CHAPTER I

THE WANDERER’S NECKLACE

by H. Rider Haggard

First Published 1914.

DEDICATION

In memory of Oodnadatta and many wanderings oversea I offer these

pictures from the past, my dear Vincent, to you, a lover of the present

if an aspirant who can look upon the future with more of hope than fear.

Your colleague,

H. Rider Haggard. To Sir Edgar Vincent, K.C.M.G.

Ditchingham,

November, 1913.

NOTE BY THE EDITOR

It chances that I, the Editor of these pages--for, in truth, that is

my humble function--have recovered a considerable knowledge of a bygone

life of mine. This life ended in times that are comparatively recent,

namely, early in the ninth century, as is fixed by the fact that the

Byzantine Empress, Irene, plays a part in the story.

The narrative, it will be observed, is not absolutely consecutive; that

is to say, all the details are not filled in. Indeed, it has returned to

me in a series of scenes or pictures, and although each scene or picture

has to do with every other, there are sometimes gaps between them. To

take one example among several--the journey of Olaf (in those days

my name was Olaf, or Michael after I was baptised) from the North to

Constantinople is not recorded. The curtain drops at Aar in Jutland

and rises again in Byzantium. Only those events which were of the most

importance seem to have burned themselves into my subconscious memory;

many minor details have vanished, or, at least, I cannot find them.

This, however, does not appear to me to be a matter for regret. If every

episode of a full and eventful life were painted in, the canvas would be

overloaded and the eye that studied it bewildered.

I do not think that I have anything more to say. My tale must speak

for itself. So I will but add that I hold it unnecessary to set out the

exact method by which I have been able to dig it and others from the

quarry of my past. It is a gift which, although small at first, I have

been able gradually to develop. Therefore, as I wish to hide my present

identity, I will only sign myself

The Editor.

THE WANDERER’S NECKLACE

BOOK I

AAR

CHAPTER I

THE BETROTHAL OF OLAF

Of my childhood in this Olaf life I can regain but little. There come to

me, however, recollections of a house, surrounded by a moat, situated in

a great plain near to seas or inland lakes, on which plain stood mounds

that I connected with the dead. What the dead were I did not quite

understand, but I gathered that they were people who, having once walked

about and been awake, now laid themselves down in a bed of earth and

slept. I remember looking at a big mound which was said to cover a chief

known as “The Wanderer,” whom Freydisa, the wise woman, my nurse, told

me had lived hundreds or thousands of years before, and thinking that so

much earth over him must make him very hot at nights.

I remember also that the hall called Aar was a long house roofed with

sods, on which grew grass and sometimes little white flowers, and that

inside of it cows were tied up. We lived in a place beyond, that was

separated off from the cows by balks of rough timber. I used to watch

them being milked through a crack between two of the balks where a

knot had fallen out, leaving a convenient eyehole about the height of a

walking-stick from the floor.

One day my elder and only brother, Ragnar, who had very red hair, came

and pulled me away from this eyehole because he wanted to look through

it himself at a cow that always kicked the girl who milked it. I howled,

and Steinar, my foster-brother, who had light-coloured hair and blue

eyes, and was much bigger and stronger than I, came to my help, because

we always loved each other. He fought Ragnar and made his nose bleed,

after which my mother, the Lady Thora, who was very beautiful, boxed

his ears. Then we all cried, and my father, Thorvald, a tall man, rather

loosely made, who had come in from hunting, for he carried the skin of

some animal of which the blood had run down on to his leggings, scolded

us and told my mother to keep us quiet as he was tired and wanted to

eat.

That is the only scene which returns to me of my infancy.

The next of which a vision has come to me is one of a somewhat similar

house to our own in Aar, upon an island called Lesso, where we were all

visiting a chief of the name of Athalbrand. He was a fierce-looking

man with a great forked beard, from which he was called Athalbrand

Fork-beard. One of his nostrils was larger than the other, and he had a

droop in his left eye, both of which peculiarities came to him from some

wound or wounds that he had received in war. In those days everybody was

at war with everybody else, and it was quite uncommon for anyone to live

until his hair turned grey.

The reason of our visit to this chief Athalbrand was that my elder

brother, Ragnar, might be betrothed to his only surviving child, Iduna,

all of whose brothers had been killed in some battle. I can see Iduna

now as she was when she first appeared before us. We were sitting at

table, and she entered through a door at the top of the hall. She

was clothed in a blue robe, her long fair hair, whereof she had an

abundance, was arranged in two plaits which hung almost to her knees,

and about her neck and arms were massive gold rings that tinkled as she

walked. She had a round face, coloured like a wild rose, and innocent

blue eyes that took in everything, although she always seemed to look

in front of her and see nothing. Her lips were very red and appeared to

smile. Altogether I thought her the loveliest creature that ever I had

looked on, and she walked like a deer and held her head proudly.

Still, she did not please Ragnar, who whispered to me that she was sly

and would bring mischief on all that had to do with her. I, who at the

time was about twenty-one years of age, wondered if he had gone mad to

talk thus of this beautiful creature. Then I remembered that just before

we had left home I had caught Ragnar kissing the daughter of one of our

thralls behind the shed in which the calves were kept. She was a brown

girl, very well made, as her rough robe, fastened beneath her breast

with a strap, showed plainly, and she had big dark eyes with a sleepy

look in them. Also, I never saw anyone kiss quite so hard as she did;

Ragnar himself was outpassed. I think that is why even the great lady,

Iduna the Fair, did not please him. All the while he was thinking of the

brown-eyed girl in the russet robe. Still, it is true that, brown-eyed

girl or no, he read Iduna aright.

Moreover, if Ragnar did not like Iduna, from the first Iduna hated

Ragnar. So it came about that, although both my father, Thorvald, and

Iduna’s father, Athalbrand, stormed and threatened, these two declared

that they would have nothing to do with each other, and the project of

their marriage came to an end.

On the night before we were to leave Lesso, whence Ragnar had already

gone, Athalbrand saw me staring at Iduna. This, indeed, was not

wonderful, as I could not take my eyes from her lovely face, and when

she looked at me and smiled with those red lips of hers I became like a

silly bird that is bewitched by a snake. At first I thought that he was

going to be angry, but suddenly some idea seemed to strike him so that

he called my father, Thorvald, outside the house. Afterwards I was sent

for, and found the two of them seated on a three-cornered, flat stone,

talking in the moonlight, for it was summer-time, when everything looks

blue at night and the sun and the moon ride in the sky together. Near by

stood my mother, listening.

“Olaf,” said my father, “would you like to marry Iduna the Fair?”

“Like to marry Iduna?” I gasped. “Aye, more than to be High King of

Denmark, for she is no woman, but a goddess.”

At this saying my mother laughed, and Athalbrand, who knew Iduna when

she did not seem a goddess, called me a fool. Then they talked, while I

stood trembling with hope and fear.

“He’s but a second son,” said Athalbrand.

“I have told you there is land enough for both of them, also the

gold that came with his mother will be his, and that’s no small sum,”

answered Thorvald.

“He’s no warrior, but a skald,” objected Athalbrand again; “a silly

half-man who makes songs and plays upon the harp.”

“Songs are sometimes stronger than swords,” replied my father, “and,

after all, it is wisdom that rules. One brain can govern many men; also,

harps make merry music at a feast. Moreover, Olaf is brave enough. How

can he be otherwise coming of the stock he does?”

“He is thin and weedy,” objected Athalbrand, a saying that made my

mother angry.

“Nay, lord Athalbrand,” she said; “he is tall and straight as a dart,

and will yet be the handsomest man in these parts.”

“Every duck thinks it has hatched out a swan,” grumbled Athalbrand,

while with my eyes I implored my mother to be silent.

Then he thought for awhile, pulling at his long forked beard, and said

at last:

“My heart tells me no good of such a marriage. Iduna, who is the only

one left to me, could marry a man of more wealth and power than this

rune-making stripling is ever likely to be. Yet just now I know none

such whom I would wish to hold my place when I am gone. Moreover, it is

spread far and wide throughout the land that my daughter is to be wed to

Thorvald’s son, and it matters little to which son. At least, I will not

have it said that she has been given the go-by. Therefore, let this Olaf

take her, if she will have him. Only,” he added with a growl, “let him

play no tricks like that red-headed cub, his brother Ragnar, if he would

not taste of a spear through his liver. Now I go to learn Iduna’s mind.”

So he went; as did my father and mother, leaving me alone, thinking and

thanking the gods for the chance that had come my way--yes, and blessing

Ragnar and that brown-eyed wench who had thrown her spell over him.

Whilst I stood thus I heard a sound, and, turning, saw Iduna gliding

towards me in the blue twilight, looking more lovely than a dream. At my

side she stopped and said:

“My father tells me you wish to speak with me,” and she laughed a little

softly and held me with her beautiful eyes.

After that I know not what happened till I saw Iduna bending towards

me like a willow in the wind, and then--oh, joy of joys!--felt her kiss

upon my lips. Now my speech was unsealed, and I told her the tale that

lovers have always told. How that I was ready to die for her (to which

she answered that she had rather that I lived, since ghosts were no good

husbands); how that I was not worthy of her (to which she answered that

I was young, with all my time before me, and might live to be greater

than I thought, as she believed I should); and so forth.

Only one more thing comes back to me of that blissful hour. Foolishly I

said what I had been thinking, namely, that I blessed Ragnar. At these

words, of a sudden Iduna’s face grew stern and the lovelight in her eyes

was changed to such as gleams from swords.

“I do not bless Ragnar,” she answered. “I hope one day to see

Ragnar----” and she checked herself, adding: “Come, let us enter, Olaf.

I hear my father calling me to mix his sleeping-cup.”

So we went into the house hand in hand, and when they saw us coming

thus, all gathered there burst into shouts of laughter after their rude

fashion. Moreover, beakers were thrust into our hands, and we were made

to drink from them and swear some oath. Thus ended our betrothal.

I think it was on the next day that we sailed for home in my father’s

largest ship of war, which was named the _Swan_. I went unwillingly

enough, who desired to drink more of the delight of Iduna’s eyes. Still,

go I must, since Athalbrand would have it so. The marriage, he said,

should take place at Aar at the time of the Spring feast, and not

before. Meanwhile he held it best we should be apart that we might learn

whether we still clung to each other in absence.

These were the reasons he gave, but I think that he was already somewhat

sorry for what he had done, and reflected that between harvest and

springtime he might find another husband for Iduna, who was more to

his mind. For Athalbrand, as I learned afterwards, was a scheming and a

false-hearted man. Moreover, he was of no high lineage, but one who had

raised himself up by war and plunder, and therefore his blood did not

compel him to honour.

The next scene which comes back to me of those early days is that of the

hunting of the white northern bear, when I saved the life of Steinar, my

foster-brother, and nearly lost my own.

It was on a day when the winter was merging into spring, but the

coast-line near Aar was still thick with pack ice and large floes which

had floated in from the more northern seas. A certain fisherman who

dwelt on this shore came to the hall to tell us that he had seen a great

white bear on one of these floes, which, he believed, had swum from it

to the land. He was a man with a club-foot, and I can recall a vision

of him limping across the snow towards the drawbridge of Aar, supporting

himself by a staff on the top of which was cut the figure of some

animal.

“Young lords,” he cried out, “there is a white bear on the land, such a

bear as once I saw when I was a boy. Come out and kill the bear and win

honour, but first give me a drink for my news.”

At that time I think my father, Thorvald, was away from home with most

of the men, I do not know why; but Ragnar, Steinar and I were lingering

about the stead with little or nothing to do, since the time of sowing

was not yet. At the news of the club-footed man, we ran for our spears,

and one of us went to tell the only thrall who could be spared to make

ready the horses and come with us. Thora, my mother, would have stopped

us--she said she had heard from her father that such bears were very

dangerous beasts--but Ragnar only thrust her aside, while I kissed her

and told her not to fret.

Outside the hall I met Freydisa, a dark, quiet woman of middle age,

one of the virgins of Odin, whom I loved and who loved me and, save one

other, me only among men, for she had been my nurse.

“Whither now, young Olaf?” she asked me. “Has Iduna come here that you

run so fast?”

“No,” I answered, “but a white bear has.”

“Oh! then things are better than I thought, who feared lest it might

be Iduna before her time. Still, you go on an ill errand, from which I

think you will return sadly.”

“Why do you say that, Freydisa?” I asked. “Is it just because you love

to croak like a raven on a rock, or for some good reason?”

“I don’t know, Olaf,” she answered. “I say things because they come to

me, and I must, that is all. I tell you that evil will be born of this

bear hunt of yours, and you had better stop at home.”

“To be laughed at by my brethren, Freydisa? Moreover, you are foolish,

for if evil is to be, how can I avoid it? Either your foresight is

nothing or the evil must come.”

“That is so,” answered Freydisa. “From your childhood up you had the

gift of reason which is more than is granted to most of these fools

about us. Go, Olaf, and meet your fore-ordained evil. Still, kiss me

before you go lest we should not see each other again for a while. If

the bear kills you, at least you will be saved from Iduna.”

Now while she said these words I was kissing Freydisa, whom I loved

dearly, but when I understood them I leapt back before she could kiss me

again.

“What do you mean by your talk about Iduna?” I asked. “Iduna is my

betrothed, and I’ll suffer no ill speech of her.”

“I know she is, Olaf. You’ve got Ragnar’s leavings. Although he is so

hot-headed, Ragnar is a wise dog in some ways, who can tell what he

should not eat. There, begone, you think me jealous of Iduna, as old

women can be, but it’s not that, my dear. Oh! you’ll learn before all is

done, if you live. Begone, begone! I’ll tell you no more. Hark, Ragnar

is shouting to you,” and she pushed me away.

It was a long ride to where the bear was supposed to be. At first as we

went we talked a great deal, and made a wager as to which of the three

of us should first drive a spear into the beast’s body so deep that the

blade was hidden, but afterwards I grew silent. Indeed, I was musing so

much of Iduna and how the time drew near when once more I should see her

sweet face, wondering also why Ragnar and Freydisa should think so ill

of her who seemed a goddess rather than a woman, that I forgot all about

the bear. So completely did I forget it that when, being by nature very

observant, I saw the slot of such a beast as we passed a certain birch

wood, I did not think to connect it with that which we were hunting or

to point it out to the others who were riding ahead of me.

At length we came to the sea, and there, sure enough, saw a great

ice-floe, which now and again tilted as the surge caught its broad green

flank. When it tilted towards us we perceived a track worn deep into the

ice by the paws of the prisoned bear as it had marched endlessly round.

Also we saw a big grinning skull, whereon sat a raven picking at the

eye-holes, and some fragments of white fur.

“The bear is dead!” exclaimed Ragnar. “Odin’s curse be on that

club-footed fool who gave us this cold ride for nothing.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Steinar doubtfully. “Don’t you think that it

is dead, Olaf?”

“What is the good of asking Olaf?” broke in Ragnar, with a loud laugh.

“What does Olaf know about bears? He has been asleep for the last

half-hour dreaming of Athalbrand’s blue-eyed daughter; or perhaps he is

making up another poem.”

“Olaf sees farther when he seems asleep than some of us do when we are

awake,” answered Steinar hotly.

“Oh yes,” replied Ragnar. “Sleeping or waking, Olaf is perfect in your

eyes, for you’ve drunk the same milk, and that ties you tighter than a

rope. Wake up, now, brother Olaf, and tell us: Is not the bear dead?”

Then I answered, “Why, of course, a bear is dead; see its skull, also

pieces of its hide?”

“There!” exclaimed Ragnar. “Our family prophet has settled the matter.

Let us go home.”

“Olaf said that _a_ bear was dead,” answered Steinar, hesitating.

Ragnar, who had already swung himself round in his quick fashion, spoke

back over his shoulder:

“Isn’t that enough for you? Do you want to hunt a skull or the raven

sitting on it? Or is this, perchance, one of Olaf’s riddles? If so, I am

too cold to guess riddles just now.”

“Yet I think there is one for you to guess, brother,” I said gently,

“and it is: Where is the live bear hiding? Can’t you see that there

were two bears on that ice-head, and that one has killed and eaten the

other?”

“How do you know that?” asked Ragnar.

“Because I saw the slot of the second as we passed the birch wood

yonder. It has a split claw on the left forefoot and the others are all

worn by the ice.”

“Then why in Odin’s name did you not say so before?” exclaimed Ragnar

angrily.

Now I was ashamed to confess that I had been dreaming, so I answered at

hazard:

“Because I wished to look upon the sea and the floating ice. See what

wondrous colours they take in this light!”

When he heard this, Steinar burst out laughing till tears came into his

blue eyes and his broad shoulders shook. But Ragnar, who cared nothing

for scenery or sunsets, did not laugh. On the contrary, as was usual

with him when vexed, he lost his temper and swore by the more evil of

the gods. Then he turned on me and said:

“Why not tell the truth at once, Olaf? You are afraid of this beast, and

that’s why you let us come on here when you knew it was in the wood. You

hoped that before we got back there it would be too dark to hunt.”

At this taunt I flushed and gripped the shaft of my long hunting spear,

for among us Northmen to be told that he was afraid of anything was a

deadly insult to a man.

“If you were not my brother----” I began, then checked myself, for I was

by nature easy-tempered, and went on: “It is true, Ragnar, I am not so

fond of hunting as you are. Still, I think that there will be time to

fight this bear and kill or be killed by it, before it grows dark, and

if not I will return alone to-morrow morning.”

