The Thrall of Leif the Lucky
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Ottilie A. Liljencrantz >> The Thrall of Leif the Lucky
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Stamping and rocking himself back and forth, and banging on the arm of
his seat, the Red One got his breath at last, and bellowed it out. "Leif
the Christian in the den of Skroppa the Witch! His knife proves it;
Thorhall found it among the rocks at her very door. Saw I never such
slyness! Think of it, comrades; he is driven to ask help of Skroppa,--he
who feigns to scowl at her very name!--he who would have us believe in a
god that he does not trust in himself! Here is an unheard-of
two-facedness! Never was such a fraud since Loki. Here is merriment for
all!"
He continued to shout it over and over, roaring with mocking laughter;
his men nudging each other, sniggering and grinning and calling gibes
across the fire. Leif's men sprang up, burning with rage and
shame,--then stood speechless, daring neither to deny nor resent it.
Alwin made a quick step forward to where the firelight revealed him to
all in the room, and cried out hoarsely: "Here is falsehood! My hand,
and no other, took Leif Ericsson's knife to the den of Skroppa the
Witch."
Motion and sound stopped for a moment,--as though the icy blast, that
came just then through the opening door, had frozen all the life in the
room. Then a voice called out that the thrall was lying to cover his
master; and Eric's laughter burst out anew, and the jeering redoubled.
But Alwin's voice rose high above it. "Fools! Is it worth while for me
to give my life for a lie? Ask Sigurd Haraldsson, if you will not
believe me. He knows that I went there on Yule Eve, to ask concerning my
freedom. The knife slipped from my belt as I was climbing the rocks.
Leif knew of it no more than you. Ask Sigurd Haraldsson, if you will not
believe me."
Sigurd rose and tried to speak, but his tongue had become like a
withered leaf in his mouth, so that he could only bow his head.
Yet from him, that was enough. Such an uproar of delight broke from
Leif's men as drowned all the jeering that had gone before, and made the
rafters ring with exulting. Alwin knew that, whatever else he would have
to bear, at least that lie was not upon him, and he drew a deep breath
of relief. All the light did not die out of his face, even when Leif
stepped out of the shadow of the door and stood before him.
She had not spoken falsely who had said that the fire of Eric burned in
the veins of his son. In his white-hot anger, the guardsman's face was
terrible. Death was in his stern-set mouth, and death blazed from his
eyes. Rolf, Sigurd, Helga, even Valbrand, cried out for mercy; but Alwin
read the look aright, and asked for nothing that was not there.
While their cries were still in the air, Leif's blade leaped from its
scabbard, quivered in the light, and flashed down, biting through fur
and hair and flesh and bone. Without a sound, Alwin fell forward
heavily, and lay upon his face at his master's feet.
That all men might know whose hand had done the deed, Leif flung the
dripping sword down beside its victim, and without speaking, strode out
of the room.
Then a strange thing happened. Helga ran over to where the lifeless heap
lay in a widening pool of blood, and raised the wounded head in her
arms, and rained down upon the still white face such tears as no one had
ever thought to see her shed. When Thorhild came to take her away, she
cried out, so that every one could hear:
"Do you not understand?--I loved him. I did not find it out until now. I
loved him with all my heart, and now he will never know! I--loved him."
CHAPTER XXI
THE HEART OF A SHIELD-MAIDEN
Cattle die,
Kindred die,
We ourselves also die;
But the fair fame
Never dies
Of him who has earned it.
Ha'vama'l
Out of doors the stir of spring was in the air; snow melting on the
hills, grass sprouting on the plains. Editha's troubled face brightened
a little, as she turned up the lane against the sun and felt its warmth
upon her cheek.
"It gives one the feeling that it will melt one's sorrows as it melts
the snow," she told herself.
Then she passed through the gate into the budding courtyard, where her
eye fell upon Leif's sleeping-loft, with Kark running briskly up the
steps; and the brightness faded.
"But there is some ice the sun cannot melt," she sighed.
On the threshold of the great hall, Thorhild stood waiting for her.
Inside, all was confusion,--men placing tables and bringing in straw;
maids spreading the embroidered cloths and hanging the holiday
tapestries. The matron's head-dress was awry; her cheeks were like
poppies, and her keys were kept in a perpetual jingle by her bustling
motions.
She cried out, as soon as Editha came within hearing distance: "How long
you have been, you little good-for-nothing! I have looked out four times
for you. Was Astrid away from home? Did you return by Eric's Fiord, and
learn whose ship it is that is coming in?"
