William Shakespeare - "The Tragedie of Macbeth"

Pedro Calderon de la Barca - "The Wonder Working Magician"

Arthur Christopher Benson - "Where No Fear Was: A Book About Fear"

Robert Louis Stevenson - "In the South Seas"

Vandrad the Viking

J >> J. Storer Clouston >> Vandrad the Viking




"'Witless and confident?'" answered Estein. "Say rather trustful
of pledges that only a dastard would break."

"The strong and foolish fight with weapons suited to their hands,"
said Thorar; "the weak and wise with weapons suited to their
heads."

"So hands, it seems, are better than heads," put in Helgi.

"Know this at least," exclaimed Ketill, "your sons have perished
before you. I slew them in the outset of the battle."

The dying man laughed a ghastly laugh.

"My sons!" he cried. "Think you I would trust my sons with
Norsemen? Those boys were thralls. They died for their country as
I die," and his head fell back upon the snow.

"Dastard!" cried Ketill, "you die indeed."

He raised his sword as he spoke; but Estein caught his arm before
it could descend, saying,--

"You cannot slay the dead, Ketill."

"Has he baulked me then?" said Ketill, bending over his fallen
foe.

It was even so. The lawman had gone to his last account, his bolt
impotently shot, and his enemies standing triumphantly over him.

"He at least died well," said Helgi; "when my turn comes may it be
my luck to look as proudly on my foes. But tell us, Ketill, what
befell you here since our parting."

The burly captain frowned and scratched his head, as though
deliberating how to do a thing so foreign to his genius as the
telling of a narrative.

"On a certain day you left us," he began.

"Well told indeed," cried Helgi, laughing, "an excellent
beginning--no skald could do it better."

"Nay," replied Ketill, frowning angrily, "if you want matter for a
jest, tell a tale yourself. Mine have been no boy's deeds."

"Take no offence," replied Helgi, still laughing; "tell your deeds
of derring-do, and let Thor himself envy, I will undertake to make
you laugh at mine own adventures afterwards."

"I will warrant your doings will make me laugh rather than envy,"
said Ketill. "But, as I said, you left us, and so we were left
here without you."

"Nay, Ketill," interposed his tormentor, very seriously, "this
story passes belief, impose not on my youth."

"How mean you?" exclaimed the black-bearded captain, wrathfully,
his hand seeking his sword hilt.

"Peace, Helgi," cried Estein, who saw that his good offices were
needed; "and you, Ketill, heed not his jests. He is but young and
foolish."

"And slender," added the irrepressible Helgi, though not loud
enough for Ketill to hear, and the stout Viking resumed his story,
sulkily enough.

"So were we left here in this town. Cold it was, with little to
do, so we even broached Thorar's ale forthwith. Presently a man
who had been in the woods came in hastily to tell me he had
disturbed two of these hounds of Jemtlanders spying on the town.
It behoved me then to be careful, and I set guards, and was not
too drunk myself that night. Upon the next morning one came in
with tidings of a man who had left a message for me, though he
would not say who sent him."

"That would be friend Jomar," said Helgi.

"I know not his name, but treachery, he said, was determined; and
I stopped all drink thereafter, and there was nothing at all left
then but to play with dice and sleep. A little later this Thorar
came to the town, and would have persuaded me to follow you to the
king; and when I asked for some token he showed me a ring he said
was yours. Mine own mind is not attentive to these gew-gaws, but a
man whose eyes were sharp before a Jemtland axe clove his head
this morning knew it for none of yours."

"Did you not seize him at once?" said Estein.

"I was for taking him on the spot, but we spoke without the town,
and he had such a company along with him that after a sharp bout
he got off, though he left three of his lads on the snow.

"May werewolves seize me if this be not dry work! Ho' there,
bring me a horn of ale."

As soon as he had quenched his thirst in a long draught, and wiped
his hairy lips with much relish, the narrator went on:--

"So at night, as you may think, we kept a strict and sober guard,
and rested in our harness. And well it was; for I had not slept an
hour, it seemed, before the cry arose that the enemy were upon us.
But when they saw we were ready for them, the vermin withdrew to
the woods to gather more force, and it was not till day had well
broken that they ventured out and offered battle. Thereupon I slew
the hostages, set fire to the town, and fell upon them
straightway, and a braver fire and a brisker fight while it lasted
I wish not to see. They were seven to one, at the least, but never
an inch of ground did we give, and never a stroke did we spare.
Methinks," he concluded with a chuckle, "they will remember their
welcome."




CHAPTER XVI.

KING ESTEIN.


