In the pause, the page bent toward his master, his face alight with a sudden fierce triumph. "Lord," he whispered, "you can never get out! You are caught as though they had you in a trap!"

Astounded, Sebert drew back to stare at him. "Fridtjof! It is not possible that you are unfaithful to me!"

The boy's only answer was to drop down upon the step and bury his face in his hands. And nov: the messenger had recovered his wind and his place.

"Since the time of Alfred," he went on, "my chief and his kin have been kept out of the property by your stock and you; yet because he does not wish to look mean, he offers you to go out in safety with all of your housefolk, both men and women, and as much property as you can walk under,—if you go quietly and in peace." This time his inflection showed that he had finished. He turned his eyes from the hole and fastened them on the Lord of Ivarsdale, in the confidence of invincible power.

The room was so still that when a gust came in around the ill-fitting windows, the flare of the torch-flames sounded loud as the hiss of serpents.

The Etheling's voice was very deep and quiet. "If we go in peace," he repeated slowly. "And if we do not?"

The Dane shrugged his burly shoulders. "There are no terms for that. You will find it necessary to take what comes."

Again there was silence.

Sebert put his last question: "How long does the son of Lodbrok give me to consider how I am to order things?" The man shattered the silence with his boisterous laughter. "It is not a lie about you English that you never do aught that you do not sit down first and consider, till the crews have eaten all your provisions and the timbers of your boats are rotting. When a Dane strikes, it is like the striking of lightning. So soon as you hear the thunder of his coming, that instant you see the flashing of his weapon. My chief gives you no time at all. So long a time, he has studied out, will it take me to come in to you; so much longer to do my errand; and so much longer to get back. At the end of that time he will blow his horn, and if your gates do not fly open in obedience, he will take that for your answer."

Either the Lord of Ivarsdale had been doing some rapid thinking during the long speech, or else he was too incensed to think. Now he rose with sparks flashing from the steel of his eyes. "By Peter, he is right! I do not need even that long," he cried. "Since the Wide-Fathomer began the game, the Tower has been the prize of the strongest. Shall I flinch from a challenge? Our rights are equal; our luck shall decide. For his answer, be he reminded of his own Danish saying, that 'It is a strong bird that can take what an eagle has in his claws,' and let him get what comfort he can from that."

After his ringing tones, the unmoved voice of the messenger fell flat on the ear. "It has happened as we supposed, that you would answer unfavorably," he said as he turned. "It was seen in battle that you are a brave man. Otherwise the chief would not have thought it necessary to hew a path through the forest in order to take you by surprise." Saluting with some appearance of respect, he joined his conductors at the door and passed out of sight down the stair.

Like smoke in the wake of a firebrand, confusion rose behind him; a din of exclamations loosed on the air and the clangor of weapons caught down from the wall. Through it, the Etheling's voice sounded strongly. "To the palisade, all of you! They may not wait till morning. To the forest side; and keep them from it as you would keep off death!" He bent and shook the crouching page. "My armor, boy! How! Would you have me read treason in your sluggishness? My armor!"

The page started up, but it was only to stare past him and fling out his hand toward a window, where a bright light had suddenly shot athwart the darkness: "Lord, they have set fire to something!"

The voice of old Morcard rose shrill: "To the storehouses! Save the grain!"

There was a wild rush for the door; but on the threshold they were met by the shouts of watchmen hurrying from the parapets.

"Lord, the court is swarming with them!"... "They have cut through the palisade on the forest side!"... "They had brush laid ready—"... "Waited only for him—"... "Holy saints, what is the meaning of that?"... "Something else has taken!"

From the stairway above them came a piercing cry: "The storehouses! They have fired them from inside! The lead is melting like ice!"... "The grain!"... "The grain!"

In their midst the young lord stood in helpless fury; and the hand he had grasped around his sword-hilt gripped it so hard that blood started under each nail. But his page bent and kissed the clenched fist with a cry of fierce exulting.

"You will never get out to find your lily-fair lady. You will never have a lady wife, lord! We shall die together."



Chapter XIV. How The Fates Cheated Randalin

There is a mingling of affection Where one can tell Another all his mind. Ha'vama'l.

After that night the deep-set windows of Ivarsdale looked out upon some grim sights. The first morning it was a skirmish in the meadow beyond the foot-bridge, when the three-score farmer-soldiers came loyally to their leader's aid. Though Kendred of Hazelford marched bravely at their head, they were practically uncaptained; with any kind of weapon in their hands and no kind of armor over their home-spun. What chance had they against sixty picked warriors, led by the fiercest chief of a race of chieftains? They met, and there was a moment of clash and of clangor, a moment of awful commotion; and when the whirling dust-clouds settled, the only homespun that was moving was that which was flying, sped by Danish arrows. All the rest of the day the Tower windows looked out upon a litter of brown heaps, here and there a white face upturned or a scarf-end fluttering in the autumn wind.

Wild with helpless misery, the Lord of Ivarsdale would have charged the Berserkers with his handful of armed servants if the old cniht had not restrained him almost by force; when he spent his breath in railing at everything between earth and sky.

"It is the folly of it that maddens me," he cried over and over, "the needless folly! Had I but used my mind to think with, instead of to plan feasts—I am moved to dash my brains out when I remember it!"

"Nay, it is my judgment that was lacking," Morcard said bitterly. "I was an old dog that could not learn a new trick. I should have seen that the old ways no longer avail. The fault was mine." His wrinkled old face was so haggard with self-reproach that the Etheling hastily recanted.

"Now I bethink me, I am wrong, and it is no one's fault. It comes of the curse that lies over the Island. Was there not something rotten in all English palisades, it would never have happened that the pirates got their first foothold. But we have shaken off the spell, and they have not mastered us yet. To-night we will try to get a messenger out to my kinsman in Yorkshire, and another to my father's friend in Essex."

The next day, and for many days thereafter, the Tower windows stared out like expectant eyes. But no delivering bands ever came over the hills to reward their watching. From the moment that he was swallowed by the outer darkness, the messenger for Yorkshire was as lost to their sight and their knowledge as though he had plunged into the ocean. And a week later, the man who had been sent into Essex crept back with a dejection that foretold his ill success. The ealdorman was taxed, might and main, to protect his own lands. He regretted it, to his innermost vitals, but these were days when each must stand or fall for himself. He could only send his sympathy and the counsel to hold out unflinchingly in the hope that some fortune of war would call the besiegers away.

When he heard that, Father Ingulph forgot his robes to indulge in a curse. "Does he think we have possession of the widow's blessed oil-cruse? If the larder had not been stocked for a week's feasting, we must needs have been starved under ere this. How much longer can we endure, even at one meal a day?" He sighed as he drew his belt in another notch.

When the beginning of the Wine Month came, the bitterest sight that the Tower windows gave out upon was the band of foragers that every morning went forth from the Danish camp-fires. Every noon they returned, amid a taunting racket, with armfuls of ale-skins, back-loads of salted meats, and bags bulging with the bread which they had forced the terrorized farm-women into baking for them. "They have the ingenuity of fiends!" Father Ingulph was wont to groan after each of these spectacles.

At last the time arrived when it looked as though these visions were to be the only glimpses of food vouchsafed to them.

"Bread for one more meal; and the last ale-cask has been broached," the steward answered in a very faint voice when Morcard put the nightly question.

Because it was not possible for the old man's face to record more misery, the light of the guard-room fire over which he crouched showed no change whatever in his expression.

It was the young lord, who sat beside him, that answered. After a pause he said gently, "Go and try to get some sleep. At least you can dream of food."

"I have done no otherwise for a sennight," the man sighed as he hurried away to snatch the tongs from a serf who was spending an unnecessary fagot upon the fire. At any other time he would have shouted at him, but it was little loud talking that was done within the walls these days.

When they were left alone, the old cniht threw himself back upon the bench and covered his face with his mantle. "I have outlived my usefulness," he moaned. "I have lived to bring ruin on the house that has sheltered me. What guilt I lie under!" For a time he lay as stark and rigid under his cloak as though death had already closed about him. The guard-room seemed to become a funeral chamber, with a mass of hovering shadows for a pall. The fire held up funeral tapers of flickering flame, and the whispers of the starving men who warmed themselves in its heat broke the silence as dismally as the voices of mourners.

But the Lord of Ivarsdale said steadily, "Not so, good friend; and it hurts my pride sorely that you should speak as if I were still of no importance in my father's house. That which I call myself lord of, it behooved me to rule over. If ever I get out of this—" checking himself, he rose to his feet. "The smoke makes my wits heavy. Methinks I will go up into the air a while."

