“_Bare is back without brother behind it_”
—Northern saying.
The waning light falling into the Jarl’s bedchamber from its one small
window under the eaves disclosed dimly the figures of the priest and the
counsellor and the courtman, as they waited in the middle of the floor,
but showed little more than the mass of the high curtained bed that
stood under the window against the wall. The old advice-giver,
declaiming before it, had the feeling that he was talking into space,
even while he knew that somewhere in the gloom beneath the hangings the
young ruler must lounge listening to him.
“Whether you take it well or not, you shall not keep on in a false step
for want of my foresight. Long ago I told you that the son of Freya, the
king-born, was trying to get friends behind him. Now I tell you that he
has got them. Courtmen tag at his heels. Traders and guardsmen clink
horns at the sound of his name; while the saying runs that hunters show
fight if they think that so much as his cloak-hem has been trod on. In a
year more, he will have wormed his way into the high-seat. I foretell
it.”
Mord’s voice rose to a wrathful climax; and the gesture of his knotted
hands, when it looked as though the silence of the bed was going to
continue unmoved, suggested that he would like to use them on the sullen
shoulders.
But the Jarl’s voice sounded presently in measured accents: “Has it come
to your ears that men are speaking against my rule?”
Slightly appeased, Mord’s hands relaxed to smooth his beard. “I do not
mean that, Starkad’s son. You mistake me if you think I mean that the
fellow has yet power enough to get you disliked. Well spoken of over all
the land is your rule. Only—”
Measured and relentless as the boom of surf, the Jarl’s voice sounded
through his. “When it happens that they do find fault, come and tell me
of it; and I will listen patiently. Only about aught which belongs to my
life as a free man—”
A moment it seemed as though his control weakened, as if measure might
be lost in fury; but he recovered himself and beat it out slowly to the
end.
“Witness, priest! and Olaf as well! I know how well-beloved the
Songsmith is; and I know also how little loved I am. Plain as you, I see
how proud my sister is; nor do I forget that she is my heir. Yet I have
given leave to the son of Freya, the king-born, to woo and wed her and
join his power to her ambition. Judge from that how I trust him, and
take other counsel than to slander him to my ears again.”
Deeper than ever seemed the stillness when he had ceased. All that
stirred it was the grating of iron hinges, as Mord jerked open the door
which led from the alcove-chamber out into the great living-room of the
body-guard.
The action let in a rush of ruddy firelight that illumined the
counsellor’s bent figure from head to foot, made a leap at the silver
rosary of the black-robed priest behind him, a snatch at the shining
lute in the hand of Olaf the French, and came to a halt only at the edge
of the curtained bed. Gradually, amid tumbled cushions and blankets of
fur, Helvin’s brooding recumbent figure became visible. Frowning at it,
Mord paused.
“So, I suppose, it must be; but never yet have I thought your behavior
more untoward. I think now that it would have been good counsel if
Starkad had given you a voice in things here, so that you might have
found out the danger in it.”
As one expecting an explosion, the priest involuntarily shrank into
himself; but what came instead was a sly chuckle.
“It has crossed my thoughts also that Starkad might have managed some
things better,” Helvin’s voice drawled. “I wonder how it looks to the
old troll himself now.”
The advice-giver turned on the threshold to say with sternness: “Young
lord, is it in that manner you speak of the honored dead?”
For all answer, there came from the bed a peal of mocking laughter.
Like one who dares trust himself no longer, Mord made a swift stride
through the door and away; and the Shepherd Priest spoke soothingly:
“Most dear lord!”
It could be seen that the Jarl lowered one of the fists propping his
chin and turned and looked at him. He said presently, with ominous
slowness:
“Are you going to take the text now, priest, and edify me with
exhortations about honoring the dead? If so, pray begin by explaining
why a man should be honored only because he changes from serving the
Devil on earth to serving him in—”
The priest lifted a gentle hand. Brawny shepherd’s hand though it was,
it had no lack of dignity.
“My lord and son, turn not your good gift of speech to your own ill. I
would in no way vex you. That you were sorely tried under Starkad’s rule
was before all eyes. How should I who have not felt the burden chide you
that your back is weary? Only I would beseech of you that fairness
towards him which we show to you, when in your less worthy turns of mind
we still remember how noble is your nature. Old sayings have it that men
are wolves and bears in their Other Shapes,—it is but a turn of the
cloak to hold with the Christ-faith that the blackest-hearted man has a
better self within him. Believe of your father that he had a gentler
spirit somewhere hid, that his life bound him as yours binds you.