The little Saxon maid dropped her respectful curtsey. If at the same
time she dropped her eyes with a touch of embarrassment, the matron was
too preoccupied to observe it.
"I was hindered by necessity, lady. Astrid was not away from home, but
she was uncertain whether her son would wish to sell any malt, so I was
obliged to wait until he came in from the stables."
"Humph," sniffed Thorhild; "Egil Olafsson has become of great importance
since his father was mound-laid. This is the third time I have been kept
waiting for his leave." She turned on the girl sharply. "By no means do
I believe that to be the reason for your long absences. I believe you
plead that as an excuse."
Editha caught at the door-post, and her face went from red to white and
back to red again.
"Indeed, lady--" she began.
Thorhild shook a menacing finger at her. "One never needs to tell me!
She keeps you there to gossip about my household. Though she is my
friend, she is as great a gossip as ever wagged a tongue."
Even though the hand still threatened her ears, one would have said that
Editha looked relieved. She said, with well-feigned reluctance: "It is
true that we have sometimes spoken of Brattahlid while I waited. Astrid
looks favorably upon my needlework. Once or twice she has said that she
would like to buy me--"
This time Thorhild snorted. "She takes too much trouble! Helga will
never sell you to anyone. You need get no such ideas into your head. Why
do you talk such foolishness, and hinder me from my work? Can you not
tell me shortly whether or not you got the malt?"
"I did, lady. Two thralls will bring it as soon as it can be weighed."
"I shall need it, if guests arrive. And what of the ship? Did you learn
whose it is? It takes till pyre-and-fire to get anything out of you."
Editha's rosy face, usually as full of placid content as a kitten's,
suddenly puckered with anxiety. "Lady, as I passed, it was still a long
way down the fiord. I could only see that it was a large and fine
trading-vessel. But one of the seamen on the shore told me it was his
belief that it is the ship of Gilli of Trond-hjem."
The house-wife's keys clashed and clattered with her motion of surprise.
"Gilli of Trondhjem! Then he has come to take Helga!"
Editha nervously clasped and unclasped her hands. "I got afraid it might
be so."
"Afraid, you simpleton?" The matron laughed excitedly, as she brushed
all stray hairs out of her eyes and tightened her apron for action. "It
will become a great boon to her. Since the Englishman's death, she has
been no better than a crazy Brynhild. To take her out into the world and
entertain her with new sights,--it will be the saving of her! Run
quickly and tell her the tidings; and see to it that she puts on her
most costly clothes. Tell her that if she will also put on the ornaments
Leif has given her, I will give her leave to stop embroidering for the
day."
Editha observed to herself, as she tripped away, that undoubtedly her
mistress had already done that without waiting for permission. And it
proved very shortly that she was right.
In the great work-room of the women's-house, among deserted looms and
spindles and embroidery frames, Helga sat in dreamy idleness. The
whirlwind of excitement that had swept her companions away at the news
of approaching guests, had passed over her without so much as ruffling a
hair. Her golden head rested heavily against the wall behind her; her
hands lay listlessly upon her lap. Her face was as white as the unmelted
snow in the valleys, and the spring sun-shine had brought no sparkle to
relieve the shadow in her eyes.
Without looking around, she said dreamily: "It was one year ago to-day
that I came into the trader's booth in Norway and saw him sitting there
among the thralls."
Editha stole over to her and lifted one of her hands out of her lap and
kissed it. "Lady, do not be all the time thinking of him. You will break
your heart, and to no purpose. Besides, I have news of great importance
for you. I have seen the ship that is coming up the fiord, and men say
it is the vessel of your father, Gilli of Trondhjem."
With something of her old fire, Helga snatched her hand away and started
up. "Do you know this for certain? And do you believe that Thorhild will
give me up to him?"
"Worse than that, lady,--she is even anxious that he shall take you,
thinking it will be to your advantage."
For awhile Helga sat staring before her, with expressions of anger and
despair flickering over her face. Then, gradually, they died down like
flames into ashes. She sank back against the wall, and her eyes faded
dull and absent again.
"After all, what does it matter?" she said, listlessly. "I shall not
find it any worse there than here. Nothing matters now."
Editha made a little moan, like one in sudden pain; hut it seemed as
though she did not dare to interrupt the other's revery. She stood,
softly wringing her hands. It was Helga who finally broke the silence.