He took a step toward the door, but halted when the red-cloaked page, who had been stretched near him on the bench, started up as though preparing to accompany him. "Stay where you are, lad. These fasts from sleep will parch your young brains. I go up to the platform because I would rather walk than rest; but do you remain here by the fire and try to catch a drowsiness from its heat."

But the page advanced with the old wilful shake of his curly head. "I also would rather walk, if you please." As he looked at him, compassion came into the Etheling's face. The hollowness of their sockets made the boy's large eyes look larger, and his fever-flush trebled their brightness. Sebert said, with a poor attempt at a smile, "Little did I think that my hospitality would ever produce such a guest. Poor youngling! You would better have crept out to your countrymen, as I bade you."

Again the dark head shook obstinately. "Rather would I starve with you than feast with them. I go not out till you go."

Something seemed to come into the young man's throat as he was about to speak, for he swallowed hard and was silent. Putting an arm about the slender figure, he drew it to his side; and so they left the room and began to climb the stairs.

As soon as the curtain fell at their heels a stifling mustiness came to their nostrils, and a chill that was like the flat of a knife-blade pressed against their cheeks. They drew breath thankfully when they had come up into the sweet freshness of the night air. Flashing on the weapons of the pacing sentinels, a glory of silver moonlight lay like a visible silence over the parapets. In the darkness below, a sea of forest trees was murmuring and splashing at the passing of a wind. Yet deeper down in the dark glowed the fires of the Danish camp,—red eyes of the dragon that would rise ere long and crush them under his iron claws.

After they had twice made the round without speaking, the page said gravely, "I heard what Brithwald told you about the bread, lord. What will overtake us when that is gone? Shall we charge them, so that we may die fighting?" When the Etheling did not answer immediately, his companion looked up at him with loving reproach. "You forget that you need conceal nothing from me, dear lord. I am not as those clowns below. You have even said that you found pleasure in telling me your mind."

Sebert's hand was lifted from the red cloak to touch the thin cheek caressingly. "I should be extreme ungrateful were I to say less, dear lad. There is a man's courage in your boy's body, and I think a woman could not be more faithful in her love—How! Are you cold that you shiver so? Pull the corner of my cloak about you."

But the page cast it off impatiently. "No, no, it is nothing; no more than that one of those men out there may have walked across the spot that is to be my grave. Sooner would I bite my tongue off than interrupt you. I ask you not to let it hinder your speech."

Again a kind of affectionate pity came into the young noble's face. "Does it mean so much to you to hear that you have been faithful in your service?"

"It means—so much to me!" the boy repeated softly; and if the man's ear had not been far afield, he might have divined the secret of the green tunic only from the tenderness of the low voice. But when his mind came back to his companion again, the lad was looking at him with a little smile touching the curves of his wistful mouth.

"Do you know why this mishap which has occurred to you seems great luck for me? Because otherwise it is not likely that you would have found out how true a friend I could be. If it had happened that I had gone with Rothgar's messenger that night, you would have remembered me only as one who could entertain you when it was your wish to laugh. But now, since it has been allowed me to endure suffering with you and to share your mind when it was bitterest, you have given me a place in your heart. And to-morrow, when we go forth together, and the Dane slays me with you because it will be open to him then that for your sake I have become unfaithful to him, you will remember our fellowship even to—"

But Sebert's hand silenced the tremulous lips. "No more, youngling! I adjure you by your gentleness," he whispered unsteadily. "You owe me no such love; and it makes my helplessness a thousand-fold more bitter. Say no more, little comrade, if you would not turn my heart into a woman's when it has need to be of flint. Sit you here on the ledge the while that I take one more turn. You will not? Then come with me, and we will make the round together, and apply our wits once more to the riddle. Until swords have put an end to me, I shall not cease to believe that it has an answer."

Below, in the dense blackness of the forest, an occasional owl sounded his echoless cry. From still deeper in the dark, where the Danish camp-fires glowed, a harp-note floated up on the wind with a fragment of wild song. But it was many a long moment before the silence that hovered over the doomed Tower was broken by any sound but the measured tramp of the sentinels.

It was Sebert who brought the dragging pace finally to a halt, throwing himself upon a stone bench to hold his head in his hands. "We cannot drive them off; that needs no further proof. And I do not see how we can hold out till the time that chance entices them away, when but one meal stands between us and starvation, and already we are as weak as rabbits. Naught can profit us save craft."

The dark head beside him shook hopelessly; but he repeated the verdict with additional emphasis. "I tell you, craft is our only hope; some artfulness that shall undermine their strength even as their tricks crept, snake-like, under our guard." Turning in his seat, he set his face toward the darkness, clutching his head in renewed effort.

No word came from the page, but a strange look was dawning in his upturned face. Whether it was a great terror that had shaken his soul or whether a joy had come to him that raised him to heaven itself, it was impossible to tell, for the signs of both were in his eyes. And when at last he spoke, both thrilled through his voice. "Lord," he said slowly, "I think I see where a trick is possible."

As Sebert turned from the darkness, the boy struggled up and stood before him. "If they could be made to believe a lie about the food? If they could be made to believe that you have enough to continue this for a long time? Their natures are such that already it must have become a hardship for them to remain quiet."

The Etheling's eyes were riveted on the other's lips; his every muscle strained toward him. Under the stimulus the page's words seemed to come a little less uncertainly, a little more quickly.

"I think I could manage it for you, lord. They think me your unwilling captive: you remember what the messenger said about freeing me? If I should go to Rothgar—" his voice broke and his eyes sought his friend's eyes as though they were wine-cups from which he would drink courage— "if I should go to Rothgar, lord, I could declare myself escaped, and he would be likely to believe any story I told him."

Sebert leaped up and caught the lad by the shoulders, then hesitated, weighing it in his mind, half fearing to believe. "But are you sure that your tongue will not trip you? Or your face, poor mouse? What! Can you make them believe in abundance when your cheeks are like bowls for the catching of your tears?"

The boy seemed to gather strength from the caressing hands, as Thor from the touch of his magic belt. He even gave a little breathless laugh of elation. "As to that, I think he is not wise enough to guess the truth. I will tell him that you have thought it revengeful toward him to starve your Danish captive; and because it is in every respect according to what he would do in your place, I think he will have no misgivings."

Pulling the soft curls with a suggestion of his old lightheartedness, the Etheling laughed with him. "You bantling! Who would have dreamed you to that degree artful? Are you certain your craft will bear you out? I would not have you suffer their anger. Are you capable of so much feigning?"

For an instant the boy's eyes were even audacious; and all the hollowness of the cheeks could not hide a flashing dimple. "Oh, my dear lord, I am capable of so much more feigning than you guess!" he answered daringly.

"Nay, have I not been wont to call you elf?" Sebert returned. Then his voice deepened with feeling. "By the soul of my father, Fridtjof, if you bring me out of this snare, me and mine, I declare with truth that there will be no recompense you can ask at my hands which I shall not be glad to grant—" He paused in the wonder of seeing the sparkle in the blue eyes flee away like a flitting light.

The page turned from him almost with a sob. "Pray you, promise me nothing!" he said hastily. "If ever I see you again, and you have more to give me than pity—Nay, I shall lose my courage if I think of that part. Get me out quickly while the heart is firm within me. And give me a draught from your cup to warm my blood."

"Certainly it would be best for you to come to them while they are in such a state of feasting that their good-humor is keenest and their wits dullest," Sebert assented.

He spoke but with the matter-of-factness of a soldier reconnoitring a position, but on the girl in the page's dress the words fell like blows. Then it was that she realized for the first time how ill a crumb can satisfy the hunger which asks for a loaf; that she knew that her body was not the only part of her which was starving. Somewhere on that dark stairway she lost the boyishness out of her nature forever. The thin cheeks were white under their tan when they came again into the light of the guard-room fire; and the blue eyes had in them a woman's reproach.

"It would show no more than friendship if you said that you were sorry to have me go," she told him with quivering lips. "Are you so eager in getting me off that you cannot say you will miss me?"

But the young lord only laughed good-humoredly as he poured the wine. "What a child you are! Do you not know those things without my telling you? And as for missing you, I am not likely to have time. The first chance you get, you will slip back to me if you do not, I will come after you and flog you into the bargain; be there no forgetting!"

She could not laugh as she would once have done; instead she choked in the cup and pushed it from her. A passionate yearning came over her for one such word, one such look, as he would give the dream-lady when she should come. With her secret on her lips, she lifted her eyes to his.