Then I pulled my horse round and rode ahead. As I went, my ears being

very quick, I heard the other two talking together. At least, I suppose

that I heard them; at any rate, I know what they said, although,

strangely enough, nothing at all comes back to me of their tale of an

attack upon a ship or of what then I did or did not do.

“It is not wise to jeer at Olaf,” said Steinar, “for when he is stung

with words he does mad things. Don’t you remember what happened when

your father called him ‘niddering’ last year because Olaf said it was

not just to attack the ship of those British men who had been driven to

our coast by weather, meaning us no harm?”

“Aye,” answered Ragnar. “He leapt among them all alone as soon as our

boat touched her side, and felled the steersman. Then the British men

shouted out that they would not kill so brave a lad, and threw him into

the sea. It cost us that ship, since by the time we had picked him up

she had put about and hoisted her large sail. Oh, Olaf is brave enough,

we all know that! Still, he ought to have been born a woman or a priest

of Freya who only offers flowers. Also, he knows my tongue and bears no

malice.”

“Pray that we get him home safe,” said Steinar uneasily, “for if not

there will be trouble with your mother and every other woman in the

land, to say nothing of Iduna the Fair.”

“Iduna the Fair would live through it,” answered Ragnar, with a hard

laugh. “But you are right; and, what is more, there will be trouble

among the men also, especially with my father and in my own heart. After

all there is but one Olaf.”

At this moment I held up my hand, and they stopped talking.

CHAPTER II

THE SLAYING OF THE BEAR

Leaping from their horses, Ragnar and Steinar came to where I stood, for

already I had dismounted and was pointing to the ground, which just here

had been swept clear of snow by the wind.

“I see nothing,” said Ragnar.

“But I do, brother,” I answered; “who study the ways of wild things

while you think I am asleep. Look, that moss has been turned over; for

it is frozen underneath and pressed up into little mounds between the

bear’s claws. Also that tiny pool has gathered in the slot of the paw;

it is its very shape. The other footprints do not show because of the

rock.”

Then I went forward a few paces behind some bushes and called out: “Here

runs the track, sure enough, and, as I thought, the brute has a split

claw; the snow marks it well. Bid the thrall stay with the horses and

come you.”

They obeyed, and there on the white snow which lay beyond the bush we

saw the track of the bear stamped as if in wax.

“A mighty beast,” said Ragnar. “Never have I seen its like.”

“Aye,” exclaimed Steinar, “but an ill place to hunt it in,” and he

looked doubtfully at the rough gorge, covered with undergrowth, that

some hundred yards farther on became dense birch forest. “I think it

would be well to ride back to Aar, and return to-morrow morning with all

whom we can gather. This is no task for three spears.”

By this time I, Olaf, was springing from rock to rock up the gorge,

following the bear’s track. For my brother’s taunts rankled in me and I

was determined that I should kill this beast or die and thus show Ragnar

that I feared no bear. So I called back to them over my shoulder:

“Aye, go home, it is wisest; but I go on for I have never yet seen one

of these white ice-bears alive.”

“Now it is Olaf who taunts in his turn,” said Ragnar with a laugh. Then

they both sprang after me, but always I kept ahead of them.

For the half of a mile or more they followed me out of the scrub into

the birch forest, where the snow, lying on the matted boughs of the

trees and especially of some firs that were mingled with the birch, made

the place gloomy in that low light. Always in front of me ran the huge

slots of the bear till at length they brought me to a little forest

glade, where some great whirling wind had torn up many trees which had

but a poor root-hold on a patch of almost soilless rock.

These trees lay in confusion, their tops, which had not yet rotted,

being filled with frozen snow. On the edge of them I paused, having

lost the track. Then I went forward again, casting wide as a hound does,

while behind came Ragnar and Steinar, walking straight past the edge of

the glade, and purposing to meet me at its head. This, indeed, Ragnar

did, but Steinar halted because of a crunching sound that caught

his ear, and then stepped to the right between two fallen birches to

discover its cause. Next moment, as he told me afterwards, he stood

frozen, for there behind the boughs of one of the trees was the huge

white bear, eating some animal that it had killed. The beast saw him,

and, mad with rage at being disturbed, for it was famished after its

long journey on the floe, reared itself up on its hind legs, roaring

till the air shook. High it towered, its hook-like claws outstretched.

Steinar tried to spring back, but caught his foot, and fell. Well for

him was it that he did so, for otherwise the blow which the bear struck

would have crushed him to a pulp. The brute did not seem to understand

where he had gone--at any rate, it remained upreared and beating at

the air. Then a doubt took it, its huge paws sank until it sat like

a begging dog, sniffing the wind. At this moment Ragnar came back

shouting, and hurled his spear. It stuck in the beast’s chest and hung

there. The bear began to feel for it with its paws, and, catching the

shaft, lifted it to its mouth and champed it, thus dragging the steel

from its hide.

Then it bethought it of Steinar, and, sinking down, discovered him, and

tore at the birch tree under which he had crept till the splinters flew

from its trunk. Just then I reached it, having seen all. By now the bear

had its teeth fixed in Steinar’s shoulder, or, rather, in his leathern

garment, and was dragging him from under the tree. When it saw me it

reared itself up again, lifting Steinar and holding him to its breast

with one paw. I went mad at the sight, and charged it, driving my spear

deep into its throat. With its other paw it struck the weapon from my

hand, shivering the shaft. There it stood, towering over us like a white

pillar, and roared with pain and fury, Steinar still pressed against it,

Ragnar and I helpless.

“He’s sped!” gasped Ragnar.

I thought for a flash of time, and--oh! well do I remember that moment:

the huge beast foaming at the jaws and Steinar held to its breast as a

little girl holds a doll; the still, snow-laden trees, on the top of one

of which sat a small bird spreading its tail in jerks; the red light

of evening, and about us the great silences of the sky above and of the

lonely forest beneath. It all comes back to me--I can see it now quite

clearly; yes, even the bird flitting to another twig, and there again

spreading its tail to some invisible mate. Then I made up my mind what

to do.

“Not yet!” I cried. “Keep it in play,” and, drawing my short and heavy

sword, I plunged through the birch boughs to get behind the bear. Ragnar

understood. He threw his cap into the brute’s face, and then, after it

had growled at him awhile, just as it dropped its great jaws to crunch

Steinar, he found a bough and thrust it between them.

By now I was behind the bear, and, smiting at its right leg below the

knee, severed the tendon. Down it came, still hugging Steinar. I smote

again with all my strength, and cut into its spine above the tail,

paralysing it. It was a great blow, as it need to be to cleave the thick

hair and hide, and my sword broke in the backbone, so that, like Ragnar,

now I was weaponless. The forepart of the bear rolled about in the snow,

although its after half was still.

Then once more it seemed to bethink itself of Steinar, who lay unmoving

and senseless. Stretching out a paw, it dragged him towards its champing

jaws. Ragnar leapt upon its back and struck at it with his knife,

thereby only maddening it the more. I ran in and grasped Steinar, whom

the bear was again hugging to its breast. Seeing me, it loosed Steinar,

whom I dragged away and cast behind me, but in the effort I slipped and

fell forward. The bear smote at me, and its mighty forearm--well for me

that it was not its claws--struck me upon the side of the head and sent

me crashing into a tree-top to the left. Five paces I flew before my

body touched the boughs, and there I lay quiet.

I suppose that Ragnar told me what passed after this while I was

senseless. At least, I know that the bear began to die, for my spear had

pierced some artery in its throat, and all the talk which followed, as

well as though I heard it with my ears. It roared and roared, vomiting

blood and stretching out its claws after Steinar as Ragnar dragged him

away. Then it laid its head flat upon the snow and died. Ragnar looked

at it and muttered:

“Dead!”

Then he walked to that top of the fallen tree in which I lay, and

again muttered: “Dead! Well, Valhalla holds no braver man than Olaf the

Skald.”

Next he went to Steinar and once again exclaimed, “Dead!”

For so he looked, indeed, smothered in the blood of the bear and with

his garments half torn off him. Still, as the words passed Ragnar’s lips

he sat up, rubbed his eyes and smiled as a child does when it awakes.

“Are you much hurt?” asked Ragnar.

“I think not,” he answered doubtfully, “save that I feel sore and my

head swims. I have had a bad dream.” Then his eyes fell on the bear, and

he added: “Oh, I remember now; it was no dream. Where is Olaf?”

“Supping with Odin,” answered Ragnar and pointed to me.

Steinar rose to his feet, staggered to where I lay, and stared at me

stretched there as white as the snow, with a smile upon my face and in

my hand a spray of some evergreen bush which I had grasped as I fell.

“Did he die to save me?” asked Steinar.

“Aye,” answered Ragnar, “and never did man walk that bridge in better

fashion. You were right. Would that I had not mocked him.”

“Would that I had died and not he,” said Steinar with a sob. “It is

borne in upon my heart that it were better I had died.”

“Then that may well be, for the heart does not lie at such a time. Also

it is true that he was worth both of us. There was something more in him

than there is in us, Steinar. Come, lift him to my back, and if you are

strong enough, go on to the horses and bid the thrall bring one of them.

I follow.”

Thus ended the fight with the great white bear.

Some four hours later, in the midst of a raging storm of wind and rain,

I was brought at last to the bridge that spanned the moat of the Hall of

Aar, laid like a corpse across the back of one of the horses. They had

been searching for us at Aar, but in that darkness had found nothing.

Only, at the head of the bridge was Freydisa, a torch in her hand. She

glanced at me by the light of the torch.

“As my heart foretold, so it is,” she said. “Bring him in,” then turned

and ran to the house.

They bore me up between the double ranks of stabled kine to where the

great fire of turf and wood burned at the head of the hall, and laid me

on a table.

“Is he dead?” asked Thorvald, my father, who had come home that night;

“and if so, how?”

“Aye, father,” answered Ragnar, “and nobly. He dragged Steinar yonder

from under the paws of the great white bear and slew it with his sword.”

“A mighty deed,” muttered my father. “Well, at least he comes home in

honour.”

But my mother, whose favourite son I was, lifted up her voice and

wept. Then they took the clothes from off me, and, while all watched,

Freydisa, the skilled woman, examined my hurts. She felt my head and

looked into my eyes, and laying her ear upon my breast, listened for the

beating of my heart.

Presently she rose, and, turning, said slowly:

“Olaf is not dead, though near to death. His pulses flutter, the light

of life still burns in his eyes, and though the blood runs from his

ears, I think the skull is not broken.”

When she heard these words, Thora, my mother, whose heart was weak,

fainted for joy, and my father, untwisting a gold ring from his arm,

threw it to Freydisa.

“First the cure,” she said, thrusting it away with her foot. “Moreover,

when I work for love I take no pay.”

Then they washed me, and, having dressed my hurts, laid me on a bed

near the fire that warmth might come back to me. But Freydisa would not

suffer them to give me anything save a little hot milk which she poured

down my throat.

For three days I lay like one dead; indeed, all save my mother held

Freydisa wrong and thought that I was dead. But on the fourth day I

opened my eyes and took food, and after that fell into a natural

sleep. On the morning of the sixth day I sat up and spoke many wild and

wandering words, so that they believed I should only live as a madman.

“His mind is gone,” said my mother, and wept.

“Nay,” answered Freydisa, “he does but return from a land where they

speak another tongue. Thorvald, bring hither the bear-skin.”

It was brought and hung on a frame of poles at the end of the niche in

which I slept, that, as was usual among northern people, opened out of

the hall. I stared at it for a long while. Then my memory came back and

I asked:

“Did the great beast kill Steinar?”

“No,” answered my mother, who sat by me. “Steinar was sore hurt, but

escaped and now is well again.”

“Let me see him with my own eyes,” I said.

So he was brought, and I looked on him. “I am glad you live, my

brother,” I said, “for know in this long sleep of mine I have dreamed

that you were dead”; and I stretched out my wasted arms towards him, for

I loved Steinar better than any other man.

He came and kissed me on the brow, saying:

“Aye, thanks to you, Olaf, I live to be your brother and your thrall

till the end.”

“My brother always, not my thrall,” I muttered, for I was growing tired.

Then I went to sleep again.

Three days later, when my strength began to return, I sent for Steinar

and said:

“Brother, Iduna the Fair, whom you have never seen, my betrothed, must

wonder how it fares with me, for the tale of this hurt of mine will have

reached Lesso. Now, as there are reasons why Ragnar cannot go, and as

I would send no mean man, I pray you to do me a favour. It is that you

will take a boat and sail to Lesso, carrying with you as a present from

me to Athalbrand’s daughter the skin of that white bear, which I trust

will serve her and me as a bed-covering in winter for many a year to

come. Tell her, thanks be to the gods and to the skill of Freydisa, my

nurse, I live who all thought must die, and that I trust to be strong

and well for our marriage at the Spring feast which draws on. Say also

that through all my sickness I have dreamed of none but her, as I trust

that sometimes she may have dreamed of me.”

“Aye, I’ll go,” answered Steinar, “fast as horses’ legs and sails can

carry me,” adding with his pleasant laugh: “Long have I desired to see

this Iduna of yours, and to learn whether she is as beautiful as you

say; also what it is in her that Ragnar hates.”

“Be careful that you do not find her too beautiful,” broke in Freydisa,

who, as ever, was at my side.

“How can I if she is for Olaf?” answered Steinar, smiling, as he left

the place to make ready for his journey to Lesso.

“What did you mean by those words, Freydisa?” I asked when he was gone.

“Little or much,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Iduna is

lovely, is she not, and Steinar is handsome, is he not, and of an age

when man seeks woman, and what is brotherhood when man seeks woman and

woman beguiles man?”

“Peace to your riddles, Freydisa. You forget that Iduna is my betrothed

and that Steinar was fostered with me. Why, I’d trust them for a week at

sea alone.”

“Doubtless, Olaf, being young and foolish, as you are; also that is your

nature. Now here is the broth. Drink it, and I, whom some call a wise

woman and others a witch, say that to-morrow you may rise from this bed

and sit in the sun, if there is any.”

“Freydisa,” I said when I had swallowed the broth, “why do folk call you

a witch?”

“I think because I am a little less of a fool than other women, Olaf.

Also because it has not pleased me to marry, as it is held natural that

all women should do if they have the chance.”

“Why are you wiser, and why have you not married, Freydisa?”

“I am wiser because I have questioned things more than most, and to

those who question answers come at last. And I am not married because

another woman took the only man I wanted before I met him. That was my

bad luck. Still, it taught me a great lesson, namely, how to wait and

meanwhile to acquire understanding.”

“What understanding have you acquired, Freydisa? For instance, does it

tell you that our gods of wood and stone are true gods which rule the

world? Or are they but wood and stone, as sometimes I have thought?”

“Then think no more, Olaf, for such thoughts are dangerous. If Leif,

your uncle, Odin’s high priest, heard them, what might he not say or do?

Remember that whether the gods live or no, certainly the priest lives,

and on the gods, and if the gods went, where would the priest be? Also,

as regards these gods--well, whatever they may or may not be, at least

they are the voices that in our day speak to us from that land whence we

came and whither we go. The world has known millions of days, and each

day has its god--or its voice--and all the voices speak truth to those

who can hear them. Meanwhile, you are a fool to have sent Steinar

bearing your gift to Iduna. Or perhaps you are very wise. I cannot say

as yet. When I learn I will tell you.”

Then again she shrugged her shoulders and left me wondering what she

meant by her dark sayings. I can see her going now, a wooden bowl in her

hand, and in it a horn spoon of which the handle was cracked longways,

and thus in my mind ends all the scene of my sickness after the slaying

of the white bear.

The next thing that I remember is the coming of the men of Agger. This

cannot have been very long after Steinar went to Lesso, for he had not

yet returned. Being still weak from my great illness, I was seated

in the sun in the shelter of the house, wrapped up in a cloak of

deerskins--for the northern wind blew bitter. By me stood my father, who

was in a happy mood now he knew that I should live and be strong again.

“Steinar should be back by now,” I said to him. “I trust that he has

come by no ill.”

“Oh no,” answered my father carelessly. “For seven days the wind has

been high, and doubtless Athalbrand fears to let him sail from Lesso.”

“Or perhaps Steinar finds Athalbrand’s hall a pleasant place to bide

in,” suggested Ragnar, who had joined us, a spear in his hand, for he

had come in from hunting. “There are good drink and bright eyes there.”

I was about to answer sharply, since Ragnar stung me with his bitter

talk of Steinar, of whom I knew him to be somewhat jealous, because he

thought I loved my foster-brother more than I did him, my brother. Just

then, however, three men appeared through trees that grew about the

hall, and came towards the bridge, whereon Ragnar’s great wolfhounds,

knowing them for strangers, set up a furious baying and sprang forward

to tear them. By the time the beasts were caught and quelled, these men,

aged persons of presence, had crossed the bridge and were greeting us.

“This is the hall of Thorvald of Aar, is it not? And a certain Steinar

dwells here with him, does he not?” asked their spokesman.

“It is, and I am Thorvald,” answered my father. “Also Steinar has dwelt

here from his birth up, but is now away from home on a visit to the

lord Athalbrand of Lesso. Who are you, and what would you of Steinar, my

fosterling”

“When you have told us the story of Steinar we will tell you who we are

and what we seek,” answered the man, adding: “Fear not, we mean him no

harm, but rather good if he is the man we think.”

“Wife,” called my father, “come hither. Here are men who would know the

story of Steinar, and say that they mean him good.”

So my mother came, and the men bowed to her.

