Chapter 5

Looking back on them, it seems that those five years with Carl the Great were long, but in truth they went fast enough. With Ecgbert I went everywhere that war was to be waged, whether on the still half heathen, unwillingly christened Saxons, who were our own kin of the old land; or across on the opposite frontier, where the terrible Moors of Spain had not yet forgotten Roncesvalles. For us it was fighting, and always fighting, and little of that most splendid court of the king did we see; for Ecgbert had set himself to learn all that he might, and he was not one to do things by halves. Nor had I any wish to be anywhere but near him.

They were good years, therefore, if we had our share of danger and hardship to the full, and must needs bear the marks of it ever after. Once I was sorely wounded, and Ecgbert tended me through that as a brother rather than as my lord--even as I would have tended him, only that he was never hurt. Some of us grew to think that he had a charmed life; but I thought that he was kept for the sake of what was to be in days to come, when England was worn out with warfare between the kingdoms, and would welcome a strong hand over her from north to south.

I know not whether it was Carl himself who bade Ecgbert wait for that day, but it is likely. The atheling was in no haste to return to England, and it was his word that until he was needed he should bide here and learn.

But when the time went on he had thought for me, and one April day, as we rode together, he bade me go home and see that all was well with my folk. I had some fever on me at that time, for we were among the Frisian marshlands, and it had fallen on me when I was weak from the wound I spoke of, so that I could not shake it off. It came every third day, and held me in its grip for the afternoon, cold as ice, and then hot as fire, and so leaving me little the worse, but always thin and yellow to look on. Moreover, it always seemed to come on the wrong day for me, when I needed to be most busy, so that over and over again Ecgbert had to ride out without me. There were plenty more of us in the same case that year, when we were hunting Frisian heathen rebels to their strongholds in their fens.

"I must lose you in one way or the other, comrade," Ecgbert said. "Either you will die here, which is the worst that could befall you, or else you must go home to England. Now there is a fair chance for you, for Carl is sending some messengers with presents to the young King of East Anglia, who has yet to be crowned. Go with them, and take him greetings from me."

But before I could bring myself to agree to parting from him he had to put this before me in many ways, for I could not bear to leave him. And at last he laid his commands on me that I must go. He said it was time that he had a friend who knew his hopes in England, watching how matters went for him, and that I could best do it. So there was no way out of it, and I had to go.

And when I knew that, there woke in me the longing for England which lies deep in the heart of every one of her sons, wheresoever he may be across the seas, and the days were weary before Carl's messengers should sail. I think that Ecgbert envied me, with the same longing on him; but one could only know it from his silences, or from the way in which he would talk to me of all that I should see again.

Two days before we sailed I was sent for by Carl himself; which was an honour indeed for me. Very kindly he thanked me for past services, as if I had not rather served Ecgbert than himself; and he gave me new arms of the best from head to foot, and a heavy bag of gold moreover, that I might not say that Carl the Great was sparing of his reward to those who had fought for him. I did not need that, for he had been more than generous to us for all these years, and any man knows that it is an honour to have served with the greatest of kings, and to have spoken freely with him.

I told Ecgbert that I must return to him when I was free from the fever, but he shook his head.

"Nay, but you have your work at home, and mine lies here," he said. "Your father has no other child, and, he needs you. I am well off here till that day we wot of comes. Wait for it in patience, and then we shall meet again. There will be no comrade like you for me till then, but I shall know I have one at least who will welcome me presently if you go now."

He made it light for me; but it was a hard parting, and I will say no more of it. The ship left the little Frisian port whence we sailed, and he stood on the shore and watched us until I could see him no more; then for a time a loneliness fell on me which made me a poor companion for the gay Frankish nobles with whom I was to go to East Anglia.

Not that it mattered much after an hour or so, when we met the waves of the open sea; for they were no sort of companion to any one, even to themselves, and the seamen had their laugh at them.

But for myself, not being troubled with the sickness, the sea worked wonders. For the first time for many a long month the ague fit had less hold on me when its time came next day. Then a Frisian sailor saw that I had the illness he knew so well and over well, and would have me take some bitter draught he made for me out of willow bark, saying that Carl's leeches knew somewhat less than nothing concerning ague. Whether it was the sea air, or the draught, or both, the fit did not come when next it was due; and the seaman said I was cured, for the power of the ill was broken. He had time to say that again, for we had head winds the whole way across, and were nigh a week before we made the mouth of the great river which goes up to Norwich, where we hoped to find the king, Ethelbert. And by that time the Franks were themselves again, and my colour was coming back, and the joy of home was on me, and we were gay enough.

It was on the last day of April that we saw the English shores again, early in the morning, with the sun on the low green hills of Norfolk. By sunset we were far in the heart of the land, at Norwich, and across the wide river the cuckoo was calling. We had left a leafless land, and here all was decked in the sweet green of the first leaves, and all the banks were yellow with the primroses. I heard the Franks scoffing at the houses of the town, and at the wooden tower of the church which rose from among them; but I cared not at all, for nothing like the beauty of sky and land had they to show me beyond the sea.

And when the men thronged to the wharf, it seemed to me that never had I looked on their like for goodliness and health, as their great English laugh rang out over their work, and the sound of the English voices made the old music for me.

The king was not at Norwich, but inland at Thetford, and there we must seek him. But his steward rode down to us from the hall, which stands a mile from the river, on its hill. Thither we were led in all state as the messengers of the great king, and there we bided for a day or two while they made ready a train of horses which should take us to our journey's end. We had some wondrous gifts for Ethelbert from Carl.

