No one turns from good,
if it can be got.
Hávamál.
Lying drowned in cool silence, the girl came slowly to a consciousness
that someone was stooping over her. Raising her heavy lids, eyes rested
on a man’s face, showing dimly in the dusk of the starlight.
He said in English, “Canute’s page, by the Saints!”
A chorus of voices answered him: “The fiend’s brat that pierced your
shoulder?”—“Choke him!”—“Better he die now than after he has waxed
large on English blood.”—“Finish him!”
Opening her eyes wider, she found that heads and shoulders made a black
hedge around her.
The victim of her blade straightened, shaking his shaggy mane. “Were I
a Pagan Dane, I would run my sword through him. But I am a Christian
Englishman. Let him lie. He will bleed his life out before morning.”
“Come on, then,” the chorus growled. “The Etheling is asking what
hinders us.”—“Make haste!”—“The Etheling is here!”
While the warrior was turning, a new voice spoke.
“Canute’s page?” it repeated after some unseen informant. “Is he dead?”
It was a young voice, and deep and soft, for all the note of quiet
authority ringing through it; something in its tone was agreeably
different from the harsh utterance of the first speaker. Randalin’s
eyes rose dreamily to find the owner. He had ridden up behind the
others on a prancing white horse. Above the black hedge, the square
strength of his shoulders and the graceful lines of his helmed head
were silhouetted sharply against the starry sky. Why had they so
familiar a look? Ah! the noble who had followed Edmund—
So far she got, and then all was blotted out in a flash of pain, as the
man nearest her put out a hand and touched her torn limb.
“Wriggling like a fish, lord,” he answered the new-comer.
A sound on the soft turf told that the horseman had alighted. “The
bantling is of too good quality to leave,” he said good-naturedly.
“Catch my bridle, Oswin. Where is he wounded?”
He made a quick step toward her, then paused as suddenly, his chin
thrust out in listening. A gesture of his hand imposed a sudden
silence, through which the sound became distinct to all ears,—a
trampling and crashing in the brush beyond the moonlit open. As they
wheeled to face it, a shout came from that direction.
“What ho! Does the Lord of Ivarsdale go there?”
He whom they had called the Etheling drew himself up alertly. “I make
no answer to hedge-creepers,” he said. “Come out where you can be
seen.”
The voice took on a mocking edge. “There is no gainsaying that I feel
safer here. I am the messenger of Edric of Mercia.”
Only a warning sign from the Lord of Ivarsdale restrained an angry
chorus. He said with slow contempt, “I grant that it is well fitting
the Gainer’s deeds that his men should flinch from the light—”
“Misgreet me not,” the mocking voice interrupted. “Before cockcrow we
shall be sworn brothers. I bear a message to King Edmund. And I want
you to further me on my way by telling which direction will fetch me to
his camp.”
Derisive laughter went up from the band of King’s men. Their leader
snapped his fingers. “That for your slippery devices! Is the Gainer so
ill-advised as to imagine that he is dealing with a second Ethelred?”
“I tell you to keep in mind,” the voice retorted, “that before the cock
crows we shall be sworn brothers.”
The Etheling’s anger leaped out like a flame; even in the starlight it
could be seen how his face crimsoned.
“No, as God lives!” he answered swiftly. “It is not to Edmund alone
that the Gainer is loathful. Should he pass the King’s sword, a hundred
blades wait for him, mine among them. Seek what he may seek, he shall
not have peace of us. When I guide a wolf to my sheep-fold, I will show
you the way to Edmund’s camp. Take yourself out of reach if you would
not be sped with arrows.”
A jeering laugh was the only answer, but the tramping of hoofs
suggested that his advice was being taken.
When the sound had faded quite away, the Lord of Ivarsdale breathed out
the rest of his resentment in a hearty imprecation, and, turning, came
on to his patient. His voice was as gentle as a woman’s as he dropped
on his knee beside the slim figure.
“What is your need, little fire-eater?”
A memory of her haunting terror stirred in the girl. Shrinking from
him, she made a desperate effort to push away his outstretched hand,
threatening him in a broken whisper.
“If you touch me—I will—kill you.”
They were brave men, those Englishmen. The Etheling only smiled, and
one of his warriors chuckled. With a touch as gentle as it was strong,
he put aside her resisting hands and began swiftly to cut away the
blood-stiffened hose. Darkness closed around Randalin again, darkness
shot with zigzag lightnings of pain, and throbbing with pitiful moans.
The idea took possession of her that she was once more on the
battle-field, that it was the cries of the men who were falling around
her which pierced the air, and their weapons that stabbed her as they
fell. Then their hands clutched her in a dying grip. Horse-men loomed
up before her and came nearer, and she could not get out of their path,
though she struggled with all her force. The hoofs were almost upon
her... Uttering a wild scream, she put forth all her strength in a last
effort.
“It will be like holding a young tiger, lord,” a harsh voice suddenly
reached her ear. She came to herself to find that soldiers were lifting
her up to the horseman, where he sat again in his saddle. She
recognized the squareness of his shoulders; and she knew the gentleness
of his touch as he slipped his free arm around her and drew her
carefully into place, making of his stalwart body a support for her
weakness. No strength was in her to struggle against him; only her wide
bright eyes sought his, with the terror of a snared bird.
Meeting the look and understanding a small part of its question, he
said a reassuring word in his pleasant low-pitched voice: “Be of good
cheer, youngling; there is no thought of eating you. I will bring you
to a cup of wine before moonrise, if you hold fast.”
It is doubtful if the girl so much as heard him. Her eyes were passing
from feature to feature of his face, as the stars revealed it above
her,—from the broad comely brow to the square young chin, from the
clean-cut fine-tempered mouth to the clear true eyes. One by one she
noted them, and shade by shade her strained look of fear relaxed.
Slowly she forgot her dread; and forgetting, her mind wandered to other
things,—to memories of her father, and of the happy evenings by the
fire when she had nestled safe in his arms,—safe and sheltered and
beloved. With eyes still turned up toward his face, her lids drooped
and fell; and her head sank upon his breast and lay there, in the peace
of perfect faith.