Chapter 4

It was indeed Thorleif whom I saw as the deadly faintness of utter weariness and want of food came over me, and I sank. The Danes had hardly lost sight of me from the ships, for they had drifted backward and forward on the tide as I drifted, and I was never more than a mile from them. Until the tide turned to the eastward there had been no wind of any use to them, and that which came with sunset was barely enough to give them steerage way. So they had watched me for want of somewhat else to do, being worn out with the long fight; and when I was far off, some keen-sighted seaman would spy my head as it rose on a wave, and cry that the Saxon was yet swimming.

Now, if there is one thing that the northern folk of our kin think much of in the way of sports, it is swimming, and it seems that I won high praise from all. Maybe they did not consider how a man who is trying to win his home again from captivity is likely to do more than his best. At all events, I had never so much as tried a swim like that before, nor do I think that I could compass it again. Presently, when the turn of the tide brought with it no eddy into the bay which set me homeward, Thorleif would let me go no longer, and followed me in the boat with two men; which was easy enough, for I swam between the ship and the place where the red glow of burning Weymouth still shone in the northern sky. He could not leave me to drown.

For a time, in the growing dusk, he could not find me. Then the sea fires showed me black against their glow, and the sea tempted him, and he leaped in after me, singing to cheer me, for it was plain that I was nearly spent. When he brought me up from the depth again I had little of the drowned man about me, for I had fainted. I remember coming round painfully after that swoon, and eating and drinking, and straightway falling into a dreamless sleep on the deck of the ship; and I also remember the untoldly evil and fishy smell of the seal oil they had rubbed me with.

When I came to myself, my first thought was that a solid wall of that smell stood round me; but such were the virtues of the oil and the rubbing that when I woke after eighteen hours' sleep I was not so much as stiff. It would ill beseem me to complain thereof, therefore, but it might have been fresher.

When I woke from my great sleep it was long past noon. I lay in the shelter of the gunwales under the curve of the high stern post, wrapped in a yellow Irish cloak, and in my ears roared and surged a deep-voiced song, which kept time with the steady roll of oars and the thrashing of the water under their blades. The ship was quivering in every timber with the pull of them, and I could feel her leap to every stroke. The great red and white sail was set also, and the westerly breeze was humming in it, and over the high bows the spray arched and fell without ceasing as oar and sail drove the sharp stem through the seas. Thorleif was in a hurry for some reason.

Only one man was on the after deck, steering, and he was fully armed. Save that his brown arm swayed a little, resting on the carven tiller, as the waves lifted the steering oar with a creak now and then, he was motionless, looking steadily ahead under the arch of the foot of the sail. The run of the deck set me higher than him, and I could not see more than the feet of some men who were clustered on the fore deck. But I could look all down the length of the ship, and there every man was armed, even the rowers. They had hung red and yellow wooden shields all along the gunwales, raising the bulwark against sea and arrow flight alike by a foot and more, and the rowers were fairly in shelter under them, if there was to be a broadside attack.

I never doubted that a fight was intended, though I could not tell why. Every man was at his post--two to each oar bench beside the rower, one with ready shield, and the other with bent bow, and these were looking forward also as they sang that hoarse song which had roused me. I do not know that I have ever heard aught so terrible as that. The wildness and savageness of it bides with me, and of a night when the wind blows round the roof I wake and think I hear it again. But it set me longing for battle, even here on the strange deck, and I would that I might join in it.

And then I knew that my own weapons lay beside me, and I sprang up, and grasped the sword and seax in haste to buckle them on. They rattled, and the steersman turned his head and laughed at me. It was old Thrond.

"That is right, lad," he said, turning his head back to watch his course again. "None the worse for the wetting, it seems."

Truth to tell, I felt little of it, being altogether myself again after the rest. So I laughed also, setting aside for the moment the question of what my fate was to be. It was plain that the man who saved me from the sea and gave me back my arms did not mean to make a captive of me in any hard sort.