A little amused but more pitying, and withal very, very kind, his glance met hers; and her courage forsook her. Suppose the word she was about to speak should not make his face friendlier? Suppose his surprise should be succeeded by haughtiness, or, worse than all, by a touch of that gay scorn? Even at the memory of it she shrank. Better a crumb than no bread at all. Turning away, she followed him in silence down the dark passage.

When the moment of parting arrived, and Sebert's hand lay on the last bolt, that mood was so strong upon her that it seemed to her as though she were passing out of life into death. Clinging to his cloak, with her face buried in its folds, she wet it with far bitterer tears than any she had shed over her murdered kinsmen.

"I wish I had not thought of it! I wish I had not told you!" she sobbed into the soft muffling. "Only to be near you I thought heaven; and now the Fates have cheated me even out of that."

The Etheling put his hand under the bent head to raise it that he might hear what the lips were saying, and she covered his palm with kisses. Then slipping away, like the elf he had called her, she glided through the narrow space of the half-open door and was gone, sobbing, out into the night.



Chapter XV. How Fridtjof Cheated The Jotun



"'Such is the love of women, Who falsehood meditate, As if one drove not rough-shod On slippery ice A spirited two-year-old And unbroken horse. Ha'vama'l.

I trust my sword; I trust my steed; But most I trust myself at need,'"

the fair-haired scald sang exultingly to the Danishmen sprawled around the camp-fire. It was to no graceful love-song that his harp lent its swelling chords, but to a stern chant of mighty deeds, whose ringing notes sped through the forest like the bearers of war-arrows, knocking at the door of each sleeping echo until it awoke and carried on the summons.

Echoes awoke as well in the breasts of those who listened. When the minstrel laid aside his harp for his cup, Snorri Scar-Cheek brought his fist down in a mighty blow upon the earth. "To hear such words and know one's self doomed to wallow in mast!"

A dozen shaggy heads wagged surly acquiescence. But from the figure outstretched upon the splendid bearskin a harsh voice sounded. "Now! see that because you lie in mast you have a swine's wit," it said. "Do you want the thrall to stand forth and prove for the hundredth time that their bins must needs be as empty as your head?"

Venturing no more than a growl, the man dropped his chin back upon his fists. But Brown-Cloak, the English serf, found somewhere the notion that here was an opportunity to rehearse once more the service which was his sole claim upon his new masters' indulgence, and he got on his legs accordingly.

"I can say soothly that you will not have to bear it much longer, Lord Dale," he reassured. "My own eyes saw that—" He ended in a howl as a half-gnawed sheep-bone from the warrior's hand struck him with a force that knocked him sprawling among the ashes.

"Do not trouble yourself to answer until you are questioned," the Scar-Cheek recommended briefly. And a round of laughter followed the poor scapegoat as he picked himself up, groaning, and crept away into the shadow. In the restlessness of their inactivity, and this swift breaking into passages of growling and tooth-play whenever, in their narrow confines, they chanced to jostle each other, they were like nothing so much as a pack of caged wolves.

Into the den, a few minutes later, the daughter of Frode came on her difficult mission. Her face was so ghastly that the man who first caught sight of it did not recognize her, and snatched up his weapon as against an enemy. It was the Scar-Cheek who offered the first welcome in a jovial shout. "The hawk escaped from the cage! Well done, champion! Did you batter a way out with your mighty fists? Did you get fretful and slay the Englishman? Leave off your bashfulness and tell us your deeds of valor!" A score of hands were stretched forth to draw the boy into the circle; a score of horns were held out for his refreshment.

To all of them Randalin yielded silently,—silently accepting the cup which was nearest, in order to gain time by sipping its contents. She realized that only a manner of perfect unconcern could carry her through, yet she felt herself shaking with excitement.

Rothgar sat up on the great skin with a gesture of some cordiality. "Hail to you, Fridtjof Frodesson!" he said. "Your escape is a thing that gladdens me. I did not like the thought of starving you, and I hope your father will overlook the unfriendliness of it."

The Scar-Cheek, who had been scanning her critically where she stood before them, drinking, gave a pitying grunt. "By the crooked horn, boy, you must have had naught but ill luck since the time of Scoerstan! No more meat is on you than a raven could eat; and the night I was in the Englishman's hall, you had the appearance of having been under a lash. Your guardian spirit must have gone astray."

Though she managed to keep her eyes upon her cup, Randalin could not hinder a wave of burning color from over-running her face. Seeing it, Rothgar held up his handless left arm for silence.

"You act in a mannerless way, Snorri Gudbrandsson, when you remind a high-spirited youth that he has been disgraced in his mind. Yet do not let that prevent your joy, my Bold One. To make up for the injury I have been to you, I will give you a revenge on the Englishman that shall wipe out everything you have endured from him. If it is possible for me to take him alive and bind him, your own hand shall be the one to strike Sebert Oswaldsson his death-blow."

The girl's nervousness betrayed her into a burst of hysterical laughter, but her wits were quick enough to turn it to good account. She said with Fridtjof's own petulance, "Your boon is like the one Canute has in store for me. I am likely to wait so long for both that I shall have no teeth left to chew them with. I like it much better to take your kindness in the shape of food, if that is a loaf yonder."

The abruptness with which silence fell over the group was startling. Snorri bent forward and plucked her sternly back as she made a move toward the bread. A dozen voices questioned her.

"What do you mean by that?"... "Why will it take long?"... "Are they not short in food?"

Knowing that she could not achieve unconcern, she kept to her petulance, jerking her cloak away from the hand that detained it. "Should I be apt to blame him for starving me if he did it because no better cheer was to be had? Nor do I think you have proved much more liberal. Let me by to the bread."

Instead, the ring narrowed around her; and the chief himself put peremptory questions in his heavy voice. "Has he food? What do you mean? Clear your wits and answer distinctly. Can you not understand that we think this food-question of great importance? The thrall told us they are wont to keep their provisions in the house we burned. Did he lie?"

"I do not know whether he lied or not," Randalin answered slowly; "but it seems to me great foolishness that you did not take the time into consideration. At the end of the harvest, any English house would be fitted out for weeks of feasting. You came the night the larder was fullest; and they have only spent one meal a day since."

Rothgar got upon his feet and towered over her, his Jotun-frame appearing to swell with irritation. "Do you not know how provoking your words are, that you are so glib of tongue?" he thundered. "Tell shortly what you think of their case; can they last one day more?"

The black head nodded emphatically.

"Can they last two days?"

Another nod.

"A week?"

Fridtjof the Bold took refuge in sullenness. "They can last two weeks as easily as one. How much longer are you going to keep me from food?" She was free after that to do anything she liked, for their excitement was so great that they forgot her existence. Those whose fluency was not hampered by their feelings, relieved their minds by cursing. Those whose anger could be vented only in action, made after the blundering serf. And the few who were boldest turned and bearded the son of Lodbrok himself.

"How much longer must we endure this?"... "Think of the game we are missing!"... "There is little need to remind me. My naked fists could batter the stones from their places—"... "In a week more, it is possible that England may be won!"... "What do you care for their wretched land, chief?"...

"Chief, how much longer must we lie here?"

When that question was finally out, every man heaved a sigh of relief, straightening in his place like a dog that is pricking his ears, and there was a pause.

A fell look came into the Jotun's face as he gazed back at them; and for a time it seemed that he would either answer with his fist or not at all. But at length he began to speak in a voice as keen and hard as his sword.

"You know my temper, and that I must have my will. Always I have thought it shame that my kinsman's odal should lie in English hands, and now I have made up my mind to put an end to it. You know that I am in no way greedy for property. When I obtain the victory, you shall have every acre and every stick on it to burn or plunder or keep, as best pleases you. But I do not want to reproach myself longer with my neglect; and whether it take two weeks or whether it take twenty—" He interrupted himself to bend forward, shading his eyes with his hands. "If I am not much mistaken," he said in quite another voice, "yonder is Brass Borgar at last! Yonder, near those oak-trees."

In an instant they had all turned to scan the moon-lit open. And now that they were silent, the thud of hoofs became distinct. Shouting their welcome, some hurried to heap fresh fuel on the fire, and some ran after more ale-skins; while others rushed forward to meet the messenger and run beside his horse, riddling him with questions.

Folding his arms, the chief awaited him in grim silence. If glances could have burned, he would have writhed under the look that a pair of iris-blue eyes was dealing him over a bread crust. But it may be that his skin was particularly thick, for he betrayed no uneasiness whatever.

