It was a mighty blow, but it fell harmless. A sudden surge in the tide of struggling bodies swept the Ironside out of reach and engulfed him in a whirlpool of Danish swords. He laid about him like mad, and was like to have cleared a passage back, when a second wave carried him completely from view.

Canute cursed at the anxious faces that surrounded him. "What means it, this swaying? What is herding them? Who are flying? Fools! Can you not tell a retreat? Bid the horns blow—"

"The English!" bellowed Rothgar. "The English are flying—Edmund's head! Yonder!"

Frode's daughter had Viking blood, but she hid her face with a cry. There it was, high upon a spear-point, dripping, ghastly. Could the sun shine upon such a thing?

Ay, and men could rejoice at it. Above the panic scream she heard cries of savage joy. But Canute sat motionless, on the new horse they had brought him. "It is not possible," he muttered. "The flight began while he still faced me. It was their crowding that saved him."

To stare before him, Rothgar let the blood pour unheeded from his wounded arm. "Yonder Edmund rides now!" he gasped. "You can tell him by his size—Yonder! Now he is tearing off his helmet—" Nor was he mistaken; within spear-throw the mighty frame of the Ironside towered above his struggling guard. As he bared his head, they could even distinguish his face with its large elegantly-formed features and Ethelred's prominent chin. Brandishing his sword, shouting words of reassurance, exposing his person without a thought of the darts aimed at him, he was making a heroic effort to check the rush of his panic-stricken host. There was no question both that he was alive and that he knew who was belying him; even as they looked he hurled his spear, with a cry of rage, at the form of Edric Jarl.

Missing the Mercian, it struck down a man at his side; and high above the voice of the ill-fated King rose the shrill alarms of the traitor's heralds.

"Fly, ye men of Dorsetshire and Devon! Fly and save yourselves! Here is your Edmund's head!"

Randalin stared about her, doubting her senses. But light had begun to dawn on Canute. He wheeled sharply, as Thorkel pushed his horse to their sides.

"Whose head was that?" he demanded.

Thorkel's face was a lineless mask. "I believe his name was Osmaer," he answered without emotion.

"It was unheard-of good fortune that he should be so like Edmund in looks."

The young King's face was suffused with bitterness. "Good fortune!" he cried sharply. "Good fortune! Am I a fool or a coward that I am never to win except by craft or good fortune? Had you let me alone—" His voice broke, so bitter was his disappointment.

His foster-father regarded him from under lowered lids.

"Would you have won without them to-day?" he inquired.

"Yes!" Canute cried savagely, "had you given me time. Yes!"

But what else he answered, Randalin never knew. Some unseen obstacle turned in their direction the stream of rushing horsemen. In an instant the torrent had caught them in its whirling eddies, and they were so many separate atoms borne along on the flood. To hold back was to be thrown down; to fall was to be trampled into rags. The battle had changed into a hunt.

Thundering hoof-beats, crashing blows, shrieks and groans and falling bodies,—a sense of being caught in a wolf pack took possession of the girl; and the feeling grew with every sidelong glance she had of the savage sweating dust-grimed faces, in their jungles of blood-clotted hair. The battle-madness was upon them, and they were no longer men, but beasts of prey. Amid the chaos of her mind, a new idea shaped itself like a new world. If she could but work her way to the edge of the herd, she might escape down one of those green aisles opening before them. If she only could! Every fibre in her became intent upon it.

A little opening showed on her right. Though she could not see the ground before her, she took the risk and swung her horse into the breach. His forefeet came down upon the body of a fallen man, but it was too late to draw back. Gripping her lip in her teeth, she spurred him on. The man turned over with a yell, and used his one unbroken arm to thrust upward his broken sword. The blade cut her leg to the bone, and she shrieked with the pain; but her startled horse had no thought of stopping. Making his way with plunges and leaps, he carried her out of the press sooner than she could have guided him out. Once on the edge, he broke into a run. The agony of the shaken wound was unbearable. Shrieking and moaning, she twisted her hands in the lines and tried to stop him. But her strength was ebbing from her with her blood. By and by she dropped the rein altogether and clung to the saddle-bow.

They reached the woods at last, cool and sweet and hushed in holy peace. The frantic horse plunged into one of the arching lanes, and the din of the hunt died behind her; silence fell like a curtain at their heels; even the thudding hoof-beats were softened on the leafy ground. Randalin lay along the horse's neck now, and her senses had begun to slip away from her like the tide from the shore. It occurred to her that she was dying, and that the Valkyrias could not find her if she should be carried too far away from the battle-field. Trying to hold them back, she stretched a feeble hand toward the trees; and it seemed to her that they did not glide past quite so rapidly. And the green river that had been rushing toward her, that passed under her more slowly too. Sometimes she could even make out violets amid the waves. But the waves were rising strangely, she thought,—rising, rising—

At last, she felt their cool touch upon her fore-head. They had risen and stopped her. Somewhere, there was the soft thud of a falling body; then the cool greenness closed around her and held her tenderly, a crumpled leaf that the whirlwind had dropped from its sport.



Chapter VIII. Taken Captive



No one turns from good, if it can be got. Ha'vama'l.

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.



Chapter IX. The Young Lord of Ivarsdale

Brand is kindled from brand Till it is burnt out; Fire is kindled from fire; A man gets knowledge By talk with a man, But becomes wilful by self-conceit. Ha'vama'l.

Tap—tap, tap—tap, like dripping water dripping slowly. Drop by drop the sound filtered through the thick wrappings of Randalin's slumber, till she knew it for the beat of horses' hoofs, and stirred and opened her eyes.

The silver shimmer of starlight falling through purple deeps had given way to the ruddy glare of a camp fire, and she was lying just beyond its heat, cloak-wrapped, on a bed of leaves. Above her, interlacing beech boughs made an arching roof, under which the shadows clustered as swallows under eaves. Before her, green tree-lanes opened out like corridors. As far as the fireglow could reach, they were flooded with golden light; where it stopped, they were closed across by darkness as by gray-black doors. Within the sylvan alcove, some four-score battle-stained warriors were taking their ease after a hard day. Some of them were engaged in the ghastly business of bandaging wounds, and some were already asleep; but the greater number lounged in the firelight, drinking and feasting on strips of venison which serfs had cooked in the flames.

Through the fog of her drowsiness Randalin recognized them slowly. Yonder was the Englishman who had found her in the bushes. Beyond him, across the fire, the soldiers who had lifted her up to the horse-man. Here, just in front of her, was the leader himself. Her gaze settled upon him dreamily.

He had finished his meal, if meal it could be called, and was making some attempt at a toilet. While one serf knelt beside him, scrubbing at his muddy riding-boots with a wisp of wet grass, another held a gilt shield up for a mirror, and before this the Etheling was carefully parting his shining hair. His captive's eyes were not the only ones upon him, and the bright metal showed that he was laughing a little at the comments his performance drew forth from the three old cnihts lounging near him.

"Tending by five hairs to the sword-side, Lord Sebert," one of them was offering quizzical criticism over his drinking-horn.

"The Etheling must needs have extraordinary respect for the endurance of Harald Fairhair, for it is said that to accomplish a vow he went three years without barbering himself," another said gravely. While a third became slyly reminiscent, as he chewed his venison.

"These are soft days, comrades. The last time I followed the old chief, of honored memory, we held our war-council standing knee-deep in a fen. We had neither eaten nor drunk for two days, and three days' blood was on our hands."

The young chief took it all with careless good-humor.

"When you leave off eating, in memory of that brave time, I will leave off washing," he returned. "Would you have me go into a royal council looking as though birds had nested in my hair?" With a parting scrutiny of his smooth locks, he motioned the shield-bearer aside and turned back to them his comely face, rosy from his recent ablutions and alight with a momentary enthusiasm.

"I tell you, nothing but a warrior's life becomes ethel-born men," he said as he straightened himself with a gallant gesture. "Nor sluggishness nor junketings, but days under fire and nights among the Wise Men of the council; that, in truth, becomes their station. By Saint Mary, I feel that I have never lived before! One week at the heels of Edmund Ironside is worth a lifetime under the banner of any other king."

A pause met his warmth somewhat coldly; and the warrior who broke the silence lowered his voice to do it.

"Keep in mind, lord, that it is no more than a week that you have been at his heels," he said.

"Likewise bear in mind whose son he is," the man with the drinking-horn added grimly. He was a stout white-bearded old cniht with an obstinate old face that looked something like a ruddy apple in a snow-bank. Flushing, the young noble ceased examining his sword-edge to meet the eyes bent upon him.

"I hope you do not think I stand in need of a rebuke for lukewarmness, Morcard," he said gravely. "I have no more forgot that King Edmund's father gave the order for my father's murder than I have forgot that Edric was the tool who did the deed. May Saint Peter exterminate him with his sword! Did I not live even as a lordless man the while that Ethelred remained upon the throne? But what sense to continue at that after Ethelred was dead, and the valor of his son was to that degree exalted as if he had sprung from Alfred? Yourself counselled me to join him at Gillingham, and take the post under his banner that my fathers have always held beside his fathers."

Two of the three warriors made no other answer than to gurgle their drink noisily in their throats; but the one whom he had called Morcard answered dryly, "It is not against testing the new king that we would advise you, Lord Sebert; it is against trusting him. But we will not be troublesome." He lifted his hand suddenly to his ear. "Horses' feet! And stopping by the King's fire—"

What else he said, Randalin did not hear. Her wits had crawled heavily after the sound of the hoofs. Now the beat changed to a champing and stamping among dry leaves not many rods to her right. She wondered indifferently if there was any likelihood of their running over her; then forgot the query before she had answered it.

