“_The tongue is the bane of the head_”
—Northern saying.
It was a fantastic scene, the wilds of a forest river-bank turned into a
guest-house for court-folk. Athwart the living green of the pines,
camp-fires sent their spirals of blue smoke, and groups of thralls made
white rings around the blaze as they roasted the game and heated the
wine with which pages skimmed to and fro. Down by the sparkling water,
knots of old chieftains and young courtmen divided their time between
eating and gazing across the stream at the Skraellings’ encampment of
the opposite shore. Back among the trees, where the drifted leaves had
been heaped into cushions of russet and gold, groups of gentlewomen
chatted as merrily amid the great stillness as though they were among
the whirring wheels of their own bower. Still farther up the brown slope
and deeper in the grove, Helvin Jarl, in his splendid riding dress of
gold-embroidered green, sat upon a heap of bowlders over which red
wolfskins had been thrown, his song-maker lounging beside him,
wild-locked and wild-garbed as a creature of the wood, except for the
harp at his back.
Randvar had finished eating and was staring contentedly at nothing. Over
the forest lay the hush of that strange season which falls like a
breathless pause in the brisk round of the autumn. Dropped suddenly
motionless were the winds that had been lashing the trees like mighty
flails; and as a conjuror changes knives to roses, so had the keen cold
of the morning been changed to balmy warmth by the red noon sun. A fancy
came to him that the golden haze veiling the end of every tree-aisle was
the visible shape of a dream in the air.
“It feels like noon-spell in harvest-time,” he said aloud. “I think the
earth has worked so hard that it has fallen asleep and dreams now of the
summer.”
“Say the same thing later on when the day is at an end,” Helvin
answered. “To me it feels like a devil’s fit of repentance. After his
spite has been for weeks like a rasp in the air, and his fury has torn
all within reach, he tires of his rage—for a day or two—holds his peace
and puts on a watery smile.”
Even while the song-making part of Randvar smiled approval of the
figure, his woodsman’s alertness detected something odd about the voice
in which the words were uttered. Sideways he sent a glance at his lord.
It seemed to him that there was also something odd about Helvin’s
expression; but he had no chance to scrutinize it for on the instant it
was gone, while the Jarl caught his look and challenged it.
“Why do you stare as if you saw a hedge-rider?”
“Lord, your voice sounded as though it came hard for you to breathe,”
Randvar answered after a moment.
Helvin’s words leaped out like tigers from a cage. “Why should it not?
in this smothering stillness where even the trees are holding their
breath to listen for something. Oh, for the plains! the plains! where
the wind blows, and a man can see all around him, and not so much as a
ghost can creep on him unawares! It is a trap, this forest of yours; and
every rank of trees is a wall to shut one tighter in with his thoughts.
Had I an axe ready to my hand, and the might in my arm—”
Even as it seemed that his body would be wrung by a violent gesture, he
caught himself; and his voice slackened to a mocking drawl.
“What a good thing it is that I have three wiseminded old ravens to make
sport for me! Hither they wing their way now to give me final advice in
this treaty-making. Odin be thanked, it will not be long before we are
on the move! Yonder my kinswoman’s hand sends a summons to you,
Songsmith. Go, sting Olaf’s jealousy again. The entertainment I have in
torturing him, teaches me for the first time why Starkad had delight in
bear-baiting.”
In words now as well as voice, he was strange to his song-maker. Randvar
mused on it as he descended the slope; again the feeling that he was
wakening from a dream came over him.
“Seldom have I experienced such strange things in my sleep as I have
done since that day at the Black Pool,” he murmured; then as his
wandering gaze fell upon the group before him, he finished contentedly:
“But if it be a dream, it must be said that it is a good one.”
Surrounded by her band of comely women, with the elegant Olaf
outstretched before her, the Jarl’s sister sat enthroned on the slope at
the foot of an ancient oak. The masses of bronze foliage still clinging
around the base of the mighty limbs, spread like a canopy above her. The
huge trunk was as a background for her rounded form in its kirtle of
wine-red, gold-embroidered; against the black bark, her hair was as a
spot of golden fire. The song-maker saw neither Yrsa’s pretty smile of
welcome nor the shrug of Thorgrim’s son when their mistress greeted him
graciously.
“Make me a song in tune with the forest, Songsmith,” she requested.
“Olaf’s French ballads that chime so well with my bower sound in this
place like the tinkling of bells, though I would not seem thankless in
saying so.”
Olaf rose and acknowledged playfully the apologetic gesture she made
him.
“Be in no fear of hurting my feelings, madam, by preferring his songs
over mine,” he said. “I have amusement in trifling with the
singing-craft, as becomes a high-born man; but to do such work seriously
is the portion of churls.”