When the man finally stood before him, Rothgar said sternly, "It is time you were here! Ten days have gone over your head since I sent you out. You must do one of two things,—either tell great tidings or submit to sharp words."

The Brass One laughed as he saluted. "I should have been liable to sharp steel had I come sooner, chief. Would you have taken it well if I had left without knowing how it went with the battle?"

"Battle!" three-score mouths cried as with one voice. "Who were victorious?"

The man laughed again. "Should I come to you with a noisy voice and my chin held high, if other than one thing had happened? Honor to the Thunderer, the Raven possessed the field!"

Such a clamor arose as though the wolf-pack had tasted blood. Three times, through the trumpet of his hands, Rothgar bawled a command for silence. "One horn you may have, then all this must be told before you eat," he gave orders. And he strode restlessly to and fro until the time came when the horn stood on end above the man's mouth and then was lowered reluctantly.

Drawing his hand across his lips, the Brass One cleared his throat. "At your pleasure, chief. Is it to your mind to begin with the battle? Or do you rather wish to hear of my journey thence? I admit that that part is somewhat likely to stick in my teeth and in your ears. From Otford to Shepey was little better than a retreat, and if—"

"The battle! the battle!" a chorus of voices cried, and the chief confirmed the choice.

"The battle, by all means! The other will do for lesser dishes when the first edge is off our appetite. Where was it? And how long since? Yet, before any of these, how goes it with my royal foster-brother? And how do his traitors carry sail, Odin's curse upon them! Speak! How fares he?"

"On the top of the wave, my chief,—though it is my belief that he has your mind toward Edric Jarl, for all that Thorkel is ever on hand to urge the value of his craft. And certainly it was exceedingly useful to them at Assington—"

"Assington!"... "In Essex?" the chorus broke in upon him. "It happened as Grimalf said—"... "—the horse with the bloody saddle which he found over the hill—"... "Do you know for certain if Edric—"... "Why will you interrupt him?"... "Yes, end this talk!"... "Go on, go on!"

"I also say go on, in the Troll's name!" the Jotun roared. "Go on and tell us what Edric the Gainer did which they else could not have done."

"I said not that he did what they could not, chief. He did what they would not, as the thrall who pulls off our boots muddies his hands that we may keep ours clean. And a strange wonder is the way in which the English king trusts him even after this treason has been committed! The Gainer fled, with all his men, at the moment when most King Edmund depended upon his support; and in this way left for Danish feet a hewn path where a forest of battle-trees had stood."

Rothgar took no part in the stream of questions and comments that again drowned the voice of the messenger, until suddenly he launched an oath that out-thundered them all: "May Thor feel otherwise than I do, for I vow that were I in his place, I would raise Danish warriors in wool-chests! Is that the valor of the descendants of Odin, that they go not into battle until a foul-hearted traitor has swept the way clean of danger? Is the heart of the King become wax within him? Or is it that cold-blooded fox at his side that is draining the manhood out of him? I would give much if I had been there!" Casting himself down upon the bearskin, he lay there breathing hard and tearing the fur out in great handfuls.

Brass Borgar spoke with the utmost deprecation: "I say nothing against your feelings, chief; and there are not a few who think as you do; yet I ask you to remember one thing. I ask you to remember that no Dane has ever held back in battle because he had the Traitor's help. Canute uses him to strengthen his back; never to shield his face. The Islanders' own mouths have admitted that the odds are against ten Englishmen if they face one Dane. I think it is because he is out of patience with the war that the King makes of the Gainer a time-saver. It has been told me that he fights not for love of it, nor yet for glory, but because he covets the land of—"

Like the bellow of an angry bull, Rothgar's voice broke through his. "Land! Quickly will I proclaim my opinion of any man who sets his heart on that! He who forgets glory in his eagerness for property, deserves the curse of Thor!"

"Prepare yourself, then, for a thunderbolt, Rothgar Lodbroksson," a clear voice spoke up suddenly.

None but had forgotten the red-cloaked figure munching its bread in the shadow behind them. One and all started in surprise. And the chief turned over his shoulder a face that was livid with anger. "You—you dare!" he roared.

But Randalin's heart was too full of bitterness to leave any room for fear. At the moment, it seemed to her that it did not matter what happened. She stood before the Jotun as straight and unbending as a spear-shaft, and her eyes were reflections of his own. Her wonder was great when slowly, even while his eyes blazed, Rothgar's mouth began to twitch at the corners. All at once he rolled over on his back with a shout of laughter.

"By Ragnar, there will not be many jests to equal this!" he gasped. "That a titmouse should ruffle its feathers and upbraid me! Here is merriment!" He lay there laughing after the others had joined in with him; and his face was not entirely sober the next time he turned it toward her. "Good Berserker, give me leave to live some while longer in order that I may explain my intentions."

Yet when he had risen, a change came into his voice that brought every man to his feet. "We will make ready to go at cockcrow," he said abruptly. "If it were only a matter of a couple of days, I would wait; but since it will be at least a week before we can expect them to give in, I think it unadvisable to waste more time. Since the King is in this temper, the next battle may well be the last; and much shame would come of it if we did not have our share. We will start when the cock crows. As soon as Canute gets the kingship over the English realm, Ivarsdale will fall to me anyway. Let the Angle enjoy himself until then."



Chapter XVI. The Sword of Speech



Speech-runes thou must know If thou wilt that no one For injury with hate requite thee. Sigdri'fuma'l.

No holiday finery tricked out the Danish host where it squatted along the Severn Valley that dreary October day; neither festal tables nor dimpling women nor even the gay striped tents. Of all the multitude of flags but one banner pricked the murky air,—the Raven standard that marked the headquarters of the King; and its sodden folds distinguished nothing more regal than a shepherd's wattled cote. Scattered clumps of trees offered the weary men their only protection against the drizzling rain; and the sole suggestions of comfort were the sickly fires that patient endeavor had managed to coax into life in these retreats. Some, whom exhaustion had robbed even of a fire-tender's ambition, had dropped down on the very spot where they had slipped from their saddles, and slept, cloak-wrapped, in the wet. And the circles about the fires were not much noisier.

Rothgar's face gathered gravity as he gained the crest of the last hill that lay between him and the straggling encampment.

"The rain appears to fall as coldly on their cheer as on their fires," he commented. "They hug the earth like the ducks on Videy Island."

"And look about as much like warriors who have got a victory," the child of Frode added wonderingly.

The Jotun threw her a glance, where she rode at his side. "Hear words of fate! I think that is the first time you have spoken in three days."

"You would think that great luck if you knew the kind of thoughts that have been in my mind," she muttered. But the son of Lodbrok was already leading his men down the hillside toward the point where the silken banner mocked at the wattled walls.

Under the thatched roof of the hut, a still more striking contrast awaited the eyes of those who entered. With a milking-stool for his table and the shepherd's rude bunk for a throne, the young King of the Danes was bending in scowling meditation over an open scroll. Against the mud-plastered walls, the crimson splendor of his cloak and the glitter of his gold embroideries gave him the look of a tropical bird in an osier cage; while the fiery beauty of his face shone like a star in the dusk of the windowless cell. Days in the saddle and nights in the council had pared away every superfluous curve from cheek and chin, until there was not one line left that did not tell of impatient energy; and every spark of his burning soul seemed centred in his brilliant eyes. At the sight of him, the girl's heart started and shook like a harp-string under the touch of the master; and Rothgar, the stolid, the stern, who had come to upbraid, bowed reverently as he grasped the hand his leader stretched out.

"King, I would not have kept away had I guessed that my sword would be useful to you. It was my belief that you were entertaining yourself with getting property in Mercia, else would I have left all to come to you."

Canute half pressed the huge paw and then half spurned it. "It was in my mind to give you a great scolding when I got you again. I thought you had drunk sea-water and blood out of a magic horn and forgotten me utterly. You must have gotten yourself fitted out for the rest of your life since at last you were willing to leave."

"Lord," Rothgar began, "I have come back to you as poor as I went—"

But the King interrupted him, as at that moment, in the figure hesitating at the door, he recognized his missing ward. "Say not so, when you have brought back the bright blade we mourned as lost!" He put out his other hand with a gleam of pleasure in his changeful eyes. "Welcome to you, Fridtjof the Bold! I should like to believe that you are as glad to return to me as I am glad to receive you."