The Etheling was speaking again, with all the earnestness of hero-worship. "—the battles he has fought, the abundance of warriors he has gathered together, the land he has won back since his father's death! Only take to-day—"

"Ay, take to-day!" the old man snapped him up with unexpected vehemence. "And the Devil take me if I ever heard of such witless folly! What! To go plunging off into the thick of the enemy, endangering in his person the hope of the whole English nation—"

The young noble relaxed from his earnestness to laugh. "Now has habit outrid your manners, Morcard. So long have you been wont to use your tongue on my heedlessness, that it begins mechanically to perform the same office for Edmund. In a king, such courage inspires—"

"Courage!" Morcard's fingers snapped loudly. "Did not the henchman who followed you have courage? Yet do we think of crowning him? I tell you that a king needs to have something besides courage. He needs to have judgment. Then will he know better than to leave his men like sheep without a leader. The old proverb has it right, 'When the chief fails, the host quails.' It was when they had become frightened about him that they began to give way, and after that it was easy for any oaf to jump out of the bushes and put them to flight."

This time the Etheling's smile was rather unwilling. "Oh! If you think fit to set at naught a brave deed because nothing arose from it! After his father's cowardice, such energy and dauntlessness alone—"

"Dauntlessness!" the old cniht snorted again. "It is the dauntlessness of the man in Father Ingulph's story, who was so much wiser than his advisers that he must try to drive the sun a new way, till it came so nigh as it nighest may to setting the world afire." So hot was his scorn that he was obliged to cool it in his ale, coming to the surface slightly mollified. "However, Lord Sebert, you have cast your colt's-teeth, and I have no desire to tread upon the toes of your dignity. If I have been over-free, excuse it in your father's old servant and comrade who has guarded and guided you since—since you have had teeth to cast."

The young man laughed good-humoredly as he straightened himself for action. "Too often has my dignity bent under your rod, Morcard, to hold itself very stiff against you now. Never fear; I will be an owl of discretion. Give you favorable dreams over your horns!" He picked up his cloak and was turning to depart, when one of the warriors flung up a hand.

"Soft, my lord. Yonder comes Wikel making strange signs to you." All heads but Randalin's turned in the direction he was looking. She was still too lethargic for curiosity; and she found a kind of dreamy content in lying with her eyes upon the Etheling's handsome face. Though its prevailing characteristic was the easy amiability of one who has known little of opposition or dislike, there was no lack of steel in the blue eyes or of iron in the square chin; now and then a spark betrayed them, thrilling pleasantly through her drowsiness.

Presently, however, between her and the comely apparition there intervened the brawny figure of a yeoman-soldier. He said breathlessly, "Chief—before you go to the King—be it known to you that those horse-feet you heard—belong to the mounts of Edric of Mercia and his men—and he is with King Edmund now!"

The three stolid old warriors got to their feet with curses. The Etheling bent forward to gaze incredulously into the man's face.

"Edric of Mercia? With the King? Why do you think so?"

"I was a little way beyond the King's fire, watching a fellow who was showing how he could jump over the flames, when I saw the Gainer ride past; and I followed him, as near as the guards would permit—near enough to see that the King received him—let him settle it with Saint Cuthbert!"

There was a pause of utter stupefaction; then, from all within hearing, a clamorous outburst: "It is the Gainer's luck again!"—"The messenger knew what he was saying!"—"No sharpness of wit can comprehend it!"—"It is the magic of his flattering tongue."—"A hundred tongues had done no harm if Edmund—" The voices sank into a snarling undertone: "Ay, there it is!"—"Ethelred's blood!"—"It is no more to be counted on than is water—" "What could have moved him to it?"

Morcard's throat emitted a sound that might have been a chuckle or might have been a growl. "I will tell you plainly for why; it is his dauntlessness. He is going to pit his green wit against Edric's, that has made two kings as wax between his fingers! And he has begun by letting the wolf into the fold."

It appeared that the Etheling had recovered from his surprise, for now he said steadily, "I will not believe it. Until their oaths have been spoken and their hands have clasped and my own eyes have witnessed it, I will not believe it of him."

Motioning them from his path, he was starting forward a second time, when the old cniht laid a hand lightly upon his shoulder.

"Hear me, Lord Sebert! If then,—to weigh all perils like a soldier,—if then, you do witness it with your own eyes?"

The blue gave out a flash of smitten steel.

Morcard answered as to words: "You will be one against many, lord."

"You cannot mean that the Witan will comply with him!" the Etheling cried.

"How is it possible that they should do otherwise? The odal-born men could not prevent it when Ethelred took Alfric back. And to-night, few but thanes have resorted thither—men whom the Redeless took from ploughing his fields to gild with nobility. Is it likely that they will oppose the hand that can strip off their gilding?"

It appeared that the young man could find no answer to that, for he made none. "At least once, my lord, Ethelred's wilfulness has shown in his son, when he set aside the King's command to take possession of Sigeferth's widow and her estates. And I think it was Ethelred's temper that moved him to spend an energy, much better directed against the Pagans, in laying waste two of his own shires. Remember what happened when your father raised himself against Ethelred."

Restive under the restraining hand, the young noble faced him desperately. "Morcard, in God's name, what would you have me do? I will not bend to it, nor would you wish me to. Or sooner or later—"

"Let it be later, lord. After you have had time to marshal your wits, and when it is daylight, and you have your men at your back."

After a while, the Etheling yielded and turned aside. "Let it be as you have said—though I cannot believe yet that it will happen." Coming back where a fallen tree made a mossy seat, he dropped down upon it and sat staring at the ground in frowning abstraction.

The motion dropped him out of the range of Randalin's vision, and her eyes wandered away discontentedly. If there was nothing more to look at, she might as well go to sleep. The fire was dying down so that the overhanging shadow was drooping lower, like a canopy that would fall and smother them when the spears of light that upheld it should sink at last in the ashes. The doors of darkness had moved far up the tree-corridors, and strange flickering shapes peered through. Her eyes followed them heavily. The forest was very still now; even the grating sound of the frogs was hushed, and the low hum of the voices around the fire was soothing as the sound of swarming bees.

She was just losing consciousness when the figure of a second yeoman-soldier moved across her vision, looming black against the fireglow. His whisper came sharply to her ears. "It is done, chief. May they have the wrath of the Almighty! Their hands have met, Edric's and the King's, and his thanes' and Norman of Baddeby's, who is with Edric. Now are they lying down in their man-ties, as it were to seal their pledge by sleeping within reach of each other's knives."

"Norman of Baddeby!" the name leaped out of the rest to bite at her like a dog, worrying deeper and deeper through the wrappings of her stupor. Her eyes widened in troubled questioning. She heard the angry voices rise, and she saw the Etheling leap to his feet and shake his clenched hand above his head. Then she lost sight of everything, for the fang had pierced her torpor and touched her.

"Norman of Baddeby"—her father's slayer! Memory entered like poison to spread burning through every vein. Her father—Fridtjof—the Jotun—the battle—Her ears were dinned with terrible noises; her eyes were seared by terrible pictures. She crushed her hands against her head, but the sound came from within and would not be stilled. She buried her face in the leaves, but the visions pressed faster before her. The son of Leofwine and the drunken feast—the girl outside the tent—the Jotun within it—her terrible young guardian—the battle-madness—whichever way she looked, a new spectre confronted her. Helpless in their grip, she tossed to and fro in agony—to and fro.

Though it was so tortured that she could not tell it from her waking thoughts, sleep must have come to her; for when at last she reached the point where she could endure it no longer and struggled up, panting, to her elbow, to try to recall herself by a sight of those about her, she found that the hum of excited voices was stilled, and the silence throbbed with the deep breathing of sleepers. From under the canopy of darkness the fiery spears had dropped away, leaving the thick folds sagging lower and lower. Swarming under its shelter, the shadow-shapes were closing in upon her.

For a while she watched them absently; then a whim of her tortured brain poisoned them also. They became terrible nameless Things, mouthing at her, darting upon her. She drew her eyes resolutely away and set herself to listening to the breathing that throbbed in a dozen keys through the silence.

Almost at her feet, the Etheling was stretched out in his cloak, motionless as the fallen tree. Her face was slowly relaxing when, a second time, memory betrayed her. Just so, she recollected, Leofwine's son was lying, not a hundred yards away. Through the trees, the glow of the King's fire came distinctly; gazing toward it, she could almost convince herself that she could see the murderer, peaceful, secure. She ground her teeth in a sudden spasm of rage. Would that some of those weak-witted thanes would prove the mettle of the knives he was daring!

The next instant, she had thrown herself down with terror-widened eyes, and was trying to bury her face in the leaves, while the tongueless mouth of every shadowy shape seemed to shriek above her,—

"Odin sends you revenge!"—"It is the will of Odin that has drawn you together!"—"Strange and wonderful is the way in which you are hesitating!"—"Would you become like the girl with the necklace?"—"Are you a coward, that you do not prefer to die in good repute rather than live in the shame of neglecting your duty?"

