CHAPTER II. Randalin, Frode’s Daughter
CHAPTER III. Where War-dogs Kennel
CHAPTER IV. When Royal Blood Is Young Blood
CHAPTER V. Before The King
CHAPTER VI. The Training of Fridtjof The Page
CHAPTER VII. The Game of Swords
CHAPTER VIII. Taken Captive
CHAPTER IX. The Young Lord of Ivarsdale
CHAPTER X. As The Norns Decree
CHAPTER XI. When My Lord Comes Home From War
CHAPTER XII. The Foreign Page
CHAPTER XIII. When Might Made Right
CHAPTER XIV. How The Fates Cheated Randalin
CHAPTER XV. How Fridtjof Cheated The Jotun
CHAPTER XVI. The Sword of Speech
CHAPTER XVII. The Judgment of The Iron Voice
CHAPTER XVIII. What The Red Cloak Hid
CHAPTER XIX. The Gift of The Elves
CHAPTER XX. A Royal Reckoning
CHAPTER XXI. With The Jotun as Chamberlain
CHAPTER XXII. How The Lord of Ivarsdale Paid His Debt
CHAPTER XXIII. A Blood-stained Crown
CHAPTER XXIV. On The Road to London
CHAPTER XXV. The King’s Wife
CHAPTER XXVI. In The Judgment Hall
CHAPTER XXVII. Pixie-led
CHAPTER XXVIII. When Love Meets Love
CHAPTER XXIX. The Ring of The Coiled Snake
CHAPTER XXX. When The King Takes a Queen
CHAPTER XXXI. The Twilight of The Gods
CHAPTER XXXII. In Time’s Morning
Acknowledgment
For the facts of this romance I have made free use of the following
authorities: The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; The Venerable Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of England; Ingulph’s History of the Abbey of
Croyland; William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle of the Kings of England;
The Chronicles of Florence of Worcester; Lingard’s History and
Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church, and Lingard’s History of
England; Dean Spencer’s The White Robe of Churches; Collier’s
Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain; Montalembert’s Monks of the
West; Thrupp’s Anglo-Saxon Home; Hall’s Queens Before the Conquest;
Kemble’s Saxons in England; Ridgway’s Gem of Thorney Island; Brayley
and Britton’s History of the Ancient Palace and Late Houses of
Parliament; Loftie’s Westminster Abbey and Loftie’s History of London;
Allen’s History and Antiquities of London; Lappenberg’s History of
England Under the Anglo-Saxon Kings; Sharon Turner’s History of the
Anglo-Saxons; Knight’s Old England; Hume’s History of England; Green’s
Conquest of England; Thierry’s History of the Conquest of England by
the Normans; Freeman’s History of the Norman Conquest.
For the translations of Hávamál, etc., used at the beginnings of the
chapters, I am indebted to Professor Rasmus B. Anderson and Mr. Paul du
Chaillu.
O. A. L.
Chicago, April 1, 1903.
Foreword
There is an old myth of a hero who renewed his strength each time he
touched the earth, and finally was overcome by being raised in the air
and crushed. Whether or not the Angles risked a like fate as they
raised themselves away from the primitive virtues that had been their
life and strength, no one can tell; but it has been well said that when
Northern blood mingled with English blood at the time of the Danish
Conquest, the Anglo-Saxon race touched the earth again.
CHAPTER I. The Fall of the House of Frode
Full stocked folds
I saw at the sons of Fitjung,
Now they carry beggars’ staffs;
Wealth is
Like the twinkling of an eye,
The most unstable of friends.
Hávamál.
As the blackness of the midsummer night paled, the broken towers and
wrecked walls of the monastery loomed up dim and stark in the gray
light. The long-drawn sigh of a waking world crept through the air and
rustled the ivy leaves. The pitying angel of dreams, who had striven
all night long to restore the plundered shrine and raise from their
graves the band of martyred nuns, ceased from his ministrations, softly
as a bubble frees itself from the pipe that shaped it, and floated away
on the breath of the wind. Through a breach in the moss-grown wall, the
first sunbeam stole in and pointed a bright finger across the cloister
garth at the charred spot in the centre, where missals and parchment
rolls had made a roaring fire to warm the invaders’ blood-stained
hands.
As the lark rose through the brightening air to greet the coming day, a
woman in the tunic and cowl of a nun opened what was left of the
wicket-gate in the one unbattered wall. A trace of the luxury that had
dwelt under the gilded spires survived in her robes, which had been of
a royal purple and embroidered with silken flowers; but the voice of
Time and of Ruin spoke from them also, for the purple was faded to a
rusty brown, and the silken embroideries were threadbare. She struck a
note in perfect harmony with her surroundings, as she stood under the
crumbling arch, peering out into the flowering lane.