As she stood there watching him, Randalin had been undergoing a strange transformation. For four months she had almost forgotten his existence, he had been little more than an empty name, while she gave every energy of mind and heart to the things about her. But now, behold! One sight of his life-full face, one moment in his dominating presence, and those months were swept into the land of dreams. His deeds alone appeared vital; he alone seemed real. She, the Etheling himself, were but as shadows depending upon his sun-like career. If he should choose to shine upon them, what dark evil could come nigh? It was in all sincerity that she bent her knee as she took his hand. "Lord," she cried impulsively, "I have brought you back a loyal heart! I have been very close to the English King, and he is unworthy to hold your sword."

Canute gave a sudden laugh; but it was a short one, and he turned away abruptly to begin a restless pacing to and fro. "You choose your words in a thoughtful way," he said. "It is seen that you do not say how it would be if he were to hold his sword against mine." Pausing before Rothgar, he jerked his head toward the scroll. "Do you know what that is? That is a challenge from the Ironside."

"A challenge?" his listeners cried in chorus.

He seemed to take petulant offence at their surprise. "A challenge. Did you never hear the word before, that you stare like oxen? He invites me to settle this affair by single combat on the island, yonder; and there is the greatest sense in what he says. Every one who has a man's wit is tired of the strife; and if we continue at it, there will not be much to win besides ashes and bones."

Rothgar sat gazing at the wooden door as though he could see through it the huddled groups outside. "Now by no means do I think it strange that your host is not in high spirits," he said.

With an impatient shrug the King moved on again. "It has happened, then, that the news has spread? I wonder whether they are troubling themselves most for fear that I shall undertake this fight and get killed, or for fear that I shall turn back from it and the war will be obliged to go on. And I should be glad if I knew what expectation was uppermost in the Gainer's mind when he made the plan. For certainly one sees his claw behind the pen."

"May wolves tear him!" Rothgar burst out. "Two kings he has used as oaten pipes, but never did I think that you would make the third."

Canute's foot jarred upon the earth; his face was suddenly aflame. "And never will I, while my head remains above ground! Now are you even more rash than you are wont! It is I who play on him, not he on me. Through him, as through a pipe, I have tempted Edmund on; and through him, as through a pipe, I have called Edmund off; and as with a broken pipe I shall part with him when I am done,—and think it no falseness either, since I know for certain that it is the fate he has in store for me, as soon as I cease to be gainful for him." The worst of the young chief's nature showed for an instant in the smile that widened his nostrils. Then it gave way to another flash of temper. "Nor am I a pipe for your plaything, either. What! Am I to be as a child between you and Thorkel, that each time I follow the advice of one of you, I am to get a tongue-lashing from the other? Have you not got it into your head that I am your King?"

Rothgar gave a short laugh. "I do not know if I have got it into my head or not," he said; "but I am certain that my body is aware of your kingship." He did not even move his eyes toward the stump of his wrist, but Canute turned from him suddenly, his lip caught in his teeth, and once more strode up and down the narrow space.

After the fourth round, he stopped and laid his hands affectionately upon his foster-brother's shoulders. "Too long have we endured each other's roughness, comrade, for you to think that unfriendliness is in my mind because I foam over in this way. I tell you, you would not wonder at it if you knew the state of my feelings. And I will not conceal it that I am glad you have come to share them—though I have not the intention to heed a word of your advice," he added, half laughing, half threatening. Pushing the other down upon the rough bunk, he seated himself beside him, his elbows on his knees, his chin cupped in his palms.

"The host is full of impatience; and I am weary unto madness. Never do we come to any end, nor ever shall until that time when the wolf shall catch the sun! I have nowhere heard of a more foolish war than this. It was in my mind, as you came in, that I would send a favorable answer to the Englishman and get the matter decided, one way or another."

Even Randalin uttered a cry; and Rothgar caught his King by the arm as though to snatch him out of bodily peril. "Only one way would be possible, Canute! Your waist is not so big as one of his arms. His sword would cleave you as if it cut water."

Half laughing, but more resentful, the King freed himself. "Now do you hold my power so lightly? More than once have I gotten under your guard. If skill could accomplish anything, you would not have to wait long for what I should fix upon." He broke off with a shrug and flung himself back upon the straw of the bunk. "Let us speak of something else," he said. "What did the boy say about having seen Edmund?"

Somewhat ramblingly, as uncertain of his interest, Randalin told him of her glimpse of the Ironside; and he listened lying back on the straw, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. She had begun to think he had forgotten her, when all at once he shot out a swift question: "Did you never find out what the wool was that Edric Jarl pulled over his eyes?"

"Not unless one could guess it from what King Edmund said, lord,—that the Jarl had found them so much cleverer than he expected that his victory was without relish to him, and he was desirous to regain their friendship."

A distinct chuckle came from Canute, and some murmur about the Ironside's chin. Then he said, "Go on, and tell me everything you can remember;" and once more lay staring at the ceiling in silence. He did not appear to notice it when she stopped; the pause lasted so long that Rothgar concluded that sleep had overtaken their host and rose softly to betake himself to such cheer as the fires offered. As he made the first step, however, Canute sat up suddenly, striking his fist upon the bunk.

"I will do it!" he said. While they stared, he rose and recommenced his hurried pacing, his eyes keen and far away, his mouth set in grim resolve.

"Do what, King?" the son of Lodbrok ventured at last.

Canute's eyes appeared to rest upon the pair without seeing them. "Accept the challenge," he answered absently. Then the utter horror in both faces brought him momentarily back. "You need not look like that. I would not do it if I did not see a good chance to win. There are other weapons than those which dwell in sheaths."

"But if you lose?" Rothgar's harsh voice was discordant with emotion. "If you lose?"

The King silenced him impatiently. "I do not think I shall lose; but if it be otherwise, then Fate will rule it. I prefer to risk everything rather than to experience more delay." Catching the bewildered page by the collar, he pushed him toward the door. "Run, boy, with all the speed of your legs, and find Ingimund the Swimmer and fetch him here. And you, foster-brother, if my fame is important to you, do you betake yourself to those dumpish oafs around the fires and try, by any means whatever, to remedy their faint-heartedness. Ask them if they want the host across the river to think them turned into a herd of weeping bondwomen. Ask them if they think thus to show honor to their King. Tell them that I take it as no proof of their love; that I will have none of that halting faith which limps up with a great cry after the show is over. Tell them—Oh, tell them anything you think worth while—only that you get some noise out of them! Evil will come of it if the Englishman is allowed to believe that he has beaten us before ever he has struck a blow."

Rothgar sighed as he moved forward. "I am very unfit to speak words of cheerfulness to anybody; but this shall, like other things, be as you wish."



Chapter XVII. The Judgment of The Iron Voice



His power should Every sagacious man Use with discretion, For he will find, When among the bold he comes, That no one alone is doughtiest. Ha'vama'l.

Fold by fold, the sun's golden fingers drew apart the mists that hid the valley. One by one, the red Severn cliffs were uncovered, and the wooded steeps on which the rival hosts were encamped. Brighter and brighter the river's silver gleamed through its veilings. Finally the moment came when the last mist-wreath floated up like a curtain, and there lay open the shining water, and the rocky islet it seethed about, and the vision of two boats setting forth from the two shores amid the noise of shouting thousands. It was the hour of the royal duel, when the fate-thread of a nation, beaded with human destinies, lay between the fingers of two men. What a scattering of the beads if the cord should be cut!

Under the elms of the east bank, the daughter of Frode stood and watched the boats set out; and the hands that hung at her side opened and shut as though they were gasping for breath. For a moment she tortured herself with the thought that she knew not which side to pray for, since the victory of either would mean her beloved's undoing; then she forgot Sebert's future in her own present. Turning, she found herself facing a wall of stalwart bodies, a sea of coarse faces, and discovered, with a sudden tightening of her muscles, that all the eyes which were not following the boat were centred curiously upon herself.

Before she could take a step, the nearest warrior thrust out a hand and caught her by her black locks. "Stop a little, my Bold One," he said gruffly. "Now that you have a moment to spare from the high-born folk, it is the wish of us churls to hear some of your news."

A score of heavy voices seconded the demand, and the wall gradually curved into a circle around her. They were good-natured enough,—even the grasp on her hair was roughly playful,—but her heart seemed to stop in her as a swimmer's might the first instant he lost sight of land and beheld only towering billows looming around him. She darted one swift glance at her knife, and another at an old willow-tree that overhung the bank, some thirty yards away. But even as she thought it, the hand left her hair and closed about her wrist.