She took back the conciliating hand to fold it on the other in her lap,
and spoke a trifle haughtily. “In France, it may be so, beausire. Among
Norsemen, skaldship has always been held in honor. If the truth must be
told, I am in best tune with Norse ways.”
“Then will I take away the discordant note of my presence,” he said, and
smiled at her quizzically as he turned. But he was not so unscathed that
his eyes could pass the Songsmith as they encountered him; there, with
his will or without it, they froze. “Unless,” he added, “the forester
has the wish to make some reply to me.”
Time was when the forester would have replied with the tongue of his
snake-skin scabbard, but he was not dull in learning new ways. Almost
his smile was a match for Olaf’s as he answered:
“To what end should I do that, courtman? It is not for the contented
moon to bark at the jealous dog.”
It was not only Thorgrim’s son who drew breath quickly, then; every
maiden of the group caught hers with a little scream. The Jarl’s sister
rose swiftly, standing erect as a red lily.
“This thing comes ill to pass that you forget me as well as yourselves,”
she said.
After a moment, Olaf lowered his glittering eyes and finished his
withdrawal; when Brynhild sank again to her place among the mossy roots,
and settled herself as one preparing for a treat.
“Sing, I pray you,” she said to the Songsmith.
For him, Olaf ceased to exist. Unslinging his rude harp, he leaned
easily against a tree before her and sang her a Skraelling love-song, a
song made of murmuring brook-sounds, of the calls of mating birds, of
the wild note of the blast in the tree-tops, a song that tuned well with
the hush and the haze of the autumn forest. In a silken tangle of
interlocked arms, the women made a rapt circle around him; and the
Jarl’s sister was drawn forward on her moss-cushion. She freed a long
breath when the last note had died away among the leafless branches
above them.
“It seems to me,” she said slowly, “that the work which interpreters do
between men of different tongues is the work that song-makers do between
people of different ranks. When I hear you sing, creatures who have
seemed to me no more than beasts become human like myself. If there were
enough singers to interpret people to one another, perhaps there would
be no strife in the world.”
Pleasure so deepened the color in the Songsmith’s face that he was glad
to shake his long hair over it by bowing low; he was saved the necessity
of answering for after a little Brynhild spoke again, sinking back in
her seat to regard him thoughtfully.
“The first time that ever it happened to me to hear your voice was also
in the forest, as you sang the Song of Fridtjof the way you would have
liked it to happen. Ever since then I have wondered what kind of ending
you gave to it. It seems to me that this would be a good time to sing
it, if you are willing that we should get further good from your gift of
song.”
“The _best_ time!” cried Yrsa, clapping her hands; while urgent murmurs
came from all the rest, from Sigrid, the haughtiest of the matrons, down
to the shyest of the maids.
Once Randvar would have struck up without further consideration; now he
fingered the harp-strings hesitatingly before he answered.
“Jarl’s sister, we have not quarrelled for two weeks, and I confess that
the friendliness has been worth much to me. I beg you not to urge me to
do that which will set us against each other again.”
Her eyebrows went down with displeasure, then up in wonder.
“I do not know what you mean,” she said.
“The ending I have made would offend your pride, noble one; and then
your scorn would tread on the heel of my temper. When plenty of paths
open before us, why choose one that we know leads to bad walking?”
Why, indeed? Unless because she was a woman? Her gray Valkyria eyes
lighted as at a challenge, for all that she remained leaning against her
tree.
“You make a mistake, Songsmith,” she told him, “to think that I would be
offended with you for doing a thing which I asked you to do. Give me a
chance, I pray, to show that I am not so without sense.”
Randvar drew his harp up higher upon his breast, then lowered it until
it rested upon the ground.
“My singing-mood has passed,” he said shortly, “but I will tell you the
ending, since you will have your way. My story branches from your
skald’s song where Fridtjof comes to ask Ingeborg of her brother Helge.
Your song has it that when Helge refuses to make the match, because
Fridtjof has no more than a freeman’s rank while Ingeborg is king-born,
she takes it quietly and marries the old King Ring and sees no more of
the man she loves, until Ring gets so old as to be tired of living and
gives her to the young man, with his crown and the other things he is
through with. Bah!” The Songsmith warmed in spite of himself, flung back
his sun-burnished mane with the fierce grace of a stallion. “A man of
spirit, your Fridtjof! Mine would have laughed in her face. My Fridtjof
takes her in the teeth of Helge’s refusal; and she comes to him
willingly, as befits a woman of brave kin; and he wrests Ring’s kingdom
from him in battle. That is the way I end it.”
“That is the best way!” cried two little pages who had come up with cups
of hot spiced wine, and their shrill enthusiasm changed the women’s
breathless listening into laughter.
The Jarl’s sister laughed too, turning aside to beckon her favorite,
Eric, to bring her own particular cup.
