The Thrall of Leif the Lucky

O >> Ottilie A. Liljencrantz >> The Thrall of Leif the Lucky

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Alwin was in the mood to suffer torture with a smile. The more
outrageous Valbrand depicted him, the better he was pleased. Leif made
no comment whatever, but sat pulling at his long mustaches and eying
them from under his bushy brows.

When the steersman had finished, he asked, "Is Kark slain?"

Glancing back, Valbrand saw the bowerman sitting up and feeling of his
wounds. "Except a lump on his head, I do not think he is worse than
before," he answered.

"So," said Leif with an accent of relief. "Then it is not worth while to
say much. If he had been killed, his father would have taken it ill; and
that would have displeased Eric and hurt my mission. It would have
become necessary for me to slay this boy to satisfy them. Now it is of
little importance."

He straightened abruptly and waved them away.

"What more is there to do about it?" he added. "This fellow has been
punished, and Kark has got one of the many knocks his insolence
deserves. Let us end this talk,--only see to it that they do not kill
each other. I do not wish to lose any more property." He motioned them
off, and turned back to Tyrker.

But there was more to it. Something,--Leif's curtness, or the touch of
Valbrand's hand upon his naked shoulder,--roused Alwin's madness afresh.
Shaking off the hand, fighting it off, he bearded the chief himself.

"I will kill him if ever he utters his cur's yelp at me again. You are
blind and simple to think to keep an earl-born man under the feet of a
churl. You are a fool to keep an accomplished man at work that any
simpleton might do. I will not bear with your folly. I will slay the
hound the first chance I get." He ended breathless and trembling with
passion.

Valbrand stood aghast. Leif's brows drew down so low that nothing but
two fiery sparks showed of his eyes. Through Alwin went the same thrill
he had felt when the trader's sword-point pricked his breast.

Yet the lightning did not strike. Alwin glanced up, amazed. While he
stared, a subtle change crept over the chief. Slowly he ceased to be the
grim curt Viking: slowly he became the nobleman whose stateliness
minstrels celebrated in their songs, and the King spoke of with praise.
A stillness seemed to gather round them. Alwin felt his anger cooling
and sinking within him.

After a time, Leif said with the calmness of perfect superiority: "It
may be that I have not treated you as honorably as you deserve. Yet what
am I to think of these words of yours? Is it after such fashion that a
jarl-born man with accomplishments addresses his lord in your country?"

To the blunt old steersman, to the ox-like Olver, to the half-dozen
others who heard it, the change was incomprehensible. They stared at
their master, then at each other, and finally gave it up as a whim past
their understanding. It may be that Leif was curious to see whether it
would be incomprehensible to Alwin as well. He sat watching him
intently.

Alwin's eyes fell before his master's. The stately quietness, the noble
forbearance, were like voices out of his past. They called up memories
of his princess-mother, of her training, of the dignity that had always
surrounded her. Suddenly he saw, as for the first time, the roughness
and coarseness of the life about him, and realized how it had roughened
and coarsened him. A dull red mounted to his face. Slowly, like one
groping for a half forgotten habit, he bent his knee before the offended
chief. Unconsciously, for the first time in his thraldom, he gave to a
Northman the title a Saxon uses to his superior.

"Lord, you are right to think me unmannerly. I was mad with anger so
that I did not weigh my words. I will say nothing against it if you
treat me like a churl."

To the others, this also was inexplicable. They scratched their heads,
and rubbed their ears, and gaped at one another. Leif smiled grimly as
he caught their looks. Picking a silver ring from his pouch, he tossed
it to Valbrand.

"Take this to Kark to pay him for his broken head, and advise him to
make less noise with his mouth in the future." When they were gone he
turned to Alwin and signed him to rise. "You understand a language that
churls do not understand. I will try you further. Go dress yourself,
then bring hither the runes you were reading to Rolf Erlingsson."

Alwin obeyed in silence, a tumult of long-quiet emotions whirling
through his brain,--relief and shame and gratification, and, underneath
it all, a new-born loyalty.

All the rest of the day, until the sun dropped like a red ball behind
the waves, he sat at the chief's feet and read to him from the Saxon
book. He read stumblingly, haltingly; but he was not blamed for his
blunders. His listener caught at the meanings hungrily, and pieced out
their deficiencies with his keen wit and dressed their nakedness in his
vivid imagination. Now his great chest heaved with passion, and his
strong hand gripped his sword-hilt; now he crossed himself and sighed,
and again his eyes flashed like smitten steel. When at last the failing
light compelled Alwin to lay down the book, the chief sat for a long
time staring at him with keen but absent eyes.