It was on a breezy April morning that the mountains of Sogn came
into view again. A strong slant of south-east wind had driven the
two ships out to sea; and now, as they raced landwards before a
favouring breeze, they saw low down on the horizon one glittering
hill-top after another pierce the morning mist bank. Helgi for the
time had charge of the tiller, while Estein leant against the
weather bulwark, busy with his new resolves.

"A ship must cross the sea again," he repeated to himself. "The
time for action is at hand, and we shall see what new freak
fortune will play with me. Yet, after all," he reflected, "though
she has pressed my head beneath the tide before, she has always
suffered me to rise and gasp ere she drowned me quite. It all
comes to this: the purposes of the gods are too deep for me to
fathom, so I must e'en hold my peace and bide the passage of
events."

Helgi had been watching him with a half-smile on his frank face,
and at last he cried,--

"What counsel hold you with the seamews? Sometimes I see a smile,
and sometimes I hear a sigh; and then, again, there is a look of
the eye as if Liot Skulison were standing before you."

"I was filling twenty long ships with enough stout lads to man
them, and sailing the western main again," replied Estein.

"And whither were you sailing?" asked Helgi.

"Westward first," said Estein.

"With perchance a point or so of south--such a direction as would
bring us to the Hjaltland Isles, or, it may be, the Orkneys?"

"Aided by a wayward wind," replied Estein with a smile.

"Where, doubtless, it would be well to slay another sea-rover,"
Helgi went on, "since they cause much trouble to peaceable
seafarers from Norway. Witches, too, and warlocks dwell in the
isles, men say, and it were well to rid the land of such."

At this last speech Estein first frowned and flushed, and then
meeting his foster-brother's look, all outward gaiety and lurking
mirth, he laughed defiantly, and exclaimed,--

"It may be so, Helgi. Everything I do is ordained already, and it
matters not whither I turn the prow of my ship or what I plan. To
Orkney I go!"

"Then run your thoughts still on this maiden?"

"They have run, they are still running, and while I live I see not
what is to stop their course."

"Remember, my brother, what stands between you," said Helgi, more
gravely.

"I have not forgotten."

"And yet you sail to Orkney?"

"The gods have bidden me cross the seas," replied Estein, "and
they will steer my ship, whatever haven I choose."

"Go, then," said Helgi, "and while that shrewd counsellor whom men
call Helgi Sigvaldson sails with you, at least you will not lack
sage advice."

Estein laughed.

"'Helgi hinn frode' [Footnote: The wise.] shall you be called
henceforth, and Vandrad I shall be no longer."

They were silent for a time, and then Estein exclaimed,--

"We are well quit of that country of Jemtland! Saw you ever so
many trees and so few true men before?"

"Yet was it not quite bare of good things," replied his friend.

"What, mean you the woodman's wife?"

"What else?" said Helgi, and then he fell silent again.

They reached Hernersfiord towards nightfall, and as they crept up
the still, narrow waters darkness gathered fast. One by one, and
then in tens and hundreds and myriads, the stars came out and hung
like a gay awning between the pine-crowned walls. Ahead they saw
lights and a looming bank of land, and hails passed from ship to
shore and back again. Presently they were gently slipping by the
stone pier, where one or two men stood awaiting them.

"What news?" asked Helgi.

The men made no reply, but seemed to whisper among themselves, and
Helgi repeated his question. Just then a man came hurrying to the
end of the pier and shouted,--

"Is it then Estein returned?"

"My father!" exclaimed Helgi.

"What can bring the jarl here at this hour?" said Estein,
springing ashore.

He met Earl Sigvald on the pier, and by the light of a lantern he
saw that the old man's face was grave and sad.

"Steel your heart to hear ill tidings, King Estein," he said.

The "King" smote upon Estein's ears like a knell, and he guessed
the earl's news before he heard it.

"King Hakon joined his fathers three days past," said the earl.
"Welcome indeed is your return, for the law says that the dead
must not linger in the house more than five days, and it were ill
seeming to hold the funeral rites with his son away."

Estein stood like a man struck dumb, and then muttering, "I will
join you again," he started quickly up the pier, and was shortly
lost to view in the darkness.

"Dear was Estein to his father, and dear the old king to his son.
Deep and burning, I fear, will his sorrow be," said the earl.

"Fain would I comfort him," replied Helgi. "But I know well
Estein's humours, and now he is best alone for a time."

They walked slowly up to Hakonstad, the old earl leaning upon his
son's arm, and as they went Helgi told him the tale of the
Jemtland journey. In his interest the earl forgot even the present
gloom, and swore lustily or roared loudly and heartily as the
story went on.

