"The death-dew is dank on me,
Sigrun of Sevafell,
This is thy doing, O sun-fraught lady,
Golden woman, the tears thou sheddest
Upon thy bed stay not beside thee;
Like blood they fall, cold and deathly,
Like sobs they stab me
Through the breast!"
Then, seeing her despair, he throws up his white face towards the moon
and laughs without joy--
"Ho, let us drink
Deep draughts of joy,
We that have lost
Land and life!
Let no man keen us,
Let no man pity
The wounds shining upon my body."
He clasps her close in his arms, and speaks as it were between his
teeth.
"Now is a queen,
Sigrun of Sevafell,
Now is a queen
Shut in the cairn,
Living and warm with the cold dead."
But she strains him to her and cries aloud--
"Helgi, Helgi, here is thy bed made,
Thou son of Wolfings, a warm bed, a gentle--
Fast in arms, Helgi, enfold me;
As when thou livedst
Clip me in death sleep."
And then the maid sees the cairn open, and Sigrun lying in it in the
dead man's arms. Helgi lifts up his face to the moonlight, and sings--
"Never on Sevafell
A great marvel--
No more wondrous
That hill of magic--
For Hogni's white daughter
Lies with a dead man;
A king's daughter
Alive in the arms of the dead."
There is no more terrible song than that, nor one in which love is
brought so close to death. When she remembered it after-wards Gudrid
saw well that she had indeed been lying with a dead man when that song
was sung to her. For if she could have had the wits she would have
felt at the time the death-dew on his face. But love had then bereft
her of all wits.
She called that year afterwards the Little Summer, as well because of
the glory and promise of it as for the few days it held. By the end of
June she knew herself with child. Thorstan gave a sort of sobbing gasp
when she told him and pressed her to his heart. She felt the wet from
his eyes upon her cheek, looked at him and saw tears. "You weep at my
news?" "It is because I am happy, my love." She herself was softly
elated by the gift she was to be enabled to make him, but not
otherwise. All her love was centred in him just then.
But in July the ship came home from Wineland the Good without Thorwald,
and with the heavy news. Eric, who had been ageing, was very much cast
down by it. He wished Lief to go out and fetch back the body; but Lief
did not seem inclined to move. He told Thorstan his reason. "If we
can move out, house and homestead, gear and cattle, man, woman and
child, well and good. It is a finer country than this. I will settle
there gladly. But you see how it is with our father. He won't last
long, and you will see he will refuse to move. This is his Settlement;
he has made it for himself. He is king of all this country, and he
feels it. Now if we go and leave him here, he will die--and what then?
The end of Eric's kingdom. No, I shall stay here and take up the
government after him. But I think that you should go--you and Gudrid."
Thorstan said: "I think so too. I will speak to Gudrid. But I shall
wait till after harvest."
He told Gudrid what he thought. "They have buried him heathenwise,
sitting with his weapons, looking out to sea, and heaped the stones
over him. True, they have set up a cross atop. But he should have the
rites. I must see to that. We will go, my love, if you are
willing--but maybe we shall not come back."
She looked at him fondly. "I will go wherever you bid me. But we
shall come back." It is wonderful that she did not remember what had
been predicted of her; but she did not.
Thorstan did not meet her eyes. "We will go, then. But not till after
harvest."
"Harvest!" said she. "You will not go in the winter?"
"No, no," he said. "The harvest will not be done." Then she knew that
he did not speak of the corn-harvest, but of their own.
The year sped quickly, as happy years will do; the harvest of the earth
was gathered, the winter fell, the clinging mists, the still and deadly
cold. But they were a happy household at Brattalithe, for Gudrid was
found to be a solvent of much domestic ferment. Her sweet manners drew
even Theodhild to come in and out of the house, and hushed the storms
which periodically swept over Freydis the Wild. At Yule there was a
feast of many days, singing, eating and drinking, and games in the snow
for the young men. Gudrid sat apart and watched it, Thorstan never far
away from her. Still she didn't guess what lent such fervour to their
loves. Foolish with happiness, she thought it was the first of many
Yules--whether here in this frost-locked country or in the forests of
Wineland mattered little to her. She saw them all in years to come as
they were now and felt her heart high in her breast.
And then at the end of March, when men began to talk again of the ice
breaking up, and the thawing of the passages, her child was born. It
was a girl, and christened Walgerd. And now Thorstan looked about him
at the still sheeted lands and knew that his hour was at hand. He told
nobody, he never betrayed himself; but went to work silently and
methodically.