. And to-night, few
but thanes have resorted thither—men whom the Redeless took from
ploughing his fields to gild with nobility. Is it likely that they will
oppose the hand that can strip off their gilding?”

It appeared that the young man could find no answer to that, for he
made none. “At least once, my lord, Ethelred’s wilfulness has shown in
his son, when he set aside the King’s command to take possession of
Sigeferth’s widow and her estates. And I think it was Ethelred’s temper
that moved him to spend an energy, much better directed against the
Pagans, in laying waste two of his own shires. Remember what happened
when your father raised himself against Ethelred.”

Restive under the restraining hand, the young noble faced him
desperately. “Morcard, in God’s name, what would you have me do? I will
not bend to it, nor would you wish me to. Or sooner or later—”

“Let it be later, lord. After you have had time to marshal your wits,
and when it is daylight, and you have your men at your back.”

After a while, the Etheling yielded and turned aside. “Let it be as you
have said—though I cannot believe yet that it will happen.” Coming back
where a fallen tree made a mossy seat, he dropped down upon it and sat
staring at the ground in frowning abstraction.

The motion dropped him out of the range of Randalin’s vision, and her
eyes wandered away discontentedly. If there was nothing more to look
at, she might as well go to sleep. The fire was dying down so that the
overhanging shadow was drooping lower, like a canopy that would fall
and smother them when the spears of light that upheld it should sink at
last in the ashes. The doors of darkness had moved far up the
tree-corridors, and strange flickering shapes peered through. Her eyes
followed them heavily. The forest was very still now; even the grating
sound of the frogs was hushed, and the low hum of the voices around the
fire was soothing as the sound of swarming bees.

She was just losing consciousness when the figure of a second
yeoman-soldier moved across her vision, looming black against the
fireglow. His whisper came sharply to her ears. “It is done, chief. May
they have the wrath of the Almighty! Their hands have met, Edric’s and
the King’s, and his thanes’ and Norman of Baddeby’s, who is with Edric.
Now are they lying down in their man-ties, as it were to seal their
pledge by sleeping within reach of each other’s knives.”

“Norman of Baddeby!” the name leaped out of the rest to bite at her
like a dog, worrying deeper and deeper through the wrappings of her
stupor. Her eyes widened in troubled questioning. She heard the angry
voices rise, and she saw the Etheling leap to his feet and shake his
clenched hand above his head. Then she lost sight of everything, for
the fang had pierced her torpor and touched her.

“Norman of Baddeby”—her father’s slayer! Memory entered like poison to
spread burning through every vein. Her father—Fridtjof—the Jotun—the
battle—Her ears were dinned with terrible noises; her eyes were seared
by terrible pictures. She crushed her hands against her head, but the
sound came from within and would not be stilled. She buried her face in
the leaves, but the visions pressed faster before her. The son of
Leofwine and the drunken feast—the girl outside the tent—the Jotun
within it—her terrible young guardian—the battle-madness—whichever way
she looked, a new spectre confronted her. Helpless in their grip, she
tossed to and fro in agony—to and fro.

Though it was so tortured that she could not tell it from her waking
thoughts, sleep must have come to her; for when at last she reached the
point where she could endure it no longer and struggled up, panting, to
her elbow, to try to recall herself by a sight of those about her, she
found that the hum of excited voices was stilled, and the silence
throbbed with the deep breathing of sleepers. From under the canopy of
darkness the fiery spears had dropped away, leaving the thick folds
sagging lower and lower. Swarming under its shelter, the shadow-shapes
were closing in upon her.

For a while she watched them absently; then a whim of her tortured
brain poisoned them also. They became terrible nameless Things,
mouthing at her, darting upon her. She drew her eyes resolutely away
and set herself to listening to the breathing that throbbed in a dozen
keys through the silence.

Almost at her feet, the Etheling was stretched out in his cloak,
motionless as the fallen tree. Her face was slowly relaxing when, a
second time, memory betrayed her. Just so, she recollected, Leofwine’s
son was lying, not a hundred yards away. Through the trees, the glow of
the King’s fire came distinctly; gazing toward it, she could almost
convince herself that she could see the murderer, peaceful, secure. She
ground her teeth in a sudden spasm of rage. Would that some of those
weak-witted thanes would prove the mettle of the knives he was daring!

The next instant, she had thrown herself down with terror-widened eyes,
and was trying to bury her face in the leaves, while the tongueless
mouth of every shadowy shape seemed to shriek above her,—

“Odin sends you revenge!”—“It is the will of Odin that has drawn you
together!”—“Strange and wonderful is the way in which you are
hesitating!”—“Would you become like the girl with the necklace?”—“Are
you a coward, that you do not prefer to die in good repute rather than
live in the shame of neglecting your duty?”

She flung up her haggard face in appeal. “No, no, I am not a coward,”
her spirit cried within her. “I was brave in the battle. It is not
death I fear; but I cannot kill! Odin, have mercy on me! I cannot kill.
I have tried to be brave, but I am really a woman; it is not possible
for me to have a man’s heart.”

The grinning shadows mouthed at her. “You have not dared to be a
woman,” they mocked. “You have not dared to be a woman, so you must
dare to be a man.”

A night wind shuddered through the trees, and the hovering shades
seemed to hiss in her ear. “Coward! Traitor! Nithing! Do you not get
afraid that you will experience the wrath of the dead? Listen! Is that
the wind rustling the leaves? Or is it—”

A gasp burst from the white lips, and the die was cast. While the cold
drops started on her pain-racked body, she dragged herself to her knees
and fumbled with trembling hands about her belt. For an instant,
something like a moonbeam glimmered amid the shadow; then her lips
closed convulsively upon the steel. Tipping forward upon her hands, she
tested cautiously the strength of her wounded leg, smothering groans of
pain that seemed to tear her throat in the swallowing. But the
whispering of the night-wind was like a spur in her side; inch by inch,
she crawled steadily toward the flickering light.




CHAPTER X. As The Norns Decree


This I thee counsel tenthly;
That thou never trust
A foe’s kinsman’s promises,
Whose brother thou hast slain,
Or sire laid low;
There is a wolf
In a young son,
Though he with gold be gladdened.
                    Sigrdrífumál.


It was a long way to the King’s fire, but at last it lay before her;
before and below her, for it had been built in a depression of the
little open. The last charred log had fallen apart, spreading a swarm
of golden glow-worms over the black earth, there was still enough light
to reveal a ring of muffled forms sprawling around the sloping sides of
the hollow, with their feet toward the fire and their heads lost in
darkness. Pausing in the tree-shadow, the girl thrilled with sudden
hope. Since their faces were all hidden, how was she to distinguish her
victim? Even the dead must see that it would be impossible. If the
burden could only be lifted from her!

Fate was inexorable. At that moment, the warrior directly in front of
her stirred in his sleep and flung a jewelled hand over his face. Those
broad gold rings with the green stones that sparkled like serpents’
eyes as they caught the light! They were fixed indelibly in her memory,
for she had seen them on the rapacious hand that had seized upon her
while it was still red with her father’s blood. Only from them, she
could reconstruct every hard line of the hidden face. Suddenly, in the
rage that rose in her at the recollection, she found determination for
the deed.

The sentinel nearest her was snoring at his post; the further one would
not be able to reach her in time, even should he see her. Somewhere,
far away, a cock was crowing; and it came to her suddenly that the
breathlessness about her was the hush that precedes the dawn. There was
no time to lose, she told herself feverishly, and moved forward with
snake-like stillness. Between the sheltering arm and the neck of the
steel shirt there was a space of naked throat. Setting her teeth, she
raised her knife and struck down at it with a strong hand.

The point never reached its mark. For an instant she could not tell
what had happened. Fingers closed like iron bands around her wrist,
pulling her backwards so that the pain of her twisted wound wrung a cry
from her lips. They were not Norman’s fingers, yet he also was
stirring; while darting flashes from the dusk about them told that the
other sleepers were drawing their weapons. Then some one threw a
branch-ful of dead leaves upon the fire.

The flame that flared up showed her arm to be in the grasp of the Lord
of Ivarsdale.

“You mad young one!” he gasped, as he wrenched the blade from her hold.

Voices rose in angry questioning, but Randalin was too fear-benumbed to
understand what they said. Norman’s keen eyes were turned upon her, and
recognition was dawning in their gaze.

Suddenly, he snatched her from Sebert’s grasp and held her down to the
firelight. Could she have seen the mask which dust and blood had made
for her, she would have been spared the terror-swoon that left her limp
in his grasp. But it only bewildered her when, after an instant’s
scrutiny, he let her fall with an angry laugh.

“The boy from Avalcomb! Certainly these Danes are as hard to kill as
cats! I would have sworn to it that I had separated his life from his
body not eight-and-forty hours ago.” A gleam of eagerness came into his
face, and he bent over her again. “You shall serve my purpose by your
obstinacy,” he said under his breath. “You shall tell me where your
sister is. You know, for you escaped together. When I was restored to
my senses, I found you both gone. Tell me where she lies hidden, and it
may be that I will grant to you a longer life.”

Her stiff lips could not have spoken an answer had her paralyzed brain
been able to frame one. She could only gaze back at him in helpless
waiting. A second time he was bending toward her, when something
stopped him midway so that he straightened and drew back with a bow. It
came to her suddenly that they were all bowing, and that the hubbub had
died in mid-air. Through the hush, a quiet voice spoke.

“You are eager in rising, my lords,” it said. From the shelter, half
cave, half bower, which had been contrived amid the bushes, a warrior
of mighty frame had emerged and stood examining the scene. Though with
soldierly hardiness he had taken his rest in his war-harness, he was
unhelmed, and the light that revealed the protruding chin had no need
to pick out the jewelled diadem to mark him as Edmund Ironside. The
irregularity was very slight—not large enough to give him a combative
look or to mar the fine proportions of his face, but it did
unquestionably add to his stately bearing an expression of complacency
that was unforgettable.

He repeated his inquiry: “What is the amusement, my thanes? From the
clamor which awakened me, I had some notion of an attack.”

Norman of Baddeby bent in a second reverence. “Your expectations are to
this degree fulfilled, my royal lord,” he made answer. “Behold the
enemy!” Stooping, he raised the red-cloaked figure by its collar and
held it up in the firelight. As a murmur of laughter went around, he
lowered it again and spoke more gravely. “A hand needs not be large to
get a hilt under its gripe, however. The young wolf is of northern
breed,—how he penetrated to the heart of an English camp, I cannot
tell,—and there grows in his spirit a bloodthirsty disposition. He
seeks my life because in a skirmish, a few days gone by, I had the good
luck to kill his father. If it—”

He said more, but Randalin did not listen to him. All at once Sebert of
Ivarsdale reached out, and taking her by her cloak, drew her gently to
his side, interposing his sword-arm between her and the others. Though
his hand manacled her slim wrists securely, the clasp was more one of
protection than of restraint; and the warm human touch was like a
talisman against the haunting shadows. Suddenly it came over her, in a
burst of heavenly relief, that this hand had lifted the burden of
vengeance forever. Even Fridtjof could not be so unreasonable as to ask
more of her, so plainly was it Odin’s will that justice should be left
for Canute. She had done her duty, and yet she was free of it free of
it! Her heart burst out singing within her, and the eyes she raised
toward her captor were adoring in their gratitude.

The look she met in return was the same look of mingled strength and
gentleness which had come through the starlight to answer her question.
Once again that calm of weary trustfulness settled over her. Since he
had saved her from the dead, she had no doubt whatever of his ability
to save her from the living. Her head drooped against his arm, and her
hands, ceasing their struggles, rested in his grasp like folded wings.

It had not taken a moment; the instant Norman finished his explanation,
the Etheling was speaking quietly: “As the Lord of Baddeby says, King
Edmund, it was I who stayed the boy’s hand, and it was I also who
fetched him into camp. I found him after the battle, bleeding his life
out in the bushes, and I brought him in my arms, like a kitten, and
dropped him down by my fire. Waking in the night and missing him, I
traced him hither. As I have had all to do with him in the past, so, if
you will grant that I may keep him, will I take his future upon me.
With your consent, I will attend to it that he does no more mischief.”

A momentary cordiality came into the King’s manner; as though
recognizing it for the first time, he turned to the figure across the
fire with a courteous gesture. “My lord of Ivarsdale! I am much
beholden to you. Had any chance wrought evil to the Lord of Baddeby
while under my safeguard, my honor would have been as deeply wounded as
my feelings.”

As he bowed in acknowledgment, some embarrassment was visible in
Sebert’s manner; but he was spared a reply, for after a moment’s
rubbing of his chin, the King continued,—

“As regards the boy, however, there is something besides his knife to
be taken into consideration. I think we run more risk from his tongue.”

The words of the Earl’s thane fairly grazed the heels of the King’s
words: “The imp can do no otherwise than harm, my sovereign. Should he
bring his tongue to Danish ears, he could cause the utmost evil. For
the safety of the Earl of Mercia,—ay, for your own need,—I entreat you
to deliver the boy up to my keeping.”

“I am no less able than the Lord of Baddeby to restrain him,” the
Etheling said with some warmth. “If it be your pleasure, King Edmund, I
will keep him under my hand until the end of the war, and answer for
his silence with my life.”

Then Norman’s eagerness got the better of his discretion.

“Now, by Saint Dunstan,” he cried, “you take too much upon you, Lord of
Ivarsdale! The boy’s life is forfeit to me, against whom his crime was
directed.” A grim look squared his mouth as suddenly he stretched his
hand past Sebert and caught the red cloak.

It may have been this which the Etheling had foreseen, for he was not
taken by surprise. Jerking up his sword-arm, he knocked the thane’s
hand loose with scant ceremony. “You forget the law of the
battle-field, Norman of Baddeby,” he said swiftly. “The life of my
captive is mine, and I am the last man to permit it to be taken because
he sought a just revenge. I know too well how it feels to hate a
father’s murderer.” He shot a baleful glance toward a half-seen figure
that all this time had stood motionless in the shadow behind the King.

Probably this figure and the Earl’s thane were the only hearers he was
conscious of, but his tone left the words open to all ears. There was a
sudden indrawing of many breaths, followed by a frightened silence. The
only sound that disturbed it was a growing rustle in the bush around
them, which was explained when the old cniht Morcard and some two-score
armed henchmen and yeoman-soldiers, singly and in groups, filtered
quietly through the shadows and placed themselves at their chief’s
back.

But though the King’s brows had met for an instant in a lowering arch,
some second thought controlled him. When he spoke, his words were even
gracious:

“I think the Lord of Ivarsdale has the right of it. The crime the boy
purposed was not carried out; and in each case, Lord Sebert was his
captor. I am content to trust to his wardership.”

Sebert’s frank face betrayed his surprise at the complaisance, but he
gave his pledge and his thanks with what courtliness he could muster,
and releasing his passive prisoner, pushed her gently into the
safe-keeping of the old cniht. Yet he was not so obtuse as to step
back, as though the incident were closed; he read the King’s inflection
more correctly than that. Holding himself somewhat stiff in the
tenseness of his feelings, he stood his ground in silent alertness.

A rustle of uneasiness crept the round of the assembled nobles. Only
the monarch’s bland composure remained unruffled. Advancing with the
deliberate grace that so well became his mighty person, he seated
himself upon a convenient boulder and signed the figure in the shadow
to draw nearer.

As it obeyed, every one of the yeomen-soldiers strained his eyes in
that direction, as though hoping to surprise in the great traitor’s
face some secret of his power, the power that had made three kings as
wax between his fingers! But just short of the fire-glow the Gainer
paused, and the hooded cloak which shrouded him merged him hopelessly
into the shadow. Only the hand that rested on his sword-hilt protruded
into the light. It was a broad hand, and thick-fingered as a butcher’s,
but it was milk-white and weighted with massive rings.

Meanwhile, the King was speaking affably: “As you did not favor us with
your presence among the Wise Men, my lord, it is likely that you do not
know of the good luck which has befallen our cause. This prudent Earl,
who before the battle had concluded with himself that England had so
little to hope for from our reign that he was willing to throw his
weight against us, has found his victory so without relish that he has
become our sworn ally.”

As he paused,—perhaps to leave space for an answer,—the complacency of
his face was heightened by a smile, faintly shrewd, touching the
corners of his mouth. But when Sebert limited his reply to a respectful
inclination of his head, the smile vanished abruptly. Under the
affability there became evident a certain stern insistence.

“In former days, I think there was some hostile temper between the Earl
and you. But I expect you will see that under the stress of a foreign
war all lesser strife must give way. So I desire that you will repeat
in my presence the troth already plighted by these others.”

He made a slight gesture, and the Gainer took a step forward. The light
that fell back from his hooded face played curiously about his jewelled
hand; as it rose from the gilded hilt, it could be seen that to remedy
the bluntness of the thick fingers the nails had been allowed to grow
very long, which gave it now, in its half-curve, the look of a claw,
upon which the red gems shone like blood-drops.

Hesitating, the Etheling went from red to white. Then, with a swift
motion, he unsheathed his sword and stretched it out, point-foremost.

“King Edmund,” he said, “in no other way does my hand go forth toward a
traitor.”

This time there was no sound of breaths drawn in; it was as though the
whole world had ceased breathing. The sternness that had underlain the
King’s manner rose slowly and spread over the whole surface of his
person, as he drew himself up in towering offence.

“Lord of Ivarsdale, bethink yourself to whom you speak!”

He was royally imposing in his displeasure; the Etheling flushed like a
boy before his master; but he had his answer ready, and his head was
steadily erect as he gave it.

“King of the Angles, the right of open speech has belonged to my race
as long as the right to the crown has belonged to yours. So my father’s
fathers spoke to yours under the council-tree, and so I shall speak to
you while I live.”

Back in the shadow, each yeoman laid one hand upon his weapon, and with
the other, thrust an exulting thumb into his neighbor’s ribs. But they
did not turn to look at each other; every eye was fastened upon the two
by the fire. Freeman and his leader, or feudal lord and his dependant?
For the moment they stood forth as representatives of a mighty
conflict, and every breath hung upon their motions.

After a time the King made a slight movement with his shoulders.

“I should have remembered,” he said, “that your father was ruined by
rebellion.”

In a flash the rebel’s son had forgotten boyish embarrassment. “Whoso
told you that, royal lord, told you lies. My father stood upon his
right. Steel to turn against the Danes, Ethelred had a right to
require; and steel my father was ready to pay. But Ethelred demanded
gold, and the Lord of Ivarsdale would not stoop to bribe. Nor has it
been proven that his policy was wrong,” he added under his breath.

Then there was no longer any doubt concerning the position of
Ethelred’s son. He said with deliberate emphasis, “The only policy
which concerns those of your station is obedience.”

If there was enough of the old free blood left in the King’s thanes to
redden their cheeks, that was all there was. But while they stood in
silence, a mutter ran like a growl through the ranks of yeomen; the
gaze they bent upon their leader had in it almost the force of a
command.

He was young, their chief, too young for impassivity. Despite himself,
his hands trembled with excitement. But there was no tremor in his
words.

“We of Ivarsdale do not profess such obedience, King Edmund. That is
for thanes and for the unfree, who owe their all to your generosity.
Our land we hold as our fathers held it—from God’s bounty and the might
of our swords. When we have paid the three taxes of fort-building and
bridge-building and field-service, we have paid all that we owe to the
State.”

At last they stood defined, the first of the feudal lords and the last
of the odal-born men. Even through the King’s loftiness it was suddenly
borne in that, behind the insignificance of the revolt, loomed a mighty
principle, mighty enough to merit force. For the first time he stooped
to a threat, though still it was tinged with scorn.

“I observe that the men of your race have not been of great importance
in the land. It appears that Ethelred was able to do without the rebel
Lord of Ivarsdale.”

“I admit that he was able to lose his crown without him,” the rebel’s
son retorted swiftly.

The King’s wounded dignity bled in his cheeks; he was stung into a
movement that brought him to his feet.

“This is insufferable!” he cried. It was evident that the crisis had
come. While the Etheling faced him with a defiance that in its utter
abandon was a little mad, a sensation as of bracing muscles and setting
teeth went around the group. Several of the thanes laid their hands
upon their swords. And the half-dozen ealdormen present bent toward one
another in hasty consultation. At an almost imperceptible sign from the
old cniht, the henchmen made a noiseless step nearer their master.
There were not more than a dozen of them, but behind them loomed some
two-score yeomen-soldiers, with a score more in the brush at their
back; and the faces of all told more plainly than words what it would
mean to attack them.

But the blood of Cerdic, once fired, burned too rapidly for policy.
Edmund’s jaw was set in savage menace as he turned and beckoned to his
guard. Had he spoken the words on his lips, there is little doubt what
his order would have been.

Interruption came from an unexpected quarter. Even as his lips were
opening, that white taloned hand reached out of the shadow and touched
his arm.

“Most royal lord! If it may be permitted me?” Earl Edric said swiftly.

His voice was very low, and every roughness had been filed away until
it flowed like oil. Upon the King’s wounded temper it appeared to fall
as softly as drops of healing balm. With his mouth still set, he paused
and bent his ear. There was a murmur of whispered words.

What they were no one ever knew, and each man had a different theory;
but their result was plain to all. Slowly Edmund’s knitted brows
unravelled; slowly his mouth relaxed into its wonted curves. At last he
had regained all his lofty composure and turned back.

“Lord of Ivarsdale, I am not rich of time, and my present need is too
great to spare any of it to the chastising of rebellious boys. Go back
to your toy kingdom, and lord it over your serfs until I find leisure
to teach you who is master.” Making a disdainful gesture of dismissal,
he turned with deliberate grace and entered into conversation with the
Mercian.

At the moment, it is likely that the young noble would have preferred
arrest. The utter scorn of word and act lashed the blood to his cheeks
and the tears to his eyes. With boyish passion, he snatched the sword
from its sheath, and breaking it in pieces across his knee, flung the
fragments clinking into the dead embers.

But if he had hoped to provoke an answer, it was in vain; the King
deigned him no further notice. Resuming his seat, Edmund continued to
talk quietly with the Earl, a half-smile playing about his complacent
chin.

The old cniht bent forward and whispered in his chief’s ear: “Make
haste, Lord Sebert; they will be cheering in a moment, the churls; so
pleased are they at the thought of going home. Hasten with your
retiring.”

It was a clever appeal. Forgetting, for the moment, humiliation in
responsibility, the young leader whirled to his men. A gesture, a
muttered order, and they were drawing back among the trees in silent
retreat. A few steps more, and the bushes had blotted out the Ironside
and his thanes.




CHAPTER XI. When My Lord Comes Home From War


One’s own house is best,
Small though it be;
At home is every one his own master.
Bleeding at heart is he
Who has to ask
For food at every mealtide.
                    Hávamál.


Slowly the bleak light warmed into golden radiance and the touch of
dawn strung the scattered bird-notes into a chain of joyous song.
Passing at last from the forest shades, the men of Ivarsdale came out
into the grassy lane-like road that wound away over the Middlesex
hills.

The Destroyer had not passed this way, it seemed, for the oat-fields
stretched before them in unbroken silvery sheen; and the straight young
corn dared to rustle its green ribbons boastfully. Fowls still
uncaptured crowed lustily in adjacent barnyards; and now and again,
sweet as echoes from elfin horns, came the tinkling music of cow-bells.
Here and there, the little shock-headed boys who were driving their
charges afield paused knee-deep in rosy clover to watch the band ride
by.

“Yon must be a mighty warrior,” they whispered as they stared at the
sober young leader. “Take notice how his eyes gaze straight ahead, as
though he were seeking more people to overcome.” And they spoke
enviously of the red-cloaked page who sat on the croup of the leader’s
white charger.

“See the sword he wears in his gay clothes. Likely he also has been in
battle. He must needs be happy who can strike out into the world like
that.” Envying, they gazed after him until the horses’ hoofs threw up a
yellow wall between.

They would have opened their wide mouths wider had they known that the
red-cloaked page was looking wistfully at them and their kine and the
nodding clover.

“It must be very enjoyable to wander all day in the peace of the
meadows and hear nothing louder than cow-bells,” she was thinking. “It
is good to see creatures that no man is stabbing or doing harm to.”

Through warm sunshine, tempered by fresh breezes, they came yet deeper
into the drowsy farmland. Gradually the yeomen-soldiers, who had been
wrangling over the mystery of Edric’s actions, dropped one by one into
lazy silence, or set their tongues to whistling cleverly turned answers
to the bird-calls in the hedges. Another mile, and from somewhere in
the fields came the swinging chant of a ploughman, as he turned the
soil between the rows of rustling corn,—

“Hail, Mother Earth, thou feeder of folk!
Be thou growing, by goodness of God,
Filled with fodder, the folk to feed.”


Like the unbinding of a spell, the words fell upon the farmer-soldiers.
Dropping every other topic, they began to argue over the crops; and
after that they could not pass a harmless calf tethered to a crab-tree
that they did not quarrel over the breed, nor start a drove of grunting
swine out of the mast but they must lay wagers on the weight.

Running wild in the animation, it was not long before the clamor caught
up with the Etheling where he rode before them in sober reflection. He
smiled faintly as he caught the burden of the disjointed phrases.

“...Twelve stone; I will peril my head upon it!”... “Yorkshire, I tell
you, Yorkshire.”... “A fortnight? It will be ready in a week, or I have
never grown barley corn!”

“I do not believe that a tree-toad can change color more easily,” he
observed to the old cniht who rode at his side. “That Englishmen are
not stout fighters, no man can say, but the love of it is not in their
breasts; while with Northmen—”

“With Northmen,” Morcard added, “to fight is to eat.”

Another faint smile touched Sebert’s mouth as he glanced over his
shoulder at the red-cloaked boy. “After seeing this sprout, that is
easy to believe. Except that time alone when a two-year-old colt kicked
me on the head, I have never had my life threatened by so young a
thing.”

He grew grave again as his glance rested on his captive. “I want you to
tell me something,” he said presently. “You were Canute’s page; I saw
that you accompanied him in battle. I want you to tell me what he is
like in his temper.”

“It would be more easy to tell you what he is unlike,” Randalin
answered slowly; “for in no way whatever is he like your King Edmund.”
She sat awhile in silence, her eyes absently following the course of
the wind over a slope of bending grain. At the foot, it caught a clump
of willow-trees so that they flashed with hidden silver and tossed
their slender arms like dancers. “I think this is the difference, to
tell it shortly,” she said at last; “while it sometimes happens that
Canute is driven by necessity or evil counsels to act deceitfully
toward others, he is always honest in his own mind; while your
Edmund,—I think he lies to himself also.”

Morcard gave out a dry chuckle. “By Saint Cuthbert,” he muttered, “too
much has not been told concerning the sharpness of children!”

But the Etheling made no answer whatever. After he had ridden a long
time staring away across the fields, he met the old man’s eyes gravely.

“It is not alone because I am sore under his tongue, Morcard. Were he
what I had thought him, I would remain quiet under harder words. But he
is not worth enduring from; there is not enough good in him to outweigh
the evil.”

Old Morcard said thoughtfully: “The tree of Cerdic has borne many nuts
with prickly rinds in former times, but there has been wont to be good
meat inside. Since Ethelred, I have been in fear that the tree is dying
at the root.”

They swung over another piece of the road in silence, when the young
man started up and shook himself impatiently. “Wel-a-way! What use to
think of it? For the present, at least, I am a lordless man. Let us
speak of the defences we must begin to raise against Edmund’s coming.”

While they discussed watch-towers and barriers, the horses took them
along at a swinging pace. The heath-clad upland over which they were
passing sloped into another fertile valley, through which a lily-padded
stream ran between rows of drooping willows. Suddenly the Lord of
Ivarsdale broke off with an exclamation.

“It was not in my mind that we could see the old forked elm from here.
Hey, comrades!” he called over his shoulder. “Yonder—to the left—the
old land-mark! Do you see?” His glance, as it came back, took in his
captive. “The first bar of your cage, my hawk. Yonder is the first
boundary of Ivarsdale.”

Every man started up in his saddle, and the cheers they had held back
upon leaving camp burst forth now with added zest. Peering over her
captor’s shoulder, Randalin looked forward anxiously.

Below the plain in whose centre the old elm held up its blasted top to
be silvered by the sun, the land dipped abruptly toward the river, to
rise beyond in a long low hill. Rolling green meadows lay at its foot,
and warm brown fields dotted with thatched farm-houses; and its sides
were checkered with patches of woodland and stretches of golden barley.
Just below the crest, the tower of the Lords of Ivarsdale reared its
gray walls above the surrounding greenery. Far away, a speck through
the dark foliage, the great London road gleamed white; but wooded hills
made a sheltering hedge between, and all around spread the great beech
forest that fostered the markmen’s herds. It was a kingdom to itself,
with the light slanting warmly upon its fertile slopes and the forest
standing like a strong army at its back.

Because it was so peacefully lovely, and because of her utter
weariness, tears welled up under the girl’s heavy lids as she looked.
She said unsteadily, “Saw I never a fairer cage, lord.”

But the Etheling’s eager glance had travelled on; for the first time
the sun was shining out brightly in his face.

“The sight has more cheer than has wine,” he said. “I cannot comprehend
my folly in wanting to leave it. To live one’s own master on one’s own
land, that is the only life!” He looked back at the yeomen with a
sudden smile. “Noise!” he ordered. “Cheer again! it expresses the state
of my feelings. And let your horn sound merrily, Kendred, that they may
know we are coming.”

Amid a joyous tumult, they swept over the terrace-like plain and broke
ranks around the old elm. Evidently it was the disbanding place, for
the yeomen-soldiers, one and all, came crowding around their leader to
press his hand and speak a parting word.

“You have fought with the sword of your tongue, chief!”... “as worthy a
battle as when you strove against the Danes!”... “The spirit of the old
days is not dead while you are alive, Oswald’s son.”... “None now are
born thereto save you alone!”... “Till that time when you send for us,
my chief.”... “One eye on our ploughs and one watching for your
messenger.”... “God keep you in safety, young lord!”

In the meadows beyond the stream, little shepherd boys had heard the
horn and were swarming, spider-like, over the hedges, sending up shrill
shouts. And now women came running across the fields from the
farmhouses, waving their aprons. More children raced behind them; and
then a dozen old men, limping and hobbling on crutches and canes. A
moment, and they were all over the foot-bridge and up the slope; and
the sweet clamor of greetings was added to the tumult. Now it was a
crowd of little brothers throwing themselves upon a big one; now a
blooming lass flinging her arms around her sweetheart’s neck; and
again, a farmer’s little daughter leaping joyously into her father’s
embrace.

In the midst of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale looked around and found that
Fridtjof the page was crying as though his heart would break.

“How! Tears, my Beowulf!” he said in amazement.

She was far beyond words, the girl in the page’s dress; she could only
bury her face deeper in her slender hands and try to control the sobs
that shook her from head to foot.

But it was not long before the young man’s kind-ness divined the source
of her pain. He spoke a quick word to those behind, and waving aside
those before, touched spur to the white horse. In a moment, the good
steed had borne them out of the crowd and down the slope, followed only
by the old cnihts and the dozen armed retainers.

As the hoofs rang hollow on the little bridge that spanned the stream,
the Etheling spoke again in his voice of careless gentleness. “It is
easy to enter into the sorrowfulness of your heart, youngling, and I
think it no dishonor to your courage that you should mourn your kin
with tears; yet I pray you to lay aside as much grief as you can. Bear
in mind that no dungeon is gaping for you.”

She could not speak to him yet, but when he put his hand back to feel
of a strap, she bent and touched the brown fingers gratefully with her
lips. The answer seemed to renew his kindly impulse.

“After all, you should not feel so strange among us,” he said lightly.
“Do you know that it was one of your own countrymen who built the
Tower? Ivar Wide-Fathomer he was named, whence it is still called
Ivarsdale. He was of the stock of Lodbrok, they say; and it is said,
too, that one of his race is even now with Canute. Since Alfred, my
fathers have had possession of it, but it is Danish-built, every stone.
You must make believe that you are coming home.” So he spun on,
carelessly good-humored, as they climbed the wind-ing hill-path.

Across the ditch and through the wide-open gate in the moss-grown
palisade, and they came into a broad grassy space that was more like a
lawn than a court. Ahead of them rose the massive three-storied tower,
built of mighty gray stones without softening wings or adorning spires,
beautiful only in its mantling ivy. From the great door in its side a
crowd of serfs came running, ducking grinning salutations; and they
were followed by a half-dozen old warriors. Seized by a boyish whim,
their master rode past them with no more than a wave of his hand.

“If we make haste, it may be that we can take Hildelitha and Father
Ingulph by surprise,” he laughed, leaping down on the crumbling
doorstep and pulling his captive with him.

In the tunnel-like arch of the great entrance they met another throng,
but he shook them off with good-natured impatience and hurried through
the great guard-room to the winding stairs, that were cut out of the
core of the massive stones. Up and across another mighty hall, and then
up again, and into a great women’s-room, full of looms and
spinning-wheels, where a buxom English housewife and half-a-dozen
red-cheeked maids were gaping over their distaffs at the tale a jolly
old monk was telling between swallows of wine.

He choked in his cup when he saw who stood laughing in the doorway, and
there was a great screaming and scrambling among his audience. Knocking
over her spinning-wheel to get to him, the woman Hildelitha threw her
arms around her young lord’s neck and gave him a hearty smack on either
cheek; while the fat monk sputtered blessings between his paroxysms of
coughing, and the six blooming girls made a screaming circle around
them.

Though he endured it amiably enough, the Etheling appeared in some
haste to offer a diversion. He evaded a second embrace by turning and
beckoning to his shrinking captive.

“Save a little of your greeting for my guest, good nurse. Behold the
fire-eating Dane that I have captured with my own right arm!” As the
red-cloaked figure still hung back, he pulled it gently forward until
the light of the notched candles fell brightly on the face, pitifully
white for all its blood-stains, in the frame of tumbled black tresses.

“A Dane?” the women cried shrilly; then, with equal unanimity, burst
out laughing. Randalin drew a little nearer the Etheling’s sheltering
side. He said half reprovingly, half freakishly, “It would not be well
for you to anger him. He is the page of Canute himself, a real
Wandering Wolf, and recks not whom he attacks. He came near to spitting
Oslac at the battle, and even threatened me.”

“Oslac!” screamed one of the serving-maids, turning very red. “The
murderous little fiend!”

“He deserves to have his neck wrung!” two more cried out.

And Father Ingulph cleared his throat loudly. “Well-fitting is your
charity both toward my teachings and your heart, my son; and
yet—Discretion is the mother of other virtues. To bring one of those
roving children of Satan into a Christian household will lay upon me a
responsibility which—which—” He paused to take a mouthful of wine and
eye the stranger over the goblet rim with much disfavor.

While the maids whispered excitedly in one another’s ears, Hildelitha
began to sniff behind her apron. “I do not see why you wanted to bring
him home, Lord Sebert. You know that Danes are odious to me since my
husband, of holy memory, fell under their axes—most detestable—Yet I
would not anger you, my honey-sweet lord,” she broke off abruptly.

For the Lord of Ivarsdale had suddenly grown very stiff and grave;
there was something curiously haughty in the quiet distinctness of his
words.

“I have brought the boy home by reason of the King’s command that he be
held in safety—and because it was my pleasure to succor him. And I have
fetched him up here in order that you should supply his needs, being
distressed for want of food and drink and healing salves. I am not
pleased that you should meet my wishes in so light and cold a manner. I
desire your love will, as is becoming, receive him kindly and
charitably.”

He raised his hand as the pertest of the maids would have answered him,
and there followed an uncomfortable pause. Then seven gowns swept the
reed-strewn floor as seven courtesies fell, and Hildelitha thrust out
her palm to give the pert maid a resounding box on the ear.

“You have heard your master, hussy! Why do you not exert yourself to
bring food? Elswitha, if you do not want the mate to that, fetch the
salve out of my chest.”

In an instant all was confusion; under cover of it the fat monk
returned to his cup and the young master walked quietly to the door.

Homesick and heartsick, the waif in the page’s dress was left facing
the unfriendly glances. Even in her bravest days, she had never known
what it was to be disliked, and now—! Suddenly she limped after her
friend and caught at his cloak.

“Let me go with you,” she cried. “I beseech it of you! I want not their
service.”

After a moment, the Etheling threw his arm protectingly around the
boyish figure.

“I do not blame you, poor youngling,” he said. “I was wrong to treat
you as a child when you were bred up as a man. You shall have a bed in
the closet off my chamber, and they shall not enter except as you will
it. And you shall eat off my plate and drink from my cup. Come!”




CHAPTER XII. The Foreign Page


Early should rise
He who has few workers,
And go his work to see to;
Greatly is he retarded
Who sleeps the morn away;
Wealth half depends on energy.
                    Hávamál.


It was August, when Mother Earth had nearly completed her task of
providing for her children, and the excitement of a mighty work drawing
to its close was in the air; when the sun-warmed stillness was a-quiver
with the pulse of growing things coming to their strength, and every
cloudless day held in its golden heart a song of exultation. The grassy
space around the Tower, which was wont to be thronged with joyous
idlers, was to-day almost deserted. A single groom lounged in the shade
of the wide-spreading trees as he kept a lazy eye on the croppings of
two saddled horses, and an endless chain of fagot-laden serfs plodded
joylessly across the open. On one side of the great entrance arch a
half-dozen of the manor poor gabbled and basked in the sun while they
waited to receive their daily dole of food; on the other, a dark-locked
foreign page sat on the mossy step abiding the coming of his master.

Leaning back with one arm bent carelessly behind his head and one hand
caressing a shaggy hound that pressed against his knee, the boy’s
far-away gaze was designed to intimate his haughty oblivion to the
castle-world in general and the movements of the almsfolk in
particular. Seeing which, the people on the other side of the step had
laid aside any reserve they might have felt and were indulging their
curiosity with cheerful freedom.

“Six weeks he has been here, and this is the first good look I have had
at him,” the buzzing whispers ran. “It is said that they were obliged
to catch him between shields before they could take him.”... “Such hair
on a Dane is more rare than a white crow.”... “I believe no good of any
one with locks of that color.”... “Tibby, the weaving-woman, says he is
skilful in magic.”... “It is by reason of that, that he has become my
lord’s darling.”... “Why is he not in the hall, then, while the
ethel-born is sitting at table?”... “Perhaps his luck is beginning to
fail him.”... “Perhaps he has fallen out of favor.”

The two old men who offered these last suggestions chuckled with
malicious enjoyment, and two of the old women mumbled with their
toothless gums as though tasting sweet morsels; but the third drew
herself up with a kind of grotesque coquetry.

“You can tell by the green silk of his tunic that he is of some
quality,” she reproved them. “Danishmen are ever the ones to adorn
themselves. It occurs to my mind how, in Edgar’s time, when I was a
girl, one was quartered in my father’s house. He changed his raiment
once a day and bathed every Sunday. I used to comb his yellow hair when
I took in his ale, of a morning.” Long after her voice had passed into
a rattle, she stood in a simpering revery, her palsied hands resting
heavily upon her stick, her blinking eyes fixed on the picturesque
young foreigner musing in the sunshine.

Then the voice of the steward sounded sharply in the archway. There was
an eager catching up of bags and baskets, a shuffling forward of
unsteady feet, and the goody came out of her day-dream to throw herself
into the strife over a jar of peppered broth.

The Danish page bent to pillow a very red cheek on the soft cushion of
the dog’s head, then drew back and straightened himself stiffly as a
strapping serving-lass, flagon-laden, came out of the door behind him.
She saw the motion and looked down with a teasing laugh. “Aha, young
Fridtjof! How do you like being sent to cool your heels on the doorstep
while your master eats? What! I think that the next time you thrust
your foot out to trip me up as I hand my lord his ale, you will attend
to keeping it under your stool.”