After a while he said, half as though he was speaking to himself: "It is
my belief that Heaven itself has sent you to me, that I may be
strengthened and inspired in my work." His face kindled with devout
rapture. "It must have been by the guidance of Heaven that you were
trained in so unusual an accomplishment. It was the hand of God that led
you hither, to be an instrument in a great work."

Awe fell upon Alwin, and a shiver of superstition that was almost
terror. He bowed his head and crossed himself.

But when he looked up, the thread had snapped; Leif was himself again.
He was eying the boy critically, though with a new touch of something
like respect.

He said abruptly: "It is not altogether befitting that one who has the
accomplishments of a holy priest should go garbed like a base-bred
thrall. What is the color of the clothes that priests wear in England?"

Alwin answered, wondering: "They wear black habits, lord. It is for that
reason that they are called Black Monks."

Rising, Leif beckoned to Valbrand. When the steersman stood before him,
he said: "Take this boy down to my chests and clothe him from head to
foot in black garments of good quality. And hereafter let it be
understood that he is my honorable bowerman, and a person of breeding
and accomplishments."

The old henchman looked at the new favorite as dispassionately as he
would have looked at a weapon or a dog that had taken his master's
fancy. "I would not oppose your will in this, any more than in other
things; yet I take it upon me to remind you of Kark. If you make this
cook-boy your bowerman, to keep the scales balancing you must make him
who was your bowerman into a cook-boy. It is in my mind that Kark's
father will take that as il1 as--"

A sweep of Leif's arm swept Kark out of the path of his will. "Who is it
that is to command me how I shall choose my servants? The Fates made
Kark a cook-boy when he was born; let him go back where he belongs. I
have endured his boorishness long enough. Am I to despise a tool that
Heaven has sent me because a clod at my feet is jealous? What kind of
luck could that bring?"

Convinced or not, Valbrand was silenced. "It shall be as you wish," he
muttered.

Alwin fell on his knee, and, not daring to kiss the chief's hand, raised
the hem of the scarlet cloak to his lips.

"Lord," he said earnestly; then stopped because he could not find words
in which to speak his gratitude. "Lord--" he began again, and again he
was at a loss. At last he finished bluntly, "Lord, I will serve you as
only a man can serve whose whole heart is in his work."

CHAPTER XI

THE PASSING OF THE SCAR

A ship is made for sailing,
A shield for sheltering,
A sword for striking,
A maiden for kisses.
Ha'vama'l

"When the sun rises tomorrow it is likely that we shall see Greenland
ahead of us," growled Egil.

With Sigurd and the Wrestler, he was lounging against the side, watching
the witch-fires run along the waves through the darkness. The new
bower-man stood next to Sigurd, but Egil could not properly be said to
be with him, for the two only spoke under the direst necessity. Around
them, under the awnings, in the light of flaring pine torches, the crew
were sprawled over the rowing-benches killing time with drinking and
riddles.

"It seems to me that it will gladden my heart to see it," Sigurd
responded. "As I think of the matter, I recall great fun in Greenland.
There were excellent wrestling matches between the men of the East and
the West settlements. And do you remember the fine feasts Eric was wont
to make?"

Rolf gently smacked his lips and laid his hands upon his stomach. "By
all means. And remember also the seal hunting and the deer-shooting!"

Sigurd's eyes glistened. "Many good things may be told of Greenland.
There is no place in the world so fine to run over on skees. By Saint
Michael, I shall be glad to get there!" He struck Egil a rousing blow
upon the sullen hump of his shoulders.

Unmoved, the Black One continued to stare out into the darkness, his
chin upon his fists.

"Ugh! Yes. Very likely," he grunted. "Very likely it will be clear
sailing for you, but it is my belief that some of us will run into a
squall when we have left Leif and gone to our own homes, and it becomes
known to our kinsmen that we are no longer Odin-men. It is probable that
my father will stick his knife into me."

There was a pause while they digested the truth of this; until Rolf
relieved the tension by saying quietly: "Speak for yourself, companion.
My kinsman is no such fool. He has been on too many trading voyages
among the Christians. Already he is baptized in both faiths; so that
when Thor does not help him, he is wont to pray to the god of the
Christians. Thus is he safe either way; and not a few Greenland chiefs
are of his opinion."

