At eve, the day is to be praised;
A woman, after she is dead.
Hávamál.
In the vault overhead blue had deepened into purple, and all the silver
star-lamps been hung out, their flames trembling unceasingly in the
playing winds. By the soft light, the Jotun, who was striding across
the camp, saw a graceful boyish form leave the circle around the King’s
fire and join a group of mounted men waiting on the river bank, some
fifty yards away.
“Ho there, Fridtjof!” he roared wrathfully.
The figure turned, and he had a fleeting glimpse of a hand waved in
mocking farewell. Then the boy sprang into the saddle of a horse that
one of the warriors was holding, and the whole band moved forward at a
swinging pace.
“If you had waited a little, you would be less light on your feet,” the
Jotun growled as he strode on, striking his heels savagely upon the
frosty ground.
“Where is the King?” he demanded, as soon as he had reached the ring of
nobles sipping mead around the royal fire. Between swallows, they were
carrying on a heated discussion of the day’s events; but Eric of Norway
stopped long enough to nod toward the wattled hut beneath the silken
banner.
“In there; and I will give you this chain off my neck if you can guess
what he is doing.”
“It is likely that he is busy with messengers,” Rothgar said with an
accent of vexation. “I had hoped to reach him before he finished
drinking, but there was a brawl among my men which—”
“He is playing chess,” Eric said dryly.
“Chess!”
The Norwegian nodded as he swallowed. “Heard you ever anything to equal
that? He has the appearance of a boy who has been released from a
lesson. I wish that you had been here to see him at meal-time. So full
of jests and banter was he that I could scarcely eat for laughing. Yet
when I took courage from his good-nature to ask him concerning his
plans for the future, he pretended that he did not hear me, and put an
end to questioning by bidding Ulf come and play chess with him in the
hut. Whether he is mad, or bewitched, or feigning like Amleth, it is
not easy to tell.”
“I do not think it is any of these,” Rothgar said slowly. “I think it
is because he likes it so well that he has got peace in which to amuse
himself. Sooner would he hunt than fight, any day; and I have often
seen him express pleasure in this manner. I remember how his wife
Elfgiva once said of him that it was well his crown was no more than a
ring of gold, for then, when his mood changed, he could use it for such
a gold hoop as kings’ children are wont to play with.”
“Said Elfgiva of Northampton that?” Eric asked in surprise. “Never
would I have believed her so wise in words. That she is the most
beautiful of women, all the world knows; but I have always supposed
that her wit stopped with her temper, which is suspected to be shorter
than her hair.”
Rothgar grunted scornfully. “It is easy for a fool to speak some wisdom
if she keeps her tongue moving all the time.”
Laughing, the Norwegian plunged again into the general discussion; and
the son of Lodbrok stood listening discontentedly, while he kept a
sharp watch of the low-browed entrance.
Presently his patience was rewarded. Within the hut there arose all at
once a duet of voices, half angrily accusing, half laughingly
protesting. Then the chess-board came flying through the doorway,
followed by a handful of chessmen and the person of the big
good-natured Jarl, still uttering his laughing protests. And finally
Canute himself stood under the lintel, storming through his laughter.
“Blockhead, that you cannot keep your thoughts on what you are doing!
One might expect as good a game from the tumbler’s dog. Is it the drink
that you have got into your head, or the war matters that you cannot
get out? You deserve—”
“To lose the honor of playing with the King,” the Jotun broke in,
making a long step forward. “Be so good as to allow me to take his
place, lord. I have some words for your ear which are worth a hearing.”
“Rothgar!” the King exclaimed with great cordiality, and stepped from
the doorway to meet him. “Willingly do I make the change, for I have
been wishing to speak with you this last hour. I have thought of a fine
plan for to-morrow’s sport.” Laying his arm boy-fashion across his
foster-brother’s shoulders, he swung him around toward the river. “But
we will not go in there to do our talking. We will walk along the
shore. To-night I feel as though I could walk to the rainbow-bridge.”
He shook back his headful of long hair and drew a deep breath, like a
man from whom a burden has been lifted.
As they strolled beside the moonlit water, the son of Lodbrok listened
in secret amazement to the string of plans that unfolded itself,—hunts
and horse-races, swimming matches and fishing trips.