"No cause for knife-play or leg-play either, my hawk," the gruff voice rebuked her. "To no one are we more anxious to show friendship than to Canute's ward; and you act like no true man if you cannot, when occasion requires, leave off your high-born ways and be a plain comrade among plain men."

Again a murmur approved his words: "That is well spoken. Frode of Avalcomb would be the first to thank us for teaching it to you."... "He carried no such haughty head, young boy. I fought more than one battle at his heels."... "Come on, now!"... "Make haste! We want to get into place before they come to land."

This time it was not a shadow but a sparkle of sunshine that mocked in Randalin's ear: "You have not dared to be a woman, so you must dare to be a man." She acknowledged the pitiless truth with a sigh of submission.

"Take your hands off me, and it shall be as you wish." The big Swede released her wrist to catch her around the waist and toss her like a bone upon the platter of his shield, which four of them promptly raised between them and bore along, laughing uproariously at her sprawling efforts for dignity. When they came to a spot along the bank which was open enough to give them an unobstructed view of the island, they permitted her to scramble down and seat herself upon the grass, where they ringed themselves around her, twenty deep.

"Now for it! While they are waiting for Edmund to land; before there is anything to watch," the Scar-Cheek commanded. "Tell what you told Canute with regard to the English King which made him so reckless as to agree to this bargain."

There was nothing for it but obedience. A flower in a thicket of thistles, a lamb in the midst of wolves, she sat and watched the tipping of the scales that had her fortune among their weights.

A shout from the surging mass of English opposite told when the Ironside had landed; and as soon as it was seen whom he had chosen to accompany him as his witness, a buzz of excitement passed along the Danish line.

"Edric! by all the gods, Edric Jarl!"

"Now, for the first time, I believe that victory will follow Canute's sword!" Brass Borgar ejaculated. "Since nothing less than the madness betokening death could cause Edmund to continue his trust in the Gainer, it is seen from this that he is a death-fated man."

From the others there came a volley of epithets, so foul a flight that the girl's knuckles whitened in her struggles to keep her hands down from her ears. A picture rose in her mind of Sebert's dream-lady, passing her waiting-time among soft-voiced maids, and her heart turned sick within her.

It was little time that the pack gave her for revery, however; now it was Edric Jarl of whom they wanted to hear.

"While they are talking about the terms, there is nothing to look at; tell us how the Gainer pulled the net around King Edmund," the rough voices demanded. And again she was obliged to bend her wits to their task.

But it came at last, the end that was the beginning. Suddenly a hand reached around her neck and shut over her mouth. "Stop! They are taking their places. Look!"

He need not have added that last word; from that moment for many thousands of eyes there was but one object in the world,—the strip of rock-ribbed earth and the two figures that faced each other upon it.

As they fixed their gaze on their champion, the English yelled exultantly, and the Danes bravely rivalled them in noise; but it was more a cry of rage and grief than a cheer. Now that the royal duellists stood forth together, stripped of cloak and steel shirt, and wearing no other helm than the golden circlet of their rank, their inequality was even more glaring than alarmed fancy had painted it. The crown of Canute's shining locks reached only to the chin of the mighty Ironside; and the width of nearly two palms was needed on his shoulders.

Borgar turned, with tears in his bleared eyes, and threw himself face-downward on the earth; and the fellow next to him, with the mien of a madman, thrust his mantle between his teeth and bit and tore at it like a dog. "It is murder," he snarled, "murder."

Of all the Northmen, the young King alone appeared serenely undisturbed. When he had saluted the Ironside with royal courtesy, he met his sword as though he were beginning a practising bout with his foster-brother. Smoothly, evenly, without haste or fury, the blades began to sing their wordless song to the listening banks.

After a time Borgar dared to raise his face from the grass. "Is he yet alive?" he whispered.

The men did not seem to hear him. Humped over the earth, with starting eyes and necks stretched to their uttermost, they were like so many boulders. Nor did Frode's daughter seem to feel that the hand the Brass One had raised himself upon was crushing her foot; she did not even glance toward him as she answered: "Simpleton! Do you think the King does not know how to handle his weapon? If only his strength—"

Her sentence was not finished, and the man next to her drew in his breath with a great whistling rush. Canute's weapon, playing with the lightness of a sun-beam, had evaded a stroke of the great flail and touched for an instant the shoulder of its wielder. Had he put a pound more force into the thrust—A groan crept down the Danish line when the bright blade rose, as lightly as it had fallen, and continued its butterfly dance. It consoled them a little, however, that no cheer went up from the English,—only a low buzz that was half of anger, half of astonishment.

Farther along the eastern bank, where Thorkel the Tall stood beside Ulf Jarl and Eric of Norway, there was not even a groan. The first rift came in the puzzled clouds of Eric's face. "Here is the first happening that makes me hope!" he said. "If he has something more than his fencing accomplishment to support him, it may be that an unfavorable outcome need not be expected."

The Tall One's brows relaxed ever so little from their snarl of worry. "The boy has experienced good training, for all that he has at present the appearance of a great fool. If Rothgar's warrior skill is in his arm, yet my caution should be in his head."

Certainly there was no Berserk madness about the young Danishman; there was hardly even seriousness. Now his blade was a fleeing will-o'-the-wisp, keeping just out of reach of Edmund's brand with apparently no thought but of flight. Now, when the Ironside's increasing vehemence betrayed him into an instant's rashness, it was a humming-bird darting into a flower-cup. But it always rose again as daintily as it had alighted.

The Danish bank was frantic with excitement. "It is the dance of the Northern Lights!" they cried. "Thor has sent him his own sword!"

The lines of English were wild with anger. "Crush him, the hornet, the wasp! Crush him, Edmund!" they roared.

In his exultation, the Scar-Cheek rolled himself over and over on the grass, and wound up by thrusting his shaggy head into the lap of the red-cloaked page. "I must do something for joy," he panted; "and—except for your hair—you look near enough like a handsome woman. Do you bend down and kiss me every time Canute pricks him."

His head fell to the ground with a thump as the child of Frode leaped to her feet.

"If you lay finger on me again," she whispered, "I will caress you with this!" and for an instant a knife-blade glittered before the bulging eyes. Snorri rolled back with alacrity and an oath; and after a moment Frode's daughter dropped down again and hid her face in her hands. If the King should be slain and she be left adrift in this foul sea! She might as well have screamed as moaned, for all that they would have noticed.

About this time Canute's blade appeared to have become in earnest. Ceasing its airy defence, it took on the aggressive. Instead of a flitting sunbeam, it became a shaft from a burning glass; instead of one merry humming-bird, it became a whole swarm of skimming, swooping, darting swallows, waging war on a bewildered owl. Before the sudden fury of the onslaught, Edmund gave back a pace. And either because his anger made him reckless or his great bulk was against him, he presently was forced to draw back another step. Wildest cheers went up from the North-men. It seemed as though they would wade in a body across the river.

Only Eric of Norway stamped with uneasiness; and the overhanging brows of Thorkel the Tall were as lowering hoods above his eyes. "Well has he hoarded his strength," he muttered. "Well has he saved it, yet—yet—"

At that moment such a roar went up from Northern throats as might well have startled the wolf's shadow off the face of the sun; for Edmund Ironside had retreated a third step, and the Dane's point appeared to lie at the Englishman's heart. Then the uproar died somewhere in mid-air, for in what seemed the very act of thrusting, Canute had leaped backward and lowered his blade. So deep was the hush on either side the river that the whir of a bird's wing sounded as loud as a flight of arrows. Bending forward, with strained ears and starting eyes, the spectators saw that the Northern King was speaking, eagerly, with now and then an impulsive gesture, while the English King listened motionless.

"Has he got out of his wits?" the Scar-Cheek roared, fairly dancing with impatience.

In Randalin's face a flash of memory was struggling with bewilderment. "Other weapons than those which dwell in sheaths." Had he meant "the sword of speech," his tongue?

With the deliberate grace which characterized his every motion, the Ironside slid his sword back to its case, and they saw him take a slow step forward and slowly extend his hand. Then they saw Canute spring to meet him, and their palms touch in a long grasp.

From the English shore there went up a joyful shout of "Peace!" And a deafening clamor rose in answer from the Danish bank. But what sentiment predominated in that, it would be difficult to say. Blended with rejoicing over their King's safety, were cries of bitter disappointment, the cries of thirsty men who have seen wine dashed from their lips.