She flung up her haggard face in appeal. "No, no, I am not a coward," her spirit cried within her. "I was brave in the battle. It is not death I fear; but I cannot kill! Odin, have mercy on me! I cannot kill. I have tried to be brave, but I am really a woman; it is not possible for me to have a man's heart."

The grinning shadows mouthed at her. "You have not dared to be a woman," they mocked. "You have not dared to be a woman, so you must dare to be a man."

A night wind shuddered through the trees, and the hovering shades seemed to hiss in her ear. "Coward! Traitor! Nithing! Do you not get afraid that you will experience the wrath of the dead? Listen! Is that the wind rustling the leaves? Or is it—"

A gasp burst from the white lips, and the die was cast. While the cold drops started on her pain-racked body, she dragged herself to her knees and fumbled with trembling hands about her belt. For an instant, something like a moonbeam glimmered amid the shadow; then her lips closed convulsively upon the steel. Tipping forward upon her hands, she tested cautiously the strength of her wounded leg, smothering groans of pain that seemed to tear her throat in the swallowing. But the whispering of the night-wind was like a spur in her side; inch by inch, she crawled steadily toward the flickering light.



Chapter X. As The Norns Decree



This I thee counsel tenthly; That thou never trust A foe's kinsman's promises, Whose brother thou hast slain, Or sire laid low; There is a wolf In a young son, Though he with gold be gladdened. Sigrdri'fuma'l.

It was a long way to the King's fire, but at last it lay before her; before and below her, for it had been built in a depression of the little open. The last charred log had fallen apart, spreading a swarm of golden glow-worms over the black earth, there was still enough light to reveal a ring of muffled forms sprawling around the sloping sides of the hollow, with their feet toward the fire and their heads lost in darkness. Pausing in the tree-shadow, the girl thrilled with sudden hope. Since their faces were all hidden, how was she to distinguish her victim? Even the dead must see that it would be impossible. If the burden could only be lifted from her!

Fate was inexorable. At that moment, the warrior directly in front of her stirred in his sleep and flung a jewelled hand over his face. Those broad gold rings with the green stones that sparkled like serpents' eyes as they caught the light! They were fixed indelibly in her memory, for she had seen them on the rapacious hand that had seized upon her while it was still red with her father's blood. Only from them, she could reconstruct every hard line of the hidden face. Suddenly, in the rage that rose in her at the recollection, she found determination for the deed.

The sentinel nearest her was snoring at his post; the further one would not be able to reach her in time, even should he see her. Somewhere, far away, a cock was crowing; and it came to her suddenly that the breathlessness about her was the hush that precedes the dawn. There was no time to lose, she told herself feverishly, and moved forward with snake-like stillness. Between the sheltering arm and the neck of the steel shirt there was a space of naked throat. Setting her teeth, she raised her knife and struck down at it with a strong hand.

The point never reached its mark. For an instant she could not tell what had happened. Fingers closed like iron bands around her wrist, pulling her backwards so that the pain of her twisted wound wrung a cry from her lips. They were not Norman's fingers, yet he also was stirring; while darting flashes from the dusk about them told that the other sleepers were drawing their weapons. Then some one threw a branch-ful of dead leaves upon the fire.

The flame that flared up showed her arm to be in the grasp of the Lord of Ivarsdale.

"You mad young one!" he gasped, as he wrenched the blade from her hold.

Voices rose in angry questioning, but Randalin was too fear-benumbed to understand what they said. Norman's keen eyes were turned upon her, and recognition was dawning in their gaze.

Suddenly, he snatched her from Sebert's grasp and held her down to the firelight. Could she have seen the mask which dust and blood had made for her, she would have been spared the terror-swoon that left her limp in his grasp. But it only bewildered her when, after an instant's scrutiny, he let her fall with an angry laugh.

"The boy from Avalcomb! Certainly these Danes are as hard to kill as cats! I would have sworn to it that I had separated his life from his body not eight-and-forty hours ago." A gleam of eagerness came into his face, and he bent over her again. "You shall serve my purpose by your obstinacy," he said under his breath. "You shall tell me where your sister is. You know, for you escaped together. When I was restored to my senses, I found you both gone. Tell me where she lies hidden, and it may be that I will grant to you a longer life."

Her stiff lips could not have spoken an answer had her paralyzed brain been able to frame one. She could only gaze back at him in helpless waiting. A second time he was bending toward her, when something stopped him midway so that he straightened and drew back with a bow. It came to her suddenly that they were all bowing, and that the hubbub had died in mid-air. Through the hush, a quiet voice spoke.

"You are eager in rising, my lords," it said. From the shelter, half cave, half bower, which had been contrived amid the bushes, a warrior of mighty frame had emerged and stood examining the scene. Though with soldierly hardiness he had taken his rest in his war-harness, he was unhelmed, and the light that revealed the protruding chin had no need to pick out the jewelled diadem to mark him as Edmund Ironside. The irregularity was very slight—not large enough to give him a combative look or to mar the fine proportions of his face, but it did unquestionably add to his stately bearing an expression of complacency that was unforgettable.

He repeated his inquiry: "What is the amusement, my thanes? From the clamor which awakened me, I had some notion of an attack."

Norman of Baddeby bent in a second reverence. "Your expectations are to this degree fulfilled, my royal lord," he made answer. "Behold the enemy!" Stooping, he raised the red-cloaked figure by its collar and held it up in the firelight. As a murmur of laughter went around, he lowered it again and spoke more gravely. "A hand needs not be large to get a hilt under its gripe, however. The young wolf is of northern breed,—how he penetrated to the heart of an English camp, I cannot tell,—and there grows in his spirit a bloodthirsty disposition. He seeks my life because in a skirmish, a few days gone by, I had the good luck to kill his father. If it—"

He said more, but Randalin did not listen to him. All at once Sebert of Ivarsdale reached out, and taking her by her cloak, drew her gently to his side, interposing his sword-arm between her and the others. Though his hand manacled her slim wrists securely, the clasp was more one of protection than of restraint; and the warm human touch was like a talisman against the haunting shadows. Suddenly it came over her, in a burst of heavenly relief, that this hand had lifted the burden of vengeance forever. Even Fridtjof could not be so unreasonable as to ask more of her, so plainly was it Odin's will that justice should be left for Canute. She had done her duty, and yet she was free of it free of it! Her heart burst out singing within her, and the eyes she raised toward her captor were adoring in their gratitude.

The look she met in return was the same look of mingled strength and gentleness which had come through the starlight to answer her question. Once again that calm of weary trustfulness settled over her. Since he had saved her from the dead, she had no doubt whatever of his ability to save her from the living. Her head drooped against his arm, and her hands, ceasing their struggles, rested in his grasp like folded wings.

It had not taken a moment; the instant Norman finished his explanation, the Etheling was speaking quietly: "As the Lord of Baddeby says, King Edmund, it was I who stayed the boy's hand, and it was I also who fetched him into camp. I found him after the battle, bleeding his life out in the bushes, and I brought him in my arms, like a kitten, and dropped him down by my fire. Waking in the night and missing him, I traced him hither. As I have had all to do with him in the past, so, if you will grant that I may keep him, will I take his future upon me. With your consent, I will attend to it that he does no more mischief."

A momentary cordiality came into the King's manner; as though recognizing it for the first time, he turned to the figure across the fire with a courteous gesture. "My lord of Ivarsdale! I am much beholden to you. Had any chance wrought evil to the Lord of Baddeby while under my safeguard, my honor would have been as deeply wounded as my feelings."

As he bowed in acknowledgment, some embarrassment was visible in Sebert's manner; but he was spared a reply, for after a moment's rubbing of his chin, the King continued,—

"As regards the boy, however, there is something besides his knife to be taken into consideration. I think we run more risk from his tongue."

The words of the Earl's thane fairly grazed the heels of the King's words: "The imp can do no otherwise than harm, my sovereign. Should he bring his tongue to Danish ears, he could cause the utmost evil. For the safety of the Earl of Mercia,—ay, for your own need,—I entreat you to deliver the boy up to my keeping."

"I am no less able than the Lord of Baddeby to restrain him," the Etheling said with some warmth. "If it be your pleasure, King Edmund, I will keep him under my hand until the end of the war, and answer for his silence with my life."

Then Norman's eagerness got the better of his discretion.

"Now, by Saint Dunstan," he cried, "you take too much upon you, Lord of Ivarsdale! The boy's life is forfeit to me, against whom his crime was directed." A grim look squared his mouth as suddenly he stretched his hand past Sebert and caught the red cloak.

It may have been this which the Etheling had foreseen, for he was not taken by surprise. Jerking up his sword-arm, he knocked the thane's hand loose with scant ceremony. "You forget the law of the battle-field, Norman of Baddeby," he said swiftly. "The life of my captive is mine, and I am the last man to permit it to be taken because he sought a just revenge. I know too well how it feels to hate a father's murderer." He shot a baleful glance toward a half-seen figure that all this time had stood motionless in the shadow behind the King.

Probably this figure and the Earl's thane were the only hearers he was conscious of, but his tone left the words open to all ears. There was a sudden indrawing of many breaths, followed by a frightened silence. The only sound that disturbed it was a growing rustle in the bush around them, which was explained when the old cniht Morcard and some two-score armed henchmen and yeoman-soldiers, singly and in groups, filtered quietly through the shadows and placed themselves at their chief's back.