Stretching away from her feet in dewy freshness, it made a green link
between the herb-garden of St. Mildred’s and the highway of the Watling
Street. Like the straggling hedges that were half buried under a net of
wild roses, red and white, the path was half effaced by grass; but
beyond, her eye could follow the straight line of the great Roman road
over marsh and meadow and hill-top. If grass had gathered there also,
during the Anglo-Saxon times, there were no traces of it now, in the
days of Edmund Ironside when Canute of Denmark was leading his war-host
back and forth over its stones. Between the dark walls of oak and
beech, it gleamed as white as the Milky Way. The nun was able to trace
its course up the slope of the last hill. Just beyond the crest, a pall
of smoke was spread over a burning village. Though it was miles away,
it seemed to her that the wind brought cries of anguish to her ear, and
prayers for mercy. Shivering, she turned her face back to the desolate
peace of the ruins.
“Now is it clear to all men why a bloody cloud was hung over the land
in the year that Ethelred came to the throne,” she said. “I feel as the
blessed dead might feel should they be forced to leave the shelter of
their graves and look out upon the world.”
Rising from its knees beside a bed of herbs, a second figure in faded
robes approached the gate. Sister Sexberga was very old, much older
than her companion, and her face was a wrinkled parchment whereon Time
had written some terrible lessons.
She said gently, “We are one with the dead, beloved sister. Those who
lie under the chancel lay no safer than we, last night, though the
Pagans’ passing tread shook the ground we lay on, and their songs broke
our slumbers. Let us cease not to give thanks to Him who has spread
over us the peace of the grave.”
The shadows deepened in the eyes of Sister Wynfreda as she turned them
back toward the lane, for her patience was not yet ripe to perfect
mellowness. She was but little past the prime of her rich womanhood,
and still bore the traces of a great beauty. She bore in addition, upon
cheek and forehead, the scars of three frightful burns.
“The peace of the grave can never be mine while my heart is open to the
sorrows of others,” she answered with sadness. “Sister Sexberga, that
was an English band which passed last night. I made out English words
in their song. I am in utmost fear for the Danes of Avalcomb.”
“‘They that take the sword shall perish with the sword,’” the old nun
quoted, a little sternly. “An Englishman was despoiled of his lands
when Frode the Dane took Avalcomb. If now Frode’s turn has come—”
Her companion made a gesture of entreaty. “It is not for Frode that I
am timorous, dear sister, nor for the boy, Fridtjof; it is for
Randalin, his daughter.”
Sister Sexberga was some time silent. When at last she spoke, it was
but to repeat slowly, “Randalin, his daughter. God pity her!”
Sister Wynfreda was no longer listening. She had quitted her hold upon
the gate and taken a step forward, straining her eyes. They had not
deceived her. Out of a tall mass of golden bloom at the farther end of
the lane, an arm clad in brown homespun had tossed itself for one
delirious instant. Trailing her robes over the daisied grass, the nun
came upon a wounded man lying face downward in the tangle.
There was little in that to awaken surprise; it would have been
stranger had warriors passed without leaving some such mute token in
their wake. Yet when the united strength of the four arms had turned
the limp weight upon its back, a cry of astonishment rose from each
throat.
“The woodward of Avalcomb!”
“The hand of the Lord hath fallen!”
After a moment the younger woman said in a trembling voice, “The
whisper in my heart spoke truly. Dearest sister, put your arm under
here, and we will get him to his feet and bring him in, and he will
tell us what has happened. See! he is shaking off his swoon. After he
has swallowed some of your wine, he will be able to speak and tell us.”
It was muscle-breaking work for women’s backs, for though he tried
instinctively to obey their directions, the man was scarcely conscious;
his arms were like lead yokes upon his supporters’ shoulders. Just
within the gate their strength gave out, and they were forced to put
him down among the spicy herbs. There, as one was pulling off her
threadbare cloak to make him a pillow, and the other was starting after
her cordial, he opened his eyes.
“Master!” he muttered. “Master? Have they gone?”
In an instant Sister Wynfreda was on her knees beside him. “Is it the
English you mean? Did they beset the castle?”
Slowly the man’s clouded eyes cleared. “The Sisters—” he murmured. “I
had the intention—to get to you—but I fell—” His words died away in a
whisper, and his eyelids drooped. Sister Sexberga turned again to seek
her restorative. Sister Wynfreda leaned over and shook him.
“Answer me, first. Where is your master? And young Fridtjof? And your
mistress?”
He shrank from her touch with a gasp of pain. “Dead,” he muttered.
“Dead—At the gate—Frode and the boy—The raven-starvers cut them down
like saplings.”
“And Randalin?”
“I heard her scream as the Englishman seized her—Leofwinesson had her
round the waist—they knocked me on the head, then—I—I—” Again his voice
died away.
Sister Wynfreda made no attempt to recall him. Mechanically she held
his head so that her companion might pour the liquid down his throat.
