THE MAID IN THE SILVER HELMET
In a maiden's words
No one should place faith,
Nor in what a woman says;
For on a turning wheel
Have their hearts been formed,
And guile in their breasts been laid.
Ha'vama'l
Day after day, week after week, Alwin sat waiting to see where the next
turn of misfortune's wheel would land him. Interesting people visited
the booth continually. Now it was a party of royal guardsmen to buy
weapons,--splendid mail-clad giants who ate at King Olaf's board, slept
a his hall, and fought to the death at his side. Again it was a
minstrel, with a harp at his back, who stopped to rest and exchange a
song for a horn of mead. Once the Queen herself, riding in a shining
gilded wagon, came in and bought some of the graceful spiral bracelets.
She said that Alwin's eyes were as bright as a young serpent's; but she
did not buy him.
The doorway framed an ever changing picture,--budding birch trees along
the river-bank; men ploughing in the valley; shepherds tending flocks
that looked like dots of cotton wool on the green hillsides. Sometimes
bands of gay folk from the King's house rode by to the hunt, spurs
jingling, horns braying, falcons at their wrists. Sometimes brawny
followers of the visiting chiefs swaggered past in groups, and the boy
could hear their shouting and laughter as they held drinking-bouts in
the hostelry near by. Occasionally their rough voices would grow
rougher, and an arrow would fly past the door; or there would be a clash
of weapons, followed by a groan.
One day, as Alwin sat looking out, his chin resting in his hand, his
elbow on his knee, his attention was caught by two riders winding
swiftly down a hill-path on the right. At first, one was only a blur of
gray and the other a flame of scarlet; they disappeared behind a grove
of aspens, then reappeared nearer, and he could make out a white beard
on the gray figure and a veil of golden hair above the scarlet kirtle.
What hair for a boy, even the noblest born! It was the custom of all
free men to wear their locks uncut; but this golden mantle! Yet could it
be a girl? Did a girl ever wear a helmet like a silver bowl, and a
kirtle that stopped at the knee? If it was a girl, she must be one of
those shield-maidens of whom the minstrels sang. Alwin watched the pair
curiously as they galloped down the last slope and turned into the lane
beside the river. They must pass the booth, and then...
His brain whirled, and he stood up in his intense interest. Something
had startled the white steed that bore the scarlet kirtle; he swerved
aside and rose on his haunches with a suddenness that nearly unseated
his rider; then he took the bronze bit between his teeth and leaped
forward. Whitebeard and his bay mare were left behind. The yellow hair
streamed out like a banner; nearer, and Alwin could see that it was
indeed a girl. She wound her hands in the reins and kept her seat like a
centaur. But suddenly something gave way. Over she went, sidewise; and
by the wrist, tangled in the reins, the horse dragged her over the stony
road.
Forgetting his manacled limbs, Alwin started forward; but it was all
over in an instant. One of the trader's servants flew at the animal's
head and stopped him, almost at the door of the booth. In another moment
a crowd gathered around the fallen girl and shut her from his view.
Alwin gazed at the shifting backs with a dreadful vision of golden hair
torn and splashed with blood. She must be dead, for she had not once
screamed. His head was still ringing with the shrieks of his mother's
waiting-women, as the Danes bore them out of the burning castle.
Whitebeard came galloping up, puffing and panting. He was a puny little
German, with a face as small and withered as a winter apple, but a body
swaddled in fur-trimmed tunics until it seemed as fat as a polar bear's.
He rolled off his horse; the crowd parted before him. Then the English
youth experienced another shock.
Bruised and muddy, but neither dead nor fainting, the girl stood
examining her wrist with the utmost calmness. Though her face was white
and drawn with pain, she looked up at the old man with a little twisted
smile.
"It is nothing, Tyrker," she said quickly; "only the girth broke, and it
appears that my wrist is out of joint. We will go in here, and you shall
set it."
Tyrker blinked at her for a moment with an expression of mingled
affection and wonder; then he drew a deep breath. "Donnerwetter, but you
are a true shield-maiden!" he said in a wavering treble.