Suddenly she turned, an angry gleam replacing the dulness in her eyes.
"Did the ship bring more tidings of the battle? Is it certain that King
Olaf Trygvasson is slain?"
Editha answered, in some surprise: "It had not come to land when I was
there, lady. I am unable to tell you anything new. But the men who came
last week, and first told us of the battle, say that Eric Jarl is now
the King over Norway, and there is no doubt that Olaf Trygvasson is
dead."
Helga laughed, a hateful laugh that made her pretty mouth as cruel as a
wolf's. "It gladdens me that he is dead. I am well content that Leif's
heart should be black with mourning. He killed the man I loved, and now
the King he loved is slain,--and he was not there to fight for him. It
is a just punishment upon him. I am glad that he should suffer a little
of all that he has made me suffer."
Editha moaned again, and flung out her hands with a gesture of entreaty.
"Dearest lady, if only you would not allow yourself to suffer so! If
only you would bear it calmly, as I have begged of you! Even though you
died, it would not help. It is wasting your grief--" She stopped, for
her mistress was looking at her fixedly.
"I do not understand you," Helga said, slowly. "Is it wasting grief to
mourn the death of Alwin of England, than whom God never made a nobler
or higher-minded man?" She rose out of her seat, and Editha shrank away
from her. "I do not understand you,--you who pretend to have loved him
since he was a child. Is it indeed your wish that I should act as though
I cared nothing for him? Did you really care nothing for him yourself?
Your face has grown no paler since his death-day; you are as fat as
ever; you have seldom shed a tear. Was all your loyalty to him a lie? By
the edge of my knife, if I thought so I would give you cause to weep! I
would drive the blood from your deceitful face forever!"
She caught the Saxon girl by the wrist and forced her upon her knees;
her beautiful eyes were as awful as the eyes of a Valkyria in battle.
The bondmaid screamed at the sight of them, and threw up an arm to
shield herself.
"No, no! Listen, and I will tell you the truth! Though they kill me, I
will tell yon. Put down your head,--I dare not say it aloud. Listen!"
Mechanically, Helga bent her head and received into her ear three
whispered words. She loosed her hold upon the other's wrists and stood
staring at her, at first in anger, and then with a sort of dawning pity.
"Poor creature! grief has gotten you out of your wits," she said. "And I
was harsh with you because I thought you did not care!" She put out a
hand to raise her, but Editha caught it in both of hers, fondling it and
clinging to it.
"Sweetest lady, I am not out of my wits. It is the truth, the blessed
truth. Mine own eyes have proved it. Four times has Thorhild sent me on
errands to Egil's house, and each time have I seen--"
"Yet said nothing to me! You have let me suffer!"
"No, no, spare me your reproaches! How was it possible for me to do
otherwise? If you had known, all would have suspected; 'A woman's eyes
cannot hide it when she loves.' Sigurd Haraldsson bound me firmly. I was
told only because it was necessary that I should carry their messages.
It has torn my heart to let you grieve. Only love for him could have
kept me to it. Believe it, and forgive me. Say that you forgive me!"
Helga flung her arms open wide. "Forgive? I forgive everyone in the
whole world--everything!" She threw herself, sobbing, upon Editha's
breast, and they clung together like sisters.
While they were still mingling their tears and rejoicings, the old
housekeeper looked in with a message from Thorhild.
"Sniffling, as I had expected! Have the wits left both of you? Even now
Gilli of Trondhjem is coming up the lane. It is the command of Thorhild
that you be dressed and ready to hand him his ale the moment he has
taken off his outer garments. If you have any sense left, make haste."
When the door had closed on the wrinkled old visage, Editha sent a
doubtful glance at her mistress. But the shield-maiden leaped up with a
laugh like a joyful chime of bells.
"Gladly will I put on the finest clothes I own, and feast the whole
night through! Nothing matters now. So long as he is alive, things must
come out right some way. Nothing matters now!"
CHAPTER XXII
IN THE SHADOW OF THE SWORD
It is better to live,
Even to live miserably;
..........
The halt can ride on horseback;
The one-handed, drive cattle;
The deaf, fight and be useful;
To be blind is better
Than to be burnt;
No one gets good from a corpse.
Ha'vama'l
"Egil! Egil Olafsson!" It was Helga's voice, with a note of happiness
thrilling through it like the trill in a canary's song.