“Have thanks for the telling, Songsmith,” she said, and swung the horn
lightly aloft in the graceful gesture of drinking to him. “Would it be
to your mind now to tell us some tale of forest adventure?”
No word of comment! It was in accordance with her promise not to be
offended, but Randvar discovered of a sudden that he would rather she
had quarrelled with him. He did not answer her question, but busied
himself drinking the wine that was offered him. When he had given the
cup back, he said abruptly:
“It is to my mind to see first how this matter stands. Maybe you believe
that because she was king-born, Ingeborg would marry Ring even though
she had love towards Fridtjof?”
“I do not believe that she would have had love towards Fridtjof,”
Brynhild answered calmly.
He felt himself growing angry as he asked her why not.
Her shapely shoulders rose. “For one thing, his manners would not be at
all after her taste. He would think it big and manful to be careless
about his clothes and his hair and such matters, and she would think it
disgusting.”
A moment Rolf’s son was dumb, marvelling that a word-arrow could sting
so; then, as blood to a wound, his temper surged into his face, till
Eric thought it an imposing thing to step in front of his mistress.
Immediately after, he was picking himself out of a briar-patch, a dozen
steps away; and Randvar faced the Jarl’s sister, his voice deep with
ire.
“Have you the intention to tell me,” he demanded, “that it is a woman’s
turn of mind to care only about the cut of a man’s garments or the
length of his hair? That a great love could not lay hold of her as a
hurricane lays hold of an oak and shake down all little matters like
acorns?” He folded his arms tightly across his breast as he waited for
her answer, conscious that if she should shrug her shoulders at him
again he would be tempted to shake her.
But she yawned instead.
“I dare say it might befall a bondmaid to get carried out of herself,”
she assented. “Rulers’ daughters learn to rule themselves, and
noblewomen take everything coldly.”
He unfolded his arms, then, and began to laugh. “Coldly! It were good
had I a shield to show you yourself in as you say that, Starkad’s
daughter! Through every fibre of your beauty, from the light in your
eyes to the ruddy gold of your hair, runs the color of flame. The red of
your lips is the fiery blood of the North that no ice can cool; and
every motion of your slim hand kindles fire in the breasts of the men
who look on you. Jarl’s sister, when that fire shall break out against
your rule, it will blaze as much higher than a bondmaid’s passion as
your spirit is stronger than hers. Coldly!” He laughed again, as he
stepped back to swing his harp over his shoulder.
It seemed that his laughter pressed her pride hard; she rose suddenly,
her hand crushing a mottled eagle-feather she had picked up; but she did
not quite lose the composure she had pledged. After a moment she tossed
the feather aside, smiling haughtily.
“Behold how you are so bent on a quarrel that you try to make one all by
yourself,” she said. “Let us talk about something else. I wish you would
tell me whether it is because the Skraellings cannot say the word
‘Norway’ that they call the Town by that queer name of ‘Norumbega’—But,
listen! Is it as it seems, that I hear my kinsman calling you?”
Randvar hoped that she did, realizing that his humor made a change of
scene advisable. He welcomed the sound of his name shouted peremptorily
from the group around the bowlders. A muttered word and a hasty bow, and
he was in retreat, trampling savagely every creeping green thing he
encountered.
The temper of the group into which he came matched well his own. The
three old counsellors were growling like three dogs over a bone; and
like a bone picked almost bare of endurance, the Jarl held his rigid
place among them. He turned sharply as the song-maker approached, and
Randvar was startled to see how in that short time the fleeting
expression had become fixed upon him. Fierceness unmistakable it showed
now. In the struggle to hold it under, he had bitten his lips bloody.
“Songsmith,” he said, “you know best why you gave me the counsel to fare
across the river with but few men, and trust myself unarmed in the
Skraelling camp. If any power lies at your tongue-roots, make the reason
clear to these Mimir-heads. I have tried until my tongue foams like a
goaded horse, but it seems that I do not speak their language.”
Sigvat Smooth-Speech made him a gesture that was half deprecating, half
paternal. “There is nothing new in that, lord, that to the ears of age
the fancies of youth sound like a forgotten language. To talk of
trusting a wild man that he may trust you—Jarl, the Fenrir-wolf will be
let loose before good-will come of that!”
“To talk of trusting wild beasts because they have the shape of men!”
snorted the adviser who stood beside Sigvat.
And Mord the Grim frowned at the son of Rolf, as he stroked the grizzled
beard that clung to his chin like foliage to an oak’s lower branches
after its poll is bare.
“Jarl, it will never answer our end that you should give yourself into
the guidance of a raw woodsman. That the youth is skilled in woodcraft,
no one gainsays,—let him rule your hunting, then. Since he has the
singing-gift, hand over your entertainments to him. But when it comes to
a matter in which one may so act that men’s lives hang on it—lord, leave
that to us!”
“Leave that to us!” the others echoed.
