“_A wise man’s guess is a prophecy_”
—Northern saying.
Out in the long trading-hall there was a confusion of shuffling feet, as
the company rose to show respect to the Jarl’s kinswoman; but over the
inner chamber such silence reigned that the rows of rich garments
hanging around the walls took on the semblance of listening figures.
Rooted where his sister had left him, the Jarl stood gazing
incredulously at his friend, and the song-maker’s head was bowed over
the cap he was tearing in strips.
Helvin said at last: “Songsmith, you took oath that no man could give
you aught,—is it as it would seem, that what you desire is a woman’s
help?”
The Songsmith made no other answer than a movement of his bent
shoulders, but that was answer enough. Starkad’s son said disgustedly:
“This is how it is, then,—you have sulked and chafed for lack of my
sister’s favor, even though you have my friendship and every honor that
friendship can devise. There is more shame in your falling before her
than of all men else. I wonder not that you were ashamed to own it to
me. To confess that after all your boasted wildness you had put on her
yoke as tamely as any mincing courtman among them! Tamely? Cravenly! How
does this hang together, that you have a man’s pride yet like any
whipped hound give love in return for abuse!”
“_Trolls_, lord!” the song-maker gasped, flinging his cap on the floor.
Helvin made a change from scorn to sternness. Placing his foot upon an
iron-bound chest, he set his elbow on his knee in an attitude of
exhortation.
“Curse and stamp as much as suits you,—I should do no friend’s part if I
did not deal severely with you. You go not hence until I have given you
such a bitter dose as shall cure your mind of that sickness while life
lasts in you. So take breath to swallow—”
Randvar let breath go, instead, in desperate protest. “It needs not,
lord! I am cured. Could you give me anything to equal her look in
bitterness? I am cured from this day forth. Give me leave to go.”
But the Jarl’s outstretched arm made a bar across the path to the door.
“Too sudden is your recovery; it suggests that of a child who sees the
medicine-bowl coming his way. It has come to this, that I shall be
convinced only when we have talked the matter out at length and—What!
wincing already? Is that a sign of sound flesh? Face about, there! You
may make up your mind to one of two things: either to answer my
questions and so disgust yourself with your folly, or else to listen
while I drag your weakness forth into such bright light as—”
“I will answer,” Randvar said between his teeth, and set them hard.
“Begin then by telling me what I think I know already, that she had no
reason for believing her dignity trod upon.”
“Who shall say what looks like reason to a woman? If you must know, she
had this much cause that on Treaty Day we disputed together about a
matter and in an evil hour it happened that I was proved to be right,
and when I saw it, I smiled,—no more than a twitching back of the lips,
lord! In the same breath I asked her to excuse it! But she left me
without a word, refused me admittance when I went to her hall, flouted
me when I accosted her—slighted—scorned—Only the Devil who made them
knows why women do anything!” He gave the cap a vicious kick as he
started to pace the floor.
But Helvin added severely: “And only the Lord who made men knows why
they hanker after such creatures! Behold how your own mouth has
convicted you of the greatest folly!”
That was all, perhaps, that the song-maker was able to behold, even
though his gaze halted here and there upon garments and weapons as he
moved restlessly to and fro. At last he cried out for mercy.
“I will confess myself the greatest fool alive if it will save me from
your tongue! I know now what I have always suspected, that King Helge in
the song wasted his time in avenging it on Fridtjof that he loved the
boneless Ingeborg. That love alone was punishment enough—” Like one
struck by a new thought, he stopped before the Jarl.
“It occurs to me, lord,” he said, “that you are not carrying out your
share of that song! Here am I, a man of no more than free birth—since no
one gets his rank from his mother—who have dared to love a ruler’s
daughter. Why do you not rage against it, as is to be expected? I swear
an oath that I would rather endure your wrath for my boldness than
continue this talk about my weakness.”
“That choice is less hero-like than it sounds, my friend,” Helvin
answered gravely. “You do yourself wrong if you do not know that since
Time’s morning a man whom Odin has led into the high-seat of skaldship
has been held the equal of any blood. And you do me wrong to think that
I should forget the nobleness of your mind, whatever your rank. Is it
not even because I love you as the very eyes in my head that I cannot
bear to see you bend your neck to a pride-crazed woman?”
He took his foot down from the coffer to face the song-maker fairly.
“Oh my comrade, what shall I do to ease you?” he said. “Will you that I
should grapple with you and pluck out the barb, though your heart-roots
come with it? Or are there any kindly services I might do to heal the
flesh and let the thing remain imbedded and forgotten? Do you prescribe
now for my love,—I swear no dose shall be too bitter. Though that course
be not so good, I would still go to her myself on your behalf, were
there hope that she had a heart in her bosom to answer when one
knocked.”
“It is not that she has not a heart, lord. It is that I am not high
enough to reach the bolt upon its door,” Randvar answered sadly. He
wrung the hand that had clasped his, then threw himself down upon the
chest and buried his face in his palms. His words came disjointedly.
“Think only what her love would be like, who is so steadfast in her
friendship! Had you seen her that day of the Treaty when she came upon
me in my bonds—! Why do I rail at her pride, when I would not have her
bright head held one jot lower? When Mord turned upon me, I had her as
my shield—Lord, when Olaf came against me with his knife, she closed
with him! Her slim fingers twined vinelike around the great hole of his
wrist. And one of her long braids flew out as she whirled and brushed
like a bird’s wing across my lips! Likely it is the last time they will
ever feel it.” He got up suddenly and resumed his walking, too deep in
wretchedness to heed the quiver of mocking laughter to which Helvin was
stirred.