“The story of Steinar is short, sirs,” she said. “His mother,

Steingerdi, who was my cousin and the friend of my childhood, married

the great chief Hakon, of Agger, two and twenty summers gone. A year

later, just before Steinar was born, she fled to me here, asking shelter

of my lord. Her tale was that she had quarrelled with Hakon because

another woman had crept into her place. Finding that this tale was true,

and that Hakon had treated her ill indeed, we gave her shelter, and here

her son Steinar was born, in giving birth to whom she died--of a broken

heart, as I think, for she was mad with grief and jealousy. I nursed

him with my son Olaf yonder, and as, although he had news of his birth,

Hakon never claimed him, with us he has dwelt as a son ever since. That

is all the tale. Now what would you with Steinar?”

“This, Lady. The lord Hakon and the three sons whom that other woman you

tell of bore him ere she died--for after Steingerdi’s death he married

her--were drowned in making harbour on the night of the great gale

eighteen days ago.”

“That is the day when the bear nearly killed Steinar,” I interrupted.

“Well for him, then, young sir, that he escaped this bear, for now, as

it seems to us, he is the lord of all Hakon’s lands and people, being

the only male left living of his issue. This, by the wish of the head

men of Agger, where is Hakon’s hall, we have come to tell him, if he

still lives, since by report he is a goodly man and brave--one well

fitted to sit in Hakon’s place.

“Is the heritage great?” asked my father.

“Aye, very great, Lord. In all Jutland there was no richer man than

Hakon.”

“By Odin!” exclaimed my father, “it seems that Steinar is in Fortune’s

favour. Well, men of Agger, enter and rest you. After you have eaten we

will talk further of these matters.”

It was just then that, appearing between the trees on the road that ran

to Fladstrand and to the sea, I saw a company mounted upon horses. In

front was a young woman, wrapped in a coat of furs, talking eagerly to

a man who rode by her. Behind, clad in armour, with a battle-axe girt

about him, rode another man, big and fork-bearded, who stared about him

gloomily, and behind him again ten or twelve thralls and seamen.

One glance was enough for me. Then I sprang up, crying:

“Iduna’s self, and with her my brother Steinar, the lord Athalbrand and

his folk. A happy sight indeed!” And I would have run forward to meet

them.

“Yes, yes,” said my mother; “but await them here, I pray you. You are

not yet strong, my son.” And she flung her arms about me and held me.

Presently they were at the bridge, and Steinar, springing from his

horse, lifted Iduna from her saddle, a sight at which I saw my mother

frown. Then I would no longer be restrained, but ran forward, crying

greetings as I came, and, seizing Iduna’s hand, I kissed it. Indeed, I

would have kissed her cheek also, but she shrank back, saying:

“Not before all these folk, Olaf.”

“As you will,” I answered, though just then a chill struck me, which,

I thought to myself, came doubtless from the cold wind. “It will be the

sweeter afterwards,” I added as gaily as I could.

“Yes,” she said hurriedly. “But, Olaf, how white and thin you are. I had

hoped to find you well again, though, not knowing how it fared with you,

I came to see with my own eyes.”

“That is good of you,” I muttered as I turned to grasp Steinar’s hand,

adding: “I know well who it was that brought you here.”

“Nay, nay,” she said. “I came of myself. But my father waits you, Olaf.”

So I went to where the lord Athalbrand Fork-beard was dismounting, and

greeted him, lifting my cap.

“What!” grumbled Athalbrand, who seemed to be in an ill temper, “are

you Olaf? I should scarcely have known you again, lad, for you look more

like a wisp of hay tied on a stick than a man. Now that the flesh is

off you I see you lack bone, unlike some others,” and he glanced at the

broad-shouldered Steinar. “Greeting to you, Thorvald. We are come here

through a sea that nearly drowned us, somewhat before the appointed

time, because--well, because, on the whole, I thought it best to come. I

pray Odin that you are more glad to see us than I am to see you.”

“If so, friend Athalbrand, why did you not stop away?” asked my father,

firing up, then adding quickly: “Nay, no offence; you are welcome here,

whatever your humour, and you too, my daughter that is to be, and you,

Steinar, my fosterling, who, as it chances, are come in a good hour.”

“How’s that, Lord?” asked Steinar absently, for he was looking at Iduna.

“Thus, Steinar: These men”--and he pointed to the three

messengers--“have but just arrived from Agger with the news that your

father, Hakon, and your half-brothers are all drowned. They say also

that the folk of Agger have named you Hakon’s heir, as, indeed, you are

by right of blood.”

“Is that so?” exclaimed Steinar, bewildered. “Well, as I never saw my

father or my brothers, and they treated me but ill, I cannot weep for

them.”

“Hakon!” broke in Athalbrand. “Why, I knew him well, for in my youth we

were comrades in war. He was the wealthiest man in Jutland in cattle,

lands, thralls and stored gold. Young friend, your luck is great,” and

he stared first at Steinar, then at Iduna, pulling his forked beard and

muttering words to himself that I could not catch.

“Steinar gets the fortune he deserves,” I exclaimed, embracing him.

“Not for nothing did I save you from the bear, Steinar. Come, wish my

foster-brother joy, Iduna.”

“Aye, that I do with all my heart,” she said. “Joy and long life to

you, and with them rule and greatness, Steinar, Lord of Agger,” and she

curtsied to him, her blue eyes fixed upon his face.

But Steinar turned away, making no answer. Only Ragnar, who stood by,

burst into a loud laugh. Then, putting his arm through mine, he led me

into the hall, saying:

“This wind is over cold for you, Olaf. Nay, trouble not about Iduna.

Steinar, Lord of Agger, will care for her, I think.”

That night there was a feast at Aar, and I sat at it with Iduna by

my side. Beautiful she was indeed in her garment of blue, over which

streamed her yellow hair, bright as the gold rings that tinkled on her

rounded arms. She was kind to me also, and bade me tell her the story of

the slaying of the bear, which I did as best I could, though afterwards

Ragnar told it otherwise, and more fully. Only Steinar said little or

nothing, for he seemed to be lost in dreams.

I thought that this was because he felt sad at the news of the death of

his father and brethren, since, although he had never known them, blood

still calls to blood; and so, I believe, did most there present. At any

rate my father and mother tried to cheer him and in the end bade the men

of Agger draw near to tell him the tale of his heritage.

They obeyed, and set out all their case, of which the sum was that

Steinar must now be one of the wealthiest and most powerful men of the

northern lands.

“It seems that we should all take off our caps to you, young lord,” said

Athalbrand when he heard this tale of rule and riches. “Why did you not

ask me for my fair daughter?” he added with a half-drunken laugh, for

all the liquor he had swallowed had got a hold of his brain. Recovering

himself, he went on: “It is my will, Thorvald, that Iduna and this snipe

of an Olaf of yours should be wed as soon as possible. I say that they

shall be wed as soon as possible, since otherwise I know not what may

happen.”

Then his head fell forward on the table and he sank to sleep.

CHAPTER III

THE WANDERER’S NECKLACE

On the morrow early I lay awake, for how could I sleep when Iduna rested

beneath the same roof with me--Iduna, who, as her father had decreed,

was to become my wife sooner than I had hoped? I was thinking how

beautiful she looked, and how much I loved her; also of other things

that were not so pleasant. For instance, why did not everybody see her

with my eyes? I could not hide from myself that Ragnar went near to

hating her; more than once she had almost been the cause of a quarrel

between us. Freydisa, too, my nurse, who loved me, looked on her sourly,

and even my mother, although she tried to like her for my sake, had not

yet learned to do so, or thus it appeared to me.

When I asked her why, she replied that she feared the maid was somewhat

selfish, also too fond of drawing the eyes of men, and of the adornment

of her beauty. Of those who were dearest to me, indeed, only Steinar

seemed to think Iduna as perfect as I did myself. This, so far as it

went, was well; but, then, Steinar and I had always thought alike, which

robbed his judgment of something of its worth.

Whilst I was pondering over these things, although it was still so early

that my father and Athalbrand were yet in bed sleeping off the fumes

of the liquor they had drunk, I heard Steinar himself talking to the

messengers from Agger in the hall. They asked him humbly whether he

would be pleased to return with them that day and take possession of

his inheritance, since they must get back forthwith to Agger with their

tidings. He replied that if they would send some or come themselves to

escort him on the tenth day from that on which they spoke, he would go

to Agger with them, but that until then he could not do so.

“Ten days! In ten days who knows what may happen?” said their spokesman.

“Such a heritage as yours will not lack for claimants, Lord, especially

as Hakon has left nephews behind him.”

“I know not what will or will not happen,” answered Steinar, “but until

then I cannot come. Go now, I pray you, if you must, and bear my words

and greetings to the men of Agger, whom soon I hope to meet myself.”

So they went, as I thought, heavily enough. A while afterwards my father

rose and came into the hall, where from my bed I could see Steinar

seated on a stool by the fire brooding. He asked where the men of Agger

were, and Steinar told him what he had done.

“Are you mad, Steinar?” he asked, “that you have sent them away with

such an answer? Why did you not consult me first?”

“Because you were asleep, Foster-father, and the messengers said they

must catch the tide. Also I could not leave Aar until I had seen Olaf

and Iduna married.”

“Iduna and Olaf can marry without your help. It takes two to make a

marriage, not three. I see well that you owe love and loyalty to Olaf,

who is your foster-brother and saved your life, but you owe something

to yourself also. I pray Odin that this folly may not have cost you your

lordship. Fortune is a wench who will not bear slighting.”

“I know it,” answered Steinar, and there was something strange in his

voice. “Believe me, I do not slight fortune; I follow her in my own

fashion.”

“Then it is a mad fashion,” grumbled my father, and walked away.

It comes back to me that it was some days after this that I saw the

ghost of the Wanderer standing on his grave mound. It happened thus.

On a certain afternoon I had been riding alone with Iduna, which was

a great joy to me, though I would sooner have walked, for then I could

have held her hand, and perhaps, if she had suffered it, kissed her. I

had recited to her a poem which I had made comparing her to the goddess

Iduna, the wife of Bragi, she who guarded the apples of immortal youth

whereof the gods must eat or die, she whose garment was the spring,

woven of the flowers that she put on when she escaped from winter’s

giant grasp. I think that it was a very good poem of its own sort, but

Iduna seemed to have small taste for poetry and to know little of the

lovely goddess and her apples, although she smiled sweetly and thanked

me for my verses.

Then she began to talk of other matters, especially of how, after we

were wed, her father wished to make war upon another chieftain and to

seize his land. She said that it was for this reason that he had been

so anxious to form an alliance with my father, Thorvald, as such an

alliance would make him sure of victory. Before that time, she told me

that he, Athalbrand, had purposed to marry her to another lord for this

very reason, but unhappily this lord had been killed in battle.

“Nay, happily for us, Iduna,” I said.

“Perhaps,” she answered with a sigh. “Who knows? At any rate, your House

will be able to give us more ships and men than he who is dead could

have done.”

“Yet I love peace, not war,” I broke in, “I who hate the slaying of

those who have never harmed me, and do not seek to die on the swords

of men whom I have no desire to harm. Of what good is war when one has

enough? I would be no widow-maker, Iduna, nor do I wish that others

should make you a widow.”

Iduna looked at me with her steady blue eyes.

“You talk strangely, Olaf,” she said, “and were it not known to be

otherwise, some might hold that you are a coward. Yet it was no coward

who leapt alone on board the battle ship, or who slew the great white

bear to save Steinar’s life. I do not understand you, Olaf, you who have

doubts as to the killing of men. How does a man grow great except upon

the blood of others? It is that which fats him. How does the wolf live?

How does the kite live? How does Odin fill Valhalla? By death, always by

death.”

“I cannot answer you,” I said; “yet I hold that somewhere there is an

answer which I do not know, since wrong can never be the right.”

Then, as she did not seem to understand, I began to talk of other

things, but from that moment I felt as though a veil swung between me

and Iduna. Her beauty held my flesh, but some other part in me turned

away from her. We were different.

When we reached the hall we met Steinar, who was lingering near the

door. He ran forward and helped Iduna to dismount, then said:

“Olaf, I know that you must not overtire yourself as yet, but your lady

has told me that she desires to see the sunset from Odin’s Mount. Have I

your leave to take her there?”

“I do not yet need Olaf’s leave to walk abroad, though some few days

hence it may be different,” broke in Iduna, with a merry laugh, before I

could answer. “Come, lord Steinar, let us go and see this sunset whereof

you talk so much.”

“Yes, go,” I said, “only do not stay too long, for I think a storm comes

up. But who is that has taught Steinar to love sunsets?”

So they went, and before they had been gone an hour the storm broke as I

had foreseen. First came wind, and with it hail, and after that thunder

and great darkness, lit up from time to time by pulsing lightning.

“Steinar and Iduna do not return. I am afraid for them,” I said at last

to Freydisa.

“Then why do you not go to seek them?” she asked with a little laugh.

“I think I will,” I said.

“If so, I will come with you, Olaf, for you still need a nurse, though,

for my part, I hold that the lord Steinar and the lady Iduna can guard

themselves as well as most folk. No, I am wrong. I mean that the lady

Iduna can guard herself and the lord Steinar. Now, be not angry. Here’s

your cloak.”

So we started, for I was urged to this foolish journey by some impulse

that I could not master. There were two ways of reaching Odin’s Mount;

one, the shorter, over the rocks and through the forest land. The other,

the longer, ran across the open plain, between the many earth tombs of

the dead who had lived thousands of years before, and past the great

mound in which it was said that a warrior of long ago, who was named the

Wanderer, lay buried. Because of the darkness we chose this latter road,

and presently found ourselves beneath the great mass of the Wanderer’s

Mount. Now the darkness was intense, and the lightning grew rare, for

the hail and rain had ceased and the storm was rolling away.

“My counsel is,” said Freydisa, “that we wait here until the moon rises,

which it should do soon. When the wind has driven away the clouds it

will show us our path, but if we go on in this darkness we shall fall

into some pit. It is not cold to-night, and you will take no harm.”

“No, indeed,” I answered, “for now I am as strong again as ever I was.”

So we stayed till the lightning, flashing for the last time, showed us

a man and a woman standing quite close to us, although we had not heard

them because of the wind. They were Steinar and Iduna, talking together

eagerly, with their faces very near to each other. At the same moment

they saw us. Steinar said nothing, for he seemed confused, but Iduna ran

to us and said:

“Thanks be to the gods who send you, Olaf. The great storm caught us at

Odin’s temple, where we were forced to shelter. Then, fearing that you

would grow frightened, we started, and lost our way.”

“Is it so?” I answered. “Surely Steinar would have known this road even

in the dark. But what matter, since I have found you?”

“Aye, he knew as soon as we saw this grave mound. But Steinar was

telling me that some ghost haunts it, and I begged him to stay awhile,

since there is nothing I desire so much as to see a ghost, who believe

little in such things. So he stayed, though he says he fears the dead

more than the living. Freydisa, they tell me that you are very wise.

Cannot you show me this ghost?”

“The spirit does not ask my leave to appear, lady,” answered Freydisa

in her quiet voice. “Still, at times it does appear, for I have seen it

twice. So let us bide here a little on the chance.”

Then she went forward a few steps and began to mutter to herself.

Some minutes later the clouds broke and the great moon was seen riding

low down in a clear sky, illumining the grave mound and all the plain,

save where we stood in the shadow of the mount.

“Do you see aught?” asked Freydisa presently. “If not, let us be gone,

for when the Wanderer comes at all it is at the rising of the moon.”

Steinar and Iduna answered, “No,” but I, who did see something, said:

“Look yonder among the shadows. Mayhap it is a wolf stirring. Nay, it is

a man. Look, Iduna.”

“I look and find nothing,” she answered.

“Look again,” I said. “He reaches the top of the mount and stands there

staring towards the south. Oh! now he turns, and the moonlight shines

upon his face.”

“You dream, Olaf,” said Steinar. “If you do not dream, tell us of the

likeness of this spirit.”

“Its likeness,” I answered, “is that of a tall and noble man, worn as

though with years and sorrows. He wears strange rich armour that

is dinted and soiled; on his head is a cap of mail with two long

ear-pieces, beneath which appears his brown hair lined with grey. He

holds a red-coloured sword which is handled with a cross of gold. He

points the sword at you, Steinar. It is as though he were angry with

you, or warned you.”

Now, when Steinar heard these words he shook and groaned, as I

remembered afterwards. But of this I took no note at the time, for just

then Iduna cried out:

“Say, Olaf, does the man wear a necklace? I see a necklace hanging in

the air above the mount, but naught else.”

“Yes, Iduna, he wears a necklace above his mail. How does it appear to

you?”

“Oh, beautiful, beautiful!” she answered. “A chain of pale gold, and

hanging from it golden shells inlaid with blue, and between them green

jewels that hold the moon.”

“That is what I see also,” I said, as indeed I did. “There! All is

gone.”

Freydisa returned and there was a strange smile on her dark face, for

she had heard all our talk.

“Who sleeps in that mound, Freydisa?” asked Iduna.

“How can I tell, Lady, seeing that he was laid there a thousand years

ago, or mayhap more? Yet a story, true or false, remains of him that

I have heard. It is that he was a king of these parts, who followed a

dream to the south. The dream was of a necklace, and of one who wore it.

For many years he wandered, and at length returned again to this place,

which had been his home, wearing the necklace. But when he saw its shore

from the sea he fell down and his spirit left him. What happened to him

in his wanderings none know, for the tale is lost. Only it is said that

his people buried him in yonder mound still wearing his armour and the

necklace he had won. There, as Olaf has seen, or thinks that he has seen

but now, he stands at moonrise ere trouble comes to any of his race, and

stares towards the south--always towards the south.”

