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The Ward of King Canute

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




He rolled his eyes around at her as he threw back his head to catch the last
drop that clung to the golden rim. "Can you handle a sword?"

Randalin hesitated, uncertain how far her idle play at fencing with her
brother would bear her out; she provided as many loop-holes as she could
devise. "I think you will find my skill slight. I have--I have grown so fast
that I lack strength in my arms. And I have not exercised myself as much as I
should have done."

"It is in my mind that you have been a lazy cub," the warrior pronounced
deliberate sentence, as he set down his goblet. "It is easily seen that Frode
has been over-gentle with you. But you will pay now for your laziness, by
receiving a cut each time I pass your guard. Stand forth, and show what your
skill is worth. This sword will not be too heavy." Selecting the smallest of
the jewelled blades upon the floor, he thrust it into her hands.

It is good to have in one's veins the liquid fire of the North, blood to which
the presence of peril is like the touch of the Ice King to water. At the first
clash of the blades, strange tingling fires began to flash through Randalin,
--and then a hardness, that burnt while it froze. The first pass, her hands
had parried seemingly by their own instinct; now she flung back her tumbling
curls and proceeded to give those hands the aid of her eyes. They were
marvellously quick eyes; for Fridtjof's thrusts, consulting no rule but his
own will, had required lightning to follow them and something like
mind-reading to anticipate them. Three times her blade met Rothgar's squarely,
and deftly turned it aside. The big warrior gave a grunt of approval and tried
a more complicated pass. Her backward leap, the sudden doubling of her body,
and the excited clawing of her free hand, were not graceful swordsmanship,
certainly, but her steel was in the right place. The next instant, she even
drew a little clink from one of the Jotun's silver buttons.

As she was recovering herself, she felt something like a pin prick her wrist;
and she wondered vaguely what brooch had become unfastened. But she gave it
scant attention for the big blade was threatening her from a new direction.
She leaped to meet it, and for the next minute was kept turning, twisting,
dodging, till her breath began to come in gasps, and her exhausted hand to
relax its hold. Her weapon was almost falling from it by the time the son of
Lodbrok lowered his point. Imitating him, she stood leaning on her sword,
making futile gasps after her lost breath.

A grin slowly wrinkled his face as he watched her. "It appears that one who is
no bigger around than a willow twig may be capable of a berserk rage," he
said. "Do you not feel it that you are wounded?"

Following his eyes down to her hand, she found blood trickling from her
sleeve. Oh, and pain! Now that she had wakened to it--pain! pricking,
stinging, stabbing. Dropping her sword, she caught at her wrist.

"How did it happen? I thought a pin had pricked me!"

Roaring with laughter, he caught her under the arms and tossed her in the air.

"A pin!" he shouted. "A pin! That is Frode himself! A beard on your chin, and
you also will be a feeder of wolves! For that you shall have a share in the
battle. I swear it by the hilt of the Hanger!"

For the moment, the girl forgot her wound and hung limp in the great hands.
"The battle?" she gasped. "I--I fight?"

Roaring afresh, the Jotun gave her another jubilant toss. "You blustering
field-mouse! Showing your teeth already? Who knows? If you meet a blind
Englishman without a weapon, you may even kill him. Here," he tumbled her
roughly to the ground, "tie up your pin-scratch and then come after me. I must
go up yonder to Canute, under the oak tree. If you are too tired to wield the
sword, tie your hand to the hilt, and no man shall have a better will to do
harm to the English. Frode the Dane will experience great pride when he looks
out of Valhalla to-day." Putting out one great hand, he patted her soft curls
as though she were some shaggy dog, then hurried out to his chief.

It was a respite to be alone, and she accepted it gratefully, sinking among
the cushions with closed eyes and a hand on her throbbing wrist. But it was
only a respite; she never for a moment lost sight of that. The battle must be
faced, and faced boldly. One word of reluctance would be the surest betrayal
of her secret. And betrayal meant Rothgar! She shivered as she fancied she
still felt his greasy touch upon her hair. To become his property that he
might even kiss! With a gasp of relief, she turned her thoughts back to the
battle.