"May they lie in darkness for ever as dastards and traitors!" he
would cry, or "A shrewd scheme, by the hammer of Thor! An I were
fifty years younger I would have done the same myself, Helgi!" and
then again, "Trolls take me, if this be not enough to make a bear
laugh! What next, Helgi?"

When his son had finished his relation of the visit to the old
seer, he seemed lost in thought.

"Atli, Atli," he repeated. "Call you him Atli? I cannot remember
the name. A friend of Olaf Hakonson, said he? I knew of no such
friend. Yet it seems that he spoke indeed as one who had taken
counsel with the gods; and if his words acted, as you say, like
medicine on Estein, his name matters little. Yet it is passing
strange."

When they reached Hakonstad, Helgi found that many chiefs had
already arrived to take part in the funeral rites and, more
particularly, in the feast with which they always ended. It was
not till almost all had gone to rest that Estein returned, and
then he went straight to his bed-chamber without exchanging more
than the barest greetings with those he found still talking low
over their ale around the fires.

The next day was spent in preparations for the solemn ceremonies
of pyre and mound, and the great feast which should mark the
reigning of another king in Sogn. The young king himself went
about bravely, seeing to everything but speaking little. Helgi
watched him anxiously, for he feared greatly that this new sorrow
might cloud his mind afresh. In the evening he noticed him slip
from the hall by himself, and rising at once he followed him out
and came to his side as he paced slowly up the night-hushed
valley.

"Is my company unwelcome?" he asked.

"More welcome than my thoughts," said Estein, taking his arm.

"Have the black thoughts returned?"

"Do what I will, they are with me again," replied Estein. "My
father has died with Olaf unavenged, and now it is too late to
keep my sacred word to him that I would ever follow up the feud.
King Hakon already sits in Valhalla, and knows his son for a
dastard and a breaker of his oaths. While he lived I always told
myself that I would find some way even yet by which I might fulfil
my promise, but now it is too late. It is hard, Helgi, to lose at
once both a father and a father's regard."

"King Hakon is with Odin," said Helgi, "and knows what he has
ordained. Odin has not told you to cross the seas for naught, and
doubtless King Hakon even now awaits the issue. Never did man do
much with a downcast mind; so first dismiss your thoughts, and
then for the Viking path again."

"Helgi hinn frode," said Estein, pressing his arm, "you are indeed
a good counsellor. As soon as I can gather force enough we start."

"And now for a horn of ale, and then to bed," responded Helgi,
cheerful as ever again.

Ever since the first wild Northmen, pushing westwards to the sea,
had settled in the land of Sogn, its kings had been interred on a
certain barren islet hard by the mouth of Hernersfiord, and on the
morning of the fifth day after King Hakon's death they bore him
out to his last resting-place by the surge of the northern ocean.
His body, clad in full armour and decked in robes of state, was
laid upon a bier on the poop of the long ship that had last
carried him to battle. A picked crew of chiefs and highborn
vassals rowed him slowly down the fiord, while in their wake a
fleet of vessels followed. Estein, arrayed in the full panoply of
war, as though he were sailing to meet his foes, stood out alone
upon the poop like a graven figure, only the hand that held the
tiller ever moving. When they reached the little holm looking out
over the sea, they discovered the foundations of a mound already
prepared, and great heaps of earth beside them, ready to be built
upon the top. All the chiefs and greater men landed with a
sufficient number of spademen to assist them with the work, while
the others lay off in the ships and watched in silence. First, the
vessel in which the dead king lay was drawn up and laid upon the
mound; each chief who had taken an oar hung his shield in turn
upon the bulwarks; the sail, gay with coloured cloths, was
hoisted; the king's standard raised and set in the bows; and then
Estein lit a torch and held it to a heap of fagots underneath. As
the flames mounted higher and the smoke streamed out to sea the
chiefs cast gifts aboard--rings and bracelets of gold and silver,
sharp swords and inlaid axes--that the king in his far-off home
among the gods of the North might think kindly of his friends on
earth. One after another they wished his soul fair speed. Estein's
words were few and unsteady with emotion, and those who heard them
wondered at their meaning.

"Fare thee well, my father! I will yet keep my promise to thee!"

Loudest of all cried Earl Sigvald,--

"May Odin be as good a friend to thee as thou hast been to me!
Keep me a place beside thee, Hakon. All through life I have been
at thy side, in sunshine and frost, feast and battle-storm, and
soon I hope to follow thee home!"