“Is the necklace yet in the mound?” asked Iduna eagerly.

“Without doubt, Lady. Who would dare to touch the holy thing and bring

on him the curse of the Wanderer and his gods, and with it his own

death? No man that ever sailed the seas, I think.”

“Not so, Freydisa, for I am sure I know one who would dare it for my

sake. Olaf, if you love me, bring me that necklace as a marriage gift. I

tell you that, having once seen it, I want it more than anything in all

the world.”

“Did you hear what Freydisa said?” I asked. “That he who wrought this

sacrilege would bring upon himself evil and death?”

“Yes, I heard; but it is folly, for who need fear dead bones? As for the

shape you saw, why, it is strengthless for good or ill, a shadow

drawn from what has been by the magic moon, or perchance by Freydisa’s

witchery. Olaf, Olaf, get me that necklace or I will never kiss you

more.”

“That means you will not marry me, Iduna?”

“That means I will only marry the man who gives me that necklace. If you

fear the deed, perhaps there are some others by whom it might be tried.”

Now when I heard these words a sudden rage seized me. Was I to be

taunted thus by the fair woman whom I loved?

“Fear is an ill word to use to me,” I said sternly. “Know, Iduna, that

if it is put to me thus I fear nothing in life or death. You shall have

the necklace if it can be found in yonder earth, chance what may to the

searcher. Nay, no more words. Steinar will lead you home; I must talk of

this matter with Freydisa.”

It was midnight, I know not on what day, since all these things come

back to me in vivid scenes, as flashes of lightning show a landscape,

but are separated from each other by dense darkness. Freydisa and I

stood by the Wanderer’s grave, and at our feet lay digging tools, two

lamps, and tinder to light them. We were setting about our grim task at

dead of night, for fear lest the priests should stay us. Also, I did not

wish the people to know that I had done this thing.

“Here is work for a month,” I said doubtfully, looking up at the great

mass of the mound.

“Nay,” replied Freydisa, “since I can show you the door of the grave,

and perchance the passage still stands. Yet, will you really enter

there?”

“Why not, Freydisa? Must I bear to be taunted by the woman I am to wed?

Surely it would be better to die and have done. Let the ghost slay me if

he will. It comes upon me that if so I shall be spared trouble.”

“No bridegroom’s talk,” said Freydisa, “however true it may be. Yet,

young Olaf, do you take heart, since I think that this ghost has no

desire for your blood. I am wise in my own fashion, Olaf, and much of

the past comes to me, if little of the future, and I believe that this

Wanderer and you have more to do with each other than we can guess.

It may be even that this task is appointed to you and that all these

happenings, which are but begun, work to an end unseen. At the least,

try your fortune, and if you die--why, I who was your nurse from your

mother’s knee, love you well enough to die with you. Together we’ll

descend to Hela’s halls, there to seek out the Wanderer and learn his

story.”

Then, throwing her arms about my neck, she drew me to her and kissed me

on the brow.

“I was not your mother, Olaf,” she went on, “but, to be honest, I would

have been could I have had my fancy though, strangely enough, I never

felt thus towards Ragnar, your brother. Now, why do you make me talk

foolishness? Come hither, and I will show you the entrance to the grave;

it is where the sun first strikes upon it.”

Then she led me to the east of the mound, where, not more than eight or

ten feet from its base, grew a patch of bushes. Among these bushes was

a little hollow, as though at this spot the earth had sunk in. Here, at

her bidding, I began to dig, and with her help worked for the half of an

hour or more in silence, till at length my spade struck against a stone.

“It is the door-stone,” said Freydisa. “Dig round it.”

So I dug till I made a hole at the edge of the stone large enough for a

man to creep through. After this we paused to rest a while and to allow

the air within the mound to purify.

“Now,” she said, “if you are not afraid, we will enter.”

“I am afraid,” I answered. Indeed, the terror which struck me then

returns, so that even as I write I feel fear of the dead man who lay,

and for aught I know still lies, within that grave. “Yet,” I added,

“never will I face Iduna more without the necklace, if it can be found.”

So we struck sparks on to the tinder, and from them lit the two lamps

of seal oil. Then I crept into the hole, Freydisa following me, to find

myself in a narrow passage built of rough stones and roofed with flat

slabs of water-worn rock. This tunnel, save for a little dry soil that

had sifted into it through the cracks between the stones, was quite

clear. We crawled along it without difficulty till we came to the tomb

chamber, which was in the centre of the mound, but at a higher level

than the entrance. For the passage sloped upwards, doubtless to allow

for drainage. The huge stones with which it was lined and roofed over,

were not less than ten feet high and set on end side by side. One of

these upright stones was that designed for the door. Had it been in

place, we could not have entered the chamber without great labour and

the help of many men; but, as it chanced, either it had never been set

up after the burial, or this was done so hastily that it had fallen.

“We are in luck’s way,” said Freydisa, when she noticed this. “No,

I will go first, who know more of ghosts than you do, Olaf. If the

Wanderer strikes, let him strike me,” and she clambered over the fallen

slab.

Presently she called back, saying:

“Come; all is quiet here, as it should be in such a place.”

I followed her, and sliding down the end of the stone--which I remember

scratched my elbow and made it bleed--found myself in a little room

about twelve feet square. In this place there was but one thing to be

seen: what appeared to be the trunk of a great oak tree, some nine feet

in length, and, standing on it, side by side, two figures of bronze

under a foot in height.

“The coffin in which the Wanderer lies and the gods he worshipped,” said

Freydisa.

Then she took up first one and next the other of the bronze figures and

we examined them in the light of the lamps, although I feared to touch

them. They were statues of a man and a woman.

The man, who wore a long and formal beard, was wrapped in what seemed

to be a shroud, through an opening in which appeared his hands. In the

right hand was a scourge with a handle, and in the left a crook such as

a shepherd might use, only shorter. On his head was what I took to be a

helmet, a tall peaked cap ending in a knob, having on either side of it

a stiff feather of bronze, and in front, above the forehead, a snake,

also of bronze.

The woman was clad in a straight and narrow robe, cut low beneath her

breast. Her face was mild and beautiful, and in her right hand she

held a looped sceptre. Her hair descended in many long plaits on to her

shoulders. For head-dress she wore two horns, supporting between them a

burnished disc of gold like to that of the moon when it is full.

“Strange gods!” I muttered.

“Aye,” answered Freydisa, “yet maybe true ones to those who worship

them. But we will talk of these later; now for their servant.”

Then she dropped the figures into a pouch at her side, and began to

examine the trunk of the oak tree, of which the outer sap wood had been

turned to tinder by age, leaving the heart still hard as iron.

“See,” she said, pointing to a line about four inches from the top, “the

tree has been sawn in two length-ways and the lid laid on. Come, help.”

Then she took an iron-shod staff which we had brought with us, and

worked its sharp point into the crack, after which we both rested our

weight upon the staff. The lid of the coffin lifted quite easily, for

it was not pegged down, and slid of its own weight over the side of

the tree. In the cavity beneath was a form covered with a purple cloak

stained as though by salt water. Freydisa lifted the cloak, and there

lay the Wanderer as he had been placed a thousand or more of years

before our time, as perfect as he had been in the hour of his death, for

the tannin from the new-felled tree in which he was buried had preserved

him.

Breathless with wonder, we bent down and examined him by the light of

the lamps. He was a tall, spare man, to all appearance of between fifty

and sixty years of age. His face was thin and fine; he wore a short,

grizzled beard; his hair, so far as it could be seen beneath his helmet,

was brown and lightly tinged with grey.

“Does he call anyone to your mind?” asked Freydisa.

“Yes, I think so, a little,” I replied. “Who is it, now? Oh! I know, my

mother.”

“That is strange, Olaf, since to me he seems much like what you might

become should you live to his years. Yet it was through your mother’s

line that Aar came to your race many generations gone, for this much is

known. Well, study him hard, for, look you, now that the air has got to

him, he melts away.”

Melt he did, indeed, till presently there was nothing left save a skull

patched here and there with skin and hair. Yet I never forgot that

face; indeed, to this hour I see it quite clearly. When at length it had

crumbled, we turned to other things, knowing that our time in the grave

must be measured by the oil in the simple lamps we had. Freydisa lifted

a cloth from beneath the chin, revealing a dinted breastplate of rich

armour, different from any of our day and land, and, lying on it, such

a necklace as we had seen upon the ghost, a beauteous thing of inlaid

golden shells and emerald stones shaped like beetles.

“Take it for your Iduna,” said Freydisa, “since it is for her sake that

we break in upon this great man’s rest.”

I seized the precious thing and tugged at it, but the chain was stout

and would not part. Again I tugged, and now it was the neck of the

Wanderer that broke, for the head rolled from the body, and the gold

chain came loose between the two.

“Let us be going,” said Freydisa, as I hid away the necklace. “The oil

in the lamps burns low, and even I do not care to be left here in the

dark with this mighty one whom we have robbed.”

“There’s his armour,” I said. “I’d have that armour; it is wonderful.”

“Then stop and get it by yourself,” she answered, “for my lamp dies.”

“At least, I will take the sword,” I exclaimed, and snatched at the belt

by which it was girt about the body. The leather had rotted, and it came

away in my hand.

Holding it, I clambered over the stone after Freydisa, and followed her

down the passage. Before we reached the end of it the lamps went out, so

that we must finish our journey in the dark. Thankful enough were both

of us when we found ourselves safe in the open air beneath the familiar

stars.

“Now, how comes it, Freydisa,” I asked, when we had got our breath

again, “that this Wanderer, who showed himself so threateningly upon the

crest of his grave, lies patient as a dead sheep within it while we rob

his bones?”

“Because we were meant to take it, as I think, Olaf. Now, help me to

fill in the mouth of that hole roughly--I will return to finish this

to-morrow--and let us away to the hall. I am weary, and I tell you,

Olaf, that the weight of things to come lies heavy on my soul. I think

wisdom dwells with that Wanderer’s bones. Yes, and foresight of the

future and memories of the past.”

CHAPTER IV

IDUNA WEARS THE NECKLACE

I lay sleeping in my bed at Aar, the sword of the Wanderer by my side

and his necklace beneath my pillow. In my sleep there came to me a very

strange and vivid dream. I dreamed that I was the Wanderer, no other

man, and here I, who write this history in these modern days, will say

that the dream was true.

Once in the far past I, who afterwards was born as Olaf, and who am

now--well, never mind my name--lived in the shape of that man who in

Olaf’s time was by tradition known as the Wanderer. Of that Wanderer

life, however, for some reason which I cannot explain, I am able to

recover but few memories. Other earlier lives come back to me much more

clearly, but at present the details of this particular existence escape

me. For the purpose of the history which I am setting down this matters

little, since, although I know enough to be sure that the persons

concerned in the Olaf life were for the most part the same as those

concerned in the Wanderer life, their stories remain quite distinct.

Therefore, I propose to leave that of the Wanderer, so far as I know

it, untold, wild and romantic as it seems to have been. For he must have

been a great man, this Wanderer, who in the early ages of the northern

world, drawn by the magnet of some previous Egyptian incarnation, broke

back to those southern lands with which his informing spirit was already

so familiar, and thence won home again to the place where he was born,

only to die. In considering this dream which Olaf dreamed, let it be

remembered, then, that although a thousand, or maybe fifteen hundred, of

our earthly years separated us from each other, the Wanderer, into whose

tomb I broke at the goading of Iduna, and I, Olaf, were really the same

being clothed in different shapes of flesh.

To return to my dream. I, Olaf, or, rather, my spirit, dwelling in the

Wanderer’s body, that body which I had just seen lying in the grave,

stood at night in a great columned building, which I knew to be

the temple of some god. At my feet lay a basin of clear water; the

moonlight, which was almost as bright as that of day, showed me my

reflection in the water. It was like to that of the Wanderer as I had

seen him lying in his oak coffin in the mound, only younger than he had

seemed to be in the coffin. Moreover, he wore the same armour that the

man in the coffin wore, and at his side hung the red, cross-handled

sword. There he stood in the temple alone, and looked across a plain,

green with crops, on which sat two mighty images as high as tall pines,

looked to a great river on whose banks grew trees such as I had never

beheld: tall, straight trees, surmounted by a stiff crown of leaves.

Beyond this river lay a white, flat-roofed city, and in it were other

great columned temples.

The man in whom I, Olaf the Dane, seemed to dwell in my dream turned,

and behind him saw a range of naked hills of brown rock, and in them the

mouth of a desolate valley where was no green thing. Presently he became

aware that he was no longer alone. At his side stood a woman. She was

a very beautiful woman, unlike anyone I, Olaf, had ever seen. Her shape

was tall and slender, her eyes were large, dark and soft as a deer’s,

her features were small and straight, save the mouth, of which the lips

were somewhat full. The face, which was dark-hued, like her hair and

eyes, was sad, but wore a sweet and haunting smile. It was much such a

face as that upon the statue of the goddess which we had found in the

Wanderer’s tomb, and the dress she wore beneath her cloak was like to

the dress of the goddess. She was speaking earnestly.

“My love, my only love,” she said, “you must begone this very night;

indeed, the boat awaits you that shall take you down the river to the

sea. All is discovered. My waiting-lady, the priestess, but now has told

me that my father, the king, purposes to seize and throw you into prison

to-morrow, and thereafter to put you on your trial for being beloved

by a daughter of the royal blood, of which, as you are a foreign man,

however noble you may be, the punishment is death. Moreover, if you are

condemned, your doom will be my own. There is but one way in which to

save my life, and that is by your flight, for if you fly it has been

whispered to me that all will be forgotten.”

Now, in my dream, he who wore the Wanderer’s shape reasoned with her,

saying at length that it was better they both should die, to live on in

the world of spirits, rather than part for ever. She hid her face on his

breast and answered,

“I cannot die. I would stay to look upon the sun, not for my own sake,

but because of our child that will be born. Nor can I fly with you,

since then your boat will be stopped. But if you go alone, the guards

will let it pass. They have their commands.”

After this for a while they wept in each other’s arms, for their hearts

were broken.

“Give me some token,” he murmured; “let me wear something that you have

worn until my death.”

She opened her cloak, and there upon her breast hung that necklace which

had lain upon the breast of the Wanderer in his tomb, the necklace of

gold and inlaid shells and emerald beetles, only there were two rows of

shells and emeralds, not one. One row she unclasped and clasped it again

round his neck, breaking the little gold threads that bound the two

strands together.

“Take this,” she said, “and I will wear the half which is left of it

even in my grave, as you also shall wear your half in life and death.

Now something comes upon me. It is that when the severed parts of this

necklace are once more joined together, then we two shall meet again

upon the earth.”

“What chance is there that I shall return from my northern home, if ever

I win so far, back to this southern land?”

“None,” she answered. “In this life we shall kiss no more. Yet there are

other lives to come, or so I think and have learned through the wisdom

of my people. Begone, begone, ere my heart breaks on yours; but never

let this necklace of mine, which was that of those who were long before

me, lie upon another woman’s breast, for if so it will bring sorrow to

the giver, and to her to whom it is given no good fortune.”

“How long must I wait before we meet again?” he asked.

“I do not know, but I think that when all that jewel once more grows

warm above my immoral heart, this temple which they call eternal will be

but a time-eaten ruin. Hark, the priestess calls. Farewell, you man who

have come out of the north to be my glory and my shame. Farewell, until

the purpose of our lives declares itself and the seed that we have sown

in sorrow shall blossom into an everlasting flower. Farewell. Farewell!”

Then a woman appeared in the background beckoning, and all my dream

vanished away. Yet to my mind came the thought that it was to the lady

who gave the necklace that Death stood near, rather than to him to whom

it was given. For surely death was written in her sad and longing eyes.

So that dream ended. When I, Olaf, awoke in the morning, it was to find

that already everyone was astir, for I had overslept myself. In the

hall were gathered Ragnar, Steinar, Iduna and Freydisa; the elders were

talking together elsewhere on the subject of the forthcoming marriage.

I went to Iduna to embrace her, and she proffered me her cheek, speaking

all the while over her shoulder to Ragnar.

“Where were you last night, brother, that you came in near the dawn,

all covered with mud?” asked Ragnar, turning his back on Iduna, without

making any answer to her words.

“Digging in the Wanderer’s grave, brother, as Iduna challenged me to

do.”

Now all three of them turned on me eagerly, save Freydisa, who stood by

the fire listening, and with one voice asked if I had found anything.

“Aye,” I replied. “I found the Wanderer, a very noble-looking man,” and

I began to describe him.

“Peace to this dead Wanderer,” broke in Iduna. “Did you find the

necklace?”

“Yes, I found the necklace. Here it is!” And I laid the splendid thing

upon the board.

Then suddenly I lost my speech, since now for the first time I saw

that, twisted round the chain of it, were three broken wires of gold.

I remembered how in my dream I had seen the beautiful woman break such

wires ere she gave half of the jewel to the man in whose breast I had

seemed to dwell, and for a moment grew so frightened that I could say no

more.

“Oh!” exclaimed Iduna, “it is beautiful, beautiful! Oh! Olaf, I thank

you,” and she flung her arms about me and kissed me, this time in

earnest.

Then she seized the necklace and fastened it round her throat.

“Stay,” I said, awaking. “I think you had best not touch those gems.

Iduna, I have dreamed that they will bring no luck to you or to any

woman, save one.”

Here the dark-faced Freydisa looked up at me, then dropped her eyes

again, and stood listening.