After all, it was not unthinkable. Her riding would never betray her; and in
the confusion, who would notice whether or not she used her sword? She did
grow a little cold as the possibility of being killed occurred to her; but
even that darkness gave birth to a light. Being dressed in man's garments, it
was likely that the Valkyrias would mistake her for a boy; if she bore herself
bravely, it was possible that they might carry her up to Valhalla. Should she
once reach her father's arms, he would not let Odin himself drive her forth.
The hot tears gathered under her lids. If only she could get to her father! He
would be glad to see her, and he would be proud of her; Rothgar himself had
said it. Even Fridtjof would not be ashamed that she had borne his name. She
must be very careful about that, she realized suddenly. He had never known
what the word "fear" meant; even in Valhalla he would turn from her, should
she disgrace him. It would become an unheard-of wickedness to borrow a name
from the helpless dead if you could not wear it worthily. Her conscience smote
her now, for her shirking, and she struggled to her feet.

None too soon; above the outside din a horn clarioned, loud and clear. Through
the hush that followed could be heard the voice of Canute, assigning their
positions to the different bands.

"I and my kinsman, Ulf Jarl, shall be foremost. To the right of my standard
Edric Jarl shall stand, and the men with whom he joined us. He shall have
another standard. To the left of my bodyguard shall stand the men of Eric of
Norway. Friends and kinsmen shall stand together. There each will defend the
other best."

Then Rothgar's harsh voice sounded, shouting her name,--Fridtjof's name.
Giving her scarf a hasty twist about her arm, she knotted it with her teeth;
and seizing the sword in her little brown hand clotted with her own blood, she
ran out into the tumult.




Chapter VII

The Game of Swords

It is better for the brave man
Than for the coward
To join in the battle.
It is better for the glad
Than for the sorrowing
In all circumstances.
Fafnisma'l.

It would have been a dull soul that would not have been stirred by a sight of
Danish camp. The host was like a forest of mighty trees tossing and swaying
before the approach of a storm. Lines of moving shot lightning flashes through
the dusk of the shady grove; while the hundreds of jubilant voices blended
into rumbling thunder. Through the tumult, the blaring horns thrilled like
pulse-beats.

Flaring crimson under her brown skin, Randalin's Viking blood leaped to answer
the call. For Rothgar's shout she gave another, and laughed out of sheer
delight when he tossed her upon the back of a pawing horse. Away with woman's
fears! The world was a grand brave place, and men a race of heroes. To ride by
their sides, and share their mighty deeds, and see their glory,--what keener
joy had life to offer? Away with fear, with foreboding! The present was
all-glorious, and there would be no to-morrow.

Shrill and clear from the opposite hill came the notes of the English horns,
as down the green slope moved the ranks of English bowmen. The hum of Danish
voices sank in a breathless hush; through the stillness, Tovi, the royal
bannerman, galloped to his post. A rustle, a boom, and the great standard was
unfurled, giving to the breeze the dread Raven of Denmark. Anxious eyes
scanned its mien; should it hang motionless, drooping--but no, it soared like
a living bird! Exultation burst from a thousand throats.

Down the line came the young King upon his white war-horse, clad for the
battle as for a feast. The sun at noonday is not more fiercely bright than was
his face. His long locks flowed behind him on the wind like tongues of yellow
flame; and like northern lights in a blue northern sky, the leader's fire
flashed in his eyes. So Balder the Beautiful might have come among the Jotuns.
So the brawny sweating hard-breathing giants might have jostled and crowded
toward him, expectant, adoring.

As he came, he was calling out terrible reminders: words that were to the ears
of his champing host what the smell of blood is to the nostrils of wolves.

"Free men, true men, remember that ye face oath-breakers! Remember how they
have spoken fine words to us of plighted faith...and when we have believed
them and laid down our arms...they have stolen upon us in our sleep..and
murdered our comrades! And our kinswomen whom they had taken to be their
wives! Remember Saint Brice's day! Remember our murdered kin!"

On he went down the line; and like a trail in his wake, rose an answering
chorus of growls and clashing steel. Down some of the battered old faces tears
of excitement began to flow, like the water out of the riven rock; while the
delirium of others took the form of mirth, so that they sent forth wild
terrible laughter to swell the uproar.

Above the tumult his voice rang like a bell: "Heroes and sons of heroes,
remember you fight cowards! Remember that, since the days of our fathers, they
have made gold do the work of steel. To get gold to buy peace, they will sell
their children into slavery. Sooner than look our swords in the face, they
will yield us their daughters to be our thralls! Oath-breakers, nithings! Will
you be beaten by such? Vikings, Odinmen, forward!"

His answer was the bursting roar of the Danish battle-cry. Like an avalanche
loosed from its moorings, they swept down the hillside upon the English
bow-men. From that moment, Randalin rode in a dream.