But though the King's brows had met for an instant in a lowering arch, some second thought controlled him. When he spoke, his words were even gracious:

"I think the Lord of Ivarsdale has the right of it. The crime the boy purposed was not carried out; and in each case, Lord Sebert was his captor. I am content to trust to his wardership."

Sebert's frank face betrayed his surprise at the complaisance, but he gave his pledge and his thanks with what courtliness he could muster, and releasing his passive prisoner, pushed her gently into the safe-keeping of the old cniht. Yet he was not so obtuse as to step back, as though the incident were closed; he read the King's inflection more correctly than that. Holding himself somewhat stiff in the tenseness of his feelings, he stood his ground in silent alertness.

A rustle of uneasiness crept the round of the assembled nobles. Only the monarch's bland composure remained unruffled. Advancing with the deliberate grace that so well became his mighty person, he seated himself upon a convenient boulder and signed the figure in the shadow to draw nearer.

As it obeyed, every one of the yeomen-soldiers strained his eyes in that direction, as though hoping to surprise in the great traitor's face some secret of his power, the power that had made three kings as wax between his fingers! But just short of the fire-glow the Gainer paused, and the hooded cloak which shrouded him merged him hopelessly into the shadow. Only the hand that rested on his sword-hilt protruded into the light. It was a broad hand, and thick-fingered as a butcher's, but it was milk-white and weighted with massive rings.

Meanwhile, the King was speaking affably: "As you did not favor us with your presence among the Wise Men, my lord, it is likely that you do not know of the good luck which has befallen our cause. This prudent Earl, who before the battle had concluded with himself that England had so little to hope for from our reign that he was willing to throw his weight against us, has found his victory so without relish that he has become our sworn ally."

As he paused,—perhaps to leave space for an answer,—the complacency of his face was heightened by a smile, faintly shrewd, touching the corners of his mouth. But when Sebert limited his reply to a respectful inclination of his head, the smile vanished abruptly. Under the affability there became evident a certain stern insistence.

"In former days, I think there was some hostile temper between the Earl and you. But I expect you will see that under the stress of a foreign war all lesser strife must give way. So I desire that you will repeat in my presence the troth already plighted by these others."

He made a slight gesture, and the Gainer took a step forward. The light that fell back from his hooded face played curiously about his jewelled hand; as it rose from the gilded hilt, it could be seen that to remedy the bluntness of the thick fingers the nails had been allowed to grow very long, which gave it now, in its half-curve, the look of a claw, upon which the red gems shone like blood-drops.

Hesitating, the Etheling went from red to white. Then, with a swift motion, he unsheathed his sword and stretched it out, point-foremost.

"King Edmund," he said, "in no other way does my hand go forth toward a traitor."

This time there was no sound of breaths drawn in; it was as though the whole world had ceased breathing. The sternness that had underlain the King's manner rose slowly and spread over the whole surface of his person, as he drew himself up in towering offence.

"Lord of Ivarsdale, bethink yourself to whom you speak!"

He was royally imposing in his displeasure; the Etheling flushed like a boy before his master; but he had his answer ready, and his head was steadily erect as he gave it.

"King of the Angles, the right of open speech has belonged to my race as long as the right to the crown has belonged to yours. So my father's fathers spoke to yours under the council-tree, and so I shall speak to you while I live."

Back in the shadow, each yeoman laid one hand upon his weapon, and with the other, thrust an exulting thumb into his neighbor's ribs. But they did not turn to look at each other; every eye was fastened upon the two by the fire. Freeman and his leader, or feudal lord and his dependant? For the moment they stood forth as representatives of a mighty conflict, and every breath hung upon their motions.

After a time the King made a slight movement with his shoulders.

"I should have remembered," he said, "that your father was ruined by rebellion."

In a flash the rebel's son had forgotten boyish embarrassment. "Whoso told you that, royal lord, told you lies. My father stood upon his right. Steel to turn against the Danes, Ethelred had a right to require; and steel my father was ready to pay. But Ethelred demanded gold, and the Lord of Ivarsdale would not stoop to bribe. Nor has it been proven that his policy was wrong," he added under his breath.

Then there was no longer any doubt concerning the position of Ethelred's son. He said with deliberate emphasis, "The only policy which concerns those of your station is obedience."

If there was enough of the old free blood left in the King's thanes to redden their cheeks, that was all there was. But while they stood in silence, a mutter ran like a growl through the ranks of yeomen; the gaze they bent upon their leader had in it almost the force of a command.

He was young, their chief, too young for impassivity. Despite himself, his hands trembled with excitement. But there was no tremor in his words.

"We of Ivarsdale do not profess such obedience, King Edmund. That is for thanes and for the unfree, who owe their all to your generosity. Our land we hold as our fathers held it—from God's bounty and the might of our swords. When we have paid the three taxes of fort-building and bridge-building and field-service, we have paid all that we owe to the State."

At last they stood defined, the first of the feudal lords and the last of the odal-born men. Even through the King's loftiness it was suddenly borne in that, behind the insignificance of the revolt, loomed a mighty principle, mighty enough to merit force. For the first time he stooped to a threat, though still it was tinged with scorn.

"I observe that the men of your race have not been of great importance in the land. It appears that Ethelred was able to do without the rebel Lord of Ivarsdale."

"I admit that he was able to lose his crown without him," the rebel's son retorted swiftly.

The King's wounded dignity bled in his cheeks; he was stung into a movement that brought him to his feet.

"This is insufferable!" he cried. It was evident that the crisis had come. While the Etheling faced him with a defiance that in its utter abandon was a little mad, a sensation as of bracing muscles and setting teeth went around the group. Several of the thanes laid their hands upon their swords. And the half-dozen ealdormen present bent toward one another in hasty consultation. At an almost imperceptible sign from the old cniht, the henchmen made a noiseless step nearer their master. There were not more than a dozen of them, but behind them loomed some two-score yeomen-soldiers, with a score more in the brush at their back; and the faces of all told more plainly than words what it would mean to attack them.

But the blood of Cerdic, once fired, burned too rapidly for policy. Edmund's jaw was set in savage menace as he turned and beckoned to his guard. Had he spoken the words on his lips, there is little doubt what his order would have been.

Interruption came from an unexpected quarter. Even as his lips were opening, that white taloned hand reached out of the shadow and touched his arm.

"Most royal lord! If it may be permitted me?" Earl Edric said swiftly.

His voice was very low, and every roughness had been filed away until it flowed like oil. Upon the King's wounded temper it appeared to fall as softly as drops of healing balm. With his mouth still set, he paused and bent his ear. There was a murmur of whispered words.

What they were no one ever knew, and each man had a different theory; but their result was plain to all. Slowly Edmund's knitted brows unravelled; slowly his mouth relaxed into its wonted curves. At last he had regained all his lofty composure and turned back.

"Lord of Ivarsdale, I am not rich of time, and my present need is too great to spare any of it to the chastising of rebellious boys. Go back to your toy kingdom, and lord it over your serfs until I find leisure to teach you who is master." Making a disdainful gesture of dismissal, he turned with deliberate grace and entered into conversation with the Mercian.

At the moment, it is likely that the young noble would have preferred arrest. The utter scorn of word and act lashed the blood to his cheeks and the tears to his eyes. With boyish passion, he snatched the sword from its sheath, and breaking it in pieces across his knee, flung the fragments clinking into the dead embers.

But if he had hoped to provoke an answer, it was in vain; the King deigned him no further notice. Resuming his seat, Edmund continued to talk quietly with the Earl, a half-smile playing about his complacent chin.

The old cniht bent forward and whispered in his chief's ear: "Make haste, Lord Sebert; they will be cheering in a moment, the churls; so pleased are they at the thought of going home. Hasten with your retiring."

It was a clever appeal. Forgetting, for the moment, humiliation in responsibility, the young leader whirled to his men. A gesture, a muttered order, and they were drawing back among the trees in silent retreat. A few steps more, and the bushes had blotted out the Ironside and his thanes.



Chapter XI. When My Lord Comes Home From War

One's own house is best, Small though it be; At home is every one his own master. Bleeding at heart is he Who has to ask For food at every mealtide. Ha'vama'l.

Slowly the bleak light warmed into golden radiance and the touch of dawn strung the scattered bird-notes into a chain of joyous song. Passing at last from the forest shades, the men of Ivarsdale came out into the grassy lane-like road that wound away over the Middlesex hills.

The Destroyer had not passed this way, it seemed, for the oat-fields stretched before them in unbroken silvery sheen; and the straight young corn dared to rustle its green ribbons boastfully. Fowls still uncaptured crowed lustily in adjacent barnyards; and now and again, sweet as echoes from elfin horns, came the tinkling music of cow-bells. Here and there, the little shock-headed boys who were driving their charges afield paused knee-deep in rosy clover to watch the band ride by.

"Yon must be a mighty warrior," they whispered as they stared at the sober young leader. "Take notice how his eyes gaze straight ahead, as though he were seeking more people to overcome." And they spoke enviously of the red-cloaked page who sat on the croup of the leader's white charger.

"See the sword he wears in his gay clothes. Likely he also has been in battle. He must needs be happy who can strike out into the world like that." Envying, they gazed after him until the horses' hoofs threw up a yellow wall between.

They would have opened their wide mouths wider had they known that the red-cloaked page was looking wistfully at them and their kine and the nodding clover.

"It must be very enjoyable to wander all day in the peace of the meadows and hear nothing louder than cow-bells," she was thinking. "It is good to see creatures that no man is stabbing or doing harm to."