Young Fridtjof regarded her with a kind of righteous indignation. “And
I think that the next time you will look where you are going, even if
it happen that it is Lord Sebert’s ale you are bearing. Silly jades,
that cannot come nigh him without biting your lips or sparkling your
eyes! I wonder he does not clap masks over your faces.”

“And I wonder he does not clap rods to your back,” the lass retorted
with sudden spite. She flounced past him down the step, on her way to
the great lead-roofed storehouse that flanked the forest side of the
Tower.

The boy looked after her sternly. “It is likely that you will be less
pert of tongue after I tell what I found out in the corn-bins
yesterday,” he said.

The maid whirled. “What did you find out, you mischief-full brat?”

He continued to stroke the dog’s head in dignified silence. “If you
mean the—the brown-cloaked beggar, let me inform you that that is
naught.”

Busying himself with pulling burrs from the hound’s ears, the page
began to hum softly.

She came a step nearer, and her voice wheedled. “It was only that he
was distressed for want of drink, poor fellow, and followed me into the
storehouse when he saw me go in to fill the master’s flagon. It was
naught but a swallow. My lord would be the last to grudge a harmless
body—”

“Harmless?” the page said sternly. “Did I not hear him tell you the
same as that he was an English spy?”

The girl abandoned the last shred of her dignity, to come and stand
before him, nervously fingering her apron. “For the dear saints’ sake,
let no one hear you say that, good Fridtjof! Alas, how you have got it
twisted! He is an Englishman who bent his head for food in the evil
days. And now they that bought him will not set him loose, so he has
cast off their yoke and fled to the Danes to get freedom and fortune.
He was on his way to join your people when he stopped to beg food. I
could not be so hard of heart as to refuse, though Hildelitha’s hand
would be hot about my ears did she suspect it. Say that you will hold
your tongue, sweet lad, and I will make boot with anything you like.”

He was very deliberate about it, the page, pursing his rosy mouth into
any number of judicial puckers; but at last he conceded, “Now, since
you know for certain that he is not one of Edmund’s spies,—and you are
so penitent, as is right,”—pausing, he regarded her severely,—“if I do
promise, will you make a bargain to put an end to your silly behavior
toward my lord? Will you undertake to deliver his dishes into my hands,
and leave it for me to pass his cup?”

“Yes, in truth; by Father Ingulph’s book!” the maid cried, wringing her
hands.

The page made her a magnanimous gesture. “In that case I will not be so
mean as to refuse you,” he consented. And he sat smiling to himself in
sly content after she had hurried away.

Emboldened by that smile, the dog suddenly laid aside his soberness of
demeanor. Pouncing upon a fagot which had fallen from one of the loads,
he brought it in his teeth, with shining eyes and much frantic
tail-wagging, and rubbed it against his friend’s knee. He had not
miscalculated. The boy’s smile deepened easily into a laugh, and he
leaped to his feet to accept the challenge. Seizing the stick, he put
all the strength of his lithesome body into an effort to make off with
it, while the great hound braced himself, with a rapture of rumbling
growls and short delighted barks. So they tussled, back and forth, this
way and that, amid a merry tumult of barking and laughter,—such a
tumult that neither heard the steps that both were waiting for, when at
last those steps came briskly through the archway. The first they knew
of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale was standing under the lintel, chatting
with those who came behind him.

With lips yet parted by their breathless laughter, the lad straightened
quickly from his sport, and stood shaking back his tumbling curls and
mopping his hot face, in which the rich color glowed through the tanned
skin like the velvety red on a golden peach. When, for one flashing
instant, they encountered a keen glance from the young lord, the color
deepened, and the iris-blue eyes suddenly brimmed over with mischievous
sparkles; then the black lashes were lowered demurely, and the page,
retreating to his place beside the step, signified only deference and
decorum.

Followed by old Morcard and the fat monk, the Etheling descended from
the doorway and stood on the broad step, shading his eyes from the
glare of brilliant light while he looked about him with evident
pleasure in the fairness of the day.

“Now is the time to lay by a store of sweet memories against the stress
of winter weather,” he said. “Whither do you go to harvest the
sunshine, father?”

The monk pulled his round red face to a devout length. “Why, there is a
good woman at the other end of the dale, my son, that labors under a
weakness of her limbs; and I have bethought me that it would be a
Christian act to fetch her this holy relique I wear about my neck, that
she may lay it upon the afflicted members and perhaps, aided by my
exhortations, experience some relief.”

“If the question may be permitted me, whither do you betake yourself,
my lord?” the old cniht asked.

With the light wand he carried, the young man made a gesture quite
around the horizon. “Everywhere and nowhere. After I have been to see
what they are doing with that portion of the palisade which I bade them
repair as soon as they had finished the barrier, I am—”

“That is something that had clean fallen out of my mind to tell you,
Lord Sebert,” Morcard spoke up hastily. “Yesterday, before you had got
in from hunting, Kendred of Hazelford came, as spokesman for the rest,
to say that inasmuch as the Barn Month is well begun, it will not be
possible for them to labor more upon the building; and, by your leave,
they will put off this, which is not pressing, until after the time of
the harvest.”

It was several moments before the Etheling spoke, and then his voice
was noticeably deliberate. “Oh!” he said, “so they ask my leave, but
stop at their pleasure?”

“My lord!”—the old man looked at him in surprise—“they act only
according to custom. Surely you would not have them neglect the
harvest, which waits no man’s leisure, to put to their hands as
laborers when there is no present need, now that they have completed
the barriers by the stream? What present harm because the drain off the
hill has rotted the palisade? All of that part is toward the forest.
How? Do you expect some Grendel of the March to fall upon us from that
direction?”

The Etheling smiled against his will. “Our foe would needs be a Grendel
to reach us from that side.” He struck the wand sharply against his
riding-boots. “Oh, it is not that I think the work so pressing.”

“In the Fiend’s name, what then is the cause of your distemper?” Father
Ingulph inquired impatiently, as he finished the girding-up of his
robes and picked up his staff preparatory to setting forth.

After a moment, the young noble began to laugh. “Why, to tell it
frankly, methinks it is more temper than distemper. That they should
take it upon them to decide how much of my order is necessary—” He let
a pause finish for him, and suddenly he turned with a flourish of gay
defiance: “I will tell you how I am going to spend my morning, Morcard.
I am going to ride over every acre that is under my hand and see how
much I can spare for loan-land. And when I have found out, I will rent
every furlong to boors who shall be bound to pay me service, not when
it best pleases them, but whensoever I stand in need of it.”

Rubbing his chin, the monk heard him in silence; but the old warrior
grew momentarily grave. “Take care that you seem not over proud, young
lord. It is in such a mood that Edmund creates thanes.”

It may be that the Etheling’s eyes widened for an instant, but directly
after he laughed with gay perverseness. “Is it?” he said. “Then, for
the first time in six weeks, I see that the Ironside is cunning in
thought.”

Shaking his head, Father Ingulph moved down the step. “Nay, if you are
in that humor, my son, I waste no breath. Speed you well, and may you
wax in wisdom!” With a gesture, half paternal, half respectful, he
betook himself across the grass to the gate.

Old Morcard turned and stepped up into the doorway, from which he
looked down indulgently upon his laughing master. “It happened
formerly, Lord Sebert, that I knew how to command your earnestness, and
that speedily; but that time has long gone by. Methinks I can
accomplish more among the watchmen upon the platform. By your leave, my
lord!” Bowing, he disappeared in the dark tunnel of the archway, and
the Etheling was left alone save for the graceful figure awaiting him
beside the step. The instant he moved, it sprang forward.

“Lord, is it your wish that I get the horses?”

As the old man had looked down upon the young one, so now the young man
stood looking down upon the boy, regarding him with tolerant severity.
“You most mischief-full elf!” he said. “It would be treating you
deservedly were I to leave you at home.”

It did not appear that the lad was seriously cast down; a betraying
dimple came out and played in his cheek, though his mouth struggled for
gravity. “That is unjustly spoken, lord,” he protested. “Did I not bear
my punishment with befitting penitence?”

“Penitence!” the Etheling gave one of the small ears a menacing pull as
he descended to the grass. “What! Do you think I did not see your
antics with the dog? You made a jest of the matter, you pixie!”

The page sobered. “I think it great luck that I could, Lord Sebert!
Your servants were eager in making a jest of me when they got the
courage from your displeasure.”

But Lord Sebert reached out the wand and gave him a gentle stroke
across the shoulders.

“Take that for your foolishness,” he said lightly. “What matters their
babble when you know how safe you sit in my favor?”

Through lowered lashes the boy stole him a glance, half mischievous,
half coaxing. “How safe, lord?” he murmured.

But the Etheling only laughed at him, as he drew up his long
riding-boots and readjusted his belt. “Safe enough so that I forgive
you some dozen floggings a day, you imp; and choose you for my comrade
when I should be profiting by the companionship of your betters. Waste
no more golden moments on whims, youngling, but go bid them fetch the
horses, and we will have another day of blithe wandering.”

Blithe they were, in truth, as they cantered through shaded lanes and
daisied meadows, nothing too small to be of interest or too slight to
give them pleasure. An orchard of pears, whose ripening they were
watching with eager mouths, a group of colts almost ready for the
saddle,—for the young master the fascination of ownership gave them all
a value; while another fascination made his companion hang on his least
word, respond to his lightest mood.

By grassy commons and rolling meadows sweet with clustering haycocks,
they came at last to the crest of the hill that guarded the eastern end
of the dale. The whole round sweep of the horizon lay about them in an
unbroken chain of ripening vineyards and rich timber-land, of
grain-fields and laden orchards; not one spot that did not make
glorious pledges to the harvest time. Drinking its fairness with his
eyes, the lord of the manor sighed in full content. “When I see how
fine a thing it is to cause wealth to be where before was nothing, I
cannot understand how I once thought to find my pleasure only in
destroying,” he said. “Next month, when the barley beer is brewed, we
will have a harvest feast plentiful enough to flesh even your bones,
you bodkin!”

The Danish page laughed as he dodged the plaguing wand. “It is true
that you owe something to my race, lord. He had great good sense, the
Wide-Fathomer, to stretch his strips of oxhide around this dale and
turn it into an odal.”

“Nay now, it was Alfred who had sense to take it away from him,” the
Etheling teased.

But the boy shook back his long tresses in airy defiance. “Then will
Canute be foremost in wisdom, for soon he will get it back, together
with all England. Remember who got the victory last week at Brentford,
lord.”

In the midst of his exulting, a cloud came over the young Englishman’s
smile. “I would I knew the truth concerning that,” he said slowly. “The
man who passes to-day says one thing; whoso comes to-morrow tells
another story. Yet since Canute is once more free to beset London—” He
did not finish, and for a while it appeared as though he did not see
the sunlit fields his eyes were resting on.

But suddenly the boy broke in upon him with a burst of stifled
laughter. “Look, lord! In yonder field, behind the third haycock!”

The moment that he had complied, laughter banished the Etheling’s
meditations. Cozily ensconced in the soft side of a haycock was Father
Ingulph, a couple of jovial harvesters sprawled beside him, a fat skin
of ale in his hands on its way to his mouth. As the pair on the hilltop
looked down, one of the trio began to bellow out a song that bore no
resemblance whatever to a hymn. Keeping under cover of the bushes, the
eavesdroppers laughed with malicious enjoyment.

“But I will make him squirm for that!” the Etheling vowed. “I will tell
him that your paganism has made spells over me so that I cannot tell a
holy relique from an ale-skin; and a bedridden woman looks to me like
two strapping yeomen. I will, I swear it!”

“And I shall be able to hold it against him as a shield, the next time
he is desirous to fret me about taking a new belief,” the boy rejoiced.

But presently Sebert’s remarks began to take a new tone. “They have the
appearance of relishing what they have in that skin,” he observed
first. And then, “I should not mind putting my own teeth into that
bread-and-cheese.” And at last, “By Saint Swithin, lad, I think they
have more sense than we, that linger a half-hour’s ride from food with
a noonday sun standing in the sky! It is borne in upon me that I am
starving.”

Backing his horse out of the brush, he was putting him about in great
haste, when the boy leaped in his stirrups and clapped his hands.

“Lord, we need not be a half-hour from food! Yonder, across the
stubble, is a farmhouse. If you would consent that I might use your
name, then would I ride thither and get their best, and serve it to you
here in the elves’ own feast-hall.”

The answer was a slap on the green shoulders that nearly tumbled their
owner from the saddle. “Now, I was right to call you elf, for you have
more than human cleverness!” the Etheling cried gayly. “Do so, by all
means, dear lad; and I promise in return that I will tell every
puffed-up dolt at home that you are the blithest comrade who ever
fitted himself to man’s moods. There, if that contents you, give wings
to your heels!”




CHAPTER XIII. When Might Made Right


Now may we understand
That men’s wisdom
And their devices
And their councils
Are like naught
‘Gainst God’s resolve.
                    Saxon Chronicle.


What difference that, somewhere beyond the hills, men were fighting and
castles were burning? At Ivarsdale in the shelter and cheer of the
lord’s great hall, the feast of the barley beer was at its height.
While one set of serfs bore away the remnants of roast and loaf and
sweetmeat, another carried around the brimming horns; and to the sound
of cheers and hand-clapping, the gleeman moved forward toward the harp
that awaited him by the fireside.

Where the glow lay rosiest, the young lord sat in the great raised
chair, jesting with his Danish page who knelt on the step at his side.
Now the boy’s answering provoked him to laughter, and he put out a hand
and tousled the thick curls in his favorite caress. One of the tresses
caught in his jewelled ring; and as he bent to unfasten it, he stared
at the wavy mass in lazy surprise. It was as soft and rich as the
breast of a blackbird, and the fire had laid over it a sheen of rainbow
lights.

“Never did I think there could be any black hair so alluring,” he said
involuntarily.

He could not see how the face under the clark veil grew suddenly as
bright as though the sun had risen in it. And the lad said, rather
breathlessly, “I wonder at your words, lord. You know that such hair is
the curse of black elves.”

Leaning back in his chair, the Etheling shook his head in whimsical
obstinacy. “Not so, not so,” he persisted. “It has to it more lustre
than has yellow. My lady-love shall have just such locks.”

He had a glimpse like the flash of a bluebird’s wing in the sun, as the
page glanced up at him, and the sight of a face grown suddenly
rose-red. Then the boy turned shyly, and slipping back to his cushion
on the step, nestled himself against the chair-arm with a sigh that was
almost pathetic in its happiness.

Like a quieting hand, the first of the mellow chords fell upon the
noise of the revel. The servants bearing away the dishes began to tread
the rushes on tiptoe, and a dozen frowns rebuked any clatter. Through
the hush, the gleeman began to sing the “Romance of King Offa,” the
king who married a wood nymph for dear love’s sake. It began with the
wooing and the winning, out in the leafy greenwood amid bird-voices and
murmuring brooks; but before long the enmity of the queen-mother
entered, with jarring discords, to send the lovers through bitter
trials. Lord and page, man and maid and serf, strained eye and ear
toward the harper’s tattered figure. So breathless grew the listening
stillness that the crackling of the fire became an annoyance. What
matter that outside an autumn wind was howling through the forest and
stripping the leaves through the vines? Within sound of the mellow
harp-music it was balmiest spring-time, as the castlefolk followed the
gleeman over the hills and dales of a flowering dream-world.

For a space after he had finished, the silence remained unbroken, then
gave way only to an outburst of applause. And one did even better than
applaud. Bending forward, his beautiful face quite radiant with his
pleasure, the curly-headed page pulled a golden ring from his pouch and
tossed it into the harper’s lap.

As he caught the largess, the man’s mouth broadened. “I thank you for
your good-will, fair stripling,” he returned. “May you find as true a
love when your time comes to go a-wooing.”

The maids tittered, while the men guffawed, and a richer glow came into
the cheeks of Fridtjof the page. Suddenly his iris-blue eyes were
daringly a-sparkle.

“The spirits will have forgot your wish before that time comes,” he
laughed, “for I vow that I will raise a beard or ever I woo a maiden.”

Above the mirth that followed rose the voice of the brawniest of the
henchmen, passing his judgment on the ballad. “Now that is my own
desire of songs,” he declared. “That was worth possessing,—the love of
that lass. A sweetheart who will cleave to your side when your fortune
is most severe, and despise every good because she has not you also,
she is the filly to yoke with. Drink to the wood maiden, comrades, bare
feet and wild ways and all!” Swinging up his horn, he drained off the
toast at a draught. “Give us a mistress like that, my lord,” he cried
merrily, “and we will hold Ivarsdale for her though all of Edmund’s men
batter at the doors.”

Laughing, they all looked up where the young master leaned in his
chair, watching the revels with a smile of idle good-humor. All except
the blue-eyed page; he bent forward instead, so that his long locks
fell softly about his face.

The Lord of Ivarsdale shook his head indolently against the cushion.
“No wood lass for me, friend Celric,” he said. “The lady of my love
shall be a high-born maid who knows no more of the world’s roughness
than I of woman’s ways. Nor shall she follow me at all, but stay
modestly at home with her maids and keep herself gentle and fair
against my return. Deliver me from your sun-browned, boy-bred wenches!”

“I am consenting to that, lord!” a voice cried from the benches; and a
hubbub of conflicting opinions arose. Only the page neither spoke or
moved.

The henchman would not be downed; again his voice rose above the
others. “In soft days, my lord, in soft days, it might easily be so.
But bear in mind such times as these, when grief happens to a man
oftener than joy. Methinks your lily-fair lady would swoon at the sight
of your blood; and tears would be the best answer you would get, should
you seek to draw comfort out of her.”

White as a star at dawn, the page’s face was raised while his wide eyes
hung on his master’s; and from the little reed wound between his brown
fingers, the juice began to ooze slowly as though some silent force
were crushing the life out of its green heart.

But the young noble laughed with gay scorn: “Tears would be in all
respects a better answer than I should deserve, should I whimper
faint-hearted words into a maiden’s ear. What folly-fit do you speak
in, fellow? What! Do you think I would wed another comrade like
yourself, or a playfellow like this youngster?” Ever so gently his foot
touched the boyish form on the step. “It is something quite different
from either of you that is my desire; something that is as much higher
as the stars are above these candles.”

Disputing and agreeing, the clamor rose anew, and the Etheling turned
to his favorite with a jest. But the page was no longer in his place.
He had risen to his feet and was standing with his head flung back like
one in pain, both hands up tearing the tunic away from his throat.
Sebert bent toward him with a question on his lips.

He forgot the query before he could speak it, however, for at that
moment there was a sound of hurried steps on the stone stairs, and one
of the armed watchmen from the top of the Tower burst into the room.

“Lord,” he gasped, “some one is upon us! We thought first it was naught
but the noise of the wind—then Elward saw a light. We swear they came
not over the bridge, yet—”

His words were cut short by a horn-blast from the darkness, loud and
clear above the whistling wind. Though only one woman screamed out
Edmund’s name, it is probable that the same thought was in every mind.
Jests and laughter died on the lips that bore them, and with one accord
the men turned in their seats to watch their master.

His face had sobered as he listened; before the first echo had died
away he had spoken swiftly to the fellow at his side. “Celric, get you
down to the guard at the gate and inquire into the meaning of that.”

When the henchman had left, he began a sharp questioning of the
sentinel, and the noise did not begin again. Whispering, the women drew
together like herded sheep; and the men left their barley beer, to
stand in little groups, muttering in one another’s ears. An old bowman
took his weapon down from the wall and set silently to work to restring
it.

In the quiet, the tap of the man’s feet upon the steps was audible long
before he reached the waiting roomful. Every eye fastened itself upon
the curtained doorway.

Swinging back, the arras disclosed a face full of amazement. “Lord,”
the man said, “it is Danes! None know how many or how they came there.
And their chief has sent you a messenger.”

“Danes!” For the first time in the history of Ivarsdale, the word was
spoken with an accent of relief.

The page turned from the fire with a cry of bitter rejoicing: “If it is
Canute, I will go to him!”

In the revulsion of his feelings, the Etheling laughed outright. “Since
it is not Edmund, I care not if it be the Evil One himself; and it
cannot be he, for Canute is in Mercia.” He rose and faced them
cheerily. “Lay aside your uneasiness, friends; it is likely only such
another band as we put to flight last month, that hopes to surprise us
into some weakness. Let the signal fires blaze to warn the churls,
while we amuse ourselves with the messenger. To-morrow we will chase
them so far over the hills that they will never find their way back
again.”

Beckoning to Morcard, he began to consult him concerning the most
effective arrangement of the sentinels; and there was a muffled clatter
of weapons as men went to and fro with hasty steps. At a word from the
steward, the women went softly from the room and up the winding stairs
to their quarters, the rustling of their dresses coming back with
ghostly stealthiness.

When all was ready the messenger was brought in between guards. Wrapped
in dirty sheepskins, he swaggered to the centre of the room, and the
light that fell on his tanned face showed a scar running the full
length of his cheek. With his first glance, the Lord of Ivarsdale
uttered an exclamation.

“Now, by Saint Mary, I have seen you before, fellow! Were you not the
leader of the band we drove away last month?”

The Scar-Cheek laughed impudently. “I will not conceal it; yet I did
not know that my beauty was so showy. The chief was wise to send
Brown-Cloak to do the spying.”

“Brown-Cloak! The beggar?” was cried all down the hall.

But the messenger’s eyes had fallen on the black-haired boy, who stood
staring at him from the fireside. His wide mouth opened in
astonishment. “The King’s ward? Here is a happening!” he ejaculated.
“If I am not much mistaken, Canute will be glad to find this out. It
was his belief that you had got your death-blow at Scoerstan, and he
took it ill.”

The King’s ward made no other answer than to regard him with a strange
mixture of attention and aversion; but the Etheling reached out and
pushed the boy farther behind the great chair.

“Fridtjof Frodesson is my captive and no longer concerns you,” he said
briefly. “Give him no further thought, but come to your message.”

The swaggering assurance of the man’s laugh was more offensive than
rudeness would have been. “If I say that we will shortly set him free,
I shall not be going very wide from my message. My errand hither is
that I bring word from Rothgar Lodbroksson to surrender the Tower.”

The page uttered a little cry, and his lord raised a hand mechanically
to impose silence; but no one else seemed able to speak or to move.
From the master in his chair to the serf by the door, they stared
dumb-founded at the messenger.

He, on his part, appeared to realize all at once that the time for
formality had come. Pitching his cloak higher on his shoulders, he
fastened his eyes on a hole in the tapestry behind the Etheling’s chair
and began monotonously to recite his lesson: “Rothgar, the son of
Lodbrok, sends you greeting, Sebert Oswaldsson; and it is his will that
you surrender to him the odal and Tower of Ivarsdale; as is right,
because the odal was created and the Tower was built by Ivar Vidfadmi,
who was the first son of Lodbrok and the father’s father’s father of my
chief—-” In spite of himself, he was obliged to stop to take in breath.

In the pause, the page bent toward his master, his face alight with a
sudden fierce triumph. “Lord,” he whispered, “you can never get out!
You are caught as though they had you in a trap!”

Astounded, Sebert drew back to stare at him. “Fridtjof! It is not
possible that you are unfaithful to me!”

The boy’s only answer was to drop down upon the step and bury his face
in his hands. And now the messenger had recovered his wind and his
place.

“Since the time of Alfred,” he went on, “my chief and his kin have been
kept out of the property by your stock and you; yet because he does not
wish to look mean, he offers you to go out in safety with all of your
housefolk, both men and women, and as much property as you can walk
under,—if you go quietly and in peace.” This time his inflection showed
that he had finished. He turned his eyes from the hole and fastened
them on the Lord of Ivarsdale, in the confidence of invincible power.

The room was so still that when a gust came in around the ill-fitting
windows, the flare of the torch-flames sounded loud as the hiss of
serpents.

The Etheling’s voice was very deep and quiet. “If we go in peace,” he
repeated slowly. “And if we do not?”

The Dane shrugged his burly shoulders. “There are no terms for that.
You will find it necessary to take what comes.”

Again there was silence.

Sebert put his last question: “How long does the son of Lodbrok give me
to consider how I am to order things?” The man shattered the silence
with his boisterous laughter. “It is not a lie about you English that
you never do aught that you do not sit down first and consider, till
the crews have eaten all your provisions and the timbers of your boats
are rotting. When a Dane strikes, it is like the striking of lightning.
So soon as you hear the thunder of his coming, that instant you see the
flashing of his weapon. My chief gives you no time at all. So long a
time, he has studied out, will it take me to come in to you; so much
longer to do my errand; and so much longer to get back. At the end of
that time he will blow his horn, and if your gates do not fly open in
obedience, he will take that for your answer.”

Either the Lord of Ivarsdale had been doing some rapid thinking during
the long speech, or else he was too incensed to think. Now he rose with
sparks flashing from the steel of his eyes. “By Peter, he is right! I
do not need even that long,” he cried. “Since the Wide-Fathomer began
the game, the Tower has been the prize of the strongest. Shall I flinch
from a challenge? Our rights are equal; our luck shall decide. For his
answer, be he reminded of his own Danish saying, that ‘It is a strong
bird that can take what an eagle has in his claws,’ and let him get
what comfort he can from that.”

After his ringing tones, the unmoved voice of the messenger fell flat
on the ear. “It has happened as we supposed, that you would answer
unfavorably,” he said as he turned. “It was seen in battle that you are
a brave man. Otherwise the chief would not have thought it necessary to
hew a path through the forest in order to take you by surprise.”
Saluting with some appearance of respect, he joined his conductors at
the door and passed out of sight down the stair.

Like smoke in the wake of a firebrand, confusion rose behind him; a din
of exclamations loosed on the air and the clangor of weapons caught
down from the wall. Through it, the Etheling’s voice sounded strongly.
“To the palisade, all of you! They may not wait till morning. To the
forest side; and keep them from it as you would keep off death!” He
bent and shook the crouching page. “My armor, boy! How! Would you have
me read treason in your sluggishness? My armor!”

The page started up, but it was only to stare past him and fling out
his hand toward a window, where a bright light had suddenly shot
athwart the darkness: “Lord, they have set fire to something!”

The voice of old Morcard rose shrill: “To the storehouses! Save the
grain!”

There was a wild rush for the door; but on the threshold they were met
by the shouts of watchmen hurrying from the parapets.

“Lord, the court is swarming with them!”... “They have cut through the
palisade on the forest side!”... “They had brush laid ready—“...
“Waited only for him—“... “Holy saints, what is the meaning of
that?”... “Something else has taken!”

From the stairway above them came a piercing cry: “The storehouses!
They have fired them from inside! The lead is melting like ice!”...
“The grain!”... “The grain!”

In their midst the young lord stood in helpless fury; and the hand he
had grasped around his sword-hilt gripped it so hard that blood started
under each nail. But his page bent and kissed the clenched fist with a
cry of fierce exulting.

“You will never get out to find your lily-fair lady. You will never
have a lady wife, lord! We shall die together.”




CHAPTER XIV. How The Fates Cheated Randalin


There is a mingling of affection
Where one can tell
Another all his mind.
                    Hávamál.


After that night the deep-set windows of Ivarsdale looked out upon some
grim sights. The first morning it was a skirmish in the meadow beyond
the foot-bridge, when the three-score farmer-soldiers came loyally to
their leader’s aid. Though Kendred of Hazelford marched bravely at
their head, they were practically uncaptained; with any kind of weapon
in their hands and no kind of armor over their home-spun. What chance
had they against sixty picked warriors, led by the fiercest chief of a
race of chieftains? They met, and there was a moment of clash and of
clangor, a moment of awful commotion; and when the whirling dust-clouds
settled, the only homespun that was moving was that which was flying,
sped by Danish arrows. All the rest of the day the Tower windows looked
out upon a litter of brown heaps, here and there a white face upturned
or a scarf-end fluttering in the autumn wind.

Wild with helpless misery, the Lord of Ivarsdale would have charged the
Berserkers with his handful of armed servants if the old cniht had not
restrained him almost by force; when he spent his breath in railing at
everything between earth and sky.

“It is the folly of it that maddens me,” he cried over and over, “the
needless folly! Had I but used my mind to think with, instead of to
plan feasts—I am moved to dash my brains out when I remember it!”

“Nay, it is my judgment that was lacking,” Morcard said bitterly. “I
was an old dog that could not learn a new trick. I should have seen
that the old ways no longer avail. The fault was mine.” His wrinkled
old face was so haggard with self-reproach that the Etheling hastily
recanted.

“Now I bethink me, I am wrong, and it is no one’s fault. It comes of
the curse that lies over the Island. Was there not something rotten in
all English palisades, it would never have happened that the pirates
got their first foothold. But we have shaken off the spell, and they
have not mastered us yet. To-night we will try to get a messenger out
to my kinsman in Yorkshire, and another to my father’s friend in
Essex.”

The next day, and for many days thereafter, the Tower windows stared
out like expectant eyes. But no delivering bands ever came over the
hills to reward their watching. From the moment that he was swallowed
by the outer darkness, the messenger for Yorkshire was as lost to their
sight and their knowledge as though he had plunged into the ocean. And
a week later, the man who had been sent into Essex crept back with a
dejection that foretold his ill success. The ealdorman was taxed, might
and main, to protect his own lands. He regretted it, to his innermost
vitals, but these were days when each must stand or fall for himself.
He could only send his sympathy and the counsel to hold out
unflinchingly in the hope that some fortune of war would call the
besiegers away.

When he heard that, Father Ingulph forgot his robes to indulge in a
curse. “Does he think we have possession of the widow’s blessed
oil-cruse? If the larder had not been stocked for a week’s feasting, we
must needs have been starved under ere this. How much longer can we
endure, even at one meal a day?” He sighed as he drew his belt in
another notch.

When the beginning of the Wine Month came, the bitterest sight that the
Tower windows gave out upon was the band of foragers that every morning
went forth from the Danish camp-fires. Every noon they returned, amid a
taunting racket, with armfuls of ale-skins, back-loads of salted meats,
and bags bulging with the bread which they had forced the terrorized
farm-women into baking for them. “They have the ingenuity of fiends!”
Father Ingulph was wont to groan after each of these spectacles.

At last the time arrived when it looked as though these visions were to
be the only glimpses of food vouchsafed to them.

“Bread for one more meal; and the last ale-cask has been broached,” the
steward answered in a very faint voice when Morcard put the nightly
question.

Because it was not possible for the old man’s face to record more
misery, the light of the guard-room fire over which he crouched showed
no change whatever in his expression.

It was the young lord, who sat beside him, that answered. After a pause
he said gently, “Go and try to get some sleep. At least you can dream
of food.”

“I have done no otherwise for a sennight,” the man sighed as he hurried
away to snatch the tongs from a serf who was spending an unnecessary
fagot upon the fire. At any other time he would have shouted at him,
but it was little loud talking that was done within the walls these
days.

When they were left alone, the old cniht threw himself back upon the
bench and covered his face with his mantle. “I have outlived my
usefulness,” he moaned. “I have lived to bring ruin on the house that
has sheltered me. What guilt I lie under!” For a time he lay as stark
and rigid under his cloak as though death had already closed about him.
The guard-room seemed to become a funeral chamber, with a mass of
hovering shadows for a pall. The fire held up funeral tapers of
flickering flame, and the whispers of the starving men who warmed
themselves in its heat broke the silence as dismally as the voices of
mourners.

But the Lord of Ivarsdale said steadily, “Not so, good friend; and it
hurts my pride sorely that you should speak as if I were still of no
importance in my father’s house. That which I call myself lord of, it
behooved me to rule over. If ever I get out of this—” checking himself,
he rose to his feet. “The smoke makes my wits heavy. Methinks I will go
up into the air a while.”

He took a step toward the door, but halted when the red-cloaked page,
who had been stretched near him on the bench, started up as though
preparing to accompany him. “Stay where you are, lad. These fasts from
sleep will parch your young brains. I go up to the platform because I
would rather walk than rest; but do you remain here by the fire and try
to catch a drowsiness from its heat.”

But the page advanced with the old wilful shake of his curly head. “I
also would rather walk, if you please.” As he looked at him, compassion
came into the Etheling’s face. The hollowness of their sockets made the
boy’s large eyes look larger, and his fever-flush trebled their
brightness. Sebert said, with a poor attempt at a smile, “Little did I
think that my hospitality would ever produce such a guest. Poor
youngling! You would better have crept out to your countrymen, as I
bade you.”

Again the dark head shook obstinately. “Rather would I starve with you
than feast with them. I go not out till you go.”

Something seemed to come into the young man’s throat as he was about to
speak, for he swallowed hard and was silent. Putting an arm about the
slender figure, he drew it to his side; and so they left the room and
began to climb the stairs.

As soon as the curtain fell at their heels a stifling mustiness came to
their nostrils, and a chill that was like the flat of a knife-blade
pressed against their cheeks. They drew breath thankfully when they had
come up into the sweet freshness of the night air. Flashing on the
weapons of the pacing sentinels, a glory of silver moonlight lay like a
visible silence over the parapets. In the darkness below, a sea of
forest trees was murmuring and splashing at the passing of a wind. Yet
deeper down in the dark glowed the fires of the Danish camp,—red eyes
of the dragon that would rise ere long and crush them under his iron
claws.

After they had twice made the round without speaking, the page said
gravely, “I heard what Brithwald told you about the bread, lord. What
will overtake us when that is gone? Shall we charge them, so that we
may die fighting?” When the Etheling did not answer immediately, his
companion looked up at him with loving reproach. “You forget that you
need conceal nothing from me, dear lord. I am not as those clowns
below. You have even said that you found pleasure in telling me your
mind.”

Sebert’s hand was lifted from the red cloak to touch the thin cheek
caressingly. “I should be extreme ungrateful were I to say less, dear
lad. There is a man’s courage in your boy’s body, and I think a woman
could not be more faithful in her love—How! Are you cold that you
shiver so? Pull the corner of my cloak about you.”

But the page cast it off impatiently. “No, no, it is nothing; no more
than that one of those men out there may have walked across the spot
that is to be my grave. Sooner would I bite my tongue off than
interrupt you. I ask you not to let it hinder your speech.”

Again a kind of affectionate pity came into the young noble’s face.
“Does it mean so much to you to hear that you have been faithful in
your service?”

“It means—so much to me!” the boy repeated softly; and if the man’s ear
had not been far afield, he might have divined the secret of the green
tunic only from the tenderness of the low voice. But when his mind came
back to his companion again, the lad was looking at him with a little
smile touching the curves of his wistful mouth.

“Do you know why this mishap which has occurred to you seems great luck
for me? Because otherwise it is not likely that you would have found
out how true a friend I could be. If it had happened that I had gone
with Rothgar’s messenger that night, you would have remembered me only
as one who could entertain you when it was your wish to laugh. But now,
since it has been allowed me to endure suffering with you and to share
your mind when it was bitterest, you have given me a place in your
heart. And to-morrow, when we go forth together, and the Dane slays me
with you because it will be open to him then that for your sake I have
become unfaithful to him, you will remember our fellowship even to—”

But Sebert’s hand silenced the tremulous lips. “No more, youngling! I
adjure you by your gentleness,” he whispered unsteadily. “You owe me no
such love; and it makes my helplessness a thousand-fold more bitter.
Say no more, little comrade, if you would not turn my heart into a
woman’s when it has need to be of flint. Sit you here on the ledge the
while that I take one more turn. You will not? Then come with me, and
we will make the round together, and apply our wits once more to the
riddle. Until swords have put an end to me, I shall not cease to
believe that it has an answer.”

Below, in the dense blackness of the forest, an occasional owl sounded
his echoless cry. From still deeper in the dark, where the Danish
camp-fires glowed, a harp-note floated up on the wind with a fragment
of wild song. But it was many a long moment before the silence that
hovered over the doomed Tower was broken by any sound but the measured
tramp of the sentinels.

It was Sebert who brought the dragging pace finally to a halt, throwing
himself upon a stone bench to hold his head in his hands. “We cannot
drive them off; that needs no further proof. And I do not see how we
can hold out till the time that chance entices them away, when but one
meal stands between us and starvation, and already we are as weak as
rabbits. Naught can profit us save craft.”

The dark head beside him shook hopelessly; but he repeated the verdict
with additional emphasis. “I tell you, craft is our only hope; some
artfulness that shall undermine their strength even as their tricks
crept, snake-like, under our guard.” Turning in his seat, he set his
face toward the darkness, clutching his head in renewed effort.

No word came from the page, but a strange look was dawning in his
upturned face. Whether it was a great terror that had shaken his soul
or whether a joy had come to him that raised him to heaven itself, it
was impossible to tell, for the signs of both were in his eyes. And
when at last he spoke, both thrilled through his voice. “Lord,” he said
slowly, “I think I see where a trick is possible.”

As Sebert turned from the darkness, the boy struggled up and stood
before him. “If they could be made to believe a lie about the food? If
they could be made to believe that you have enough to continue this for
a long time? Their natures are such that already it must have become a
hardship for them to remain quiet.”

The Etheling’s eyes were riveted on the other’s lips; his every muscle
strained toward him. Under the stimulus the page’s words seemed to come
a little less uncertainly, a little more quickly.

“I think I could manage it for you, lord. They think me your unwilling
captive: you remember what the messenger said about freeing me? If I
should go to Rothgar—” his voice broke and his eyes sought his friend’s
eyes as though they were wine-cups from which he would drink courage—
“if I should go to Rothgar, lord, I could declare myself escaped, and
he would be likely to believe any story I told him.”

Sebert leaped up and caught the lad by the shoulders, then hesitated,
weighing it in his mind, half fearing to believe. “But are you sure
that your tongue will not trip you? Or your face, poor mouse? What! Can
you make them believe in abundance when your cheeks are like bowls for
the catching of your tears?”

The boy seemed to gather strength from the caressing hands, as Thor
from the touch of his magic belt. He even gave a little breathless
laugh of elation. “As to that, I think he is not wise enough to guess
the truth. I will tell him that you have thought it revengeful toward
him to starve your Danish captive; and because it is in every respect
according to what he would do in your place, I think he will have no
misgivings.”

Pulling the soft curls with a suggestion of his old lightheartedness,
the Etheling laughed with him. “You bantling! Who would have dreamed
you to that degree artful? Are you certain your craft will bear you
out? I would not have you suffer their anger. Are you capable of so
much feigning?”

For an instant the boy’s eyes were even audacious; and all the
hollowness of the cheeks could not hide a flashing dimple. “Oh, my dear
lord, I am capable of so much more feigning than you guess!” he
answered daringly.

“Nay, have I not been wont to call you elf?” Sebert returned. Then his
voice deepened with feeling. “By the soul of my father, Fridtjof, if
you bring me out of this snare, me and mine, I declare with truth that
there will be no recompense you can ask at my hands which I shall not
be glad to grant—” He paused in the wonder of seeing the sparkle in the
blue eyes flee away like a flitting light.

The page turned from him almost with a sob. “Pray you, promise me
nothing!” he said hastily. “If ever I see you again, and you have more
to give me than pity—Nay, I shall lose my courage if I think of that
part. Get me out quickly while the heart is firm within me. And give me
a draught from your cup to warm my blood.”

“Certainly it would be best for you to come to them while they are in
such a state of feasting that their good-humor is keenest and their
wits dullest,” Sebert assented.

He spoke but with the matter-of-factness of a soldier reconnoitring a
position, but on the girl in the page’s dress the words fell like
blows. Then it was that she realized for the first time how ill a crumb
can satisfy the hunger which asks for a loaf; that she knew that her
body was not the only part of her which was starving. Somewhere on that
dark stairway she lost the boyishness out of her nature forever. The
thin cheeks were white under their tan when they came again into the
light of the guard-room fire; and the blue eyes had in them a woman’s
reproach.

“It would show no more than friendship if you said that you were sorry
to have me go,” she told him with quivering lips. “Are you so eager in
getting me off that you cannot say you will miss me?”