“You have dreamed!” exclaimed Iduna. “I care little what you have

dreamed. It is for the necklace I care, and not all the ill-luck in the

world shall stay me from the keeping of it.”

Here again Freydisa looked up, but Steinar looked down.

“Did you find aught else?” asked Ragnar, interrupting.

“Aye, brother, this!” and from under my cloak I produced the Wanderer’s

sword.

“A wondrous weapon,” said Ragnar when he had examined it, “though

somewhat heavy for its length, and of bronze, after the fashion of those

that are buried in the grave mounds. It has seen much wear also, and,

I should say, has loosed many a spirit. Look at the gold work of the

handle. Truly a wondrous weapon, worth all the necklaces in the world.

But tell us your story.”

So I told them, and when I came to the images that we had found standing

on the coffin, Iduna, who was paying little heed, stopped from her

fondling of the necklace and asked where they were.

“Freydisa has them,” I answered. “Show them the Wanderer’s gods,

Freydisa.”

“So Freydisa was with you, was she?” said Iduna.

Then she glanced at the gods, laughed a little at their fashion and

raiment, and again fell to fingering the necklace, which was more to her

than any gods.

Afterwards Freydisa asked me what was the dream of which I had spoken,

and I told it to her, every word.

“It is a strange story,” said Freydisa. “What do you make of it, Olaf?”

“Nothing save that it was a dream. And yet those three broken wires

that are twisted round the chain, which I had never noted till I saw the

necklace in Iduna’s hand! They fit well with my dream.”

“Aye, Olaf, and the dream fits well with other things. Have you ever

heard, Olaf, that there are those who say that men live more than once

upon this earth?”

“No,” I answered, laughing. “Yet why should they not do so, as they live

at all? If so, perhaps I am that Wanderer, in whose body I seemed to be,

only then I am sure that the lady with the golden shells was not Iduna.”

And again I laughed.

“No, Olaf, she was not Iduna, though perchance there was an Iduna, all

the same. Tell me, did you see aught of that priestess who was with the

lady?”

“Only that she was tall and dark, one of middle age. But why waste words

on this midnight madness? Yet that royal woman haunts me. I would that

I could see her again, if only in a dream. Also, Freydisa, I would

that Iduna had not taken the necklace. I fear lest it should bring

misfortune. Where is she now? I will tell her again.”

“Wandering with Steinar, I think, and wearing the necklace. Oh! Olaf,

like you I fear it will bring woe. I cannot read your dream--as yet.”

It was the day before that of my marriage. I see them moving about,

the shapes of all those long-forgotten men and women, arrayed in their

bravest garments and rude ornaments of gold and silver, for a great

company had been bidden, many of whom came from far. I see my uncle,

Leif, the dark-browed priest of Odin, passing between the hall and the

temple where on the morrow he must celebrate the marriage rites in such

a fashion as would do honour to the god. I see Iduna, Athalbrand and

Steinar talking together apart. I see myself watching all this life

and stir like one who is mazed, and I know that since I had entered

the Wanderer’s grave all things had seemed unreal to me. Iduna, whom

I loved, was about to become my wife, and yet between me and Iduna

continually was thrust a vision of the woman of my dream. At times I

thought that the blow from the bear’s paw had hurt my brain; that I must

be going mad. I prayed to the gods that this might not be so, and when

my prayers availed me nothing I sought the counsel of Freydisa.

She listened to my story, then said briefly,

“Let be. Things will go as they are fated. You are no madder than the

rest of men. I can say no more.”

It was the custom of that time and land that, if possible, the wife to

be should not pass the night before her marriage under the same roof as

her future husband. Therefore Athalbrand, whose mood had been strange

of late, went with Iduna to sleep in his beached ship. At my request

Steinar went with them, in order that he might see that they were

brought back in good time in the morning.

“You will not fail me in this, Steinar?” I said, clasping his hand.

He tried to answer something, but the words seemed to choke in his

throat and he turned away, leaving them unspoken.

“Why,” I exclaimed, “one might think you were going to be married, not

I.”

“Aye,” broke in Iduna hurriedly. “The truth is that Steinar is jealous

of me. How is it that you can make us all love you so much, Olaf?”

“Would that I were more worthy of your love,” I answered, smiling, “as

in years to come I hope to show myself.”

Athalbrand, who was watching, tugged at his forked beard and muttered

something that sounded like an oath. Then he rode off, kicking his horse

savagely and not noting my outstretched hand, or so it seemed. Of this,

however, I took little heed, for I was engaged in kissing Iduna in

farewell.

“Be not sad,” she said, as she kissed me back on the lips. “Remember

that we part for the last time.” Again she kissed me and went, laughing

happily.

The morning came. All was prepared. From far and near the guests were

gathered, waiting to do honour to the marriage feast. Even some of the

men of Agger were there, who had come to pay homage to their new lord.

The spring sun shone brightly, as it should upon a marriage morn, and

without the doors the trumpeters blew blasts with their curved horns. In

the temple the altar of Odin was decorated with flowers, and by it, also

decorated with flowers, the offering awaited sacrifice. My mother, in

her finest robe, the same, in truth, in which she herself had been wed,

stood by the door of the hall, which was cleared of kine and set with

tables, giving and returning greetings. Her arm was round me, who, as

bridegroom, was clothed in new garments of woven wool through which ran

a purple streak, the best that could be made in all the land. Ragnar

came up.

“They should be here,” he said. “The hour is over past.”

“Doubtless the fair bride has been long in decking herself,” answered my

father, looking at the sun. “She will come presently.”

Still time went on, and the company began to murmur, while a strange,

cold fear seemed to grip my heart. At length a man was seen riding

towards the hall, and one cried,

“At last! Here comes the herald!”

Another answered: “For a messenger of love he rides slowly and sadly.”

And a silence fell on all that heard him.

The man, a stranger to us, arrived and said:

“I have a message for the lord Thorvald from the lord Athalbrand, which

I was charged to deliver at this hour, neither before nor after. It is

that he sailed for Lesso at the rising of the moon last night, there

purposing to celebrate the marriage of his daughter, the lady Iduna,

with Steinar, lord of Agger, and is therefore grieved that he and the

lady Iduna cannot be present at your feast this day.”

Now, when I heard these words I felt as though a spear had been thrust

through me. “Steinar! Oh! surely not with my brother Steinar,” I gasped,

and staggered against the door-post, where I stood like one who has been

struck helpless.

Ragnar sprang at the messenger, and, dragging him from his horse, would

have killed him had not some stayed his hand. My father, Thorvald,

remained silent, but his half-brother, the dark-browed priest of Odin,

lifted his hands to heaven and called down the curse of Odin upon the

troth-breakers. The company drew swords and shouted for vengeance,

demanding to be led against the false Athalbrand. At length my father

called for silence.

“Athalbrand is a man without shame,” he said. “Steinar is a viper whom

I have nursed in my breast, a viper that has bitten the hand which saved

him from death; aye, you men of Agger, you have a viper for your lord.

Iduna is a light-of-love upon whom all honest women should spit, who has

broken her oath and sold herself for Steinar’s wealth and rule. I swear

by Thor that, with your help, my friends and neighbours, I will be

avenged upon all three of these. But for such vengeance preparations

must be made, since Athalbrand and Steinar are strong. Moreover, they

lie in an island, and can only be attacked by sea. Further, there is

no haste, since the mischief is done, and by now Steinar the Snake and

Iduna the Light-of-love will have drunk their marriage-cup. Come, eat,

my friends, and not too sadly, seeing that if my house has suffered

shame, it has escaped worse shame, that of welcoming a false woman as

a bride of one of us. Doubtless, when his bitterness is past, Olaf, my

son, will find a better wife.”

So they sat down and ate the marriage feast. Only the seats of the bride

and bridegroom were empty, for I could not take part in that feast, but

went alone to my sleeping-place and drew the curtains. My mother also

was so overcome that she departed to her own chamber. Alone I sat upon

my bed and listened to the sounds of that marriage feast, which more

resembled such a one as is given at funerals. When it was finished I

heard my father and Ragnar and the head men and chiefs of the company

take counsel together, after which all departed to their homes.

So soon as they were gone Freydisa came to me, bringing food and drink.

“I am a shamed man, Freydisa,” I said, “and can no longer stay in this

land where I have been made one for children to mock at.”

“It is not you who are shamed,” answered Freydisa hotly. “It is Steinar

and that----,” and she used a harsh word of Iduna. “Oh! I saw it coming,

and yet I dared not warn you. I feared lest I might be wrong and put

doubts into your heart against your foster-brother and your wife without

cause. May Odin destroy them both!”

“Speak not so roughly, Freydisa,” I said. “Ragnar was right about Iduna.

Her beauty never blinded him as it did me, and he read her truly. Well,

she did but follow her nature; and as for Steinar, she fooled him as she

has the power to do by any man, save Ragnar. Doubtless he will repent

bitterly ere all is done. Also I think that necklace from the grave is

an evil magic.”

“It is like you, Olaf, to find excuse even for sin that cannot be

forgiven. Not but what I hold with you that Steinar has been led away

against his will, for I read it in his face. Well, his life must pay the

price of it, for surely he shall bleed on Odin’s altar. Now, be a man.

Come out and face your trouble. You are not the first that a woman has

fooled, nor will you be the last. Forget love and dream of vengeance.”

“I cannot forget love, and I do not wish for vengeance, especially

against Steinar, who is my foster-brother,” I answered wearily.

CHAPTER V

THE BATTLE ON THE SEA

On the morrow Thorvald, my father, sent messengers to the head men of

Agger, telling them of all that he and his House had suffered at the

hands of Steinar, whereof those of their folk who had been present at

the feast could bear witness. He added that if they stood by Steinar in

his wickedness and treachery, thenceforward he and the men of the North

would be their foes and work them mischief by land and sea.

In due course these messengers returned with the tale that the head men

of Agger had met together and deposed Steinar from his lordship over

them, electing another man, a nephew of Steinar’s father. Also they sent

a present of gold rings in atonement for the wrong which had been done

to the house of Thorvald by one of their blood, and prayed that Thorvald

and the northern men would bear them no ill will for that in which they

were blameless.

Cheered by this answer, which halved the number of their foes,

my father, Thorvald of Aar, and those Over-men of whom he was the

High-lord, began to make their preparations to attack Athalbrand on his

Island of Lesso. Of all these things Athalbrand learned by his spies,

and later, when the warships were being prepared and manned, two

messengers came from him, old men of repute, and demanded to see my

father. This was the substance of his message, which was delivered in my

hearing.

That he, Athalbrand, was little to blame for what had happened, which

was due to the mad passions of two young people who had blinded and

misled him. That no marriage had taken place between Steinar and his

daughter, Iduna, as he was prepared and able to prove, since he had

refused to allow any such marriage. That, therefore, he was ready to

outlaw Steinar, who only dwelt with him as an unwelcome guest, and to

return his daughter, Iduna, to me, Olaf, and with her a fine in gold

rings as compensation for the wrong done, of which the amount was to be

ascertained by judges to be agreed upon.

My father entertained the messengers, but would give them no answer till

he had summoned a council of the Under-lords who stood with him in

this business. At that council, where I was present, some said that the

insult could only be washed out with blood. At length I was called upon

to speak as the man most concerned. While all listened I rose and said:

“These are my words. After what has chanced, not for all the wealth in

Denmark would I take Iduna the Fair to be my wife. Let her stay with

Steinar, whom she has chosen. Still, I do not wish to cause the blood of

innocent men to be spent because of my private wrong. Neither do I wish

to wreak vengeance upon Steinar, who for many years was my brother, and

who has been led away by a woman, as may chance to any one of us and

has chanced to many. Therefore I say that my father should accept

Athalbrand’s fine in satisfaction of the insult to our House, and let

all this matter be forgotten. As for myself, I purpose to leave my home,

where I have been put to shame, and to seek my fortune in other lands.”

Now, the most of those present thought this a wise saying and were ready

to abide by it. Yet, unluckily enough, it was made of no account by what

had slipped from my lips at its end. Although many held me strange and

fey, all men loved me because I had a kind heart and gentleness, also

because of the wrongs that I had suffered and for something which they

saw in me, which they believed would one day make of me a great skald

and a wise leader. When she heard me announce thus publicly that I was

determined to leave them, Thora, my mother, whispered in the ears of

Thorvald, my father, and Ragnar and others also said to each other that

this might not be. It was Ragnar, the headlong, who sprang up and spoke

the first.

“Is my brother to be driven from us and his home like a thrall caught

in theft because a traitor and a false woman have put him to shame?” he

said. “I say that I ask Athalbrand’s blood to wash away that stain,

not his gold, and that if need be I will seek it alone and die upon his

spears. Also I say that if Olaf, my brother, turns his back upon this

vengeance, I name him niddering.”

“No man shall name me that,” I said, flushing, “and least of all

Ragnar.”

So, amidst shouts, for there had been long peace in the land, and all

the fighting men sighed for battle, it was agreed that war should be

declared on Athalbrand, those present pledging themselves and their

dependents to follow it to the end.

“Go back to the troth-breaker, Athalbrand,” said my father to the

messengers. “Tell him that we will not accept his fine of gold, who come

to take all his wealth, and with it his land and his life. Tell him also

that the young lord Olaf refuses his daughter, Iduna, since it has

not been the fashion of our House to wed with drabs. Tell Steinar, the

woman-thief, that he would do well to slay himself, or to be sure that

he is killed in battle, since if we take him living he shall be cast

into a pit of vipers or sacrificed to Odin, the god of honour. Begone!”

“We go,” answered the spokesman of the messengers; “yet before we go,

Thorvald, we would say to you that you and your folk are mad. Some wrong

has been done to your son, though perhaps not so much as you may think.

For that wrong full atonement has been offered, and with it the hand of

friendship on which you spit. Know then that the mighty lord Athalbrand

does not fear war, since for every man you can gather he numbers two,

all pledged to him until the death. Also he has consulted the oracle,

and its answer is that if you fight with him, but one of your House will

be left living.”

“Begone!” thundered my father, “lest presently you should stay here

dead.”

So they went.

That day my heart was very heavy, and I sought Freydisa to take counsel

with her.

“Trouble hovers over me like a croaking raven,” I said. “I do not like

this war for a woman who is worth nothing, although she has hurt me

sorely. I fear the future, that it may prove even worse than the past

has been.”

“Then come to learn it, Olaf, for what is known need no more be feared.”

“I am not so sure of that,” I said. “But how can the future be learned?”

“Through the voice of the god, Olaf. Am I not one of Odin’s virgins,

who know something of the mysteries? Yonder in his temple mayhap he will

speak through me, if you dare to listen.”

“Aye, I dare. I should like to hear the god speak, true words or false.”

“Then come and hear them, Olaf.”

So we went up to the temple, and Freydisa, who had the right of entry,

unlocked its door. We passed in and lit a lamp in front of the seated

wooden image of Odin, that for unnumbered generations had rested there

behind the altar. I stood by the altar and Freydisa crouched herself

before the image, her forehead laid upon its feet, and muttered runes.

After a while she grew silent, and fear took hold of me. The place was

large, and the feeble light of the lamp scarcely reached to the arched

roof; all about me were great formless shadows. I felt that there were

two worlds, one of the flesh and one of the spirit, and that I stood

between the two. Freydisa seemed to go to sleep; I could no longer hear

her breathing. Then she sighed heavily and turned her head, and by the

light of the lamp I noted that her face was white and ghastly.

“What do you seek?” her lips asked, for I saw them moving. Yet the voice

that issued from them was not her own voice, but that of a deep-throated

man, who spoke with a strange accent.

Next came the answer in the voice of Freydisa.

“I, your virgin, seek to know the fate of him who stands by the altar,

one whom I love.”

For a while there was quiet; then the first voice spoke, still through

the lips of Freydisa. Of this I was sure, for those of the statue

remained immovable. It was what it had always been--a thing of wood.

“Olaf, the son of Thorvald,” said the deep voice, “is an enemy of us the

gods, as was his forefather whose grave he robbed. As his forefather’s

fate was, so shall his be, for in both of them dwells the same spirit.

He shall worship that which is upon the hilt of the sword he stole from

the dead, and in this sign shall conquer, since it prevails against us

and makes our curse of none effect. Great sorrow shall he taste, and

great joy. He shall throw away a sceptre for a woman’s kiss, and yet

gain a greater sceptre. Olaf, whom we curse, shall be Olaf the Blessed.

Yet in the end shall we prevail against his flesh and that of those who

cling to him preaching that which is upon the sword but not with the

sword, among whom thou shalt be numbered, woman--thou, and another, who

hast done him wrong.”

The voice died away, and was followed by a silence so deep that at

length I could bear it no more.

“Ask of the war,” I said, “and of what shall happen.”

“It is too late,” answered the voice of Freydisa. “I sought to know of

you, Olaf, and you alone, and now the spirit has left me.”

Then came another long silence, after which Freydisa sighed thrice and

awoke. We went out of the temple, I bearing the lamp and she resting on

my arm. Near the door I turned and looked back, and it seemed to me that

the image of the god glared upon me wrathfully.

“What has chanced?” asked Freydisa when we stood beneath the light of

the friendly stars. “I know nothing; my mind is a blackness.”

I told her word for word. When I had finished she said,

“Give me the Wanderer’s sword.”

I gave it to her, and she held it against the sky by the naked blade.

“The hilt is a cross,” she said; “but how can a man worship a cross and

preach it and conquer thereby? I cannot interpret this rede, yet I do

not doubt but that it shall all come true, and that you, Olaf, and I are

doomed to be joined in the same fate, whatever it may be, and with us

some other who has wronged you, Steinar perchance, or Iduna herself.

