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The Ward of King Canute

O >> Ottilie A Liljencrantz >> The Ward of King Canute




The whole troop of butterfly pages rushed forward to take possession of the
horses; the little gentlewomen made a fluttering group behind their mistress;
and Elfgiva, laughing in sweetest mockery, swept back her rosy robes in a
lowly reverence.

"Hail, lord of half a kingdom but of the whole of my heart!" she greeted him.

Canute seemed to drink in her fairness like wine; his face was boyish in its
radiance as he leaped from his horse before her. "What! The first word a
gibe?" he cried, then caught her in his arms and stilled her silvery laughter
with his lips.

It was so charming a picture that Randalin smiled in sympathy, where she stood
a little way behind the young wife, awaiting the moment when the King should
have leisure to discover her. Not the faintest doubt of his friendliness was
in her mind. She was still smiling, when at last he raised his head and looked
at her over Elfgiva's shoulder.

Then alas, the smile died, murdered, on her lips. Turning, Canute beckoned to
the son of Lodbrok, who was enduring the scene with the same stolid
resignation which he displayed toward his chief's other follies. "Foster-
brother, how comes it that you do not follow my example and embrace the bride
that I have given you?"

As ice breaks and reveals sullen waters underneath, so stolidity broke in
Rothgar's face. With a harsh laugh, he strode forward.

Perhaps it was to follow the King's suggestion, perhaps it was only to vent
his reproaches; but Randalin did not wait to see. Before she knew how she got
there, she was at Elfgiva's side, clutching at her mantle.

"Lady! You promised me--" she cried.

And for all her chiming laughter, Elfgiva's silken arm was stretched out like
a bar. "No further, good Giant!" she said gayly. "The King gave what was not
his, for this toy has become mine." She turned to Canute with a little play of
smiling pouts, very bewitching on such lips. "Fie, my lord! Be pleased to call
your wolves off my lambs."

Plainly, Canute's frown was unable to withstand such witcheries. Despite
himself he laughed, and his voice was more persuasive than commanding. "Now he
will not rob you of the girl, my Shining One. Once he has wedded her, you may
keep her until you tire. It was only because--"

But there he stopped, for all at once a mist had come over the heavenly eyes,
and the smiling lips had drawn themselves into a trembling bunch. The sweet
voice too was subtly tremulous.

"It is because you are to a greater degree anxious to please him than me,
though it is a whole year that I have pined away, day and night, in the utmost
loneliness. Wel-a-way! What! Why have you troubled to send for me, if you hold
my happiness so lightly that you will not comply with me in so small a
matter?" Bridling softly, she was turning away, when the young King threw up
his hands in good-humored surrender.

"To this I will quickly reply that my shield does not secure me against tears!
If it is not to your wish we will not speak of it. Give back, foster-brother,
and choose two of the others to be your drinking-companions. Look up, my fair
one, and admit that I am the most obedient of your thralls. Never, on former
days or since, have I so much as kicked one of your little yelping dogs,
though I hate them as Stark Otter hated bells."

Sunshine through the mist, Elfgiva laughed. "Nay, but you have them drowned
when I am not looking," she retorted.

He did not take the trouble to deny it; indeed he laughed as though the
accusation was especially apt. "Have I ever wounded you more deeply than a
trinket would cure?" he demanded.

And behold, she had already forgotten the matter, to catch at the huge
arm-ring which was slipping up and down his sleeve, so loose a fit was it.
"What Grendel's neck did you take it from! If it had but an opening, I could
use it for a belt."

Smiling, the King looked down on his monster bracelet. "That," he said, "does
not altogether do me credit, for it shows the difference in girth between me
and Edmund Ironside. When we set the peace between us, we exchanged ornaments
and weapons. Think if we had followed the custom in every respect and
exchanged garments likewise!"

Elf-fires were in Elfgiva's blue eyes when she raised them to his. "Rule your
words so that no one else hears you say that, bright Lord of the Danes," she
murmured, "lest they think you mean by it that the English crown would fit you
as loosely, and forget that you are a boy who will grow." The King's mouth
sobered.

"Nay, a man, who has got his growth."

Her little hand spurned the ring that the instant before it had caressed. "Not
a man, but a King!" she reminded him, and drew herself up proudly before him,
a queen in beauty, crowned with the sun's gold.