At first it was a glorious dream. On, on, over the green plain, with the wind
fresh in her face and the music of the horns in her ears. The son of Lodbrok
was beside her, singing as he went, and tossing his great battle-axe in the
air to catch it again by the handle. In front of them rode Canute the King; in
his hand his gleaming blade, whose thin edge he tried now and again on a lock
of his floating hair, while he laughed with boyish delight. Once he turned his
bright face back over his shoulder to call gayly to the Jotun:

"Brother, you were right in despising craft. When the battle-madness fills a
man, he becomes a god!" On, till the bowmen's faces were plain before them;
then suddenly it began to hail,--"the hail of the string." Arrows! One hissed
by the girl's ear, and one bit her cloak, to hang there quivering with
impotent fury. The man on her right made a terrible gurgling sound and put up
his hand to tear a shaft from his throat. Would they be slain before-- Canute
rose in his stirrups with a great shout. The horns echoed it; the trot became
a gallop, and the gallop a run. On, on, into the very heart of the hail-cloud.
How the stones rattled on the armor! And hissed! There! a man was death-
doomed; he was falling.

Her cry was cut short by the flashing of a blade before her. They had passed
through the hail and reached the lightning! Throwing up her sword, she swerved
to one side and escaped the bolt. Another faced her in this direction. The air
was shot with bright flashes. Swish--clash! they sounded behind her; then a
sickening jar, as Rothgar's terrible axe fell. A yell of agony rent the air.
Swish--clash! the blows came faster; her ear could no longer separate them.
The thud of the falling axes became one continuous pound. Faster and faster,
heavier and heavier,--they blended into a discordant roar that closed around
her like a wall. Here and there and to and fro, Rothgar's great charger
followed the King; and here and there and to and fro, on her foam-flecked
horse, Randalin followed the son of Lodbrok, staring, dazed, stunned.

Her wits were like a flock of birds loosed from the cage of her will,
alighting here, upstarting there, without let or hindrance. Sometimes they
stooped to so foolish a thing as a notch on her horse's ear, and spent whole
minutes questioning dully whether the teeth of another horse had made the
wound or whether a sword had nicked it in battle. Sometimes they followed the
notes of the horns, as the ringing tones passed the order along. From the
blaring blast at her ear, the sound was drawn out on either side of her as
fine as silver wire, far, far away toward the hills. It gave her no conscious
impression of the vastness of the hosts, but it brought a vague sense of
wandering, of helplessness, that caused her fluttering wits to turn back,
startled, and set to watching the pictures that showed through rifts in the
swirling dust clouds,--an Englishman falling from his saddle, his fingers
widespread upon the air; a Danish bowman wiping blood from his eyes that he
might see to aim his shaft; yonder, the figure of Leofwinesson himself,
leaping forward with swift-stabbing sword. But whether they were English who
fell or Danes who stood, she had no thought, no care; they meant no more to
her than rune figures carved in wood.

The sun rose higher in the heavens, till it stood directly overhead, and sweat
mingled with the blood. Suddenly, the girl awoke to find that Rothgar's
singing had changed into cursing.

"Heed him not, King," he was bellowing over his horse's head. "We have no need
of trick-bought victories. We bear the highest shields; warrior-skill will
win. We need not his snake-wisdom."

To the other side of the young leader, Thorkel the Tall was spurring, bending
urgently from his saddle. "Craft, my King! Craft! It will take till nightfall
to decide the game. Why spill so much good blood? Listen to Edric the
Gainer--"

Canute's furious curse cut him short. "To the Troll with your craft! Swords
shall make us, or swords shall mar us. Use your blade, or I will sheathe it in
you."

Only the wind that took it from his lips heard the Tall One's answer; for at
that moment his horse reared and sheered away before a spear-prick, and into
the rift a handful of English rushed with shouts of triumph.

There were no more than half-a-dozen of them, and all were on foot, the two
whose gold-hilted swords proclaimed their nobility of birth sharing the lot of
their lesser comrades according to the old Saxon war-custom; but it needed not
the daring of the attack to mark them as the very flower of English chivalry.
The young noble, who hovered around his chief much as Rothgar circled about
Canute, would have been lordly in a serf's tunic; and the leader's royal
bearing distinguished him even more than his mighty frame.