"Only mightily hungry," I said. "It seems that I have slept heavily."

Thrond jerked his free thumb toward a pitcher and wooden bowl that were set near me, without looking round.

"So I suppose," he said. "Eat well, and then we will see what sort of a viking you make. You have half an hour or so."

Ale and beef there were, ready for me, and I took them and sat down at the feet of the old chief, with my legs hanging over the edge of the fore deck. Thence I could see that Thorleif was forward, and that away to the northward of us a ship was heading across our course, under sail only. The two other Danish ships were far astern of us, but their oars were flashing in the sun as they made after us.

Then I looked northward for England, but there was only the sea's rim, and over that a bank of white summer clouds. Under the sun, to the south, was a long blue line of hills whose shapes were strange to me, and that was the Frankish shore. We were far across the Channel, and still heading eastward.

"Thrond," I said, "are you after that ship yonder?"

"Ay. She will be a Frankish trader going home, and worth overhauling. Maybe there will be no fight, however; but one never knows."

Now it was in my mind to ask him what would be done with me, but I did not. That was perhaps a matter which must be settled hereafter, and not on the eve of a fight at sea. Moreover, I thought that a Frankish ship was fair game for any one, and that if I were needed there was no reason at all why I should not take a hand in the fight. Certainly I should fare no worse for taking my plight in the best way I could. So I held my tongue and went on eating.

One or two of the men looked up from the oars and grinned at me, and of these one had a black eye, being the man I had knocked off the deck. It was plain that he bore no malice, so I smiled back at him, and lifted the jug of ale toward him as I drank. He was a pleasant-looking man enough, now that the savagery of battle had passed from him.

Now I would have it remembered that a Saxon lad reared on the west Welsh marches is not apt to think much of a cattle raid and the fighting that ends it, and that with these Danes, who were so like ourselves, we had as yet no enmity. It seemed to me that being in strange company I must even fit myself to it, and all was wonderful to me in the sight of the splendid ship and her well-armed, well-ordered crew. Maybe, had we not been speeding to a fight the like of which I had never so much as heard of, I should have thought of home and the fears of those who would hear that I was gone; but as things were, how could I think of aught but what was on hand?

We were nearing the vessel fast, and seeing that she did not turn her head and fly, old Thrond growled that there was some fight in her.

"Unless," he added with a hard chuckle, "they have never so much as heard of a viking. Are there pirates in this sea, lad?"

"They say that the seamen from the southern lands are, betimes. I have heard of ships taken by swarthy men thence. The Cornish tin merchants tell the tales of them."

"Tin?" said Thrond. "Now I would that we had heard thereof before. I reckon we passed some booty westward. Eh, well, we shall know better next time."

After that he was silent, watching the ship ahead. She was a great heavy trader, with higher sides than this swift longship.

And presently, as I watched her, a thought came to me, and I was ashamed that I had not asked before if it was true that my cousin had not been hurt in the fighting.

"He was not harmed," answered the old chief. "He hurt us; he is a good fighter. Get yon shield and hold it ready to cover me. It is not worth while to have the helmsman shot, and it will set a man free to fight forward."

Now the ship was within arrow shot, and we could see that there were few men on her decks. Thorleif hailed her to heave to, sending an arrow on her deck by way of hint. Whereon she shot up into the wind, and her sail rattled down. Thrond whistled to himself.

"Empty as a dry walnut shell, or I am mistaken," he said between his teeth.

Then he shouted to Thorleif, and some order came back. The sail was lowered, and the ship swung alongside the stranger under oars only, while a rush of men came aft. Thorleif hailed the other ship to send him a line from the bows, and one flew on board us as we shot past. Then in a few moments we were under easy sail again, towing the great trader slowly after us; and the men were grumbling at the ease of the capture, thinking, with Thrond, that it boded a useless chase. Thorleif came aft to speak with the shipmaster from our stern.