Helvin made no reply. He had flung himself back upon the wolfskins and
was gazing far away into the haze, his blood-streaked lip held between
his white teeth. It was left for Randvar to answer.
Long enough to conquer the itch to bandy words with them, the forester
stood pushing about a stalk of orange-splotched fungus with his
moccasined foot. Then he spoke curtly:
“To this I will reply that because you are raw in knowledge of the
Skraellings, you could not follow the track of my reasoning. But like
enough you will believe that I am not guessing if I prove how sure of it
I am. On what I have said, I will lay down my life. Say, then, that the
Jarl shall leave me bound in your hands to suffer death for any harm
that befalls him.”
The stillness seemed to deepen around them as the three old chiefs drew
nearer to him. It was Mord who broke the silence.
“That you would bear yourself boldly was to be looked for, but it will
not stand to your good if your dream-spinning has made you
over-trustful. Though there be no guile behind it, and your mistake be
the most excusable that man was ever tricked into, you should not come
off with your life.”
“I shall make no mistake,” Randvar answered.
Again the stillness settled, as the Grim One’s eyes probed from their
beetling ambush. But he moved at last with a curt gesture.
“So be it,” he assented, and laid a light hand on the young Jarl’s knee.
“Lord, all is in readiness.”
As though the touch were fire, Helvin started up. “Too long have we
waited as it is! Songsmith, I forgot to listen to your pleading, but it
must have been all-powerful. Thorbiorn, be good enough to call those
whom I have chosen to accompany me,—I have warned you openly that no old
men shall have part there. Such suspicion as cries from your wrinkles
would breed murder in a lamb’s heart! Call Bolverk and five guardsmen,
and Gunnar and—” He broke off at the spectacle of Randvar delivering his
sword into the keeping of Mord. “What is the meaning of this?”
When Mord had told him in a few words, he burst out angrily.
“That shall not be! He is my friend. The risk is mine. How is any
peace-talk to be made without him? Who else can speak enough of the
Skraelling tongue?”
“It is no less your people’s risk,” the old counsellor made him stern
reminder; and Randvar reassured him briefly:
“Lord, when I learned the Skraelling tongue of the sachem’s son, as I
told you, he learned Norse of me in return.”
It would seem that all objections had been met, but Helvin did not yield
with his usual reasonableness. Instead, he stood scowling at the tree
beside him, his hands picking and tearing at a gray lichen plastered on
the bark. Finally, while they waited perplexed around him, he turned his
head and looked at the Songsmith.
Meeting the look, Randvar stiffened and spoke amazedly: “Lord, what have
I done?”
In words, Helvin made him no answer; but for the space of a heart-beat
murder glared from his murky eyes. Then, flinging a sign towards the
waiting escort, he strode down to the point where the horses waited at
the fording-place, hailed eagerly by the idling groups.
Mord’s tap on the song-maker’s shoulder reminded him of his share in the
bargain. Going aside with the three old men to the prison-chamber they
had selected, he submitted his body to be bound to a tree with ropes of
walrus-hide.
A wall of evergreens hid the water from his view, but he could follow
the progress of the peace party only by interpreting the outbursts of
the throng. A farewell of cheers marked the Jarl’s departure from this
bank; a babel of comment showed when his dark-skinned hosts had received
him on the other. Then a waning of interest betokened that he had passed
beyond the spectators’ range of vision as the Skraelling ranks closed
about him to conduct him to the council-fire.
With the suspension of the amusement, the crowd on the shore broke up
and came strolling back; sound dwindled to the buzz of the gossips, the
occasional shouts of the dice-throwers. Out of the lull there came again
to the Songsmith the feeling that he was wakening from a dream, and this
time the sensation remained with him.
Slowly, amid the chaos of his mind, thought took shape like this: “When
a man is asleep, a hundred strange tokens are of no account; but too
many of them in waking life should be taken heed of. I cannot see
wherein I have done aught to deserve anger.... Once before has he been
wroth without enough cause,—the night he came to the Tower.... Surely I
must have been dreaming these five weeks to have so seldom thought of
the strange things which took place that night!... Now I begin to
understand why he harped upon his temper when he offered me to join his
following. Offered? Commanded! Here is a riddle that is not solved yet!
Why should he force the skaldship on me as though it were the penalty
for some crime against him, instead of an honor for which every mouth is
watering? Unless, indeed, he feels that his fretfulness makes it more a
peril than a pleasure.... Certainly to follow a chief who for no cause
whatever shifts from a friendly mood to a murderous one—Now that is not
possible! I have ever found him the highest-minded man. Some hidden
reason must lie under this. It must be that I have stumbled into some
misdeed without knowing it. But what?... What?”
Slowly his thoughts lost shape, resolved into chaos again. He stood
staring down abstractedly at the billowing leaves.