His eyes devoured her; his breath seemed to come faster as he looked. All at
once he caught her hands and crushed them against his lips. "Neither man nor
king," he cried, "but the lover who has adored you since he came to plunder
but stayed to woo! Do you know that when I came upon you to-day, my heart
burst into flower as a tree blooms in the spring-time? Had I a harp in my
hand, my lips would blossom into song. Get me one from your minstrels, and I
will sing to you as we ride, and we will forget that a day has passed since
the time when first we roved together through the Northampton meadows."

Forgetful of all the world beside, he led her away toward the horses.




Chapter XX

A Royal Reckoning


A tale is always half told if only one man tells it.
GRETTI'S SAGA.

Whether from policy or necessity, the guest-house of Gloucester Abbey was
surrendered to the royal band with open-armed hospitality. Every comfort the
place afforded was heaped together to soften the bare rooms for the
accommodation of the noble ladies; every delicacy the epicurean abbot could
obtain loaded the table; and what little grass the frost had left in the
cloister garth was sacrificed to the swarm of pages and henchmen, minstrels
and tumblers. Now a tournament of games in the riverside meadows took up the
day, now a pageant up the river itself; again, a ride with the hawks or a run
after the hounds,--and the nights were one long revel. Time slipped by like a
song off the lips of a harper.

To-day it was to chase a boar over the wooded hills that the holiday troop was
awake and stirring at sunrise. The silvery bell-notes that called the monks to
morning prayer were jostled in mid-air by the blare of hunters' horns.
Stamping iron-shod hoofs and the baying of deep-voiced hounds broke the
stillness of the cloister, and threescore merry voices laughed out of memory
the Benedictine vow of silence.

Voices and horns made a joyous uproar when the King led forth his lady and her
fair following; and he smiled with pleasure at the welcome and the picturesque
beauty of the gay throng between the gray old walls.

"Now how could I come upon a better sight if I were the King of a hundred
islands?" he demanded of Elfgiva.

But he did not wait for her answer; instead, he stepped forward as though to
avoid it and put a question to one of his huntsmen. And his wife turned and
spoke sharply to the blond maiden behind her, whose more than usual fairness
had given her the name of Candida, or "the white one."

"Where is Randalin? I sent the garments to. her an hour ago. She stands in
need of a taste of Teboen's rod to teach her promptness."

Little Dearwyn, watching the doorway with fluttering color, cried out eagerly,
"Here she is, lady!"

There she was, in truth, standing on the threshold with crimson cheeks and
flashing eyes. At the sight of her every huntsman uttered a whistle of
amazement, then settled into an admiring stare; and Canute, glancing over his
shoulder, laughed outright.

"What!" he said. "Have you tired of woman's clothes already?"

For, once more, Frode's daughter was attired in a man's short tunic and long
silken hose. It was a suit much richer than the old one, since silver
embroidery banded the blue, and precious furs lined the cloak; but that fact
was evidently of little comfort to her, as her eyes were full of angry tears,
and she deigned the King no answer whatever.

"I am obliged to pay dearly for your amusement, lady," she said bitterly.

Elfgiva chimed her bell-like laughter. "I will not deny that you pay liberally
for my trouble, sweet. Does it not add spice to her stories, maidens, to see
her habited thus? She looks like one of the fairy lords Teboen is wont to sing
of."

"She holds her head like Emma of Normandy," the King said absently.

In wide-eyed surprise, Elfgiva looked up at him. "Ethelred's widow? Never did
I hear that you had seen her! Why has this been passed over in silence? I have
abundance of questions to ask about her garments and her appearance. When saw
you her? And where?"

Canute stirred uneasily. "It is not worth a hearing. I spoke but a few words
with her, about ransoms, the time that I sat before London. And I remember
only that her bearing was noble and her countenance most handsome, such as I
had never seen before, nor did I think that there could be any woman so
queenlike." Because he did not choose to say more, or because some wrinkle in
Elfgiva's satin brow warned him off, he turned hastily to another topic.
"Foolishly do we linger, when we have none too much time to get to covert. Do
you still want your way about accompanying us? I have warned you that a boar
hunt is little like hawking; nor do Northmen stand in one spot and wait for
game to come to them."

"I hold to it with both hands," the lady returned with a gayety which had in
it a touch of defiance. "Nor will I consent to do anything except that alone.
We will partake in the excitement of your sport, and each of these brave
heroes of yours shall answer for the safety of one of us." A gesture of her
hand included Thorkel the Tall, the two Northern jarls, and the King's
foster-brother.