Through warm sunshine, tempered by fresh breezes, they came yet deeper into the drowsy farmland. Gradually the yeomen-soldiers, who had been wrangling over the mystery of Edric's actions, dropped one by one into lazy silence, or set their tongues to whistling cleverly turned answers to the bird-calls in the hedges. Another mile, and from somewhere in the fields came the swinging chant of a ploughman, as he turned the soil between the rows of rustling corn,—

"Hail, Mother Earth, thou feeder of folk! Be thou growing, by goodness of God, Filled with fodder, the folk to feed."

Like the unbinding of a spell, the words fell upon the farmer-soldiers. Dropping every other topic, they began to argue over the crops; and after that they could not pass a harmless calf tethered to a crab-tree that they did not quarrel over the breed, nor start a drove of grunting swine out of the mast but they must lay wagers on the weight.

Running wild in the animation, it was not long before the clamor caught up with the Etheling where he rode before them in sober reflection. He smiled faintly as he caught the burden of the disjointed phrases.

"...Twelve stone; I will peril my head upon it!"... "Yorkshire, I tell you, Yorkshire."... "A fortnight? It will be ready in a week, or I have never grown barley corn!"

"I do not believe that a tree-toad can change color more easily," he observed to the old cniht who rode at his side. "That Englishmen are not stout fighters, no man can say, but the love of it is not in their breasts; while with Northmen—"

"With Northmen," Morcard added, "to fight is to eat."

Another faint smile touched Sebert's mouth as he glanced over his shoulder at the red-cloaked boy. "After seeing this sprout, that is easy to believe. Except that time alone when a two-year-old colt kicked me on the head, I have never had my life threatened by so young a thing."

He grew grave again as his glance rested on his captive. "I want you to tell me something," he said presently. "You were Canute's page; I saw that you accompanied him in battle. I want you to tell me what he is like in his temper."

"It would be more easy to tell you what he is unlike," Randalin answered slowly; "for in no way whatever is he like your King Edmund." She sat awhile in silence, her eyes absently following the course of the wind over a slope of bending grain. At the foot, it caught a clump of willow-trees so that they flashed with hidden silver and tossed their slender arms like dancers. "I think this is the difference, to tell it shortly," she said at last; "while it sometimes happens that Canute is driven by necessity or evil counsels to act deceitfully toward others, he is always honest in his own mind; while your Edmund,—I think he lies to himself also."

Morcard gave out a dry chuckle. "By Saint Cuthbert," he muttered, "too much has not been told concerning the sharpness of children!"

But the Etheling made no answer whatever. After he had ridden a long time staring away across the fields, he met the old man's eyes gravely.

"It is not alone because I am sore under his tongue, Morcard. Were he what I had thought him, I would remain quiet under harder words. But he is not worth enduring from; there is not enough good in him to outweigh the evil."

Old Morcard said thoughtfully: "The tree of Cerdic has borne many nuts with prickly rinds in former times, but there has been wont to be good meat inside. Since Ethelred, I have been in fear that the tree is dying at the root."

They swung over another piece of the road in silence, when the young man started up and shook himself impatiently. "Wel-a-way! What use to think of it? For the present, at least, I am a lordless man. Let us speak of the defences we must begin to raise against Edmund's coming."

While they discussed watch-towers and barriers, the horses took them along at a swinging pace. The heath-clad upland over which they were passing sloped into another fertile valley, through which a lily-padded stream ran between rows of drooping willows. Suddenly the Lord of Ivarsdale broke off with an exclamation.

"It was not in my mind that we could see the old forked elm from here. Hey, comrades!" he called over his shoulder. "Yonder—to the left—the old land-mark! Do you see?" His glance, as it came back, took in his captive. "The first bar of your cage, my hawk. Yonder is the first boundary of Ivarsdale."

Every man started up in his saddle, and the cheers they had held back upon leaving camp burst forth now with added zest. Peering over her captor's shoulder, Randalin looked forward anxiously.

Below the plain in whose centre the old elm held up its blasted top to be silvered by the sun, the land dipped abruptly toward the river, to rise beyond in a long low hill. Rolling green meadows lay at its foot, and warm brown fields dotted with thatched farm-houses; and its sides were checkered with patches of woodland and stretches of golden barley. Just below the crest, the tower of the Lords of Ivarsdale reared its gray walls above the surrounding greenery. Far away, a speck through the dark foliage, the great London road gleamed white; but wooded hills made a sheltering hedge between, and all around spread the great beech forest that fostered the markmen's herds. It was a kingdom to itself, with the light slanting warmly upon its fertile slopes and the forest standing like a strong army at its back.

Because it was so peacefully lovely, and because of her utter weariness, tears welled up under the girl's heavy lids as she looked. She said unsteadily, "Saw I never a fairer cage, lord."

But the Etheling's eager glance had travelled on; for the first time the sun was shining out brightly in his face.

"The sight has more cheer than has wine," he said. "I cannot comprehend my folly in wanting to leave it. To live one's own master on one's own land, that is the only life!" He looked back at the yeomen with a sudden smile. "Noise!" he ordered. "Cheer again! it expresses the state of my feelings. And let your horn sound merrily, Kendred, that they may know we are coming."

Amid a joyous tumult, they swept over the terrace-like plain and broke ranks around the old elm. Evidently it was the disbanding place, for the yeomen-soldiers, one and all, came crowding around their leader to press his hand and speak a parting word.

"You have fought with the sword of your tongue, chief!"... "as worthy a battle as when you strove against the Danes!"... "The spirit of the old days is not dead while you are alive, Oswald's son."... "None now are born thereto save you alone!"... "Till that time when you send for us, my chief."... "One eye on our ploughs and one watching for your messenger."... "God keep you in safety, young lord!"

In the meadows beyond the stream, little shepherd boys had heard the horn and were swarming, spider-like, over the hedges, sending up shrill shouts. And now women came running across the fields from the farmhouses, waving their aprons. More children raced behind them; and then a dozen old men, limping and hobbling on crutches and canes. A moment, and they were all over the foot-bridge and up the slope; and the sweet clamor of greetings was added to the tumult. Now it was a crowd of little brothers throwing themselves upon a big one; now a blooming lass flinging her arms around her sweetheart's neck; and again, a farmer's little daughter leaping joyously into her father's embrace.

In the midst of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale looked around and found that Fridtjof the page was crying as though his heart would break.

"How! Tears, my Beowulf!" he said in amazement.

She was far beyond words, the girl in the page's dress; she could only bury her face deeper in her slender hands and try to control the sobs that shook her from head to foot.

But it was not long before the young man's kind-ness divined the source of her pain. He spoke a quick word to those behind, and waving aside those before, touched spur to the white horse. In a moment, the good steed had borne them out of the crowd and down the slope, followed only by the old cnihts and the dozen armed retainers.

As the hoofs rang hollow on the little bridge that spanned the stream, the Etheling spoke again in his voice of careless gentleness. "It is easy to enter into the sorrowfulness of your heart, youngling, and I think it no dishonor to your courage that you should mourn your kin with tears; yet I pray you to lay aside as much grief as you can. Bear in mind that no dungeon is gaping for you."

She could not speak to him yet, but when he put his hand back to feel of a strap, she bent and touched the brown fingers gratefully with her lips. The answer seemed to renew his kindly impulse.

"After all, you should not feel so strange among us," he said lightly. "Do you know that it was one of your own countrymen who built the Tower? Ivar Wide-Fathomer he was named, whence it is still called Ivarsdale. He was of the stock of Lodbrok, they say; and it is said, too, that one of his race is even now with Canute. Since Alfred, my fathers have had possession of it, but it is Danish-built, every stone. You must make believe that you are coming home." So he spun on, carelessly good-humored, as they climbed the wind-ing hill-path.

Across the ditch and through the wide-open gate in the moss-grown palisade, and they came into a broad grassy space that was more like a lawn than a court. Ahead of them rose the massive three-storied tower, built of mighty gray stones without softening wings or adorning spires, beautiful only in its mantling ivy. From the great door in its side a crowd of serfs came running, ducking grinning salutations; and they were followed by a half-dozen old warriors. Seized by a boyish whim, their master rode past them with no more than a wave of his hand.

"If we make haste, it may be that we can take Hildelitha and Father Ingulph by surprise," he laughed, leaping down on the crumbling doorstep and pulling his captive with him.

In the tunnel-like arch of the great entrance they met another throng, but he shook them off with good-natured impatience and hurried through the great guard-room to the winding stairs, that were cut out of the core of the massive stones. Up and across another mighty hall, and then up again, and into a great women's-room, full of looms and spinning-wheels, where a buxom English housewife and half-a-dozen red-cheeked maids were gaping over their distaffs at the tale a jolly old monk was telling between swallows of wine.

He choked in his cup when he saw who stood laughing in the doorway, and there was a great screaming and scrambling among his audience. Knocking over her spinning-wheel to get to him, the woman Hildelitha threw her arms around her young lord's neck and gave him a hearty smack on either cheek; while the fat monk sputtered blessings between his paroxysms of coughing, and the six blooming girls made a screaming circle around them.

Though he endured it amiably enough, the Etheling appeared in some haste to offer a diversion. He evaded a second embrace by turning and beckoning to his shrinking captive.

