To his friend
A man should be a friend,
And gifts with gifts requite.
Hávamál.
A moment, it was to Randalin, Frode’s daughter, as if the heavens had
let fall a star at her feet. Then her wonder changed to exultation, as
she realized that it was not chance but because of her bidding that the
man she loved stood before her. Only because she had asked it, he had
come through pitfalls and death-traps, and now faced, alone, the
gathered might of his foes. Glorying in his deed, she stood shining
sun-like upon him until the red cloaks of the advancing warriors came
between like scarlet clouds.
“Who are you?.... What is your errand?.... How came you here?” she
heard them demand. And, after a pause, in disbelieving chorus, “Rothgar
Lodbroksson! .... Does that sound likely?.... Where is he, then?” “You
are trying to lie out of something—” “You are an English spy! Seize
him! Bind him!”
The scarlet cloaks drew together into a swaying mass; a dozen blades
glittered in the sun. With a gasp, she came out of her trance to catch
at the royal mantle.
“Lord King, you promised to give him safety!” The seriousness which had
darkened Canute’s face at the intrusion vanished off it as breath-mist
off a mirror. “Is it only your Englishman?” he asked, between a laugh
and a frown.
She grudged the time the words took. “Yes, yes! Pray be as quick as you
can!”
He did not seem bitten by her haste, but he took a step forward,
clanging his gold-bound scabbard against the stone well-curbing to make
himself heard. “Unhand the Lord of Ivarsdale, my chiefs,” he ordered.
As they sent him incredulous glances over their shoulders, he further
explained his will by a gesture; and they fell away, murmuring, the
swords gliding like bright serpents back to their holes. Then he made
another sign, this time to the stranger. “We will accept your greeting
now, Englishman, even though you have been hindered in the giving of
it,” he said politely.
Standing there, watching the young noble advance, it seemed to Randalin
that there was not room between her heart-beats for her breathing. How
soon would he look up and know her? How would his face change when he
did? His color now was a match for the warriors’ cloaks, and there was
none of his usual ease in his manner when at last he bowed before the
King. Presently it occurred to her to suspect that he had already
recognized her,—perhaps from the doorway,—and in her rush of relief at
the idea of the shock being over, she found even an impulse of
playfulness. Borrowing one of Elfgiva’s graces, she swept back her
rustling draperies in a ceremonious courtesy before him.
Again he bent in his bow of stiff embarrassment; but he did not meet
her glance even then, returning his gaze, soldier-like, to the King.
Suppose he were going to treat her with the haughtiness she had seen
him show Hildelitha or the old monk when they had displeased him! At
the mere thought of it, she shrank and dropped her eyes to the coral
chain that she was twining between her fingers.
The awkwardness of the pause seemed to afford Canute a kind of
mischievous amusement, for all the courtesy in which he veiled it. His
voice was almost too cheerful as he addressed the Etheling. “Now as
always it can be told about my men that they stretch out their hands to
greet strangers,” he said, “but I ask you not to judge all Danish
hospitality from this reception, Lord of Ivarsdale. Since Frode’s
daughter has told me who you are, I take it for granted that they were
wrong, and that you came here with no worse intention than to obey her
invitation.”
His glance sharpened a little as he pronounced those last words, and
the girl’s hands clasped each other more tightly as she perceived the
snare in the phrase. If the Etheling should answer unheedingly or
obscurely, so that it should not be made quite clear to the King—
But it appeared that the Etheling was equally anxious that Canute
should not believe him the lover of Frode’s daughter. His reply was
distinct to bluntness: “Part of your guess is as wrong as part of it is
right, King of the Danes. Certainly I came here with no thought of evil
toward you, but neither had I any thought soever of the Lady Randalin,
of whose existence I was ignorant. I answered the call of Fridtjof
Frodesson, to whom I owe and I pay all the service which lies in my
power,—as it is likely you know.”
Did his voice soften as he recalled his debt? Randalin ventured to
steal a glance at his face,—then her own clouded with puzzlement. No
haughtiness was in it, but a kind of impatient pain, and now he winced
under the smart and stirred restlessly in his place. The lightness of
the King’s voice grated on her ear.