But the young lord only laughed good-humoredly as he poured the wine.
“What a child you are! Do you not know those things without my telling
you? And as for missing you, I am not likely to have time. The first
chance you get, you will slip back to me if you do not, I will come
after you and flog you into the bargain; be there no forgetting!”

She could not laugh as she would once have done; instead she choked in
the cup and pushed it from her. A passionate yearning came over her for
one such word, one such look, as he would give the dream-lady when she
should come. With her secret on her lips, she lifted her eyes to his.

A little amused but more pitying, and withal very, very kind, his
glance met hers; and her courage forsook her. Suppose the word she was
about to speak should not make his face friendlier? Suppose his
surprise should be succeeded by haughtiness, or, worse than all, by a
touch of that gay scorn? Even at the memory of it she shrank. Better a
crumb than no bread at all. Turning away, she followed him in silence
down the dark passage.

When the moment of parting arrived, and Sebert’s hand lay on the last
bolt, that mood was so strong upon her that it seemed to her as though
she were passing out of life into death. Clinging to his cloak, with
her face buried in its folds, she wet it with far bitterer tears than
any she had shed over her murdered kinsmen.

“I wish I had not thought of it! I wish I had not told you!” she sobbed
into the soft muffling. “Only to be near you I thought heaven; and now
the Fates have cheated me even out of that.”

The Etheling put his hand under the bent head to raise it that he might
hear what the lips were saying, and she covered his palm with kisses.
Then slipping away, like the elf he had called her, she glided through
the narrow space of the half-open door and was gone, sobbing, out into
the night.




CHAPTER XV. How Fridtjof Cheated The Jotun


“‘Such is the love of women,
Who falsehood meditate,
As if one drove not rough-shod
On slippery ice
A spirited two-year-old
And unbroken horse.
                    Hávamál.


I trust my sword; I trust my steed;
But most I trust myself at need,’”


the fair-haired scald sang exultingly to the Danishmen sprawled around
the camp-fire. It was to no graceful love-song that his harp lent its
swelling chords, but to a stern chant of mighty deeds, whose ringing
notes sped through the forest like the bearers of war-arrows, knocking
at the door of each sleeping echo until it awoke and carried on the
summons.

Echoes awoke as well in the breasts of those who listened. When the
minstrel laid aside his harp for his cup, Snorri Scar-Cheek brought his
fist down in a mighty blow upon the earth. “To hear such words and know
one’s self doomed to wallow in mast!”

A dozen shaggy heads wagged surly acquiescence. But from the figure
outstretched upon the splendid bearskin a harsh voice sounded. “Now!
see that because you lie in mast you have a swine’s wit,” it said. “Do
you want the thrall to stand forth and prove for the hundredth time
that their bins must needs be as empty as your head?”

Venturing no more than a growl, the man dropped his chin back upon his
fists. But Brown-Cloak, the English serf, found somewhere the notion
that here was an opportunity to rehearse once more the service which
was his sole claim upon his new masters’ indulgence, and he got on his
legs accordingly.

“I can say soothly that you will not have to bear it much longer, Lord
Dale,” he reassured. “My own eyes saw that—” He ended in a howl as a
half-gnawed sheep-bone from the warrior’s hand struck him with a force
that knocked him sprawling among the ashes.

“Do not trouble yourself to answer until you are questioned,” the
Scar-Cheek recommended briefly. And a round of laughter followed the
poor scapegoat as he picked himself up, groaning, and crept away into
the shadow. In the restlessness of their inactivity, and this swift
breaking into passages of growling and tooth-play whenever, in their
narrow confines, they chanced to jostle each other, they were like
nothing so much as a pack of caged wolves.

Into the den, a few minutes later, the daughter of Frode came on her
difficult mission. Her face was so ghastly that the man who first
caught sight of it did not recognize her, and snatched up his weapon as
against an enemy. It was the Scar-Cheek who offered the first welcome
in a jovial shout. “The hawk escaped from the cage! Well done,
champion! Did you batter a way out with your mighty fists? Did you get
fretful and slay the Englishman? Leave off your bashfulness and tell us
your deeds of valor!” A score of hands were stretched forth to draw the
boy into the circle; a score of horns were held out for his
refreshment.

To all of them Randalin yielded silently,—silently accepting the cup
which was nearest, in order to gain time by sipping its contents. She
realized that only a manner of perfect unconcern could carry her
through, yet she felt herself shaking with excitement.

Rothgar sat up on the great skin with a gesture of some cordiality.
“Hail to you, Fridtjof Frodesson!” he said. “Your escape is a thing
that gladdens me. I did not like the thought of starving you, and I
hope your father will overlook the unfriendliness of it.”

The Scar-Cheek, who had been scanning her critically where she stood
before them, drinking, gave a pitying grunt. “By the crooked horn, boy,
you must have had naught but ill luck since the time of Scoerstan! No
more meat is on you than a raven could eat; and the night I was in the
Englishman’s hall, you had the appearance of having been under a lash.
Your guardian spirit must have gone astray.”

Though she managed to keep her eyes upon her cup, Randalin could not
hinder a wave of burning color from over-running her face. Seeing it,
Rothgar held up his handless left arm for silence.

“You act in a mannerless way, Snorri Gudbrandsson, when you remind a
high-spirited youth that he has been disgraced in his mind. Yet do not
let that prevent your joy, my Bold One. To make up for the injury I
have been to you, I will give you a revenge on the Englishman that
shall wipe out everything you have endured from him. If it is possible
for me to take him alive and bind him, your own hand shall be the one
to strike Sebert Oswaldsson his death-blow.”

The girl’s nervousness betrayed her into a burst of hysterical
laughter, but her wits were quick enough to turn it to good account.
She said with Fridtjof’s own petulance, “Your boon is like the one
Canute has in store for me. I am likely to wait so long for both that I
shall have no teeth left to chew them with. I like it much better to
take your kindness in the shape of food, if that is a loaf yonder.”

The abruptness with which silence fell over the group was startling.
Snorri bent forward and plucked her sternly back as she made a move
toward the bread. A dozen voices questioned her.

“What do you mean by that?”... “Why will it take long?”... “Are they
not short in food?”

Knowing that she could not achieve unconcern, she kept to her
petulance, jerking her cloak away from the hand that detained it.
“Should I be apt to blame him for starving me if he did it because no
better cheer was to be had? Nor do I think you have proved much more
liberal. Let me by to the bread.”

Instead, the ring narrowed around her; and the chief himself put
peremptory questions in his heavy voice. “Has he food? What do you
mean? Clear your wits and answer distinctly. Can you not understand
that we think this food-question of great importance? The thrall told
us they are wont to keep their provisions in the house we burned. Did
he lie?”

“I do not know whether he lied or not,” Randalin answered slowly; “but
it seems to me great foolishness that you did not take the time into
consideration. At the end of the harvest, any English house would be
fitted out for weeks of feasting. You came the night the larder was
fullest; and they have only spent one meal a day since.”

Rothgar got upon his feet and towered over her, his Jotun-frame
appearing to swell with irritation. “Do you not know how provoking your
words are, that you are so glib of tongue?” he thundered. “Tell shortly
what you think of their case; can they last one day more?”

The black head nodded emphatically.

“Can they last two days?”

Another nod.

“A week?”

Fridtjof the Bold took refuge in sullenness. “They can last two weeks
as easily as one. How much longer are you going to keep me from food?”
She was free after that to do anything she liked, for their excitement
was so great that they forgot her existence. Those whose fluency was
not hampered by their feelings, relieved their minds by cursing. Those
whose anger could be vented only in action, made after the blundering
serf. And the few who were boldest turned and bearded the son of
Lodbrok himself.

“How much longer must we endure this?”... “Think of the game we are
missing!”... “There is little need to remind me. My naked fists could
batter the stones from their places—“... “In a week more, it is
possible that England may be won!”... “What do you care for their
wretched land, chief?”...

“Chief, how much longer must we lie here?”

When that question was finally out, every man heaved a sigh of relief,
straightening in his place like a dog that is pricking his ears, and
there was a pause.

A fell look came into the Jotun’s face as he gazed back at them; and
for a time it seemed that he would either answer with his fist or not
at all. But at length he began to speak in a voice as keen and hard as
his sword.

“You know my temper, and that I must have my will. Always I have
thought it shame that my kinsman’s odal should lie in English hands,
and now I have made up my mind to put an end to it. You know that I am
in no way greedy for property. When I obtain the victory, you shall
have every acre and every stick on it to burn or plunder or keep, as
best pleases you. But I do not want to reproach myself longer with my
neglect; and whether it take two weeks or whether it take twenty—” He
interrupted himself to bend forward, shading his eyes with his hands.
“If I am not much mistaken,” he said in quite another voice, “yonder is
Brass Borgar at last! Yonder, near those oak-trees.”

In an instant they had all turned to scan the moon-lit open. And now
that they were silent, the thud of hoofs became distinct. Shouting
their welcome, some hurried to heap fresh fuel on the fire, and some
ran after more ale-skins; while others rushed forward to meet the
messenger and run beside his horse, riddling him with questions.

Folding his arms, the chief awaited him in grim silence. If glances
could have burned, he would have writhed under the look that a pair of
iris-blue eyes was dealing him over a bread crust. But it may be that
his skin was particularly thick, for he betrayed no uneasiness
whatever.

When the man finally stood before him, Rothgar said sternly, “It is
time you were here! Ten days have gone over your head since I sent you
out. You must do one of two things,—either tell great tidings or submit
to sharp words.”

The Brass One laughed as he saluted. “I should have been liable to
sharp steel had I come sooner, chief. Would you have taken it well if I
had left without knowing how it went with the battle?”

“Battle!” three-score mouths cried as with one voice. “Who were
victorious?”

The man laughed again. “Should I come to you with a noisy voice and my
chin held high, if other than one thing had happened? Honor to the
Thunderer, the Raven possessed the field!”

Such a clamor arose as though the wolf-pack had tasted blood. Three
times, through the trumpet of his hands, Rothgar bawled a command for
silence. “One horn you may have, then all this must be told before you
eat,” he gave orders. And he strode restlessly to and fro until the
time came when the horn stood on end above the man’s mouth and then was
lowered reluctantly.

Drawing his hand across his lips, the Brass One cleared his throat. “At
your pleasure, chief. Is it to your mind to begin with the battle? Or
do you rather wish to hear of my journey thence? I admit that that part
is somewhat likely to stick in my teeth and in your ears. From Otford
to Shepey was little better than a retreat, and if—”

“The battle! the battle!” a chorus of voices cried, and the chief
confirmed the choice.

“The battle, by all means! The other will do for lesser dishes when the
first edge is off our appetite. Where was it? And how long since? Yet,
before any of these, how goes it with my royal foster-brother? And how
do his traitors carry sail, Odin’s curse upon them! Speak! How fares
he?”

“On the top of the wave, my chief,—though it is my belief that he has
your mind toward Edric Jarl, for all that Thorkel is ever on hand to
urge the value of his craft. And certainly it was exceedingly useful to
them at Assington—”

“Assington!”... “In Essex?” the chorus broke in upon him. “It happened
as Grimalf said—“... “—the horse with the bloody saddle which he found
over the hill—“... “Do you know for certain if Edric—“... “Why will you
interrupt him?”... “Yes, end this talk!”... “Go on, go on!”

“I also say go on, in the Troll’s name!” the Jotun roared. “Go on and
tell us what Edric the Gainer did which they else could not have done.”

“I said not that he did what they could not, chief. He did what they
would not, as the thrall who pulls off our boots muddies his hands that
we may keep ours clean. And a strange wonder is the way in which the
English king trusts him even after this treason has been committed! The
Gainer fled, with all his men, at the moment when most King Edmund
depended upon his support; and in this way left for Danish feet a hewn
path where a forest of battle-trees had stood.”

Rothgar took no part in the stream of questions and comments that again
drowned the voice of the messenger, until suddenly he launched an oath
that out-thundered them all: “May Thor feel otherwise than I do, for I
vow that were I in his place, I would raise Danish warriors in
wool-chests! Is that the valor of the descendants of Odin, that they go
not into battle until a foul-hearted traitor has swept the way clean of
danger? Is the heart of the King become wax within him? Or is it that
cold-blooded fox at his side that is draining the manhood out of him? I
would give much if I had been there!” Casting himself down upon the
bearskin, he lay there breathing hard and tearing the fur out in great
handfuls.

Brass Borgar spoke with the utmost deprecation: “I say nothing against
your feelings, chief; and there are not a few who think as you do; yet
I ask you to remember one thing. I ask you to remember that no Dane has
ever held back in battle because he had the Traitor’s help. Canute uses
him to strengthen his back; never to shield his face. The Islanders’
own mouths have admitted that the odds are against ten Englishmen if
they face one Dane. I think it is because he is out of patience with
the war that the King makes of the Gainer a time-saver. It has been
told me that he fights not for love of it, nor yet for glory, but
because he covets the land of—”

Like the bellow of an angry bull, Rothgar’s voice broke through his.
“Land! Quickly will I proclaim my opinion of any man who sets his heart
on that! He who forgets glory in his eagerness for property, deserves
the curse of Thor!”

“Prepare yourself, then, for a thunderbolt, Rothgar Lodbroksson,” a
clear voice spoke up suddenly.

None but had forgotten the red-cloaked figure munching its bread in the
shadow behind them. One and all started in surprise. And the chief
turned over his shoulder a face that was livid with anger. “You—you
dare!” he roared.

But Randalin’s heart was too full of bitterness to leave any room for
fear. At the moment, it seemed to her that it did not matter what
happened. She stood before the Jotun as straight and unbending as a
spear-shaft, and her eyes were reflections of his own. Her wonder was
great when slowly, even while his eyes blazed, Rothgar’s mouth began to
twitch at the corners. All at once he rolled over on his back with a
shout of laughter.

“By Ragnar, there will not be many jests to equal this!” he gasped.
“That a titmouse should ruffle its feathers and upbraid me! Here is
merriment!” He lay there laughing after the others had joined in with
him; and his face was not entirely sober the next time he turned it
toward her. “Good Berserker, give me leave to live some while longer in
order that I may explain my intentions.”

Yet when he had risen, a change came into his voice that brought every
man to his feet. “We will make ready to go at cockcrow,” he said
abruptly. “If it were only a matter of a couple of days, I would wait;
but since it will be at least a week before we can expect them to give
in, I think it unadvisable to waste more time. Since the King is in
this temper, the next battle may well be the last; and much shame would
come of it if we did not have our share. We will start when the cock
crows. As soon as Canute gets the kingship over the English realm,
Ivarsdale will fall to me anyway. Let the Angle enjoy himself until
then.”




CHAPTER XVI. The Sword of Speech


Speech-runes thou must know
If thou wilt that no one
For injury with hate requite thee.
                    Sigdrífumál.


No holiday finery tricked out the Danish host where it squatted along
the Severn Valley that dreary October day; neither festal tables nor
dimpling women nor even the gay striped tents. Of all the multitude of
flags but one banner pricked the murky air,—the Raven standard that
marked the headquarters of the King; and its sodden folds distinguished
nothing more regal than a shepherd’s wattled cote. Scattered clumps of
trees offered the weary men their only protection against the drizzling
rain; and the sole suggestions of comfort were the sickly fires that
patient endeavor had managed to coax into life in these retreats. Some,
whom exhaustion had robbed even of a fire-tender’s ambition, had
dropped down on the very spot where they had slipped from their
saddles, and slept, cloak-wrapped, in the wet. And the circles about
the fires were not much noisier.

Rothgar’s face gathered gravity as he gained the crest of the last hill
that lay between him and the straggling encampment.

“The rain appears to fall as coldly on their cheer as on their fires,”
he commented. “They hug the earth like the ducks on Videy Island.”

“And look about as much like warriors who have got a victory,” the
child of Frode added wonderingly.

The Jotun threw her a glance, where she rode at his side. “Hear words
of fate! I think that is the first time you have spoken in three days.”

“You would think that great luck if you knew the kind of thoughts that
have been in my mind,” she muttered. But the son of Lodbrok was already
leading his men down the hillside toward the point where the silken
banner mocked at the wattled walls.

Under the thatched roof of the hut, a still more striking contrast
awaited the eyes of those who entered. With a milking-stool for his
table and the shepherd’s rude bunk for a throne, the young King of the
Danes was bending in scowling meditation over an open scroll. Against
the mud-plastered walls, the crimson splendor of his cloak and the
glitter of his gold embroideries gave him the look of a tropical bird
in an osier cage; while the fiery beauty of his face shone like a star
in the dusk of the windowless cell. Days in the saddle and nights in
the council had pared away every superfluous curve from cheek and chin,
until there was not one line left that did not tell of impatient
energy; and every spark of his burning soul seemed centred in his
brilliant eyes. At the sight of him, the girl’s heart started and shook
like a harp-string under the touch of the master; and Rothgar, the
stolid, the stern, who had come to upbraid, bowed reverently as he
grasped the hand his leader stretched out.

“King, I would not have kept away had I guessed that my sword would be
useful to you. It was my belief that you were entertaining yourself
with getting property in Mercia, else would I have left all to come to
you.”

Canute half pressed the huge paw and then half spurned it. “It was in
my mind to give you a great scolding when I got you again. I thought
you had drunk sea-water and blood out of a magic horn and forgotten me
utterly. You must have gotten yourself fitted out for the rest of your
life since at last you were willing to leave.”

“Lord,” Rothgar began, “I have come back to you as poor as I went—”

But the King interrupted him, as at that moment, in the figure
hesitating at the door, he recognized his missing ward. “Say not so,
when you have brought back the bright blade we mourned as lost!” He put
out his other hand with a gleam of pleasure in his changeful eyes.
“Welcome to you, Fridtjof the Bold! I should like to believe that you
are as glad to return to me as I am glad to receive you.”

As she stood there watching him, Randalin had been undergoing a strange
transformation. For four months she had almost forgotten his existence,
he had been little more than an empty name, while she gave every energy
of mind and heart to the things about her. But now, behold! One sight
of his life-full face, one moment in his dominating presence, and those
months were swept into the land of dreams. His deeds alone appeared
vital; he alone seemed real. She, the Etheling himself, were but as
shadows depending upon his sun-like career. If he should choose to
shine upon them, what dark evil could come nigh? It was in all
sincerity that she bent her knee as she took his hand. “Lord,” she
cried impulsively, “I have brought you back a loyal heart! I have been
very close to the English King, and he is unworthy to hold your sword.”

Canute gave a sudden laugh; but it was a short one, and he turned away
abruptly to begin a restless pacing to and fro. “You choose your words
in a thoughtful way,” he said. “It is seen that you do not say how it
would be if he were to hold his sword against mine.” Pausing before
Rothgar, he jerked his head toward the scroll. “Do you know what that
is? That is a challenge from the Ironside.”

“A challenge?” his listeners cried in chorus.

He seemed to take petulant offence at their surprise. “A challenge. Did
you never hear the word before, that you stare like oxen? He invites me
to settle this affair by single combat on the island, yonder; and there
is the greatest sense in what he says. Every one who has a man’s wit is
tired of the strife; and if we continue at it, there will not be much
to win besides ashes and bones.”

Rothgar sat gazing at the wooden door as though he could see through it
the huddled groups outside. “Now by no means do I think it strange that
your host is not in high spirits,” he said.

With an impatient shrug the King moved on again. “It has happened,
then, that the news has spread? I wonder whether they are troubling
themselves most for fear that I shall undertake this fight and get
killed, or for fear that I shall turn back from it and the war will be
obliged to go on. And I should be glad if I knew what expectation was
uppermost in the Gainer’s mind when he made the plan. For certainly one
sees his claw behind the pen.”

“May wolves tear him!” Rothgar burst out. “Two kings he has used as
oaten pipes, but never did I think that you would make the third.”

Canute’s foot jarred upon the earth; his face was suddenly aflame. “And
never will I, while my head remains above ground! Now are you even more
rash than you are wont! It is I who play on him, not he on me. Through
him, as through a pipe, I have tempted Edmund on; and through him, as
through a pipe, I have called Edmund off; and as with a broken pipe I
shall part with him when I am done,—and think it no falseness either,
since I know for certain that it is the fate he has in store for me, as
soon as I cease to be gainful for him.” The worst of the young chief’s
nature showed for an instant in the smile that widened his nostrils.
Then it gave way to another flash of temper. “Nor am I a pipe for your
plaything, either. What! Am I to be as a child between you and Thorkel,
that each time I follow the advice of one of you, I am to get a
tongue-lashing from the other? Have you not got it into your head that
I am your King?”

Rothgar gave a short laugh. “I do not know if I have got it into my
head or not,” he said; “but I am certain that my body is aware of your
kingship.” He did not even move his eyes toward the stump of his wrist,
but Canute turned from him suddenly, his lip caught in his teeth, and
once more strode up and down the narrow space.

After the fourth round, he stopped and laid his hands affectionately
upon his foster-brother’s shoulders. “Too long have we endured each
other’s roughness, comrade, for you to think that unfriendliness is in
my mind because I foam over in this way. I tell you, you would not
wonder at it if you knew the state of my feelings. And I will not
conceal it that I am glad you have come to share them—though I have not
the intention to heed a word of your advice,” he added, half laughing,
half threatening. Pushing the other down upon the rough bunk, he seated
himself beside him, his elbows on his knees, his chin cupped in his
palms.

“The host is full of impatience; and I am weary unto madness. Never do
we come to any end, nor ever shall until that time when the wolf shall
catch the sun! I have nowhere heard of a more foolish war than this. It
was in my mind, as you came in, that I would send a favorable answer to
the Englishman and get the matter decided, one way or another.”

Even Randalin uttered a cry; and Rothgar caught his King by the arm as
though to snatch him out of bodily peril. “Only one way would be
possible, Canute! Your waist is not so big as one of his arms. His
sword would cleave you as if it cut water.”

Half laughing, but more resentful, the King freed himself. “Now do you
hold my power so lightly? More than once have I gotten under your
guard. If skill could accomplish anything, you would not have to wait
long for what I should fix upon.” He broke off with a shrug and flung
himself back upon the straw of the bunk. “Let us speak of something
else,” he said. “What did the boy say about having seen Edmund?”

Somewhat ramblingly, as uncertain of his interest, Randalin told him of
her glimpse of the Ironside; and he listened lying back on the straw,
his eyes fixed on the ceiling. She had begun to think he had forgotten
her, when all at once he shot out a swift question: “Did you never find
out what the wool was that Edric Jarl pulled over his eyes?”

“Not unless one could guess it from what King Edmund said, lord,—that
the Jarl had found them so much cleverer than he expected that his
victory was without relish to him, and he was desirous to regain their
friendship.”

A distinct chuckle came from Canute, and some murmur about the
Ironside’s chin. Then he said, “Go on, and tell me everything you can
remember;” and once more lay staring at the ceiling in silence. He did
not appear to notice it when she stopped; the pause lasted so long that
Rothgar concluded that sleep had overtaken their host and rose softly
to betake himself to such cheer as the fires offered. As he made the
first step, however, Canute sat up suddenly, striking his fist upon the
bunk.

“I will do it!” he said. While they stared, he rose and recommenced his
hurried pacing, his eyes keen and far away, his mouth set in grim
resolve.

“Do what, King?” the son of Lodbrok ventured at last.

Canute’s eyes appeared to rest upon the pair without seeing them.
“Accept the challenge,” he answered absently. Then the utter horror in
both faces brought him momentarily back. “You need not look like that.
I would not do it if I did not see a good chance to win. There are
other weapons than those which dwell in sheaths.”

“But if you lose?” Rothgar’s harsh voice was discordant with emotion.
“If you lose?”

The King silenced him impatiently. “I do not think I shall lose; but if
it be otherwise, then Fate will rule it. I prefer to risk everything
rather than to experience more delay.” Catching the bewildered page by
the collar, he pushed him toward the door. “Run, boy, with all the
speed of your legs, and find Ingimund the Swimmer and fetch him here.
And you, foster-brother, if my fame is important to you, do you betake
yourself to those dumpish oafs around the fires and try, by any means
whatever, to remedy their faint-heartedness. Ask them if they want the
host across the river to think them turned into a herd of weeping
bondwomen. Ask them if they think thus to show honor to their King.
Tell them that I take it as no proof of their love; that I will have
none of that halting faith which limps up with a great cry after the
show is over. Tell them—Oh, tell them anything you think worth
while—only that you get some noise out of them! Evil will come of it if
the Englishman is allowed to believe that he has beaten us before ever
he has struck a blow.”

Rothgar sighed as he moved forward. “I am very unfit to speak words of
cheerfulness to anybody; but this shall, like other things, be as you
wish.”




CHAPTER XVII. The Judgment of The Iron Voice


His power should
Every sagacious man
Use with discretion,
For he will find,
When among the bold he comes,
That no one alone is doughtiest.
                    Hávamál.


Fold by fold, the sun’s golden fingers drew apart the mists that hid
the valley. One by one, the red Severn cliffs were uncovered, and the
wooded steeps on which the rival hosts were encamped. Brighter and
brighter the river’s silver gleamed through its veilings. Finally the
moment came when the last mist-wreath floated up like a curtain, and
there lay open the shining water, and the rocky islet it seethed about,
and the vision of two boats setting forth from the two shores amid the
noise of shouting thousands. It was the hour of the royal duel, when
the fate-thread of a nation, beaded with human destinies, lay between
the fingers of two men. What a scattering of the beads if the cord
should be cut!

Under the elms of the east bank, the daughter of Frode stood and
watched the boats set out; and the hands that hung at her side opened
and shut as though they were gasping for breath. For a moment she
tortured herself with the thought that she knew not which side to pray
for, since the victory of either would mean her beloved’s undoing; then
she forgot Sebert’s future in her own present. Turning, she found
herself facing a wall of stalwart bodies, a sea of coarse faces, and
discovered, with a sudden tightening of her muscles, that all the eyes
which were not following the boat were centred curiously upon herself.

Before she could take a step, the nearest warrior thrust out a hand and
caught her by her black locks. “Stop a little, my Bold One,” he said
gruffly. “Now that you have a moment to spare from the high-born folk,
it is the wish of us churls to hear some of your news.”

A score of heavy voices seconded the demand, and the wall gradually
curved into a circle around her. They were good-natured enough,—even
the grasp on her hair was roughly playful,—but her heart seemed to stop
in her as a swimmer’s might the first instant he lost sight of land and
beheld only towering billows looming around him. She darted one swift
glance at her knife, and another at an old willow-tree that overhung
the bank, some thirty yards away. But even as she thought it, the hand
left her hair and closed about her wrist.

“No cause for knife-play or leg-play either, my hawk,” the gruff voice
rebuked her. “To no one are we more anxious to show friendship than to
Canute’s ward; and you act like no true man if you cannot, when
occasion requires, leave off your high-born ways and be a plain comrade
among plain men.”

Again a murmur approved his words: “That is well spoken. Frode of
Avalcomb would be the first to thank us for teaching it to you.”... “He
carried no such haughty head, young boy. I fought more than one battle
at his heels.”... “Come on, now!”... “Make haste! We want to get into
place before they come to land.”

This time it was not a shadow but a sparkle of sunshine that mocked in
Randalin’s ear: “You have not dared to be a woman, so you must dare to
be a man.” She acknowledged the pitiless truth with a sigh of
submission.

“Take your hands off me, and it shall be as you wish.” The big Swede
released her wrist to catch her around the waist and toss her like a
bone upon the platter of his shield, which four of them promptly raised
between them and bore along, laughing uproariously at her sprawling
efforts for dignity. When they came to a spot along the bank which was
open enough to give them an unobstructed view of the island, they
permitted her to scramble down and seat herself upon the grass, where
they ringed themselves around her, twenty deep.

“Now for it! While they are waiting for Edmund to land; before there is
anything to watch,” the Scar-Cheek commanded. “Tell what you told
Canute with regard to the English King which made him so reckless as to
agree to this bargain.”

There was nothing for it but obedience. A flower in a thicket of
thistles, a lamb in the midst of wolves, she sat and watched the
tipping of the scales that had her fortune among their weights.

A shout from the surging mass of English opposite told when the
Ironside had landed; and as soon as it was seen whom he had chosen to
accompany him as his witness, a buzz of excitement passed along the
Danish line.

“Edric! by all the gods, Edric Jarl!”

“Now, for the first time, I believe that victory will follow Canute’s
sword!” Brass Borgar ejaculated. “Since nothing less than the madness
betokening death could cause Edmund to continue his trust in the
Gainer, it is seen from this that he is a death-fated man.”

From the others there came a volley of epithets, so foul a flight that
the girl’s knuckles whitened in her struggles to keep her hands down
from her ears. A picture rose in her mind of Sebert’s dream-lady,
passing her waiting-time among soft-voiced maids, and her heart turned
sick within her.

It was little time that the pack gave her for revery, however; now it
was Edric Jarl of whom they wanted to hear.

“While they are talking about the terms, there is nothing to look at;
tell us how the Gainer pulled the net around King Edmund,” the rough
voices demanded. And again she was obliged to bend her wits to their
task.

But it came at last, the end that was the beginning. Suddenly a hand
reached around her neck and shut over her mouth. “Stop! They are taking
their places. Look!”

He need not have added that last word; from that moment for many
thousands of eyes there was but one object in the world,—the strip of
rock-ribbed earth and the two figures that faced each other upon it.

As they fixed their gaze on their champion, the English yelled
exultantly, and the Danes bravely rivalled them in noise; but it was
more a cry of rage and grief than a cheer. Now that the royal duellists
stood forth together, stripped of cloak and steel shirt, and wearing no
other helm than the golden circlet of their rank, their inequality was
even more glaring than alarmed fancy had painted it. The crown of
Canute’s shining locks reached only to the chin of the mighty Ironside;
and the width of nearly two palms was needed on his shoulders.

Borgar turned, with tears in his bleared eyes, and threw himself
face-downward on the earth; and the fellow next to him, with the mien
of a madman, thrust his mantle between his teeth and bit and tore at it
like a dog. “It is murder,” he snarled, “murder.”

Of all the Northmen, the young King alone appeared serenely
undisturbed. When he had saluted the Ironside with royal courtesy, he
met his sword as though he were beginning a practising bout with his
foster-brother. Smoothly, evenly, without haste or fury, the blades
began to sing their wordless song to the listening banks.

After a time Borgar dared to raise his face from the grass. “Is he yet
alive?” he whispered.

The men did not seem to hear him. Humped over the earth, with starting
eyes and necks stretched to their uttermost, they were like so many
boulders. Nor did Frode’s daughter seem to feel that the hand the Brass
One had raised himself upon was crushing her foot; she did not even
glance toward him as she answered: “Simpleton! Do you think the King
does not know how to handle his weapon? If only his strength—”

Her sentence was not finished, and the man next to her drew in his
breath with a great whistling rush. Canute’s weapon, playing with the
lightness of a sun-beam, had evaded a stroke of the great flail and
touched for an instant the shoulder of its wielder. Had he put a pound
more force into the thrust—A groan crept down the Danish line when the
bright blade rose, as lightly as it had fallen, and continued its
butterfly dance. It consoled them a little, however, that no cheer went
up from the English,—only a low buzz that was half of anger, half of
astonishment.

Farther along the eastern bank, where Thorkel the Tall stood beside Ulf
Jarl and Eric of Norway, there was not even a groan. The first rift
came in the puzzled clouds of Eric’s face. “Here is the first happening
that makes me hope!” he said. “If he has something more than his
fencing accomplishment to support him, it may be that an unfavorable
outcome need not be expected.”

The Tall One’s brows relaxed ever so little from their snarl of worry.
“The boy has experienced good training, for all that he has at present
the appearance of a great fool. If Rothgar’s warrior skill is in his
arm, yet my caution should be in his head.”

Certainly there was no Berserk madness about the young Danishman; there
was hardly even seriousness. Now his blade was a fleeing
will-o’-the-wisp, keeping just out of reach of Edmund’s brand with
apparently no thought but of flight. Now, when the Ironside’s
increasing vehemence betrayed him into an instant’s rashness, it was a
humming-bird darting into a flower-cup. But it always rose again as
daintily as it had alighted.

The Danish bank was frantic with excitement. “It is the dance of the
Northern Lights!” they cried. “Thor has sent him his own sword!”

The lines of English were wild with anger. “Crush him, the hornet, the
wasp! Crush him, Edmund!” they roared.

In his exultation, the Scar-Cheek rolled himself over and over on the
grass, and wound up by thrusting his shaggy head into the lap of the
red-cloaked page. “I must do something for joy,” he panted; “and—except
for your hair—you look near enough like a handsome woman. Do you bend
down and kiss me every time Canute pricks him.”

His head fell to the ground with a thump as the child of Frode leaped
to her feet.

“If you lay finger on me again,” she whispered, “I will caress you with
this!” and for an instant a knife-blade glittered before the bulging
eyes. Snorri rolled back with alacrity and an oath; and after a moment
Frode’s daughter dropped down again and hid her face in her hands. If
the King should be slain and she be left adrift in this foul sea! She
might as well have screamed as moaned, for all that they would have
noticed.

About this time Canute’s blade appeared to have become in earnest.
Ceasing its airy defence, it took on the aggressive. Instead of a
flitting sunbeam, it became a shaft from a burning glass; instead of
one merry humming-bird, it became a whole swarm of skimming, swooping,
darting swallows, waging war on a bewildered owl. Before the sudden
fury of the onslaught, Edmund gave back a pace. And either because his
anger made him reckless or his great bulk was against him, he presently
was forced to draw back another step. Wildest cheers went up from the
North-men. It seemed as though they would wade in a body across the
river.

Only Eric of Norway stamped with uneasiness; and the overhanging brows
of Thorkel the Tall were as lowering hoods above his eyes. “Well has he
hoarded his strength,” he muttered. “Well has he saved it, yet—yet—”

At that moment such a roar went up from Northern throats as might well
have startled the wolf’s shadow off the face of the sun; for Edmund
Ironside had retreated a third step, and the Dane’s point appeared to
lie at the Englishman’s heart. Then the uproar died somewhere in
mid-air, for in what seemed the very act of thrusting, Canute had
leaped backward and lowered his blade. So deep was the hush on either
side the river that the whir of a bird’s wing sounded as loud as a
flight of arrows. Bending forward, with strained ears and starting
eyes, the spectators saw that the Northern King was speaking, eagerly,
with now and then an impulsive gesture, while the English King listened
motionless.

“Has he got out of his wits?” the Scar-Cheek roared, fairly dancing
with impatience.

In Randalin’s face a flash of memory was struggling with bewilderment.
“Other weapons than those which dwell in sheaths.” Had he meant “the
sword of speech,” his tongue?

With the deliberate grace which characterized his every motion, the
Ironside slid his sword back to its case, and they saw him take a slow
step forward and slowly extend his hand. Then they saw Canute spring to
meet him, and their palms touch in a long grasp.

From the English shore there went up a joyful shout of “Peace!” And a
deafening clamor rose in answer from the Danish bank. But what
sentiment predominated in that, it would be difficult to say. Blended
with rejoicing over their King’s safety, were cries of bitter
disappointment, the cries of thirsty men who have seen wine dashed from
their lips.

In their retreat, the two Northern jarls and the young monarch’s
foster-father faced each other uncertainly. “Here is mystery!” Eric of
Norway said at last. “I should be thankful if you would tell me whether
he thought it unwise to kill the Englishman before the face of his
army; or whether he is in truth struck with love toward him, as the
fools seem to believe?”

“Or whether he had reached the exact limit of his strength so that he
was obliged to save himself by some trick of words?” Ulf Jarl
suggested.

The Tall One shook his head slowly. “Now, as always, it is he alone who
can altogether explain his actions. It might easily be that in his mad
impatience he overvalued his strength, so that he was obliged to stop
short to keep within bounds. But I think you will find that there is
still some trick which is not open to our sight. His man-wit is
deepening very fast; I will not be so bold as to say that I can always
fathom it.”

“Perhaps he thinks a short peace would be useful to the host,” the
Norwegian said, and laughed. “Such a truce is as comfortable as a cloak
when the weather is stark, and as easy to get rid of when the sun comes
out.”

By their faces, the others appeared to agree with him; but before they
could express themselves, a swimmer rose like a dripping seal out of
the water at their feet.

“Peace and division again!” he cried breathlessly. “And it is the
King’s will that you get into a boat and come to him at once.”

The rush of the crowd to the water-side to question the messenger gave
Randalin her chance for freedom; and she was not slow in taking it. A
moment more, and she was in the very top of the willow-tree, clasping
her hands and wringing them in alternate thanksgiving and terror.

“Whatever it bring upon me, I will get back to my woman’s clothes,” she
vowed to herself over and over. “Though it become a hindrance to me,
though it be the cause of my death, I will be a woman always. Odin
forgive me that I thought I had courage enough to be a man!”




CHAPTER XVIII. What The Red Cloak Hid


At eve, the day is to be praised;
A woman, after she is dead.
                    Hávamál.


In the vault overhead blue had deepened into purple, and all the silver
star-lamps been hung out, their flames trembling unceasingly in the
playing winds. By the soft light, the Jotun, who was striding across
the camp, saw a graceful boyish form leave the circle around the King’s
fire and join a group of mounted men waiting on the river bank, some
fifty yards away.

“Ho there, Fridtjof!” he roared wrathfully.

The figure turned, and he had a fleeting glimpse of a hand waved in
mocking farewell. Then the boy sprang into the saddle of a horse that
one of the warriors was holding, and the whole band moved forward at a
swinging pace.

“If you had waited a little, you would be less light on your feet,” the
Jotun growled as he strode on, striking his heels savagely upon the
frosty ground.

“Where is the King?” he demanded, as soon as he had reached the ring of
nobles sipping mead around the royal fire. Between swallows, they were
carrying on a heated discussion of the day’s events; but Eric of Norway
stopped long enough to nod toward the wattled hut beneath the silken
banner.

“In there; and I will give you this chain off my neck if you can guess
what he is doing.”

“It is likely that he is busy with messengers,” Rothgar said with an
accent of vexation. “I had hoped to reach him before he finished
drinking, but there was a brawl among my men which—”

“He is playing chess,” Eric said dryly.

“Chess!”

The Norwegian nodded as he swallowed. “Heard you ever anything to equal
that? He has the appearance of a boy who has been released from a
lesson. I wish that you had been here to see him at meal-time. So full
of jests and banter was he that I could scarcely eat for laughing. Yet
when I took courage from his good-nature to ask him concerning his
plans for the future, he pretended that he did not hear me, and put an
end to questioning by bidding Ulf come and play chess with him in the
hut. Whether he is mad, or bewitched, or feigning like Amleth, it is
not easy to tell.”

“I do not think it is any of these,” Rothgar said slowly. “I think it
is because he likes it so well that he has got peace in which to amuse
himself. Sooner would he hunt than fight, any day; and I have often
seen him express pleasure in this manner. I remember how his wife
Elfgiva once said of him that it was well his crown was no more than a
ring of gold, for then, when his mood changed, he could use it for such
a gold hoop as kings’ children are wont to play with.”

“Said Elfgiva of Northampton that?” Eric asked in surprise. “Never
would I have believed her so wise in words. That she is the most
beautiful of women, all the world knows; but I have always supposed
that her wit stopped with her temper, which is suspected to be shorter
than her hair.”

Rothgar grunted scornfully. “It is easy for a fool to speak some wisdom
if she keeps her tongue moving all the time.”

Laughing, the Norwegian plunged again into the general discussion; and
the son of Lodbrok stood listening discontentedly, while he kept a
sharp watch of the low-browed entrance.

Presently his patience was rewarded. Within the hut there arose all at
once a duet of voices, half angrily accusing, half laughingly
protesting. Then the chess-board came flying through the doorway,
followed by a handful of chessmen and the person of the big
good-natured Jarl, still uttering his laughing protests. And finally
Canute himself stood under the lintel, storming through his laughter.