In their retreat, the two Northern jarls and the young monarch's foster-father faced each other uncertainly. "Here is mystery!" Eric of Norway said at last. "I should be thankful if you would tell me whether he thought it unwise to kill the Englishman before the face of his army; or whether he is in truth struck with love toward him, as the fools seem to believe?"

"Or whether he had reached the exact limit of his strength so that he was obliged to save himself by some trick of words?" Ulf Jarl suggested.

The Tall One shook his head slowly. "Now, as always, it is he alone who can altogether explain his actions. It might easily be that in his mad impatience he overvalued his strength, so that he was obliged to stop short to keep within bounds. But I think you will find that there is still some trick which is not open to our sight. His man-wit is deepening very fast; I will not be so bold as to say that I can always fathom it."

"Perhaps he thinks a short peace would be useful to the host," the Norwegian said, and laughed. "Such a truce is as comfortable as a cloak when the weather is stark, and as easy to get rid of when the sun comes out."

By their faces, the others appeared to agree with him; but before they could express themselves, a swimmer rose like a dripping seal out of the water at their feet.

"Peace and division again!" he cried breathlessly. "And it is the King's will that you get into a boat and come to him at once."

The rush of the crowd to the water-side to question the messenger gave Randalin her chance for freedom; and she was not slow in taking it. A moment more, and she was in the very top of the willow-tree, clasping her hands and wringing them in alternate thanksgiving and terror.

"Whatever it bring upon me, I will get back to my woman's clothes," she vowed to herself over and over. "Though it become a hindrance to me, though it be the cause of my death, I will be a woman always. Odin forgive me that I thought I had courage enough to be a man!"



Chapter XVIII. What The Red Cloak Hid



At eve, the day is to be praised; A woman, after she is dead. Ha'vama'l.

In the vault overhead blue had deepened into purple, and all the silver star-lamps been hung out, their flames trembling unceasingly in the playing winds. By the soft light, the Jotun, who was striding across the camp, saw a graceful boyish form leave the circle around the King's fire and join a group of mounted men waiting on the river bank, some fifty yards away.

"Ho there, Fridtjof!" he roared wrathfully.

The figure turned, and he had a fleeting glimpse of a hand waved in mocking farewell. Then the boy sprang into the saddle of a horse that one of the warriors was holding, and the whole band moved forward at a swinging pace.

"If you had waited a little, you would be less light on your feet," the Jotun growled as he strode on, striking his heels savagely upon the frosty ground.

"Where is the King?" he demanded, as soon as he had reached the ring of nobles sipping mead around the royal fire. Between swallows, they were carrying on a heated discussion of the day's events; but Eric of Norway stopped long enough to nod toward the wattled hut beneath the silken banner.

"In there; and I will give you this chain off my neck if you can guess what he is doing."

"It is likely that he is busy with messengers," Rothgar said with an accent of vexation. "I had hoped to reach him before he finished drinking, but there was a brawl among my men which—"

"He is playing chess," Eric said dryly.

"Chess!"

The Norwegian nodded as he swallowed. "Heard you ever anything to equal that? He has the appearance of a boy who has been released from a lesson. I wish that you had been here to see him at meal-time. So full of jests and banter was he that I could scarcely eat for laughing. Yet when I took courage from his good-nature to ask him concerning his plans for the future, he pretended that he did not hear me, and put an end to questioning by bidding Ulf come and play chess with him in the hut. Whether he is mad, or bewitched, or feigning like Amleth, it is not easy to tell."

"I do not think it is any of these," Rothgar said slowly. "I think it is because he likes it so well that he has got peace in which to amuse himself. Sooner would he hunt than fight, any day; and I have often seen him express pleasure in this manner. I remember how his wife Elfgiva once said of him that it was well his crown was no more than a ring of gold, for then, when his mood changed, he could use it for such a gold hoop as kings' children are wont to play with."

"Said Elfgiva of Northampton that?" Eric asked in surprise. "Never would I have believed her so wise in words. That she is the most beautiful of women, all the world knows; but I have always supposed that her wit stopped with her temper, which is suspected to be shorter than her hair."

Rothgar grunted scornfully. "It is easy for a fool to speak some wisdom if she keeps her tongue moving all the time."

Laughing, the Norwegian plunged again into the general discussion; and the son of Lodbrok stood listening discontentedly, while he kept a sharp watch of the low-browed entrance.

Presently his patience was rewarded. Within the hut there arose all at once a duet of voices, half angrily accusing, half laughingly protesting. Then the chess-board came flying through the doorway, followed by a handful of chessmen and the person of the big good-natured Jarl, still uttering his laughing protests. And finally Canute himself stood under the lintel, storming through his laughter.

"Blockhead, that you cannot keep your thoughts on what you are doing! One might expect as good a game from the tumbler's dog. Is it the drink that you have got into your head, or the war matters that you cannot get out? You deserve—"

"To lose the honor of playing with the King," the Jotun broke in, making a long step forward. "Be so good as to allow me to take his place, lord. I have some words for your ear which are worth a hearing."

"Rothgar!" the King exclaimed with great cordiality, and stepped from the doorway to meet him. "Willingly do I make the change, for I have been wishing to speak with you this last hour. I have thought of a fine plan for to-morrow's sport." Laying his arm boy-fashion across his foster-brother's shoulders, he swung him around toward the river. "But we will not go in there to do our talking. We will walk along the shore. To-night I feel as though I could walk to the rainbow-bridge." He shook back his headful of long hair and drew a deep breath, like a man from whom a burden has been lifted.

As they strolled beside the moonlit water, the son of Lodbrok listened in secret amazement to the string of plans that unfolded itself,—hunts and horse-races, swimming matches and fishing trips.

"But where will you get the fishing tackle, lord? And the hawks and the hounds for all this?" he ventured presently. They were some little distance up the bank now, where trees screened them from the camp-fires. Suddenly the young King made a leaping grab at a bough overhead and hung by it, looking down at his companion with the face of a mischievous boy.

"How joyfully you will take my answer! I have sent to Northampton for them. And I have bidden Elfgiva accompany them, with all her following of maids and lap-dogs and beardless boys. Before the end of the week, I expect that the Abbey guest-house will have the appearance of a woman's bower; and the monks will have taken to the woods."

As his foster-brother stood gazing at him in speechless dismay, he laughed maliciously. "Where are your manners, partner, that you do not praise my foresight? Here am I eager to go to her to celebrate my victory; and yet because I think it unadvisable for me to leave the camp, I remain like a rock at my post. Where is your praise?"

"King," Rothgar said gravely, "is the truce going to last long enough to make it worth while to fetch those trinkets here?"

His laughter vanishing, the King came to earth in both senses of the phrase. "Now I do not know what you mean by that," he said. "You were with me on the island. You heard what was said. You heard that we made peace together to last the whole of our lives, in truth, longer; since he who outlives is to inherit peacefully after him who dies. Did you not hear that?"

Rothgar kicked a stone out of his way with impatient emphasis. "Oh, yes, I heard it. I heard also how you said that you would rather have the Englishman's friendship than his kingdom."

The eyebrows Canute had drawn down into a frown rose ironically. "There is room in your breast for more sense, Rothgar, my brother, if you think, because I am forced into one lie, that I never speak the truth," he said. "We will not talk of it further. I should like to remain good-humored to-night, if it were possible. What are the words you have waiting for my ears?"

The Jotun's sudden frown quite eclipsed his eyes. "It is not likely that I shall remain good-humored if I put my tongue to them. Oh! Now it becomes clear in my mind what you have sent your black-haired falcon down the wind after,—to carry your order to Northampton?" "Certainly it is," Canute assented. "When the boy found that I had need of a messenger, he begged it of me as a boon that he might be the one to carry the good news to my lady. I thought it a well-mannered way to show his thankfulness. But why is your voice so bitter when you speak of him?"

"Because I have just found out that he is a fox," Rothgar bellowed. "Because it has been borne in upon me that he has played me a foul trick, by which I lost property that was already under my hands; lost it forever, Troll take him! if it be really true that we are to make no more warfare upon the lands south of the Watling Street."

"It is not possible!" Canute ejaculated. "He looks to be as truthful as Balder."

Rothgar uttered his favorite grunt. "Never did I hear that Loke had crooked eyes or a tusk, and black hair grows on both of them. I tell you, I know it for certain. I have just been to find the English serf who became my man after Brentford; and he has told me what he says he tried to tell the night before we left Ivarsdale, but no one would listen to him without pounding him,—that the servant-maid, who informed him concerning the provision house, spoke also of a Danish page her lord had, whom he treated with such great love that it was commonly said he was bewitched. And before that, when the brat was telling you how the Englishman had saved him from Norman's sword, it occurred to me that he talked more as a woman talks of her lover than as a man speaks of his foe. I had my mouth open to tax him with it, when you threw this duel at me like a rock and knocked everything else out of my head."

