“_Courage is better than sword-strength_”
—Northern saying.
Once, as time dragged by, the song-maker had a vague impression that
Olaf was looking at him over a bush; but he was too absorbed to care
whether it was so or not. He did not come out of his meditations until
the dark hemlock tapestry before him was put aside by a white hand and
between the gloomy branches there appeared the bright figure of the
Jarl’s sister, the trailing riches of her gown up-gathered on her arm as
she strolled forth to explore the recesses of the new guest-house.
At sight of him bound to a pine and staked in by three stark old chiefs
looking like three shell-barked hickories in their sombre robes, she
came to a stand-still, stood with shining head aloft as one who has
caught the note of a distant battle-horn. At sight of her, the blood
rose in a hot wave to the roots of his hair, and he muttered a prayer to
the nearest of his keepers.
“Be kind enough to tell her that I have no man’s blame for
anything,—that I put on these bonds of my own free will.”
It chanced that the man appealed to was Mord the Grim; the old
counsellor justified the nickname by the look he bent on Rolf’s son.
“Are you forward in this direction, also?” he inquired. “Starkad’s
daughter will not think that news so much worth having.”
Brynhild drew a step nearer and answered for herself: “I should think it
a sad story if I did _not_ want news about a brave man’s fate. To come
from a circle of merrymakers into a group of such menace—Though it were
no more than a thrall that was bound here, I should wish to know what
this betided him! I beg you to tell me as quick as you can.”
Like a nurse who would scare away an inquisitive child, Mord made his
voice ominous. “You guess well that we are not in play, young maiden.
The fellow has given himself as a hostage for the Skraellings’ good
faith. If he has made any false step in truthfulness or judgment—” A
motion towards the sword at his side completed the meaning. “I warn you
that you will get sorry sport here. Be pleased to return to your
playmates.”
With peremptoriness thinly disguised as courtesy, he stepped forward and
swung back the branches that she might pass out of the prison-chamber.
From the other side of the hemlock wall came like an invitation the
rippling laughter of the gossips, the shouts of the dice-throwers. For
an instant it was as though she stood on the threshold between two
worlds.
It did not take her more than an instant to choose between them. Even
disdainfully, she put aside Mord and the merrymakers.
“Do you think me fit only to watch throws for light stakes? I prefer to
watch your game with the Fates,” she said, and joined the sinister group
under the pine.
In his bound wrists, Randvar’s pulses leaped; but the three
advice-givers raised a chorus of protest, of entreaty, of command. What
would have resulted is doubtful if there had not come suddenly from the
river-bank sounds that struck them dumb,—an outburst of voices rising
high above the hum of the slope, a clangor of weapons, a piercing cry:
“The Jarl is attacked!”
In the wink-long hush that followed the outbreak there was discernible a
distant noise of savage whoops and yells.
Forgetting his helplessness, the Songsmith tried to leap forward, so
that the thongs that held him strained and creaked; and at the same
instant the three old chiefs turned upon him such faces that Brynhild
stepped in front of him as though their knotted hands on their hilts had
already drawn their weapons.
“Make sure of it, first!” she demanded. “It may be no more than one of
their hideous dances of entertainment. It is said that they sound as bad
as battles.”
Disputing, their voices rose shrilly; but Randvar relaxed in his bonds,
and bent his head to wipe off on his shoulder the cold drops that had
sprung to his upper lip.
“You have a cool wit, Jarl’s sister!” he breathed. “That is the only
thing it can be.” He spoke curtly to his keepers: “Why do you spend your
force on me? There will be time enough for that hereafter. I advise you
to see to it that your own people do not imperil Helvin by breaking the
peace without cause.”
It seemed that that danger had already occurred to the old chieftains,
as well it might with such uproar of voice and weapon coming from the
river-bank. Before Randvar ceased speaking, Thorbiorn and Sigvat had
plunged through the hemlocks into the seething caldron below. Now,
cursing and brandishing his weapon, Mord flung himself after them, his
voice distinguishable above the tumult until the din gradually sank and
he occupied the air alone.
Far removed from the turmoil of the bank seemed the stillness of the
hemlock nook where Rolf’s son stood worshipping Starkad’s daughter. Much
as he had claimed to know of the spirit under her pride, he gathered
wonder with gazing at her now. As Northern skies by Northern Lights, so
were her gray eyes fired; and measured constraint had melted like ice
from her motions. Swallow-swift, she had slipped through the branches
and come back again, bearing in her white fingers a glowing brand from
one of the deserted camp-fires.
He looked at her somewhat blankly, then, asking in wonder: “Are you
going to light my funeral pyre?”
