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The Ward of King Canute

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




But the page advanced with the old wilful shake of his curly head. "I also
would rather walk, if you please." As he looked at him, compassion came into
the Etheling's face. The hollowness of their sockets made the boy's large eyes
look larger, and his fever-flush trebled their brightness. Sebert said, with a
poor attempt at a smile, "Little did I think that my hospitality would ever
produce such a guest. Poor youngling! You would better have crept out to your
countrymen, as I bade you."

Again the dark head shook obstinately. "Rather would I starve with you than
feast with them. I go not out till you go."

Something seemed to come into the young man's throat as he was about to speak,
for he swallowed hard and was silent. Putting an arm about the slender figure,
he drew it to his side; and so they left the room and began to climb the
stairs.

As soon as the curtain fell at their heels a stifling mustiness came to their
nostrils, and a chill that was like the flat of a knife-blade pressed against
their cheeks. They drew breath thankfully when they had come up into the sweet
freshness of the night air. Flashing on the weapons of the pacing sentinels, a
glory of silver moonlight lay like a visible silence over the parapets. In the
darkness below, a sea of forest trees was murmuring and splashing at the
passing of a wind. Yet deeper down in the dark glowed the fires of the Danish
camp,--red eyes of the dragon that would rise ere long and crush them under
his iron claws.

After they had twice made the round without speaking, the page said gravely,
"I heard what Brithwald told you about the bread, lord. What will overtake us
when that is gone? Shall we charge them, so that we may die fighting?" When
the Etheling did not answer immediately, his companion looked up at him with
loving reproach. "You forget that you need conceal nothing from me, dear lord.
I am not as those clowns below. You have even said that you found pleasure in
telling me your mind."

Sebert's hand was lifted from the red cloak to touch the thin cheek
caressingly. "I should be extreme ungrateful were I to say less, dear lad.
There is a man's courage in your boy's body, and I think a woman could not be
more faithful in her love--How! Are you cold that you shiver so? Pull the
corner of my cloak about you."

But the page cast it off impatiently. "No, no, it is nothing; no more than
that one of those men out there may have walked across the spot that is to be
my grave. Sooner would I bite my tongue off than interrupt you. I ask you not
to let it hinder your speech."

Again a kind of affectionate pity came into the young noble's face. "Does it
mean so much to you to hear that you have been faithful in your service?"

"It means--so much to me!" the boy repeated softly; and if the man's ear had
not been far afield, he might have divined the secret of the green tunic only
from the tenderness of the low voice. But when his mind came back to his
companion again, the lad was looking at him with a little smile touching the
curves of his wistful mouth.

"Do you know why this mishap which has occurred to you seems great luck for
me? Because otherwise it is not likely that you would have found out how true
a friend I could be. If it had happened that I had gone with Rothgar's
messenger that night, you would have remembered me only as one who could
entertain you when it was your wish to laugh. But now, since it has been
allowed me to endure suffering with you and to share your mind when it was
bitterest, you have given me a place in your heart. And to-morrow, when we go
forth together, and the Dane slays me with you because it will be open to him
then that for your sake I have become unfaithful to him, you will remember our
fellowship even to--"

But Sebert's hand silenced the tremulous lips. "No more, youngling! I adjure
you by your gentleness," he whispered unsteadily. "You owe me no such love;
and it makes my helplessness a thousand-fold more bitter. Say no more, little
comrade, if you would not turn my heart into a woman's when it has need to be
of flint. Sit you here on the ledge the while that I take one more turn. You
will not? Then come with me, and we will make the round together, and apply
our wits once more to the riddle. Until swords have put an end to me, I shall
not cease to believe that it has an answer."

Below, in the dense blackness of the forest, an occasional owl sounded his
echoless cry. From still deeper in the dark, where the Danish camp-fires
glowed, a harp-note floated up on the wind with a fragment of wild song. But
it was many a long moment before the silence that hovered over the doomed
Tower was broken by any sound but the measured tramp of the sentinels.

It was Sebert who brought the dragging pace finally to a halt, throwing
himself upon a stone bench to hold his head in his hands. "We cannot drive
them off; that needs no further proof. And I do not see how we can hold out
till the time that chance entices them away, when but one meal stands between
us and starvation, and already we are as weak as rabbits. Naught can profit us
save craft."