Believe, and pardon.”
From resting on his elbow, Starkad’s son started passionately upright.
“Pardon,—and give up my hate that is as meat to my teeth! Priest, are
you Northern born and know not that such satisfaction comes from hating
a foe as makes the joy of loving a friend look like pale moonshine by
red fire? My foe was what he was—doubly my foe in that he owed me
help—and blow shall go for blow between us. Pardon that I may be
pardoned? Rather than forgive him one jot of his punishment would I
share his torture and count it gain! Rather would I burn by his side
until that spirit which cannot be subdued by Norway’s rocks or
Greenland’s snowwastes or Iceland’s belching mountains has burned out of
both of us, and left no more than two dead cinders! Nor will I bear
rebuke!”
“Nay, how should I do aught else than sorrow for you who choose for
yourself so hard a way?” the old priest said sadly. “Methinks my heart
would break over you if I did not know that even at the goal of that
road, at the end of that torture, One will stand waiting for you beside
whose love mine is but a taper to a star. His mercy be upon you and save
you from yourself!”
As a star through the night, shone his soul through his swarthy face;
but Starkad’s son averted his eyes that he might not see it.
“Everything bides its time. When I feel desire for that goal, it may be
that I shall believe in it. You are an honest man,—do what you can among
my people. For my malady, your medicine is too mild.”
With a hand raised in dismissal, he met the hand raised in benediction
and flung himself back on his cushions, speaking curtly to Olaf,
Thorgrim’s son.
“Do you sing, until I decide whether your jingling or my humor makes the
worst discord in my ears.”
As a man wakened out of deep abstraction, the courtman came to himself
with a start. Though he sought to cover it with his graceful bow, and
set his shapely fingers instantly to their task on the lute-strings, his
customary tactfulness was lacking. In the middle of the first verse of
his ballad, the Jarl’s hand—that had come out into the firelight and
begun to pick and tear at the gold-embroidered flowers of the
bed-hangings—flew up irritably.
“What the devil! Have you nothing but tinkling love-tunes in stock? Do
they rear their men in the women’s house in France? Some song of
might—fire—you milksop!”
Murmuring apologies, Olaf tried plainly to regain his wonted poise; but
before he had got out so much as the first couplet of the battle-song he
had struck into, the hand had leaped from the embroidery, snatched his
instrument from his hold and dashed it against the opposite wall.
“Fool! I have warned you that battle-songs are my love-songs,” Helvin’s
voice rose in thunder. “To sing them to me when I am doomed to inaction
is to heat the fever in my veins to madness! Oh, where in the Troll’s
name is the Songsmith? The three weeks leave I gave him was up when the
candle of the sun marked noon to-day; and here the sun is burned out,
and he has not come. What can he mean by it?”
Olaf laughed, neither mirthfully nor yet perfunctorily, but with the
frank discordance of his mind.
“Lord, who shall take it on him to say what any one means at this court?
If it were in France, now, I could interpret your relations well enough;
but here—here you go not by any rules I know. I give up the riddle.”
With a gesture of less than usual grace and more than usual feeling, he
went over to pick up his lute.
But Helvin spoke with unusual softness from the darkness of the
bed-curtains: “How would you interpret our relations if you were in
France, beausire?”
“Nay, noble one, it has no meaning here,” Thorgrim’s son answered almost
impatiently, “here where no house reaches underground, and women count
for naught. There, men would say that the fellow had some secret of
yours in his power and you took insolence from him because you feared to
resent it.”
That he was aiming a shaft is unlikely for he did not look up to see if
the shot told, but went on examining the broken strings, his mouth
working like that of a man who is trying also to mend a rift in his
damaged composure. It was not until the stillness behind the curtains
had lasted so long as to become ominous that he started as though struck
by a possibility, lowered the lute slowly, and slowly turned his gaze
towards the recumbent figure.
Even the restless hand had been drawn in from the light now; crouching
as for a spring, Starkad’s son loomed in the dimness. Like vultures
hovering over their prey, Olaf’s eyes settled on him, tearing their way
in as though they would reach the inmost places of his heart.