“Blockhead, that you cannot keep your thoughts on what you are doing!
One might expect as good a game from the tumbler’s dog. Is it the drink
that you have got into your head, or the war matters that you cannot
get out? You deserve—”

“To lose the honor of playing with the King,” the Jotun broke in,
making a long step forward. “Be so good as to allow me to take his
place, lord. I have some words for your ear which are worth a hearing.”

“Rothgar!” the King exclaimed with great cordiality, and stepped from
the doorway to meet him. “Willingly do I make the change, for I have
been wishing to speak with you this last hour. I have thought of a fine
plan for to-morrow’s sport.” Laying his arm boy-fashion across his
foster-brother’s shoulders, he swung him around toward the river. “But
we will not go in there to do our talking. We will walk along the
shore. To-night I feel as though I could walk to the rainbow-bridge.”
He shook back his headful of long hair and drew a deep breath, like a
man from whom a burden has been lifted.

As they strolled beside the moonlit water, the son of Lodbrok listened
in secret amazement to the string of plans that unfolded itself,—hunts
and horse-races, swimming matches and fishing trips.

“But where will you get the fishing tackle, lord? And the hawks and the
hounds for all this?” he ventured presently. They were some little
distance up the bank now, where trees screened them from the
camp-fires. Suddenly the young King made a leaping grab at a bough
overhead and hung by it, looking down at his companion with the face of
a mischievous boy.

“How joyfully you will take my answer! I have sent to Northampton for
them. And I have bidden Elfgiva accompany them, with all her following
of maids and lap-dogs and beardless boys. Before the end of the week, I
expect that the Abbey guest-house will have the appearance of a woman’s
bower; and the monks will have taken to the woods.”

As his foster-brother stood gazing at him in speechless dismay, he
laughed maliciously. “Where are your manners, partner, that you do not
praise my foresight? Here am I eager to go to her to celebrate my
victory; and yet because I think it unadvisable for me to leave the
camp, I remain like a rock at my post. Where is your praise?”

“King,” Rothgar said gravely, “is the truce going to last long enough
to make it worth while to fetch those trinkets here?”

His laughter vanishing, the King came to earth in both senses of the
phrase. “Now I do not know what you mean by that,” he said. “You were
with me on the island. You heard what was said. You heard that we made
peace together to last the whole of our lives, in truth, longer; since
he who outlives is to inherit peacefully after him who dies. Did you
not hear that?”

Rothgar kicked a stone out of his way with impatient emphasis. “Oh,
yes, I heard it. I heard also how you said that you would rather have
the Englishman’s friendship than his kingdom.”

The eyebrows Canute had drawn down into a frown rose ironically. “There
is room in your breast for more sense, Rothgar, my brother, if you
think, because I am forced into one lie, that I never speak the truth,”
he said. “We will not talk of it further. I should like to remain
good-humored to-night, if it were possible. What are the words you have
waiting for my ears?”

The Jotun’s sudden frown quite eclipsed his eyes. “It is not likely
that I shall remain good-humored if I put my tongue to them. Oh! Now it
becomes clear in my mind what you have sent your black-haired falcon
down the wind after,—to carry your order to Northampton?” “Certainly it
is,” Canute assented. “When the boy found that I had need of a
messenger, he begged it of me as a boon that he might be the one to
carry the good news to my lady. I thought it a well-mannered way to
show his thankfulness. But why is your voice so bitter when you speak
of him?”

“Because I have just found out that he is a fox,” Rothgar bellowed.
“Because it has been borne in upon me that he has played me a foul
trick, by which I lost property that was already under my hands; lost
it forever, Troll take him! if it be really true that we are to make no
more warfare upon the lands south of the Watling Street.”

“It is not possible!” Canute ejaculated. “He looks to be as truthful as
Balder.”

Rothgar uttered his favorite grunt. “Never did I hear that Loke had
crooked eyes or a tusk, and black hair grows on both of them. I tell
you, I know it for certain. I have just been to find the English serf
who became my man after Brentford; and he has told me what he says he
tried to tell the night before we left Ivarsdale, but no one would
listen to him without pounding him,—that the servant-maid, who informed
him concerning the provision house, spoke also of a Danish page her
lord had, whom he treated with such great love that it was commonly
said he was bewitched. And before that, when the brat was telling you
how the Englishman had saved him from Norman’s sword, it occurred to me
that he talked more as a woman talks of her lover than as a man speaks
of his foe. I had my mouth open to tax him with it, when you threw this
duel at me like a rock and knocked everything else out of my head.”

“May the gallows take my body!” the King breathed. And he sat down upon
a grassy hummock as suddenly as though a rock had been thrown at him
that knocked the legs from under him. Nor did he get up immediately,
but remained gazing at the string of bright beads which English
camp-fires made along the opposite bluff, his face intent with
pondering.

Meanwhile the son of Lodbrok strode to and fro, declaiming wrathfully.
“There is not an honest bone in the imp’s body,” he wound up. “It is
certainly my belief that he was in league with the Englishman; and his
freedom was the reward he got for drawing me off.”

“Certainly you are a very shrewd man,” Canute murmured. But something
in his voice did not stand firm; his foster-brother darted him a keen
glance. His suspicions were well founded. Canute’s face was crimson
with suppressed laughter; he was biting his lips frantically to hold
back his mirth. The temper of the son of Lodbrok left him in one
inarticulate snarl. Turning on his heel, with a whirlwind of flying
cloak and a thunder of clashing weapons, he would have stalked away if
the King had not made him the most peremptory of gestures.

“No, wait! Wait, good brother! I will show you whether I offend you
intentionally or not! It is—it is—the—the jest—” Again he became
unintelligible.

Rothgar stopped, but it was to glower over his folded arms. “Do you
think I do not know as well as you that I behaved like a fool? What I
dislike is that you cannot see as plainly that your ward is a troll.
Because his womanish face has caught your fancy, you will neither blame
him yourself nor allow others to make a fuss—”

“That is where you are wrong,” the King interrupted, with as much
gravity as he could command. “When Fridtjof Frodesson comes again into
your presence, I give you leave to take whatever revenge you like. Lash
him with your tongue or your belt, as you will; and I promise that I
will not lift finger to hinder you from it.”

“And not hold it against me?” Rothgar demanded incredulously.

“And not hold it against you,” Canute agreed. Then he tilted his head
back to laugh openly in the other’s face. “Will you wager a finger-ring
against my knife that your mind will not change when my ward stands
again before you?”

The Jotun smiled grimly. “Is that the expectation you are stringing
your bow with? It will fail you as surely as the hair of Hother’s wife
failed him. The wager shall be as you have made it; and may I lack
strength if I do not deal with him—” He paused, blinking like a
startled owl, as his royal foster-brother leaped to his feet and
fronted him with shouts of laughter.

“You dolt, you!” Canute cried. “Do you not see it yet? Frode’s child is
a woman!”

Rothgar’s jaw dropped and his bulging eyes seemed in danger of
following. “What!” he gasped; and then his voice rose to a roar. “And
the Englishman is her lover?”

“You are wiser than I expected,” the King laughed. “I intend to call
you Thrym after this, for it is unlikely that Loke made a greater fool
of the Giant. Your enemies will make derisive songs about it.”

Stamping with rage, the Jotun hammered his huge fist upon a tree-trunk
until bark flew in every direction. “King, I will give you every ring
off my hand if you will give me leave to strangle her!”

“You remind me that I will take one of your rings now,” Canute said,
reaching out and opening the mallet-like fist that he might make his
choice. Then, as he fitted on his prize and held it critically to the
light, he added with more sympathy: “I will arrange for you a more
profitable revenge than that. I will make a condition with Edmund that
the Etheling’s odal shall not be included in the land which is
peace-holy, and that to ravage it shall not be looked upon as breaking
the truce. Then can you betake yourself thither and sit down with your
following, and have no one but yourself to blame if you fail a second
time. Only,”—he thrust his knuckles suddenly between the other’s
ribs,—“only, before we get serious over it, do at least give one laugh.
Though she be Ran herself, the maiden has played an excellent joke upon
you.”

“I do not see how you make out that it is all upon me,” Rothgar said
sulkily. “It did not appear that you got suspicious in any way, until I
told you myself what she talked like. You did not have the appearance
of choking much on her stories.”

The King seemed all at once to recover his dignity. “I will not deny
that,” he said gravely; “and have I not said that I expect to be angry
about it presently? Certainly I do not think she has treated me with
much respect. That she did not tell you, is by no means to be wondered
at; it might even count as something in her favor. But me she should
have given her confidence. That she should dare to offer her King that
lying story about her sister’s death—” His face flushed as though he
were remembering his emotion on receiving that same story; and his
foster-brother’s observation did not tend to mollify him.

“And not only to offer it,” the son of Lodbrok chuckled, “but to cram
it down his throat and make him swallow it.”

Canute’s heels also began to ring with ominous sharpness upon the
frosty ground. “She must be Ran herself! Oh, you need not be afraid
that I shall not get overbearing enough after I am started! Had she
been no more than her father’s daughter, her behavior would have been
sufficiently bad; but that she whom I had made my ward should withhold
her confidence from me to give it to an Englishman! Become his
thrallwoman, by Odin, and betray my people for his sake! Now, as I am a
king, I will punish her in a way that she will like less than
strangling! I tell you, her luck is great that she is not here
to-night.”




CHAPTER XIX. The Gift of The Elves


Fair shall speak
And money offer,
Who would obtain a woman’s love.
                    Hávamál.


It was the edge of a forest pool, and a slender dark-haired girl
bending from the brink to see herself in the water. Looking, she
smiled,—and small wonder!

Below her, framed in green rushes, was the reflection of a high-born
maiden dressed according to her rank. Clinging silk and jewelled girdle
lent new grace to her lithesome form, while the mossy green of her
velvet mantle brought out the rich coloring of her face as leaves bring
out the glowing splendor of a rose. Gold was in the embroidery that
stiffened her trailing skirts; gold was sewn into her gloves, and
golden chains twined in her lustrous hair added to the spirited poise
of her head a touch of stateliness. No wonder that her mouth curved
into a smile as she gazed.

“It cannot be denied that I look woman-like now,” she murmured. “It is
a great boon for me that he likes my hair.”

Then the water lost both the reflection and the face above it as a
sweet voice sounded up the bank, calling, “Randalin! Randalin!”

Picking up the branchful of scarlet berries which she had dropped,
Frode’s daughter moved toward the voice. “Are they about to go,
Dearwyn?” she asked the little gentlewoman who came toward her around a
hawthorn bush, lifting her silken skirts daintily.

Dearwyn shook her head. “My lady wishes to try on you the wreath she
has made. She thinks your dark locks will set it off better than our
light ones.”

“I was on my way thither,” Randalin said, quickening her steps.

With timid friendliness in her pretty face, Dearwyn waited, and the
Danish girl gave her a shy smile when at last they stood side by side;
but their acquaintanceship did not appear to have reached the point of
conversation, for they walked back in silence to the spot where the
Lady Elfgiva’s train had halted on its journey for a noonday meal and
rest.

Along the bank of a pebbly stream, between pickets of mounted guards,
the troop of holiday-folk was strung in scattered groups. Yonder, a
body of the King’s huntsmen struggled with braces of leashed hounds.
Here were gathered together the falconers bearing the King’s birds.
Nearer, a band of grooms led the King’s blooded horses to the water.
And nearer yet, where the sun lay warm on a leafy glade, the King’s
beautiful “Danish wife” took her nooning amid her following of maids
and of pages, of ribboned wenches and baggage-laden slaves.

As her glance fell upon this last picture, Randalin drew a quick breath
of admiration. 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.

Gazing at her, Randalin’s admiration mounted to wistfulness. “Were I
like that, I should be sure of his feeling toward me,” she sighed.

Certainly, as she looked to-day sitting under the towering trees, it
was easy to understand why the King’s wife had been named “the gift of
the elves.” Every lovely thing in Nature had been robbed to make her,
and only fairy fingers could have woven the sun’s gold into such
tresses, or made such eyes from a scrap of June sky and a spark of opal
fire. From the crown of her jewelled hair to the toe of her little red
shoe, there was not one line misplaced, one curve forgotten, while her
motions were as graceful as blowing willows.

When the pair came toward her over the carpet of leather-hued leaves,
she put out a white hand in beckoning. “Come here, my Valkyria, and let
me try if I can make you look still more like a gay bird from over the
East Sea.”

“You have made me look a very splendid bird, lady,” Randalin said
gratefully, as she knelt to receive the woodland crown.

Elfgiva patted the brown cheeks in acknowledgment, and also in delight
at the effect of her handiwork. “You are an honor to my art. Do you
know that the night before you came to me I dreamed I held a burning
candle in my hand, and that is known by everybody to be a sign of good.
A hundred plans are in my mind against the time that this peace shall
be over, and we are obliged to return to that loathful house where we
suffer so much with dulness that the quarrels of my little brats are
the only excitement we have.”

Still kneeling for the white fingers to pat and pull at her head-dress,
Randalin looked up wonderingly. “Is it your belief that King Canute
will not carry out his intention, lady, that you say ‘when the peace is
over’? I know for certain that it is expected to last forever.”

“Forever?” The lady’s voice was an echo of sweet mockery. “Take half a
kingdom when a whole lies almost within his reach? Now I will not deny
that the King is sometimes boyish of mood, but rarely that foolish.”
She seemed to toss the idea from her with the leaves she shook from her
robe as she rose and moved back a step to see the wreath from a new
point. “Turn your head this way, child. Yes, there is still one thing
wanting on this side; berries if I have them, or grasses if I have
not,—here are more berries! Oh, yes, I declare that I expect to be very
merry through your spirits! You shall have the rule over my pages and
devise games and junketings without end.”

Humming gayly, she began to weave in the bright berries; and it struck
Randalin that here was a good opportunity to make the plea she had in
her mind. She said gravely, “I shall be thankful if you are able to
manage it, lady, so that I may go back with you.”

Pausing in her work, Elfgiva looked down in surprise. “Now what should
prevent?” she asked.

The girl colored a little as she answered: “It was in the King’s mind
once, lady, that a good way to dispose of Randalin, Frode’s daughter,
would be to marry her to the son of Lodbrok. If he should still keep
that opinion—I would prefer to die!” she ended abruptly.

But the King’s wife laughed her rippling laughter that had in it all
the music of falling waters. “Shed no tears over that, ladybird! Would
I be apt to let such an odious bear as Rothgar Lodbroksson rob me of my
newest plaything? Whence to my dulness a pastime but for your help?
Though he were the King’s blood-brother, he should tell for naught. You
do not guess half the entertainment your wild ways will be to me. I
expect it will be more pleasant for me to have you than that Norman ape
which Canute sent me at the beginning of the summer,—which is dead now,
unfortunately, because Harald would insist upon shooting his arrows
into it. There! Now my work could not be improved upon.” Again she
moved back, her beautiful head tilted in birdlike examination. Randalin
arose slowly and stood before her with widening eyes.

But it was not long that the Lady of Northampton had for her or for the
wreath. Now her attention was attracted to the farthest group of guards
and huntsmen, whose motions and shouting seemed to indicate some
unusual commotion. Bending, she peered curiously under the branches. “I
wonder if it has happened that the King has sent someone to meet us?”
she exclaimed. “I see a gleam of scarlet, lady,” the maiden of the
riverbank came to tell her eagerly.

But even as Elfgiva was turning to despatch a page for news, the throng
of moving figures parted, and from it two horsemen emerged and rode
toward them. One was the mighty son of Lodbrok, clad in the scarlet
mantle and gilded mail of the King’s guard. The other, who wore no
armor at all, only feasting-clothes of purple velvet, was the King
himself.

The whole troop of butterfly pages rushed forward to take possession of
the horses; the little gentlewomen made a fluttering group behind their
mistress; and Elfgiva, laughing in sweetest mockery, swept back her
rosy robes in a lowly reverence.

“Hail, lord of half a kingdom but of the whole of my heart!” she
greeted him.

Canute seemed to drink in her fairness like wine; his face was boyish
in its radiance as he leaped from his horse before her. “What! The
first word a gibe?” he cried, then caught her in his arms and stilled
her silvery laughter with his lips.

It was so charming a picture that Randalin smiled in sympathy, where
she stood a little way behind the young wife, awaiting the moment when
the King should have leisure to discover her. Not the faintest doubt of
his friendliness was in her mind. She was still smiling, when at last
he raised his head and looked at her over Elfgiva’s shoulder.

Then alas, the smile died, murdered, on her lips. Turning, Canute
beckoned to the son of Lodbrok, who was enduring the scene with the
same stolid resignation which he displayed toward his chief’s other
follies. “Foster-brother, how comes it that you do not follow my
example and embrace the bride that I have given you?”

As ice breaks and reveals sullen waters underneath, so stolidity broke
in Rothgar’s face. With a harsh laugh, he strode forward.

Perhaps it was to follow the King’s suggestion, perhaps it was only to
vent his reproaches; but Randalin did not wait to see. Before she knew
how she got there, she was at Elfgiva’s side, clutching at her mantle.

“Lady! You promised me—” she cried.

And for all her chiming laughter, Elfgiva’s silken arm was stretched
out like a bar. “No further, good Giant!” she said gayly. “The King
gave what was not his, for this toy has become mine.” She turned to
Canute with a little play of smiling pouts, very bewitching on such
lips. “Fie, my lord! Be pleased to call your wolves off my lambs.”

Plainly, Canute’s frown was unable to withstand such witcheries.
Despite himself he laughed, and his voice was more persuasive than
commanding. “Now he will not rob you of the girl, my Shining One. Once
he has wedded her, you may keep her until you tire. It was only
because—”

But there he stopped, for all at once a mist had come over the heavenly
eyes, and the smiling lips had drawn themselves into a trembling bunch.
The sweet voice too was subtly tremulous.

“It is because you are to a greater degree anxious to please him than
me, though it is a whole year that I have pined away, day and night, in
the utmost loneliness. Wel-a-way! What! Why have you troubled to send
for me, if you hold my happiness so lightly that you will not comply
with me in so small a matter?” Bridling softly, she was turning away,
when the young King threw up his hands in good-humored surrender.

“To this I will quickly reply that my shield does not secure me against
tears! If it is not to your wish we will not speak of it. Give back,
foster-brother, and choose two of the others to be your
drinking-companions. Look up, my fair one, and admit that I am the most
obedient of your thralls. Never, on former days or since, have I so
much as kicked one of your little yelping dogs, though I hate them as
Stark Otter hated bells.”

Sunshine through the mist, Elfgiva laughed. “Nay, but you have them
drowned when I am not looking,” she retorted.

He did not take the trouble to deny it; indeed he laughed as though the
accusation was especially apt. “Have I ever wounded you more deeply
than a trinket would cure?” he demanded.

And behold, she had already forgotten the matter, to catch at the huge
arm-ring which was slipping up and down his sleeve, so loose a fit was
it. “What Grendel’s neck did you take it from! If it had but an
opening, I could use it for a belt.”

Smiling, the King looked down on his monster bracelet. “That,” he said,
“does not altogether do me credit, for it shows the difference in girth
between me and Edmund Ironside. When we set the peace between us, we
exchanged ornaments and weapons. Think if we had followed the custom in
every respect and exchanged garments likewise!”

Elf-fires were in Elfgiva’s blue eyes when she raised them to his.
“Rule your words so that no one else hears you say that, bright Lord of
the Danes,” she murmured, “lest they think you mean by it that the
English crown would fit you as loosely, and forget that you are a boy
who will grow.” The King’s mouth sobered.

“Nay, a man, who has got his growth.”

Her little hand spurned the ring that the instant before it had
caressed. “Not a man, but a King!” she reminded him, and drew herself
up proudly before him, a queen in beauty, crowned with the sun’s gold.

His eyes devoured her; his breath seemed to come faster as he looked.
All at once he caught her hands and crushed them against his lips.
“Neither man nor king,” he cried, “but the lover who has adored you
since he came to plunder but stayed to woo! Do you know that when I
came upon you to-day, my heart burst into flower as a tree blooms in
the spring-time? Had I a harp in my hand, my lips would blossom into
song. Get me one from your minstrels, and I will sing to you as we
ride, and we will forget that a day has passed since the time when
first we roved together through the Northampton meadows.”

Forgetful of all the world beside, he led her away toward the horses.




CHAPTER XX. A Royal Reckoning


A tale is always half told if only one man tells it.
                    GRETTI’S SAGA.


Whether from policy or necessity, the guest-house of Gloucester Abbey
was surrendered to the royal band with open-armed hospitality. Every
comfort the place afforded was heaped together to soften the bare rooms
for the accommodation of the noble ladies; every delicacy the epicurean
abbot could obtain loaded the table; and what little grass the frost
had left in the cloister garth was sacrificed to the swarm of pages and
henchmen, minstrels and tumblers. Now a tournament of games in the
riverside meadows took up the day, now a pageant up the river itself;
again, a ride with the hawks or a run after the hounds,—and the nights
were one long revel. Time slipped by like a song off the lips of a
harper.

To-day it was to chase a boar over the wooded hills that the holiday
troop was awake and stirring at sunrise. The silvery bell-notes that
called the monks to morning prayer were jostled in mid-air by the blare
of hunters’ horns. Stamping iron-shod hoofs and the baying of
deep-voiced hounds broke the stillness of the cloister, and threescore
merry voices laughed out of memory the Benedictine vow of silence.

Voices and horns made a joyous uproar when the King led forth his lady
and her fair following; and he smiled with pleasure at the welcome and
the picturesque beauty of the gay throng between the gray old walls.

“Now how could I come upon a better sight if I were the King of a
hundred islands?” he demanded of Elfgiva.

But he did not wait for her answer; instead, he stepped forward as
though to avoid it and put a question to one of his huntsmen. And his
wife turned and spoke sharply to the blond maiden behind her, whose
more than usual fairness had given her the name of Candida, or “the
white one.”

“Where is Randalin? I sent the garments to her an hour ago. She stands
in need of a taste of Teboen’s rod to teach her promptness.”

Little Dearwyn, watching the doorway with fluttering color, cried out
eagerly, “Here she is, lady!”

There she was, in truth, standing on the threshold with crimson cheeks
and flashing eyes. At the sight of her every huntsman uttered a whistle
of amazement, then settled into an admiring stare; and Canute, glancing
over his shoulder, laughed outright.

“What!” he said. “Have you tired of woman’s clothes already?”

For, once more, Frode’s daughter was attired in a man’s short tunic and
long silken hose. It was a suit much richer than the old one, since
silver embroidery banded the blue, and precious furs lined the cloak;
but that fact was evidently of little comfort to her, as her eyes were
full of angry tears, and she deigned the King no answer whatever.

“I am obliged to pay dearly for your amusement, lady,” she said
bitterly.

Elfgiva chimed her bell-like laughter. “I will not deny that you pay
liberally for my trouble, sweet. Does it not add spice to her stories,
maidens, to see her habited thus? She looks like one of the fairy lords
Teboen is wont to sing of.”

“She holds her head like Emma of Normandy,” the King said absently.

In wide-eyed surprise, Elfgiva looked up at him. “Ethelred’s widow?
Never did I hear that you had seen her! Why has this been passed over
in silence? I have abundance of questions to ask about her garments and
her appearance. When saw you her? And where?”

Canute stirred uneasily. “It is not worth a hearing. I spoke but a few
words with her, about ransoms, the time that I sat before London. And I
remember only that her bearing was noble and her countenance most
handsome, such as I had never seen before, nor did I think that there
could be any woman so queenlike.” Because he did not choose to say
more, or because some wrinkle in Elfgiva’s satin brow warned him off,
he turned hastily to another topic. “Foolishly do we linger, when we
have none too much time to get to covert. Do you still want your way
about accompanying us? I have warned you that a boar hunt is little
like hawking; nor do Northmen stand in one spot and wait for game to
come to them.”

“I hold to it with both hands,” the lady returned with a gayety which
had in it a touch of defiance. “Nor will I consent to do anything
except that alone. We will partake in the excitement of your sport, and
each of these brave heroes of yours shall answer for the safety of one
of us.” A gesture of her hand included Thorkel the Tall, the two
Northern jarls, and the King’s foster-brother.

“And is it your belief that a man can at the same time chase a boar and
talk fine words to a woman?” Canute demanded between amusement and
impatience. “Call it a ride, if you will, but leave the boar out for
reason’s sake, as he would leave us out ere we were so much as on his
track.”

She gave him a sidelong glimpse of her wonderful eyes, and drooped her
head like a lily grown heavy on its stem. “Would that be so great a
misfortune then?” she murmured. “Do you think it unpleasant to be
passing your time at my side?”

Smiling, he watched the play of her long silken lashes, yet shook his
head. “Nay, when I hunt, I hunt,” he said. “I would have idled in your
bower if you had chosen it, but you urged me to this, and now if it
happens that you cannot keep up, you must bear your deed.”

As one casts aside an ill-fitting glove, she threw aside her pouts,
looking up at him with a flash of dainty mimicry. “Hear the fiery Thor!
Take notice that I shall bear all down before me like a man mowing ripe
corn. You cannot guess how much warlikeness I have caught from my
Valkyria.” She glanced back where the girl in the short tunic stood
drawing on her gloves, a picture of stormy beauty.

Amused, the King’s eyes followed hers, then lighted with sudden
purpose. “As you will,” he laughed, “and I will give your Valkyria a
steed that shall match her appearance.” Advancing again, he spoke to a
groom; and the signal set the whole party in motion.

Randalin heard his words, but at the moment she was too deep in angry
embarrassment to heed them. It seemed to her that every eye in the
throng was fastened upon her as she walked forward, that every mouth
buzzed comment behind her. It was not until she was in the saddle that
his intention reached her understanding.

The powerful black charger, which a groom led toward her, had been
pawing and arching his glossy neck impatiently since the first horn set
his blood-drops dancing; at the touch of her foot upon the stirrup, he
snorted satisfaction through his wide-flaring nostrils and would have
leaped forward like a stone from a sling, if the man had not hung
himself upon the bit. The girl awoke to surprise as she barely managed
to reach her seat by the most agile of springs.

“This is not the horse I ride, Dudda! He must belong to one of the
nobles.”

“He is—the horse—that King Canute said—you should take,” the man
panted, as he struggled to keep his footing. “He said to fetch—Praise
Odin!” For at that moment, Canute’s silver horn gave the signal, and he
was free to leap aside.

Randalin’s trained hand upon the reins was as firm as it was light, and
her trained eye was keenly alert to every motion of the black ears, but
in her brain all was whirling confusion,—and no longer any thought of
her tunic. What was the King’s purpose in making this change? Certainly
he was in no mood to honor her,—what could he have in his mind? While
her tongue answered mechanically to Ulf Jarl’s observations concerning
the weather and the fair farmland they were riding through, her eyes
were furtively examining her companions’ steeds. No fiery ambitions
disturbed their easy gait, spirited though they were. Indeed, Elfgiva,
looking back at this moment, singled her out with a rippling laugh.

“By the blessed Ethelberga, you have a horse in all respects befitting
your spirit, my shield-maiden! I hope it is not the King’s intention to
punish you by frightening you.”

Could it be possible that he should stoop to so unworthy an action, the
girl asked herself? And yet it was as understandable as any of his
behavior during the last fortnight. Suddenly it seemed that a hand had
awakened the Viking blood which slumbered in her veins; it fired her
cheeks and flashed from under her lashes. She answered clearly, “I hope
it is not, lady,—for he would experience disappointment.”

From all sides laughter went up, but there was no time for more, for
now a hunter—one of the men who had brought news of the lair—galloped
up, dust-choked and breathless.

“He has broken cover, King!” he gasped. “He is moving windward—loose
the hounds—or—you will miss him—”

Canute’s horn was at his lips before the last broken phrase was out.
“Forward!” he shouted with a blast. “The hounds, and forward!” A
whirlwind seemed to strike the ambling train and sweep them over the
ground like autumn leaves.

Over stubble fields and leaf-carpeted lanes, with half frightened
smiles upon their parted lips, Elfgiva and her fair ones kept up
bravely; then across a stream into a thicket, over hollows and fallen
logs, under low-hanging boughs, through brush and brier and
bramble,—leaping, dodging, tearing, crashing. Leonorine the Timid
uttered a cry, as her horse slid down a bank with his feet bunched
under him; and the Lady Elfgiva dropped her reins to press her hand
where a thorn had scratched her cheek.

“Stop!” she commanded. “Stop! We will turn back and wait—until he
strikes across a field.”

As well have tried to call off the hounds after they had caught the
scent and doubled themselves over the trail! It is unlikely that any
man so much as heard her. For one flash of time she beheld them
seesawing in the air before her, as their horses rose over the brush;
then there was nothing but the distant crashing of dry timber and the
echo of Canute’s jubilant horn.

“And the Valkyria has gone also!” the lady ejaculated, when her injured
gaze was able to come sufficiently close to earth.

And so the Valkyria had, though with as little of free will as on that
day when her runaway steed carried her out of the press of the fleeing
army. At the first call of the horn, Black Ymer had taken the bronze
bit between his teeth and followed, and his rider’s one concern in life
became—not the guiding of him—but the staying on. Before they left the
first thicket her mantle was torn from her shoulders, and she was lying
along his neck, now on this side, now on that, to escape the whipping
twigs that lashed at her, threatening to cut out her eyes. From the
thicket out into the open, where it seemed as if the wind that rushed
against her would blow not only the clothes from her body but the flesh
from her bones!

Far ahead, where the little valley ended and the wood began again, she
caught a fleeting glimpse of the boar as it burst covert with the
yelping pack at its heels and was for one instant revealed, snarling,
bare-tusked, and flecked with bloody foam. Then it dived again under
cover and was gone in a new direction. Canute’s horn sounded a recall,
and one by one the hunters checked their onward rush and wheeled.

Black Ymer’s rider also tried to obey, but all the strength of her body
was not enough to sway him by a hair’s breadth. On he shot into the
thicket.

“He will have enough sense to stop when he finds out that he is alone,”
was her despairing thought.

But he continued to forge ahead like a race horse,—in uneven leaps as
though some sound from behind were urging him on. Suddenly, through the
roaring of her ears, it broke upon her that he was not alone, that at
least one horse was following. Its approaching tread was like thunder
in the stillness. If it could but get ahead of her, all would be well.
Her heart beat hopefully as the jar sounded nearer and nearer. When the
snorting nostrils seemed at the Black One’s very flank, at the risk of
her neck she turned her head.

Looking, she understood why a steed had been given her which should
carry her out of Elfgiva’s reach, for the horseman who was even now
stretching his gauntleted hand toward her rein was the King himself. No
one followed, and the forest around them was silent as a vault. At
last, he was free to speak his mind.

Under the drag of his hand, the horse came slowly to a halt and stood
panting and trembling in the middle of a little dell. For a while, she
could do no more than cling to the saddle-bow, sick with dizziness.

Still holding her rein, her royal guardian sat regarding her
critically. “Now it seems to me that your boasting is less than
before,” he said. “And you were mistaken in supposing that I would have
given this animal to you if I had not known you could ride him.” When
she made no reply, he shook the rein impatiently. “Is it still the
horse that makes you heavy in your breathing? Or perhaps you scarcely
dare to face my justice? I warn you that I shall not take it well if
you begin to weep.”

A spark was drawn out of her by that. With an effort, she raised her
head and shot him a glance from bright angry eyes. “No such intention
have I, Lord King. Certainly I do not fear your justice. Why should I?”

“Since I have little time to spend upon your freaks, I will tell you
why,” he said sternly. “Because you have betrayed one of my people for
the sake of an Englishman.”

With surprise, her glance wavered. “I did not know you knew that,” she
said slowly. But, as he expected her to droop, she bristled instead.
“Nor was it to be expected, Lord King, that you would be the one to
blame me for using craft.”

His eyes kindled; if she had stopped there it might have gone hard with
her, but she spoke on swiftly, her head indignantly erect. “If Rothgar
Lodbroksson thinks he should have indemnity because he was too stupid
to see through a trick, let him have Avalcomb, when you get it back
from the English, and feel that he has got more than he deserves; but
your anger—” she broke off abruptly and sat with her lips pressed tight
as though keeping back a sob. “In the beginning, I got great kindness
at your hands, Lord King,” she said at last, “and your anger—hurts me!”

On the point of softening, the King’s face hardened, and he averted his
head. “You value my favor rather late in the day, Frode’s daughter. It
would have been better if you had shown honor to it when you came in to
me at Scoerstan, by giving me truth in return for friendship.”

If she had laughed as though recalling the jest in that scene, it is
possible that he would have struck her with his glove. It was fortunate
that her sense of humor was no more than a bubble on the foam of her
high spirits. Her eyes were dark with earnestness as they sought his.

“Lord King, I was hindered by necessity. Your camp—was it a place for
women? And did not your own mouth tell me that Randalin, Frode’s
daughter, should wed the son of Lodbrok if she were alive?”

He struck his knee a ringing slap. “I confess that it is not easy to be
a match for you! But I can tell you one thing which you will not be
able to explain, as heretofore,—and it is a thing which has made me get
bitterest against you. If you had kept your confidence from all it
might have passed for discreetness, but that you should keep it from me
to give it to an Englishman—”

“But I did not give it to the Englishman,” she interrupted. For an
instant he stared at her; directly after he burst into a loud laugh.
“Now that is the best thing that has occurred yet! Where you cannot
crawl through, you break through!” He laughed again, and was opening
his mouth to repeat some of the suspicions he had shared with Rothgar
when something about her stopped him,—whether it was the way she bore
her head or something in her deep eyes. Dropping his derision, he spoke
bluntly: “What reason in the world could cause you to behave thus if it
is not that he is your lover?”

The color gathered and spread over her face in maiden shame, until her
tunic became the cruelest of mockeries.

“Short is the reason to tell, Lord King,” she said, “it is because I
love him.” As he sat regarding her, she put out her hand and played
with a tendril of wild grapevine that hung from the tree beside her,
her eyes following her fingers. “I do not know why I should be ashamed
of the state of my feelings. I should not be able to stand alive before
you if he had not been a better lord to me than you are to English
captives; and he is more gentle and high-minded than any man I ever
heard sung of. Sometimes I think I should have more to be ashamed of if
I did not feel love toward him.” A little defiantly, she raised her
eyes to his, only to drop them back to the spray. “But he does not love
me. He knows me only as the boy he was kind to. I have given him the
high-seat in my heart, but I sit only within the door of his.”

The forest seemed very still when she had done,—the only sound the
clanking of the bits as the horses cropped the withered grass. Then
suddenly the King gathered up his lines with a jerk.

“I cannot believe it,” he said harshly. “You are all alike, you women,
with your cat-like purrings and tricksy eyes that surpass most other
things in deceit. I do not deny both that you know well how to feign
and that I would like to believe you, but you must prove it first
before I do.”

“How can I do that, lord?” she said helplessly; but shrank, the next
moment, as she saw that already he had a plan in his mind. Moving his
horse a step nearer, he bent toward her triumphantly. “I will send for
the Englishman, in your name—or the name you wore—and you shall meet
him in my presence, and I shall be able to tell from his manner whether
or not you have spoken truthfully.”

Send for him! At the very thought her face was ecstatic with happiness.
Then she clasped her hands in dismay. “But not if I must continue in
these garments, lord! You can decide over my fate, but I will never
face him again in anything but woman’s weeds.”

The King frowned. “Strangely do you speak; as if I did not know what is
befitting a Danish woman that I would allow one who is noble-born in
all her kindred to be treated disgracefully after I had taken her into
my wardership!”

A while longer he sat there, watching her changeful face with its
lovely mouth and the eyes that some trick of light and shade had
deepened to the purple of an iris petal’s markings; and the sight
seemed to gentle his mood.

“I should like to reconcile myself to you,” he said slowly. “Since
first you came before me and showed by your entreaty that you thought
me something besides an animal, I have felt friendliness toward you.
And I should like to believe that some woman loves some man as you say
you love this Englishman.” Out of the very wishfulness of his voice, a
terrible menace spoke: “I should like it so much that I shall neither
spare you in word nor deed if you have deceived me!” Then once more his
manner softened. “Yet my mind feels a kind of faith toward you. I shall
try you, to make sure, but until you have proved that you are unworthy
of it, I will not keep you out of my friendship.” Drawing off his
glove, he stretched forth his hand. “You may find that a man’s
harshness is little worse than a woman’s guile,” he said bitterly.

Dimly guessing what was in his mind, she dared not trust herself to
words but told her gratitude with her eyes, as she returned his clasp.
Then he sent her back by the one semblance of a path which ran through
the forest, and himself rode on to his hunters.




CHAPTER XXI. With The Jotun as Chamberlain


All doorways,
Before going forward,
Should be looked to;
For difficult it is to know
Where foes may sit
Within a dwelling.
                    Hávamál.


“Once more, Lord Sebert, be exhorted to turn back,” old Morcard spurred
forward to offer a last remonstrance as city gates yawned before them.
“Even if the message be genuine, you are putting your life in peril. If
men speak rightly, Gloucester Town is no better than a camp of
carousing Danes. Is it likely that they care enough about this peace to
stick at so small a thing as man-slaying?”

The Etheling replied without slackening his pace: “I do not think they
are liable to molest a peaceful traveller. I will take care that I
upheave no strife, and I will make all my inquiries of the monks.”

“Go a little more slowly, lord, and consider the other side of it,” the
old knight entreated. “Suppose the message is false,—the black tress
around it proves nothing. Suppose the son of Lodbrok has spread a net
for you?”

“Then should I keep on my way still more lustily,” the Lord of
Ivarsdale answered, “for his making use of the boy’s name to entice me
would show that he had discovered our friendship, in which case the
youngling would be suffering from his anger.”

The old man plucked violently at his beard as the walls loomed clearer
before them. “Lord, you have already gone through some risk in leaving
home. It is by no means impossible that Edmund will fall upon the Tower
during your absence.”

“Edmund is too busy with big game at Oxford to have that trouble about
such quarry as I,” the young man said lightly, “and the Gainer is not
likely to stir far from Edmund while land is being distributed.” Then,
sobering, he gave the other a grave glance over his shoulder. “Even
though the errand for danger could not be accomplished, how could I do
less than undertake it? Did not the boy go through some risk for me
when he betrayed his own countryman to get me out of a hard place? Had
they guessed his treason, they would have torn him in pieces. I owe him
a debt which it concerns my honor to pay. It lies not on your
shoulders, however,—” his gravity gave way to his gay smile,—“if it is
more pleasant for you not to enter the city, you may ride back to the
hostelry we passed, and await me in its shelter.”

The old cniht’s courage was too well approved to require any defence.
Contenting himself with an indignant grunt, he reined back to his place
at the head of the dozen armed servants who formed the Etheling’s
safeguard, and the young lord galloped on between the bare fields,
humming absently under his breath.

“Poor bantling!” he was thinking compassionately. “I shall be right
glad to get sight of him again. I hope he will not betray himself in
his joy when he sees me. Anything like showing that one is fond of him
is apt to turn him a little soft.”

None of these undercurrents was visible in his face however, when,
having left his escort in one of the outer courts, he stood at last in
the parlor of the Abbey guest-house.

“I am a traveller, reverend brother, journeying from London to
Worcester,” he said with grave courtesy to the gaunt black-robed monk
who admitted him. “And my errand hither is to ask refreshment for
myself and my men, as we have been in the saddle since cockcrow.”

“The brother whose duty it is to attend upon travellers is at this hour
in the Chapter House, with the rest of the household,” the monk made
answer. “When he comes forth, I will acquaint him with your needs.
Until then, bide here, and I will bring you a morsel to stay your
stomach.”

Sebert smiled his satisfaction as the sandals pattered away. He had
foreseen this interval of waiting, indeed, he had timed his arrival to
gain it,—and it was his design to put it to good use. While he
swallowed what he wanted of the wafers and wine which were brought him,
he took measure of the reverend servitor, with the result that, as he
set down the goblet, he ventured a question.