The trader received them with true Norse hospitality; and Alwin watched
in speechless amazement while the old man ripped up the scarlet sleeve
and wrenched the dislocated bones into position, without a murmur from
the patient. Despite her strange dress and general dishevelment, he
could see now that she was a beautiful girl, a year or two younger than
himself. Her face was as delicately pink-and-pearly as a sea-shell, and
corn-flowers among the wheat were no bluer than the eyes that looked out
from under her rippling golden tresses.
When the wrist was set and bandaged, the trader presented them with a
silken scarf to make into a sling, and had them served with horns of
sparkling mead. This gave a turn to the affair that proved of special
interest to Alwin. There is an old Norse proverb which prescribes "Lie
for lie, laughter for laughter, gift for gift;" so, while he accepted
these favors, Tyrker began to look around for some way to repay them.
His gaze wandered over fabrics and furs and weapons, till it finally
fell upon the slaves' bench. "Donnerwetter!" he said, setting down his
horn. "To my mind it has just come that Leif a cook-boy is desirous of,
now that Hord is drowned."
The girl saw his purpose, and nodded quickly. "It is unlikely that you
can make a better bargain anywhere."
She turned to examine the slaves, and her eyes immediately encountered
Alwin's. She did not blush; she looked him up and down critically, as if
he were a piece of armor, or a horse. It was he who flushed, with sudden
shame and anger, as he realized that in the eyes of this beautiful Norse
maiden he was merely an animal put up for sale.
"Yonder is a handsome thrall," she said; "he looks as though his
strength were such that he could stand something."
"True it is that he cannot a lame wolf be who with the pack from
Greenland is to run," Tyrker assented. "That it was, which to Hord was a
hindrance. For sport only, Egil Olafson under the water took him down
and held him there; and because to get away he was not strong enough, he
was drowned. But to me it seems that this one would bite. How dear would
this thrall be?"
"You would have to pay for him three marks of silver," said the trader.
"He is an English thrall, very strong and well-shaped." He came over to
where Alwin sat, and stood him up and turned him round and bent his
limbs, Alwin submitting as a caged tiger submits to the lash, and with
much the same look about his mouth.
Tyrker caught the look, and sat for a long while blinking doubtfully at
him. But he was a shrewd old fellow, and at last he drew his money-bag
from his girdle and handed it to the trader to be weighed. While this
was being done, he bade one of the servants strike off the boy's
fetters.
The trader paused, scales in hand, to remonstrate. "It is my advice that
you keep them on until you sail. I will not conceal it from you that he
has an unruly disposition. You will be lacking both your man and your
money."
The old man smiled quietly. "Ach, my friend," he said, "can you not
better read a face? Well is it to be able to read runes, but better yet
it is to know what the Lord has written in men's eyes." He signed to the
servant to go on, and in a moment the chains fell clattering on the
ground.
Alwin looked at him in amazement; then suddenly he realized what a kind
old face it was, for all its shrewdness and puny ugliness. The scowl
fell from him like another chain.
"I give you thanks," he said.
The wrinkled, tremulous old hand touched his shoulder with a kindly
pressure. "Good is it that we understand each other. _Nun_! Come. First
shall you go and Helga's horse lead, since it may be that with her one
hand she cannot manage him. Why do you in your face so red grow?"
Alwin grew still redder; but he could not tell the good old man that he
would rather follow a herd of unbroken steers all day, than walk one
mile before a beautiful young Amazon who looked at him as if he were a
dog. He mumbled something indistinctly, and hastened out after the
horses.
Helga rose stiffly from the pile of furs; it was evident that every new
motion revealed a new bruise to her, but she set her white teeth and
held her chin high in the air. When she had taken leave of the trader,
she walked out without a limp and vaulted into her saddle unaided. The
sunlight, glancing from her silver helm, fell upon her floating hair and
turned it into a golden glory that hid rents and stains, and redeemed
even the kirtle, which stopped at the knee.
As he helped the old man to mount, Alwin gazed at her with unwilling
admiration. Perhaps some day he would show her that he was not so
utterly contemptible as...
She made him an imperious gesture; he stalked haughtily forward, he took
his place at her bridle rein, and the three set forth.