So they faced each other until they were startled by an outburst of
jovial voices in the guard-room without, shouting the name of Rolf’s son
with words of noisy welcome.
Straightening, then, Olaf made a salute of studied mockery.
“Lord,” he said, “I will give place to your—confidant.”
The Jarl stretched out an arm grown strangely unsteady, and spoke in a
voice become strangely breathless. “Wait! You think that I am afraid to
make him smart for an offence? Wait a little.”
Surprise took some of the assurance from Olaf’s bearing, as he resumed
his place at the bed-foot; then, in expectant malice, he folded his arms
and leaned against the carven post to watch through the open door the
song-maker’s buoyant approach.
Delayed by the questions rained on him, by the hands thrust out to clasp
his, Randvar was long in making his passage through the hall; but the
alcove doorway framed him at last, a vision of light and of life as the
fire-glow touched his burnished hair and the new happiness in him rang
in his voice of greeting.
The Jarl’s grim tone sounded doubly grim by contrast. “However wroth I
was before, now I am half as wroth again. What befits you, lazy-goer, is
humblest explanation.”
Accustoming his light-filled eyes to the gloom, the Songsmith had
lingered on the threshold; now as he was about to advance he stopped
once more, attuning his harmony-filled ears to this discord.
“Lord!” he said in amazement. “Lord, what should I explain?” then,
incredulously, “This cannot be because I am a half-day late! No stress
was laid upon the time—no need of haste—” He broke off as his clearer
vision separated Olaf’s blue-and-gold figure from the blue-and-gold
curtains. “You here! Now is it likely that any lying tale of yours could
have worked this—Yet it is not possible, lord, that you would have
listened to him! That—”
Again he broke off; but this time with a smothered cry as, turning, he
beheld the face that Helvin thrust into the light. Gnawed and
blood-streaked lips, it showed; while bright as the ruddy light in the
dusky room flickered devil-fire in the murky eyes. They turned to keep
watch of Thorgrim’s son, even while the tongue belonging to them
addressed the song-maker.
“Is it not possible, boor that you are, that you could have leaned too
heavily on my favor? Olaf says justly that one would think I feared you
had some secret knowledge of me, so forbearing have I been. What!
because out of my service I spare you three weeks’ time—ill spare
it—must you take a half-day more? Without a word—a sign—and then defend
your fault with noisy voice and rampant head? Let me see you tame it.
Speak me humbly if you would not push my temper to the uttermost.”
And yet Rolf’s son did not throttle him,—only stood looking at him with
head lowered and thrust forward like a bull moose at bay. The hand Olaf
had laid on his hilt, in the hope of being called upon to defend his
lord, fell paralyzed. He doubted the ears that brought him Randvar’s low
answer:
“Lord, I entreat you to hold down your anger. Remember that we are not
alone, and—”
“Call you that humbleness which would command me where and before whom I
shall rebuke you?” Starkad’s son snarled. “Now do you stand so stubborn
as to think that I will hold back from punishing you? Bend lower—low as
your knee!”
Again Olaf made a hopeful move towards his sword. Again his arm fell
benumbed. Rigidly as a man of iron, Rolf’s son had knelt, his sinewy,
brown hands gripping each other behind his back.
Who was the stillest for a while it would have been hard to say—the
Songsmith or the gaping courtman or the young ruler, who stood wiping
great drops from his forehead while his devil-like eyes watched Olaf
from under his palm.
“Are your French courtmen better broken?” he sneered at last.
Out of his trance Olaf came slowly. Drawing his shapely form erect, he
laughed mellowly in his enjoyment.
“Jarl, I make you a hundred compliments! The proudest king in France had
not dared say one-half as much to his meanest lackey. I make you a
thousand apologies for my stupidity! I see now that what makes the
forester a comfort to you is not his boldness but his meekness. I give
you ten thousand thanks for the merry lesson you have taught me!”
Bowing almost at the song-maker’s side, he laughed almost in the
song-maker’s ear, and laughing bowed himself gracefully out of the room.
Swiftly as well as gracefully it must have been, for while the sound of
the soft mirth was still in the air, the Jarl rushed forward with the
snarl of a wolf robbed of its bone, yet Randvar had time to leap ahead
of him. On Olaf’s heels, the song-maker shut the door with a thunderous
crash, and set his back against it.