“From the numbers and heaps of attendants I saw in the outer courts,
holy brother, it appears that this season of peace has in no way
lessened the tax on your generosity. Is rumor right in declaring the
Danish King to be one of the guests of your bounty?”

Either it was the agreeable presence of the young noble which relaxed
the Benedictine’s austerity, or else the fact that Sebert had left half
his wine in his cup. The holy man answered with unwonted readiness.

“Rumor, which is the mother of lies, has given birth to one truth,
noble stranger. The King whom a chastening Providence has set over the
northern half of the Island, has been our guest for the space of four
weeks,—together with the gold-bought English woman who is known as his
‘Danish wife.’” The monk’s watery eyes were rolled upward in pious
disapproval, before he turned them earthward with a sigh of
resignation. “Nevertheless, it is the will of Heaven,—and he is very
open-handed with lands and gold when his meals please him.” He cast a
thirsty glance toward the half-filled goblet which Sebert was absently
fingering. “If you have eagerness for a sight of him, you have but to
walk through the galleries until you come to the garden in which he is
fleeting his time with his women.”

“Now I think I should like to take a look at him while I am waiting,”
the Etheling assented, rising gravely. “Should Edmund be the first to
pay the debt of nature, which God avert! the Dane will become my King
also. Is it this door that commands the cloister?”

“The door on your left,” the monk corrected; and shuffled away lest
some envious chance should snatch the cup from him before his thirsty
throat could close on the sweet remnant.

At the moment that he was making sure of his booty in the safe darkness
of a passage, the Lord of Ivarsdale was pursuing his object along the
chill enclosure of the gallery. The November sunlight that, unsoftened
by any filter of rich-tinted glass, fell coldly upon the worn stone,
showed the carrels beneath the windows to be one and all deserted by
their monkish occupants, and he strode along unhampered by curious eye
or ear.

“After all this luck,” he congratulated himself, “it will go hard with
me if I do not either stumble on the youngling himself, or someone who
can give me news of him.”

He had no more than thought it, when the sound reached him of a door
closing somewhere along the next side of the square, followed by the
clank of spurred feet coming heavily toward him. As they drew nearer,
the rattle of a sword also became audible. Lifting his eyebrows
dubiously, the Etheling grasped his own weapon beneath his cloak.

When the feet had brought their owner around the corner into sight, he
did not feel that his motion had been a mistaken one, for the man who
was advancing was Rothgar Lodbroksson. It flashed through Sebert’s mind
that the old cniht’s forebodings had not been without cause, and that
Ivarsdale was in danger of changing masters by a process much quicker
than a month’s siege. He stared in amazement when the Dane, instead of
flashing out his blade, stopped short with a burst of jeering laughter.

“Here is the Englishman arrived, and he looks small enough now!” he
cried in his thunderous voice. “Has it happened that I am to be the
bower-thane who is to fetch you in!”

Sebert’s grasp tightened around his hilt. Apparently the son of Lodbrok
was expecting him! Yet even on a forlorn hope, he deemed it wise not to
commit himself. He said with what haughtiness he could muster, “What
should a plain traveller want with a bower-thane, Danishman? I stand in
more need of the cellarer who is to provide me with a meal.”

Another jeering outburst interrupted him. “Now I say nothing against it
if you declare yourself looking for sweetmeats! Well, I will be the
cellarer, and lead you to them.”

“I do not understand you,” Sebert said slowly, and quite truthfully.

The Dane grinned at him. “I mean that I will fetch you in to the one
who sent you the summons.”

“The one who sent you the summons?” Certainly that sounded as though he
were using the words to conceal a name. Neither the Etheling’s patience
nor his temper was long enough to reach below the knee. He made a swift
gesture of throwing aside all reserve. “Enough of mystery, Danishman!
If the message which I have received was not sent by Fridtjof
Frodesson, it was sent by you. Be honest enough to admit it and say
plainly what your intention is toward me.”

“Fridtjof Frodesson,” the Jotun mocked, and his fiery eyes probed the
Englishman like knives. “Now since honesty is to your wish, I will go
so far as to confess that the word came neither from Frode’s son nor
from me.”

Sebert’s foot rang upon the ground. “Say then that the Devil sent it,
and a truce to this juggling! Since you know that I am the boy’s
friend, you understand that any harm he has suffered is a harm to me,
and that my sword is equally ready to avenge it.”

Much to his surprise, the Dane accorded this challenge no notice
whatever. He stood studying the Lord of Ivarsdale with eyes in which
malicious amusement was growing into open mirth. It came out in another
laugh. “Now it would be more unlikely than the wonder which has
occurred, yet I begin to believe you! I myself will guide you to your
Fridtjof, only for the pleasure of watching your face. The Fates are no
such step-mothers after all!” He turned in the direction from which he
had come and made the other a sign. “This way, if you dare to follow. I
am not afraid to go first, so you need give no thought of the chances
of steel between your ribs.”

The Etheling took his hand off his weapon with a twinge of shame; but
he was not without misgivings as he strode along at Rothgar’s heels.
Unless the youngling had made a decided change for the worse, what
satisfaction could the Jotun expect to get from witnessing their
meeting? Before his mind, there rose again the tear-stained boyish face
which had bidden him farewell that night at the postern, and his pulses
throbbed with a fierce pity.

“He took himself from the one person who was dear to him, poor little
cub,” he murmured. “If they have maimed him, I swear I will tuck him
under my arm and cut my way out though there be a wall of the brutes
around him.”

His musings came to an end, as the man preceding him stopped suddenly
where one of the milky panes broken from the cloister window gave a
view of the cloister garden. With the cold November sunshine a hum of
voices was coming in, now brightened by peals of laughter, again
blurred by the thud of falling quoits. Over the Jotun’s shoulder, he
caught a glimpse of gorgeous nobles and fair-haired women scattered in
graceful groups about a sunny old garden, green in the very face of
winter, thanks to the protecting shelter of the gray walls.

Only a glimpse,—for even as he looked, Rothgar caught his cloak and
pulled him ahead. “Yonder door is a better place to look through;
already it is open, and the shadow inside is thick enough to hide us.”

Pricked as he was by a dozen spurs, Sebert offered no resistance. In a
moment, they stood just out of reach of the square of light which fell
through the open doorway. Framed in carved stone, the quaint old garden
with its gravelled paths, its weedless turfs and its background of
ivy-hung walls, lay before them like a picture.

In the longest of the oval spaces, a group of maidens and warriors were
gathered to watch a wonderful flower-faced woman play at quoits under
the instruction of a noble tutor. At every one of her graceful blunders
her laughter rang out in fairy music, which was sweetly echoed by her
maids; but the men appeared to see nothing but her beauty as she poised
herself lightly before them like some shining azure bird on tiptoe for
flight. Sebert paid her the tribute of a quickly drawn breath, even as
he took his eyes from her to scan the butterfly pages who ran to and
fro, recovering the gilded rings. Yellow hair and red hair and brown
hair curled on their gaudy shoulders, but no black. In all the picture
there was but one figure crowned with such raven locks as had
distinguished Fridtjof the Bold, and that figure belonged to a girl
standing directly opposite by the mossy curb of the old well, which,
guarded by a circle of carefully tended trees, rose like an altar in
the centre of the inclosure. Four of the red-cloaked Danish nobles
stood about her,—and one of them wore a golden circlet upon the gold of
his hair,—but the Etheling’s eyes passed them almost unheedingly to
dwell upon the black-tressed maiden.

Something about her, while it was entirely strange, was yet so absurdly
familiar. She was some very high-born lady, there could be no doubt of
that, for the delicate fabric of her trailing kirtle was flowered with
gold, and gold and coral were twined in the dusky softness of her hair
and hung around her neck in a costly chain, which the King was
fingering idly as he talked with her. Now she looked up to answer the
jesting words, and the man in the passage saw her smile and shake back
her clustering curls with a gesture so familiar... so familiar...

Rothgar’s gloating eyes detected light breaking in his victim’s face,
incredulity, amazement, consternation; and he began to jeer under his
breath. “A great joy is this that you see your Fridtjof again! Why do
you not go in boldly and rescue him? Does he not look to be in need of
your help?” To stifle his laughter, he muffled his head in his cloak
and leaned, shaking, against the wall.

Flushing a deeper and deeper red, the Lord of Ivarsdale stared at the
smiling maiden. Just so, a hundred times, she had lifted her sparkling
face toward him, and he—fool that he was!—where had been his eyes?
Perhaps it is not strange that after the surprise had faded from his
look, the first feeling to show was bitterest mortification. Turning,
he forced a laugh between his teeth.

“I do not deny you the right to be amused. You speak truly that she
needs no help from me. I will hinder you no longer.”

Rothgar leaped forward to bar the passage, and the mantle that fell
from his face showed no laughter of mouth or eyes. “I have not as yet
spoken harm, but it is not sure that I do not mean it,” he said. “If
you take it in this manner to see how you have been tricked, you may
suppose how well I like it to remember the lies she fed to me, who
would have staked my life upon her truthfulness. It is not allowed me
to take revenge on her for her treachery, but I think I need not spare
you, as you got the profit of her falseness.”

The Etheling’s sword was out while the other was still speaking. “By
Saint Mary, do you imagine that I am fearful of you? Never in my life
was I more thirsty for fighting.”

But Rothgar pushed the blade aside with his naked palm. “Not here,
where she could come between. Besides, the King wants a thrust at you
first. Nor have you yet greeted Randalin, Frode’s daughter.” His hand,
which was itching for a sword, began to tear the fur from his cloak,
and his lips curved in a grin that had in it little of mirth.
“Certainly you would not rob the maiden of the pleasure of seeing the
one she has taken so much trouble for?” he mocked.

On the verge of an angry retort, Sebert paused to regard him, a
suspicion darting spark-like through his mind. Did the Jotun’s words
smack of jealousy? It was true that it needed not that to explain their
bitterness, and yet—What more natural than that the King’s
foster-brother should love the King’s ward? If it was so, it was small
wonder the girl had said that he would slay her when he discovered her
unfaithfulness. Unfaithfulness! Sebert started. Had she not in that
very word acknowledged a bond? Not only did he love her, but she must
have returned his affections. The spark of suspicion flared into a
flame. That would solve so many riddles. For one, her presence in the
Danish camp,—for surely, as a chieftain’s daughter, she would have been
sent on to the care of the Lady of Northampton! Was it not thoroughly
in accordance with her elfish wildness to have chosen man’s attire and
the roughness of camp-life in order to remain near her lover? Her
lover! The young noble’s lips curled as he glanced at the warrior
beside him, at the coarse face under the unkempt locks, at the huge
body in its trap-pings of stained gaudiness. Involuntarily, he looked
again at the group by the well. She was very winsome in her smiling,
and the graceful lines of her trailing robes, their delicacy and soft
richness, threw about her all the glamour of rank and state. He
clenched his hands at the thought of such treasures thrown down for
brutal feet to trample on; and his heart grew hot with anger against
her, anger and scorn that were almost loathing, that she who looked so
fine should be so poor, so—But he did not finish his thought, for on
its heels came another, a recollection that stayed his anger and
changed his scorn to compunction. However dear Rothgar might have been
to her, he could be dear no longer, or she would never have betrayed
his trust and dared his hate to save Ivarsdale Tower—and its master.
Sebert winced and put up his hand to shut out the vision as he realized
at whose feet her heart lay now, like a pitiful bruised flower.

Meanwhile, the son of Lodbrok had been drawing heavily on his scant
stock of patience. Suddenly, he ran out completely. Seizing the
Etheling by the shoulders, before he could raise finger in resistance,
he thrust him through the open doorway into the garden, a target for
every startled glance. After which, he himself stalked grimly on to
await him at the city gate.




CHAPTER XXII. How The Lord of Ivarsdale Paid His Debt


To his friend
A man should be a friend,
And gifts with gifts requite.
                    Hávamál.


A moment, it was to Randalin, Frode’s daughter, as if the heavens had
let fall a star at her feet. Then her wonder changed to exultation, as
she realized that it was not chance but because of her bidding that the
man she loved stood before her. Only because she had asked it, he had
come through pitfalls and death-traps, and now faced, alone, the
gathered might of his foes. Glorying in his deed, she stood shining
sun-like upon him until the red cloaks of the advancing warriors came
between like scarlet clouds.

“Who are you?.... What is your errand?.... How came you here?” she
heard them demand. And, after a pause, in disbelieving chorus, “Rothgar
Lodbroksson! .... Does that sound likely?.... Where is he, then?” “You
are trying to lie out of something—” “You are an English spy! Seize
him! Bind him!”

The scarlet cloaks drew together into a swaying mass; a dozen blades
glittered in the sun. With a gasp, she came out of her trance to catch
at the royal mantle.

“Lord King, you promised to give him safety!” The seriousness which had
darkened Canute’s face at the intrusion vanished off it as breath-mist
off a mirror. “Is it only your Englishman?” he asked, between a laugh
and a frown.

She grudged the time the words took. “Yes, yes! Pray be as quick as you
can!”

He did not seem bitten by her haste, but he took a step forward,
clanging his gold-bound scabbard against the stone well-curbing to make
himself heard. “Unhand the Lord of Ivarsdale, my chiefs,” he ordered.
As they sent him incredulous glances over their shoulders, he further
explained his will by a gesture; and they fell away, murmuring, the
swords gliding like bright serpents back to their holes. Then he made
another sign, this time to the stranger. “We will accept your greeting
now, Englishman, even though you have been hindered in the giving of
it,” he said politely.

Standing there, watching the young noble advance, it seemed to Randalin
that there was not room between her heart-beats for her breathing. How
soon would he look up and know her? How would his face change when he
did? His color now was a match for the warriors’ cloaks, and there was
none of his usual ease in his manner when at last he bowed before the
King. Presently it occurred to her to suspect that he had already
recognized her,—perhaps from the doorway,—and in her rush of relief at
the idea of the shock being over, she found even an impulse of
playfulness. Borrowing one of Elfgiva’s graces, she swept back her
rustling draperies in a ceremonious courtesy before him.

Again he bent in his bow of stiff embarrassment; but he did not meet
her glance even then, returning his gaze, soldier-like, to the King.
Suppose he were going to treat her with the haughtiness she had seen
him show Hildelitha or the old monk when they had displeased him! At
the mere thought of it, she shrank and dropped her eyes to the coral
chain that she was twining between her fingers.

The awkwardness of the pause seemed to afford Canute a kind of
mischievous amusement, for all the courtesy in which he veiled it. His
voice was almost too cheerful as he addressed the Etheling. “Now as
always it can be told about my men that they stretch out their hands to
greet strangers,” he said, “but I ask you not to judge all Danish
hospitality from this reception, Lord of Ivarsdale. Since Frode’s
daughter has told me who you are, I take it for granted that they were
wrong, and that you came here with no worse intention than to obey her
invitation.”

His glance sharpened a little as he pronounced those last words, and
the girl’s hands clasped each other more tightly as she perceived the
snare in the phrase. If the Etheling should answer unheedingly or
obscurely, so that it should not be made quite clear to the King—

But it appeared that the Etheling was equally anxious that Canute
should not believe him the lover of Frode’s daughter. His reply was
distinct to bluntness: “Part of your guess is as wrong as part of it is
right, King of the Danes. Certainly I came here with no thought of evil
toward you, but neither had I any thought soever of the Lady Randalin,
of whose existence I was ignorant. I answered the call of Fridtjof
Frodesson, to whom I owe and I pay all the service which lies in my
power,—as it is likely you know.”

Did his voice soften as he recalled his debt? Randalin ventured to
steal a glance at his face,—then her own clouded with puzzlement. No
haughtiness was in it, but a kind of impatient pain, and now he winced
under the smart and stirred restlessly in his place. The lightness of
the King’s voice grated on her ear.

“Then I think you must have got surprised, if this is true, which seems
impossible.”

The Etheling answered almost impatiently, “If your mind feels doubt of
it, Lord Canute, you have but to ask your foster-brother, who conducted
me hither.”

A while longer, Canute’s keen eyes weighed him; then their sky was
cleared of the last cloud. The best expression of which his brilliant
face was capable was on it as he turned and held out his hand to the
girl beside him.

“Shall we pledge our friendship anew, Frode’s daughter?” was all he
said; but she knew from his look that he had taken her under his shield
for all time to come; and it was something to know, now when her world
seemed falling about her. For an instant, as she yielded her trembling
fingers to his palm, her groping spirit turned and clung to him,
craving his sympathy.

It seemed that he divined the appeal, for with the hand that pressed
hers he drew her forward a step. “Is it not your wish to speak to the
Lord of Ivarsdale yourself and thank him for keeping his troth with
Fridtjof?” he said kindly; and without waiting for an answer, moved
away and joined a group of those who had been his companions before the
interruption.

At last she stood face to face with the man she loved, face to face,
and alone. And still he neither spoke to her nor looked at her! So
strange and terrible was it all that it gave her resolution to speak
and end it. Her Viking blood could not color her cheeks, but her Viking
courage found her a whisper in which to offer her plea for the
“sun-browned boy-bred wench.”

“Lord, it is difficult to know whether or not to expect your
friendship, for—for I have heard what your mind feels toward most
matters—and you see now what I have done—”

Did he wince again? She paused in astonishment. It could not be that he
was surprised,—was it displeasure? Her words came a little more
swiftly, a tremor of passionate pleading thrilling through them.

“You need not think that I did it willingly, lord. Very roughly has
fortune handled me. The reason I first came into camp-life was that I
trusted someone too much, knowing no more of the world than my father’s
house. And after the bonds were laid on me, it was not easy to rule
matters. The helplessness of a woman is before the eyes of all people—”

His words broke through hers: “No more, I beseech you!” His voice was
broken and unsteady as she had never known it. “Who am I that I should
blame you? Do not think me so—so despisable! If unknowingly I have done
you any wrong when I owe you—” He paused and she guessed that it had
swept over him afresh how much he did owe her. Perhaps also how much he
had promised to pay?

“There will be no recompense that you can ask at my hands which I shall
not be glad to give,” he had said; and she had checked him, bidding him
wait to see if he would have more than pity. If he should have no more!
She dared not look at him but she felt that he opened his lips to
speak, then turned away, stifling a groan. It seemed to her that her
breath ceased while she waited, and her hands tightened on the coral
chain so that suddenly it burst and scattered the beads like rosy
symbols of her hopes. If he should have no more!

At last he turned and came a step nearer her, courtly and noble as he
had always been. “I owe to you everything I have, even life itself,” he
said, “and I offer them all in payment of the debt. May I ask the King
to give you to me for my wife?”

In its infinite gentleness, his voice was almost tender. For as long as
the space between one breath and the next, her spirit leaped up and
stretched out its arms to its joy; but she stayed it on the threshold
of utterance to look fearfully into his face, whose every shade was
open to her as the day. Looking into his eyes, she knew that it was no
more than pity. He guessed that she loved him and he pitied her; but he
could not forgive her unmaidenliness, he could not love her.

Slowly and quite easily she felt her heart die in her breast, leaving
only the shell, the husk, of what had been Randalin, Frode’s daughter.
Her first thought Was a vague wonder that after it she could breathe
and move as if she were still alive. Her next, a piteous desire to
escape from him while she had this strength, before the end should
really come. Clutching the broken chain, she drew herself up bravely,
her words coming in uneven breathfuls. “I want not that recompense,
lord. I want—nothing you have to give. Little shall you think of the
debt,—or think that in helping you, I repaid you for your hospitality,
your—”

Her voice broke as the memory of that time passed over her like bitter
waters, and she was obliged to stand silent before him, steadying her
lip with her teeth, until the waters had fallen. She had a faint
consciousness that he was speaking to her, but she did not understand
what he said, she did not care. Her only wish was for words that should
send him away so that she might be free to sink down beside the old
well and press her burning face against its smooth coldness and finish
dying there.

“It was the King who sent for you, that he might know whether I had
spoken the truth concerning my disguise—” she said when at last her
voice returned. “Now, by coming, you have helped me against his
anger,—let that settle all debt between us. I thank you much and—and I
bid you farewell.” Again Elfgiva’s schooling came to her mind and she
swayed before him in a courtesy. She even bent her lips into a little
smile so that he should not be sorry for her and stay to tell her so.
She did not know that her cheeks were as white as her kerchief, that
her eyes were dark wells of unshed tears. She knew only that at last he
was bowing, he was turning, in a moment more he would be gone—But just
short of that point he stopped, and all motion around her appeared to
stop, as a noise down the corridor blotted out every sound in the
garden,—the noise of a great body of people rousing the echoes with
jubilant shouting.

“The King! The King!” could be heard again and again, and after it a
burst of deafening cheers that drowned the rest.

Elfgiva dropped the gilded quoits to wring her hands. “Is it the
English, my lord?” she implored of Eric of Norway. “Is it the English
attacking us? Shall we be killed?”

“Think you that Danes cheer like that when they are expecting death?”
the Norseman reassured her with a hearty laugh. “It is good news,—great
news since the whole mob has thought it safe to bring it. Hark! Can you
hear what it is that they add after the King’s name?”

Listening, everyone stood motionless as the babel came nearer with a
swiftness which spoke much for the speed of the shouters. Only
Randalin’s little red shoe began to tap the earth impatiently. What did
it matter what they said?

“Hail to Canute of Denmark!” “Hail to the King of the Danes and—” Again
cheers drowned the rest.

The pages, who had sped at the first alarm like a covey of gay birds,
came panting back, tumbling over one another in their efforts to impart
the news.

“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.


“Tata!” That was the pet name which Elfgiva had given to her Danish
attendant because it signified lively one. “Tata! I have looked
everywhere for you!” The pat of light feet, a swish of silken skirts,
and Dearwyn had thrown herself upon the bench under the oak tree, her
little dimpled face radiant. “What are you doing here in this corner
where you can see nothing? How! Are you not overcome with delight? Only
think that Elfgiva will be a queen and we shall all go to London!” As
the only adequate means of expression, she threw her arms around her
friend in a rapturous embrace.

Something in the touch of her soft body, the caress of her satin hands,
was indefinably comforting. Randalin’s arms closed about her and
pressed her close, while the little gentlewoman chided her gayly.

“What is the matter with you that you are so silent as to your tongue,
when you must needs be shouting in your heart? You are as bad as the
King, who stands looking from one to another and speaks not a word.
Does your coldness arise from dignity? Then let me lose all the state I
have and be held for a farmer’s lass, for I am going to stand up here
where I can see everything.” Disengaging herself gently, she climbed
upon the bench as she chattered. “The messenger had a leather bag
around his neck which I think likely contains Edmund’s crown and—Ah,
Tata, look l look! Thorkel is holding it up!”

As cries of savage rejoicing mingled with the uproar, Randalin found
herself dragged up, whether she would or no, until she stood beside her
companion, gazing over the heads of the shouting throng.

Yes, it was Edmund’s crown. Again, a picture of the English camp-fire
rose before her, and she shivered as she recognized the graceful
pearled points she had last seen upon the Ironside’s stately head. Now
Thorkel was setting them above the Danish circlet on Canute’s shining
locks, while the shouts merged into a roar of acclamation. Like blowing
flowers, the women bent before him, and the naked swords of his nobles
made a glittering arch above him.

“But why does he look so strange?” Randalin said suddenly.

And Dearwyn laid a finger on her lip. “Hush! At last he is going to
speak.”

For now it was plain that Canute’s attention was given neither to the
nobles nor to the fluttering women. He was bending toward the
messenger, holding him with his glance. “Tell more news, messenger,” he
was saying sternly. “Tell about the cause of my royal brother’s death.”

The messenger seemed to lose what little breath his ride on the
shoulders of the crowd had left him. “My errand extends no further,” he
panted. “It is likely that the Earl will send you more news—I am but
the first—” His breath gave out in an inarticulate gasp, and he began
to back away.

But the King moved after him. “Stop—” he commanded,—“or it may be that
I will cause you to remain quiet for the rest of time. You must know
what separated his life from his body. Tell it.”

Stammering with terror, the man fell upon his knees. “Dispenser of
treasures, how should I know? The babblings of the ignorant durst not
be repeated. Many say that the Ironside was worn sick with fighting.”

“You lie!” Canute roared down upon him. “You know they say that Edric
murdered him.”

At that, the poor fool seemed to cast to the winds his last shred of
sense. “They do say that the Earl poisoned him,” he blubbered. “But
none say that you bade him to do it. No one dares to say that.”

“How could they say that?” Randalin cried in amazement, while the King
drew back as though the grovelling figure at his feet were a dog that
had bitten him.

“I bid him do it?” he repeated. All at once his face was so terrible
that the man began to crawl backward, screaming, even before Canute’s
hand had reached his hilt.

Before the blade could be drawn, Rothgar had stepped in front of his
royal foster-brother with a savage sweep of his handless arm. “Do not
waste your point on the churl, King,” he said in his bull’s voice. “If
you want to play this game further, deal with me, for I also believe
that you bade the Gainer murder Edmund.”

As though paralyzed by his amazement, Canute’s arm dropped by his side.
“You also believe it?”

Little Dearwyn hid her face on the Danish girl’s breast. “Oh, Randalin,
would he do such a deed?” she gasped. “The while that he seemed so kind
and gentle with us! Would he do such horrid wickedness?”

“No!” Randalin cried passionately. “No!”

But even as she cried it, Thorkel the Tall dared to lean forward and
give the royal shoulder a rallying slap. “Amleth himself never played a
game better,” he said; “but is it worth while to continue at it when no
Englishmen are watching?” And his words seemed to open a door against
which the others were crowding.

“King Canute, I willingly admit myself the block-head you called me.”
Ulf Jarl hastened to declare in his good-natured roar. “When I saw you
take your point away from Edmund’s breast, that day, my heart got
afraid that you were obliged to do it to save yourself. Even after I
heard how you had made a bargain to inherit after each other, I never
suspected what kind of a plan was in your mind.”

And Eric of Norway smote his thigh with the half resentful laugh of a
man who has been told the answer to a riddle which he has given up. “I
will confess that your wit surpasses mine in matters of cunning. I did
suspect that you might think it unfeasible to kill him before the face
of his army, but I had no idea that it would be possible to get the
land from him both according to law and without further fighting or
loss of men. On a lucky day is the King born who has a mind like this!”

One after another, all the nobles echoed the sentiment; until even the
mob of soldiers found courage to voice their minds.

“His wit is made out of Sleipnir’s heels!” “Skroppa herself could not
be foreknowing about him!” “I am as glad now as I was disappointed when
I saw him take his blade off the Ironside—” “When I saw that, I thought
I would turn English—” “They will try now to turn Danish.” “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. “You!” he said.
“What do you believe?”

Pealing her silvery laughter, she turned toward him, her eyes peeping
at him like bright birds from under the eaves of her hood. “Lord, I
believe that I am afraid of you!” she coquetted. “When I bethink me
that all the time I have been chiding you for being unambitious for
glory, you have had this in your mind! I shall never presume to compass
your moods again. Yes. Oh, yes! I shall see daggers in your smile and
poison in your lightest word.” Laughing, she stooped and kissed his
hand with the first semblance of respect which she had ever shown him.

In the Danish girl’s embrace, Dearwyn shivered and nestled closer.
“Randalin, you hear her? She thinks he did it.”

“She is a foolish woman,” Randalin said impatiently, “and if she do not
take care, she will feel it for speaking so. See how his fingers tap
his belt for all that his face is so still.”

His face was curiously still as he regarded the beautiful Elfgiva,—and
stilly curious, as though he were examining some familiar object in a
new light. “You believe then that I had him murdered?” he asked. “And
you find pleasure in believing it?”

“Now it is not murder!” she protested. “When a king kills—in war—”

“But this is not war,” he said slowly. Lifting one of the jewelled
braids from her shoulder, he played with it as he studied her. “This is
not war, for I had reconciled myself to him. I had plighted faith with
Edmund Ethelredsson and vowed to avenge his death like a brother.”

Her white forehead drew itself into a puzzled frown. “But you were not
so foolish as to swear it on the holy ring were you?” When he did not
answer, she raised her shoulders lightly. “What should I know about
such matters? Have you not told me, many times and oft, that it
behooves a woman to shun meddling with great affairs?”

He gave a short laugh, “And when were you ever before content to follow
that advice?” Letting the braid slip from his fingers, he stood looking
her up and down, his lips curling with scorn. “Yet this was not needful
to show me that the elves felt they had done their full day’s work when
they had made you a body,” he said. And whether he did not see her
bridling displeasure, or whether he saw and no longer cared to appease
it, the result was the same.

Randalin spoke abruptly to her companion. “Dearwyn, I can tell you
something. Elfgiva will never get the queenship over England.”

“What moves you to say that?” the little English girl asked her,
startled.

But Randalin’s attention had gone back to the King, who had turned
where the son of Lodbrok waited regarding him over sternly-folded arms.

“Brother,” he was saying gravely, “your opinion is powerful with me, so
I will openly tell you that you are wrong in your belief. I was
satisfied with the crown of an under-king, satisfied to pass the time
as I had been doing. Never have I so much as hinted to yonder
peace-nithing a word of harm against Edmund Ironside.”

From Thorkel the Tall came one of his rare laughs,—a sound like the
grating of a rusty hinge,—and Rothgar unfolded his arms to fling them
out in angry rejection.

“This is useful to learn!” he sneered. “Do you think I could not guess
that you had no need to put your desire into words after you had shown
Edric by your actions that your mind and his are one, after you had
admitted by your bond with him that you hold the same curious belief
about honor?”

This time it was Randalin who clutched the English girl. “Oh!” she
gasped.

For Canute’s eyes were less like eyes than holes through which light
was pouring, while his fingers opened and shut as though he had
forgotten his sword and would leap upon the scoffer with bare hands.
Thorkel left off laughing to grasp the Jotun’s arm and try to drag him
backwards.

“Do you want to drive it from his mind that he has loved you? Go hide
yourself in Fenrir’s mouth!”

But the King did not spring upon his foster-brother. Even as they
looked, the fire went out in his eyes, spark by spark, until they were
lustreless as ashes, and at last he put up his hand and wiped great
drops from his forehead. “Never had you the keenness to father that
judgment,” he said in a strangely dull voice. “It must be that a god
spoke through your mouth.” Leaving them, he moved forward to the well
and stood gazing into it, his fingers mechanically raking together and
crushing the dead leaves that had fluttered down upon the curbing.

Dearwyn’s pretty lips began to quiver with approaching tears.
“Randalin, I am miserably terrified. The air feels as though awful
things were about to happen.”

“It seems that the world has begun to fall to pieces everywhere,”
Randalin said wearily. The momentary forgetfulness which the happenings
around her had created was beginning to give way before the weight in
her breast. She drew herself up listlessly. “Is it of any use to remain
up here, Dearwyn?”

But Dearwyn’s grasp had tightened. “See! the King is beginning to
speak.”

Whom he was addressing was not quite clear even though he had turned
back to the group of nobles, for his eyes still gazed into space, but
his words sounded distinctly: “Heavy is it to lose faith in others, but
heavier still to lose faith in one’s self... I know that no word of
mine urged Edric to this deed, but what my eyes may have said, or some
trick of my voice or my face, is not so sure... It may be that I wanted
this thing to happen without knowing it. When I see what it has brought
me, I cannot understand how I could help wanting it... It is true that
I do not always know for certain what I have at heart.” His eyes came
back from space to rest musingly on Elfgiva. “When I began this
feasting-time, I thought I had grasped heaven with my hands, but now—”
he spread out his fingers and released the little bunch of dead leaves
that he had been rolling against his palm—“now I let not this go from
me more easily... You see that a man is not sure even of his own mind.”

Again his head was sinking on his breast, when he raised it with a
fierceness that startled them. “One thing only I am sure of, and that
is that I have done forever with craft. Hereafter, if a man is a
hindrance to me, Rothgar’s axe shall send him to Hel while it is broad
daylight and all his friends are looking. Such is my luck with craft as
though I had grasped a viper by the tail, in the belief that I had
seized its snout... I have been finely treated... Not only have I been
betrayed by all of you who have thought such thoughts of me, but now
some troll has got into me and turned me false to myself so that I
cannot give you punishment for your treason! Certainly the gods must
think this crown of great value since, before they give it to me, they
take from me all that I have thought my happiness, and rob me of my
honor as well!”

He dashed his fist against the tree beside him and did not seem to feel
it when his hand was bleeding. “Here I take oath that they shall cause
their gift to prove its value! It shall be meat and drink to me, and
honor and life itself. Many happenings shall spring from this gift, for
I will put my whole strength into the holding of it; Odin himself shall
not wrest it from me! I will be such a king that there will not be many
to equal me; such a king that they will wish they had given me
happiness and left me a man.”

Whirling, he flung out his bleeding hand toward Elfgiva, and his mouth
was distorted with its bitterness. “Hear that, you who were so mad to
have your lord the King of England that you could not spend a thought
on the love of Canute of Denmark! You have got your wish,—go back now
to your Northamptonshire castle and think whether or not you are
gladdened by it.”

“Go back!” 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. “I will have the London goldsmiths send you a crown if you
wish,” he said. “That is all you understand about being a queen.”

She tried to protest, to cajole, to threaten. She tried to do so many
things at once that she accomplished none of them. Her speech became
less and less intelligible until tears and hysterical laughter reduced
it to mere mouthings, while her tiny hands beat the air with fingers
bent hook-like.

But the young King did not look at her again. He had rejoined his
nobles and was leading them toward the door, giving rapid orders as he
walked. “Do you, Rothgar, see to it that the horses are saddled.
Kinsman Ulf, it is my will that you join us some while later, when you
have seen these women returned in safety. You, my chiefs, get you ready
to ride to Oxford as quick as is possible.” His voice was lost in the
trampling as they stepped from the turf upon the flagging of the
gallery.

When the echoing tread was gone at last from the cloister, the garden
seemed strangely silent in spite of the hurrying servants,—silent and
empty. In the stillness, it came slowly to Randalin that life was not
so simple as she had supposed; that she was not going to die of her
grief but to live with it,—live with this dead emptiness in her breast.
The years seemed to stretch before her like the snow wastes of the
North,—white, white, white, without a break of living green.




CHAPTER XXIV. On The Road to London


Hotter than fire
Love for five days burns
Between false friends;
But is quenched
When the sixth day comes,
And friendship is all impaired.
                    Hávamál.


From Edgeware, where the Watling Street left the Middlesex Forest to
cross the barren heath known as Tyburn Lane, the great road was crowded
with travellers. A small portion of them—messengers, soldiers, and
hunting parties—were riding northward, but the great mass was facing
the City whither they were pressing to warm themselves in the glow of
the Coronation. On foot, on horseback, in wagons and on crutches, they
were as motley a throng as had ever trod the Roman stones; and the
respectable element among them was by no means large enough to leaven
the lump. Sometimes a group of merchants was to be seen, conducting
loaded wagons; sometimes, a thane’s pompous thane, ensheathed in his
retinue; while occasionally, as they neared the New Gate, the crowd was
swelled by squads of the lesser Cheapside dealers making the daily
pilgrimage from their country dwellings to their stalls in the City.
But these were as scattered islands in the stream of half drunken
seamen, masterless thralls, wolf-eyed beggars, paupers, vagabonds and
criminals, who were pushing toward London in hopes of pleasure or gain
or for want of another goal.

Amid such a rabble, and as out of place as a swarm of butterflies in
frost-silvered air, a band of high-born women was to be seen
approaching the City this early December morning. Gorgeously attired
pages, hardly more warlike than the women, made a blooming hedge around
them, while a sufficiently strong guard of men-at-arms protected them
from actual harm, but from impudent comment and ribald jest there was
no defence. Their hoods were pulled down as before a storm, their
mantles drawn up above their chins; and all but two of them appeared to
be trying to shrink into their gilded saddles.

The two who rode at their head, however, looked to be of a different
mettle. Indeed, in the quality of her courage, each appeared to differ
from the other, though muffling folds blotted out anything like
individuality. The shorter of the two, while she rode with gracefully
drooping head, had left her face practically uncovered, seemingly
unconscious of the half slighting, half pitying admiration elicited by
its pathetic beauty. The other, who showed no more than the tip of her
nose, held her head bravely erect, while, even through her wrappings,
the straightness of her back breathed haughtiness.

Yet it was not to the pensive fair one that a timid companion appealed
for comfort, when a temporary damming of the stream pressed those who
led, back upon those who followed. She stretched out an en-treating
hand toward the girl with the haughtily carried head.

“Randalin! What will he do—the King—when he finds that we have fooled
Ulf Jarl, and come hither against his command?”

The Danish girl laughed recklessly. “Little do I care, Candida, to tell
it truthfully. Nothing can be worse than sitting in that Abbey. Here at
least there is a chance that something may happen to help us to forget
that we are alive.”

Candida shook the cloak she had grasped. “But you expect that he will
be angry! You told Elfgiva not to undertake the journey because of it.
And you were able to say the soothest about his temper.”

“I was obliged to tell her that to be honest,” Randalin answered, and
again there was a little wildness in her laugh, “but I should have gone
stone-mad if she had not come.” Yet, as her horse commenced to bear her
forward once more, she consented to speak more encouragingly across the
widening space. “If his humor is right, it may be that nothing
disagreeable will happen. She is very fair to look at,—it may be that
his mind will change at the sight of her. Think that you will sleep in
the Palace to-night.”

Catching this last phrase, as her Valkyria came abreast of her, Elfgiva
spoke pettishly: “You see fit to sing a different tune from what you
did when you tried to hinder me from this undertaking. I should have
brighter hopes if I had not given ear to your advice to send a
messenger ahead. If I could have come upon him before he had time to
work himself into a hostile temper—”

Her attention wandered as a couple of tipsy soldiers elbowed themselves
between the guards only to catch a nearer glimpse of her face, after
which they allowed themselves to be thrust back, shouting drunken
toasts to her beauty.

“Is it your wish that I help you to lower your hood, lady?” the Danish
girl made offer.

Elfgiva’s half smile deepened into a laugh. “Not so, not so!” she said.
“What! Have you seen so much of war and battle axes that you have
forgotten the ways that are pleasing to men? Yet methinks you must
needs have taken notice that, always before he goes into battle, a
soldier tests the sharpness of his weapon. It is to that end that I
endure the gaze of these serfs,—to test the power of my face.”

“It would not be unadvisable for you to whet your wits as well,”
Frode’s daughter muttered scornfully, and somewhat rashly, since
Elfgiva’s wits had been sharp enough to guess the significance of her
hand-maiden’s interview with the young English noble, and the knowledge
had given her a weapon which she was skilful in using.

“Has the sharpness of your mind brought you so much success then, my
sweet?” she inquired with her faultless smile; and had the satisfaction
of seeing her rebel shrink into silence like a child before a rod.

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.

“Why does it become more crowded when two paths open before us? Why
does it not happen that some of these cattle turn down the old way?”

The man shook his head. “I do not think there is much likelihood of
that, lady; since the Bridge was built, no one has wanted to use the
ford; and there is little else to take that way for, unless you are
going to service in the West Minster or to the Monastery.”

“Wanted!” the Lady of Northampton repeated in the extremity of scorn.
“Bid them turn into that road at once. They stand some chance of their
faces getting clean if they take the ford,—if they also get drowned
matters very little. Tell them, seek what they may seek, to take that
way instantly, or the King shall punish them for interfering with their
betters.”

The man pushed up his leather cap to scratch his head. He was not
unacquainted with her custom of sweeping the Northamptonshire serfs off
any road she wished to possess, but that struck him as being somewhat
easier than dispersing a Coronation mob at the gates of London; and yet
to defy her—that was harder than either of them! It was an
interposition of his good angel that at this moment provided a
diversion.

Randalin broke from her silence with an exclamation: “Thorkel! Yonder!”