"Save a little of your greeting for my guest, good nurse. Behold the fire-eating Dane that I have captured with my own right arm!" As the red-cloaked figure still hung back, he pulled it gently forward until the light of the notched candles fell brightly on the face, pitifully white for all its blood-stains, in the frame of tumbled black tresses.

"A Dane?" the women cried shrilly; then, with equal unanimity, burst out laughing. Randalin drew a little nearer the Etheling's sheltering side. He said half reprovingly, half freakishly, "It would not be well for you to anger him. He is the page of Canute himself, a real Wandering Wolf, and recks not whom he attacks. He came near to spitting Oslac at the battle, and even threatened me."

"Oslac!" screamed one of the serving-maids, turning very red. "The murderous little fiend!"

"He deserves to have his neck wrung!" two more cried out.

And Father Ingulph cleared his throat loudly. "Well-fitting is your charity both toward my teachings and your heart, my son; and yet—Discretion is the mother of other virtues. To bring one of those roving children of Satan into a Christian household will lay upon me a responsibility which—which—" He paused to take a mouthful of wine and eye the stranger over the goblet rim with much disfavor.

While the maids whispered excitedly in one another's ears, Hildelitha began to sniff behind her apron. "I do not see why you wanted to bring him home, Lord Sebert. You know that Danes are odious to me since my husband, of holy memory, fell under their axes—most detestable—Yet I would not anger you, my honey-sweet lord," she broke off abruptly.

For the Lord of Ivarsdale had suddenly grown very stiff and grave; there was something curiously haughty in the quiet distinctness of his words.

"I have brought the boy home by reason of the King's command that he be held in safety—and because it was my pleasure to succor him. And I have fetched him up here in order that you should supply his needs, being distressed for want of food and drink and healing salves. I am not pleased that you should meet my wishes in so light and cold a manner. I desire your love will, as is becoming, receive him kindly and charitably."

He raised his hand as the pertest of the maids would have answered him, and there followed an uncomfortable pause. Then seven gowns swept the reed-strewn floor as seven courtesies fell, and Hildelitha thrust out her palm to give the pert maid a resounding box on the ear.

"You have heard your master, hussy! Why do you not exert yourself to bring food? Elswitha, if you do not want the mate to that, fetch the salve out of my chest."

In an instant all was confusion; under cover of it the fat monk returned to his cup and the young master walked quietly to the door.

Homesick and heartsick, the waif in the page's dress was left facing the unfriendly glances. Even in her bravest days, she had never known what it was to be disliked, and now—! Suddenly she limped after her friend and caught at his cloak.

"Let me go with you," she cried. "I beseech it of you! I want not their service."

After a moment, the Etheling threw his arm protectingly around the boyish figure.

"I do not blame you, poor youngling," he said. "I was wrong to treat you as a child when you were bred up as a man. You shall have a bed in the closet off my chamber, and they shall not enter except as you will it. And you shall eat off my plate and drink from my cup. Come!"



Chapter XII. The Foreign Page



Early should rise He who has few workers, And go his work to see to; Greatly is he retarded Who sleeps the morn away; Wealth half depends on energy. Ha'vama'l.

It was August, when Mother Earth had nearly completed her task of providing for her children, and the excitement of a mighty work drawing to its close was in the air; when the sun-warmed stillness was a-quiver with the of growing things coming to their strength, and every cloudless day held in its golden heart a song of exultation. The grassy space around the Tower, which was wont to be thronged with joyous idlers, was to-day almost deserted. A single groom lounged in the shade of the wide-spreading trees as he kept a lazy eye on the croppings of two saddled horses, and an endless chain of fagot-laden serfs plodded joylessly across the open. On one side of the great entrance arch a half-dozen of the manor poor gabbled and basked in the sun while they waited to receive their daily dole of food; on the other, a dark-locked foreign page sat on the mossy step abiding the coming of his master.

Leaning back with one arm bent carelessly behind his head and one hand caressing a shaggy hound that pressed against his knee, the boy's far-away gaze was designed to intimate his haughty oblivion to the castle-world in general and the movements of the almsfolk in particular. Seeing which, the people on the other side of the step had laid aside any reserve they might have felt and were indulging their curiosity with cheerful freedom.

"Six weeks he has been here, and this is the first good look I have had at him," the buzzing whispers ran. "It is said that they were obliged to catch him between shields before they could take him."... "Such hair on a Dane is more rare than a white crow."... "I believe no good of any one with locks of that color."... "Tibby, the weaving-woman, says he is skilful in magic."... "It is by reason of that, that he has become my lord's darling."... "Why is he not in the hall, then, while the ethel-born is sitting at table?"... "Perhaps his luck is beginning to fail him."... "Perhaps he has fallen out of favor."

The two old men who offered these last suggestions chuckled with malicious enjoyment, and two of the old women mumbled with their toothless gums as though tasting sweet morsels; but the third drew herself up with a kind of grotesque coquetry.

"You can tell by the green silk of his tunic that he is of some quality," she reproved them. "Danishmen are ever the ones to adorn themselves. It occurs to my mind how, in Edgar's time, when I was a girl, one was quartered in my father's house. He changed his raiment once a day and bathed every Sunday. I used to comb his yellow hair when I took in his ale, of a morning." Long after her voice had passed into a rattle, she stood in a simpering revery, her palsied hands resting heavily upon her stick, her blinking eyes fixed on the picturesque young foreigner musing in the sunshine.

Then the voice of the steward sounded sharply in the archway. There was an eager catching up of bags and baskets, a shuffling forward of unsteady feet, and the goody came out of her day-dream to throw herself into the strife over a jar of peppered broth.

The Danish page bent to pillow a very red cheek on the soft cushion of the dog's head, then drew back and straightened himself stiffly as a strapping serving-lass, flagon-laden, came out of the door behind him. She saw the motion and looked down with a teasing laugh. "Aha, young Fridtjof! How do you like being sent to cool your heels on the doorstep while your master eats? What! I think that the next time you thrust your foot out to trip me up as I hand my lord his ale, you will attend to keeping it under your stool."

Young Fridtjof regarded her with a kind of righteous indignation. "And I think that the next time you will look where you are going, even if it happen that it is Lord Sebert's ale you are bearing. Silly jades, that cannot come nigh him without biting your lips or sparkling your eyes! I wonder he does not clap masks over your faces."

"And I wonder he does not clap rods to your back," the lass retorted with sudden spite. She flounced past him down the step, on her way to the great lead-roofed storehouse that flanked the forest side of the Tower.

The boy looked after her sternly. "It is likely that you will be less pert of tongue after I tell what I found out in the corn-bins yesterday," he said.

The maid whirled. "What did you find out, you mischief-full brat?"

He continued to stroke the dog's head in dignified silence. "If you mean the—the brown-cloaked beggar, let me inform you that that is naught."

Busying himself with pulling burrs from the hound's ears, the page began to hum softly.

She came a step nearer, and her voice wheedled. "It was only that he was distressed for want of drink, poor fellow, and followed me into the storehouse when he saw me go in to fill the master's flagon. It was naught but a swallow. My lord would be the last to grudge a harmless body—"

"Harmless?" the page said sternly. "Did I not hear him tell you the same as that he was an English spy?"

The girl abandoned the last shred of her dignity, to come and stand before him, nervously fingering her apron. "For the dear saints' sake, let no one hear you say that, good Fridtjof! Alas, how you have got it twisted! He is an Englishman who bent his head for food in the evil days. And now they that bought him will not set him loose, so he has cast off their yoke and fled to the Danes to get freedom and fortune. He was on his way to join your people when he stopped to beg food. I could not be so hard of heart as to refuse, though Hildelitha's hand would be hot about my ears did she suspect it. Say that you will hold your tongue, sweet lad, and I will make boot with anything you like."

He was very deliberate about it, the page, pursing his rosy mouth into any number of judicial puckers; but at last he conceded, "Now, since you know for certain that he is not one of Edmund's spies,—and you are so penitent, as is right,"—pausing, he regarded her severely,—"if I do promise, will you make a bargain to put an end to your silly behavior toward my lord? Will you undertake to deliver his dishes into my hands, and leave it for me to pass his cup?"

"Yes, in truth; by Father Ingulph's book!" the maid cried, wringing her hands.

The page made her a magnanimous gesture. "In that case I will not be so mean as to refuse you," he consented. And he sat smiling to himself in sly content after she had hurried away.

Emboldened by that smile, the dog suddenly laid aside his soberness of demeanor. Pouncing upon a fagot which had fallen from one of the loads, he brought it in his teeth, with shining eyes and much frantic tail-wagging, and rubbed it against his friend's knee. He had not miscalculated. The boy's smile deepened easily into a laugh, and he leaped to his feet to accept the challenge. Seizing the stick, he put all the strength of his lithesome body into an effort to make off with it, while the great hound braced himself, with a rapture of rumbling growls and short delighted barks. So they tussled, back and forth, this way and that, amid a merry tumult of barking and laughter,—such a tumult that neither heard the steps that both were waiting for, when at last those steps came briskly through the archway. The first they knew of it, the Lord of Ivarsdale was standing under the lintel, chatting with those who came behind him.

With lips yet parted by their breathless laughter, the lad straightened quickly from his sport, and stood shaking back his tumbling curls and mopping his hot face, in which the rich color glowed through the tanned skin like the velvety red on a golden peach. When, for one flashing instant, they encountered a keen glance from the young lord, the color deepened, and the iris-blue eyes suddenly brimmed over with mischievous sparkles; then the black lashes were lowered demurely, and the page, retreating to his place beside the step, signified only deference and decorum.