Egil turned from the field in which his men were and came slowly to
where she stood leaning over the fence that separated the field from the
lane. He guessed from her voice that they had told her the secret, and
when he came near enough to see, he knew it from her face; it was like a
rose-garden burst into bloom. His lowering brow scowled itself into a
harder knot. With the death of his father, he had thrown aside the
scarlet clothes of Leif's men, and wore the brown homespun of a farmer.
From his neck downward, everything spoke of thrift and industry and
peace. But his fierce dark face looked the harsher for the contrast.
Helga stretched her hand across the fence. "I am going to see Alwin, for
the first time after all these months. They told me two days ago, but
this is the first chance I could find. But even before I saw him, I
thought it right to see you and thank you for your wondrous goodness.
Sigurd has told me how they carried Alwin to you in the night, and you
received him and sheltered him, and--"
Egil silenced her with a rough gesture. "I kept my oath of friendship;
speak no further of it. Do you know where he is hidden?"
"Sigurd told me he is in the cabin of your old foster-mother, Solveig. I
do not remember whether that is to the left or the right of the lane.
But it is a most ingenious hiding-place. No one ever goes there, and
Solveig is the most accomplished of nurses."
"Since you do not remember where it is, I will walk with you, if it is
not against your wish." He shouted some final directions to the men in
the field, then leaped over the fence and strode along beside her.
He appeared to have nothing to say, after they were once started, and
they went through lane and pasture and field in silence. But as soon as
she broke out with fresh praise for his kindness, he found his tongue in
all its curt vigor.
"Enough has been said about that. I have been wishing to speak to you of
something that happened at the feast the other night. Do you know that
my kinswoman Astrid told Gilli of her wish to buy your bondwoman, and--"
For a moment there was something wolfish about Helga's white teeth. She
struck in quickly: "Yes, I know. Gilli agreed to sell Editha to her, the
day we sail. It is exactly what I expected of him. If Astrid should
offer a little more, he would be apt to sell me. He is the
lowest-minded--Bah!" It seemed as though words failed her. She threw her
hands apart in a gesture of utter detestation. The glow was gone out of
her face.
"What I wanted to say is, that if it is your wish, I will persuade my
mother to withdraw her offer."
After a while Helga shook her head. "No. He would only sell her to some
one else. It would trouble me to think of her among strangers, and your
mother would treat her kindly." She paused, at the top of the stile they
were climbing over, to look down at him earnestly. "I should be thankful
if you would promise me that, Egil. You are master now, and can have
your will about everything. Promise me you will see that she is well
treated."
"I promise you." Helga threw a grateful look after him, as he went along
before her. "Your word is like a rock, Egil. One could hold on to it
though everything else should roll away."
The cloud was passing from her face. By the time she gained his side,
the rose-garden was once more radiant in sunlight.
"After all, I do not feel that I have a right to let anything grieve me
much, since God has given Alwin back from the dead. I set my mind to
thinking of that, and then everything else seems small and easily
remedied. Even Gilli's coming it is possible to turn to profit. I have a
fine plan--"
She broke off abruptly as, through a clump of white-birch trees, she
caught sight of a tiny cabin nestled in their green shelter.
"That is Solveig's house; now I remember it! How is it possible that it
has held such a secret for four months, and still looks just as usual?
Let us hurry!" She seized his arm to pull him along. Only when he
wrenched away and came to a dead stop, did she slacken her pace to stare
at him over her shoulder.
"Do you wish to drive me crazy?" he shouted.
She thought him already so, and drew back.
He waited to take a fresh grip on his self-control. When he spoke at
last, it was with labored slowness: "Every week for four months I have
come to this door and asked the Englishman how he fared; and he has not
wished for anything that I have not given it to him. The night they left
him with me, I could have put my fingers around his throat and killed
him; and no one would have known. But I held my hands behind me, and
allowed him to live. So far, I have kept my oath of friendship. Do you
wish me to go in with you and break it now?"
Before she could gather her wits together to answer him, he was gone.
Standing where he had left her, she stared after him, open-mouthed,
until her eye fell upon the cabin among the bushes, when she forgot
everything else in the world. She ran toward it and threw open the door.
The low room was smoky and badly lighted. Before she could distinguish
her lover in the dimness, he was upon her, calling her name over and
over, crushing her hands in his. She cried out, and lifted her face, and
his lips met hers, warm and living. It was the same as though nothing
had happened since last she saw him.
No, not quite the same; she saw that, the instant she drew back. Alwin
was very thin, and in the half-light his face showed white and haggard.