Less than fifty paces ahead of them, the grizzled head of the King’s
foster-father rose steeple-like above the crowd, while the mighty
shoulders of the King’s foster-brother made a bulwark beside it, and
the gilded helms of the King’s guard formed a palisade around them. The
obstacle in the way was nothing less than a royal detachment drawn up
in waiting beside the road.

Elfgiva’s frown relaxed; for the first time in many days she let the
liquid music of her laughter trickle forth. “Be blithesome in your
minds, maidens!” she called gayly over her shoulder. “Friends are at
hand to take charge of us.”

Taking into consideration what they had expected, the attention was so
flattering that at first they scarcely dared believe it; but its truth
was proved the moment Thorkel turned his head and saw them coming. At
his command, the line of gilded helms quickly drew out across the road
in a barrier which once more dammed the human stream to overflowing. A
break in the middle allowed the party from Gloucester to filter
through; then the opening closed behind them; the line bent at either
end, and they moved as between walls, guarded against any further
jostling or rude contact. Elfgiva sparkled with delight and greeted the
Tall One with more affability than she had ever before deigned his
gruffness.

“Since my royal lord came not himself to meet us,” she said
graciously,—and pushing her hood entirely back so that he might get the
full benefit of her face, “he has well honored us in his messengers,
than whom no persons could be more welcome. I pray you, tell me without
delay how it stands with his health and his fortunes.”

Turning from a muttered word to the soldier at his side, Thorkel
answered her with his usual curtness. “He thrives well, but his time is
full of great matters. To-day he is with the English Witan. Yesterday
they chose him to be their king. To-morrow he is to be crowned.”

“To-morrow? And he would have let me remain in ignorance!” The Lady of
Northampton was unable to repress a start of anger, though she turned
it as soon as possible into a plaintive sigh. “Let me be thankful that
my arrival is not too late. I cannot tell you how we have been beset
with hardships!” Whereupon, she instantly began telling him, giving
free rein to eyes and lips and all the graceful tricks of her hands. It
did not disturb her in the least that he rode beside her in silence,
when she had observed that from under the bristling thatch of his brows
his gaze never left her face.

So complete was her preoccupation that she dis-regarded another
thing,—the highway along which they were travelling. It was Randalin
who first awoke to a consciousness that the noise of the rabble had
become very faint behind them, that no sounds at all broke the
stillness ahead of them, that the uneven weed-grown path they were
treading was very different from the smooth hardness of the Watling
Street. Fens on either side of them, a low hill to the front—was this
the way to London? 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! The crowd has disappeared—the stones are overlaid with
weeds—” In her bewilderment, she reined in her horse and would have
stopped to look about her, if Thorkel’s hand upon her bridle had not
compelled her to remain in motion.

“You are still on the Watling Street,” he said harshly. “It is only
that this is the old bed of it that has not been used much since the
Bridge was built. Besides the ford, it leads also to Saint Peter’s
Monastery on Thorney—”

Stung with fear, she tried to snatch the lines from him. “I am not
going to a monastery! I am going to the Palace.”

As a cliff stands against the fretting of waves, his grasp stood
against hers; and his voice was as immovable as his hand. “Certainly
you are going to a palace, you did not let me carry out my meaning.
Adjoining the Monastery there is a dwelling-place which was once a
house for travellers, that King Edgar himself has slept in—”

“It is a prison you are taking me to!” Her voice rose in a shriek. “It
is a prison! You are mocking me I will scream for help!”

His smile mocked her openly then. “By all means,”—he assented,—“and see
how much it will profit you.”

She realized then that walls were for shutting people in as well as for
shutting people out, and she could have screamed for very temper. Yet
she made one more attempt before giving way. Abandoning her struggle
for the lines, she let her little gloved hands alight like fluttering
birds upon his mailed arm, and summoned all the eloquence of her beauty
into her heavenly eyes.

“No, sooner would I trust to you,” she murmured. “You could not
mistreat me so! I beseech it of you, take me to the Palace where the
King is.”

On what she based her belief that he was incapable of thwarting her is
not quite clear, for he had never taken the trouble to hide the fact
that he considered her a nuisance, and her civil marriage with the King
a piece of youthful folly on Canute’s part. Sinister satisfaction was
in his tone when he answered her.

“The Palace where the King is,” he said, “is the Palace for a Queen.”

At first, it seemed that she would either scratch out his eyes or throw
herself from her saddle. But in the end she did neither, for a sense of
her helplessness turned her faint. To one who has always ruled
undisputed, there is something benumbing in the first collision with
the pitiless hand of Force. “If I had the good luck to see a bee caught
in a brier, I should wish your death,” she threatened. But she said it
under her breath; and after that, rode with drooping head and eyes that
saw nothing of the scene before her.

When the road had left the fens, it climbed a low hill, beyond which it
entered a wood. A brook was the further boundary of the wood, and
across its brawling brown water a rude stone bridge continued their
path, and linked the bank with the little Isle of Thorns. Nature must
have had a prison in mind when she constructed this island, Elfgiva
thought with a shiver. A low sandy hillock rising amid three streams or
water, the high tide would have cut it off completely but for the
friendly arm which the Watling Street extended to it from the Tot Hill,
while a thicket of brambles and briers edged it like a natural prison
wall. Nor had man forgotten such defences, she found when they had
passed a gap in the thorny hedge; a fence of stone rose sheer before
them and extended on either hand as far as eye could reach. In the
fence was a great gate of black oak, which a black-robed Benedictine
presently opened to their summons.

Now for the first time, Thorkel took his hand from her rein. “I will go
no farther,” he said. “You are expected, and one of the monks will be
your guide. It lies only across the court and through one more door.”
His lips curled in their cruel smile as he motioned her forward. “Go in
and take possession. It is not sure how soon the King will get time to
come to you. His mood has not been very playful lately. Rothgar’s sword
has scarcely had time to go to bed in its sheath—”

“The King is occupied with great matters,” Rothgar’s heavy voice bore
down the old man’s thinner tones. “It is not only that he has to be
crowned and make laws. He has many Englishmen to dispose of, and much
land to divide up among his following.”

While Elfgiva’s glance passed him uncomprehendingly, Randalin lifted
startled eyes. When she saw that he was looking directly at her, she
knew that it was no chance shaft, but an arrow aimed at her heart. The
time had come that he had looked forward to, when Canute should get the
kingship over the English, and Ivarsdale should come back to the race
that had built it. And it was all fair, quite fair, quite within the
rules of the game at which she herself had played. She had not a word
to offer as she lowered her eyes and let her horse follow the others as
it would. There was satisfaction on the lips of each of the King’s
deputies as they rode cityward that day.




CHAPTER XXV. The King’s Wife


Long is and indirect the way
To a bad friend’s,
Though by the road he dwell.
                    Hávamál.


The fact that King Edgar had slept under its uneven on some visit to
Dunstan’s monkish colony, was scarcely sufficient to make a palace of
the rambling rookery which a wall separated from the West Minster. It
was an irregular one-storied building,—or, rather, group of buildings
connected by covered passages,—and every kind of material had been used
in its construction,—brick and stone and wood,—while some of the
smaller offices were even straw-thatched and wattled.

“It is the waste-place of ruins,” Elfgiva said on the day of their
arrival, when the monk who guided them proudly identified the brick
portions as fragments of the old Roman Temple to Apollo, the wooden
door-posts as beams from the Saxon Seberht’s refectory, and the stone
walls as contributions from Dunstan’s chapel, which the Danes of the
year one thousand and twelve had reduced to a crumbling pile.

To-day, a fortnight later, Randalin repeated the comment with a
despondent addition: “It is the waste-place of ruins, and ruins have
come to dwell in it. I can believe that it is no lie about the Fates to
call them women, when they put like with like in so housewifely a
manner.”

She was alone in one of the bare mouldering rooms, leaning against the
deep-set small-paned window which had become her accustomed post. It
offered no pleasanter outlook than the snow-powdered thicket beyond the
wall and a glimpse of the Thames, spreading silently over the
surrounding marshes; but from it her fancy’s eye could follow the
mighty stream around its eastern bend to the point where the City walls
began, and Saint Paul’s shingled steeple reared itself in lofty pride.
The Palace stood in the shade of that steeple,—the real Palace, where
the King sat deciding over the fate of his new subjects, taking their
lands from them, when he did not take their lives, and banishing them
across the sea to live and die in beggary. Her fingers tapped the glass
in desperation as she realized her helplessness even to get news of his
judgments.

“The King will never come to this rubbish heap,” she told herself
despairingly. “Here we are buried no less than if we lay in a mound. It
is not likely that we shall get news by an easier way than by going to
him.”

Straining her eyes out over the mist-robed river, she tried for the
thousandth time to think of some bait alluring enough to tempt Elfgiva
to that point of daring. Hope the Lady of Northampton had every morning
when she awoke and looked in her mirror, and Wrath lay down with her
every night, but the rashness which had prompted her first attempt,
Thorkel must have taken away with him, a trophy tied to his saddle-bow.
She made big plans and she talked big words,—but always she put off
their fulfilment until the morrow.

“At this gait, he could be dead and in his grave without my knowing
it!” Randalin cried in despair, and her voice made it quite clear that
“he” no longer meant the King. Since there was no one to see it, she
even allowed her head to fall forward on her arms, and let the ache in
her throat ease itself in a little sob. “Now it is open to me that I
was foolish to let what happened in the garden, that day, cause so much
sadness in my heart,” she sighed. “It should have been a great joy to
me that he was still safe and happy... and I should have found some
hope in it, also, for as long as he is in England there would always be
the chance that I might see him again... And perhaps, after a long
while, when he had quite forgotten how I looked as Fridtjof... if I
should be able to learn many graceful woman’s ways from Elfgiva... and
if he should come upon me when I had on a very beautiful kirtle... so
long as he likes my hair...”

But even as the smile budded on her lips, she plucked it from them,
trembling. “How dare I think of such things, when already they may have
driven him across the sea! It would be quite enough if I could know
that the same land is to hold us both, if I could have the hope of
seeing him again to make it seem worth while for me to go on living.
Oh, I did not dream how much I leaned on that, until it was taken from
me!” In the utter loneliness of her despair, she crushed her face
against her arm, pressing back the burning tears, and her heart rose in
a prayer to the Englishman’s God, since her own no longer answered her:
“Oh, Thou God, if Thou art kind and helpful as he says, it is easy for
Thee to let him remain here where I can sometimes see him! Leave me
this one hope, and I also will believe in Thee.” With her face hidden,
she stood there praying it until it rang so strong through her soul
that it seemed to her the Power could not but hear. And after He had
heard, it would be so simple,—if He was as helpful as Sebert said.

There was new resolution in her movements when at last she left the
window and went toward Elfgiva’s bower. “I will try once more to entice
her to the Palace, so that I can get tidings,” she determined. “Perhaps
it will be easier if at first I suggest no more than a ride, and after
that allure her by degrees. I wonder what kind of humor she is in.”

It was not necessary to go far to obtain a hint as to that. Even as she
entered the passage, she heard from the bower-chamber the crash of a
chair overturned, the scramble of scurrying feet, and then screams and
the thud of blows.

“Now it is heard that she is not sulking among her cushions,” Randalin
observed. “When her temper is up she is little afraid of doing things
which she else would not dare do.”

According to that her expectations should have mounted high, as she
drew aside the door curtain, for the Lady of Northampton was far from
sulking. Partially disrobed, as she had sprung up from before her
mirror, she was holding the luckless Dearwyn with one hand while with
the other she administered pitiless punishment from a long club-like
candle which she had snatched from its holder. Between her entreaties
for mercy, the little maid was shrieking with pain; now, at sight of
Randalin, she redoubled her struggles so that the belt by which her
mistress grasped her burst and left her free to dart forward and fling
herself behind the Danish girl.

“Help me, help me!” she gasped; as Elfgiva swooped upon both of them,
her streaming hair taking on a resemblance to bristling fur, her eyes
showing more of opal’s fire than of heaven’s blue.

“Come not betwixt, or I will treat you in a like manner,” the mistress
panted. “Do you understand the evil she has wrought? She has broken the
wing off my gold fly, besides tearing the hair half out of my head. It
is not to be borne with!”

But the Valkyria’s fear of Elfgiva’s tongue did not extend to Elfgiva’s
hands. Catching the dimpled wrists, she held them off with perfect
coolness, as she said soothingly, “Now you tire yourself much, lady;
and you will tire yourself more if you consent to the entertainment I
came hither to propose.” She laughed, a little excitedly, as a thought
struck her. “It may even be that you will not blame her for this, but
rather take it as a sign that my advice is good.”

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?”

“No, in truth, for I thought of it before I knew that trouble had
happened to her,” Randalin answered; and now she knew that it was safe
to release the wrists. “I will show you. I was thinking how it might
cause amusement to us to ride into the City and see what the goldsmiths
have in their booths. And then I came in here and found you in need of
goldsmiths’ mending! Does not that look like a sign that my thought is
good?”

Elfgiva threw aside the candle to come close and lay her hands upon the
girl’s breast. “Good for what?” she demanded. “Do you think it likely
that I might fall in with the King somewhere in the City?”

This was going a bit faster than Randalin had planned, and her breath
came quickly, but she took the risk and admitted it. “I did hope that
it might happen that we would see the King,” she said, “and—what is
more important to us—that the King might see you.”

Slowly, the King’s wife went back to her seat before the mirror, and
sat there fingering and turning the jewelled rouge-pots in a deep
study.

“Deliver me your opinion of this, Teboen?” she said, at last, to the
big raw-boned British woman who was her nurse and also the female
majordomo of her household.

Teboen was enough mistress of the magic art to give anything like an
omen its due weight,—and perhaps she was also human enough to be weary
of a fortnight’s imprisonment with a porcupine. After becoming
deliberation, she replied that she thought rather favorably of the
plan, that certainly it could do no harm, since a visit to the booths
had never been forbidden to them, while it would be almost as sure to
do good if the King could be reminded of how beautiful a woman he was
neglecting.

Elfgiva’s laughter was like returning sunshine. “How! You say so? Then
will we make ready without delay! Leonorine, come hither and finish
clothing me,—Dearwyn would shake too much. Lay aside your whimpering,
child; the scourging is forgiven you. Tata, I could find it in my mind
to scold you for not thinking of this before. You must mouth the order
for the horses, though,” she added as an afterthought. “I should expect
it would be told me that I am a prisoner, whereat I should weep for
rage.”

Another flash of daring lighted Randalin’s eyes, though her mouth
remained quiet. “A good way to keep them from thinking you a prisoner,
lady, is to act like a free woman,” she said. “I shall tell them that
you are going to the Palace to see your husband.” Sowing her seed, she
left it to take root, and went away to convince the head of the grooms.

As she had foretold, he was too uncertain regarding their position to
dare contest their order, little as he liked it. In something less than
an hour, the five women, fur-wrapped and flanked by pages and soldiers,
were riding across the little stone bridge and up the wooded slope of
the Tot Hill. In something more than an hour after that, they were
passing under the deep arch of the New Gate into the great City itself.

“Do you purpose to visit the Palace first, noble one?” the leader of
the guards inquired with a respectful if uneasy salute.

The seed had rooted so far that Elfgiva did not disclaim the intention;
but she hesitated a long time, pulling nervously at the embroidered top
of her riding glove. “In what direction lie the goldsmiths?” she asked
at last.

“Straight ahead, lady. Nothing very pleasant is at the beginning;
neither the shambles which lie across the way, nor the wax chandler’s
which is opposite; but when you get beyond Saint Martin’s to the
Commons, you will find—”

The lady’s nose wrinkled disdainfully. “Which way lies the Palace?”

“Down the lane on your left, noble one. You can see where the wall of
the King’s garden makes one side of Paternoster Row. You can reach the
Cheapside along the road also,” he added, “if you do not turn in your
way until you come where the Churchyard joins the Folk—”

“Turn then to the left.”

They obeyed her, but their gay chatter died on their lips. If the road
bore none of the repulsiveness of the shambles, it was still little
more cheerful than the graveyard. On their right, an ice-stiffened
marsh reached to the great City wall, while a remnant of the primeval
beech forest lay along their left, leafless, wind-lashed and groaning.
Ahead, behind its walls and above its gardens of clustering
fruit-trees, rose the towers and gilded spires of the King’s Palace.

As they neared the arched gateway, red with the cloaks of the royal
guards, it seemed to Randalin that an icy hand had closed about her
heart. The blood was ebbing from Elfgiva’s face, and it could be seen
that she was forced to keep moistening her lips with her tongue.
Nearer—now they were in front of the entrance—All at once, the lady
thrust a spur into her horse as he was slackening his pace in obedience
to her tightened rein.

“To the goldsmiths’ first,” she ordered. “On our way back—” Her words
were lost on the frosty wind.

The master of the first booth in the row of wretched little stalls was
humped with steaming breath over a brazier of glowing coals. He leaped
to greet such splendid ladies with a profusion of salaams and a
mouthful of pretty speeches that brought some of the color back to
Elfgiva’s cheeks.

“Do not have me in contempt, Tata,” she admonished with a laugh of some
unsteadiness. “It is not certain that I am going to belie you to the
guards, or that I have lost faith in your sign. Let me sharpen my
weapon for some space among these precious things, and it may be that I
shall go hence panting for the field.”

“Ah, gracious lady, you must needs buy my whole stock,” the merchant
cried with ingratiating smiles, “for I can never endure to sell to
another what I have once seen near your face.”

Elfgiva laughed beautifully then, and the Danish girl took a fresh grip
upon her patience. Certainly the jewelled bugs, the golden snakes, the
strands of amber and jet and pearl, seemed to act as tonics upon the
Northampton lady. If she had not traded away, at the first two stalls,
every ornament in her possession, she would have investigated each
booth in the square. She came out in bubbling spirits to the waiting
horses and the half-frozen guards.

“This Cheapside is a very fairy garden,” she prattled, lingering with
her foot in the hand of the kneeling groom. “Everything in beds and
rows as they were herbs,—milk down this lane, soap down that, jewels,
fabrics—” She turned with a sudden inspiration. “Maidens, would not
this be a merry thought? To find out where the fabrics are kept and try
some cloth of gold against these pearls?”

As the servile murmur answered, Randalin’s brow darkened. Cloth of gold
and pearls,—when a wolf was tearing at her heart! She spoke
desperately, “I wish that the way to the fabrics might lie past the
King’s House, lady.”

The King’s wife sent her a glance, half resentful, half questioning.
“Why do you say that?”

“Because if Canute could see you as you look now, with your cheeks
a-flower and that ermine, like snow, upon your hair, there is nothing
in the world he could refuse you.”

Elfgiva’s mouth curved bewitchingly. “You speak as though you had
jewels to sell. What fine manners they have, these London merchants!
Tell me, Candida, Leonorine, does she speak the truth? On your crosses,
has not the cold reddened my nose? Or pinched the bloom off my lips?”

If the murmur that answered lacked any heartiness, their mistress did
not perceive it, for every man within earshot swelled it with
reassurance,—thinking perhaps of the hot spiced wine in the King’s
cups.

After a moment of hesitation, she flew up to her saddle like a bird.
“Do you all think so?” she laughed. “Certainly I never felt in lustier
spirits. I declare that I will try it. Hasten, before the roses wilt in
my cheeks. Forward! To the Palace!”




CHAPTER XXVI. In The Judgment Hall


Strong is the bar
That must be raised
To admit all.
                    Hávamál.


While he kept a firm hold upon the spear which he had dropped like a
gilded bar across the door, the English sentinel repeated for the tenth
time his respectful denial: “I will take it upon me to admit you to the
gallery, noble lady; but you were the Queen herself, I dare not let you
in to the lower part. There be none but men with the King, and it is
not fitting—”

“And is the son of a Saxon serf to decide where it is fitting for me to
go?” the Lady of Northampton demanded, facing him in a tempest of angry
beauty. “Whatsoever you shall do by my direction, dog, will in all
respects be available to your credit. Let me through to my husband, or
I can tell you that you will find your wariness terribly misplaced!”

The guard discreetly held his tongue,—but he likewise held his
position. Elfgiva’s bosom was beginning to heave in hysterical menace
when a second soldier, lounging against the wall behind the first,
ventured a soothing word.

“For your own safety, noble one, ask it not. The King is listening to a
quarrel between an Englishman and a Dane; and by reason of it, there
are many in the room whose tempers may—”

Randalin, who alone of all the maidens had remained undauntedly at her
mistress’ elbow, caught that elbow in a vice-like grip. “Take the
gallery, then, lady!” she urged in a piercing whisper. “The gallery, as
quick as you can.”

As an angry cat wounds whoever is nearest, Elfgiva scratched her in the
same undertone. “Stupid! Do you imagine that the only Englishman who
has part in the world is the one you showed yourself a fool for? Do you
not understand that if I let them assign me to some dark gallery,
Canute will not be able to see me?”

It did not appear that the girl so much as felt the claws. Her eyes had
a look of strained listening as they gazed past the sentinel and across
the ante-room to the great curtained doorway. “He will succeed better
in seeing you through a dim light than through a stone wall,” she
returned.

Biting her lips, the fair Tyrant of Northampton measured the man
through her lashes. He might have been of the same material as his
spear for all the sign he showed of yielding. She could not understand
such defiance, and, like mysteries in general, it awed even while it
angered her. Affecting to draw herself up in disdain, she really gave
back a step. “Perhaps it would be wise to put off our visit until a day
that there is a man at the door instead of a blockhead—”

Randalin’s arm was an iron barrier behind her. “Now I do not know where
you think the power to do that will come from!” she hissed in her ear.
“Do you not see that if you go back to your grooms and let them know
that you have not got enough honor with the King to gain an entrance,
they will never dare do your bidding again? Do you not see that you
must do one of two things, or now win, or now lose?”

Apparently Elfgiva saw. After a moment’s bridling, she whirled back
with an angry flounce of her draperies. “The gallery, then, dog! I
shall reach my lord’s ear from that, which will be an unlucky thing for
you.”

Saluting in silence, the guard drew back to let her pass, at the same
time signing to a row of men-at-arms standing motionless as pillars
against the stone wall of the ante-room. With a rattle and clank they
came to life, and the little band of five kirtles, surrounded and led,
was marched to a low side-door which gave in upon a short flight of
stone steps, white-frosted now with the dampness and their distance
from the fire. At the head of the flight, another door gave entrance to
a narrow passage that probably reached the length of the hall below,
though it seemed to the shivering women to extend the length of the
Palace itself. A third door, ending this corridor, admitted them to the
gallery that ran across the upper end of the hall.

As she passed the threshold Elfgiva exclaimed in vexation, for the
light of the log fire, whose rudely carved chimney-piece broke the long
side-wall, succumbed at the balcony’s lower edge to the shadows of the
raftered ceiling, and all above was wrapped in soft twilight. “He
cannot tell me from a monster,” she fumed, letting herself sink into a
faded tapestry chair, standing forgotten amid a pile of mouldering
cushions.

The three English girls, pressing timidly to her side, answered with
indistinct murmurs which she could interpret to suit her pleasure. The
Danish girl made her no reply whatever. Half kneeling, half sitting
upon the cushions, her head was already bent over the gallery’s edge,
and the scene below had claimed her eye and ear to the exclusion of all
else.

Whatever its shortcomings as a show-case, the balcony was excellently
adapted both for spectators and for eavesdroppers, its distance from
the floor being little more than twice a man’s height, while the fire
which doled its light so stingily, lavished a glory of brightness on
the spot where the King’s massive chair stood beside the chimney-piece.
After one petulant glance, even Elfgiva’s pique gave way to a curiosity
that gradually drew her forward to the very edge of her seat and held
her there, the three maids crouching at her feet.

Encircled by a martial throng, so massed and indistinct that they made
a background like embroidered tapestry, three figures were the centre
of attention,—the figure of the young King in his raised chair, and the
forms of the Dane and the Angle who fronted each other before his
footstool. Shielded from the heat by his palm, Canute’s face was in the
shadow, and the giant shape of the son of Lodbrok was a blot against
the flames, but the glare lay strong on Sebert of Ivarsdale, revealing
a picture that caused one spectator to catch her breath in a sob.
Equally aloof from English thane and Danish noble, the Etheling in the
palace of his native king stood a stranger and alone, while his
swordless sheath showed him to be also a prisoner. He bore himself
proudly, one of his blood could scarcely have done otherwise, but his
fine face was white with misery, and despair darkened his eyes as they
stared unseeingly before him.

As well as though he had put his thoughts into words, the girl who
loved him knew that his mind was back in the peaceful manor between the
hills, foreseeing its desecration by barbarian hands, foretasting the
ruin of those who looked to him for protection. From the twilight of
the balcony, she stretched out her arms to him in a passion of yearning
pity, and all of selfishness that had been in her grief faded from it
utterly, as her heart sent forth a second prayer.

“Oh, Thou God, forget what I asked for myself! Think only of helping
him, of comforting him, and I will love Thee as though Thou hadst done
it to me. Help him! Help him!”

Answering a question from the King, Rothgar began to speak, his heavy
voice seeming to fill all the space from floor to ceiling: “By all the
laws of war, King Canute, the Odal of Ivarsdale should come to me. The
first son of Lodbrok took the land before ever this Angle’s kin had
seen it. He built the tower that stands on it, and the name it bears to
this day is the name of his giving. Under Guthrum, a weak-kneed son of
his lost it to the English Alfred, and we fell out of our fortunes with
the tipping of the scales, and Angles have sat since then in the seat
of Lodbrok’s sons. But now the scales have risen again. Under Canute,
Ivarsdale, with all other English property, comes back to Danish hands.
By all the laws of war, my kinsman’s inheritance should be my share of
the spoil.”

Ending roundly, he drew himself up in an attitude of bold assurance.
Wherever a group of scarlet cloaks made a bright patch upon the human
arras, there was a flutter of approval. Even the braver of the English
nobles, who for race-pride alone might have supported Sebert in a valid
claim, saw nothing to do now but to draw away, with a silent
interchange of shrugs and headshakes, and leave him to his doom.

In the shadow of his hand, Canute nodded slowly. “By all the laws of
war,” he affirmed, “your kinsman’s inheritance should be your share of
the spoil.”

Again an approving murmur rose from Danish throats; and Rothgar was
opening his lips to voice a grateful answer, when a gesture of the
royal hand checked him.

“Recollect, however, that just now I am not only a war-chief, but also
a law-man. I think it right, therefore, to hear what the Englishman has
to say for his side. Sebert Oswaldsson, speak in your defence.”

Not even a draft appeared to stir the human tapestry about them. Sebert
started like a man awakened from sleep, when he realized that every eye
was hanging upon him. Swiftly, his glance passed around the circle,
from the averted faces of his countrymen to the foreign master on the
throne, then bitterly he bent his head to his fate.

“I have nothing to say. Your justice may most rightly be meted out.”

“Nothing to say?” The King’s measured voice sounded sharply through the
hush. For the first time, he lowered his hand and bent forward where
the fire-glow could touch him.

As she caught sight of his face Elfgiva shrank and clutched at her
women. “Ah, Saints, I am thankful now that it is dark!” she murmured.

Sebert sustained the look with proud steadiness. “Nothing that would be
of use to me,” he said; “and I do not choose to pleasure you by setting
up a weak plea for you to knock down again. The right which gave
Britain to the Saxons has given England to the Danes, and it is not by
words that such a right can be disputed. If your messengers had not
taken me by surprise—” He paused, with an odd curl to his lips that
could hardly be called a smile; but Canute gave him grim command to
finish, and he obeyed with rising color. “If your messengers had not
come upon me as I was riding on the Watling Street and brought me here,
a prisoner, I would have argued the matter with arrows, and you would
needs have battered down the defence of stone walls to convince me.”

Mutters of mingled admiration and censure buzzed around; and one
English noble, more daring and also more friendly than the others, drew
near and spoke a word of friendly warning in Sebert’s ear. Through it
all, Canute sat motionless, studying the Etheling with his bright
colorless eyes.

At last he said unexpectedly, “If you would not obey my summons until
my men had dealt with you by force, it cannot be said that you have
much respect for my authority. Do you not then acknowledge me as King
of the English?”

Rothgar betrayed impatience at this branching aside. Sebert himself
showed surprise.

He said hesitatingly, “I—I cannot deny that. You have the same right
that Cerdic had over the Britons. Nay, you have more, for you are the
formal choice of the Witan. I cannot rightly deny that you are King of
the Angles.”

“If you acknowledge me to be that,” Canute said, “I do not see why you
have not an argument for your defence.”

While all stared at him, he rose slowly and stood before them, a
dazzling figure as the light caught the steel of his ring-mail and
turned his polished helm to a fiery dome.

“Sebert Oswaldsson,” he said slowly, “I did not feel much love toward
you the first time I saw you, and it is hard for me not to hate you
now, when I see what you are going to be the cause of. If your case had
come before Canute the man, you would have received the answer you
expect. But it is your luck that Canute the man is dead, and you stand
before Canute the King. Hear then my answer: By all the laws of war,
the land belongs to Ivar’s son; and had he regained it while war ruled,
I had not taken it from him, though the Witan itself commanded me. But
instead of regaining it, he lost it.” He stretched a forbidding hand
toward Rothgar, feeling without seeing his angry impulse. “By what
means matters not; battles have turned on a smaller thing, and the
loyalty of those we have protected is a lawful weapon to defend
ourselves with. The kinsman of Ivar a second time lost his inheritance,
and the opportunity passed—forever. For now it is time to remember that
this is not war, but peace; and in times of peace it is not allowed to
take a man’s land from him unless he has broken the law or offended
honor, which no one can say this Englishman has done. What concerns
war-time is a thing by itself; as ruler over laws and land-rights, I
cannot give one man’s lands to another, though the one be a man I care
little for, and the other is my foster-brother. Go back therefore,
unhindered, Lord of Ivarsdale, and live in peace henceforth. I do not
think it probable that I shall ever call you to my friendship, but when
the time comes that there is need of a brave and honest man to serve
the English people in serving me, I shall send for you. Beware you that
you do not neglect the summons of one whom you have acknowledged to be
your rightful King! Orvar, I want you to restore to him his weapon and
see him on his way in safety. Your life shall answer for any harm that
comes to him.”

With one hand, he struck down the murmur that was rising; with the
other he made an urgent gesture of haste, which Orvar seemed to
understand. Even while he was returning to the Lord of Ivarsdale his
sword, he seized him by the arm and hurried him down the room, the
Etheling walking like a man in a dream.

From the dusk of the rafters, the girl who loved him stretched out her
hands to him in tender fare-well, but there was no more of anguish in
the gesture. Gazing after him, the tears rose slowly to her eyes and
rolled slowly down her cheeks, but on her mouth was a little smile
whose wondering joy mounted to exaltation.

No need was there for her to hide either tear or smile, for no one of
the women about her was so much as conscious of her existence. The
murmur below was growing, despite the King’s restraining hand; and now,
crashing through it in hideous discord, came a burst of jeering
laughter from the Jotun. What words he also spoke they could not catch,
but they heard the Danish cries sink and die, aghast, and they saw a
score of English thanes spring upon him and drag him backwards. Above
the noise of their scuffling, the King’s voice sounded stern and cold.

“While I act as law-man in my judgment hall, I will hear no disputing
of my judgments. Whoso comes to me in my private chamber, as friend to
friend, may tell his mind; but now I speak as King, and what I have
spoken shall stand.”

Struggling with those who would have forced him from the room, Rothgar
had no breath to retort with, but the words did not go unsaid because
of that. Wherever scarlet cloaks made a bright patch, the human arras
swayed and shook violently, and then fell apart into groups of angry
men whose voices rose in resentful chorus:

“Such judgment by a Danish King is unexampled!” “King, are we all to
expect this treatment?... This is the third time you have ruled against
your own men—” “Sven you punished for the murder of an Englishman—”
“Because you forced Gorm to pay his debt to an Englishman, he has lost
all the property he owns.” “Now, as before, we want to know what this
means.” “You are our chief, whose kingship we have held up with our
lives—” “What are these English to you?”... “They are the thralls your
sword has laid-under, while we are of your own blood—” “It is the
strong will of us warriors to know what you mean—” “Yes, tell it
plainly!”... “We speak as we have a right.” Snarling more and more
openly, they surged forward, closing around the dais in a fiery mass.

In the cushions of the balcony, Leonorine hid her face with a cry;
“They will murder him!” And Elfgiva rose slowly from her chair, her
eyes dark with horror yet unable to tear themselves from the scene
below. The mail-clad King no longer looked to her like a man of flesh
and blood but like a figure of iron and steel, that the firelight was
wrapping in unendurable brightness. His sword was no more brilliantly
hard than his face, and his eyes were glittering points. The ring of
steel was in his voice as he answered:

“You speak as you have a right,—but you speak as men who have swines’
memories. Was it your support or your courage that won me the English
crown? It may be that if I had waited until pyre and fire you would
have done so, but it happened that before that time the English Witan
gave it to me as a gift, in return for my pledge to rule them justly.
My meaning in this judgment, and the others you dislike, is that I am
going to keep that pledge. You are my men, and as my men you have
supported me, and as my men I have rewarded you,—no chief was ever more
open-handed with property toward his following,—but if you think that
on that account I will endure from you trouble and lawlessness, you
would better part from me and get into your boats and go back to my
other kingdom. For I tell you now, openly and without deceit, that here
henceforth there is to be but one rule for Angle and Dane alike; and I
shall be as much their King as yours; and they shall share equally in
my justice. You may like it or not, but that is what will take place.”

How they liked it was suggested by a bursting roar, and the scuffling
of many feet as the English leaped forward to protect their new King
and the Danes whirled to meet them, but the women in the gallery did
not wait to see the outcome. In a frenzy of terror, Elfgiva dragged up
the kneeling maids and herded them through the door.

“Go,—before they get into the ante-room!” she gasped. “Do you not see
that he is no longer human? We should be pleading with iron. Go! Before
they tear down the walls!”




CHAPTER XXVII. Pixie-led


To a good friend’s
The paths lie direct,
Though he be far away.
                    Hávamál.


So Sebert of Ivarsdale went to his tower unhindered; and the rest of
the winter nights, while the winds of the Wolf Month howled about the
palisades, he listened undisturbed to his harper; and the rest of the
winter days he trod in peace the homely routine of his lordship,—in
peace and in absent-eyed silence.

“The old ways are clean fallen out of England, and it becomes a man to
consider diligently how he will order his future,” he told Hildelitha
and the old cniht when they inquired the reason for his abstraction.
Perhaps it was the future that was engrossing his mind, but sometimes
it came to him dimly as a strange thing how so small a matter as a slip
of a girl in a page’s dress could loom so large that there was no
corner of manor or tower but recalled some trick of her tossing curls,
some echo of her ringing laughter. The platform whereon they had walked
in the moonlight, facing death together, he shunned as he would have
shunned a grave; and the postern where they had parted was haunted
ground. Did he tramp across the snow-crusted fields, memory clothed
them again in nodding grain, and between the golden walls a figure in
elfin green flitted like a will o’ the wisp. Did he outsit the maids
and men around his hearth and watch the dying fire with no other
companions than his sleeping dogs, fancy placed a scar-let-cloaked
figure on the cushion at his feet and raised at his knee a face of
sweetest friendliness, whose flower-blue eyes brightened or gloomed in
response to his lightest mood... Once more he heard the harp-notes that
told of the wood-nymph’s sorrow;... once more he heard his laughing
denunciation;... again there looked back at him the wounded eyes...
Whenever this vision rose before him, he stirred in his chair and
turned his face from the light.

“May heaven grant that she is not remembering it!” he would murmur. And
for a while he would see her as he had left her in the garden, holding
herself so bravely erect in her shining robes, her white cheeks mocking
at her smiling lips. A great well of pity would spring in his breast,
drowning his heart with its pent-up gushing, and the waters would rise,
rise, until they had touched his eyes. But always before they brimmed
over, another change would come. Slowly, the rigid figure before him
would relax into an attitude of idle grace, the white cheeks would
regain their color, the eyes their brightness, and—presto! she stood
before him as he had seen her from the passage, a high-born maid among
her kind, favored by the King, guarded by her lover. When he reached
this point, he always rose with an abruptness that swept his goblet to
the floor and awakened the sleeping dogs.

“Fool!” he would spurn himself. “Mad puffed-up fool! Keep in mind that
she has her consolers, while you have only your wound. If she could
stake her all upon the son of Lodbrok and then give him up at the turn
of the wheel, is it in any way likely that she is dead with tears for
you? What? It may easily be that she has had a new love for every month
that has passed.”

As the winter wore on, he grew restless in his solitude, restless and
sullen as the waters of the little stream in their prison of ice. He
told himself that when the spring came he would feel more settled; but
when on one of his morning rides he came upon the first crocus, lifting
its golden cup toward the sun, it only gave to his pointless
restlessness a poisoned barb. Involuntarily his first thought was, “It
would look like a spark of fire in the dusk of her hair.” When he
realized what he had said, he planted the great fore-foot of his horse
squarely on the innocent thing and crushed it back into the earth; but
it had done its work, for after that he knew that neither the promise
of the springtime nor the fullness of the harvest would bring him any
pleasure, since his eyes must see them alone.

“The next time they sing the ‘Romance of King Offa,’ before me, I will
not hold back my sympathy,” he scorned himself, “for at last I
understand how it is possible for an elf to lure a man’s reason off its
seat and leave him a dreaming dolt.”

Like a new lease of life it came to him when the last of the April days
brought the long-delayed summons to the King. The old cniht, who
considered that a command to military service could be justified only
by imminent national destruction, was deeply incensed when he learned
that the call was to no more than an officership in the new body of
Royal Guards, but the young lord checked him with even a touch of
impatience.

“What a throng of many words, my friend Morcard, have you spoken! Did
you learn naught from the palisade that gave way because churls paid me
their service when and how they would?” he demanded. “Now let me inform
you that I have got that lesson by heart, and hereafter no king shall
have that trouble about me. At sunrise, I ride back with the
messenger.” And he maintained this view so firmly that his face was
rather stern as he spent the night settling matters of ploughing and
planting and pasturage with the indignant old servitor.

But the next morning, after he had set forth and found how every mile
lengthening behind him lightened the burden of his depression, a kind
of joy rose phoenix-like out of the gray ashes of duty.

“If I had continued there, I should have become feeble in mind,” he
said. “Now, since I have got out of that tomb that she haunts, it may
be that I can follow my art more lustily.” And suddenly his sternness
melted into a great warmth, toward the strapping soldier riding beside
him, toward the pannier-laden venders swinging along in their tireless
dog-trot, even toward the beggar that hobbled out of the ditch to
waylay him. “To live out in the world, where you are pulled into
others’ lives whether you will or no, is the best thing to teach people
to forget,” he said. “Solitude has comfort only for those who have no
sorrows, for Solitude is the mother of remembrance.”

He got genuine enjoyment out of the hour that he was obliged to sit in
the ante-room, waiting to be admitted to the King. On one side of him,
a group was discussing a Danish rebellion that seemed to be somewhere
in progress; on the other, men were speculating on the chances of a
Norman invasion,—news of keenest interest was flying thick as bees in
June; and the coming and going of the red-cloaked warriors, the
occasional passing of some great noble through the throng, stimulated
him like wine.

“Praise to the Saint who has brought me into a life where there are no
women!” he told himself. “Yes! Oh, yes! Here once more I shall rule my
thoughts like a man.” When a page finally came to summon him, he
followed with buoyant step and so gallant a bearing that more than one
turned to look at him as he passed.

“Yonder goes the new Marshal,” he heard one say to another, and gave
the words a fleeting wonder.

