IN A VIKING LAIR
Leaving in the field his arms,
Let no man go
A fool's length forward:
For it is hard to know
When, on his way,
A man may need his weapon.
Ha'vama'l
The camp lay red in the sunset light, and the twilight hush had fallen
upon it so that one could hear the sleepy bird-calls in the woods
around, and the drowsy murmur of the river. Sigurd lay on his back under
a tree, staring up into the rustling greenery. From the booth set apart
for her, Helga came out dressed for the feast. She had replaced her
scarlet kirtle and hose by garments of azure-blue silk, and changed her
silver helmet for a golden diadem such as high-born maidens wore on
state occasions; but that was her only ornament, and her skirt was no
longer than before. Sigurd looked at her critically.
"It does not appear to me that you are very well dressed for a feast,"
said he. "Where are the bracelets and gold laces suitable to your rank?
It looks ill for Leif's generosity, if that is the finest kirtle you
own."
"That is unfairly spoken," Helga answered quickly. "He would dress me in
gold if I wished it; it is I who will not have it so. Have you forgotten
my hatred against clothes so fine that one must be careful of them? But
this was to be expected," she added, flushing with displeasure; "since
the Jarl's son has lived in Normandy, a maiden from a Greenland farm
must needs look mean to him."
She was turning away, but he leaped up and caught her by her shoulders
and shook her good-naturedly. "Now are you as womanish as your bondmaid.
You know that all the gold on all the women in Normandy is not so
beautiful as one lock of this hair of yours."
At least Helga was womanish enough to smile at this. "Now I understand
why it is that men call you Sigurd Silver-Tongue," she laughed. Suddenly
she was all earnestness again. "Nay, but, Sigurd, tell me this,--I do
not care how you scold about my dress,--tell me that you do not despise
me for it, or for being unlike other maidens."
Sigurd's grasp slipped from her shoulders down to her hands, and shook
them warmly. "Despise you, Helga my sister? Despise you for being the
bravest comrade and the truest friend a man ever had?"
She grew rosy red with pleasure. "If that is your feeling, I am well
content."
She took a step toward the place where her horse was tethered, and
looked back regretfully. "It seems inhospitable to leave you like this.
Will you not come with us, after all?"
Sigurd threw himself down again with an emphatic gesture of refusal. "I
like better to be left so than to be left in a mound with my head cut
off, which is what would happen were an outlaw to visit the King
uninvited."
"I shall not deny that that would be disagreeable," Helga assented. "But
do not let your mishap stand in the way of your joy. Leif has great
favor with King Olaf; there is no doubt in my mind that he will be able
to plead successfully for you."
"I hope so, with all my heart," Sigurd murmured. "When all brave men are
fighting abroad or serving the King at home, it is great shame for me to
be idling here." And he sighed heavily as Helga passed out of hearing.
As she went by the largest of the booths, which was the sleeping-house
of the steersman Valbrand and more than half the crew, Alwin came out of
the door and stood looking listlessly about. He had spent the afternoon
scouring helmets amid a babble of directions and fault-finding, accented
by blows. Helga did not see him; but he gazed after her, wondering idly
what sort of a mistress she was to the young bond-girl who was running
after her with the cloak she had forgotten,--wondering also what there
was in the girl's brown braids that reminded him of his mother's little
Saxon waiting-maid Editha.
The sound of a deep-drawn breath made him turn, to find himself face to
face with a young mail-clad Viking, in whose shaggy black locks he
recognized the Egil Olafsson whom Helga had that morning 'pointed out.
But it was not the surprise of the meeting that made Alwin leap suddenly
backward into the shelter of the doorway; it was the look that he caught
in the other's dark face,--a look so full of hate and menace that,
instead of being strangers meeting for the first time, one would have
supposed them lifelong enemies.
Still eying him, Egil said slowly in a voice that trembled with passion:
"So you are the English thrall,--and looking after her already! It seems
that Skroppa spoke some truth--" He broke off abruptly, and stood
glaring, his hand moving upward to his belt.
For once Alwin was fairly dazed. "Either this fellow has gotten out of
his wits," he muttered, crossing himself, "or else he has mistaken me
for some--"
He had not time to finish his sentence. Young Olafsson's fingers had
closed upon the haft of his knife; he drew it with a fierce cry: "But I
will make the rest of it a lie!" Throwing himself upon Alwin, he bore
him over backwards across the threshold.
It is likely that that moment would have seen the end of Alwin, if it
had not happened that Valbrand the steersman was in the booth, arraying
himself for the feast. He was a gigantic warrior, with a face seamed
with scars and as hard as the battle-axe at his side. He caught Egil's
uplifted arm and wrested the blade from his grasp.
"It is not likely that I will allow Leif's property to be damaged, Egil
the Black. Would you choke him? Loose him, or I will send you to the
Troll, body and bones!"
Egil rose reluctantly. Alwin leaped up like a spring released from a
weight.
"What has he done," demanded Valbrand, "that you should so far forget
the law as to attack another man's thrall?"
Instead of bursting into the tirade Alwin expected, Egil flushed and
looked away. "It is enough that I am not pleased with his looks," he
said sullenly.
Valbrand tossed him his knife with a scornful grunt. "Go and get sense!
Is he yours, that you may slay him because you dislike the tilt of his
nose? Go dress yourself. And you," he added, with a nod over his
shoulder at Alwin, "do you take yourself out of his sight somewhere. It
is unwisdom to tempt a hungry dog with meat that one would keep."
"If I had so much as a hunting-knife," Alwin cried furiously, "I swear
by all the saints of England, I would not stir--"
Valbrand wasted no time in argument. He seized Alwin and threw him out
of the door, with energy enough to roll him far down the slope.