The dark head beside him shook hopelessly; but he repeated the verdict with
additional emphasis. "I tell you, craft is our only hope; some artfulness that
shall undermine their strength even as their tricks crept, snake-like, under
our guard." Turning in his seat, he set his face toward the darkness,
clutching his head in renewed effort.

No word came from the page, but a strange look was dawning in his upturned
face. Whether it was a great terror that had shaken his soul or whether a joy
had come to him that raised him to heaven itself, it was impossible to tell,
for the signs of both were in his eyes. And when at last he spoke, both
thrilled through his voice. "Lord," he said slowly, "I think I see where a
trick is possible."

As Sebert turned from the darkness, the boy struggled up and stood before him.
"If they could be made to believe a lie about the food? If they could be made
to believe that you have enough to continue this for a long time? Their
natures are such that already it must have become a hardship for them to
remain quiet."

The Etheling's eyes were riveted on the other's lips; his every muscle
strained toward him. Under the stimulus the page's words seemed to come a
little less uncertainly, a little more quickly.

"I think I could manage it for you, lord. They think me your unwilling
captive: you remember what the messenger said about freeing me? If I should go
to Rothgar--" his voice broke and his eyes sought his friend's eyes as though
they were wine-cups from which he would drink courage--" if I should go to
Rothgar, lord, I could declare myself escaped, and he would be likely to
believe any story I told him."

Sebert leaped up and caught the lad by the shoulders, then hesitated, weighing
it in his mind, half fearing to believe. "But are you sure that your tongue
will not trip you? Or your face, poor mouse? What! Can you make them believe
in abundance when your cheeks are like bowls for the catching of your tears?"

The boy seemed to gather strength from the caressing hands, as Thor from the
touch of his magic belt. He even gave a little breathless laugh of elation.
"As to that, I think he is not wise enough to guess the truth. I will tell him
that you have thought it revengeful toward him to starve your Danish captive;
and because it is in every respect according to what he would do in your
place, I think he will have no misgivings."

Pulling the soft curls with a suggestion of his old lightheartedness, the
Etheling laughed with him. "You bantling! Who would have dreamed you to that
degree artful? Are you certain your craft will bear you out? I would not have
you suffer their anger. Are you capable of so much feigning?"

For an instant the boy's eyes were even audacious; and all the hollowness of
the cheeks could not hide a flashing dimple. "Oh, my dear lord, I am capable
of so much more feigning than you guess!" he answered daringly.

"Nay, have I not been wont to call you elf?" Sebert returned. Then his voice
deepened with feeling. "By the soul of my father, Fridtjof, if you bring me
out of this snare, me and mine, I declare with truth that there will be no
recompense you can ask at my hands which I shall not be glad to grant--" He
paused in the wonder of seeing the sparkle in the blue eyes flee away like a
flitting light.

The page turned from him almost with a sob. "Pray you, promise me nothing!" he
said hastily. "If ever I see you again, and you have more to give me than
pity-- Nay, I shall lose my courage if I think of that part. Get me out
quickly while the heart is firm within me. And give me a draught from your cup
to warm my blood."

"Certainly it would be best for you to come to them while they are in such a
state of feasting that their good-humor is keenest and their wits dullest,"
Sebert assented.

He spoke but with the matter-of-factness of a soldier reconnoitring a
position, but on the girl in the page's dress the words fell like blows. Then
it was that she realized for the first time how ill a crumb can satisfy the
hunger which asks for a loaf; that she knew that her body was not the only
part of her which was starving. Somewhere on that dark stairway she lost the
boyishness out of her nature forever. The thin cheeks were white under their
tan when they came again into the light of the guard-room fire; and the blue
eyes had in them a woman's reproach.

"It would show no more than friendship if you said that you were sorry to have
me go," she told him with quivering lips. "Are you so eager in getting me off
that you cannot say you will miss me?"

But the young lord only laughed good-humoredly as he poured the wine. "What a
child you are! Do you not know those things without my telling you? And as for
missing you, I am not likely to have time. The first chance you get, you will
slip back to me if you do not, I will come after you and flog you into the
bargain; be there no forgetting!"

She could not laugh as she would once have done; instead she choked in the cup
and pushed it from her. A passionate yearning came over her for one such word,
one such look, as he would give the dream-lady when she should come. With her
secret on her lips, she lifted her eyes to his.