Sigurd's merry laugh rang out. "Now that is having a cloak to wear on
both sides, according to the weather! If only Eric were so minded--"

"Is Eric the ruler in Greenland?" Alwin interrupted. All this while he
had been looking from one to the other, listening attentively.

The two sons of Greenland chiefs answered "No!" in one breath. Sigurd
raised quizzical eyebrows.

"I admit that he is not the ruler in name, Greenland being a republic,
but in fact--?"

They let him go on without contradiction.

"Thus it stands, Alwin. Eric the Red was the first to settle in
Greenland, therefore he owns the most land. Besides Brattahlid, he owns
many fishing stations; and he also has stations on several islands where
men gather eggs for him and get what drift-wood there is. And not only
is he the richest man, but he is also the highest-born, for his father's
father was a jarl of Jaederan; and so--"

It is to be feared that Alwin lost some of this. He broke in suddenly:
"Now I know where it is that I have heard the name of Eric the Red! It
has haunted me for days. In the trader's booth in Norway a minstrel sang
a ballad of 'Eric the Red and his Dwarf-Cursed Sword.' Know you of it?"

He was answered by the involuntary glances that the others cast toward
the chief.

Rolf said with a shrug: "It is bondmaids' gabble. There is little need
to say that a dwarf cursed Eric's sword, to explain how it comes that he
has been three times exiled for manslaughter, and driven from Norway to
Iceland and from Iceland to Greenland. He quarrelled and slew wherever
he settled, because he has a temper like that of the dragon Fafnir."

A faint red tinged Egil's dark cheeks. "Nevertheless, Skroppa's prophecy
has come true," he muttered, "that after the blade was once sheathed in
the new soil of Greenland, it would bring no more ill-luck."

"Skroppa!" cried Alwin. But he got no further, for Sigurd's hand was
clapped over his mouth.

"Lower your voice when you speak that name, comrade," the Silver-Tongued
warned him.

"Do not speak it at all," Egil interrupted brusquely. "The English girl
is coming aft. It is likely she brings some message from Helga."

They faced about eagerly. Editha's smooth brown head was indeed to be
seen threading its way between the noisy groups. They agreed that it was
time they heard from the shield-maiden. For her to take advantage of her
womanhood, and turn the forecastle into a woman's-house, and forbid
their approach, was something unheard-of and outrageous.

"It would be treating her as she deserves if we should refuse to go now
when she sends for us," Egil growled, though without any apparent
intention of carrying out the threat.

To the extreme amusement of his fellows, Sigurd began to settle his
ornaments and rearrange his long locks.

"It may be that she accepts my invitation to play chess. Leif spoke with
her for a long time this afternoon; it is likely that he roused her from
her black mood."

"It is likely that he roused her," Alwin said slowly.

There was something so peculiar in his voice that they all turned and
looked at him. He had suddenly grown very red and uncomfortable.

"It seems that anyone can be foreknowing at certain times," he said,
trying to smile. "Now my mind tells me that the summons will be for me."

"For you!" Egil's brows became two black thunder-clouds from under which
his eyes flashed lightnings at the thrall.

Alwin yielded to helpless laughter. "There is little need for you to get
angry. Rather would I be drowned than go."

It was Sigurd's turn to be offended. "I had thought better of you, Alwin
of England, than to suppose that you would cherish hatred against a
woman who has offered to be your friend."

"Hatred?" For a moment Alwin did not understand him; then he added: "By
Saint George, that is so! I had altogether forgotten that it was my
intention to hate her! I swear to you, Sigurd, I have not thought of the
matter these two weeks."

"Which causes me to suspect that you have been thinking very hard of
something else," Rolf suggested.

But Alwin closed his lips and kept his eyes on Editha's approaching
figure.

The little bondmaid came up to them, dropped as graceful a curtsey as
she could manage with the pitching of the vessel, and said timidly: "If
it please you, my lord Alwin, my mistress desires to speak with you at
once."

"Hail to the prophet!" laughed Sigurd, pretending to rumple the locks
that he had so carefully smoothed.

"Now Heaven grant that I am a false prophet in the rest of my
foretelling," Alwin murmured to himself, as he followed the girl
forward. "If I am forced to tell her the truth, I think it likely she
will scratch my eyes out."

She did not look dangerous when he came up to her. She was sitting on a
little stool, with her hands folded quietly in her lap, and on her
beautiful face the dazed look of one who has heard startling news. But
her first question was straight to the mark.