Then there climbed on the bows of the trader a tall, handsome young man, at the sight of whom I could not withhold a cry of wonder, for I knew him well. He was Ecgbert the atheling, nephew of our great king Ina, and the one man whom Bertric feared as a rival when he came to the throne. His father and mine had been close friends, and we two had played and hunted together many a time, until the jealousy of Bertric drove him to seek refuge with Offa of Mercia. I thought him there yet.

"Yield yourselves," said Thorleif, "and we will speak in peace of ransom. I will come on board with a score of men, and harm none."

"We have yielded, seeing that there was no other chance for as," said Ecgbert quietly. "Come on board if you will, but on my word it is hardly worth your while. We left in too great a hurry to bring much with us."

"Whence are you, then, and whither bound?"

"From Mercia, by way of Southampton, and bound anywhere out of the way of Quendritha the queen. We had a mind to go to Carl the king, but any port in a storm!"

"Well," said Thorleif, laughing, "I am coming on board. That must be a terrible dame of whom you speak, if she has set the fear of death on a warrior such as you seem to be."

Then he bade the men haul on the cable, and the ships drew together slowly. I had to leave the deck, being in the way of the men, and Ecgbert did not see me, as far as I could tell.

Thorleif and his men boarded the prize over her bows and went aft, Ecgbert going with them. The two ships drifted apart again, and I found my place by Thrond once more, while the men sat on the gunwale, waiting for the time when their chief should return.

"Who is the queen yon Saxon speaks of?" asked Thrond.

I told him; and as we had heard much of her of late, I also told him how men said that she had been found on the shore by the king himself. Whereon Thrond's grave face grew yet more grave, and he said:

"Lad, is that a true tale?"

"My father had it from the thane who was with the king when they found her alone in her boat."

"So her name was not Quendritha when she began that voyage?"

"I have heard that she was a heathen. Mayhap the king gave her the name when she was christened. It means 'the might of the king.'"

So I suppose that he did, for the hope of what his wife should be. Nor was the name ill chosen, as it turned out, for all men knew by this time that the queen was the wisest adviser in all the council of Mercia in aught to do with the greatness of the kingdom.

"I have ever had it in my mind that she would get through that voyage in safety," Thrond said. "Ran would not have her."

"What do you mean?"

"Lad, I saw her start thereon, or so I think. Tell me when she was found."

That I could do, within a very short time. My father and Offa had been wedded in the same year, as I had heard him say but a few days ago, at Winchester, as men talked of the bride whom we had welcomed, Quendritha's daughter. And as he heard, Thrond's face grew very dark.

"That is she. Now I will tell you the beginning of that voyage. I was a courtman then to the father of Thorleif, our jarl here, and I myself made the boat ready and launched her in it."

And then he told me that which I have set down at the beginning of this tale--neither more nor less. What was the fullness of the evil the woman had wrought he did not tell me, and I am glad.

When he ended he sat silent and brooding for a long time. The ship forged slowly and uneasily over the waves with the heavy trader after her, and on our decks the men were silent, waiting for word from Thorleif of what was to be done. We could hear him, now and then, laughing with the crew of the other ship as if all went easily.

"Lad," said old Thrond, suddenly turning to me, "you had best forget all this. It is dangerous to know aught of the secrets of great folk; and if it comes to the ears of Quendritha that one is telling such a tale of her, the life of the man who has told it will not be worth much. Maybe I am wrong, and I speak of one who is drowned long since; for, indeed, it seems out of the way of chance that a girl could win across the sea from Denmark to a throne thus. And if it is true, she has done even as Thorleif's father bade her, and has left her ways of ill.

"And, yet," he said again, "if ever you have to do with her, remember what she may have been. It will be ill to offend her, or to cross her in aught."

"That is the hardest saying that our folk have of her," I said, "but I have heard it many a time."

"There is much in that saying," Thrond answered grimly.

"Well," I answered shortly, "I suppose that if any man will set himself against a king or a queen, he has to take the chances."

"Small chance for such an one if the queen be--well, such another as I helped to set adrift from our shore."