At the sight of him, Rothgar uttered a great cry of "Edmund!" and moved
forward, swinging his uplifted axe. But the Ironside caught it on his shield
and delivered a sword-thrust in return that dropped the Dane's arm by his
side. As it fell, Rothgar's left hand plucked forth his blade, but the English
king had pressed past him toward his master.

Canute's weapon had need to dart like a northern light. The noble and one of
the soldiers had forced their way to the side from which Thorkel had been
riven, and a third threatened him from the rear. Three blades stabbed at him
as with one motion.

It was a strange thing that saved him,--Randalin could explain it least of
all. But in a lightning flash it was burnt into her mind that, while her
King's sword was a match for the two in front of him, the one behind was going
to deal him his death. And even as she thought it, she found that she had
thrown herself across her horse's neck and thrust out her sword-arm,--out with
the force of frenzy and down into the shoulder of the Englishman. In a kind of
dazed wonder, she saw his blade fall from his grasp and his eyes roll up at
her, as he staggered backwards.

Canute laughed out, "Well done, Berserker!" and redoubled his play against
those before him.

A turn of his wrist disarmed the soldier, and his point touched the young
noble's breast; but before he could lunge, the mighty figure of Edmund rose
close at hand, his blade heaved high above his head.

For such a stroke there was no parry. A kingdom seemed to be passing. Canute
threw his shield before him, while his spur caused his horse to swerve
violently; but the blade cleft wood and iron and golden plating like
parchment, and falling on the horse's neck, bit it to the bone. Rearing and
plunging with pain, the animal crashed into those behind him, missed his
footing and fell, entangling his rider in the trappings. Bending over him, the
Ironside struck again.

But the son of Lodbrok had still his left arm. Bearing his shield, it shot out
over the body of his King. The falling brand bit this screen also, and lopped
off the hand that held it, but the respite was sufficient. In a flash Canute
was on his feet, both hands grasping the hilt of his high-flung sword.

It was a mighty blow, but it fell harmless. A sudden surge in the tide of
struggling bodies swept the Ironside out of reach and engulfed him in a
whirlpool of Danish swords. He laid about him like mad, and was like to have
cleared a passage back, when a second wave carried him completely from view.

Canute cursed at the anxious faces that surrounded him. "What means it, this
swaying? What is herding them? Who are flying? Fools! Can you not tell a
retreat? Bid the horns blow--"

"The English!" bellowed Rothgar. "The English are flying--Edmund's head!
Yonder!"

Frode's daughter had Viking blood, but she hid her face with a cry. There it
was, high upon a spear-point, dripping, ghastly. Could the sun shine upon such
a thing?

Ay, and men could rejoice at it. Above the panic scream she heard cries of
savage joy. But Canute sat motionless, on the new horse they had brought him.
"It is not possible," he muttered. "The flight began while he still faced me.
It was their crowding that saved him."

To stare before him, Rothgar let the blood pour unheeded from his wounded arm.
"Yonder Edmund rides now!" he gasped. "You can tell him by his size-- Yonder!
Now he is tearing off his helmet--" Nor was he mistaken; within spear-throw
the mighty frame of the Ironside towered above his struggling guard. As he
bared his head, they could even distinguish his face with its large elegantly-
formed features and Ethelred's prominent chin. Brandishing his sword, shouting
words of reassurance, exposing his person without a thought of the darts aimed
at him, he was making a heroic effort to check the rush of his panic-stricken
host. There was no question both that he was alive and that he knew who was
belying him; even as they looked he hurled his spear, with a cry of rage, at
the form of Edric Jarl.

Missing the Mercian, it struck down a man at his side; and high above the
voice of the ill-fated King rose the shrill alarms of the traitor's heralds.

"Fly, ye men of Dorsetshire and Devon! Fly and save yourselves! Here is your
Edmund's head!"

Randalin stared about her, doubting her senses. But light had begun to dawn on
Canute. He wheeled sharply, as Thorkel pushed his horse to their sides.

"Whose head was that?" he demanded.

Thorkel's face was a lineless mask. "I believe his name was Osmaer," he
answered without emotion.

"It was unheard-of good fortune that he should be so like Edmund in looks."

The young King's face was suffused with bitterness. "Good fortune!" he cried
sharply. "Good fortune! Am I a fool or a coward that I am never to win except
by craft or good fortune? Had you let me alone--" His voice broke, so bitter
was his disappointment.

His foster-father regarded him from under lowered lids.

"Would you have won without them to-day?" he inquired.

"Yes!" Canute cried savagely, "had you given me time. Yes!"