At last the flames died down and left but the blackened remnants
of the ship and the ashes of its royal captain. The ashes they
reverently gathered up and placed within a copper bowl, a lid they
made of twelve shield bosses, the gifts were gathered and placed
all round, and then the spademen heaped the mound above Hakon,
King of Sogn.

With a quicker stroke and tongues unloosed the fleet returned to
Hakonstad.

"A noble funeral, Ketill," said one chief to the black-bearded
Viking.

"Ay," replied Ketill, "a burial worthy of King Estein, and a royal
feast we shall have to follow it."

"Men say he means to set out on a Viking foray, and that before
many days are past," said the other.

"They speak truth," answered Ketill. "Many a man will he give to
the wolves, and eager am I to sail with him. There never was a
bolder captain than Estein."

For the next two days the talk was all of the voyage to the south.
Guests were coming in all the time for Estein's inheritance feast,
and many of them--warriors thirsting for adventure and sea-roving-
-declared their intention of following his banner. A braver force
men said had never followed a king of Sogn to war. For three days
the feasting was to reign, and then, so soon as they were ready to
sail, the host should take the Viking path.

The first night of the feast arrived. The hall was brightly lit
and gaily hung with tapestries and cloths, rich and many-coloured,
and men bravely dressed poured into their places all down the long
rows of benches. The young king sat in his father's high seat, the
highest-born and most honoured guests ranged beside him, and those
of humbler standing in the farther places. First, they drank to
the dead King Hakon, to his various great kinsmen in Valhalla, and
to each of the gods in turn. Then as horns emptied faster toast
after toast was called across the fires, and honoured with shouts
of "Skoal!" that reached far into the night outside.

Estein, as was his usual custom, drank lightly, and often he would
find his thoughts wandering among the most incongruous events--
starlight nights in a far-off islet, tossings on distant seas, and
over and over again they would stray to that glimpse of a maiden
in the Jemtland forests. Helgi, in whose blue eyes there danced a
light that was never kindled by water, rallied him on his absence
of mind.

"Drink deeper, Estein!" he cried. "Laugh, O king! Look, there sits
Ketill, the married man; methinks he looks thirsty. Ketill! drink
with me to your wife."

"The trolls take my wife!" thundered Ketill, who, it may be
remembered, had espoused a wealthy widow. "That is only a toast
for single men!"

When the shout of laughter that greeted this speech had subsided,
Helgi turned again to Estein, and exclaimed,--

"Then that is the toast for us, King Estein. I drink to your
bride!"

"Who is she, Helgi?" cried his father jovially. "Name her. I would
that I might see another king married before I die. I saw your
mother married, Estein, and a fair maid she was. The girls must be
less fair now, or a gallant king will not stay single long."

"I could name one fair maid," said Helgi, glancing at the king,
but in Estein's eye he saw a warning look.

"I have sterner things to think of, jarl," said Estein. "Five days
from this I hope to be upon the sea."

As he spoke, one of his hird-men came up to the high seat and
stopped close beside him.

"What ho, Kari!" cried Helgi, "you are strangely sober."

"I have a message for the king," replied the man.




CHAPTER XVII.

THE END OF THE STORY.


"A boon! a boon!" exclaimed Helgi. "Kari seeks a boon. A wife, or
a farm, or a pair of pigskin trousers; which is it, Kari? Before
you win it you must sing us a stave. Strike up, man!"

"No boon I seek," replied Kari. "A maiden stands without who seeks
King Estein, and will not come inside."

"Aha!" laughed Helgi. "Blows the wind that way?"

"What does she want?" asked Estein.

"I know not; she would not tell."

"Tell her to come in," said Earl Sigvald. "Do you think it is
fitting that the king should go out at every woman's pleasure?"

"That is what I told her, but she said she would see the king
outside or go away."

"Bid her come in or go away!" cried the earl.

"Nay, rather ask her what her errand is about," said Estein.

"And tell her," added Helgi as the bird-man turned away, "that
here sits the king's foster-brother, a most proper person at all
times to hear a maiden's tale, and now most persuasively charged
with ale."

The man went down the hall again, and Earl Sigvald exclaimed
testily,--

"Some thrall's sweetheart doubtless, come to babble her
complaints."

"Or perhaps the bride come to claim King Estein's hand," suggested
his son. In a minute Kari returned.

"She will not tell her business," he said, "but begs earnestly to
see the king."

"Bid her begone!" cried the earl. "The king is feasting with his
guests."

"Did not her eyes sparkle and her trouble seem to leave her when
she heard the king's foster-brother was here?" asked Helgi.

"I shall press his claims myself," said Estein, rising from his
seat.

"Will you see her then?" asked the earl.