Well, of this at least I am glad, for if I have loved the father, I

think that I love the son still more, though otherwise.” And, leaning

forward, she kissed me solemnly upon the brow.

After Freydisa and I had sought the oracle of Odin, three long ships

of war sailed by the light of the moon from Fladstrand for Athalbrand’s

Isle of Lesso. I do not know when we sailed, but in my mind I can

still see those ships creeping out to sea. In command of the first was

Thorvald, my father; of the second, Ragnar, my brother; and of the third

myself, Olaf; and on each of these ships were fifty men, all of them

stout fighters.

The parting with Thora, my mother, had been sad, for her heart foreboded

ill of this war, and her face could not hide what her heart told her.

Indeed, she wept bitterly, and cursed the name of Iduna the Fair, who

had brought this trouble on her House. Freydisa was sad also. Yet,

watching her opportunity, she glided up to me just before I embarked and

whispered to me,

“Be of good cheer, for you will return, whoever is left behind.”

“It will give me little comfort to return if certain others are left

behind,” I answered. “Oh, that the folk had hearkened to me and made

peace!”

“Too late to talk of that now,” said Freydisa, and we parted.

This was our plan: To sail for Lesso by the moonlight, and when the moon

went down to creep silently towards the shores of the island. Then, just

at the first break of dawn, we proposed to beach the ships on a sandy

strand we knew, and rush to attack Athalbrand’s hall, which we hoped to

carry before men were well awake. It was a bold scheme and one full

of dangers, yet we trusted that its very boldness would cause it

to succeed, especially as we had put it about that, owing to the

unreadiness of our ships, no attack would be made until the coming of

the next moon.

Doubtless all might have gone well with us but for a strange chance. As

it happened, Athalbrand, a brave and skilful captain, who from his youth

had seen much war by sea and land, had a design of his own which

brought ours to nothing. It was that he and his people should sail to

Fladstrand, burn the ships of Thorvald, my father, that he knew were

fitting out upon the beach, which he hoped to find unguarded, or at most

only watched by a few men, and then return to Lesso before he could

be fallen upon. By ill luck he had chosen this very night for his

enterprise. So it came about that just as the moon was sinking our

watchmen caught sight of four other ships, which by the shields that

hung over their bulwarks they knew must be vessels of war, gliding

towards them over the quiet sea.

“Athalbrand comes to meet us!” cried one, and in a minute every man

was looking to his arms. There was no time for plans, since in that low

light and mist the vessels were almost bow to bow before we saw each

other. My father’s ship ran in between two of Athalbrand’s that were

sailing abreast, while mine and that of Ragnar found themselves almost

alongside of the others. On both sides the sails were let down, for none

had any thought of flight. Some rushed to the oars and got enough of

them out to work the ships. Others ran to the grappling irons, and the

rest began to shoot with their bows. Before one could count two hundred

from the time of sighting, the war cry of “_Valhalla! Valhalla! Victory

or Valhalla!_” broke upon the silence of the night and the battle had

begun.

It was a very fierce battle, and one that the gathering darkness made

more grim. Each ship fought without heed to the others, for as the

fray went on they drifted apart, grappled to their foes. My father,

Thorvald’s, vessel fared the worst, since it had an enemy on either

bulwark. He boarded one and cleared it, losing many men. Then the crew

of the other rushed on to him as he regained his own ship. The end of it

was that my father and all his folk were killed, but only after they had

slain the most of their foes, for they died fighting very bravely.

Between Ragnar’s ship and that of Athalbrand himself the fray was more

even. Ragnar boarded Athalbrand and was driven back. Athalbrand boarded

Ragnar and was driven back. Then for the second time Ragnar boarded

Athalbrand with those men who were left to him. In the narrow waist of

Athalbrand’s ship a mighty battle was fought, and here at last Ragnar

and Athalbrand found themselves face to face.

They hacked at each other with their axes, till at length Ragnar, with

a fearful blow, drove in Athalbrand’s helmet and clove his skull in two,

so that he died. But even as he fell, a man, it may have been friend

or foe, for the moon was sinking and the darkness grew dense, thrust a

spear into Ragnar’s back, and he was carried, dying, to his own vessel

by those who remained to him.

Then that fight ceased, for all Athalbrand’s people were dead or wounded

to the death. Meanwhile, on the right, I was fighting the ship that

was commanded by Steinar, for it was fated that we two should be thrown

together. Here also the struggle was desperate. Steinar and his company

boarded at the prow, but I and my men, charging up both boards, drove

them back again. In that charge it is true that I, Olaf, fighting madly,

as was my wont when roused, killed three of the Lesso folk with the

Wanderer’s sword. Still I see them falling one by one. Followed by six

of my people, I sprang on to the raised prow of Steinar’s ship. Just

then the grapnels parted, and there we were left, defending ourselves

as best we could. My mates got their oars and once more brought our

boat alongside. Grapple they could not, because the irons were lost.

Therefore, in obedience to the order which I shouted to them from the

high prow of the enemy’s ship, they began to hurl their ballast stones

into her, and thus stove out her bottom, so that in the end she filled

and sank.

Even while she was down the fray went on. Nearly all my people were

down; indeed but two remained to me when Steinar, not knowing who I was,

rushed up and, having lost his sword, gripped me round the middle.

We wrestled, but Steinar, who was the stronger, forced me back to the

bulwarks and so overboard. Into the sea we went together just as

the ship sank, drawing us down after her. When we rose Steinar was

senseless, but still clinging to me as I caught a rope that was thrown

to me with my right hand, to which the Wanderer’s sword was hanging by a

leathern loop.

The end of it was that I and the senseless Steinar were both drawn back

to my own ship just as the darkness closed in.

An hour later came the dawn, showing a sad sight. My father, Thorvald’s,

ship and one of Athalbrand’s lay helpless, for all, or nearly all, their

crews were dead, while the other had drifted off and was now half a mile

away.

Ragnar’s ship was still grappled to its foe. My own was perhaps in the

best case, for here over twenty men were left unhurt, and another ten

whose wounds were light. The rest were dead or dying.

I sat on a bench in the waist of the ship, and at my feet lay the man

who had been dragged from the sea with me. I thought that this man was

dead till the first red rays of dawn lit upon his face, whereon he sat

up, and I saw that he was Steinar.

“Thus we meet again, my brother,” I said in a quiet voice. “Well,

Steinar, look upon your work.” And I pointed to the dead and dying and

to the ships around, whence came the sound of groans.

Steinar stared at me and asked in a thick voice:

“Was it with you, Olaf, that I fell into the sea?”

“Even so, Steinar.”

“I knew it not in the darkness, Olaf. If I had known, never would I have

lifted sword against you.”

“What did that matter, Steinar, when you had already pierced my heart,

though not with a sword?”

At these words Steinar moaned aloud, then said:

“For the second time you have saved my life.”

“Aye, Steinar; but who knows whether I can do so for a third time? Yet

take comfort, for if I may I will, for thus shall I be best avenged.”

“A white vengeance,” said Steinar. “Oh, this is not to be borne.” And

drawing a knife he wore at his girdle, he strove to kill himself.

But I, who was watching, snatched it away, then gave an order.

“Bind this man and keep him safe. Also bring him drink and a cloak to

cover him.”

“Best kill the dog,” grumbled the captain, to whom I spoke.

“I kill that one who lays a finger on him,” I replied.

Someone whispered into the captain’s ear, whereon he nodded and laughed

savagely.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, “I am a thickhead. I had forgotten Odin and his

sacrifice. Yes, yes, we’ll keep the traitor safe.”

So they bound Steinar to one of the benches and gave him ale and covered

him with a blood-stained cloak taken from a dead man.

I also drank of the ale and drew a cloak about me, for the air was keen.

Then I said,

“Let us go to the other ships and see what has chanced there.”

They got out the oars and rowed to Ragnar’s vessel, where we saw men

stirring.

“How went it with you?” I asked of one who stood upon the prow.

“Not so ill, Olaf,” he answered. “We won, and but now, with the new

light, have finished the game. They are all quiet yonder,” he added,

nodding at the vessel of Athalbrand, to which they were still grappled.

“Where is Ragnar?” I asked.

“Come on board and see,” answered the man.

A plank was thrust out and I ran across it, fear gripping at my heart.

Resting against the mast sat Ragnar, dying.

“Good morrow to you, Olaf,” he gasped. “I am glad you live, that there

may be one left to sit at Aar.”

“What do you mean, my brother?”

“I mean, Olaf, that our father, Thorvald, is dead. They called it to us

from yonder.” And he pointed with his red sword to our father’s ship,

that lay side by side with one of Athalbrand’s. “Athalbrand is dead,

for I slew him, and ere the sun is well clear of the sea I also shall

be dead. Oh, weep not, Olaf; we have won a great fight, and I travel

to Valhalla with a glorious company of friends and foes, there to await

you. I say that had I lived to be old, never could I have found a better

death, who then at last might have died like a cow. Get the ships to

Fladstrand, Olaf, and gather more men to put all Lesso to the sword.

Give us good burial, Olaf, and build a great mound over us, that we may

stand thereon at moonrise and mock the men of Lesso as they row past,

till Valhalla is full and the world dies. Is Steinar dead? Tell me that

Steinar is dead, for then I’ll speak with him presently.”

“No, Ragnar, I have taken Steinar captive.”

“Captive! Why captive? Oh, I understand; that he may lie on Odin’s

altar. Friends, swear to me that Steinar shall lie on Odin’s altar,

Steinar, the bride-thief, Steinar the traitor. Swear it, for I do not

trust this brother of mine, who has woman’s milk in his breasts. By

Thor, he might spare him if he had his way. Swear it, or I’ll haunt your

beds o’ nights and bring the other heroes with me. Swift now, while my

ears are open.”

Then from both ships rose the cry of

“We swear! Fear not, Ragnar, we swear.”

“That’s well,” said Ragnar. “Kiss me now, Olaf. Oh! what is it that I

see in your eyes? A new light, a strange light! Olaf, you are not one of

us. This time is not your time, nor this place your place. You travel to

the end by another road. Well, who knows? At that end we may meet again.

At least I love you.”

Then he burst into a wild war song of blood and vengeance, and so

singing sank down and died.

Afterwards, with much labour, I and the men who were left roped

together our vessels, and to them those that we had captured, and when

a favouring wind arose, sailed back for Fladstrand. Here a multitude

awaited us, for a fishing-boat had brought tidings of the great sea

battle. Of the hundred and fifty men who had sailed in my father,

Thorvald’s, ships sixty were dead and many others wounded, some of

them to death. Athalbrand’s people had fared even worse, since those of

Thorvald had slain their wounded, only one of his vessels having escaped

back to Lesso, there to tell the people of that island and Iduna all

that had happened. Now it was a land of widows and orphans, so that no

man need go wooing there for long, and of Aar and the country round the

same song was sung. Indeed, for generations the folk of those parts

must have told of the battle of Lesso, when the chiefs, Thorvald and

Athalbrand, slew each other upon the seas at night because of a quarrel

about a woman who was known as Iduna the Fair.

On the sands of Fladstrand my mother, the lady Thora, waited with the

others, for she had moved thither before the sailing of the ships. When

mine, the first of them, was beached, I leapt from it, and running to

her, knelt down and kissed her hand.

“I see you, my son Olaf,” she said, “but where are your father and

brother?”

“Yonder, mother,” I answered, pointing to the ships, and could say no

more.

“Then why do they tarry, my son?”

“Alas! mother, because they sleep and will never wake again.”

Now Thora wailed aloud and fell down senseless. Three days later she

died, for her heart, which was weak, could not bear this woe. Once only

did she speak before she died, and then it was to bless me and pray that

we might meet again, and to curse Iduna. Folk noted that of Steinar she

said nothing, either good or ill, although she knew that he lived and

was a prisoner.

Thus it came about that I, Olaf, was left alone in the world and

inherited the lordship of Aar and its subject lands. No one remained

save my dark-browed uncle, Leif, the priest of Odin, Freydisa, the wise

woman, my nurse, and Steinar, my captive foster-brother, who had been

the cause of all this war.

The dying words of Ragnar had been noised abroad. The priest of Odin had

laid them before the oracle of the gods, and this oracle declared that

they must be fulfilled without change.

So all the folk of that land met together at my bidding--yes, even

the women and the children. First we laid the dead in the largest

of Athalbrand’s ships, his people and Athalbrand himself being set

undermost. Then on them we set the dead of Thorvald, Thorvald, my

father, and his son Ragnar, my brother, bound to the mast upon their

feet. This done, with great labour we dragged the ship on to high

ground, and above it built a mighty mound of earth. For twenty days

we toiled at the task, till at last it was finished and the dead were

hidden beneath it for ever. Then we separated to our homes and mourned a

while.

But Steinar was carried to the temple of Odin at Aar, and there kept in

the prison of the temple.

CHAPTER VI

HOW OLAF FOUGHT WITH ODIN

It was the eve of the Spring Feast of Odin. It comes back to me that at

this feast it was the custom to sacrifice some beast to Odin and to lay

flowers and other offerings upon the altars of certain other gods that

they might be pleased to grant a fruitful season. On this day, however,

the sacrifice was to be of no beast, but of a man--Steinar the traitor.

That night I, Olaf, by the help of Freydisa, the priestess of the god,

won entrance to the dungeon where Steinar lay awaiting his doom. This

was not easy to do. Indeed, I remember that it was only after I had

sworn a great oath to Leif and the other priests that I would attempt no

rescue of the victim, nor aid him to escape from his prison, that I

was admitted there, while armed men stood without to see that I did not

break my word. For my love of Steinar was known, and in this matter none

trusted me.

That dungeon was a dreadful place. I see it now. In the floor of the

temple was a trap-door, which, when lifted, revealed a flight of steps.

At the foot of these steps was another massive door of oak, bolted

and barred. It was opened and closed behind me, who found myself in a

darksome den built of rough stone, to which air came only through an

opening in the roof, so small that not even a child could pass it. In

the far corner of this hole, bound to the wall by an iron chain fastened

round his middle, Steinar lay upon a bed of rushes, while on a stool

beside him stood food and water. When I entered, bearing a lamp, Steinar

sat up blinking his eyes, for the light, feeble as it was, hurt them,

and I saw that his face was white and drawn, and the hand he held to

shade his eyes was wasted. I looked at him and my heart swelled with

pity, so that I could not speak.

“Why have you come here, Olaf?” asked Steinar when he knew me. “Is it to

take my life? If so, never were you more welcome.”

“No, Steinar, it is to bid you farewell, since to-morrow at the feast

you die, and I am helpless to save you. In all things else men will obey

me, but not in this.”

“And would you save me if you could?”

“Aye, Steinar. Why not? Surely you must suffer enough with so much blood

and evil on your hands.”

“Yes, I suffer enough, Olaf. So much that I shall be glad to die. But

if you are not come to kill me, then it is that you may scourge me with

your tongue.”

“Not so, Steinar. It is as I have said, only to bid you farewell and to

ask you a question, if it pleases you to answer me. Why did you do this

thing which has brought about such misery and loss, which has sent my

father, my brother, and a host of brave men to the grave, and with them

my mother, whose breasts nursed you?”

“Is she dead also, Olaf? Oh! my cup is full.” He hid his eyes in his

thin hands and sobbed, then went on: “Why did I do it? Olaf, I did not

do it, but some spirit that entered into me and made me mad--mad for the

lips of Iduna the Fair. Olaf, I would speak no ill of her, since her sin

is mine, but yet it is true that when I hung back she drew me on, nor

could I find the strength to say her nay. Do you pray the gods, Olaf,

that no woman may ever draw you on to such shame as mine. Hearken now

to the great reward that I have won. I was never wed to Iduna, Olaf.

Athalbrand would not suffer it till he was sure of the matter of the

lordship of Agger. Then, when he knew that this was gone from me, he

would suffer it still less, and Iduna herself seemed to grow cold.

In truth, I believe he thought of killing me and sending my head as a

present to your father Thorvald. But this Iduna forbade, whether because

she loved me or for other reasons, I cannot say. Olaf, you know the

rest.”

“Aye, Steinar, I know the rest. Iduna is lost to me, and for that

perhaps I should thank you, although such a thrust as this leaves the

heart sore for life. My father, my mother, my brother--all are lost to

me, and you, too, who were as my twin, are about to be lost. Night has

you all, and with you a hundred other men, because of the madness that

was bred in you by the eyes of Iduna the Fair, who also is lost to

both of us. Steinar, I do not blame you, for I know yours was a madness

which, for their own ends, the gods send upon men, naming it love. I

forgive you, Steinar, if I have aught to forgive, and I tell you, so

weary am I of this world, which I feel holds little that is good, that,

if I might, I’d yield up my life instead of yours, and go to seek the

others, though I doubt whether I should find them, since I think that

our roads are different. Hark! the priests call me. Steinar, there’s no

need to bid you to be brave, for who of our Northern race is not? That’s

our one heritage: the courage of a bull. Yet it seems to me that there

are other sorts of courage which we lack: to tread the dark ways of

death with eyes fixed on things gentler and better than we know. Pray

to our gods, Steinar, since they are the best we have to pray to,

though dark and bloody in their ways; pray that we may meet again, where

priests and swords are not and women work no ruin, where we may love as

we once loved in childhood and there is no more sin. Fare you well, my

brother Steinar, yet not for ever, for sure I am that here we did not

begin and here we shall not end. Oh! Steinar, Steinar, who could have

dreamed that this would be the last of all our happy fellowship?”