"And is it your belief that a man can at the same time chase a boar and talk
fine words to a woman?" Canute demanded between amusement and impatience.
"Call it a ride, if you will, but leave the boar out for reason's sake, as he
would leave us out ere we were so much as on his track."

She gave him a sidelong glimpse of her wonderful eyes, and drooped her head
like a lily grown heavy on its stem. "Would that be so great a misfortune
then?" she murmured. "Do you think it unpleasant to be passing your time at my
side?"

Smiling, he watched the play of her long silken lashes, yet shook his head.
"Nay, when I hunt, I hunt," he said. "I would have idled in your bower if you
had chosen it, but you urged me to this, and now if it happens that you cannot
keep up, you must bear your deed."

As one casts aside an ill-fitting glove, she threw aside her pouts, looking up
at him with a flash of dainty mimicry. "Hear the fiery Thor! Take notice that
I shall bear all down before me like a man mowing ripe corn. You cannot guess
how much warlikeness I have caught from my Valkyria." She glanced back where
the girl in the short tunic stood drawing on her gloves, a picture of stormy
beauty.

Amused, the King's eyes followed hers, then lighted with sudden purpose. "As
you will," he laughed, "and I will give your Valkyria a steed that shall match
her appearance." Advancing again, he spoke to a groom; and the signal set the
whole party in motion.

Randalin heard his words, but at the moment she was too deep in angry
embarrassment to heed them. It seemed to her that every eye in the throng was
fastened upon her as she walked forward, that every mouth buzzed comment
behind her. It was not until she was in the saddle that his intention reached
her understanding.

The powerful black charger, which a groom led toward her, had been pawing and
arching his glossy neck impatiently since the first horn set his blood-drops
dancing; at the touch of her foot upon the stirrup, he snorted satisfaction
through his wide-flaring nostrils and would have leaped forward like a stone
from a sling, if the man had not hung himself upon the bit. The girl awoke to
surprise as she barely managed to reach her seat by the most agile of springs.

"This is not the horse I ride, Dudda! He must belong to one of the nobles."

"He is--the horse--that King Canute said--you should take," the man panted, as
he struggled to keep his footing. "He said to fetch--Praise Odin!" For at that
moment, Canute's silver horn gave the signal, and he was free to leap aside.

Randalin's trained hand upon the reins was as firm as it was light, and her
trained eye was keenly alert to every motion of the black ears, but in her
brain all was whirling confusion,--and no longer any thought of her tunic.
What was the King's purpose in making this change? Certainly he was in no mood
to honor her,--what could he have in his mind? While her tongue answered
mechanically to Ulf Jarl's observations concerning the weather and the fair
farmland they were riding through, her eyes were furtively examining her
companions' steeds. No fiery ambitions disturbed their easy gait, spirited
though they were. Indeed, Elfgiva, looking back at this moment, singled her
out with a rippling laugh.

"By the blessed Ethelberga, you have a horse in all respects befitting your
spirit, my shield-maiden! I hope it is not the King's intention to punish you
by frightening you."

Could it be possible that he should stoop to so unworthy an action, the girl
asked herself? And yet it was as understandable as any of his behavior during
the last fortnight. Suddenly it seemed that a hand had awakened the Viking
blood which slumbered in her veins; it fired her cheeks and flashed from under
her lashes. She answered clearly, "I hope it is not, lady,--for he would
experience disappointment."

From all sides laughter went up, but there was no time for more, for now a
hunter--one of the men who had brought news of the lair--galloped up, dust-
choked and breathless.

"He has broken cover, King!" he gasped. "He is moving windward -- loose the
hounds -- or-- you will miss him --"

Canute's horn was at his lips before the last broken phrase was out.
"Forward!" he shouted with a blast. "The hounds, and forward!" A whirlwind
seemed to strike the ambling train and sweep them over the ground like autumn
leaves.

Over stubble fields and leaf-carpeted lanes, with half frightened smiles upon
their parted lips, Elfgiva and her fair ones kept up bravely; then across a
stream into a thicket, over hollows and fallen logs, under low-hanging boughs,
through brush and brier and bramble, --leaping, dodging, tearing, crashing.
Leonorine the Timid uttered a cry, as her horse slid down a bank with his feet
bunched under him; and the Lady Elfgiva dropped her reins to press her hand
where a thorn had scratched her cheek.