“But where will you get the fishing tackle, lord? And the hawks and the
hounds for all this?” he ventured presently. They were some little
distance up the bank now, where trees screened them from the
camp-fires. Suddenly the young King made a leaping grab at a bough
overhead and hung by it, looking down at his companion with the face of
a mischievous boy.
“How joyfully you will take my answer! I have sent to Northampton for
them. And I have bidden Elfgiva accompany them, with all her following
of maids and lap-dogs and beardless boys. Before the end of the week, I
expect that the Abbey guest-house will have the appearance of a woman’s
bower; and the monks will have taken to the woods.”
As his foster-brother stood gazing at him in speechless dismay, he
laughed maliciously. “Where are your manners, partner, that you do not
praise my foresight? Here am I eager to go to her to celebrate my
victory; and yet because I think it unadvisable for me to leave the
camp, I remain like a rock at my post. Where is your praise?”
“King,” Rothgar said gravely, “is the truce going to last long enough
to make it worth while to fetch those trinkets here?”
His laughter vanishing, the King came to earth in both senses of the
phrase. “Now I do not know what you mean by that,” he said. “You were
with me on the island. You heard what was said. You heard that we made
peace together to last the whole of our lives, in truth, longer; since
he who outlives is to inherit peacefully after him who dies. Did you
not hear that?”
Rothgar kicked a stone out of his way with impatient emphasis. “Oh,
yes, I heard it. I heard also how you said that you would rather have
the Englishman’s friendship than his kingdom.”
The eyebrows Canute had drawn down into a frown rose ironically. “There
is room in your breast for more sense, Rothgar, my brother, if you
think, because I am forced into one lie, that I never speak the truth,”
he said. “We will not talk of it further. I should like to remain
good-humored to-night, if it were possible. What are the words you have
waiting for my ears?”
The Jotun’s sudden frown quite eclipsed his eyes. “It is not likely
that I shall remain good-humored if I put my tongue to them. Oh! Now it
becomes clear in my mind what you have sent your black-haired falcon
down the wind after,—to carry your order to Northampton?” “Certainly it
is,” Canute assented. “When the boy found that I had need of a
messenger, he begged it of me as a boon that he might be the one to
carry the good news to my lady. I thought it a well-mannered way to
show his thankfulness. But why is your voice so bitter when you speak
of him?”
“Because I have just found out that he is a fox,” Rothgar bellowed.
“Because it has been borne in upon me that he has played me a foul
trick, by which I lost property that was already under my hands; lost
it forever, Troll take him! if it be really true that we are to make no
more warfare upon the lands south of the Watling Street.”
“It is not possible!” Canute ejaculated. “He looks to be as truthful as
Balder.”
Rothgar uttered his favorite grunt. “Never did I hear that Loke had
crooked eyes or a tusk, and black hair grows on both of them. I tell
you, I know it for certain. I have just been to find the English serf
who became my man after Brentford; and he has told me what he says he
tried to tell the night before we left Ivarsdale, but no one would
listen to him without pounding him,—that the servant-maid, who informed
him concerning the provision house, spoke also of a Danish page her
lord had, whom he treated with such great love that it was commonly
said he was bewitched. And before that, when the brat was telling you
how the Englishman had saved him from Norman’s sword, it occurred to me
that he talked more as a woman talks of her lover than as a man speaks
of his foe. I had my mouth open to tax him with it, when you threw this
duel at me like a rock and knocked everything else out of my head.”
“May the gallows take my body!” the King breathed. And he sat down upon
a grassy hummock as suddenly as though a rock had been thrown at him
that knocked the legs from under him. Nor did he get up immediately,
but remained gazing at the string of bright beads which English
camp-fires made along the opposite bluff, his face intent with
pondering.
Meanwhile the son of Lodbrok strode to and fro, declaiming wrathfully.
“There is not an honest bone in the imp’s body,” he wound up. “It is
certainly my belief that he was in league with the Englishman; and his
freedom was the reward he got for drawing me off.”
