KING ESTEIN.
It was on a breezy April morning that the mountains of Sogn came
into view again. A strong slant of south-east wind had driven the
two ships out to sea; and now, as they raced landwards before a
favouring breeze, they saw low down on the horizon one glittering
hill-top after another pierce the morning mist bank. Helgi for the
time had charge of the tiller, while Estein leant against the
weather bulwark, busy with his new resolves.
"A ship must cross the sea again," he repeated to himself. "The
time for action is at hand, and we shall see what new freak
fortune will play with me. Yet, after all," he reflected, "though
she has pressed my head beneath the tide before, she has always
suffered me to rise and gasp ere she drowned me quite. It all
comes to this: the purposes of the gods are too deep for me to
fathom, so I must e'en hold my peace and bide the passage of
events."
Helgi had been watching him with a half-smile on his frank face,
and at last he cried,--
"What counsel hold you with the seamews? Sometimes I see a smile,
and sometimes I hear a sigh; and then, again, there is a look of
the eye as if Liot Skulison were standing before you."
"I was filling twenty long ships with enough stout lads to man
them, and sailing the western main again," replied Estein.
"And whither were you sailing?" asked Helgi.
"Westward first," said Estein.
"With perchance a point or so of south--such a direction as would
bring us to the Hjaltland Isles, or, it may be, the Orkneys?"
"Aided by a wayward wind," replied Estein with a smile.
"Where, doubtless, it would be well to slay another sea-rover,"
Helgi went on, "since they cause much trouble to peaceable
seafarers from Norway. Witches, too, and warlocks dwell in the
isles, men say, and it were well to rid the land of such."
At this last speech Estein first frowned and flushed, and then
meeting his foster-brother's look, all outward gaiety and lurking
mirth, he laughed defiantly, and exclaimed,--
"It may be so, Helgi. Everything I do is ordained already, and it
matters not whither I turn the prow of my ship or what I plan. To
Orkney I go!"
"Then run your thoughts still on this maiden?"
"They have run, they are still running, and while I live I see not
what is to stop their course."
"Remember, my brother, what stands between you," said Helgi, more
gravely.
"I have not forgotten."
"And yet you sail to Orkney?"
"The gods have bidden me cross the seas," replied Estein, "and
they will steer my ship, whatever haven I choose."
"Go, then," said Helgi, "and while that shrewd counsellor whom men
call Helgi Sigvaldson sails with you, at least you will not lack
sage advice."
Estein laughed.
"'Helgi hinn frode' [Footnote: The wise.] shall you be called
henceforth, and Vandrad I shall be no longer."
They were silent for a time, and then Estein exclaimed,--
"We are well quit of that country of Jemtland! Saw you ever so
many trees and so few true men before?"
"Yet was it not quite bare of good things," replied his friend.
"What, mean you the woodman's wife?"
"What else?" said Helgi, and then he fell silent again.
They reached Hernersfiord towards nightfall, and as they crept up
the still, narrow waters darkness gathered fast. One by one, and
then in tens and hundreds and myriads, the stars came out and hung
like a gay awning between the pine-crowned walls. Ahead they saw
lights and a looming bank of land, and hails passed from ship to
shore and back again. Presently they were gently slipping by the
stone pier, where one or two men stood awaiting them.
"What news?" asked Helgi.
The men made no reply, but seemed to whisper among themselves, and
Helgi repeated his question. Just then a man came hurrying to the
end of the pier and shouted,--
"Is it then Estein returned?"
"My father!" exclaimed Helgi.
"What can bring the jarl here at this hour?" said Estein,
springing ashore.
He met Earl Sigvald on the pier, and by the light of a lantern he
saw that the old man's face was grave and sad.
"Steel your heart to hear ill tidings, King Estein," he said.
The "King" smote upon Estein's ears like a knell, and he guessed
the earl's news before he heard it.
"King Hakon joined his fathers three days past," said the earl.
"Welcome indeed is your return, for the law says that the dead
must not linger in the house more than five days, and it were ill
seeming to hold the funeral rites with his son away."