When I had spoken such words as these to him, I flung my arms about him,

and we embraced each other. Then that picture fades.

It was the hour of sacrifice. The victim lay bound upon the stone in

the presence of the statue of the god, but outside of the doors of the

little temple, that all who were gathered there might see the offering.

The ceremonies were ended. Leif, the head priest, in his robe of office,

had prayed and drunk the cup before the god, dedicating to him the blood

that was about to fall, and narrating in a chant the crimes for which

it was offered up and all the tale of woe that these had brought about.

Then, in the midst of an utter silence, he drew the sacrificial sword

and held it to the lips of Odin that the god might breathe upon it and

make it holy.

It would seem that the god did breathe; at least, that side of the sword

which had been bright grew dull. Leif turned it to the people, crying in

the ancient words:

“Odin takes; who dare deny?”

All eyes were fixed upon him, standing in his black robe, and holding

aloft the gleaming sword that had grown dull. Yes, even the patient eyes

of Steinar, bound upon the stone.

Then it was that some spirit stirred in my heart which drove me on to

step between the priest and his prey. Standing in the doorway of the

chapel, a tall, young shape against the gloom behind, I said in a steady

voice:

“I dare deny!”

A gasp of wonderment went up from all who heard, and Steinar, lifting

himself a little from the stone, stared at me, shook his head as if in

dissent, then let it fall again, and listened.

“Hearken, friends,” I said. “This man, my foster-brother, has committed

a sin against me and my House. My House is dead--I alone remain; and on

behalf of the dead and of myself I forgive him his sin, which, indeed,

was less his than another’s. Is there any man among you who at some time

has not been led aside by woman, or who has not again and again desired

to be so led aside? If such a one there be, let him say that he has no

forgiveness in his heart for Steinar, the son of Hakon. Let him come

forward and say it.”

None stirred; even the women drooped their heads and were silent.

“Then, if this is so,” I went on, “and you can forgive, as I do, how

much more should a god forgive? What is a god? Is he not one greater

than man, who must know all the weakness of man, which, for his own

ends, he has bred into the flesh of man? How, then, can he do otherwise

than be pitiful to what he has created? If this be so, how can the

god refuse that which men are willing to grant, and what sacrifice can

please him better than the foregoing of his own vengeance? Would a god

wish to be outdone by a man? If I, Olaf, the man can forgive, who have

been wronged, how much more can Odin the god forgive, who has suffered

no wrong save that of the breaking of those laws which will ever be

broken by men who are as it has pleased him to fashion them? On Odin’s

behalf, therefore, and speaking as he would speak, could he have voice

among us, I demand that you set this victim free, leaving it to his own

heart to punish him.”

Now, some whom my simple words had touched, I suppose because there was

truth in them, although in those days and in that land none understood

such truths, and others, because they had known and loved the

open-handed Steinar, who would have given the cloak from his back to the

meanest of them, cried:

“Aye, let him go free. There has been enough of death through this

Iduna.”

But more stood silent, lost in doubt at this new doctrine. Only Leif,

my uncle, did not stand silent. His dark face began to work as though

a devil possessed him, as, indeed, I think one did. His eyes rolled; he

champed his jaws like an angry hog, and screamed:

“Surely the lord Olaf is mad, for no sane man would talk thus. Man

may forgive while it is within his power; but this traitor has been

dedicated to Odin, and can a god forgive? Can a god spare when his

nostrils are opened for the smell of blood? If so, of what use is it to

be a god? How is he happier than a man if he must spare? Moreover,

would ye bring the curse of Odin upon you all? I say to you--steal his

sacrifice, and you yourselves shall be sacrificed, you, your wives, your

children, aye, and even your cattle and the fruit of your fields.”

When they heard this, the people groaned and shouted out:

“Let Steinar die! Kill him! Kill him that Odin may be fed!”

“Aye,” answered Leif, “Steinar shall die. See, he dies!”

Then, with a leap like to that of a hungry wolf, he sprang upon the

bound man and slew him.

I see it now. The rude temple, the glaring statue of the god, the

gathered crowd, open mouthed and eyed, the spring sunshine shining

quietly over all, and, running past the place, a ewe calling to the lamb

that it had lost; I see the dying Steinar turn his white face, and

smile a farewell to me with his fading eyes; I see Leif getting to his

horrible rites that he might learn the omen, and lastly I see the red

sword of the Wanderer appear suddenly between me and him, and in my

hand. I think that my purpose was to cut him down. Only a thought arose

within me.

This priest was not to blame. He did no more than he had been taught.

Who taught him? The god he served, through whom he gained honour and

livelihood. So the god was to blame, the god that drank the blood of

men, as a thrall drinks ale, to satisfy his filthy appetite. Could such

a monster be a god? Nay, he must be a devil, and why should free men

serve devils? At least, I would not. I would cast him off, and let him

avenge himself upon me if he could. I, Olaf, would match myself against

this god--or devil.

I strode past Leif and the altar to where the statue of Odin sat within

the temple.

“Hearken!” I said in such a voice that all lifted their eyes from the

scene of butchery to me. “You believe in Odin, do you not?”

They answered “Aye.”

“Then you believe that he can revenge himself upon one who rejects and

affronts him?”

“Aye,” they answered again.

“If this be so,” I went on, “will you swear to leave the matter between

Odin and me, Olaf, to be settled according to the law of single combat,

and give peace to the victor, with promise from all harm save at the

hands of his foe?”

“Aye,” they answered, yet scarcely understanding what they said.

“Good!” I cried. “Now, God Odin, I, Olaf, a man, challenge you to single

combat. Strike you first, you, Odin, whom I name Devil and Wolf of the

skies, but no god. Strike you first, bloody murderer, and kill me, if

you can, who await your stroke!”

Then I folded my arms and stared at the statue’s stony eyes, which

stared back at me, while all the people gasped.

For a full minute I waited thus, but all that happened was that a wren

settled on the head of Odin and twittered there, then flew off to its

nest in the thatch.

“Now,” I cried, “you have had your turn, and mine comes.”

I drew the Wanderer’s sword, and sprang at Odin. My first stroke sunk up

to the hilt in his hollow belly; my next cut the sceptre from his hand;

my third--a great one--hewed the head from off him. It came rattling

down, and out of it crawled a viper, which reared itself up and hissed.

I set my heel upon the reptile’s head and crushed it, and slowly it

writhed itself to death.

“Now, good folk,” I cried, “what say you of your god Odin?”

They answered nothing, for all of them were in flight. Yes, even Leif

fled, cursing me over his shoulder as he went.

Presently I was alone with the dead Steinar and the shattered god, and

in that loneliness strange visions came to me, for I felt that I had

done a mighty deed, one that made me happy. Round the wall of the

temple crept a figure; it was that of Freydisa, whose face was white and

scared.

“You are a great man, Olaf,” she said; “but how will it end?”

“I do not know,” I answered. “I have done what my heart told me, neither

more nor less, and I bide the issue. Odin shall have his chance, for

here I stay till dark, and then, if I live, I leave this land. Go, get

me all the gold that is mine from the hall, and bring it here to me by

moonrise, and with it some garments and my armour. Bring me also my best

horse.”

“You leave this land?” she said. “That means that you leave me, who love

you, to go forth as the Wanderer went--following a dream to the South.

Well, it is best that you should go, for whatever they have promised you

but now, it is sure that the priests will kill you, even if you escape

the vengeance of the god.” And she looked askance at the shattered

statue which had sat in its place for so many generations that none knew

who had set it there, or when.

“I have killed the god,” I answered, pointing to the crushed viper.

“Not quite, Olaf, for, see, its tail still moves.”

Then she went, leaving me alone. I sat myself down by the murdered

Steinar, and stared at him. Could he be really dead, I wondered, or did

he live on elsewhere? My faith had taught me of a place called Valhalla

where brave men went, but in that faith and its gods I believed no more.

This Valhalla was but a child’s tale, invented by a bloody-minded folk

who loved slaughter. Wherever Steinar and the others were, it was not in

Valhalla. Then, perhaps, they slept like the beasts do after these have

been butchered. Perhaps death was the end of all. It might be so, and

yet I did not believe it. There were other gods besides Odin and his

company, for what were those which we had found in the Wanderer’s tomb?

I longed to know.

Yes, I would go south, as the Wanderer went, and search for them.

Perhaps there in the South I should learn the secret truth--and other

things.

I grew weary of these thoughts of gods who could not be found, or who,

if found, were but devils. My mind went back to my childhood’s days,

when Steinar and I played together on the meads, before any woman had

come to wreck our lives. I remembered how we used to play until we were

weary, and how at nights I would tell him tales that I had learned or

woven, until at length we sank to sleep, our arms about each other’s

necks. My heart grew full of sorrow that in the end broke from my eyes

in tears. Yes, I wept over Steinar, my brother Steinar, and kissed his

cold and gory lips.

The evening gathered, the twilight grew, and, one by one, the stars

sprang out in the quiet sky, till the moon appeared and gathered all

their radiance to herself. I heard the sound of a woman’s dress, and

looked up, thinking to see Freydisa. But this woman was not Freydisa; it

was Iduna! Yes, Iduna’s self!

I rose to my feet and stood still. She also stood still, on the farther

side of the stone of sacrifice whereon that which had been Steinar was

stretched between us. Then came a struggle of silence, in which she won

at last.

“Have you come to save him?” I asked. “If so, it is too late. Woman,

behold your work.”

She shook her beautiful head and answered, almost in a whisper:

“Nay, Olaf, I am come to beg a boon of you: that you will slay me, here

and now.”

“Am I a butcher--or a priest?” I muttered.

“Oh, slay me, slay me, Olaf!” she went on, throwing herself upon her

knees before me, and rending open her blue robe that her young breast

might take the sword. “Thus, perchance, I, who love life, may pay some

of the price of sin, who, if I slew myself, would but multiply the debt,

which in truth I dare not do.”

Still I shook my head, and once more she spoke:

“Olaf, in this way or in that doubtless my end will find me, for, if you

refuse this office, there are others of sterner stuff. The knife that

smote Steinar is not blunted. Yet, before I die, who am come here but to

die, I pray you hear the truth, that my memory may be somewhat less vile

to you in the after years. Olaf, you think me the falsest of the false,

yet I am not altogether so. Hark you now! At the time that Steinar

sought me, some madness took him. So soon as we were alone together, his

first words were: ‘I am bewitched. I love you.’

“Olaf, I’ll not deny that his worship stirred my blood, for he was

goodly--well, and different to you, with your dreaming eyes and thoughts

that are too deep for me. And yet, by my breath, I swear that I meant

no harm. When we rode together to the ship, it was my purpose to return

upon the morrow and be made your wife. But there upon the ship my father

compelled me. It was his fancy that I should break with you and be wed

to Steinar, who had become so great a lord and who pleased him better

than you did, Olaf. And, as for Steinar--why, have I not told you that

he was mad for me?”

“Steinar’s tale was otherwise, Iduna. He said that you went first, and

that he followed.”

“Were those his words, Olaf? For, if so, how can I give the dead the

lie, and one who died through me? It seems unholy. Yet in this matter

Steinar had no reason left to him and, whether you believe me or no, I

tell the truth. Oh! hear me out, for who knows when they will come to

take me, who have walked into this nest of foes that I may be taken?

Pray as I would, the ship was run out, and we sailed for Lesso. There,

in my father’s hall, upon my knees, I entreated him to hold his hand.

I told him what was true: that, of you twain, it was you I loved, not

Steinar. I told him that if he forced this marriage, war would come of

it that might mean all our deaths. But these things moved him nothing.

Then I told him that such a deed of shame would mean the loss of

Steinar’s lordship, so that by it he would gain no profit. At last he

listened, for this touched him near. You know the rest. Thorvald, your

father, and Ragnar, who ever hated me, pressed on the war despite all

our offerings of peace. So the ships met, and Hela had her fill.”

“Aye, Iduna, whatever else is false, this is true, that Hela had her

fill.”

“Olaf, I have but one thing more to say. It is this: Only once did those

dead lips touch mine, and then it was against my will. Aye, although it

is shameful, you must learn the truth. My father held me, Olaf, while I

took the betrothal kiss, because I must. But, as you know, there was no

marriage.”

“Aye, I know that,” I said, “because Steinar told me so.”

“And, save for that one kiss, Olaf, I am still the maid whom once you

loved so well.”

Now I stared at her. Could this woman lie so blackly over dead Steinar’s

corpse? When all was said and done, was it not possible that she spoke

the truth, and that we had been but playthings in the hands of an evil

Fate? Save for some trifling error, which might be forgiven to one who,

as she said, loved the worship that was her beauty’s due, what if she

were innocent, after all?

Perhaps my face showed the thoughts that were passing through my mind.

At the least, she who knew me well found skill to read them. She crept

towards me, still on her knees; she cast her arms about me, and, resting

her weight upon me, drew herself to her feet.

“Olaf,” she whispered, “I love you, I love you well, as I have always

done, though I may have erred a little, as women wayward and still unwed

are apt to do. Olaf, they told me yonder how you had matched yourself

against the god, with his priests for judges, and smitten him, and I

thought this the greatest deed that ever I have known. I used to think

you something of a weakling, Olaf, not in your body but in your mind,

one lost in music and in runes, who feared to put things to the touch

of war; but you have shown me otherwise. You slew the bear; you overcame

Steinar, who was so much stronger than you are, in the battle of the

ships; and now you have bearded Odin, the All-father. Look, his head

lies there, hewn off by you for the sake of one who, after all, had done

you wrong. Olaf, such a deed as that touches a woman’s heart, and he

who does it is the man she would wish to lie upon her breast and be her

lord. Olaf, all this evil past may yet be forgotten. We might go and

live elsewhere for awhile, or always, for with your wisdom and my beauty

joined together what could we not conquer? Olaf, I love you now as I

have never loved before, cannot you love me again?”

Her arms clung about me; her beautiful blue eyes, shimmering with

moonlit tears, held my eyes, and my heart melted beneath her breath as

winter snows melt in the winds of spring. She saw, she understood; she

cast herself upon me, shaking her long hair over both of us, and seeking

my lips. Almost she had found them, when, feeling something hard between

me and her, something that hurt me, I looked down. Her cloak had slipped

or been thrown aside, and my eye caught the glint of gold and jewels. In

an instant I remembered--the Wanderer’s necklace and the dream--and with

those memories my heart froze again.

“Nay, Iduna,” I said, “I loved you well; there’s no man will ever love

you more, and you are very fair. Whether you speak true words or false,

I do not know; it is between you and your own spirit. But this I do

know: that betwixt us runs the river of Steinar’s blood, aye, and

the blood of Thorvald, my father, of Thora, my mother, of Ragnar, my

brother, and of many another man who clung to us, and that is a stream

which I cannot cross. Find you another husband, Iduna the Fair, since

never will I call you wife.”

She loosed her arms from round me, and, lifting them again, unclasped

the Wanderer’s necklace from about her breast.

“This it is,” she said, “which has brought all these evils on me. Take

it back again, and, when you find her, give it to that one for whom

it is meant, that one whom you love truly, as, whatever you may have

thought, you never have loved me.”

Then she sank upon the ground, and resting her golden head upon dead

Steinar’s breast, she wept.

I think it was then that Freydisa returned; at least, I recall her tall

form standing near the stone of sacrifice, gazing at us both, a strange

smile on her face.

“Have you withstood?” she said. “Then, truly, you are in the way of

victory and have less to fear from woman than I thought. All things

are ready as you commanded, my lord Olaf, and there remains but to

say farewell, which you had best do quickly, for they plot your death

yonder.”

“Freydisa,” I answered, “I go, but perchance I shall return again.

Meanwhile, all I have is yours, with this charge. Guard you yonder

woman, and see her safe to her home, or wherever she would go, and to

Steinar here give honourable burial.”

Then the darkness of oblivion falls, and I remember no more save

the white face of Iduna, her brow stained with Steinar’s life-blood,

watching me as I went.

BOOK II

BYZANTIUM

CHAPTER I

IRENE, EMPRESS OF THE EARTH

A gulf of blackness and the curtain lifts again upon a very different

Olaf from the young northern lord who parted from Iduna at the place of

sacrifice at Aar.

I see myself standing upon a terrace that overlooks a stretch of quiet

water, which I now know was the Bosphorus. Behind me are a great palace

and the lights of a vast city; in front, upon the sea and upon the

farther shore, are other lights. The moon shines bright above me, and,

having naught else to do, I study my reflection in my own burnished

shield. It shows a man of early middle life; he may be thirty or

five-and-thirty years of age; the same Olaf, yet much changed. For now

my frame is tall and well-knit, though still somewhat slender; my face

is bronzed by southern suns; I wear a short beard; there is a scar

across my cheek, got in some battle; my eyes are quiet, and have lost

the first liveliness of youth. I know that I am the captain of the

Northern Guard of the Empress Irene, widow of the dead emperor, Leo

the Fourth, and joint ruler of the Eastern Empire with her young son,

Constantine, the sixth of that name.

How I came to fill this place, however, I do not know. The story of my

journey from Jutland to Byzantium is lost to me. Doubtless it must have

taken years, and after these more years of humble service, before I rose

to be the captain of Irene’s Northern Guard that she kept ever about her

person, because she would not trust her Grecian soldiers.

My armour was very rich, yet I noted about myself two things that were

with me in my youth. One was the necklace of golden shells, divided from

each other by beetles of emeralds, that I had taken from the Wanderer’s

grave at Aar, and the other the cross-hilted bronze sword with which

this same Wanderer had been girded in his grave. I know now that because

of this weapon, which was of a metal and shape strange to that land, I

had the byname of Olaf Red-Sword, and I know also that none wished to

feel the weight of this same ancient blade.