The bare stone hall into which the boy ushered him was the same room in
which he had had his last audience, and now as then the King sat in the
great carved chair by the chimney-piece, but other things were so
changed that inside the threshold the Etheling checked his swinging
stride to gaze incredulously. No soldiers were to be seen but the
sentinels that had been placed beside the doorways, stiff as their
gilded pikes, and they counted strictly in the class with the ebony
footstools and other furnishings. The knots of men, scattered here and
there in buzzing discussion, were all dark-robed merchants and
white-bearded judges, while around the table under the window a dozen
shaven-headed monks were working busily with writing tools. The King
himself was no longer armored, but weapon-less and clad in velvet.
Stopping uncertainly, Sebert took from his head the helmet which he had
worn, soldier fashion, into the presence of his chief, and into his
salutation crept some of the awe that he had felt for Edmund’s
kingship, before he knew how weak a man held up the crown.

Certainly Edmund had never received a greeting with more of formal
dignity than the young Dane did now, while Edmund could never have
spoken what followed with this grim directness which sent every word
home like an arrow to its mark.

“Lord of Ivarsdale, before I speak further I think it wise that we
should make plain our minds to each other. Some say that you are apt to
be a hard man to deal with because you bend to obedience only when the
command is to your liking. I want to know if this is true of you?”

Half in surprise, half in embarrassment, the Etheling colored high, and
his words were some time coming; but when at last they reached his
lips, they were as frank as Canute’s own. “Lord King,” he made answer,
“that some truth is in what you have heard cannot be gainsaid; for a
king’s thane I shall never be, to crouch at a frown and caper according
to his pleasure. What service I pay to you, I pay as an odal-man to the
State for which you stand. Yet I will say this,—that I think men will
find me less unruly than formerly, for, as I have accepted you for my
chief, so am I willing to render you obedience in any manner soever you
think right to demand it. This I am ready to swear to.”

Canute’s fist struck his chair-arm lightly. “Nothing more to my mind
has occurred for a long time, and I welcome it! Better will both of us
succeed if we declare openly that friendship between us must always be
rather shallow. I love not men of your nature, neither is it possible
for me to forget what you have cost me. Hatred would come much easier
to me,—and I will not deny that you will feel it if ever you give me
fair cause for anger.” For an instant an edge of his Viking savagery
made itself felt through his voice; then faded as quickly into cold
courtesy. “As to this which I now offer you, however, I think few are
proud enough to find fault about it, for I have called you hither to be
a Marshal of the kingdom and to have the rule over my Guards. Men from
many lands will be among them, and it is a great necessity that I have
at their head a man I can trust, while it is also pleasing to the
English that that man be an Englishman. Concerning the laws which I
shall make to govern them, Eric Jarl will tell you later.”

“Marshal!” That then was what the mutter in the ante-room had meant.
Sebert would not have been young and a soldier if he had not felt keen
delight tingle through every nerve. Indeed, his pleasure was so great
that he dared say little in acknowledgment, lest it betray him into too
great cordiality toward this stern young ruler who, though in reality a
year younger than he, seemed to have become many years his senior. He
said shortly, “If I betray your trust, King Canute, let me have no
favor! Is it your intention to have me make ready now against this
incursion of the Normans, of which men are—”

He did not finish his question, for the King raised his hand
impatiently.

“It is not likely that swords will have any part in that matter, Lord
Marshal. There is another task in store for you than to fight
Normans,—and it may be that you will think it beneath your rank, for
instead of the State, it concerns me and my life, which someone has
tried to take. Yet I expect you will see that my death would be little
gainful to England.” A second curt gesture cut short Sebert’s rather
embarrassed protest. “Here are no fine words needed. Listen to the
manner in which the deed was committed. Shortly before the end of the
winter, it happened that Ulf Jarl saw the cook’s scullion pour
something into a broth that was intended for me to eat. Suspecting
evil, he forced the fellow instead to swallow it, and the result was
that, that night, the boy died.”

The Etheling exclaimed in horror: “My lord! know you whence he got it?”

“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. “I did
not suspect the Lady of Northampton of having evil designs toward me,
because—because she is more prosperous in every respect while I am
alive; and now that belief is proved true, for I am told for certain
that, the day before the British woman gave the boy the liquid, a
Danishman gave the British woman an herb to make a drink of.” He
paused, and his voice became slower and much harder, as though he were
curbing his feelings with iron. “Since you have heard the Norman
rumor,” he said, “it is likely that you have heard also of the
discontent among the Danes, who dislike my judgments; but in case you
have not, I will tell you that an abundance of them have betaken
themselves to a place in the Middlesex forest where they live
outlaws,—and their leader is Rothgar Lodbroksson.”

To motion back a man who was approaching him with a paper, he turned
away for a moment; and Sebert was glad of the excuse to avoid meeting
his glance. Not until now had he understood what the judgment in his
favor had cost the judge, and his heart was suddenly athrob with many
emotions. “In no way is it strange that I am hateful to him,” he
murmured. “But by Saint Mary, _he_ is of the sort that is worth
enduring from!”

He inclined his head in devoted attention as the King turned back,
lowering his tone to exclude all but the man before him. “Even less
than I believe it of Elfgiva of Northampton, do I believe it of Rothgar
Lodbroksson, that he would seek my life. But often that happens which
one least expects, and it is time that I use forethought for myself.
Now I know of no man in the world who is better able to help my case
than you.”

“I!” the Etheling ejaculated. Suddenly it occurred to him to suspect
that his new-sworn vow of obedience was about to be put genuinely to
the test, and he drew himself up stiffly, facing the King. But Canute
was tracing idle patterns on the carving of his chair-arm.

“Listen, Lord of Ivarsdale,” he said quietly. “It is unadvisable for me
to stir up further rebellion among the Danes by accusing them of things
which it is not certain they have done, and even though I seized upon
these women it would not help; while I cannot let the matter continue,
since one thing after another, worse and worse, would be caused by it.
The only man who can end it, while keeping quiet, is the one who has
the friendship of the only woman among them to whose honor I would risk
my life. I mean Randalin, Frode’s daughter.”

Whether or not he heard Sebert’s exclamation, he spoke on as though it
had not been uttered. “One thing is, that she knows nothing of a plot;
for did she so, she would have warned me had it compelled her to swim
the Thames to reach me. But she must be able to tell many tidings that
we wish to know, with regard to the use they make of their jewels, and
the Danes who visit them, and such matters, which might be got from her
without letting her suspect that she is telling news. Now you are the
one person who might do this without making any fuss, and it is my will
therefore that you go to her as soon as you can. Your excuse shall be
that the Abbot has in his keeping some law-parchments which I have the
wish to see, but while you are there, I want you to renew your
friendship with her and find out these things for me. By obeying me in
this, you will give the State help where it is most needed and hard to
get.” When that was out, he raised his head and met the Etheling’s eyes
squarely, and it was plain to each of them that the moment had come
which must, once and forever, decide their future relations.

It was a long time that the Lord of Ivarsdale stood there, the pride of
his rank, and the prejudice of his blood, struggling with his new
convictions, his new loyalty. But at last he took his eyes from the
King’s to bow before him in noble submission.

“This is not the way of fighting that I am used to, King Canute,” he
said, “and I will not deny that I had rather you had set me any other
task; but neither can I deny that, since you find you have need of my
wits rather than of my sword, it is with my wits that it behooves me to
serve you. Tell me clearly what is your command, and neither
haughtiness nor self-will shall hinder me from fulfilling it.”




CHAPTER XXVIII. When Love Meets Love


Rejoiced at evil
Be thou never,
But let good give thee pleasure.
                    Hávamál.


Before the time of the Confessor, the West Minster was little more than
the Monastery chapel, in which the presence of the parish folk, if not
forbidden, was still in no way encouraged. To-day, when the Lord of
Ivarsdale came unnoticed into the dim light while the last strains of
the vesper service were rising, there were no more than a score of
worshippers scattered through the north aisle,—a handful of women,
wives of the Abbot’s military tenants, a trader bound for the land
beyond the ford, a couple of yeomen and a hollow-eyed pilgrim, drifting
with the current of his unsteady mind. After a searching glance around
him, the Etheling took up his station in the shelter of a pillar.

“Little danger—or hope—is there than I can miss her,” he told himself,
“if she is indeed here, as the page said. Yet of all the unlikely
places to seek her!” he smiled faintly as the figure in elfin green
flitted through his mind. As well look for a wood-nymph at
confession—unless indeed, Elfgiva had taken her there against her
will—But that was scarcely likely, he remembered immediately
afterwards, since an English-woman who had entered into a civil
marriage with a Dane would be little apt to frequent an English church.
“Doubtless she makes of it a meeting place with her newest lover,” he
concluded. And the anger the thought gave him, and a sense of the
helplessness of his own position, was so great that he could not remain
quiet under it but was tortured into moving restlessly to and fro in
the shadow.

Tender as the gloaming of a summer day was the shade in the great nave,
with the ever-burning candles to remind one of the eternal stars. Now
their quivering light called into life, for one brief moment, the
golden dove that hung above the altar; now it touched with dazzling
brightness the precious service on the holy table itself; again it was
veiled by drifting incense as by heaven’s clouds. From the throats of
the hidden choir, the last note swelled rich and full, to roll out over
the pillared aisles in a wave of vibrant sound and pass away in a sigh
of ineffable sweetness under the rafters.

As he bowed his head in the holy hush that followed, the hush of souls
before a wordless bene-diction, some of Sebert’s bitterness gave way to
a great compassion. What were we all, when all was told, but
wrong-doers and mourners? Why should one hold anger against another? In
pity for himself and the whole world, his heart ached within him, as a
rustling of gowns and a shuffling of feet told that the worshippers had
risen from their knees and were coming toward him. He raised his bowed
head sadly, fearfully.

First came the merchant, tugging at his long beard as he
advanced,—though whether his meditations were the leavings of the mood
that had held him or a reaching forward into the busy future, none
could tell. Him, Sebert’s eye dismissed with a listless glance. Behind
the trader came the yeomen, one of them yawning and stretching noisily,
the other energetically pulling up his belt as one tightens the
loosened girth on a horse that has had an interval of rest. The young
noble’s glance leaped them completely in its haste to reach those who
followed,—the knot of women, fluttering and rustling and preening like
a flock of birds. But the bird he sought was not of their number. He
stared blindly at the pilgrim as the wanderer shuffled past, muttering
and beating his breast. Only one figure followed the penitent, and if
that should not be she! Even though he felt that it could not be—even
though he hoped it was not—hoping and fearing, dreading and longing,
his eyes advanced to meet the last of the worshippers.

Only one figure, but all at once it was as though the whole world were
before him!

Coming slowly toward him out of the soft twilight, with eyes downcast
and hands folded nun-like before her, the daughter of Frode did not
look out of place amid blue wreaths of incense and starry altar tapers.
Even her robes were in keeping, gold-weighted as they were, for hood
and gown and fur-bordered mantle were of the deepest heliotrope, that
color which bears the majesty of sorrow while yet it holds within it
the rose-tint of gladness. Beneath its tender shadow the dusk of her
hair became deeper, and her face, robbed by winter of its brownness,
took on the delicacy of a cameo. Ah, what a face it was now, since pain
had deepened its sweetness and patience had purified its ardor! The
radiance of a newly-wakened soul was like a halo around it.

Standing there gazing at her, a wonderful change came over the Lord of
Ivarsdale. Neither then nor ever after could he understand how it
happened, but, all at once, the barrier that circumstances had raised
against her fell like the city walls before the trumpet blast, until
not one stone was left standing upon another. Without knowing how or
why,—looking at her, he believed in her; and his manner, which a moment
before had been constrained and hesitating, became easeful with perfect
confidence. Without knowing how or why he knew it, he knew that she had
never squandered her love on the Jotun, neither had she come here to
meet any Dane of the host. He knew her for his dream-love, sweet and
true and fine; and he stepped out of the shadow and knelt before her,
raising the hem of her cloak to his lips.

“Most gentle lady, will you give a beggar alms?” he said with tender
lightness.

The sound of his voice was like a stone cast into still water. The rapt
peace of her look was broken into an eddy of conflicting emotions.
Amazement was there and a swift joy, which gave way almost before it
could be named to something approaching dread, and that in turn yielded
place to wide-eyed wonder. With her hands clasped tightly over her
breast, she stood looking down at him.

“My lord?” she faltered.

As one who spreads out his store, he held out his palms toward her.
“Randalin, I have sought you to add to the payment of my debt the one
thing that in my blindness I held back,—I have come to add my true love
to the rest I lay before you.”

As a flower toward the sun, she seemed to sway toward him, then drew
back, her sweet mouth trembling softly. “I—I want not your pity,” she
said brokenly. Still kneeling before her, he possessed himself of her
hands and drew them down to his lips.

“Is it thus, on his knee, that one offers pity?” he said. Holding the
hands fast, he rose and stood before her. “Heart beloved of my heart,
you were merciless to read the truth before. Look again, and take care
that you read me as fairly now.”

Despite his gentleness, there was a strength in his exaltation which
would not be resisted. Turning shrinkingly, she looked into his eyes.

In the gray-blue depths of her own he saw the shimmer of a dawning
light, as when the evening star first breaks through a June sky, and
gradually the star-splendor spread over her face, until it touched her
parted lips.

“You—love me—” she breathed, but her voice no longer made it a
question.

Still gazing into his eyes, she let him draw her closer and closer,
till he had gathered her to his breast.




CHAPTER XXIX. The Ring of The Coiled Snake


He is happy
Who for himself obtains
Fame and kind words;
Less sure is that
Which a man must have
In another’s breast.
                    Hávamál.


The murmur of the rain that was falling gently on the roses of the
Abbey garden stole in through the open windows of Elfgiva’s bower and
blended softly with the music of Candida’s lyre. Poring over the dingy
scrolls spread out on the table before her, the Lady of Northampton
yawned until she was moved to throw herself back among her cushions
with a gesture of graceful surrender.

“It seems that the Saints are going to take pity on me and shorten one
of these endless days with a nap. Nurse, have a care for these scrolls.
And if it happen that the King’s Marshal comes—Randalin! Where is
Randalin?”

Beyond Leonorine’s embroidery frame and the stool where Candida bent
over her lyre, the length of the room away, a figure in iris-blue
turned from the window by which it stood.

“Here, lady. What is your need?”

To place the speaker Elfgiva raised her head slightly, laughing as she
let it sink back. “Watching for him already, and the sun but little
past noon? For shame, moppet! Come here.”

“So please you, I was watching the rain on the roses,” Randalin excused
herself with a blush as she came forward.

A merry chorus mocked her: “Is it to watch the roses that you have put
on the gown which matches your eyes, you sly one?”... “And the lilies
in your hair, sweet? Is it to shelter them from the rain that you wear
them?”... “Fie, Tata! Can you not fib yet without changing color?”

But Elfgiva raised an impatient hand. “Peace, chatterers!” she
commanded; and drawing the girl to her, she spoke low and earnestly in
her ear.

Randalin looked up in surprise. “You will not see him, lady? Not though
he bring news of the doings in the Palace?”

“Heaven’s mercy!” Elfgiva shrugged with a touch of scorn. “What
abundance of news he has found to bring since the day he fell in with
you at even-song!” Then she consented to smile faintly as she settled
her head among the cushions. “I would rather sleep, child. Comfort him
as best you can,—only not so well that you forget that which I enjoined
you. If he fail us, I cannot tell what we shall do,—now that the second
scullion has been so foolish as to get himself killed in some way.
Where bear you the ring?”

The girl touched the spot where the gold chain that encircled her neck
crept into the breast of her gown. The lady shook her head.

“Never would you think of it again. Take it out and wear it on your
finger.”

As she obeyed, Randalin laughed a little, for the ring was a man’s
ring, a massive spiral whose two ends were finished with serpents’
heads, and her thickest finger was but a loose fit in its girth. But
Elfgiva, when she had seen it on, closed her eyes with an air of
satisfaction.

“To keep from losing it, will keep it in your mind,” she said. “Now
leave me. Candida,—more softly! And see to it that you do not stop the
moment my eyes are closing. Leonorine, why are you industrious in
singing only when it is not required of you?... That is better... Let
no one wake me.”

They drew silence around her like a curtain through whose silken web
the blended voices of rain and lyre and singer crept in soothing
melody. To escape its ensnaring folds, Randalin stole back to the
distant window beneath which Dearwyn sat on a little bench, weaving
clover blossoms into a chain.

The little gentlewoman looked up with her soft pretty smile. “How
mysterious you are, you two!” she whispered, as she swept the mass of
rosy bloom to the floor to make room for her friend. “What with Teboen
always seething ill-smelling herbs and—Tata, I pray you to tell who has
gifted you with such a monster?”

Waving the ring where the light might catch the serpents’ eyes,
Randalin pursed her lips with so much mystery that her friend was
tempted to catch the hand and hold it prisoner while she examined the
ornament. 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? Yesterday
you were no better able than I to say how things were with her.”

“How long?” Randalin repeated dreamily. Her gaze had gone back again to
the rain, falling so softly that every pool in the sodden paths seemed
to be full of lazily winking eyes. “Oh, there are many good chances
that he will be here soon now. He is seldom later than the third hour
after noon.”

After a bewildered gasp, Dearwyn stifled a burst of laughter in her
garlands. “Oh, Tata, come to earth!” she admonished. “Come to earth!”
And scooping up a handful of the fragrant bloom, she pelted the dreamer
with rosy balls.

Shaking them from robe and clustering hair, Randalin turned back,
smiling. But her lips sobered almost to wistfulness as she sank down
upon the seat beside her friend. “It seems that I must do that against
my will,” she said. “Dearwyn, do you get afraid when you are happy?
Sometimes, when I stand here watching for him and think how different
all has happened from what I supposed, I am so happy,”—she paused, and
it was as though the sun had caught the iris flowers in her eyes, until
a cloud came between and the blue petals purpled darkly—“so happy that
it causes fear to me, lest it be no more than a dream or in some way
not true.”

Her cheek, as she ended, was softly pale, but Dearwyn brushed it pink
with sweeps of the long-stemmed blossom in her hand.

“Sweet, it is the waxing of the moon. I pray you be blithe in your
spirits. Small wonder your lover bears himself as gravely as a stone
man on a tomb if you talk such—”

“Dearwyn, the same thought has overtaken us both!” Randalin broke in
anxiously, and now she was all awake and staying the other’s busy
fingers to ensure her attention. “Not a few times it has seemed to me
that he looks weary of heart, as though some struggle were sapping his
strength. He swears it is not so, yet I think the rebellion of his
pride against king-serving—”

“If you want to know my belief, it is that he carries trouble in his
breast about you,” Dearwyn interrupted.

“About me?” So much hurt surprise was in Randalin’s manner that the
little maid begged forgiveness with caresses of the swaying clover.

“Be not vexed, honey, but in truth he is overcome by the oddest look
whensoever he watches you without your seeing,—as though he were not
sure of you, in some way, and yet—Oh, I cannot explain it! Only tell me
this,—does he not ask you, many times and oft, if you love him, or if
others love you, or such like?”

In the midst of shaking her head, Randalin paused and her mouth became
as round as her eyes. “Foolishly do I recall it! As if he would! And
yet—Dearwyn, he has asked me four times if any Danes visit us here.
Would you think that he could be—”

“Jealous?” Dearwyn dropped her flowers to clap her hands softly. “Tata,
I have guessed his distemper rightly. Let no one say that I am not a
witch for cleverness! Ah, you can have the best fun that ever any maid
could have! If you could but make him believe something about that
Danishman that Teboen saw last winter!”

“Last winter?” Randalin repeated. “Oh! I had altogether forgotten him.
It seems that it has not been truthfully spoken when—”

The little Angle smothered the rest in her rapturous embrace. “The
ring, Tata,—that would be the cream of all! Let him think that Rothgar
gave it to you, that he is your lover! I would give many kirtles to see
his face.” “Rothgar?” Randalin’s voice was light with scorn. “As likely
would! be to think him love-struck for the serving-wench who sparkled
her eyes at him, as he to think that Rothgar Lodbroksson could count
for aught with me! Yet I say nothing against the fun it would be. It
may be that if he take notice of the thing and question me—just to see
how he would look—” She broke off discreetly, but the one elf which the
Abbot had not exorcised crept out and danced in the dimple of her
cheek.

Dearwyn shook her floral rod with an assumption of severity. “I trust
he will be sorely disquieted,” she said. “He deserves no otherwise for
his behavior last winter. Are you so soft of heart, Tata, that you are
never going to reckon with him for that?”

The dimple-elf took wing and all the mischief in the girl’s eyes seemed
to go with him. “Those days are buried,” she said. “Let the earth grow
green above them.” And suddenly she leaned forward and hid her face on
the other’s shoulder. “Bring them not before me, Dearwyn, my friend,
until I am a little surer of my happiness. It is so new yet, Dearwyn,
so new! And it came to me so suddenly that sometimes it almost seems as
if it might depart as suddenly from me.” A while they nestled together
without speaking, the little maid’s cheek resting lovingly on her
friend’s dark hair.

It was a page thrusting aside the arras that broke the spell. Opening
his mouth to make a flourishing announcement, the words were checked on
his tongue by four white hands motioning stern commands for silence.

“It is the King’s Marshal,” he framed with protesting lips. But even
that failed to gain him admittance.

Rising, flushed and smiling, the girl with the blue lilies in her hair
tiptoed toward him. “I have orders to receive the Marshal,” she
whispered. “Where is he?”

“He is in the Old Room,” the page answered rather resentfully, but
resigned himself as he remembered that, however this curtailed his
importance, it left open a prompter return to his game of leap-frog
along the passage.

In all probability his nimble departure saved him from a scolding for,
as she tripped after him down the corridor, a little frown was forming
between Randalin’s brows. “I think it is not well-mannered of the
fellow to say ‘the King’s Marshal’ as though my lord were Canute’s
thane,” she was reflecting, “and I shall put an end to it. Whatever
others say, one never needs to tell me that Sebert is not suffering in
his service.”

With this thought in her mind, she raised the moth-eaten tapestry and
stood looking at him with a face full of generous indignation. Except
for the noble’s embroidered belt and gold-hilted sword, his dress now
differed in no way from that of the hundreds and hundreds of
red-cloaked guards who were spread over the country like sparks after a
conflagration. As he turned at the end of the beat he was pacing and
came slowly toward her, she could see that in its gravity his face was
as soldier-like as his clothes. Always she found it so when she came
upon him unawares; and always, when she spoke to him—She held her
breath as his eyes rose to her, and let it go with a little sigh of
happiness as she saw gloom drop from him like a mask at the sight of
her.

“Randalin!” he cried joyously, and made a step toward her, then stopped
to laugh in gay wonder. “Now no poet would call you ‘a weaver of peace’
as you stand there, for you look rather like an elf of battle. What is
it, my raven?”

Her lips smiled back at him, but a mist was over her eyes. “It is your
King that I am angry with, lord. He is not worthy that a man like you
should serve him.”

Moving toward her again, he held himself a little straighter. “I serve
not the King, dear heart,” he said gently, “but the State of England,
in whose service the highest is none too good to bend.”

She yielded him her hands but not her point. “That does not change the
fact that it is his overbearingness which makes your path as though you
trod on nettles,—for certainly I know it is so, though you will not say
it!”

Neither would he admit it now, but laughed lightly as he drew her to
him. “Now may he not give me thorns who gives me also the sweetest rose
in his king-dom? I tell you he is the kingliest king ever I had to deal
with, and the chief I would soonest trust England to. Be no Danish
rebel, shield-maiden, or as the King’s officer I will mulct your lips
for every word of treason.”

She showed no rebellion against his authority, at all events; and her
hands remained in his clasp until of his own accord he opened his
fingers with an exclamation. “Do you wear bracelets for rings, my fair,
or what? _What_!” From the monstrous bauble in his palm, he raised his
eyes to hers, and if she had seen their look she might have answered
differently. But her gaze was still on the ring; and as she felt him
start, that impish dimple peeped out of her cheek.

“Is it not a handsome thing?” she said. “It looks to be a ring to
belong to a giant.”

“Is it—Rothgar’s?”

The dimple deepened as she heard his tone. For all its absurdity, there
must be some truth in Dearwyn’s witch-skill. She was obliged to droop
her lashes very low to hide the mischief in her eyes. “It is not his
now,” she murmured. “It has been given me—to keep me in mind of
something.” But after that her amusement grew too strong to be
repressed, and she looked up at him with over-brimming laughter. “There
will soon be too much of this! Sweetheart mine, are you in truth so
easy to plague?”

Laughing she looked up at him, but, even as his face was clearing,
something in it struck her so strangely that her laughter died and she
bent toward him in sudden gravity. “Lord! It is not possible for you to
believe that I could love Rothgar!” Her manner of uttering that one
word made it speak more scorn than volumes might have done.

For a while he only looked at her, that strange radiance growing in his
face; but suddenly he caught her to him and kissed her so passionately
that he hurt her, and his voice was as passionate as his caress. “No,”
he told her over and over. “Would I have offered you my love had I
believed that? No! No!”

Satisfied, she made no more resistance but clung to him with her arms
as she had clung to him with her heart since the first hour he came
into her life. Only, when at last he released her, she took the ring
from her finger and thrust it into his hand with a little gesture of
distaste. “I shall be thankful if I do not have to see it again. It is
Elfgiva’s, that Canute gave her after he had won it from Rothgar in
some wager. It is her wish that you bring it to the King again by
slipping it into his broth or his wine where he will come upon it after
he has finished feeding and is therefore amiable—” She stopped to laugh
merrily in his face. “See how the very naming of the King turns you
grave again! When one gets a Marshalship, one becomes more and more
stark.” Grown mischievous again in her happiness, she mocked him with
courtesies.

But it was only very faintly that he smiled at her fooling, as he held
the spiral against the light and shook it beside his ear. “Is there no
more to the message,” he said slowly. “Am I to know nothing of her
object? Or why I am chosen of all others?”

“Easy is it to tell that,” she laughed. “You were not chosen without a
reason, and that is because no one else is to be had, since the
scullion who formerly served her has gotten himself killed in some way
and the man who stepped into his shoes, out of some spite, has refused
Teboen’s gold. And as for her object—I wonder at you, lord of my heart!
What kind of a lover are you that you cannot guess that?” Feigning to
flout him, she drew away; then feigning to relent, turned back and
laughed it into his ear. “It is a love-token! To hold him to the fair
promises he made at its giving, and to remind him of her, and to win
her a crown, and to do so many strange wonders that no tongue can
number them! Are you not ashamed to have failed on so easy a riddle?”

To her surprise, his gravity deepened almost to horror. “Love-token!”
he repeated; and suddenly he laid his hands on her shoulders and forced
her gently to give him eye for eye. “Randalin, if I comply with you in
this matter, will you answer me a question? Answer with such care as
though your life—nay, as though _my_ life depended on it?”

“Willingly; more than one,” she consented; but forgot to wait for it as
a memory, wakened by his words, stirred in her. “Now it is time for me
to remember that there is one thing I have not been altogether truthful
about, through forgetting,—about the Danes we have seen. I recall now
that last winter Teboen often saw one when she was gathering herbs in
the wood. She spoke with him of the magic things she brews to make
Elfgiva sleep, and he gave her herbs which she thought so useful that
she has been fretful because she has not seen him since—”

Unconsciously, the young soldier’s hands tightened on her shoulders
until she winced. “You know with certainty that she has never seen him
since?” he demanded,—“that Danes had naught to do with the last token
Elfgiva sent through the scullion? You can swear to it?”

“Certainly, if they speak the truth, I know it,” she answered
wonderingly. “How should Danes—why, Sebert, what ails you?”

For he had let go her shoulders as abruptly as he had seized them, and
walked away to the window that looked out upon the rain-washed garden.
After a moment’s hesitation, she stole after him. “Sebert, my love,
what is it? Trouble is in your mind, there is little use to deny it.
Dearwyn says it concerns me, but I know that it is no less than the
King. Dear one, it seems strange that you cannot disclose your mind to
me as well as to—Fridtjof.”

It was the first time, in their brief meetings together, that she had
spoken that name, and his smile answered. Even while his lips admitted
a trouble, his manner put it aside. “You are right that it concerns the
King, my elf. Sometimes the work he assigns me is neither easy nor
pleasant to accomplish. Yet without any blame to him, most warlike
maiden, for—”

But she would not be prevented from saying stern things of her royal
guardian, so at last he let her finish the subject, and stood pressing
her hands upon his breast, his eyes resting dreamily on her face.

When she had finished, he said slowly, “Sweeting, because my mind is
laboring under so many burdens that my wits are even duller than they
are wont, will you not have the patience to answer one question that is
not clear to me? Do you think it troublesome to tell me why it was that
you said, that day in the garden—Now shake off that look, dearest;
never will we speak of it again if it is not to your wish! Tell me what
you meant by saying that you came into Canute’s camp because you had
too much faith in Rothgar, if you despise him—since you despise him
so?”

Her eyes met his wonderingly. “By no means could I have said that,
lord. When I left home, I knew not that Rothgar lived. The one in whom
I had too much faith was the King. Because I was young and little
experienced, I thought him a god; and when I came to his camp and found
him a man, I thought only to escape from him. That was why I wore those
clothes, Sebert—not because I liked so wild a life. That is clear to
you, is it not?”

He did not appear to hear her last words at all. He was repeating over
and over, “The King, the King!” Suddenly he said, “Then I got that
right, that it was he who summoned me to Gloucester to make sure that
you had kept your secret from me also?—that he was angry with you for
deceiving him?”

“Yes,” she said. But as he opened his lips to put another question, she
laid her finger-tip beseechingly upon them, “Sebert, my love, I beg of
you let us talk no more of those days. Sometime, when we have a long
time to be together, I will tell you everything that I have had in my
breast and you shall show me everything that you have had in yours,
but—but let us wait, sweetheart, until our happiness seems more real
than our sorrow. Even yet I do not like the thought of the ‘sun-browned
boy-bred wench.’” She laughed a little unsteadily at the sudden
crimsoning of his face. “And I am still ashamed—and ashamed of being
ashamed—that I showed you so plainly what my heart held for you...
Elfgiva’s tongue has stabbed me sore... Beloved, can you not be
content, for now, with knowing that I have loved no man before you and
shall love none after you?”

Bending, he kissed her lips with the utmost tenderness. “I am well
content,” he said. And after that they spoke only of the future, when
the first period of his Marshalship should be over and he should be
free to take his bride back to the fields and woods of Ivarsdale, and
the gray old Tower on the hill.




CHAPTER XXX. When The King Takes a Queen


Moderately wise
Should each one be,
But never over-wise;
For a wise man’s heart
Is seldom glad
If he is all-wise who owns it.
                    Hávamál.


Out under the garden’s spreading fruit trees, the little gentlewomen of
Elfgiva’s household were amusing themselves with the flock of peacocks
that were the Abbey’s pets. In a shifting dazzling mass of
color—blended blue and green and golden fire—all but one of the
brilliant birds were pressing around Candida, who scattered largess
from a quaint bronze vase, while the one whose vanity was greater even
than its appetite was furnishing sport for Dearwyn as she strutted
after him in merry mimicry, lifting her satin-shod feet mincingly and
trailing her rosy robes far behind her on the grass. The old cellarer,
to whose care the birds fell except during those hours when the
brethren were free for such indulgences, watched the scene in grinning
delight; and Leonorine laughed gaily at them over the armful of tiny
bobbing lap-dogs, whose valiant charges she was engaged in restraining.
The only person who seemed out of tune with the chiming mirth was the
Lady Elfgiva herself. Among the blooming bushes she was moving
listlessly and yet restlessly, and each rose she plucked was speedily
pulled to pieces in her nervous fingers. A particularly furious
outburst from the dogs, followed by peals of ringing laughter, brought
her foot down in a stamp of utter exasperation.

“Will you not observe my feelings, if you have none of your own?” she
demanded. “Leonorine, take those wretched dogs out of my hearing.
Dearwyn, lay aside your nonsense and go ask Gurth if he has heard
anything yet of Teboen.” She stamped again, angrily, as her eye went
from one to another of the merry-makers. “I suppose it would gladden
all of you to feel safe from her hand, but I will plainly tell you that
if harm has happened to her, you will find a lair-bear pleasanter
company than I shall be.”

The dull red that mottled her face and neck was a danger signal whose
warning her attendants had learned to heed, and they scattered
precipitately. Only the old cellarer, herding his gorgeous flock with
waving arms, ventured to address her.

“Is it the British woman you are enquiring after, lady? The woman who
comes to the lane-gate, of a morning, to get new milk for your
drinking?”

Elfgiva turned quickly. “Yes,—Teboen my nurse. Have you seen her?” “I
saw her between cockcrowing and dawn, noble one, when I let down the
bars for the cattle to come in to the milking. The herd-boy who drives
them said something to her,—it seemed to me that he named a Danish name
and said that person was waiting in the wood to speak with her,—whereat
she set down her pitcher and went up the lane. I have not seen her
since.”

The lady’s little white hands beat the air like a frightened child’s.
“Three candles have burned out since then; it is certain that evil has
befallen her. Never since I was born has she left me for so long. I—”
She paused to gaze eagerly toward a figure that at this moment appeared
in the low arch of the door-way. “Tata! do you bring me news of her?”

Though she shook her head, Randalin’s manner was full of suppressed
excitement as she advanced. “Not of her, lady, yet tidings, great
tidings! The King has sent—”

“His Marshal again? I will not see him.”

“Nay, the Marshal but accompanies the messenger. In truth, lady, it is
my belief that the token has accomplished its mission. The message is
brought by Thorkel Jarl, as this has not been done before.”

“Earl Thorkel?” Elfgiva cried. “By the Saints, it can be nothing less
than the token!” She dropped down upon the rustic seat that stood under
the green canopy of the old apple tree and sat there a long time,
staring at the grass, her cheeks paling and flushing by turns.
Presently, she drew a deep breath of relief. “I was foolish to fret
myself over Teboen. Since she is clever enough to bring this to pass,
she is clever enough to take care of herself. Without doubt it was the
Danish wizard, and he informed her of some new herb, and she has gone
to fetch it.”

After a while, an enchanting smile touched her lips. “Surely, a rose
garden is a fitting place to receive the ambassadors of a lover,” she
said, and straightened herself on her rustic throne, sweeping her
draperies into more graceful folds. “Bring them to me here, ladybird.
Candida, fetch hither the lace veil from my bower, and call the other
maids as you go, and all the pages you can find. Since Teboen is not
by, I want all of you behind me. I cannot help it that the Tall One
always gives me the feeling of a lamb before a wolf.”

Even had the likeness never occurred to her before, it would not have
been strange if she had thought of it to-day as, followed by the
Marshal and preceded by their fair usher, the old warrior came across
the grass to the little court under the apple tree. The keenness of the
hooded eyes that looked out at her from his grizzled locks, the gleam
of the white teeth between his bearded lips as he greeted her, was
unmistakably wolfish. She relapsed into a kind of lamb-like tremor as
she invited them to be seated and commanded the attendance of her
cup-bearer. When she caught sight of the misery of discomfort in
Sebert’s frank face, she lost her voice entirely and waited in utter
silence while they drank their wine.

Yet Thorkel’s manner was unwontedly genial when at last he broached his
errand. “You lack the eagerness that is to be expected, lady,” he said
as he gave his mouth a last polish with the delicate napkin. “How comes
it that you have not guessed I bring you a message from the King?”

She answered doubtfully that the King had not behaved to her so that
his messages were apt to be anticipated with much pleasure.

“But it has never occurred that I brought you this kind of news
before,” he tempted her. “Will it not interest you to hear that at last
the Palace is ready for a Queen?”

That startled her a little out of her wariness, crying the last two
words after him with an eagerness of inflection that was as pathetic as
though her heart were concerned.

His lips gave out a flash as he nodded. “A Queen. Canute is going to
give the Angles a ‘gift of the elves.’”

For an instant, she was betrayed into believing him, and bent forward,
her flushing face transfigured with delight. She was starting to speak
when the Etheling rose abruptly from his seat.

“Lord Thorkel,” he said angrily, “this cat-play would bring you little
thanks from your King, nor will I longer endure it. I pray you to
explain without delay that the name of ‘Elfgiva’ is borne also by Emma
of Normandy.”

Then the old man snarled as a wolf does whose bone has been seized.
“Lord of Ivarsdale, you act in the thoughtless way of youth. I was
bringing the matter gently—”

But the young man accomplished his purpose in spite of the elder. He
did not address the King’s wife—indeed, he refrained even from looking
at her—but he spoke swiftly to the dark-haired girl who stood beside
the seat. “Randalin, I beg you to tell your lady that Elfgiva Emma, who
is Ethelred’s widow and the Lady of Normandy, arrives at Dover
to-morrow to be made Queen of the English.”

As all expected, the Lady of Northampton started up shrieking defiance,
screaming that it should not be so, that the King was her husband and
the soldiers would support her if the monks would not, that he was
hers, hers,-and more to that effect, until the plunging words ran into
each other and tears and laughter blotted out the last semblance of
speech. That she would end by swooning or attacking them with her hands
those who knew her best felt sure, and maids and pages crept out of her
reach as hunters stand off from a wounded boar. But at the point where
her voice gave out and she whirled to do one or perhaps both of these,
her eyes fell on the house-door, and her expression changed from rage
to amazement and from amazement to horror. Catching Randalin’s arm in
fear, not anger, she began to gasp over and over the name of Teboen the
nurse.

Those whose glance had not followed hers, thought her mad and shrank
farther; but the eyes of those who saw what she did reflected her look.
In the doorway the British woman was standing, wagging her head in time
to a silly quavering song that she was singing with lips so distorted
as to be almost unrecognizable. Her once florid face was ashen gray,
and now as she quitted the door post and came toward them she reeled in
her \walk, stumbling over stones and groping blindly with her huge bony
hands. But still she kept on singing, with twisted lips that strove to
simper, and once she tried to sway her ungainly body into an uncouth
dancing-step that brought her floundering to her knees.

“A devil has possession of her,” Elfgiva shrieked. “Take her out of my
sight, or I shall go mad! Take her away—take her away!” Shrieking in
wildest terror she fled before her, and for a moment the garden seemed
given over to a grotesque game of blind-man’s buff as women and boys
scattered with renewed screaming at each approach of the ghastly face.
It did not stop until the two soldiers who had been made keepers of the
wretched creature came running out of the house and led her away.

Then it was Thorkel’s sardonic voice that brought the Lady of
Northampton back to herself. “Now, is this how you take the sight of
your own handiwork? Or is it because you regret that the King is not in
this plight? One mouthful and no more has she had of the blood of the
coiled snake.”

Stopping where she was, Elfgiva gazed at him, and with a dawning
comprehension came back her interrupted fury. “The coiled snake,” she
repeated slowly; and after that, in a rush of words, “Then it was you
who enticed her away and mistreated her? But what does it concern _you_
that I sent a snake? Where saw you it? How knew you it had blood?”
Without waiting for an answer, she turned upon the Marshal, her lids
contracted into narrow slits behind which her eyes raged like prisoned
animals. “It is you who are to blame for this! You who miscarried my
message. You have betrayed me, and I tell you—” Hysterical tears broke
her voice, but she pieced it together with her temper and went on
telling him all the bitter things she could think of, while he stood
before her in the grim silence of one who has long foreseen the
disagreeable aspects of his undertaking and made up his mind to
endurance.

When she stopped for breath, he said steadily, “I declare with truth
that you cannot dislike what I have done much more than I, Lady of
Northampton. I hope it will be an excuse with you, as it is a comfort
to me, that instead of fetching you into trouble—”

Thorkel took the words from his lips, and no longer with sinister
deliberation but with a ferocity that showed itself in the gathering
swiftness of his speech. “Trouble—yes! By the Hammer of Thor, I think
you deserve to have trouble! Had any of your witches’ brew done harm to
the King, I can tell you that you would not have lived much longer.
What! Are the plans of men to be upset by your baby face, and a
king-dom lost because a little fool chooses to play with poison as a
child with fire?”

“Poison?” she screamed. She had been facing him with whitening lips,
and now the little breath that she had left went from her in a sharp
cry. “Not poison; love-philtres! To win him back! Love-philtres,—can
you not hear?”