The force with which he struck inclined Alwin to stay where he was for a
while; and gradually the coolness and the quietness about him soothed
him into a more reasonable temper. Egil Olafsson was mad; there could be
no question of that. Undoubtedly it was best to follow Valbrand's advice
and keep out of his way,--at least until he could secure a weapon with
which to defend himself. He stretched himself comfortably in the soft,
dewy grass and waited until the revellers, splendid in shining mail and
gay-hued mantles, clanked out to their horses and rode away. When the
last of them shouted his farewell to Sigurd and disappeared amid the
shadows of the wood-path, Alwin arose and walked slowly back to the
deserted camp.
Even the sunset light had left it now; a soft grayness shut it in, away
from the world. The air was full of night-noises; and high in the pines
a breeze was whispering softly. Very softly and sweetly, from somewhere
among the booths, the voice of the bond-girl arose in a plaintive
English ballad.
Alwin recognized the melody with a throb that was half of pleasure, half
of pain. In the old days, Editha had sung that song. Poor little
gentle-hearted Editha! The last time he had seen her, she had been borne
past him, white and unconscious, in the arms of one of the marauding
Danes. He shook himself fiercely to drive off the memory. Turning the
corner of Helga's booth, he came suddenly upon the singer, a slender
white-robed figure leaning in the shadow of the doorway. Sigurd still
lounged under the trees, half dozing, half listening.
As the thrall stepped out of the shadow into the moonlight, the singer
sprang to her feet, and the song merged into a great cry.
"My lord Alwin!"
It was Editha herself. Running to meet him, she dropped on her knees
before him and began to kiss his hands and cry over them. "Oh, my dear
lord," she sobbed, "you are so changed! And your hair--your beautiful
hair! Oh, it is well that Earl Edmund and your lady mother are dead,--it
would break their hearts, as it does mine!" Forgetting her own plight,
she wept bitterly over his, though he tried with every gentle word to
soothe her.
It was a sad meeting; it could not be otherwise. The memory of their
last terrible parting, the bondage in which they found each other, the
shameful, hopeless future that stretched before them,--it was all full
of bitterness. When Editha went in at last, her poor little throat was
bursting with sobs. Alwin sank down on the trunk of a fallen tree and
buried his head in his hands, and the first groan that his troubles had
wrung from him was forced now from his brave lips.
He had forgotten Sigurd's presence. In their preoccupation, neither of
them had noticed the young Viking watching them curiously. Now Alwin
started like a colt when a hand fell lightly on his shoulder. "It
appears to me," came in Sigurd's voice, "that a man should be merry when
he has just found a friend."
Alwin looked up at him with eyes full of savage despair.
"Merry! Would you be merry, had you found Helga the drudge of an English
camp?" He shook off the other's hand with a fierce motion.
But Sigurd answering instantly, "No, I would look even blacker than you,
if that were possible," the thrall was half appeased.
The young Viking dropped down beside him, and for a while they sat in
silence, staring away where the moonlit river showed between the trees.
At last Sigurd said dreamily: "It came to my mind, while you two were
talking, how unevenly the Fates deal things. It appears, from what the
maiden said, that you are the son of an English jarl who has often
fought the Northmen. Now I am the son of a Norwegian jarl who has not a
few times met the English in battle. It would have been no more unlikely
than what has happened had I been the captive and you the victor."
"That is true," said Alwin slowly. He did not say more, but in some odd
way the idea comforted and softened him. Neither of the young men turned
his eyes from the river toward the other, yet in some way something
friendly crept into their silence.
After a while Sigurd said, still without looking around, "It seems to me
that the right-minded thing for me in this matter is to do what I should
desire you to do if you were in my place; therefore I offer you my
friendship."
Something blurred the bright river for an instant from Alwin's sight. "I
give you thanks," he said huskily. "Save Editha, I have not a friend in
the world."
He hesitated a while; then slowly, bit by bit, he set forth the story
that he had never expected to unfold to Northern ears. "The Danes set
fire to my father's castle, and he was burned with many of my kinsmen.
The robbers came in the night, and a Danish churl opened the gates to
them,--though he had been my father's man for four seasons. It was from
him that I learned to speak the Northern tongue. They took me while I
slept, bound me, and carried me out to their boats. They carried out
also the young maidens who attended my mother,--Editha among them,--and
not a few of the youth of the household, all that they chose for
captives. They took out all the valuables that they wanted. After that,
they threw great bales of hay into the hall, and set fire to them,
and--"
"The bloody wolves!" Sigurd burst out. "Did they not offer your mother
to go out in safety?"
"Nay, they had the most hatred against her." The bearing of his head
grew more haughty. "My mother was a princess of the blood of Alfred."
It happened that Sigurd had heard of that great monarch. His face
kindled with enthusiasm.
"Alfred! He who got the victory over the Danes? Small wonder they did
not love his kin after they had known his cunning! I know a fine song
about him,--how he went alone into the Danish camp, though they were
hunting him to kill him; and while they thought him a simple--minded
minstrel, he learned all their secrets. By my troth, that is good blood
to have in one's veins! Were I English, I would rather be his kinsman
than Ethelred's."
He stared at Alwin with glowing eyes; they were facing each other now.
Suddenly he stretched out his hand.
"It is naught but a piece of bad luck that you are Leif's thrall. It
might just as easily have happened that I were in your place. Now I will
make a bargain with you that hereafter I will remember this, and never
hold your thraldom against you."
Such a concession as that, few of the proud Viking race were generous
enough to make. Alwin could not but be moved by it. He took the
outstretched hand in a hard grip.
"Will you do that?" he said; and it seemed for a time as though he could
not find words to answer. At last he spoke: "If you will do that, I
promise on my side that I will forgive your Northern blood and your
lordship over me, and love you as my own brother."