"Leif has told me that Gilli and Bertha of Trondhjem are my father and
mother. He says that you have seen them and know them. Tell me what they
are like."

It was an instant plunge into very deep water. Alwin gasped. "Lady,
there are many things to be said on the subject. It may be that I am not
a good judge."

He was glad to stop and accept the stool Editha offered, and spend a
little time settling himself upon it; but that could not last long.

"Bertha of Trondhjem is a very beautiful woman," he began. "It is easy
to believe that she is your mother. Also she is gentle and
kind-hearted--"

Helga's shoulders moved disdainfully. "She must be a coward. To get rid
of her child because a man ordered it! Have you heard that? Because when
I was born some lying hag pretended to read in the stars that I would
one day become a misfortune to my father, he ordered me to be thrown
out--for wolves to eat or beggars to take. And my mother had me carried
to Eric, who is Gilli's kinsman, and bound him to keep it a secret. She
is a coward."

"It must be remembered that she had been a captive of Gilli," Alwin
reminded the shield-maiden. "Even Norse wives are sometimes--"

"She is a coward. Tell me of Gilli. At least he is not witless. What is
he like?"

Again the deep water. Alwin stirred in his seat and fingered at the
silver lace on his cap. He was dressed splendidly now. Left's wardrobe
had contained nothing black that was also plain, so the bowerman's long
hose were of silk, his tunic was seamed with silver, his belt studded
with steel bosses, his cloak lined with fine gray fur.

"Lady," he stammered, "as I have said, it may be that I am not a fair
judge. Gilli did not behave well to me. Yet I have heard that he is very
kind to his wife. It is likely that he would give you costly things--"

Helga's foot stamped upon the deck. "What do I care for that?"

He knew how little she cared. He gave up any further attempts at
diplomacy.

But her next words granted him a respite. "What was the message that you
wrote to my mother for Leif?"

"I think I can remember the exact words," he answered readily, "it gave
me so much trouble to spell them. It read this way, after the greeting:
'Do you remember the child you sent to Eric? She is here in Norway with
me. She is well grown and handsome. I go back the second day after this.
It will be a great grief to her if she is obliged to go also. If her
father could see her, it is likely he would be willing to give her a
home in Norway. It would even be worth while coming all the way to
Greenland after her. It is certain that Gilli would think so, if you
could manage that he should see her.' I think that was all, lady."

"If Gilli is what I suspect him to be, that is more than enough," Helga
said slowly. She raised her head and looked straight into his eyes.
"Answer me this,--you know and must tell,--is he a high-minded warrior
like Leif, or is he a money-loving trader?"

"Lady," said Alwin desperately, "if you will have the truth, he is a
mean-spirited churl who thinks that the only thing in the world is to
have property."

Helga drew a long breath, and her slender hands clenched in her lap.
"Now I have found what I have suspected. Answer this truthfully also: If
I go back to him, is it not likely that he will marry me to the first
creature who offers to make a good bargain with him?"

"Yes," said Alwin.

For days he had been watching her with uneasy pity, whenever in his
mind's eye he saw her in the power of the unscrupulous trader, It had
made him uncomfortable to feel that he was the tool that had brought it
about, even though he knew he was as innocent as the bark on which he
had written.

Drop by drop the blood sank out of Helga's face. Spark by spark, the
light died out of her eyes. Like some poor trapped animal, she sat
staring dully ahead of her.

It was more than Alwin could bear in silence. He leaned forward and
shook her arm. "Lady, do anything rather than despair. Get into a rage
with me,--though Heaven knows I never intended your misfortune! Yet it
is natural you should feel hard toward me. I--"

She stared at him dully. "Why should I be angry with you? You could not
help what you did; and Leif thought I would wish rather to go to my own
mother than to Thorhild."

It had never occurred to Alwin that she would be reasonable. His remorse
became the more eager. He bethought himself of some slight comfort. "At
least it cannot happen for a year, lady. And in--"

She raised her head quickly. "Why can it not happen for a year?"

"Because Gilli is away on a trading voyage, and will not be back until
fall, when it will be too late to start for Greenland. Nor will he come
early in spring and so lose the best of his trading season. It is sure
to be more than a year."

Youth can construct a lifeboat out of a straw. Hope crept back to
Helga's eyes.

"A year is a long time. Many things can happen in a year. Gilli may be
slain, --for every man a mistletoe-shaft grows somewhere. Or I may marry
someone in Greenland. Already two chiefs have asked my hand of Leif, so
it is not likely that I shall lack chances."