“Love-philtres!” The old warrior’s voice made the words bite with
contempt. “Did the mouthful she swallowed have that effect upon your
woman? Or do you think you planted love in the breasts of the dead
scullions? Had you seen their writhings I think you would have called
it by another name.”

He was standing over her now, and she was cowering before him, her
shaking hands rising as though to ward off his eyes. “I meant no harm,”
she was wailing with stiff lips. “The scroll said not a word that it
was hurtful. Do not kill me. I meant no—” The word ended in an
inarticulate sound and she swayed backward.

It was Randalin who caught and eased her down upon the rustic chair,
and Randalin who turned upon the Tall One. “Saw I never a meaner man!”
she cried. “Certainly I think Loke was less wolf-minded than you. You
know very well that if Teboen had thought it would become a cause of
harm to her, she would have refused to swallow it. I will go to the
King myself and tell him how despisable you are.” She stamped her foot
at the united ministry of the Kingdom as she turned her back upon its
representatives to speak reassuringly to her mistress.

Her lover did not blame her that her flashing eyes seemed to include
him among the objects of their wrath. He said fiercely to the Jarl,
“For God’s sake, tell her that no one suspects her of seeking his life,
and give her his true message, or I will go and hang myself for
loathing.”

“Tell her yourself!” the old Dane snapped. “It is seen that you are as
rabbit-hearted as the boy who makes her such an offer. Were I in his
place, I would have them all drowned for a litter of wauling kittens.”
He looked very much indeed like a wolf in a sheepfold as he stamped to
and fro, grinding his spurred heels into the patches of clover and
growling in his beard.

The young soldier had been known to ride into battle with a happier
face, but the sudden gritting of his teeth implied that he would do
anything to get the matter over with; and having braved the outburst of
hysterics that redoubled at his approach, he managed to slip a soothing
word into the lull.

“Lady, the King sends you none but good greetings. It would make you
feel better if you would listen to them.”

“Then he—he does not blame me for this?” Elfgiva quavered at last.

“He does not blame you,” the Marshal hastened to reassure her. “And in
token thereof he sends you your heart’s desire.”

Plainly, the elves had endowed their “gift” with a wit to match her
soul. Her beautiful eyes were simple as an injured child’s as she
raised them to his, “can that be, lord, when Emma of Normandy is to get
the crown of England? A woman ten years older than he, to put the best
face on it! Who can expect me to bear with this insult?” Her scorn went
so far toward reviving her that for the first time she drew herself
away from the support of her women, and even made one of them a sign to
rearrange the locks she had disturbed.

Lest it revive her beyond the point of docility, Sebert spoke the rest
of his message in some haste. “It is true, noble one, that for state
reasons the King has consented to this union with Emma of Normandy, who
will bring him the friendship of Duke Richard besides causing pleasure
to the English. But the crown of Denmark is also at his disposal, lady,
and this he purposes to bestow upon your son Sven, for whom he has much
love. And it is his will and pleasure that you accompany the boy across
the sea and, together with the earls of his guardianship, hold the
power for him until his hands shall be big enough to grasp it alone.
For this he gives you the name of ‘queen’ and all the honor you shall
desire.” He paused, more at the wonder of watching her face than
because he had finished.

It was as though a rainbow had been set in her showery eyes. “He
purposes this?” she murmured; and rose out of her seat in a kind of
ecstasy,—then caught at its back, glooming with doubt. “I cannot
believe it,—it is too beautiful. Swear that you are not mocking me.”

“I swear it,” he said gravely, but his lips curled a little as he
watched her delight bring back her color, her smiles, her every fairy
charm.

Throwing her arms about Dearwyn, who chanced to be nearest, she kissed
her repeatedly. “Think, mouse,—a queen! a queen! It was not for naught
that I dreamed an eagle flew over my head. Ah, how I shall cherish the
dear little one who has brought me this!” With her pleasure overflowing
as of old in rippling laughter, she turned to greet the King’s
foster-father who came stalking toward her. “Now your ill humor no
longer appears strange to me, noble wolf, than which no better proof
could be had that I have come into good fortune! I pray you tell me
when I am to leave, and who goes with me, and every word of the plan,
for I could eat them like sweets.”

“Ulf Jarl will feed your ears later,” Thorkel said gruffly. “Your
safety on the road is the charge of this battle-sapling.” He jerked his
head toward the young Marshal. “You will leave for Northampton this
afternoon, to get the boy—and to get rid of you before the Lady of
Normandy arrives.”

The shaft fell pointless as she turned her sparkling face toward her
women. “You hear that, my lambs? This afternoon,—not one more night in
this prison! You cannot apply yourselves too soon to the packing,
Candida, Leonorine. And I must see if Teboen’s wits have come back to
her. If she should not be restored to them, that would be one bee in
the honey. Randalin, learn what disposal is to be made of you, and
that, quickly. Nobles, if I am not yet enough queen to dismiss you,
still am I queen enough to depart without your leave. I desire you will
thank your King as is becoming; and tell him that I am right glad he
was not poisoned,—and I trust he will not wish he had been, after he
has seen his ancient bride.” Chiming the sweet bells of her laughter,
she glided away among her excited attendants, the silver mockery
reaching them after she had vanished into the house.

Randalin awoke to a sense of bewilderment. “It is true that I do not
know where to go, now that this place is upset.”

The question was repeated in her lover’s attitude; but Thorkel Jarl
answered it, coming between them and drawing her aside.

“I will remedy that,” he said. “My men are to fetch you to the Palace
so soon as ever your lady has left. The King has a use for you.” The
rest he spoke into her ear, but its effect was to blanch her cheeks and
cause her hands to clasp each other in terror as she started back.

“I cannot!” she cried. “I cannot.” “You must,” he said harshly. “Or you
will do little credit to the blood that is in you. Do you no longer
think your father and brother of any importance?”

“They are pitiless to demand it of me,” she murmured, and buried her
face in her hands.

Anger leaped from the young noble’s eyes as, in his turn, he came
between her and the Jarl. He said forcefully, “No one shall ask
anything of you that you do not want, nor shall any king compel you.
Yet I think I have a right to know what his will is with you.”

“You have not,” the Dane contradicted. “Do you think the King’s
purposes are to be opened to the sight of every Angle who becomes his
man? Nor have you ally right soever over her who is the King’s ward.
End this talk, maiden, and give me your promise to be obedient.”

She gave it in a cry of despair, “I must—I know I must!” then sought to
make peace with her lover by laying caressing hands on his breast. “And
he is right, love, that I ought not to tell any one. It is another one
of those things that you must trust.”

But for once the Etheling’s will did not bend to her coaxing; his mouth
was doggedly set as he looked down upon her. “I trust no man I do not
know,” he answered, “and I do not know Canute the man,—nor do I greatly
like what I have heard of him, or this plan of sending me from the City
at this time. You have no cause to reproach me with lack of faith in
you, Randalin, for when every happening—even your own words—made it
appear as if it were love for Rothgar Lodbroksson which brought you
into the camp, I looked into your eyes and believed them against all
else.” In the intensity of the living present he forgot the dead
past—until he saw its ghosts troop like gray shadows across her face.

“Love for Rothgar Lodbroksson?” she repeated, drawing back. “Then you
did believe that I could love Rothgar?” Her voice rose sharply. “You
believed that I followed him!”

Too late he saw what he had done. “I said that I did not believe it,”
he cried hastily. “What I thought at first in my bewilderment,—that
could not be called belief.” Now it was the present that he had
forgotten in the past, as he strove desperately to recapture the
phantoms and thrust them back into their graves.

But she did not seem to hear his explanation as she stood there gazing
at him, her mind leaping lightning-like from point to point. “It was
that which made you behave so strangely in the garden,” she said, and
she spoke each phrase with a kind of breathless finality. “You thought
that I—I was like those—those other women in the camp.” As he tried to
take her hand she drew farther away, and stood looking at him out of
eyes that were like purple shadows in her white face. It was with a
little movement of anger that she came to herself at last. “And what
are you thinking of me now? Do you dare to dream that the King—”
Turning, she confronted the old warrior fiercely. “Thorkel Jarl, I ask
you to tell the Lord of Ivarsdale as quick as you can what the King
wants with me.”

“That I will not do,” the Jarl said quickly. “You know no prudence,
maiden. The Lord of Ivarsdale is also English; a mishap might occur
if—”

She flung the words at him; “I care not if it lose Canute his crown! If
you will not risk it, I will tell him that the King settles to-night
with Edric of Mercia and his men, and that it is to witness the
punishment of my kinsmen’s murderer that he has sent for me. As for my
camp-life, ask Rothgar himself, or Elfgiva, or the King—or any soldier
of the host! Of them all, you alone have thought such thoughts of me.”
She flung up her hands against him in a kind of heart-broken rage.
“You! To whose high-mindedness I trusted everything I have!” Hiding her
face, she ran from them, sobbing, into the house.




CHAPTER XXXI. The Twilight of The Gods


Circumspect and reserved
Every man should be,
And wary in trusting friends;
Of the words
That a man says to another
He often pays the penalty.
                    Hávamál.


Waking to tapestried walls and jewelled lanterns and a strange splendor
of furnishings, Randalin experienced a moment of wild bewilderment.
What had happened to the low-ceiled dormitory with its bare wall-spaces
splotched with dampness? What had become of the row of white beds, with
Dearwyn’s rosy face on the next pillow? And she herself—why was she
lying on the outside of the covers, with all her clothes on, a cramped
aching heap? Rising on her elbow, she gazed wonderingly at the frowzy
woman stretched near her on a pallet. It was not until the woman turned
over, puffing out her fat cheeks in a long breath, that the girl on the
bed recognized her and knew what room this was and remembered what had
happened to separate to-day from all the yesterdays of her life.
Falling down upon the pillows, she lay with her face hidden among them,
living over with the swift sharpness of a renewed brain the scenes of
the previous night.

As she had seen it from the gallery where the King’s soldiers had
hidden her, she saw again the great stone hail, enshrining a
feasting-table around which a throng of nobles in their gorgeous
dresses and their jewels and their diadems made a glittering halo. At
the farther end, the King sat in his shining gilded chair. Just below
her, was Edric of Mercia with Norman Leofwinesson beside him. She could
not see their faces for their backs were toward her, but now and again
the Gainer’s velvet voice rose blandly, and each time she was seized
with shuddering. How was it possible that he did not feel disaster in
the air? To her it seemed that the very torch-flames hissed warnings
above the merriment, while the occasional pauses were so heavy with
doom that their weight was well-nigh unendurable; at each, she was
forced to fight down a mad impulse to scream and scatter the hush.

Then the light from the taper which a page was holding behind Norman of
Baddeby fell upon the gemmed collar that was his principal ornament,
and the sight wrought a subtle change in her mood. The collar had been
her father’s; she could not look at it without seeing again his ruddy
old face with its grim mouth and faded kindly eyes. Beside this vision
rose another,—the vision of this beloved face dead in the moonlight,
with Fridtjof’s near it, his brave smile frozen on his young lips. From
that moment, softness and shrinking died out in her bearing as out of
her heart, and her blood was turned to fire within her,—the liquid fire
of the North. Hour after hour, she sat in rigid waiting while the
endless line of servants ran to and fro with their silver dishes and
the merriment grew and spread and the clinking came faster and louder
and the voices grew thicker and wilder.

When the wave of good-will and fellowship had reached its height, like
one who would ride in upon its crest the Gainer rose to his feet and
began speaking to the King. His manner was less smoothly deferential
than when addressing Edmund, she noticed, affecting more the air of
bluff frankness which one might who wished to disarm any suspicion of
flattering; but she could not hear what he said because of the noise
around him. The first words she heard distinctly were Canute’s, as he
paused with upraised goblet to look at the Mercian. Like an arrow his
voice cleft the uproar, so that here and there men checked the speech
on their lips to look at him, and their neighbors, observing them,
paused also, until the lull extended from corner to corner.

“Strangely do you ask,” he said. “Why should I give you more than
Edmund gave you?”

She had no difficulty in hearing Edric this time. Aggressively honest,
his words rang out with startling sharpness: “Because it was for you
that I went against Edmund, and from faithfulness to you that I
afterwards destroyed him.”

Out of the stillness that followed, a voice cried, “Are you mad?” and
there was the grating of chairs thrust hastily back. But, after a great
wrench, her heart stood still within her as through the madness she
perceived the purpose. As well as Edric of Mercia she knew that the
young Viking’s vulnerable point was his longing for his own
self-esteem, a craving so unreckoning in its fervor that—should he have
the guilty consciousness the traitor counted on—rather than endure his
own reproach for cowardice he would be equal to the wild brazenness of
flinging the avowal in the teeth of his assembled court. Her pulses
began to pound in a furious dance as the same flash of intuition showed
her the rock upon which the Gainer’s audacious steering was going to
wreck him.

For no skulking guilt was in the face of the new King of England as he
met the startled glances, but instead a kind of savage joy that widened
his nostrils and drew his lips away from his teeth in a terrible smile.

“Now much do I thank whatever god has moved you to open speech,” he
said, “for with every fibre of my body have I long wanted to requite
you for that faithfulness. Knowing that you were coming to-night to ask
it, I have the reward ready. Never was recompense given with a better
will.” Leaping to his feet, he hurled the goblet in his hand against
the opposite wall so that it was shattered on the stone behind the
embroidered hangings. At the signal the tapestry was lifted, and in the
light stood Eric of Norway, leaning on a mighty battle-axe. To him the
King cried in a loud voice, all the irony gone from it, leaving it
awful as the voice of Thor at Ragnarok. “Do your work where all can see
you, Eric Jarl, that no man shall accuse me of being afraid to bear my
deeds. And let Norman Leofwinesson die with his lord for the slaying of
Frode of Avalcomb.”

A roar of hideous sound—a confusion of overturned lights, of screeching
servants, of writhing struggling bodies—above it all, the vision of
that glittering axe poised in the air—then flashing
downward,—Randalin’s recollections blurred, ran together, and faded out
in broken snatches.

She recalled a brief space of something like sleep-walking as the
soldiers led her through branching corridors to this room, and fetched
for her attendant the only woman available, a wench they had taken from
trencher-washing in the royal kitchen. She remembered irritably
rejecting the woman’s clumsy services and sending her to sleep on her
pallet, while she herself walked to and fro with her surging thoughts
until sheer physical exhaustion forced her to throw herself upon the
bed. After that she remembered—nothing.

“I am glad that I did not disgrace my kin by screaming or fainting,”
she reflected now, as she raised herself stiffly. “I am glad I did that
much credit to my name.” She flushed as her hand, touching the pillow,
found it wet, and for an instant the bearing of her head was less
erect. “I do not remember what I dreamed,” she murmured, “but full well
I know that it was not because Norman Leofwinesson is slain that I shed
tears in my sleep.” For a while she drooped there, her eyes on the open
window, outside of which a robin was singing blithely among the
cherries. But all at once she seized the pillow with a kind of
fierceness, and turned it over and piled the others on top of it,
crying under her breath, “How dared he! How dared he! I will shed no
tears for him while I am awake. I will remember only that I am my
father’s daughter and the Lady of Avalcomb.”

Proudly as became an odal-woman, she followed the page when he came at
last to call her to the royal presence. The great stone hall in which
the King awaited the arrival of his Norman bride was the same room in
which he had feasted the night before, but tables and dishes now were
gone, gold-weighted tapestries hung once more over the door by which
Eric of Norway had made his entrance, and a rich-hued rug from an
Eastern loom lay over the spot where she had seen the axe rise and
fall. Crossing the threshold, the commonplaceness of it all clashed so
discordantly with the scene in her memory that for an instant she grew
faint and clung to the curtains between which she was passing. That
death should leave so little trace, that the spot which one night was
occupied by a headsman, the next, should hold a bride, made her fancy
reel with horror even while she pulled herself together sternly.

“This is life as in truth it is,” she said. “It is well that I
understand at last how terrible everything really is, and how little
anything matters.” Forcing herself to tread the rug with steady step,
she came where the King stood by an open window. He was as changed as
the room, though in honor of his bride he wore again state robes of
silk and cloth-of-gold, for the fire of the Northern lights was gone
out of his face, leaving it dull and lustreless. In the garden below, a
minstrel was making hay in the sun of the royal glance by a rapid
improvising of flattering verses which he was shouting lustily to his
twanging harp, but now the King’s hand rose curtly.

“Your imagination has no small power, friend, yet save some virtues in
case you should want to sing to me again,” he advised as he tossed down
a coin and turned away.

His ward courtesied deeply before him. “For your justice, King Canute,
I give you thanks drawn from the bottom of my heart,” she said.

“I welcome you to your own, Lady of Avalcomb,” he answered as he
returned her salutation. Leaning against the window frame he stood a
long while looking at her in silence,—so long that she was startled
when at last he spoke. “Yet for the good of the realm, I must lay on
your odal one burden, Frode’s daughter.”

“What is that, King?”

“It is that before the year is out you take a husband who shall be able
to defend your land in time of need.”

Her white cheeks went very red before him and then grew very pale
again, while her breast rose and fell convulsively. But she clasped her
hands over it as though to still its protest and, suddenly, she flung
up her head in a kind of trembling defiance. “What does it matter?
King, I know what a Danish woman owes her race. Choose you the man and
this shall, like other things, be as you wish.”

It was evident that her answer took him by surprise, for he bent from
the wall to observe her. “I choose!” he repeated. “Have you then no
choice?”

She tried to say “No”; she tried desperately to say it; but already her
courage was crumbling under her. All at once she took her hands from
her breast to hold them out pleadingly, and her voice was broken:
“Lord, let me go back to Avalcomb—now—to-day!”

“Wherefore to-day?” he asked. “I had thought you would remain here for
a while and get honor from Queen Emma.” A moment he looked away from
her, out of the window at the drifting clouds. “I can tell you, Frode’s
daughter, that while she is noble in her birth, she is still nobler in
her mind,” he said gravely. “Little would there be in her service for
you to take ill. I think it possible that she might be highly helpful
to you. There is that about her which makes the good in one come out
and bask like a snake in the sun, while the evil slinks away
shadow-like—”

She interrupted him with a cry that was half a sob. “Lord King, I
cannot bear it to see more people that are strange to me! Since I left
my father’s house I have felt the starkness of strangers, and now—now I
can endure it no longer. My heart within me is as though it were
bruised black and blue. Let me go back where all know me,—where none
will hold me off at arm’s length to challenge me with his eyes, but all
love me and place faith in me because they know me. Lord, give me leave
to go home,—I pray it of you! Beseech it of you!” Entreating, she would
have fallen at his feet if he had not caught her hands and stayed her.

He did not release them immediately but tightened his grasp as his
eyes, grown suddenly keen, searched her face. His voice dropped low.
“Randalin, it is very unlikely that Elfgiva’s scratches have brought
you to this. Do you stand in need of reminding that any man who has
angered you has angered me? That my sword lies under your hand?”

Her face seemed to have become glass before him, through which he
looked into the innermost chambers of her mind. Terror-stricken, she
snatched her hands away to cover it. “No, no!” she cried wildly. “I am
angry with no one. I have found fault with no one. Draw no sword for
me—only let me go!”

Again he turned from her and stood looking out at the clouds; but when
at last he spoke, his voice was the gentlest she had ever heard it.
“You are wise in this, as in other things, Frode’s daughter,” he said,
“and you shall certainly have your way. I take it that I am your
guardian to protect you from harm, not to force you into things you do
not want. Soldiers I can trust shall go with you, in case there be
danger from Norman’s people, and for women—”

She spoke up eagerly, “There is an old nun at Saint Mildred’s, King,
who loves me. I think she would come to me until others could be
found.”

“Go then,” he granted. “Thorkel shall see to it that men and horses are
ready when you are.” He held out his hand, but when she took it in both
of hers and would have saluted it reverently, he would not let her but
instead raised her fingers to his lips. An odd note was in his voice.
“Heavy is it for my tongue to say farewell to you, Frode’s daughter,”
he said, “for your friendship has surpassed most other things in
pleasantness to me.”

Frank liking mingled with gratitude and reverence as she looked up at
him. “I have got great kindness and favor from you, King Canute; I pray
that you will be very happy with your Queen.”

A moment he pressed his lips to her hand; then gently set it free. “I
give you thanks,” he returned, “but happiness is for me to wish you.
The best you can ask for me is that sometime I shall become what you
believed me to be the day you came to me at Scoerstan.”

She tried to tell him that she believed him that now,—but something in
her forbade the untruth. She could do no more than leave him, with a
mute gesture of farewell.

Perhaps her gaze was not quite clear as she crossed the room, for she
did not see that the door-curtains were moving until she was close upon
them, when they were thrust apart to admit the form of Rothgar
Lodbroksson. Stifling a gasp, she shrank behind a tall chair.

He did not see her, however, for his eyes were fastened upon the King,
who had turned back to the window. He had cast aside the splendor of
the royal guards, wearing over his steel shirt a kirtle of blue that
made his florid face seem redder and gave to his fiery hair a hotter
glow. Two sentinels carrying shining pikes had followed him in,
uncertainly, and now one plucked at his arm. But the Jotun shook him
off to stride forward, clanking his heels with intentional noisiness
upon the stone floor.

At the clatter the King looked around, and the tone in which he spoke
his friend’s name had in it more of passion than all the lover’s
phrases he had ever paid Elfgiva’s ears. At the same time, he made a
sharp sign to the two sentinels. “Get back to your posts,” he said.

Hesitating they saluted and unwilling they wheeled, while one spoke
bluntly over his shoulder. “It would be better to let us stay, King, if
you please. You are weaponless.”

“Go,” Canute repeated. In a moment the doors beyond the curtain had
closed behind them, and the two men were alone save for the girl hiding
forgotten in the shadow of the chair.

Rothgar laughed jarringly. “Whatever has been told about you, you have
not yet been accounted a coward. But I do not see how you know I shall
not kill you. I have dreamed of it not a few times.”

Something like a veil seemed to fall over the King’s face; from behind
it he spoke slowly as he moved away to the dais upon which his
throne-chair stood, and mounted the steps. “The same dream has come to
me, but never has it occurred to me to seek you out to tell you of it.”

“No such purpose had I,” the Jotun said with a touch of surliness.
Pulling a bag from under his belt, he shook out of it upon the floor a
mane of matted yellow hair. “If you want to know my errand, it is to
bring you this. Yesterday it came to my ears that one of my men was
suspected of having tried to give you poison through your wife’s
British thrall. I got them before me and questioned them, and the
Scar-Cheek boasted of having done it. This is his hair. If you remember
anything about the fellow, you understand that he was not alive when I
took it from him.”

The King looked immovably at the yellow mass. “You have behaved in a
chieftain-like way and I thank you for it,” he said. “But I would have
liked it better if you had come to me about the judgment that raised
this wall between us—”

Rothgar’s throat gave out a savage sound. “Tempt me not! I am no
sluggish wolf.”

But Canute spoke on: “What I expected that day was that you would come
to me, as friend comes to friend, and with my loose property I would
redeem from you every stick and stone which my kingship had forced me
to hold back. Not more than they have called me coward, have men ever
called me stingy—”

“And when have men called me greedy?” the Jotun bellowed. “Your
thoughts have got a bad habit of lying about me if they say that it was
greed for land which made me take your judgment angrily. Except for the
honor of my stock, what want I with land while I have a ship to bear
me? I tell you, now as heretofore, that it was your treachery which
unsheathed a sword between us.”

“Rothgar my brother,—” the veil was rent from the King’s face and he
had stepped from the dais and seized the other by the shoulders as
though he would wrestle bodily with him,—“by the Holy Ring, I swear
that I have never betrayed you! If you grudge not the land to the
Englishman, you have no cause to grudge him anything under Ymer’s
skull. Can a man change his blood?—for so much a part of me is my
friendship for you. Time never was when it was not there, and it would
be as possible to fill my veins with Thames water as to put an
Englishman into your place. Can you not understand—”

But Rothgar’s hand had fallen upon the other’s breast and pushed him
backward so that he was forced to catch at the chair-arm to save
himself from falling. “Never get afraid about that,” he sneered. “Since
we slept in one cradle, I have been a thick-headed Thrym and your
Loke’s wit has fooled me into doing your bidding and fighting your
battles and giving you my toil and my limbs and my faith, but wisdom
has grown in me at last. You undertake too steep a climb when you try
to make me believe in your love while before my eyes you give to the
man I hate my lands and the woman you had promised me and my place
above your men—” His rage choked him so that he was obliged to break
off and stand drawing his sword from his sheath and slamming it back
with a sharp sound. His voice came back in a hoarse roar. “When I
reckon up the debt against you, I know that the only thing to wipe it
out would be your life. Not taken by poison nor underhandedly, but torn
out of your deceitful body as we stand face to face. If I could do
that, it might be that my anger would be quenched.” Again he drew his
blade half out,—and this time he did not shove it back. His huge body
seemed to draw itself together, crouching, as he leaned forward. “Why
do you stand there looking as though you thought you were Odin? Do you
think to blunt my weapon with your eyes? Why do you tempt me?”

The King had not moved away from the chair against which he had
staggered, and the prints of his nails were on its arm. He was as
though he had hardened to stone. “To show you that I am stronger than
you, though I face you with bare hands,” he said. “To show you that you
dare not kill me.”

“Dare not!” Rothgar’s laughter was a hideous thing as he cleared at a
bound the space between them. His sword was full-drawn now. “Shout for
your guards! It may be that they will get here in time.”

But the King neither gave back nor raised his voice. “I will not,” he
said, “nor will I lift hand against you. Never shall you have it to say
that I forgot you had endangered your life for mine. On your head it
shall be to break the blood-oath.”

Now they were breast to breast. In her mind, the girl in the shadow
flung open the doors and shrieked to the sentinels and roused the
Palace; in her body, she stood spellbound, voiceless, breathless.

Still Rothgar did not strike. It was the King who spoke this time also.
“Among the sayings of men in Norway,” he said coldly, “there is one
they tell of a traitor who carried a sword of death against his King,
but lacked the boldness to use it before the King’s face. So he begged
his lord to wrap a cloak around his head that he might get the courage
to ask a boon. When that had been done, he stabbed. Do you want me to
cover my eyes?”

With a hoarse cry, Rothgar flung his sword back to his sheath,
recoiling,—there was even a kind of fear in his manner: “A fool would I
be, to set your ghost free to follow me with that look on its face!
Keep your life—and instead I will torture every Angle I can get under
my grip, for it is they who have turned a great hero into a nithing—may
they despise you as you have despised your people for their sakes!”
Invoking the curse with a sweep of his handless arm, he strode from the
room.

Randalin did not see when he passed her, for her eyes were on the King
as he stood looking after his foster-brother.

“Ah, God, what a terrible world hast Thou made!” she murmured, as she
put up her hands to ease the swelling agony in her throat. “No longer
will I try to live in it. I will go to the Sisters and remain with them
always.”

Through the doors opening before the Jotun there came in a sudden buzz
of laughing voices, while a breeze brought through the window a ringing
of bells and a clarioning of approaching horns. Upon the girl in the
shadow and the King on the dais, the sounds fell like the dissolving of
a spell. She ran swiftly to the little door behind the tapestry and let
herself out unseen, unheard. The King mounted the throne he had won and
sat there in regal state, facing the throng of splendid courtiers
trooping in to give him their wedding greetings.




CHAPTER XXXII. In Time’s Morning


He wins who woos.
                    Hávamál.


The hot glare of a July sun was on the stones of the Watling Street and
July winds were driving hosts of battling dust-clouds along the
highway, but in the herb garden of Saint Mildred’s cool shadows lay
over the dew-beaded grass and all was restfulness and peace. The voice
of the girl who was following Sister Wynfreda from mint clump to
parsley bed, from fennel to rue, was not much louder than the droning
of the bees in the lavender.

“If it be true as you say,—” she was speaking with the passionate
bitterness of wounded youth,—“if it be true that in his place anyone
would have believed what he believed, then is this a very hateful world
and I want no further part in it.”

Over the fragrant leaves which she was touching as fondly as if they
had been children’s faces, Sister Wynfreda gently shook her head.
“Think not that it is altogether through the world’s evil-heartedness,
dear child. Think rather that it is because mankind is not always brave
and shrinks from disappointment, that it dares not believe in good
until good is proved.”

“I know that one dares not always believe in happiness,” the girl
conceded slowly, “for when my happiness was like a green swelling wave,
white fear sprang from the crest of it and it fell—Sister, did that
forebode my sorrow?”

Awhile, the nun’s eyes widened and paled as eyes that see a vision, but
at last she bowed her head to trace a cross upon her breast. “Not so;
it is God’s wisdom,” she said, “else would the world be so beautiful
that we would never hunger after heaven.”

Mechanically, Randalin’s hands followed hers through the holy sign;
then she clasped them before her to wring them in impatient pain. “That
is so long to go hungry, Sister! I shall be past my appetite.” Dropping
down beside the other, her slim young fingers began to imitate the
gnarled old ones as they weeded and straightened. “I wonder at it,
Sister Wynfreda, that you do not urge me to creep in with you. A year
ago, you wanted it when I wanted it not; but now when I am willing, you
hold me off.”

“Is it clear before your mind that you are willing, my daughter?” the
nun asked gently. As she drew herself to her feet with the aid of a
bush, the cramping of her feeble stiffened muscles contracted her face
in momentary pain, but her eyes were serene as the altar lamps. “It
lies upon you to remember, little sister, that those who would serve
God around the altar must not go thither only because the world has
mistreated them and they would cast it off to avenge the smart. She who
puts on the yoke of Christ must needs do so because it is the thing she
would desire of all, were all precious things spread out for her
choosing. Can you look into my eyes and say that it would be so with
you?”

Where she knelt before her, the girl suddenly threw her arms around the
woman and hid her face in the faded robes. The frail hand stroked the
dark hair affectionately. “Think not that I would upbraid you with it,
child as dear as my own heart. When the Power that took you from me led
you back again, and I read what God’s fingers had written on your face
that before was like a lineless parchment, I could not find it in my
mind to wish you otherwise. I felt only shame for the weakness of my
faith, and joy past all telling.”

Under the soothing hand, Randalin’s sobs slowly ceased; when at last
she raised her wet eyes there was no longer rebellion in them but only
youth’s measureless despair. “Sister, now as always, I want to do what
you would have me—but I am so full of grief! Must I go back to Avalcomb
and begin all over again? It seems to me that my life stretches before
me no more alluringly than yonder dusty road, that runs straight on,
on, over vast spaces but always empty.”

The beauty that had been Sister Wynfreda’s hovered now about her mouth
as fragrance around a dead rose. Her gaze was on a branch above them
where a little brown bird, calling plaintively, was slipping from her
nest. Over the wattled edge, two tiny brown heads were peeping like
fuzzy beech-nut rinds. “I wonder,” she said, “what those little
creatures up there will think when a few months hence the blue sky
becomes leaden, such that no one of them ever before recollected it so
dark, and the sun that is wont to creep to them through the leaves has
gone out like a candle before the winter winds? By reason of their
youth, I suppose they will judiciously conclude with themselves that
there is never going to be any blue sky again, that their lives will
stretch before them in a dark-hued stress of weather, empty of all save
leafless trees and frozen fields. My fledgeling, will they not be a
little ashamed of their short-sightedness when the spring has brought
back the sun?”

The girl’s lips parted before her quickening breath, and the old nun
smiled at her tenderly as she moved away with her hands full of the
green symbols of healing. “Settle not the whole day of your life at its
morning, most dear child, but live it hour by hour,” she said. “If you
would be of use now, go gather the flowers for the Holy Table, and when
themselves have drawn in holiness from the spot, then shall you bring
them to the sick woman over the hill.”

“Yes, Sister,” the girl said submissively. But when she had crossed the
daisied grass and opened the wicket gate and came out into the fragrant
lane, something seemed to divide her mind with the roses, for though
she sent one glance toward the hedge, she sent another to the spot
beyond—where the lane gave out upon the great Street to the City—and
after she had walked a little way toward the flowers, she turned and
walked a long way toward the road, until she had come where her eyes
could follow its white track far away over the hills.

“I wonder if I shall ever hunger for heaven as I hunger for the sight
of him,” she murmured as she gazed.

But whatever the valleys might hold, the hillsides showed her nothing;
sighing, she turned back. “It seems to me,” she said, “that if we could
have little tastes of heaven as we went along, then would there still
be enough left and the road would seem much shorter.” Sighing, she set
to work upon the roses, that had twined themselves in a kindly veil
over the bushes.

Standing so, it happened that she did not see the horseman who was just
gaining the crest of the nearest hill between her and the City. The
wind being from her, she did not even hear the hoof-beats until the
horse had turned from the glare of the sun into the shadow of the
fern-bordered lane. The first she knew of it, she glanced over her
shoulder and saw the red-cloaked figure riding toward her along the
grass-grown path.

As naturally as a flower opens its heart at the coming of the sun, she
leaned toward him, breathing his name; then in an impulse equally
natural, as he leaped from his saddle before her, she drew back and
half averted her face, flickering red and white like the blossoms she
was clasping to her breast.

He stopped abruptly, a short stretch of grass still between them,—and
it soothed her bruised pride a little that there was no longer any
confident ease in his manner but only hesitation and uncertainty. His
voice was greatly troubled as he spoke: “Never can I forgive myself for
having wounded you, sweetheart, yet had I hoped that you might forgive
me, because I knew not what I did and because I have suffered so sorely
for it.”

“_You_ have suffered,” she repeated with a little accent of bitterness.

“I beseech you by my love that you do not doubt it!” Hesitation gave
way before a warmth of reproach. “For a man to know that he has wounded
what he would have died to shield—that he has wronged where he would
have given his life to honor—that it may be he has lost what is body
and soul to him,—what else is that but suffering?”

It was only a very little that her face turned toward him, and he could
not see how her downcast eyes were taking fire from his voice. He stood
looking at her in despair, until something in the poise of her head
taught him a new rune among love’s spells. Drawing softly near her, he
spoke in noblest conciliation: “Is it your pride that cannot pardon me,
Lady of Avalcomb? Do I seem to sue for grace too boldly because I
forget to make my body match the humbleness of my heart? Except in
prayer or courtesy, we are not loose of knee, we Angles, but I would
stoop as low as I lowest might if that could make you kinder, dear
one.” Baring his head, he knelt down at her feet,—and the difference
between this and the time when he had bent before her in the Abbey, was
the difference between tender jest and tenderest earnest. “Thus then do
I ask you to give me back your love,” he said gently,—and would have
said more but that she turned, stirred to a kind of generous shame.

“It needs not that, lord! I know you did not mean it. And they have
told me that—that I have no right to be angry with you—” She broke off,
as looking into his face she saw something that startled her into
forgetfulness of all else. “Why are your cheeks so hollow?” she
demanded. “And so gray—as though you had lost blood? Lord, what has
come near you?”

He could not conceal the sudden pleasure he got out of her alarm for
him, even while he answered as lightly as he could that it was no more
than the fatigue of his three days in the saddle; and a lack of food,
perhaps, as he had been somewhat pressed for time; and a lack of sleep
because of—

But she was a warrior’s daughter, and she would not be put off. Coming
close to him, she pulled aside the dusty cloak, hot as a live coal in
the glare of the day, and there—behold!—there were blood stains on the
breast of his blue kirtle. Forgetful of everything else, she flung her
arms around him as though to shield him. “Sebert, you are wounded! What
is it?”

Nothing that troubled him very much, apparently, for his haggard face
had grown radiant with gladness. Yet he was enough afraid of the
reaction to answer her as gravely as possible: “It is Rothgar
Lodbroksson, whom I met coming from the City as I was journeying back
from my errand in Northampton. Little affection has ever passed between
us, and this time something more than usual seemed to have stirred him
against me, for—”

“He tried to kill you!” The words were not a question but a breathless
assertion as she remembered the Jotun’s last threat.

“He tried to kill me,” the Marshal assented quietly. “And his blade did
manage to pierce my mail; he is a giant in strength as in other things.
But it cut no more than flesh; and after that, Fortune wheeled not
toward him.”

“You slew him!” Her lips were white as she gasped it, but he knew now
that it was no love for the Jotun that moved her, and he answered
promptly to her unspoken thought: “No, sweet,—for the King’s sake, I
spared him. Before this, his men have taken him aboard his ship and
England is rid of him.”

Murmuring broken phrases of thanksgiving, she stood holding the cloak
she had grasped, but he dreaded too much the moment of her awakening to
await its coming inactive. Slipping his arms around her, he began to
speak swiftly, the moment her silence gave him an opening.

“Never did I blame Rothgar much for his enmity against me, and now I
thank him for this cut as for a gift, for through it I know that at
least you have not outlawed me from your love. Dear one, as you are not
unkind to so slight a thing as this wound in my flesh, so neither be
without pity for the one that is so much deeper, in my heart! As the
scratch stayed your anger for a while, so, in the gentleness of love,
let this which is mortal stay it for all time.”

With his arms around her, she could not shrink very far away,—nor was
it seen that she tried to,—but all at once her words came in uneven
rushes: “How can I hold anger against you when, with every breath, my
lips sigh for your kisses? Yet let no one wonder at it that I am
frightened... You cannot conceive what a lurking place for terrors the
world looks to me! Never, I think, shall I see men sitting together
that I shall not suspect them of having murder in their hearts. Never
shall I see two friends clasp hands but my mind will run forward to a
time when they shall part in wrath and loneliness. Nay, even of the
sound of my own voice I am afraid, lest whomsoever is hearing it—for
all that he speak me fair—be twisting the words in his mind into evils
I have not dreamed of. Sebert, I do not reproach you with it! I think
it all the fault of my own blunders,—and therein I find a new terror.
That one should suffer for wrong-doing is to be looked for, but if one
is to be dealt with so unsparingly only for making mistakes, who knows
where his position is or what to expect? Oh, my best friend, make me
brave or I am likely to die only through fearing to live! With my
ignorance my boldness went from me, until now my courage is lowly as a
willow leaf. Love, make me brave again!” Trusting, in her very
declaration of distrust, she clung to him to save her from herself.

It was in the briar-pricked fingers, which he was pressing against his
cheek, that he found his answer. Suddenly he spread them out in his
palm before her, laughing with joyful lightness. “Randalin, the thorns
wounded your hands the while that you stripped yonder hedge, but did
you stop for that? If I can prove to you that all these dark days you
have been but plucking roses, can you not bravely bear with the
pricks?”

Putting her gently from him, he gathered up the spoils she had let
fall, picking from among them with great care the fairest of either
kind, while she, catching his mood, watched him April-faced. “This,” he
said gaily, “is the red rose of my heart. Battle-fields lay between us
and tower walls, and the way was long and hard to find, yet can you
deny, my elf, that you came in and plucked it and wore it away in your
hair,—to keep or to cast aside as pleased you?”

Smiles and tears growing together, she caught the blossom from him and
pressed it to her lips. “I will wear it in my bosom,” she answered,
“for my breast has been empty—since the day I saw you first.”

Smiling, he held out the white rose, but his mood had deepened until
now he looked down upon her as he had looked down upon her in the
moonlit forest. “This, beloved, is the symbol of my faith,” he said.
“Your eyes took it from me that day at even-song. I hold it the dearer
of the two, for with it goes my honor that is as stainless as its
petals. It is worth more than life to me,—is it not worth some pricks
to you?”

She took it from him reverently, to lay it beside the other, and as her
face was too proud for fear so was it too tender for jesting. “I am
more honored,” she told him, “than Canute by his crown; and I will live
as bravely to defend them.”

But as he would have caught her to him, she leaned back suddenly to
stretch a hand toward a dark-robed figure standing under the moss-grown
arch, and her pride melted into a laugh of breathless happiness.
“Sister Wynfreda, you were very right,” she called softly, “the world
can be so beautiful that one has no hunger for heaven.”