“I am going to set you free,” she answered, “so that you may have more
chances for life than Mord’s mercy will grant you if it should prove
that the Skraellings are not dancing.”
Her silken robes sweeping the leaves, she knelt down before him. Almost
she had the fire laid to the ankle-thongs before he could speak.
“No, no! What is coming to me, I must abide here, as I have sworn.”
In her upturned face, Valkyria’s honor fought with woman’s pity. Yet
though she took the brand away, she did not rise; the woman in her
pleaded as before a lawman.
“Death is too hard an atonement for a mistake. Forfeit your post, your
hopes of fame, but not your life. I admit that you must pay some
fine,—but not your life!” Again she stretched forth the burning wood,
desperately, this time, as one who dreads interference.
Strong as a hand, his voice overtook her. “No. I should get the greatest
shame.”
The purpose failed in her face before her arm yielded; but at last she
rose and cast the brand from her, and stood with hands pressed hard upon
her breast.
He had seen in his visions that she would be true to a friend, but he
saw now for the first time that she could suffer for one. His love fed
on her distress, even while he hastened to reassure her.
“Let it not worry you a jot, sunbright maiden. No likelihood at all is
there that I shall come to harm. As I know the temper of my sword, I
know the trustworthiness of the men I am leaning on.”
She took her hands from her bosom to wring them. “How can you be certain
of that? Your mind is shapen altogether like a dream-spinner’s, that
believes good of every one—of savages whom others hold no better than
beasts—of Helvin, whom every one else thinks—Ah!” A sudden thought
seemed to arrest her. “Now is that likely? That Helvin would be so
foolish as to let them dance when he knows what lies upon it for you? As
easily believe that he wishes your death! I must find out what is
happening now.” Heedless of her trailing skirts, she was gone over
stubble and stone, her step more light and free than the tread of Odin’s
shield-maidens in the high halls of his chosen, as she climbed farther
up the hill to a ledge of rock which had pushed through the soil and
risen in a watch-tower.
When he could no longer catch any gleam of her glowing robes, the
song-maker stood with his head leaning back against the tree as if his
hope would mount to the sky. He wandered among singing stars until his
attention was gradually drawn earthward by a stealthy crackling of the
brush on his left.
Between the interlacing twigs, he made out presently a patch of such
blue fabric as Thorgrim’s son’s cloak was fashioned of; but it did not
seem reasonable to him that the French One should have strayed so far
from the scene of excitement. He could not understand it until Olaf
glided into the open and moved towards him, an unsheathed knife
glittering against his blue sleeve.
No impulse to call for help came to Randvar—that instinct his life of
solitude had blunted—but he put forth all his strength against his
bonds, swelling out his chest, hardening the sinews of his limbs, until
the thongs that withstood him were as iron sawing the flesh. When he
found that they would not yield, he became as motionless as the tree
behind him; his mouth twisted sardonically as he wondered in what way
Erna’s proving of his heart against steel was going to serve him now.
As their eyes held each other it is unlikely that either man realized
that any but his foe was in the world. Upon their tense nerves it
vibrated like a blow when the voice of the Jarl’s sister rang out behind
them:
“Stand!”
The surprise of it seemed to paralyze Olaf so that for an instant he did
stand, remaining poised in the air. Then the curve of his parted lips
lost all resemblance to a smile.
“Bright Brynhild, this hand shall show you Helvin avenged!” he said, and
cleared the remaining space at a stride, his arm uplifted.
In the draught of a breath she was before him, her slim hands locked
about his wrist in the effort to pull it down.
“I bid you stop! Helvin is safe! Do you hear me?”
Perhaps his mind really did not hear her. With each word, his eyes froze
faster to the Songsmith. Without so much as glancing at her, he put up
his sinewy left hand and pried loose her grasp. The bound man cried out
to her to give way and leave them,—so little even he knew her Valkyria
spirit.
Thunder-strong it gathered in her, lightning-swift it struck. Swooping
on the sword which Olaf’s move left exposed at his side, she tore it
free. With its upward sweep, she struck the knife from his hold. With
its downward stroke she levelled at his breast. He leaped back just in
time to save his life, if the rigidness of her arm told the truth.
“Do you think I am as poor-spirited as you are dastardly?” she said.
At a bound his mind was brought back to her, then; and once back, it
would have been a dull mind not to see that his suit was in even greater
danger than his body. In a trice he had doffed passion, donned reproach.
“Brynhild! Is it really as it seems, that because my loyalty runs away
with my manners, you speak so to me?”