Estein stood like a man struck dumb, and then muttering, "I will
join you again," he started quickly up the pier, and was shortly
lost to view in the darkness.
"Dear was Estein to his father, and dear the old king to his son.
Deep and burning, I fear, will his sorrow be," said the earl.
"Fain would I comfort him," replied Helgi. "But I know well
Estein's humours, and now he is best alone for a time."
They walked slowly up to Hakonstad, the old earl leaning upon his
son's arm, and as they went Helgi told him the tale of the
Jemtland journey. In his interest the earl forgot even the present
gloom, and swore lustily or roared loudly and heartily as the
story went on.
"May they lie in darkness for ever as dastards and traitors!" he
would cry, or "A shrewd scheme, by the hammer of Thor! An I were
fifty years younger I would have done the same myself, Helgi!" and
then again, "Trolls take me, if this be not enough to make a bear
laugh! What next, Helgi?"
When his son had finished his relation of the visit to the old
seer, he seemed lost in thought.
"Atli, Atli," he repeated. "Call you him Atli? I cannot remember
the name. A friend of Olaf Hakonson, said he? I knew of no such
friend. Yet it seems that he spoke indeed as one who had taken
counsel with the gods; and if his words acted, as you say, like
medicine on Estein, his name matters little. Yet it is passing
strange."
When they reached Hakonstad, Helgi found that many chiefs had
already arrived to take part in the funeral rites and, more
particularly, in the feast with which they always ended. It was
not till almost all had gone to rest that Estein returned, and
then he went straight to his bed-chamber without exchanging more
than the barest greetings with those he found still talking low
over their ale around the fires.
The next day was spent in preparations for the solemn ceremonies
of pyre and mound, and the great feast which should mark the
reigning of another king in Sogn. The young king himself went
about bravely, seeing to everything but speaking little. Helgi
watched him anxiously, for he feared greatly that this new sorrow
might cloud his mind afresh. In the evening he noticed him slip
from the hall by himself, and rising at once he followed him out
and came to his side as he paced slowly up the night-hushed
valley.
"Is my company unwelcome?" he asked.
"More welcome than my thoughts," said Estein, taking his arm.
"Have the black thoughts returned?"
"Do what I will, they are with me again," replied Estein. "My
father has died with Olaf unavenged, and now it is too late to
keep my sacred word to him that I would ever follow up the feud.
King Hakon already sits in Valhalla, and knows his son for a
dastard and a breaker of his oaths. While he lived I always told
myself that I would find some way even yet by which I might fulfil
my promise, but now it is too late. It is hard, Helgi, to lose at
once both a father and a father's regard."
"King Hakon is with Odin," said Helgi, "and knows what he has
ordained. Odin has not told you to cross the seas for naught, and
doubtless King Hakon even now awaits the issue. Never did man do
much with a downcast mind; so first dismiss your thoughts, and
then for the Viking path again."
"Helgi hinn frode," said Estein, pressing his arm, "you are indeed
a good counsellor. As soon as I can gather force enough we start."
"And now for a horn of ale, and then to bed," responded Helgi,
cheerful as ever again.
Ever since the first wild Northmen, pushing westwards to the sea,
had settled in the land of Sogn, its kings had been interred on a
certain barren islet hard by the mouth of Hernersfiord, and on the
morning of the fifth day after King Hakon's death they bore him
out to his last resting-place by the surge of the northern ocean.
His body, clad in full armour and decked in robes of state, was
laid upon a bier on the poop of the long ship that had last
carried him to battle. A picked crew of chiefs and highborn
vassals rowed him slowly down the fiord, while in their wake a
fleet of vessels followed. Estein, arrayed in the full panoply of
war, as though he were sailing to meet his foes, stood out alone
upon the poop like a graven figure, only the hand that held the
tiller ever moving. When they reached the little holm looking out
over the sea, they discovered the foundations of a mound already
prepared, and great heaps of earth beside them, ready to be built
upon the top. All the chiefs and greater men landed with a
sufficient number of spademen to assist them with the work, while
the others lay off in the ships and watched in silence. First, the
vessel in which the dead king lay was drawn up and laid upon the
mound; each chief who had taken an oar hung his shield in turn
upon the bulwarks; the sail, gay with coloured cloths, was
hoisted; the king's standard raised and set in the bows; and then
Estein lit a torch and held it to a heap of fagots underneath. As
the flames mounted higher and the smoke streamed out to sea the
chiefs cast gifts aboard--rings and bracelets of gold and silver,
sharp swords and inlaid axes--that the king in his far-off home
among the gods of the North might think kindly of his friends on
earth. One after another they wished his soul fair speed. Estein's
words were few and unsteady with emotion, and those who heard them
wondered at their meaning.