Followed by old Morcard and the fat monk, the Etheling descended from the doorway and stood on the broad step, shading his eyes from the glare of brilliant light while he looked about him with evident pleasure in the fairness of the day.

"Now is the time to lay by a store of sweet memories against the stress of winter weather," he said. "Whither do you go to harvest the sunshine, father?"

The monk pulled his round red face to a devout length. "Why, there is a good woman at the other end of the dale, my son, that labors under a weakness of her limbs; and I have bethought me that it would be a Christian act to fetch her this holy relique I wear about my neck, that she may lay it upon the afflicted members and perhaps, aided by my exhortations, experience some relief."

"If the question may be permitted me, whither do you betake yourself, my lord?" the old cniht asked.

With the light wand he carried, the young man made a gesture quite around the horizon. "Everywhere and nowhere. After I have been to see what they are doing with that portion of the palisade which I bade them repair as soon as they had finished the barrier, I am—"

"That is something that had clean fallen out of my mind to tell you, Lord Sebert," Morcard spoke up hastily. "Yesterday, before you had got in from hunting, Kendred of Hazelford came, as spokesman for the rest, to say that inasmuch as the Barn Month is well begun, it will not be possible for them to labor more upon the building; and, by your leave, they will put off this, which is not pressing, until after the time of the harvest."

It was several moments before the Etheling spoke, and then his voice was noticeably deliberate. "Oh!" he said, "so they ask my leave, but stop at their pleasure?"

"My lord!"—the old man looked at him in surprise—"they act only according to custom. Surely you would not have them neglect the harvest, which waits no man's leisure, to put to their hands as laborers when there is no present need, now that they have completed the barriers by the stream? What present harm because the drain off the hill has rotted the palisade? All of that part is toward the forest. How? Do you expect some Grendel of the March to fall upon us from that direction?"

The Etheling smiled against his will. "Our foe would needs be a Grendel to reach us from that side." He struck the wand sharply against his riding-boots. "Oh, it is not that I think the work so pressing."

"In the Fiend's name, what then is the cause of your distemper?" Father Ingulph inquired impatiently, as he finished the girding-up of his robes and picked up his staff preparatory to setting forth.

After a moment, the young noble began to laugh. "Why, to tell it frankly, methinks it is more temper than distemper. That they should take it upon them to decide how much of my order is necessary—" He let a pause finish for him, and suddenly he turned with a flourish of gay defiance: "I will tell you how I am going to spend my morning, Morcard. I am going to ride over every acre that is under my hand and see how much I can spare for loan-land. And when I have found out, I will rent every furlong to boors who shall be bound to pay me service, not when it best pleases them, but whensoever I stand in need of it."

Rubbing his chin, the monk heard him in silence; but the old warrior grew momentarily grave. "Take care that you seem not over proud, young lord. It is in such a mood that Edmund creates thanes."

It may be that the Etheling's eyes widened for an instant, but directly after he laughed with gay perverseness. "Is it?" he said. "Then, for the first time in six weeks, I see that the Ironside is cunning in thought."

Shaking his head, Father Ingulph moved down the step. "Nay, if you are in that humor, my son, I waste no breath. Speed you well, and may you wax in wisdom!" With a gesture, half paternal, half respectful, he betook himself across the grass to the gate.

Old Morcard turned and stepped up into the doorway, from which he looked down indulgently upon his laughing master. "It happened formerly, Lord Sebert, that I knew how to command your earnestness, and that speedily; but that time has long gone by. Methinks I can accomplish more among the watchmen upon the platform. By your leave, my lord!" Bowing, he disappeared in the dark tunnel of the archway, and the Etheling was left alone save for the graceful figure awaiting him beside the step. The instant he moved, it sprang forward.

"Lord, is it your wish that I get the horses?"

As the old man had looked down upon the young one, so now the young man stood looking down upon the boy, regarding him with tolerant severity. "You most mischief-full elf!" he said. "It would be treating you deservedly were I to leave you at home."

It did not appear that the lad was seriously cast down; a betraying dimple came out and played in his cheek, though his mouth struggled for gravity. "That is unjustly spoken, lord," he protested. "Did I not bear my punishment with befitting penitence?"

"Penitence!" the Etheling gave one of the small ears a menacing pull as he descended to the grass. "What! Do you think I did not see your antics with the dog? You made a jest of the matter, you pixie!"

The page sobered. "I think it great luck that I could, Lord Sebert! Your servants were eager in making a jest of me when they got the courage from your displeasure."

But Lord Sebert reached out the wand and gave him a gentle stroke across the shoulders.

"Take that for your foolishness," he said lightly. "What matters their babble when you know how safe you sit in my favor?"

Through lowered lashes the boy stole him a glance, half mischievous, half coaxing. "How safe, lord?" he murmured.

But the Etheling only laughed at him, as he drew up his long riding-boots and readjusted his belt. "Safe enough so that I forgive you some dozen floggings a day, you imp; and choose you for my comrade when I should be profiting by the companionship of your betters. Waste no more golden moments on whims, youngling, but go bid them fetch the horses, and we will have another day of blithe wandering."

Blithe they were, in truth, as they cantered through shaded lanes and daisied meadows, nothing too small to be of interest or too slight to give them pleasure. An orchard of pears, whose ripening they were watching with eager mouths, a group of colts almost ready for the saddle,—for the young master the fascination of ownership gave them all a value; while another fascination made his companion hang on his least word, respond to his lightest mood.

By grassy commons and rolling meadows sweet with clustering haycocks, they came at last to the crest of the hill that guarded the eastern end of the dale. The whole round sweep of the horizon lay about them in an unbroken chain of ripening vineyards and rich timber-land, of grain-fields and laden orchards; not one spot that did not make glorious pledges to the harvest time. Drinking its fairness with his eyes, the lord of the manor sighed in full content. "When I see how fine a thing it is to cause wealth to be where before was nothing, I cannot understand how I once thought to find my pleasure only in destroying," he said. "Next month, when the barley beer is brewed, we will have a harvest feast plentiful enough to flesh even your bones, you bodkin!"

The Danish page laughed as he dodged the plaguing wand. "It is true that you owe something to my race, lord. He had great good sense, the Wide-Fathomer, to stretch his strips of oxhide around this dale and turn it into an odal."

"Nay now, it was Alfred who had sense to take it away from him," the Etheling teased.

But the boy shook back his long tresses in airy defiance. "Then will Canute be foremost in wisdom, for soon he will get it back, together with all England. Remember who got the victory last week at Brentford, lord."

In the midst of his exulting, a cloud came over the young Englishman's smile. "I would I knew the truth concerning that," he said slowly. "The man who passes to-day says one thing; whoso comes to-morrow tells another story. Yet since Canute is once more free to beset London—" He did not finish, and for a while it appeared as though he did not see the sunlit fields his eyes were resting on.

But suddenly the boy broke in upon him with a burst of stifled laughter. "Look, lord! In yonder field, behind the third haycock!"

The moment that he had complied, laughter banished the Etheling's meditations. Cozily ensconced in the soft side of a haycock was Father Ingulph, a couple of jovial harvesters sprawled beside him, a fat skin of ale in his hands on its way to his mouth. As the pair on the hilltop looked down, one of the trio began to bellow out a song that bore no resemblance whatever to a hymn. Keeping under cover of the bushes, the eavesdroppers laughed with malicious enjoyment.

"But I will make him squirm for that!" the Etheling vowed. "I will tell him that your paganism has made spells over me so that I cannot tell a holy relique from an ale-skin; and a bedridden woman looks to me like two strapping yeomen. I will, I swear it!"

"And I shall be able to hold it against him as a shield, the next time he is desirous to fret me about taking a new belief," the boy rejoiced.

But presently Sebert's remarks began to take a new tone. "They have the appearance of relishing what they have in that skin," he observed first. And then, "I should not mind putting my own teeth into that bread-and-cheese." And at last, "By Saint Swithin, lad, I think they have more sense than we, that linger a half-hour's ride from food with a noonday sun standing in the sky! It is borne in upon me that I am starving."

Backing his horse out of the brush, he was putting him about in great haste, when the boy leaped in his stirrups and clapped his hands.

"Lord, we need not be a half-hour from food! Yonder, across the stubble, is a farmhouse. If you would consent that I might use your name, then would I ride thither and get their best, and serve it to you here in the elves' own feast-hall."

The answer was a slap on the green shoulders that nearly tumbled their owner from the saddle. "Now, I was right to call you elf, for you have more than human cleverness!" the Etheling cried gayly. "Do so, by all means, dear lad; and I promise in return that I will tell every puffed-up dolt at home that you are the blithest comrade who ever fitted himself to man's moods. There, if that contents you, give wings to your heels!"



Chapter XIII. When Might Made Right

Now may we understand That men's wisdom And their devices And their councils Are like naught 'Gainst God's resolve. Saxon Chronicle.

What difference that, somewhere beyond the hills, men were fighting and castles were burning? At Ivarsdale in the shelter and cheer of the lord's great hall, the feast of the barley beer was at its height. While one set of serfs bore away the remnants of roast and loaf and sweetmeat, another carried around the brimming horns; and to the sound of cheers and hand-clapping, the gleeman moved forward toward the harp that awaited him by the fireside.