That done, she brought water and bandages, and stood by, absent-eyed
and in silence, while Sexberga found his wounds and dressed them. It
was the older woman who spoke first.
“The fate of this maiden lies heavy on your mind, beloved,” she said
tenderly; “and I would have you know that my heart also is sorrowful.
For all that she is the fruit of darkness, it was permitted by the Lord
that Randalin, Frode’s daughter, should be born with a light in her
soul. It was in my prayers that we might be enabled to feed that light
as it were a sacred lamp, to the end that in God’s good time the
spreading glory of its brightness might deliver her from the shadows
forever.”
Staring before her with unseeing eyes, Sister Wynfreda nodded an absent
assent. “To me also it seemed that the Lord had led her to us... I keep
in mind how she looked when she came that first morning... a bit of
silk was in her hand, which Frode had given her for a present, because
a golden apple was wrought upon it. She came on her horse, with the boy
Fridtjof, to offer us bread from the castle kitchen if we would agree
to teach her the secret of such handiwork. And when we said that for
the sake of bread to lighten the evil days we would comply with her in
the matter, she laughed with pleasure, and her laughter was as grateful
to the ear as the chime of matin bells. I can see her again as she sat
above us in her saddle, laughing: her long hair blew about her, and the
red blood glowed in her cheeks, and her eyes were like pools that the
sun is shining on—” Suddenly the Sister’s voice broke, and she hid her
face in her hands.
The old nun regarded her compassionately. Hers had been a long hard
life, and she was very near the mountain-top from whose summit the
mystery of the valleys is revealed.
After a time she spoke with tender reverence: “Almighty Father, who
hast given us strength to endure our own trials without murmuring,
grant us also the grace to accept patiently the chastening of those we
love.”
The bowed head of Sister Wynfreda sank lower, and slowly the heaving of
her breast was stilled. In the chapel four feeble old voices raised a
chant that trembled and shook like a quivering heart-string.
“I beseech thee now,
Lord of Heaven,
And pray to thee,
Best of human-born,
That thou pity me,
Mighty Lord!
And aid me,
Father Almighty,
That I thy will
May perform
Before from this frail life
I depart.”
Tremulously sweet it drifted out over the garden and blended with the
aroma in the air. The wounded man smiled through his pain.
Raising her tear-stained face at last, Sister Wynfreda said humbly,
“God pardon me if I sin in my grief, but to me it seems so bitter a
thing when trouble comes upon the young. The first fall of the young
bird in its flight, the first blow that startles the young horse,—I
flinch before them as before my own wounds. When the light of the fair
young day dies before the noon, I feel the shadow in my heart; and it
saddens me to find a flower that worms have eaten in the bud and robbed
of its brief life in the sun. How much more, then, shall I grieve for
the blighting of this human flower? I declare with truth that the first
time I saw her my heart went out to her in a love which taught me how
mothers feel. Her freshness and gladness have fed my starved heart like
wine. I cannot bear that trouble should crush them out of her in the
very flower of her youth; I cannot bear that tears should wear channels
down her soft cheeks and dim the brightness of her eyes. Sooner would I
give what remains to me of life! Sister, do I sin? Do I seem to murmur
against His will? But I have grown used to suffering, while she—what
has she known but love? Oh, have I not suffered enough for both? Could
she not have been spared?” Her voice mounted to a cry of exceeding
bitterness.
Sister Sexberga rose, stretching toward her a tremulous pitying hand.
The light that shines on the mountain-top was very bright on her
wrinkled old face. She said softly, “It is not for me to say that you
sin in your grief, most dear sister. But I give you this thought for
your comfort: if you, who are tied to her by no bond of the flesh can
feel for her so great and brooding an affection, what then must be the
love of Him who fashioned her fair young body and lit the light of her
glad spirit? Of a surety its tender yearning can be no less than yours.
It may be that with tears He would wash the dust of the world from her
eyes, that her sight may be clear for a vision of holier things. But
believe that, even as you would shelter her, so will He not forsake her
in her helplessness. Believe, and be eased of your fear.” A rustling of
her robe across the grass, and she was gone.
The chant ceased, the wavering treble dying away in a note of haunting
sweetness. The man moaned and clutched at his wound; and the bowed
figure by his side roused herself to tend him. Then a grating of rusty
hinges made her turn her head.
Under the crumbling arch, relieved against the green of the lane
beyond, stood the figure of a slender boy wrapped in a mantle of
scarlet that bore a strangely familiar look. His hair fell upon his
shoulders in soft wavy locks of raven blackness; but his face was
turned away as his hands fumbled at the fastening.
Sister Wynfreda rose and took a step forward, staring at him in
bewilderment.
“Fridtjof?” she questioned.
At the sound of her voice, the boy turned and hastened toward her. Then
a great cry burst from Sister Wynfreda, for the face under the black
locks was the face of Randalin.