"Fare thee well, my father! I will yet keep my promise to thee!"
Loudest of all cried Earl Sigvald,--
"May Odin be as good a friend to thee as thou hast been to me!
Keep me a place beside thee, Hakon. All through life I have been
at thy side, in sunshine and frost, feast and battle-storm, and
soon I hope to follow thee home!"
At last the flames died down and left but the blackened remnants
of the ship and the ashes of its royal captain. The ashes they
reverently gathered up and placed within a copper bowl, a lid they
made of twelve shield bosses, the gifts were gathered and placed
all round, and then the spademen heaped the mound above Hakon,
King of Sogn.
With a quicker stroke and tongues unloosed the fleet returned to
Hakonstad.
"A noble funeral, Ketill," said one chief to the black-bearded
Viking.
"Ay," replied Ketill, "a burial worthy of King Estein, and a royal
feast we shall have to follow it."
"Men say he means to set out on a Viking foray, and that before
many days are past," said the other.
"They speak truth," answered Ketill. "Many a man will he give to
the wolves, and eager am I to sail with him. There never was a
bolder captain than Estein."
For the next two days the talk was all of the voyage to the south.
Guests were coming in all the time for Estein's inheritance feast,
and many of them--warriors thirsting for adventure and
sea-roving--declared their intention of following his banner. A braver
force men said had never followed a king of Sogn to war. For three days
the feasting was to reign, and then, so soon as they were ready to
sail, the host should take the Viking path.
The first night of the feast arrived. The hall was brightly lit
and gaily hung with tapestries and cloths, rich and many-coloured,
and men bravely dressed poured into their places all down the long
rows of benches. The young king sat in his father's high seat, the
highest-born and most honoured guests ranged beside him, and those
of humbler standing in the farther places. First, they drank to
the dead King Hakon, to his various great kinsmen in Valhalla, and
to each of the gods in turn. Then as horns emptied faster toast
after toast was called across the fires, and honoured with shouts
of "Skoal!" that reached far into the night outside.
Estein, as was his usual custom, drank lightly, and often he would
find his thoughts wandering among the most incongruous
events--starlight nights in a far-off islet, tossings on distant
seas, and over and over again they would stray to that glimpse of
a maiden in the Jemtland forests. Helgi, in whose blue eyes there
danced a light that was never kindled by water, rallied him on his
absence of mind.
"Drink deeper, Estein!" he cried. "Laugh, O king! Look, there sits
Ketill, the married man; methinks he looks thirsty. Ketill! drink
with me to your wife."
"The trolls take my wife!" thundered Ketill, who, it may be
remembered, had espoused a wealthy widow. "That is only a toast
for single men!"
When the shout of laughter that greeted this speech had subsided,
Helgi turned again to Estein, and exclaimed,--
"Then that is the toast for us, King Estein. I drink to your
bride!"
"Who is she, Helgi?" cried his father jovially. "Name her. I would
that I might see another king married before I die. I saw your
mother married, Estein, and a fair maid she was. The girls must be
less fair now, or a gallant king will not stay single long."
"I could name one fair maid," said Helgi, glancing at the king,
but in Estein's eye he saw a warning look.
"I have sterner things to think of, jarl," said Estein. "Five days
from this I hope to be upon the sea."
As he spoke, one of his hird-men came up to the high seat and
stopped close beside him.
"What ho, Kari!" cried Helgi, "you are strangely sober."
"I have a message for the king," replied the man.