"May the gallows take my body!" the King breathed. And he sat down upon a grassy hummock as suddenly as though a rock had been thrown at him that knocked the legs from under him. Nor did he get up immediately, but remained gazing at the string of bright beads which English camp-fires made along the opposite bluff, his face intent with pondering.

Meanwhile the son of Lodbrok strode to and fro, declaiming wrathfully. "There is not an honest bone in the imp's body," he wound up. "It is certainly my belief that he was in league with the Englishman; and his freedom was the reward he got for drawing me off."

"Certainly you are a very shrewd man," Canute murmured. But something in his voice did not stand firm; his foster-brother darted him a keen glance. His suspicions were well founded. Canute's face was crimson with suppressed laughter; he was biting his lips frantically to hold back his mirth. The temper of the son of Lodbrok left him in one inarticulate snarl. Turning on his heel, with a whirlwind of flying cloak and a thunder of clashing weapons, he would have stalked away if the King had not made him the most peremptory of gestures.

"No, wait! Wait, good brother! I will show you whether I offend you intentionally or not! It is—it is—the—the jest—" Again he became unintelligible.

Rothgar stopped, but it was to glower over his folded arms. "Do you think I do not know as well as you that I behaved like a fool? What I dislike is that you cannot see as plainly that your ward is a troll. Because his womanish face has caught your fancy, you will neither blame him yourself nor allow others to make a fuss—"

"That is where you are wrong," the King interrupted, with as much gravity as he could command. "When Fridtjof Frodesson comes again into your presence, I give you leave to take whatever revenge you like. Lash him with your tongue or your belt, as you will; and I promise that I will not lift finger to hinder you from it."

"And not hold it against me?" Rothgar demanded incredulously.

"And not hold it against you," Canute agreed. Then he tilted his head back to laugh openly in the other's face. "Will you wager a finger-ring against my knife that your mind will not change when my ward stands again before you?"

The Jotun smiled grimly. "Is that the expectation you are stringing your bow with? It will fail you as surely as the hair of Hother's wife failed him. The wager shall be as you have made it; and may I lack strength if I do not deal with him—" He paused, blinking like a startled owl, as his royal foster-brother leaped to his feet and fronted him with shouts of laughter.

"You dolt, you!" Canute cried. "Do you not see it yet? Frode's child is a woman!"

Rothgar's jaw dropped and his bulging eyes seemed in danger of following. "What!" he gasped; and then his voice rose to a roar. "And the Englishman is her lover?"

"You are wiser than I expected," the King laughed. "I intend to call you Thrym after this, for it is unlikely that Loke made a greater fool of the Giant. Your enemies will make derisive songs about it."

Stamping with rage, the Jotun hammered his huge fist upon a tree-trunk until bark flew in every direction. "King, I will give you every ring off my hand if you will give me leave to strangle her!"

"You remind me that I will take one of your rings now," Canute said, reaching out and opening the mallet-like fist that he might make his choice. Then, as he fitted on his prize and held it critically to the light, he added with more sympathy: "I will arrange for you a more profitable revenge than that. I will make a condition with Edmund that the Etheling's odal shall not be included in the land which is peace-holy, and that to ravage it shall not be looked upon as breaking the truce. Then can you betake yourself thither and sit down with your following, and have no one but yourself to blame if you fail a second time. Only,"—he thrust his knuckles suddenly between the other's ribs,—"only, before we get serious over it, do at least give one laugh. Though she be Ran herself, the maiden has played an excellent joke upon you."

"I do not see how you make out that it is all upon me," Rothgar said sulkily. "It did not appear that you got suspicious in any way, until I told you myself what she talked like. You did not have the appearance of choking much on her stories."

The King seemed all at once to recover his dignity. "I will not deny that," he said gravely; "and have I not said that I expect to be angry about it presently? Certainly I do not think she has treated me with much respect. That she did not tell you, is by no means to be wondered at; it might even count as something in her favor. But me she should have given her confidence. That she should dare to offer her King that lying story about her sister's death—" His face flushed as though he were remembering his emotion on receiving that same story; and his foster-brother's observation did not tend to mollify him.

"And not only to offer it," the son of Lodbrok chuckled, "but to cram it down his throat and make him swallow it."

Canute's heels also began to ring with ominous sharpness upon the frosty ground. "She must be Ran herself! Oh, you need not be afraid that I shall not get overbearing enough after I am started! Had she been no more than her father's daughter, her behavior would have been sufficiently bad; but that she whom I had made my ward should withhold her confidence from me to give it to an Englishman! Become his thrallwoman, by Odin, and betray my people for his sake! Now, as I am a king, I will punish her in a way that she will like less than strangling! I tell you, her luck is great that she is not here to-night."



Chapter XIX. The Gift of The Elves

Fair shall speak And money offer, Who would obtain a woman's love. Ha'vama'l.

It was the edge of a forest pool, and a slender dark-haired girl bending from the brink to see herself in the water. Looking, she smiled,—and small wonder!

Below her, framed in green rushes, was the reflection of a high-born maiden dressed according to her rank. Clinging silk and jewelled girdle lent new grace to her lithesome form, while the mossy green of her velvet mantle brought out the rich coloring of her face as leaves bring out the glowing splendor of a rose. Gold was in the embroidery that stiffened her trailing skirts; gold was sewn into her gloves, and golden chains twined in her lustrous hair added to the spirited poise of her head a touch of stateliness. No wonder that her mouth curved into a smile as she gazed.

"It cannot be denied that I look woman-like now," she murmured. "It is a great boon for me that he likes my hair."

Then the water lost both the reflection and the face above it as a sweet voice sounded up the bank, calling, "Randalin! Randalin!"

Picking up the branchful of scarlet berries which she had dropped, Frode's daughter moved toward the voice. "Are they about to go, Dearwyn?" she asked the little gentlewoman who came toward her around a hawthorn bush, lifting her silken skirts daintily.

Dearwyn shook her head. "My lady wishes to try on you the wreath she has made. She thinks your dark locks will set it off better than our light ones."

"I was on my way thither," Randalin said, quickening her steps.

With timid friendliness in her pretty face, Dearwyn waited, and the Danish girl gave her a shy smile when at last they stood side by side; but their acquaintanceship did not appear to have reached the point of conversation, for they walked back in silence to the spot where the Lady Elfgiva's train had halted on its journey for a noonday meal and rest.

Along the bank of a pebbly stream, between pickets of mounted guards, the troop of holiday-folk was strung in scattered groups. Yonder, a body of the King's huntsmen struggled with braces of leashed hounds. Here were gathered together the falconers bearing the King's birds. Nearer, a band of grooms led the King's blooded horses to the water. And nearer yet, where the sun lay warm on a leafy glade, the King's beautiful "Danish wife" took her nooning amid her following of maids and of pages, of ribboned wenches and baggage-laden slaves.

As her glance fell upon this last picture, Randalin drew a quick breath of admiration. While they waited for the bondwomen to restore to the hampers the crystal goblets and gold-fringed napkins that even in the wood wastes must minister to such delicate lips, one merry little lady was launching fleets of beech-nut rinds down the stream; another, armed with a rush-spear, was making bold attack on the slumbers of some woodland creature which she had spied out basking on the sunny side of a stump; and in the centre of the open, the Lady Elfgiva was amusing herself with the treasures of red and gold leaves which silk-clad pages were bringing from the thicket.

Gazing at her, Randalin's admiration mounted to wistfulness. "Were I like that, I should be sure of his feeling toward me," she sighed.

Certainly, as she looked to-day sitting under the towering trees, it was easy to understand why the King's wife had been named "the gift of the elves." Every lovely thing in Nature had been robbed to make her, and only fairy fingers could have woven the sun's gold into such tresses, or made such eyes from a scrap of June sky and a spark of opal fire. From the crown of her jewelled hair to the toe of her little red shoe, there was not one line misplaced, one curve forgotten, while her motions were as graceful as blowing willows.

When the pair came toward her over the carpet of leather-hued leaves, she put out a white hand in beckoning. "Come here, my Valkyria, and let me try if I can make you look still more like a gay bird from over the East Sea."

"You have made me look a very splendid bird, lady," Randalin said gratefully, as she knelt to receive the woodland crown.