“I know not why you will talk of manners,” she retorted, “when what your
passion ran away with was your honor, that ought to have taught even a
thrall better than to fall upon a fettered man.”
“A thrall?” He spread out his hands in indignant protest. “Little shall
a thrall know of a high-born man’s wrath over the slaying of his chief!
Am I not, before all else, a free Norseman? Only this morning, maiden,
did you upbraid me because my French rearing had underlaid my Norse
temper! Now, behold, when my Northern blood breaks out in its native
wildness you stab me with eyes, words!—oh, use the sword! The steel
would be more kind.”
Gracefully he sank on his knee before her, making as though he would
bare his breast for the stroke. Perhaps a maid of France would have
shrunk or swooned. Perhaps it took him by surprise that she stood with
unshaken hand, studying him as one studies an unfamiliar object.
“I do not know that I have the wish to be kind to you,” she said slowly.
“I do not know how I feel towards you, for you are not the man I thought
I knew. Perhaps you should not have blame, since you believed Helvin
slain, yet—”
Her voice quickened as a chorus sounding through the trees heralded the
old counsellors’ return. She shifted the sword with an imperious
gesture.
“Rise up! It will happen to you to be seen in that foolish position! I
cannot tell whether I shall ever have liking towards you again or not.
Rise up, and go away from me until I find out.”
He had risen while she was speaking, but whether he would obey her last
command was for an instant uncertain. Turning from her, his eyes rested
again on the Songsmith; his empty hands began to open and shut at his
sides. Only the grim voice of Mord, falling on the pause, seemed to
catch and hold him. Even as he gave way step by step, his vulture eyes
clung to the song-maker until the bushes rose like walls between them.
While the branches that closed behind Olaf were still aquiver, the
hemlock boughs opened upon Mord and his associates. Filing in stiffly,
they sat them down heavily upon bowlder and hummock.
“A man of my years,” Mord panted, “does not take it lightly to have his
heart turned over in him because some red apes choose to hop around in
mock warfare. Get what enjoyment you can out of it, Rolf’s son, that so
far your savages have not belied you. When their foolishness was over,
the Jarl let so much news out as to send a messenger over to tell us
that he was safe and getting all the favors he asked for,—after we had
spent that much time in doubt and endangered as many lives as there are
bodies among us! May Hel take fools and leave knaves, if she have not
room for both! Jarl’s sister, even you seem to have lost your wits, to
go about flourishing a sword, with cheeks as red to look at as your
kirtle. I thought you made it your boast to take things coldly.”
_Coldly!_ For the first time Randvar recalled their dispute of the
morning, looked at the firebreathing Valkyria, and smiled in spite of
himself.
At the same breath, she darted him a glance that was half startled and
half menacing. The flaming of her color was not more marked than the
stiffening of her spine as she caught his expression.
He sobered in haste. “Jarl’s sister, no faintest intention had I of
making mockery!”
She deigned him no answer whatever. With awful precision she planted the
sword in the earth beside her, with awful deliberation gathered up her
silken skirts, without a backward glance swept from the prison-chamber.
Twice he called after her without avail,—so disastrous may a victory be!
Like a fog, sullen rage settled upon him then. When the old chiefs asked
him what Starkad’s daughter was doing with the sword, he clipped his
answer as close as might be:
“Olaf, Thorgrim’s son, lent it to her to cut his luck-thread with.”
When they questioned him about her displeasure, he conceded no more than
an ungracious movement of his shoulders. Old Mord was impelled at last
to scowl at him over the cloak-end with which he was mopping his face.
“Olaf the French,” he observed, “was fostered in a land where they have
the good custom of teaching manners as well as courage. Sure am I that
such a training would have bettered you, Rolf’s son, more than you
think. I have, however, a good hope that even as autumn thunder ripens
the grain, this tempest may have ripened your green judgment; so that
hereafter you will be less quick to sneer at the caution of old men, and
more slow to stake your all on any belief. Though the Skraellings keep
faith with you, remember this—that you came near losing your life
through your lord’s folly, who accepted such entertainment without any
regard to the effect it might have upon your state. If you had offended
him so that he had the wish to murder you, he could not have gone about
it better.”
Mopping his face, he continued to speak at intervals in praise of
discretion; but Rolf’s son lost what followed by reason of the ringing
of that one sentence in his ears—“If you had offended him so that he had
the wish to murder you, he could not have gone about it better.” ... It
seemed that Helvin had thought himself offended ... that murder had
looked out of his eyes....
His head falling forward upon his breast, Randvar stood as one listening
to an evil voice within him.