Meaningly that was said, and I had no answer. I was glad that Thorleif showed himself on the bows of the prize and hailed Thrond.

"Send the Saxon lad on board here," he said; "we have met with a friend of his."

That could be none but the atheling, and I leaped up. The men were heaving on the tow line, and the ships were slowly nearing each other.

"Thrond," I said breathlessly, "will Thorleif let me go?"

"Of course," he answered, smiling. "We only picked you up again to save your life. He had a mind to land you on the English shore presently; for he said you had kept faith with us well, and he could not let you suffer therefor."

The bows of the trader grated against our stern, and one of the men gave me a hoist over her gunwale with such good will that I landed sprawling among the coils of rope on the fore deck. When I gathered myself up I saw Ecgbert and Thorleif aft, while the Danes were rummaging the ship, and I made my way to them. And as I came the atheling stared at me, and then hastened forward with outstretched hand of welcome.

"Why, Wilfrid, old comrade, how come you here? I heard only of a West Saxon, and whether this is luck for you or not I do not know."

"Good luck enough, I think," I answered, with a great hand grip. "I had not yet let myself wonder how long it would be before I saw home again."

His face fell, and he looked doubtfully at me.

"I cannot take you home, Wilfrid; I am flying thence myself. The Danish chief will set you ashore somewhere at his first chance, he says."

"Why, what is amiss again?"

"The old jealousy, I suppose," he answered grimly. "As if a lad like myself was likely to try to overturn a throne! Here had I hardly settled down in Mercia as a fighter of the Welsh and hanger-on of Offa's court, when there come Bertric's messengers, asking that I should be given up, and backing the demand with a request for closer alliance by marriage. Offa, being an honest man, was for sending the message back unanswered. But the queen had a mind for the match, and as I was in the way, it was plain to me that I must be out of it. So I did not wait for Quendritha to remove me, but removed myself."

"Alone?" I asked.

"Alone, and that hastily. You do not know the lady of Mercia, or you would not ask."

Now I thought to myself that in the last half hour I had learned more of that lady than even Ecgbert knew, and I felt that he was wise in time, if Thrond's tale was true; which, indeed, I began to believe. But it did not seem right to me that an atheling of Wessex should be alone, without so much as a housecarl to tend him and stand at his back at need. I minded what my father taught me since I could learn.

"Here is your duty, son Wilfrid. First to God; then to the king; then to the atheling, the king's son, and then to father and mother; then to the shire reeve and the ealdorman, if so be that they are loyal; and then to helpless woman and friendless poor man. But to the weak first of all, against whomsoever will wrong them, whether it be the king or myself."

"Where will you go, atheling?" I asked, speaking low, for I had many things warring in my mind.

"I cannot tell yet. I am an outcast."

Then I knelt on the deck before him and made him take my hands between his own, and I said to him, while he tried to prevent me:

"Whither you go I follow, to be your man in good or ill. Little use I am, but some I may be; and at least the atheling of Wessex shall not say that none would follow him."

"Wilfrid," he cried, "I cannot suffer you to leave all for me."

Then said Thorleif, who had been watching us in silence:

"Take him, prince, for you will need him. He has kept faith with us, though he might have escaped easily enough, because he thought his word withheld him. And he has proved himself a man in battle with the waters, as I know well. Let him go with you, and be glad of him."

"I am loath to take him from his folk to share my misfortunes."

"That is naught," said Thorleif. "Pay a trader who is going to England to tell other chapmen to pass the word to his folk where he is. They will hear in a month or less."

"Hearken to the chief, my prince," I said. "That is easy, and it will be all I care for. If my father hears that I am with you, he will be well content."

"More than content, Wilfrid," said Ecgbert, smiling. "We of the line of Ina know your folk of old. Well, be it as you will, for, on my word, I am lonely; and I think, comrade, that if I had choice of one to stand by me, the choice would have fallen on you.