A little amused but more pitying, and withal very, very kind, his glance met
hers; and her courage forsook her. Suppose the word she was about to speak
should not make his face friendlier? Suppose his surprise should be succeeded
by haughtiness, or, worse than all, by a touch of that gay scorn? Even at the
memory of it she shrank. Better a crumb than no bread at all. Turning away,
she followed him in silence down the dark passage.

When the moment of parting arrived, and Sebert's hand lay on the last bolt,
that mood was so strong upon her that it seemed to her as though she were
passing out of life into death. Clinging to his cloak, with her face buried in
its folds, she wet it with far bitterer tears than any she had shed over her
murdered kinsmen.

"I wish I had not thought of it! I wish I had not told you!" she sobbed into
the soft muffling. "Only to be near you I thought heaven; and now the Fates
have cheated me even out of that."

The Etheling put his hand under the bent head to raise it that he might hear
what the lips were saying, and she covered his palm with kisses. Then slipping
away, like the elf he had called her, she glided through the narrow space of
the half-open door and was gone, sobbing, out into the night.




Chapter XV

How Fridtjof Cheated The Jotun



Such is the love of women,
Who falsehood meditate,
As if one drove not rough-shod
On slippery ice
A spirited two-year-old
And unbroken horse.
Ha'vama'l.

I trust my sword; I trust my steed;
But most I trust myself at need,'"

the fair-haired scald sang exultingly to the Danishmen sprawled around the
camp-fire. It was to no graceful love-song that his harp lent its swelling
chords, but to a stern chant of mighty deeds, whose ringing notes sped through
the forest like the bearers of war-arrows, knocking at the door of each
sleeping echo until it awoke and carried on the summons.

Echoes awoke as well in the breasts of those who listened. When the minstrel
laid aside his harp for his cup, Snorri Scar-Cheek brought his fist down in a
mighty blow upon the earth. "To hear such words and know one's self doomed to
wallow in mast!"

A dozen shaggy heads wagged surly acquiescence. But from the figure
outstretched upon the splendid bearskin a harsh voice sounded. "Now! see that
because you lie in mast you have a swine's wit," it said. "Do you want the
thrall to stand forth and prove for the hundredth time that their bins must
needs be as empty as your head?"

Venturing no more than a growl, the man dropped his chin back upon his fists.
But Brown-Cloak, the English serf, found somewhere the notion that here was an
opportunity to rehearse once more the service which was his sole claim upon
his new masters' indulgence, and he got on his legs accordingly.

"I can say soothly that you will not have to bear it much longer, Lord Dale,"
he reassured. "My own eyes saw that--" He ended in a howl as a half-gnawed
sheep-bone from the warrior's hand struck him with a force that knocked him
sprawling among the ashes.

"Do not trouble yourself to answer until you are questioned," the Scar-Cheek
recommended briefly. And a round of laughter followed the poor scapegoat as he
picked himself up, groaning, and crept away into the shadow. In the
restlessness of their inactivity, and this swift breaking into passages of
growling and tooth-play whenever, in their narrow confines, they chanced to
jostle each other, they were like nothing so much as a pack of caged wolves.

Into the den, a few minutes later, the daughter of Frode came on her difficult
mission. Her face was so ghastly that the man who first caught sight of it did
not recognize her, and snatched up his weapon as against an enemy. It was the
Scar-Cheek who offered the first welcome in a jovial shout. "The hawk escaped
from the cage! Well done, champion! Did you batter a way out with your mighty
fists? Did you get fretful and slay the Englishman? Leave off your bashfulness
and tell us your deeds of valor!" A score of hands were stretched forth to
draw the boy into the circle; a score of horns were held out for his
refreshment.

To all of them Randalin yielded silently,--silently accepting the cup which
was nearest, in order to gain time by sipping its contents. She realized that
only a manner of perfect unconcern could carry her through, yet she felt
herself shaking with excitement.

Rothgar sat up on the great skin with a gesture of some cordiality. "Hail to
you, Fridtjof Frodesson!" he said. "Your escape is a thing that gladdens me. I
did not like the thought of starving you, and I hope your father will overlook
the unfriendliness of it."