“Then I think you must have got surprised, if this is true, which seems
impossible.”
The Etheling answered almost impatiently, “If your mind feels doubt of
it, Lord Canute, you have but to ask your foster-brother, who conducted
me hither.”
A while longer, Canute’s keen eyes weighed him; then their sky was
cleared of the last cloud. The best expression of which his brilliant
face was capable was on it as he turned and held out his hand to the
girl beside him.
“Shall we pledge our friendship anew, Frode’s daughter?” was all he
said; but she knew from his look that he had taken her under his shield
for all time to come; and it was something to know, now when her world
seemed falling about her. For an instant, as she yielded her trembling
fingers to his palm, her groping spirit turned and clung to him,
craving his sympathy.
It seemed that he divined the appeal, for with the hand that pressed
hers he drew her forward a step. “Is it not your wish to speak to the
Lord of Ivarsdale yourself and thank him for keeping his troth with
Fridtjof?” he said kindly; and without waiting for an answer, moved
away and joined a group of those who had been his companions before the
interruption.
At last she stood face to face with the man she loved, face to face,
and alone. And still he neither spoke to her nor looked at her! So
strange and terrible was it all that it gave her resolution to speak
and end it. Her Viking blood could not color her cheeks, but her Viking
courage found her a whisper in which to offer her plea for the
“sun-browned boy-bred wench.”
“Lord, it is difficult to know whether or not to expect your
friendship, for—for I have heard what your mind feels toward most
matters—and you see now what I have done—”
Did he wince again? She paused in astonishment. It could not be that he
was surprised,—was it displeasure? Her words came a little more
swiftly, a tremor of passionate pleading thrilling through them.
“You need not think that I did it willingly, lord. Very roughly has
fortune handled me. The reason I first came into camp-life was that I
trusted someone too much, knowing no more of the world than my father’s
house. And after the bonds were laid on me, it was not easy to rule
matters. The helplessness of a woman is before the eyes of all people—”
His words broke through hers: “No more, I beseech you!” His voice was
broken and unsteady as she had never known it. “Who am I that I should
blame you? Do not think me so—so despisable! If unknowingly I have done
you any wrong when I owe you—” He paused and she guessed that it had
swept over him afresh how much he did owe her. Perhaps also how much he
had promised to pay?
“There will be no recompense that you can ask at my hands which I shall
not be glad to give,” he had said; and she had checked him, bidding him
wait to see if he would have more than pity. If he should have no more!
She dared not look at him but she felt that he opened his lips to
speak, then turned away, stifling a groan. It seemed to her that her
breath ceased while she waited, and her hands tightened on the coral
chain so that suddenly it burst and scattered the beads like rosy
symbols of her hopes. If he should have no more!
At last he turned and came a step nearer her, courtly and noble as he
had always been. “I owe to you everything I have, even life itself,” he
said, “and I offer them all in payment of the debt. May I ask the King
to give you to me for my wife?”
In its infinite gentleness, his voice was almost tender. For as long as
the space between one breath and the next, her spirit leaped up and
stretched out its arms to its joy; but she stayed it on the threshold
of utterance to look fearfully into his face, whose every shade was
open to her as the day. Looking into his eyes, she knew that it was no
more than pity. He guessed that she loved him and he pitied her; but he
could not forgive her unmaidenliness, he could not love her.
Slowly and quite easily she felt her heart die in her breast, leaving
only the shell, the husk, of what had been Randalin, Frode’s daughter.
Her first thought Was a vague wonder that after it she could breathe
and move as if she were still alive. Her next, a piteous desire to
escape from him while she had this strength, before the end should
really come. Clutching the broken chain, she drew herself up bravely,
her words coming in uneven breathfuls. “I want not that recompense,
lord. I want—nothing you have to give. Little shall you think of the
debt,—or think that in helping you, I repaid you for your hospitality,
your—”
Her voice broke as the memory of that time passed over her like bitter
waters, and she was obliged to stand silent before him, steadying her
lip with her teeth, until the waters had fallen. She had a faint
consciousness that he was speaking to her, but she did not understand
what he said, she did not care. Her only wish was for words that should
send him away so that she might be free to sink down beside the old
well and press her burning face against its smooth coldness and finish
dying there.