"Why not?" replied Estein. "Perchance she brings tidings of
importance."

"If you rise at every strange woman's bidding you will have many
suitors," said the earl.

"That is the lot of a king," replied Estein, with a smile.

The smile died quickly from his face as he walked down the hall,
and men noticed that he looked grave and preoccupied again. It was
not that his thoughts were running on this unusual summons; as he
passed through the dark vestibule he felt only a little curiosity,
and at the door he paused and looked out idly enough.

It was a fine starlight night, and down below he could see the
glimmer of the sea, and across the fiord the black outline of the
hills, and nearer at hand he heard the sough of the night breeze
in the pines. Close outside, the tall, hooded figure of a woman
stood clearly outlined, while he himself was obscured in shadow.
At the second glance, something in the pose of his strange visitor
struck his memory sharply. She seemed at first afraid to speak,
and, with rising interest, he said courteously,--

"You wish to see me?"

The girl seemed to start a little, and then she said in a low
voice,--

"Are you King Estein?"

The words were almost lost in the hood that shrouded her head.
They died away to a low whisper; but ere they were gone Estein had
caught the slight flavour of a foreign accent, and for an instant
he was on the Holy Isle again. With a sharp effort he controlled
the sudden rush of emotion they called up, and even altered his
voice to a low, guarded pitch as he answered,--

"I am the king." The girl paused for a moment as if to collect her
thoughts, and then she said,--

"You had a brother, King Estein--Olaf Hakonson--"

She stopped again, and seemed to look hesitatingly at him.

"What of him?" said Estein.

"He fell, alas, long since. Forgive me for calling him to mind
now, but he is in my story."

"Well?"

"Three men were at his death," said the girl, gaining confidence a
little. "Thord the Tall, Snaekol Gunnarson, and Thorfin of
Skapstead. Snaekol and Thorfin are dead long since--may God
forgive them! but Thord the Tall lived to repent of the burning."

"It was an ill deed," said Estein.

"He was a heathen man then, King Estein--but I forget, you know
not of Christians."

"I have heard of them," said Estein, half to himself.

"As the years drew on he became a Christian, and followed another
God and another creed, and left the world and Viking forays, and
came to a little island of the Orkneys with me, his only child.
For both my brothers fell in battle, King Estein, and now there
are none others left in the feud."

"How do men call you?" said Estein, asking only that he might hear
her name again.

"I am Osla, the daughter of Thord the Tall," she answered, drawing
herself up with a touch of half defiant pride. "He was the enemy
of your family, but a lender-man [Footnote: Nobleman.] of high
birth, and a good and noble man."

"Ay?"

"He lived in the island," she went on, "for many years, all alone
save for me."

Estein could not keep himself from asking,--

"Alone all the time?"

"All--save once indeed, when a Viking came by chance, but he left
shortly," and then she continued hastily: "My father thought often
of the burning. Many deeds he had done which he repented of there
in the solitude of the Holy Isle. Yet was he not worse than
others, only he became a Christian, and so they seemed ill deeds
to him."

"Even this burning?" said Estein, a little dryly.

"Think not so harshly of him!" she cried. "He was--he was my
father!"

"I ask your pardon, Mistress Osla. Go on."

"At length he fell sick, and in the last of the winter storms he
died."

So far Estein had been listening most curiously, wondering much
what the upshot of it all would be, and keeping a severe restraint
on his tongue. But at Osla's last words he had nearly betrayed
himself. He was on the verge of crying out in his natural voice,
and when he did speak, it was like a man who is choking over
something.

"Then Thord the Tall is dead?"

"He died penitent, King Estein," said Osla. "And he left me a
writing--for he had taught me the art of reading on the island--
and with it much silver, or at least it seemed much to me. The
writing bade me seek King Hakon."

"Knew he not then of my father's death?"

"He was then alive," she answered; "for the writing further told
me what I knew not before, that I had an uncle still alive, or
rather whom my father thought was still alive, and first of all I
had to seek him. Else should I have come to Sogn in time to see
King Hakon."

"What is this uncle's name?"

"He is called Atli, now," she replied, "but--"

"Atli, a brother of Thord the Tall!"

"Know you him?"

"I have seen him," he answered evasively. "Once he came here. But
how did you find him? He dwells in distant parts, so men say."

"The writing gave me the direction of one who knew where he could
be found, and so I travelled to a far country--Jemtland it is,
many days from Sogn. Thus it was that when I came here King Hakon
had died."

"And now you seek me?"

"You are his son, and my errand deals with you, for the feuds
which were his are now yours," she answered.

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