The Scar-Cheek, who had been scanning her critically where she stood before
them, drinking, gave a pitying grunt. "By the crooked horn, boy, you must have
had naught but ill luck since the time of Scoerstan! No more meat is on you
than a raven could eat; and the night I was in the Englishman's hall, you had
the appearance of having been under a lash. Your guardian spirit must have
gone astray."

Though she managed to keep her eyes upon her cup, Randalin could not hinder a
wave of burning color from over-running her face. Seeing it, Rothgar held up
his handless left arm for silence.

"You act in a mannerless way, Snorri Gudbrandsson, when you remind a
high-spirited youth that he has been disgraced in his mind. Yet do not let
that prevent your joy, my Bold One. To make up for the injury I have been to
you, I will give you a revenge on the Englishman that shall wipe out
everything you have endured from him. If it is possible for me to take him
alive and bind him, your own hand shall be the one to strike Sebert Oswaldsson
his death-blow."

The girl's nervousness betrayed her into a burst of hysterical laughter, but
her wits were quick enough to turn it to good account. She said with
Fridtjof's own petulance, "Your boon is like the one Canute has in store for
me. I am likely to wait so long for both that I shall have no teeth left to
chew them with. I like it much better to take your kindness in the shape of
food, if that is a loaf yonder."

The abruptness with which silence fell over the group was startling. Snorri
bent forward and plucked her sternly back as she made a move toward the bread.
A dozen voices questioned her.

"What do you mean by that?"... "Why will it take long?"... "Are they not short
in food?"

Knowing that she could not achieve unconcern, she kept to her petulance,
jerking her cloak away from the hand that detained it. "Should I be apt to
blame him for starving me if he did it because no better cheer was to be had?
Nor do I think you have proved much more liberal. Let me by to the bread."

Instead, the ring narrowed around her; and the chief himself put peremptory
questions in his heavy voice. "Has he food? What do you mean? Clear your wits
and answer distinctly. Can you not understand that we think this food-question
of great importance? The thrall told us they are wont to keep their provisions
in the house we burned. Did he lie?"

"I do not know whether he lied or not," Randalin answered slowly; "but it
seems to me great foolishness that you did not take the time into
consideration. At the end of the harvest, any English house would be fitted
out for weeks of feasting. You came the night the larder was fullest; and they
have only spent one meal a day since."

Rothgar got upon his feet and towered over her, his Jotun-frame appearing to
swell with irritation. "Do you not know how provoking your words are, that you
are so glib of tongue?" he thundered. "Tell shortly what you think of their
case; can they last one day more?"

The black head nodded emphatically.

"Can they last two days?"

Another nod.

"A week?"

Fridtjof the Bold took refuge in sullenness. "They can last two weeks as
easily as one. How much longer are you going to keep me from food?" She was
free after that to do anything she liked, for their excitement was so great
that they forgot her existence. Those whose fluency was not hampered by their
feelings, relieved their minds by cursing. Those whose anger could be vented
only in action, made after the blundering serf. And the few who were boldest
turned and bearded the son of Lodbrok himself.

"How much longer must we endure this?"... "Think of the game we are
missing!"... "There is little need to remind me. My naked fists could batter
the stones from their places--"... "In a week more, it is possible that
England may be won!"... "What do you care for their wretched land, chief?"...

"Chief, how much longer must we lie here?"

When that question was finally out, every man heaved a sigh of relief,
straightening in his place like a dog that is pricking his ears, and there was
a pause.

A fell look came into the Jotun's face as he gazed back at them; and for a
time it seemed that he would either answer with his fist or not at all. But at
length he began to speak in a voice as keen and hard as his sword.

"You know my temper, and that I must have my will. Always I have thought it
shame that my kinsman's odal should lie in English hands, and now I have made
up my mind to put an end to it. You know that I am in no way greedy for
property. When I obtain the victory, you shall have every acre and every stick
on it to burn or plunder or keep, as best pleases you. But I do not want to
reproach myself longer with my neglect; and whether it take two weeks or
whether it take twenty--" He interrupted himself to bend forward, shading his
eyes with his hands. "If I am not much mistaken," he said in quite another
voice, "yonder is Brass Borgar at last! Yonder, near those oak-trees."

In an instant they had all turned to scan the moon-lit open. And now that they
were silent, the thud of hoofs became distinct. Shouting their welcome, some
hurried to heap fresh fuel on the fire, and some ran after more ale-skins;
while others rushed forward to meet the messenger and run beside his horse,
riddling him with questions.