When I had finished looking at myself in the shield, I leaned upon the

parapet staring at the sea and wondering how the plains of Aar looked

that night beneath this selfsame moon, and whether Freydisa were dead

by now, and whom Iduna had married, and if she ever thought of me, or if

Steinar came to haunt her sleep.

So I mused, till presently I felt a light touch upon my shoulder, and

swung round to find myself face to face with the Empress Irene herself.

“Augusta!” I said, saluting, for, as Empress, that was her Roman title,

even though she was a Greek.

“You guard me well, friend Olaf,” she said, with a little laugh. “Why,

any enemy, and Christ knows I have plenty, could have cut you down

before ever you knew that he was there.”

“Not so, Augusta,” I answered, for I could speak their Greek tongue

well; “since at the end of the terrace the guards stand night and day,

men of my own blood who can be trusted. Nothing which does not fly could

gain this place save through your own chambers, that are also guarded.

It is not usual for any watch to be set here, still I came myself in

case the Empress might need me.”

“That is kind of you, my Captain Olaf, and I think I do need you. At

least, I cannot sleep in this heat, and I am weary of the thoughts of

State, for many matters trouble me just now. Come, change my mind, if

you can, for if so I’ll thank you. Tell me of yourself when you were

young. Why did you leave your northern home, where I’ve heard you were a

barbarian chief, and wander hither to Byzantium?”

“Because of a woman,” I answered.

“Ah!” she said, clapping her hands; “I knew it. Tell me of this woman

whom you love.”

“The story is short, Augusta. She bewitched my foster-brother, and

caused him to be sacrificed to the northern gods as a troth-breaker, and

I do not love her.”

“You’d not admit it if you did, Olaf. Was she beautiful, well, say as I

am?”

I turned and looked at the Empress, studying her from head to foot. She

was shorter than Iduna by some inches, also older, and therefore of a

thicker build; but, being a fair Greek, her colour was much the same,

save that the eyes were darker. The mouth, too, was more hard. For the

rest, she was a royal-looking and lovely woman in the flower of her age,

and splendidly attired in robes broidered with gold, over which she wore

long strings of rounded pearls. Her rippling golden hair was dressed in

the old Greek fashion, tied in a simple knot behind her head, and over

it was thrown a light veil worked with golden stars.

“Well, Captain Olaf,” she said, “have you finished weighing my poor

looks against those of this northern girl in the scales of your

judgment? If so, which of us tips the beam?”

“Iduna was more beautiful than ever you can have been, Augusta,” I

replied quietly.

She stared at me till her eyes grew quite round, then puckered up

her mouth as though to say something furious, and finally burst out

laughing.

“By every saint in Byzantium,” she said, “or, rather, by their relics,

for of live ones there are none, you are the strangest man whom I have

known. Are you weary of life that you dare to say such a thing to me,

the Empress Irene?”

“Am I weary of life? Well, Augusta, on the whole I think I am. It seems

to me that death and after it may interest us more. For the rest, you

asked me a question, and, after the fashion of my people, I answered it

as truthfully as I could.”

“By my head, you have said it again,” she exclaimed. “Have you not

heard, most innocent Northman, that there are truths which should not be

mentioned and much less repeated?”

“I have heard many things in Byzantium, Augusta, but I pay no attention

to any of them--or, indeed, to little except my duty.”

“Now that this, this--what’s the girl’s name?”

“Iduna the Fair,” I said.

“----this Iduna has thrown you over, at which I am sure I do not wonder,

what mistresses have you in Byzantium, Olaf the Dane?”

“None at all,” I answered. “Women are pleasant, but one may buy sweets

too dear, and all that ever I saw put together were not worth my brother

Steinar, who lost his life through one of them.”

“Tell me, Captain Olaf, are you a secret member of this new society of

hermits of which they talk so much, who, if they see a woman, must hold

their faces in the sand for five minutes afterwards?”

“I never heard of them, Augusta.”

“Are you a Christian?”

“No; I am considering that religion--or rather its followers.”

“Are you a pagan, then?”

“No. I fought a duel with the god Odin, and cut his head off with this

sword, and that is why I left the North, where they worship Odin.”

“Then what are you?” she said, stamping her foot in exasperation.

“I am the captain of your Imperial Majesty’s private guard, a little of

a philosopher, and a fair poet in my own language, not in Greek. Also, I

can play the harp.”

“You say ‘not in Greek,’ for fear lest I should ask you to write verses

to me, which, indeed, I shall never do, Olaf. A soldier, a poet, a

philosopher, a harpist, one who has renounced women! Now, why have you

renounced women, which is unnatural in a man who is not a monk? It must

be because you still love this Iduna, and hope to get her some day.”

I shook my head and answered,

“I might have done that long ago, Augusta.”

“Then it must be because there is some other woman whom you wish to

gain. Why do you always wear that strange necklace?” she added sharply.

“Did it belong to this savage girl Iduna, as, from the look of it, it

might well have done?”

“Not so, Augusta. She took it for a while, and it brought sorrow on her,

as it will do on all women save one who may or may not live to-day.”

“Give it me. I have taken a fancy to it; it is unusual. Oh! fear not,

you shall receive its value.”

“If you wish the necklace, Augusta, you must take the head as well; and

my counsel to you is that you do neither, since they will bring you no

good luck.”

“In truth, Captain Olaf, you anger me with your riddles. What do you

mean about this necklace?”

“I mean, Augusta, that I took it from a very ancient grave----”

“That I can believe, for the jeweller who made it worked in old Egypt,”

she interrupted.

“----and thereafter I dreamed a dream,” I went on, “of the woman who

wears the other half of it. I have not seen her yet, but when I do I

shall know her at once.”

“So!” she exclaimed, “did I not tell you that, east or west or north or

south, there _is_ some other woman?”

“There was once, Augusta, quite a thousand years ago or more, and there

may be again now, or a thousand years hence. That is what I am trying

to find out. You say the work is Egyptian. Augusta, at your convenience,

will you be pleased to make another captain in my place? I would visit

Egypt.”

“If you leave Byzantium without express permission under my own

hand--not the Emperor’s or anybody else’s hand; mine, I say--and are

caught, your eyes shall be put out as a deserter!” she said savagely.

“As the Augusta pleases,” I answered, saluting.

“Olaf,” she went on in a more gentle voice, “you are clearly mad; but,

to tell truth, you are also a madman who pleases me, since I weary of

the rogues and lick-spittles who call themselves sane in Byzantium. Why,

there’s not a man in all the city who would dare to speak to me as

you have spoken to-night, and like that breeze from the sea, it is

refreshing. Lend me that necklace, Olaf, till to-morrow morning. I want

to examine it in the lamplight, and I swear to you that I will not take

it from you or play you any tricks about it.”

“Will you promise not to wear it, Augusta?”

“Of course. Is it likely that I should wish to wear it on my bare breast

after it has been rubbing against your soiled armour?”

Without another word I unhooked the necklace and handed it to her. She

ran to a little distance, and, with one of those swift movements that

were common to her, fastened it about her own neck. Then she returned,

and threw the great strings of pearls, which she had removed to make

place for it, over my head.

“Now have you found the woman of that dream, Olaf?” she asked, turning

herself about in the moonlight.

I shook my head and answered:

“Nay, Augusta; but I fear that _you_ have found misfortune. When

it comes, I pray you to remember that you promised not to wear the

necklace. Also that your soldier, Olaf, Thorvald’s son, would have given

his life rather than that you should have done so, not for the sake

of any dream, but for your sake, Augusta, whom it is his business to

protect.”

“Would, then, it were your business either to protect me a little more,

or a little less!” she exclaimed bitterly.

Having uttered this dark saying, she vanished from the terrace still

wearing the string of golden shells.

On the following morning the necklace was returned to me by Irene’s

favourite lady, who smiled as she gave it to me. She was a dark-eyed,

witty, and able girl named Martina, who had been my friend for a long

while.

“The Augusta said that you were to examine this jewel to see that it has

not been changed.”

“I never suggested that the Augusta was a thief,” I replied, “therefore

it is unnecessary.”

“She said also that I was to tell you, in case you should think that it

has been befouled by her wearing of it, that she has had it carefully

cleaned.”

“That is thoughtful of her, Martina, for it needed washing. Now, will

you take the Augusta’s pearls, which she left with me in error?”

“I have no orders to take any pearls, Captain Olaf, although I did

notice that two of the finest strings in the Empire are missing. Oh! you

great northern child,” she added in a whisper, “keep the pearls, they

are a gift, and worth a prince’s ransom; and take whatever else you can

get, and keep that too.”[*]

[*] I have no further vision concerning these priceless

pearls and do not know what became of them. Perhaps I was

robbed of them during my imprisonment, or perhaps I gave

them to Heliodore or to Martina. Where are they now, I

wonder?--Editor.

Then, before I could answer her, she was gone.

For some weeks after this I saw no more of the Augusta, who appeared

to avoid me. One day, however, I was summoned to her presence in her

private apartments by the waiting-lady Martina, and went, to find her

alone, save for Martina. The first thing that I noticed was that she

wore about her neck an exact copy of the necklace of golden shells and

emerald beetles; further, that about her waist was a girdle and on her

wrist a bracelet of similar design. Pretending to see nothing, I saluted

and stood to attention.

“Captain,” she began, “yonder”--and she waved her hand towards the city,

so that I could not fail to see the shell bracelet--“the uncles of my

son, the Emperor, lie in prison. Have you heard of the matter, and, if

so, what have you heard?”

“I have heard, Augusta, that the Emperor having been defeated by

the Bulgarians, some of the legions proposed to set his uncle,

Nicephorus--he who has been made a priest--upon the throne. I have

heard further that thereon the Emperor caused the Cæsar Nicephorus to

be blinded, and the tongues of the two other Cæsars and of their two

brothers, the _Nobilissimi_, to be slit.”

“Do you think well of such a deed, Olaf?”

“Augusta,” I answered, “in this city I make it my business not to think,

for if I did I should certainly go mad.”

“Still, on this matter I command you to think, and to speak the truth of

your thoughts. No harm shall come to you, whatever they may be.”

“Augusta, I obey you. I think that whoever did this wicked thing must be

a devil, either returned from that hell of which everyone is so fond of

talking here, or on the road thither.”

“Oh! you think that, do you? So I was right when I told Martina that

there was only one honest opinion to be had in Constantinople and I knew

where to get it. Well, most severe and indignant judge, suppose I tell

you it was I who commanded that this deed should be done. Then would you

change your judgment?”

“Not so, Augusta. I should only think much worse of you than ever I did

before. If these great persons were traitors to the State, they should

have been executed. But to torment them, to take away the sight of

heaven and to bring them to the level of dumb beasts, all that their

actual blood may not be on the tormentors’ hand--why, the act is vile.

So, at least, it would be held in those northern lands which you are

pleased to call barbarian.”

Now Irene sprang from her seat and clapped her hands for joy.

“You hear what he says, Martina, and the Emperor shall hear it too; aye,

and so shall my ministers, Stauracius and Aetius, who supported him in

this matter. I alone withstood him; I prayed him for his soul’s sake to

be merciful. He answered that he would no longer be governed by a woman;

that he knew how to safeguard his empire, and what conscience should

allow and what refuse. So, in spite of all my tears and prayers, the

vile deed was done, as I think for no good cause. Well, it cannot

be undone. Yet, Olaf, I fear that it may be added to, and that these

royal-born men may be foully murdered. Therefore, I put you in charge of

the prison where they lie. Here is the signed order. Take with you what

men you may think needful, and hold that place, even should the Emperor

himself command you to open. See also that the prisoners within are

cared for and have all they need, but do not suffer them to escape.”

I saluted and turned to go, when Irene called me back.

At that moment, too, in obedience to some sign which she made, Martina

left the chamber, looking at me oddly as she did so. I came and stood

before the Empress, who, I noted, seemed somewhat troubled, for her

breast heaved and her gaze was fixed upon the floor now. It was of

mosaic, and represented a heathen goddess talking to a young man, who

stood before her with his arms folded. The goddess was angry with the

man, and held in her left hand a dagger as though she would stab him,

although her right arm was stretched out to embrace him and her attitude

was one of pleading.

Irene lifted her head, and I saw that her fine eyes were filled with

tears.

“Olaf,” she said, “I am in much trouble, and I know not where to find a

friend.”

I smiled and answered:

“Need an Empress seek far for friends?”

“Aye, Olaf; farther than anyone who breathes. An Empress can find

flatterers and partisans, but not a single friend. Such love her only

for what she can give them. But, if fortune went against her, I say that

they would fall away like leaves from a tree in a winter frost, so that

she stood naked to every bitter blast of heaven. Yes, and then would

come the foe and root up that tree and burn it to give them warmth and

to celebrate their triumph. So I think, Olaf, it will be with me before

all is done. Even my son hates me, Olaf, my only child for whose true

welfare I strive night and day.”

“I have heard as much, Augusta,” I said.

“You have heard, like all the world. But what else of ill have you heard

of me, Olaf? Speak out, man; I’m here to learn the truth.”

“I have heard that you are very ambitious, Augusta, and that you hate

your son as much as he hates you, because he is a rival to your power.

It is rumoured that you would be glad if he were dead and you left to

reign alone.”

“Then a lie is rumoured, Olaf. Yet it is true that I am ambitious, who

see far and would build this tottering empire up afresh. Olaf, it is a

bitter thing to have begotten a fool.”

“Then why do you not marry again and beget others, who might be no

fools, Augusta?” I asked bluntly.

“Ah! why?” she answered, flashing a curious glance upon me. “In truth, I

do not quite know why; but from no lack of suitors, since, were she but

a hideous hag, an empress would find these. Olaf, you may have learned

that I was not born in the purple. I was but a Greek girl of good race,

not even noble, to whom God gave a gift of beauty; and when I was young

I saw a man who took my fancy, also of old race, yet but a merchant of

fruits which they grow in Greece and sell here and at Rome. I wished to

marry him, but my mother, a far-seeing woman, said that such beauty

as mine--though less than that of your Iduna the Fair, Olaf--was worth

money or rank. So they sent away my merchant of fruits, who married the

daughter of another merchant of fruits and throve very well in business.

He came to see me some years ago, fat as a tub, his face scored all over

with the marks of the spotted sickness, and we talked about old times.

I gave him a concession to import dried fruits into Byzantium--that

is what he came to see me for--and now he’s dead. Well, my mother was

right, for afterwards this poor beauty of mine took the fancy of the

late Emperor, and, being very pious, he married me. So the Greek girl,

by the will of God, became Augusta and the first woman in the world.”

“By the will of God?” I repeated.

“Aye, I suppose so, or else all is raw chance. At least, I, who to-day

might have been bargaining over dried fruits, as I should have done had

I won my will, am--what you know. Look at this robe,” and she spread her

glittering dress before me. “Hark to the tramp of those guards before my

door. Why, you are their captain. Go into the antechambers, and see the

ambassadors waiting there in the hope of a word with the Ruler of

the Earth! Look at my legions mustered on the drilling-grounds, and

understand how great the Grecian girl has grown by virtue of the face

which is less beauteous than that of--Iduna the Fair!”

“I understand all this, Augusta,” I answered. “Yet it would seem that

you are not happy. Did you not tell me just now that you could not find

a friend and that you had begotten a fool?”

“Happy, Olaf? Why, I am wretched, so wretched that often I think the

hell of which the priests preach is here on earth, and that I dwell in

its hottest fires. Unless love hides it, what happiness is there in this

life of ours, which must end in blackest death?”

“Love has its miseries also, Augusta. That I know, for once I loved.”

“Aye, but then the love was not true, for this is the greatest curse of

all--to love and not to be beloved. For the sake of a perfect love, if

it could be won--why, I’d sacrifice even my ambition.”

“Then you must keep your ambition, Augusta, since in this world you’ll

find nothing perfect.”

“Olaf, I’m not so sure. Thoughts have come to me. Olaf, I told you that

I have no friend in all this glittering Court. Will you be my friend?”

“I am your honest servant, Augusta, and I think that such a one is the

best of friends.”

“That’s so; and yet no man can be true friend to a woman unless he

is--more than friend. Nature has writ it so.”

“I do not understand,” I answered.

“You mean that you will not understand, and perhaps you are wise. Why

do you stare at that pavement? There’s a story written on it. The old

goddess of my people, Aphrodite, loved a certain Adonis--so runs the

fable--but he loved not her, and thought only of his sports. Look, she

woos him there, and he rejects her, and in her rage she stabs him.”

“Not so,” I answered. “Of the end of the story I know nothing, but, if

she had meant to kill him, the dagger would be in her right hand, not in

her left.”

“That’s true, Olaf; and in the end it was Fate which killed him, not

the goddess whom he had scorned. And yet, Olaf, it is not wise to scorn

goddesses. Oh! of what do I talk? You’ll befriend me, will you not?”

“Aye, Augusta, to the last drop of my blood, as is my duty. Do I not

take your pay?”

“Then thus I seal our friendship and here’s an earnest of the pay,”

Irene said slowly, and, bending forward, she kissed me on the lips.

At this moment the doors of the chamber were thrown open. Through them,

preceded by heralds, that at once drew back again, entered the great

minister Stauracius, a fat, oily-faced man with a cunning eye, who

announced in a high, thin voice,

“The ambassadors of the Persians wait upon you, Augusta, as you

appointed at this hour.”