"That is true; and it may also happen that the Lady Bertha will never
get my runes. She was absent on a visit when Valbrand left them at her
farm. Or even if she gets them, she may lack courage to tell the news to
Gilli. Or he may dislike the expense of a daughter. Surely, where there
are so many holes, there are many good chances that the danger will fall
through one of them."

Helga flung up her head with a gallant air. "I will heed your advice in
this matter. I will not trouble myself another moment; and I will love
Brattahlid as a bird loves the cliff that hides it! And Thorhild? What
if her nature is such that she is cross? She is no coward. She would
defend those she loved, though she died for it. I should like to see
Eric bid her to abandon a child. There would not be a red hair left in
his beard. Better is it to be brave and true than to be gentle like your
Lady Bertha. Is it because she is my mother that you give that title to
me also?"

Alwin hesitated and reddened. "Yes. And because I like to remember that
there is English blood in you."

Helga paused in the midst of her excitement, and her face softened. She
looked at him, and her starry eyes were full of frank good-will.

She said slowly, "Since there is English blood in me, it may be that you
will some time ask for the friendship I have offered you."

At that moment, it seemed to Alwin that such simplicity and frankness
were worth more than all the gentle graces of his country-women. He put
out his hand.

"You need not wait long for me to ask that," he said. "I would have
asked it a week ago, but I could not think it honorable to call myself
your friend when I had injured you so."

Helga's slim fingers gave his a firm clasp, but she laughed merrily.

"That is where you are mistaken. If you had not injured me, you would
never have forgotten that I had injured you. Now we are even, and we
start afresh. That is a good thing."

CHAPTER XII

THROUGH BARS OF ICE

A day should be praised at night;
A sword when it is tried;
Ice when it is crossed.
Ha'vama'l

A dim line of snowy islands, so far apart that it was hard to believe
they were only the ice-tipped summits of Greenland's towering coast,
stretched across the horizon. Standing at Helga's side in the bow, Alwin
gazed at them earnestly.

"To think," he marvelled, "that we have come to the very last land on
this side of the world! Suppose we were to sail still further west? What
is it likely that we would come to? Does the ocean end in a wall of ice,
or would we fall off the earth and go tumbling heels over head through
the darkness--? By St. George, it makes one dizzy!"

Helga's ideas were not much clearer. It was nearly five hundred years
before the time of Columbus. But she knew one thing that Alwin did not
know.

"Greenland is not the most western land," she corrected. "There is
another still further west, though no one knows how big it is or who
lives in it."

She turned, laughing, to where young Haraldsson sat counting the wealth
of his pouch and calculating how valuable could be the presents he could
afford to bestow on his arrival.

"Sigurd, do you remember that western land Biorn Herjulfsson saw? and
how we were wont to plan to run away to it, when I grew tired of
embroidering and Leif kept you overlong at your exercises?"

"I have not thought of it since those days," laughed Sigurd. He swept
the mass of gold and silver trinkets back into the velvet pouch at his
belt, and came over and joined them. "What fine times we had planning
those trips, over the fire in the evenings! By Saint Michael, I think we
actually started once; have you forgotten?--in the long-boat off
Thorwald's whaling vessel! And you wore a suit of my clothes, and fought
me because I said anyone could tell that you were a girl."

Helga's laughter rang out like a chime of bells. "Oh, Sigurd I had
forgotten it! And we had nothing with us to eat but two cheeses! And
Valbrand had to launch a boat and come after us!"

They abandoned themselves to their mirth, and Alwin laughed with them;
but his curiosity had been aroused on another subject.

"I wish you would tell me something concerning this farther land," he
said, as soon as he could get them to listen. "Does it in truth exist,
or is it a tale to amuse children with?"

They both assured him that it was quite true.

"I myself have talked with one of the sailors who saw it," Sigurd
explained. "He was Biorn's steersman. He saw it distinctly. He said that
it looked like a fine country, with many trees."

"If it was a real country and no witchcraft, it is strange that he
contented himself with looking at it. Why did he not land and explore?"

"Biorn Herjulfsson is a coward," Helga said contemptuously. "Every man
who can move his tongue says so."

Sigurd frowned at her. "You give judgment too glibly. I have heard many
say that he is a brave man. But he was not out on an exploring voyage;
he was sailing from Iceland to Greenland, to visit his father, and lost
his way. And he is a man not apt to be eager in new enterprises.
Besides, it may be that he thought the land was inhabited by dwarfs."

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