Where the glow lay rosiest, the young lord sat in the great raised chair, jesting with his Danish page who knelt on the step at his side. Now the boy's answering provoked him to laughter, and he put out a hand and tousled the thick curls in his favorite caress. One of the tresses caught in his jewelled ring; and as he bent to unfasten it, he stared at the wavy mass in lazy surprise. It was as soft and rich as the breast of a blackbird, and the fire had laid over it a sheen of rainbow lights.

"Never did I think there could be any black hair so alluring," he said involuntarily.

He could not see how the face under the clark veil grew suddenly as bright as though the sun had risen in it. And the lad said, rather breathlessly, "I wonder at your words, lord. You know that such hair is the curse of black elves."

Leaning back in his chair, the Etheling shook his head in whimsical obstinacy. "Not so, not so," he persisted. "It has to it more lustre than has yellow. My lady-love shall have just such locks."

He had a glimpse like the flash of a bluebird's wing in the sun, as the page glanced up at him, and the sight of a face grown suddenly rose-red. Then the boy turned shyly, and slipping back to his cushion on the step, nestled himself against the chair-arm with a sigh that was almost pathetic in its happiness.

Like a quieting hand, the first of the mellow chords fell upon the noise of the revel. The servants bearing away the dishes began to tread the rushes on tiptoe, and a dozen frowns rebuked any clatter. Through the hush, the gleeman began to sing the "Romance of King Offa," the king who married a wood nymph for dear love's sake. It began with the wooing and the winning, out in the leafy greenwood amid bird-voices and murmuring brooks; but before long the enmity of the queen-mother entered, with jarring discords, to send the lovers through bitter trials. Lord and page, man and maid and serf, strained eye and ear toward the harper's tattered figure. So breathless grew the listening stillness that the crackling of the fire became an annoyance. What matter that outside an autumn wind was howling through the forest and stripping the leaves through the vines? Within sound of the mellow harp-music it was balmiest spring-time, as the castlefolk followed the gleeman over the hills and dales of a flowering dream-world.

For a space after he had finished, the silence remained unbroken, then gave way only to an outburst of applause. And one did even better than applaud. Bending forward, his beautiful face quite radiant with his pleasure, the curly-headed page pulled a golden ring from his pouch and tossed it into the harper's lap.

As he caught the largess, the man's mouth broadened. "I thank you for your good-will, fair stripling," he returned. "May you find as true a love when your time comes to go a-wooing."

The maids tittered, while the men guffawed, and a richer glow came into the cheeks of Fridtjof the page. Suddenly his iris-blue eyes were daringly a-sparkle.

"The spirits will have forgot your wish before that time comes," he laughed, "for I vow that I will raise a beard or ever I woo a maiden."

Above the mirth that followed rose the voice of the brawniest of the henchmen, passing his judgment on the ballad. "Now that is my own desire of songs," he declared. "That was worth possessing,—the love of that lass. A sweetheart who will cleave to your side when your fortune is most severe, and despise every good because she has not you also, she is the filly to yoke with. Drink to the wood maiden, comrades, bare feet and wild ways and all!" Swinging up his horn, he drained off the toast at a draught. "Give us a mistress like that, my lord," he cried merrily, "and we will hold Ivarsdale for her though all of Edmund's men batter at the doors."

Laughing, they all looked up where the young master leaned in his chair, watching the revels with a smile of idle good-humor. All except the blue-eyed page; he bent forward instead, so that his long locks fell softly about his face.

The Lord of Ivarsdale shook his head indolently against the cushion. "No wood lass for me, friend Celric," he said. "The lady of my love shall be a high-born maid who knows no more of the world's roughness than I of woman's ways. Nor shall she follow me at all, but stay modestly at home with her maids and keep herself gentle and fair against my return. Deliver me from your sun-browned, boy-bred wenches!"

"I am consenting to that, lord!" a voice cried from the benches; and a hubbub of conflicting opinions arose. Only the page neither spoke or moved.

The henchman would not be downed; again his voice rose above the others. "In soft days, my lord, in soft days, it might easily be so. But bear in mind such times as these, when grief happens to a man oftener than joy. Methinks your lily-fair lady would swoon at the sight of your blood; and tears would be the best answer you would get, should you seek to draw comfort out of her."

White as a star at dawn, the page's face was raised while his wide eyes hung on his master's; and from the little reed wound between his brown fingers, the juice began to ooze slowly as though some silent force were crushing the life out of its green heart.

But the young noble laughed with gay scorn: "Tears would be in all respects a better answer than I should deserve, should I whimper faint-hearted words into a maiden's ear. What folly-fit do you speak in, fellow? What! Do you think I would wed another comrade like yourself, or a playfellow like this youngster?" Ever so gently his foot touched the boyish form on the step. "It is something quite different from either of you that is my desire; something that is as much higher as the stars are above these candles."

Disputing and agreeing, the clamor rose anew, and the Etheling turned to his favorite with a jest. But the page was no longer in his place. He had risen to his feet and was standing with his head flung back like one in pain, both hands up tearing the tunic away from his throat. Sebert bent toward him with a question on his lips.

He forgot the query before he could speak it, however, for at that moment there was a sound of hurried steps on the stone stairs, and one of the armed watchmen from the top of the Tower burst into the room.

"Lord," he gasped, "some one is upon us! We thought first it was naught but the noise of the wind—then Elward saw a light. We swear they came not over the bridge, yet—"

His words were cut short by a horn-blast from the darkness, loud and clear above the whistling wind. Though only one woman screamed out Edmund's name, it is probable that the same thought was in every mind. Jests and laughter died on the lips that bore them, and with one accord the men turned in their seats to watch their master.

His face had sobered as he listened; before the first echo had died away he had spoken swiftly to the fellow at his side. "Celric, get you down to the guard at the gate and inquire into the meaning of that."

When the henchman had left, he began a sharp questioning of the sentinel, and the noise did not begin again. Whispering, the women drew together like herded sheep; and the men left their barley beer, to stand in little groups, muttering in one another's ears. An old bowman took his weapon down from the wall and set silently to work to restring it.

In the quiet, the tap of the man's feet upon the steps was audible long before he reached the waiting roomful. Every eye fastened itself upon the curtained doorway.

Swinging back, the arras disclosed a face full of amazement. "Lord," the man said, "it is Danes! None know how many or how they came there. And their chief has sent you a messenger."

"Danes!" For the first time in the history of Ivarsdale, the word was spoken with an accent of relief.

The page turned from the fire with a cry of bitter rejoicing: "If it is Canute, I will go to him!"

In the revulsion of his feelings, the Etheling laughed outright. "Since it is not Edmund, I care not if it be the Evil One himself; and it cannot be he, for Canute is in Mercia." He rose and faced them cheerily. "Lay aside your uneasiness, friends; it is likely only such another band as we put to flight last month, that hopes to surprise us into some weakness. Let the signal fires blaze to warn the churls, while we amuse ourselves with the messenger. To-morrow we will chase them so far over the hills that they will never find their way back again."

Beckoning to Morcard, he began to consult him concerning the most effective arrangement of the sentinels; and there was a muffled clatter of weapons as men went to and fro with hasty steps. At a word from the steward, the women went softly from the room and up the winding stairs to their quarters, the rustling of their dresses coming back with ghostly stealthiness.

When all was ready the messenger was brought in between guards. Wrapped in dirty sheepskins, he swaggered to the centre of the room, and the light that fell on his tanned face showed a scar running the full length of his cheek. With his first glance, the Lord of Ivarsdale uttered an exclamation.

"Now, by Saint Mary, I have seen you before, fellow! Were you not the leader of the band we drove away last month?"

The Scar-Cheek laughed impudently. "I will not conceal it; yet I did not know that my beauty was so showy. The chief was wise to send Brown-Cloak to do the spying."

"Brown-Cloak! The beggar?" was cried all down the hall.

But the messenger's eyes had fallen on the black-haired boy, who stood staring at him from the fireside. His wide mouth opened in astonishment. "The King's ward? Here is a happening!" he ejaculated. "If I am not much mistaken, Canute will be glad to find this out. It was his belief that you had got your death-blow at Scoerstan, and he took it ill."

The King's ward made no other answer than to regard him with a strange mixture of attention and aversion; but the Etheling reached out and pushed the boy farther behind the great chair.

"Fridtjof Frodesson is my captive and no longer concerns you," he said briefly. "Give him no further thought, but come to your message."

The swaggering assurance of the man's laugh was more offensive than rudeness would have been. "If I say that we will shortly set him free, I shall not be going very wide from my message. My errand hither is that I bring word from Rothgar Lodbroksson to surrender the Tower."

The page uttered a little cry, and his lord raised a hand mechanically to impose silence; but no one else seemed able to speak or to move. From the master in his chair to the serf by the door, they stared dumb-founded at the messenger.

He, on his part, appeared to realize all at once that the time for formality had come. Pitching his cloak higher on his shoulders, he fastened his eyes on a hole in the tapestry behind the Etheling's chair and began monotonously to recite his lesson: "Rothgar, the son of Lodbrok, sends you greeting, Sebert Oswaldsson; and it is his will that you surrender to him the odal and Tower of Ivarsdale; as is right, because the odal was created and the Tower was built by Ivar Vidfadmi, who was the first son of Lodbrok and the father's father's father of my chief—-" In spite of himself, he was obliged to stop to take in breath.