Folding his arms, the chief awaited him in grim silence. If glances could have
burned, he would have writhed under the look that a pair of iris-blue eyes was
dealing him over a bread crust. But it may be that his skin was particularly
thick, for he betrayed no uneasiness whatever.

When the man finally stood before him, Rothgar said sternly, "It is time you
were here! Ten days have gone over your head since I sent you out. You must do
one of two things,--either tell great tidings or submit to sharp words."

The Brass One laughed as he saluted. "I should have been liable to sharp steel
had I come sooner, chief. Would you have taken it well if I had left without
knowing how it went with the battle?"

"Battle!" three-score mouths cried as with one voice. "Who were victorious?"

The man laughed again. "Should I come to you with a noisy voice and my chin
held high, if other than one thing had happened? Honor to the Thunderer, the
Raven possessed the field!"

Such a clamor arose as though the wolf-pack had tasted blood. Three times,
through the trumpet of his hands, Rothgar bawled a command for silence. "One
horn you may have, then all this must be told before you eat," he gave orders.
And he strode restlessly to and fro until the time came when the horn stood on
end above the man's mouth and then was lowered reluctantly.

Drawing his hand across his lips, the Brass One cleared his throat. "At your
pleasure, chief. Is it to your mind to begin with the battle? Or do you rather
wish to hear of my journey thence? I admit that that part is somewhat likely
to stick in my teeth and in your ears. From Otford to Shepey was little better
than a retreat, and if--"

"The battle! the battle!" a chorus of voices cried, and the chief confirmed
the choice.

"The battle, by all means! The other will do for lesser dishes when the first
edge is off our appetite. Where was it? And how long since? Yet, before any of
these, how goes it with my royal foster-brother? And how do his traitors carry
sail, Odin's curse upon them! Speak! How fares he?"

"On the top of the wave, my chief,--though it is my belief that he has your
mind toward Edric Jarl, for all that Thorkel is ever on hand to urge the value
of his craft. And certainly it was exceedingly useful to them at Assington--"

"Assington!"... "In Essex?" the chorus broke in upon him. "It happened as
Grimalf said--"... "--the horse with the bloody saddle which he found over the
hill--"... "Do you know for certain if Edric--" ... "Why will you interrupt
him?"... "Yes, end this talk!"... "Go on, go on!"

"I also say go on, in the Troll's name!" the Jotun roared. "Go on and tell us
what Edric the Gainer did which they else could not have done."

"I said not that he did what they could not, chief. He did what they would
not, as the thrall who pulls off our boots muddies his hands that we may keep
ours clean. And a strange wonder is the way in which the English king trusts
him even after this treason has been committed! The Gainer fled, with all his
men, at the moment when most King Edmund depended upon his support; and in
this way left for Danish feet a hewn path where a forest of battle-trees had
stood."

Rothgar took no part in the stream of questions and comments that again
drowned the voice of the messenger, until suddenly he launched an oath that
out-thundered them all: "May Thor feel otherwise than I do, for I vow that
were I in his place, I would raise Danish warriors in wool-chests! Is that the
valor of the descendants of Odin, that they go not into battle until a
foul-hearted traitor has swept the way clean of danger? Is the heart of the
King become wax within him? Or is it that cold-blooded fox at his side that is
draining the manhood out of him? I would give much if I had been there!"
Casting himself down upon the bearskin, he lay there breathing hard and
tearing the fur out in great handfuls.

Brass Borgar spoke with the utmost deprecation: "I say nothing against your
feelings, chief; and there are not a few who think as you do; yet I ask you to
remember one thing. I ask you to remember that no Dane has ever held back in
battle because he had the Traitor's help. Canute uses him to strengthen his
back; never to shield his face. The Islanders' own mouths have admitted that
the odds are against ten Englishmen if they face one Dane. I think it is
because he is out of patience with the war that the King makes of the Gainer a
time-saver. It has been told me that he fights not for love of it, nor yet for
glory, but because he covets the land of--"

Like the bellow of an angry bull, Rothgar's voice broke through his. "Land!
Quickly will I proclaim my opinion of any man who sets his heart on that! He
who forgets glory in his eagerness for property, deserves the curse of Thor!"

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