“Think only what her love of her brother must be like, who was so
cool-witted while she thought he was being slaughtered!” Starkad’s son
murmured.
As swiftly as the mood came, so swiftly it passed. Stepping forward, he
began to move beside his friend, speaking indulgently:
“Be of good cheer, comrade,—I foresee now that you shall even kiss her
lips if you will.”
Randvar came to himself with a start, and stopped short in anger. “Lord,
there are some remedies that even you may not try upon me. If this is
done to deride—” His manner changed as he met the gentleness of the gray
eyes. “Bear with me! I know you mean me only good. But I cannot see your
cheer.”
“It is not to the man down in the thick of the fight, but to the man up
in the crow’s-nest, that it is given to see which way the battle is
going. You see only the fury of your foe. I see that she is putting that
fury forward to hide the weakness that lies behind it.”
Again the song-maker checked his pacing, but this time to ask
wonderingly: “Lord, what mean you?”
“My meaning is that she has found out that her breast holds love for
you.”
“_Love!_”
“What else, my friend, would make Brynhild the Cold forget her estate
and show openly—to Mord—to Olaf—to whomsoever chose to look—the store
she set by your safety?”
So lightning-bright grew the radiance in Randvar’s face that it could
last only lightning-long, then flickered and died in gloom.
“Lord, how dare I believe that? It might have been no more than
friendliness, or woman’s pity.”
Through the mass of dark hair from which he had plucked off his jewelled
cap, the Jarl ran his white hands, throwing back his head with a
movement of impatience.
“Why is it that it comes so much easier to believe in Hel than in
Valhalla? Is it because the earth-clods we are made of weigh us down
when we try to mount? If I cannot prove her love to you through her
gentleness, then will I prove it through her hardness. No ball leaps up
high that has not gone down hard,—had she stooped no lower than pity,
she had never risen so high as hate. Now I can make a guess that the
most surprised person to whom Brynhild betrayed her love was Brynhild
herself! One thing I hope,—that it was not this moment which a bantering
fate took to make you smile?”
“What other time should it have been, lord? It was not until the
excitement was over that I called to mind how she had boasted that
nothing could shake her coldness. When I saw her—sword in hand—eyes
ablaze—Odin himself would have drawn back his lips!”
“Then would Odin himself have gone behind the clouds for a while,”
Helvin said; and one of his rare smiles, faint as a glimmer of arctic
sunshine, touched the curves of his mouth. “Think of the firebrand it
hurled into her pride, when she thought that this love which she herself
had just discovered had been betrayed to you, and that you were
triumphing—”
The Songsmith cried out the word “Triumphing!” with such bitterness in
his voice that, to hide a smile, the Jarl turned away and feigned to be
absorbed in a kirtle on the wall, nor looked around again until Randvar
appealed to him. Dropped heavily upon the chest, the Songsmith sat
frowning desperately at the floor.
“If you, lord, would but do one thing which is easy to you?” he said.
“Furnish me with some errand that will bring me into her presence, even
against her will. I mean so to act that it will be made evident to her
that she misjudged in fearing I should become forward.”
Again the Jarl set his foot upon the coffer and his elbow on his knee,
but the look he bent on his friend now had a hint of amiable amusement.
“True it is that much lies on that! You might feign sickness and be
taken into the guest-chamber off the women’s hall, where it is the
custom for sick men to—But the ill luck might befall you that unless you
seemed balancing on the grave-edge, she would leave you to her women.
Better would it be to make up some errand concerning the dress of state
which she and her maids are covering with needlework for my wear—Yet
that is not certain, either, for I have some fear that she might hear
your message and then dismiss you before you could get out your
conciliating words.”
Some diffidence had come into the Songsmith’s manner, as if he foresaw
chaff for what he was about to say. Yet now he said it:
“One plan came to me, lord, by which I could show without words that I
had a desire to please her. You heard how she spoke of woodsmen?... More
than once has she upbraided me for wearing clothes unbefitting the son
of Freya, the king-born. For myself, I prefer to be the son of Rolf the
Viking, but for her sake—to show that I will do all in my power to
deserve the honor she does me—I would go so far as to change—”
He broke off in embarrassment, for even as he had feared, the Jarl’s
whimsical amusement increased. Laying hold of the shoulder before him,
Helvin shook it banteringly.
“Let us hope it will not be with you as the priest’s story says it was
with Samson and Delilah! And I will forbear reminding you that in
casting off your forest garb you cast off my livery, and confess that I
no longer stand first in your allegiance— Nay, I said that I would
forbear reminding you of that, so never stir your tongue to protest. Now
that I see that you have not thrown your dice for a worthless stake, I
begin to find interest in the game. Call the trader in to set forth his
goods. You shall go to her at once, while her heart is still at war with
her temper for having ill-treated you. There is no good striving against
me! I say you shall. Call Asgrim—Nay, if you will not, I will do it
myself—Ah, that is better! Since I have staked my reputation as a
foretelling man, I am going to see that the game is played properly.”