“Certainly you are a very shrewd man,” Canute murmured. But something
in his voice did not stand firm; his foster-brother darted him a keen
glance. His suspicions were well founded. Canute’s face was crimson
with suppressed laughter; he was biting his lips frantically to hold
back his mirth. The temper of the son of Lodbrok left him in one
inarticulate snarl. Turning on his heel, with a whirlwind of flying
cloak and a thunder of clashing weapons, he would have stalked away if
the King had not made him the most peremptory of gestures.
“No, wait! Wait, good brother! I will show you whether I offend you
intentionally or not! It is—it is—the—the jest—” Again he became
unintelligible.
Rothgar stopped, but it was to glower over his folded arms. “Do you
think I do not know as well as you that I behaved like a fool? What I
dislike is that you cannot see as plainly that your ward is a troll.
Because his womanish face has caught your fancy, you will neither blame
him yourself nor allow others to make a fuss—”
“That is where you are wrong,” the King interrupted, with as much
gravity as he could command. “When Fridtjof Frodesson comes again into
your presence, I give you leave to take whatever revenge you like. Lash
him with your tongue or your belt, as you will; and I promise that I
will not lift finger to hinder you from it.”
“And not hold it against me?” Rothgar demanded incredulously.
“And not hold it against you,” Canute agreed. Then he tilted his head
back to laugh openly in the other’s face. “Will you wager a finger-ring
against my knife that your mind will not change when my ward stands
again before you?”
The Jotun smiled grimly. “Is that the expectation you are stringing
your bow with? It will fail you as surely as the hair of Hother’s wife
failed him. The wager shall be as you have made it; and may I lack
strength if I do not deal with him—” He paused, blinking like a
startled owl, as his royal foster-brother leaped to his feet and
fronted him with shouts of laughter.
“You dolt, you!” Canute cried. “Do you not see it yet? Frode’s child is
a woman!”
Rothgar’s jaw dropped and his bulging eyes seemed in danger of
following. “What!” he gasped; and then his voice rose to a roar. “And
the Englishman is her lover?”
“You are wiser than I expected,” the King laughed. “I intend to call
you Thrym after this, for it is unlikely that Loke made a greater fool
of the Giant. Your enemies will make derisive songs about it.”
Stamping with rage, the Jotun hammered his huge fist upon a tree-trunk
until bark flew in every direction. “King, I will give you every ring
off my hand if you will give me leave to strangle her!”
“You remind me that I will take one of your rings now,” Canute said,
reaching out and opening the mallet-like fist that he might make his
choice. Then, as he fitted on his prize and held it critically to the
light, he added with more sympathy: “I will arrange for you a more
profitable revenge than that. I will make a condition with Edmund that
the Etheling’s odal shall not be included in the land which is
peace-holy, and that to ravage it shall not be looked upon as breaking
the truce. Then can you betake yourself thither and sit down with your
following, and have no one but yourself to blame if you fail a second
time. Only,”—he thrust his knuckles suddenly between the other’s
ribs,—“only, before we get serious over it, do at least give one laugh.
Though she be Ran herself, the maiden has played an excellent joke upon
you.”
“I do not see how you make out that it is all upon me,” Rothgar said
sulkily. “It did not appear that you got suspicious in any way, until I
told you myself what she talked like. You did not have the appearance
of choking much on her stories.”
The King seemed all at once to recover his dignity. “I will not deny
that,” he said gravely; “and have I not said that I expect to be angry
about it presently? Certainly I do not think she has treated me with
much respect. That she did not tell you, is by no means to be wondered
at; it might even count as something in her favor. But me she should
have given her confidence. That she should dare to offer her King that
lying story about her sister’s death—” His face flushed as though he
were remembering his emotion on receiving that same story; and his
foster-brother’s observation did not tend to mollify him.
“And not only to offer it,” the son of Lodbrok chuckled, “but to cram
it down his throat and make him swallow it.”
Canute’s heels also began to ring with ominous sharpness upon the
frosty ground. “She must be Ran herself! Oh, you need not be afraid
that I shall not get overbearing enough after I am started! Had she
been no more than her father’s daughter, her behavior would have been
sufficiently bad; but that she whom I had made my ward should withhold
her confidence from me to give it to an Englishman! Become his
thrallwoman, by Odin, and betray my people for his sake! Now, as I am a
king, I will punish her in a way that she will like less than
strangling! I tell you, her luck is great that she is not here
to-night.”