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The Ward of King Canute: A Romance of the Danish Conquest

by Ottilie A. Liljencrantz · English · Gutenberg #3323 · 519,555 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Ward of King Canute: A Romance of the Danish Conquest

Author: Ottilie A. Liljencrantz


        
Release date: July 1, 2002 [eBook #3323]
                Most recently updated: April 9, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3323

Credits: A. Elizabeth Warren and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WARD OF KING CANUTE: A ROMANCE OF THE DANISH CONQUEST ***

[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 t

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