"Stop!" she commanded. "Stop! We will turn back and wait--until he strikes
across a field."

As well have tried to call off the hounds after they had caught the scent and
doubled themselves over the trail! It is unlikely that any man so much as
heard her. For one flash of time she beheld them seesawing in the air before
her, as their horses rose over the brush; then there was nothing but the
distant crashing of dry timber and the echo of Canute's jubilant horn.

"And the Valkyria has gone also!" the lady ejaculated, when her injured gaze
was able to come sufficiently close to earth.

And so the Valkyria had, though with as little of free will as on that day
when her runaway steed carried her out of the press of the fleeing army. At
the first call of the horn, Black Ymer had taken the bronze bit between his
teeth and followed, and his rider's one concern in life became--not the
guiding of him--but the staying on. Before they left the first thicket her
mantle was torn from her shoulders, and she was lying along his neck, now on
this side, now on that, to escape the whipping twigs that lashed at her,
threatening to cut out her eyes. From the thicket out into the open, where it
seemed as if the wind that rushed against her would blow not only the clothes
from her body but the flesh from her bones!

Far ahead, where the little valley ended and the wood began again, she caught
a fleeting glimpse of the boar as it burst covert with the yelping pack at its
heels and was for one instant revealed, snarling, bare-tusked, and flecked
with bloody foam. Then it dived again under cover and was gone in a new
direction. Canute's horn sounded a recall, and one by one the hunters checked
their onward rush and wheeled.

Black Ymer's rider also tried to obey, but all the strength of her body was
not enough to sway him by a hair's breadth. On he shot into the thicket.

"He will have enough sense to stop when he finds out that he is alone," was
her despairing thought.

But he continued to forge ahead like a race horse,--in uneven leaps as though
some sound from behind were urging him on. Suddenly, through the roaring of
her ears, it broke upon her that he was not alone, that at least one horse was
following. Its approaching tread was like thunder in the stillness. If it
could but get ahead of her, all would be well. Her heart beat hopefully as the
jar sounded nearer and nearer. When the snorting nostrils seemed at the Black
One's very flank, at the risk of her neck she turned her head.

Looking, she understood why a steed had been given her which should carry her
out of Elfgiva's reach, for the horseman who was even now stretching his
gauntleted hand toward her rein was the King himself. No one followed, and the
forest around them was silent as a vault. At last, he was free to speak his
mind.

Under the drag of his hand, the horse came slowly to a halt and stood panting
and trembling in the middle of a little dell. For a while, she could do no
more than cling to the saddle-bow, sick with dizziness.

Still holding her rein, her royal guardian sat regarding her critically. "Now
it seems to me that your boasting is less than before," he said. "And you were
mistaken in supposing that I would have given this animal to you if I had not
known you could ride him." When she made no reply, he shook the rein
impatiently. "Is it still the horse that makes you heavy in your breathing? Or
perhaps you scarcely dare to face my justice? I warn you that I shall not take
it well if you begin to weep."

A spark was drawn out of her by that. With an effort, she raised her head and
shot him a glance from bright angry eyes. "No such intention have I, Lord
King. Certainly I do not fear your justice. Why should I?"

"Since I have little time to spend upon your freaks, I will tell you why," he
said sternly. "Because you have betrayed one of my people for the sake of an
Englishman."

With surprise, her glance wavered. "I did not know you knew that," she said
slowly. But, as he expected her to droop, she bristled instead. "Nor was it to
be expected, Lord King, that you would be the one to blame me for using
craft."

His eyes kindled; if she had stopped there it might have gone hard with her,
but she spoke on swiftly, her head indignantly erect. "If Rothgar Lodbroksson
thinks he should have indemnity because he was too stupid to see through a
trick, let him have Avalcomb, when you get it back from the English, and feel
that he has got more than he deserves; but your anger--" she broke off
abruptly and sat with her lips pressed tight as though keeping back a sob. "In
the beginning, I got great kindness at your hands, Lord King," she said at
last, "and your anger--hurts me!"

On the point of softening, the King's face hardened, and he averted his head.
"You value my favor rather late in the day, Frode's daughter. It would have
been better if you had shown honor to it when you came in to me at Scoerstan,
by giving me truth in return for friendship."