An ugly scar stretched half across his forehead. At the sight of it her
eyes flashed, and she reached up and touched with her lips the fiery
mark.
"How I hate Leif for that!" Then she saw the greatest change of all in
him, the quiet grimness that had come upon him out of his nights of pain
and days of solitude.
"That is unfairly spoken, sweetheart. I have but paid the price I agreed
to pay if luck went against me. Leif has dealt with me only according to
justice; that I will maintain, though I die under his sword at the
last."
She drew a quick, sharp breath. In the joy of recovery, she had let
herself forget that he is only half alive who lives under the shadow of
a death sentence. She set her teeth over her lip to stop its trembling,
and stiffened herself to the iron composure of a shield-maiden.
"It is true that you are yet in great danger. His anger has not yet
departed from him, for not once has your name passed his lips. Sit down
here and tell me what you think of your case."
Alwin recalled the weeping and fainting of his mother's waiting-women,
in that far-off time of trouble, and pressed her hand gratefully as he
took his seat by her side upon the bench. "You are my brave comrade as
well as my best friend. I can talk with you as I would with Sigurd."
Just for a moment she laid her cheek against his shoulder. "It gladdens
me that you are content with me as I am, instead of wishing me to be
like Bertha of Trondhjem and other women," she whispered.
Then the memory linked with that name caused her to straighten again and
look at him doubtfully. "Has Solveig told you all the latest tidings?"
"She has told me nothing for a week. She is up at the hall just now,
helping with the spinning; but Editha was here two days ago. Is it of
King Olaf that you are thinking? She told me of the battle; and I am
full of sorrow for Leif. She told me that his room was draped in black,
and that he stopped preparing for his exploring voyage and shut himself
up for four days and four nights, without eating or speaking."
"He has begun his preparations again. His sorrow is not worth
considering. Or, rather, I shall grieve with him when he grieves for
you. The tidings that I mean concern Gilli of Trondhjem. Do you know
that he has come to take me away?"
She wanted to see the despair in his face, that she might feel how much
he cared; then she hastened to reassure him. "But do not trouble
yourself over that. Even though I go with him, it will do no harm. If he
tries to marry me to anyone, I will pretend that I think the marriage
beneath me. I will work upon his greediness, and so trick him into
waiting; and in a year you will come and rescue me."
"If I am alive!" Alwin interrupted her sharply. He sprang up and began
to pace the floor, clenching his fists and knocking them together. "If I
am alive I will come. But it is by no means unlikely that Leif will
carry out his intention. Then you will be left in Gilli's power
forever."
She laughed as she went to him and brought him back and pushed him down
upon the bench.
"See how love makes a coward of a man as well as of a woman! But do not
trouble yourself over that, either. Have you never heard the love-tale
of Hagberth and Signe? How, the same moment in which she saw him hanged
upon the gallows, she set fire to her house and strangled herself with
her ribbons, so that their two souls met on the threshold of Paradise
and went in together? If you die, I will die too; and that will arrange
everything." She clung to him for a moment, and he feared that she was
about to dishonor her shield by a burst of tears.
But in an instant she looked up at him with her brave smile. "We will
end this talk about dying, however. Remember the old saying, 'If a man's
time has not come, something is sure to aid him.' There is another fate
in store for you than to lose your life in this matter, or you would
have died when Leif struck you down. I love the cap that saved you! We
will not talk about dying, but only of our hopes. I have planned how
Gilli may be made useful, so that on his vessel you can escape to
Norway."
She put her hand over his mouth as he would have spoken. "No, listen to
me before you say anything against it. Gilli will sail next week. At
that time Leif will be absent on a visit to Biorn Herjulfsson, who has
just returned to Greenland from Norway. With Leif, Kark will go, so that
we shall not have his prying eyes to fear. What would prevent you from
stealing down to the shore, the night before we sail, and swimming out
to the ship and hiding yourself in one of the great chests in the
foreroom? The steersman will not hinder you, for I have spoken so many
fine words to him, with this deed in view, that he is ready to chop off
his head at my bidding. Thus will you get far out at sea before they
discover you. Gilli will not know that he has ever seen you before, you
are so white and changed; and when he has taken away all the property
you have on you, he will say nothing further about the matter. So will
you be brought to Norway,--and thence it is not far to your England,
though I do not know if that is of any importance. But if you say that
this plan is otherwise than ingenious, I shall be angry with you."
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