But what else he answered, Randalin never knew. Some unseen obstacle turned in
their direction the stream of rushing horsemen. In an instant the torrent had
caught them in its whirling eddies, and they were so many separate atoms borne
along on the flood. To hold back was to be thrown down; to fall was to be
trampled into rags. The battle had changed into a hunt.

Thundering hoof-beats, crashing blows, shrieks and groans and falling bodies,
--a sense of being caught in a wolf pack took possession of the girl; and the
feeling grew with every sidelong glance she had of the savage sweating
dust-grimed faces, in their jungles of blood-clotted hair. The battle-madness
was upon them, and they were no longer men, but beasts of prey. Amid the chaos
of her mind, a new idea shaped itself like a new world. If she could but work
her way to the edge of the herd, she might escape down one of those green
aisles opening before them. If she only could! Every fibre in her became
intent upon it.

A little opening showed on her right. Though she could not see the ground
before her, she took the risk and swung her horse into the breach. His
forefeet came down upon the body of a fallen man, but it was too late to draw
back. Gripping her lip in her teeth, she spurred him on. The man turned over
with a yell, and used his one unbroken arm to thrust upward his broken sword.
The blade cut her leg to the bone, and she shrieked with the pain; but her
startled horse had no thought of stopping. Making his way with plunges and
leaps, he carried her out of the press sooner than she could have guided him
out. Once on the edge, he broke into a run. The agony of the shaken wound was
unbearable. Shrieking and moaning, she twisted her hands in the lines and
tried to stop him. But her strength was ebbing from her with her blood. By and
by she dropped the rein altogether and clung to the saddle-bow.

They reached the woods at last, cool and sweet and hushed in holy peace. The
frantic horse plunged into one of the arching lanes, and the din of the hunt
died behind her; silence fell like a curtain at their heels; even the thudding
hoof-beats were softened on the leafy ground. Randalin lay along the horse's
neck now, and her senses had begun to slip away from her like the tide from
the shore. It occurred to her that she was dying, and that the Valkyrias could
not find her if she should be carried too far away from the battle-field.
Trying to hold them back, she stretched a feeble hand toward the trees; and it
seemed to her that they did not glide past quite so rapidly. And the green
river that had been rushing toward her, that passed under her more slowly too.
Sometimes she could even make out violets amid the waves. But the waves were
rising strangely, she thought,--rising, rising--

At last, she felt their cool touch upon her fore-head. They had risen and
stopped her. Somewhere, there was the soft thud of a falling body; then the
cool greenness closed around her and held her tenderly, a crumpled leaf that
the whirlwind had dropped from its sport.




Chapter VIII

Taken Captive



No one turns from good,
if it can be got.
Ha'vama'l.

Lying drowned in cool silence, the girl came slowly to a consciousness that
someone was stooping over her. Raising her heavy lids, eyes rested on a man's
face, showing dimly in the dusk of the starlight.

He said in English, "Canute's page, by the Saints!"

A chorus of voices answered him: "The fiend's brat that pierced your
shoulder?"--"Choke him!"--" Better he die now than after he has waxed large on
English blood."--" Finish him!"

Opening her eyes wider, she found that heads and shoulders made a black hedge
around her.

The victim of her blade straightened, shaking his shaggy mane. "Were I a Pagan
Dane, I would run my sword through him. But I am a Christian Englishman. Let
him lie. He will bleed his life out before morning."

"Come on, then," the chorus growled. "The Etheling is asking what hinders us."
--"Make haste!"--" The Etheling is here!"

While the warrior was turning, a new voice spoke.

"Canute's page?" it repeated after some unseen informant. "Is he dead?"

It was a young voice, and deep and soft, for all the note of quiet authority
ringing through it; something in its tone was agreeably different from the
harsh utterance of the first speaker. Randalin's eyes rose dreamily to find
the owner. He had ridden up behind the others on a prancing white horse. Above
the black hedge, the square strength of his shoulders and the graceful lines
of his helmed head were silhouetted sharply against the starry sky. Why had
they so familiar a look? Ah! the noble who had followed Edmund--

So far she got, and then all was blotted out in a flash of pain, as the man
nearest her put out a hand and touched her torn limb.

"Wriggling like a fish, lord," he answered the new-comer.

A sound on the soft turf told that the horseman had alighted. "The bantling is
of too good quality to leave," he said good-naturedly. "Catch my bridle,
Oswin. Where is he wounded?"

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