“It was the King who sent for you, that he might know whether I had
spoken the truth concerning my disguise—” she said when at last her
voice returned. “Now, by coming, you have helped me against his
anger,—let that settle all debt between us. I thank you much and—and I
bid you farewell.” Again Elfgiva’s schooling came to her mind and she
swayed before him in a courtesy. She even bent her lips into a little
smile so that he should not be sorry for her and stay to tell her so.
She did not know that her cheeks were as white as her kerchief, that
her eyes were dark wells of unshed tears. She knew only that at last he
was bowing, he was turning, in a moment more he would be gone—But just
short of that point he stopped, and all motion around her appeared to
stop, as a noise down the corridor blotted out every sound in the
garden,—the noise of a great body of people rousing the echoes with
jubilant shouting.
“The King! The King!” could be heard again and again, and after it a
burst of deafening cheers that drowned the rest.
Elfgiva dropped the gilded quoits to wring her hands. “Is it the
English, my lord?” she implored of Eric of Norway. “Is it the English
attacking us? Shall we be killed?”
“Think you that Danes cheer like that when they are expecting death?”
the Norseman reassured her with a hearty laugh. “It is good news,—great
news since the whole mob has thought it safe to bring it. Hark! Can you
hear what it is that they add after the King’s name?”
Listening, everyone stood motionless as the babel came nearer with a
swiftness which spoke much for the speed of the shouters. Only
Randalin’s little red shoe began to tap the earth impatiently. What did
it matter what they said?
“Hail to Canute of Denmark!” “Hail to the King of the Danes and—” Again
cheers drowned the rest.
The pages, who had sped at the first alarm like a covey of gay birds,
came panting back, tumbling over one another in their efforts to impart
the news.
“A messenger!” “A messenger from Oxford—” “From Edric—” “Edmund is—”
“—Edmund—” “A messenger!” one cancelled another in the wild excitement.
Elfgiva caught the nearest and shook him until his teeth chattered; and
in the lull, the swelling shout reached them for the first time
unbroken: “Honor to the King! Hail to the King of the Danes and the
Angles!”
From the Lord of Ivarsdale came a cry, sharp as though a heart-string
had snapped in its utterance, the tie that for generations had bound
those of his blood to the house of Cerdic.
“Edmund?”
The mob of soldiers and servants that burst through the doorway
answered his question with exultant shouts: “Edmund is dead! Edmund is
dead! Long live Canute the King! King of the Danes and the Angles!”
Unbidden, memory raised before Randalin a picture of the English
camp-fire in the glade, with the English King standing in its light and
the hooded figure bending from the shadow behind him, its white taloned
hand resting on his sleeve. An instant she shivered at it; then again
her foot stirred with unendurable restlessness. If he was dead, he was
dead, and there was no more to be said. Was the Etheling always going
to stand as though he were turned to stone? Would he never——
Ah, at last he was moving! As if the news had only just reached home to
him, she saw him draw himself together sharply and stride toward the
door; and she watched feverishly to see if anyone would think to stop
him. One group he passed—and another—and another—now he was on the
threshold. Her pulses leaped as she recognized Rothgar, in the throng
pouring into the garden with the messenger, but quieted again when she
saw that the two passed shoulder to shoulder without a look, without a
thought, for each other. Now he was out of sight.
She let her suspended breath go from her in a long sigh. “It is good
that everyone is too excited to notice what I do,” she said to herself.
And even as she said it she realized that her limbs were shaking under
her, that she was sick unto faintness. “I am going to finish dying now,
and I welcome it,” she murmured. Staggering to a little bench under one
of the old oaks, she sank down upon it and leaned her head against the
tree trunk and waited.