If she had laughed as though recalling the jest in that scene, it is possible
that he would have struck her with his glove. It was fortunate that her sense
of humor was no more than a bubble on the foam of her high spirits. Her eyes
were dark with earnestness as they sought his.

"Lord King, I was hindered by necessity. Your camp--was it a place for women?
And did not your own mouth tell me that Randalin, Frode's daughter, should wed
the son of Lodbrok if she were alive?"

He struck his knee a ringing slap. "I confess that it is not easy to be a
match for you! But I can tell you one thing which you will not be able to
explain, as heretofore,--and it is a thing which has made me get bitterest
against you. If you had kept your confidence from all it might have passed for
discreetness, but that you should keep it from me to give it to an
Englishman--"

"But I did not give it to the Englishman," she interrupted. For an instant he
stared at her; directly after he burst into a loud laugh. "Now that is the
best thing that has occurred yet! Where you cannot crawl through, you break
through!" He laughed again, and was opening his mouth to repeat some of the
suspicions he had shared with Rothgar when something about her stopped him,--
whether it was the way she bore her head or something in her deep eyes.
Dropping his derision, he spoke bluntly: "What reason in the world could cause
you to behave thus if it is not that he is your lover?"

The color gathered and spread over her face in maiden shame, until her tunic
became the cruelest of mockeries.

"Short is the reason to tell, Lord King," she said, "it is because I love
him." As he sat regarding her, she put out her hand and played with a tendril
of wild grapevine that hung from the tree beside her, her eyes following her
fingers. "I do not know why I should be ashamed of the state of my feelings. I
should not be able to stand alive before you if he had not been a better lord
to me than you are to English captives; and he is more gentle and high-minded
than any man I ever heard sung of. Sometimes I think I should have more to be
ashamed of if I did not feel love toward him." A little defiantly, she raised
her eyes to his, only to drop them back to the spray. "But he does not love
me. He knows me only as the boy he was kind to. I have given him the high-seat
in my heart, but I sit only within the door of his."

The forest seemed very still when she had done,--the only sound the clanking
of the bits as the horses cropped the withered grass. Then suddenly the King
gathered up his lines with a jerk.

"I cannot believe it," he said harshly. "You are all alike, you women, with
your cat-like purrings and tricksy eyes that surpass most other things in
deceit. I do not deny both that you know well how to feign and that I would
like to believe you, but you must prove it first before I do."

"How can I do that, lord?" she said helplessly; but shrank, the next moment,
as she saw that already he had a plan in his mind. Moving his horse a step
nearer, he bent toward her triumphantly. "I will send for the Englishman, in
your name--or the name you wore--and you shall meet him in my presence, and I
shall be able to tell from his manner whether or not you have spoken
truthfully."

Send for him! At the very thought her face was ecstatic with happiness. Then
she clasped her hands in dismay. "But not if I must continue in these
garments, lord! You can decide over my fate, but I will never face him again
in anything but woman's weeds."

The King frowned. "Strangely do you speak; as if I did not know what is
befitting a Danish woman that I would allow one who is noble-born in all her
kindred to be treated disgracefully after I had taken her into my wardership!"

A while longer he sat there, watching her changeful face with its lovely mouth
and the eyes that some trick of light and shade had deepened to the purple of
an iris petal's markings; and the sight seemed to gentle his mood.

"I should like to reconcile myself to you," he said slowly. "Since first you
came before me and showed by your entreaty that you thought me something
besides an animal, I have felt friendliness toward you. And I should like to
believe that some woman loves some man as you say you love this Englishman."
Out of the very wishfulness of his voice, a terrible menace spoke: "I should
like it so much that I shall neither spare you in word nor deed if you have
deceived me!" Then once more his manner softened. "Yet my mind feels a kind of
faith toward you. I shall try you, to make sure, but until you have proved
that you are unworthy of it, I will not keep you out of my friendship."
Drawing off his glove, he stretched forth his hand. "You may find that a man's
harshness is little worse than a woman's guile," he said bitterly.

Dimly guessing what was in his mind, she dared not trust herself to words but
told her gratitude with her eyes, as she returned his clasp. Then he sent her
back by the one semblance of a path which ran through the forest, and himself
rode on to his hunters.




Chapter XXI

With The Jotun as Chamberlain


All doorways,
Before going forward,
Should be looked to;
For difficult it is to know
Where foes may sit
Within a dwelling.
Ha'vama'l.

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