"There was little need, chief, for you to tell me that Wilfrid of Frome was steadfast. We are old friends."

"Bide so, then. Friends are not easily made," answered Thorleif, laughing. "Now tell me what you are thinking of doing. Maybe I can advise you, being an adventurer by choice, as it seems you must be by need. But first I will offer you both a share in our cruise, if you will turn viking and go the way of Hengist and Horsa, your forbears. Atheling and thane's son you will be to us still, if you have to take an oar now and then."

"Kindly spoken," said Ecgbert; "but this I will tell you plainly. It had not come into my mind to think that Bertric needed to fear me until he showed that he did so. Had he left me to myself, I had been as good a subject of Wessex as Wilfrid here. But now it seems to me that maybe he has some good reason to think that the throne might be or should have been mine. Wherefore it is in my mind to seek the great King Carl, and learn what I can of his way of warfare, that presently, when the time comes, I may be the more ready to take that throne and hold it."

"Why, then," said Thorleif, watching the face of the atheling, "I will tell you this from out of my own knowledge of Wessex. If you learn what Carl can teach you, you will, if you can raise a thousand followers, walk through Wessex into Mercia, and thence home by East Anglia to London town, and there sit with three crowns on your head--the greatest king that has been in England yet. For your folk know no more of fighting, though they are brave enough, than a herd of cattle. But it will be many a long year before you know enough, and then you will need to be able to use your knowledge."

"Can you tell me where to find Carl the king? It may be that I have years enough before me to learn much."

"Those who want to learn do learn," quoth Thorleif. "It is in my mind that, unless a Flemish arrow ends you, Wessex will have to choose between you and Bertric presently."

Then he told us where he had last heard of the Frankish king, which was somewhere on the eastern Rhine border. And at last, being taken with the fearless way of the young atheling, said that if he would, he himself would see him as far on his way as the Rhine mouth. And in the end Ecgbert closed with the offer, and left the Frankish ship accordingly.

Thorleif's men had sought every corner of her by that time, and had some store of silver money to show for their long chase, and were satisfied. As for the shipmen of their prize, I think they were well enough content to be let go in peace, and had little to say on the matter. Ecgbert was for giving them the gold ring which he had promised them as passage money, that being the only thing of value he had beyond his weapons; but Thorleif would not suffer him to do so, saying that his Danes would but take it from them straightway.

So the great trader lumbered off southward, and I and the atheling sat with Thrond and Thorleif, and told and heard all the story of the raid on Weymouth until the stars came out. And I was well content; for no Saxon can ask aught better than to serve his lord, whether in wealth or distress.

Now I might make a long story of that voyage with Thorleif, for there were landings such as had been made at Weymouth, and once just such another fight. And ever the lands where we touched grew more strange to me, until we came to the low shores of the Rhine mouths, hardly showing above the gray waves of the sea which washed their sad-coloured sand dunes. And there Thorleif landed us at a fishing village, among whose huts rose the walls of a building which promised us shelter at least.

Terribly frightened were the poor folk at our coming, but they took us, with the guard Thorleif sent ashore with us, to the building, and it turned out to be a monastery, where we were most welcome. And there we bid farewell to the Danes, not without regret, for we had been good comrades on the voyage. There was a great difference between these crews of men from one village under their own chief, and the terrible swarms of men, gathered none knows whence, and with little heed to their leaders save in battle, which came in after years. We saw the Dane at his best.

Now after that the good abbot of the place passed us on from town to town until at last we came to Herulstad, where Carl the mighty lay with his army, still watching and fighting the heathen Saxons of the Rhinelands. And there Ecgbert was welcomed in all friendliness, and our wanderings were at an end. Even the arm of Quendritha could not reach the atheling here, though Carl and Offa were friendly, and messengers came and went between the two courts from time to time.

In that way I had messages sent home at last, and my mind was at rest. It was, however, nearly a year before my folk heard of me, as I learned afterward. But close on five years of warfare lay before me ere I should set foot on English ground again.