There is only one of these Frankish companions of mine of whom I need speak, and that one was a young noble from our old land, named Werbode. I had seen somewhat of him in these last wars, for he had led the men of his father, and had been set under Ecgbert, who had won to high command. So we were both Saxons, and of about the same age; and it was pleasant to find ourselves together on the voyage, for he was a good comrade, and, like myself, not altogether thinking and feeling with the Franks.

So we saw much of each other on the voyage, and now it was pleasant to take him about the old town, and show him what the new home of the Saxon kin was like here in England. There was a great fair going on at this time, and we enjoyed it; for though there was not the richness of wares we had been wont to see at the like gatherings of merchants and chapmen beyond the seas, here were mirth and freedom, and rough plenty, which were as good, or better.

And presently he said that here we had horses which were as fine as any he had ever seen, and that put a thought into my mind. I would buy one for myself rather than ride one found me by the town reeve; for I had to get home to Somerset, and I would make no delay.

"Well, then," says Werbode, "let us go and see if you people have forgotten the ancient Saxon manner of horse dealing."

So we went to the horse fair, and there our foreign dress drew every dealer in the place round us as soon as I had looked in the mouth of one likely steed. After which, as may be supposed, it was not likely that I could make any choice at all; but we two sat on the bench outside the town gate, and had, I think, every horse in the fair trotted past us, whether good or bad. And at last the noise, and to tell the truth the wrangling of the dealers, grew tiresome, and we went our way, some other buyer having taken their notice for a moment.

And then it chanced that we came to a quiet place where a man, armed and with two armed helpers, had a string of slaves for sale. The poor folk were lying and sitting on the ground, with that dull look on them which I hate to see, and I was going to pass them, throwing them a penny as I did so. Werbode was laughing at the ways of the horse dealers, and did not notice them; for the sight was common enough after any war of ours with Carl, when the captives who could not ransom them were sold.

And then one of them leaped up with a great cry, and hailed me by name.

"Wilfrid! Wilfrid of Weymouth!"

I turned sharply enough at that call, for the last thing that one could have expected was that my name should be known here in the land of the East Angles. And who of all whom I knew in the years gone by would name me as of Weymouth? I had but been there as a stranger.

"Wilfrid the swimmer!" said the man, stretching his bound hands to me.

The slave trader cracked his whip and rated the man for daring to call to me thus, bidding him be silent. But I lifted my hand, and he held his peace, doffing his cap to me with all reverence for the fine dress and jewelled weapons--Carl's gift--that I wore.

I did not heed his words of apology, but looked at the ragged, brown-faced man who called to me. He was thin and wiry, with a yellow beard, and his hands were hard with some heavy work. Yet his face was in some way not altogether strange to me, though I could not name him. He was no thrall of ours or of my cousin's, so far as I could tell.

"Wilfrid--thane--whatever you are now," he said, for I would not suffer the trader to prevent his words, "you gave me a black eye at Weymouth, and thereafter drank 'skoal' to me when we chased the trading ship."

Thereat Werbode laughed.

"Faith," he said, "if every thrall to whom I have given a black eye or so has a claim on me--"

But his words went on unheard as far as I was concerned. I seemed to have the very smell of the smoke of burning Weymouth in my nostrils, and the wild rowing song came back to me. I minded the man well, and it went to my heart to see the free Danish warrior tied here at the mercy of this evil-eyed slaver, for I knew that he was as free born as myself.

I turned sharply on the merchant, and asked him how it came about that he had this man for sale.

"He is a freeman, and I know him," I said.

Nevertheless it came into my mind that he had been taken prisoner at the time of some such landing as that wherein I had first seen him.

"He is a shipwrecked foreigner, lord," was the answer; "a masterless man whom I bought from the Lindsey thane on whose manor shore he was stranded."

But it seemed to me that there was a look of fear in the eyes of this slave trader. It came when I, whom he had taken for a Frank noble from my dress, spoke to him in good Wessex. Whereby I had a shrewd guess that all was not so fair and lawful as he would make it seem.

"He lies," growled the Dane. "Some thrall picked me up, and this man took me from him. He was on the prowl for castaways on the morn of the storm. Nigh dead I was, or would have fought."

He spoke low and quickly, and the trader seemed not to understand his Danish. But I saw that he spoke the truth.

Now I think that if this shipmate of mine had been fairly taken captive as he raided, I should have let him take the reward of his work. But this chance was a different matter.

"Show me the receipt for payment to that thane of whom you speak," I said. "If you can, well and good; if not, then we will go to the sheriff and see this matter righted. I know the man as a freeman."

"Ay, in his own land," said the trader, beginning to bluster. "What is that to me? Here in England he is masterless--"

"No," said the Dane; "this is my master. Heard you not how I owned to a black eye from him?"

And he looked at me in a half proud way which told me how the bonds had broken him, and yet how they had not yet made him shameless if he must beg me for help to freedom.

Then said Werbode quietly:

"Where is that receipt? I suppose that if you paid for his man, my friend has to repay you for ransoming him. It is a simple matter."

"I do not carry it with me, stranger. You know not this land of ours. It is at my inn. I can show it, of course."

"Well, then," said I, "I will take my man and answer for him. Bring the writing to the house of the sheriff, where I lodge, and what is there set down I will pay you."

Now there were a dozen idlers gathered by this time, and seeing that the trader hesitated, I called to one, who seemed to be a forester by his staff and green jerkin, and bade him fetch the sheriff, if he could find him. I would have the matter settled here. Whereon the slaver gave in.

"Well, then," he grumbled, "I hold you answerable for him. Take him, and get your money ready.

"Let him free," he said, turning to his men.

That they did with somewhat more readiness than one would have expected. The Dane shook himself and looked round him. And then, without a word of warning, he sprang straight at the slaver and wrested his whip from him. Then he swung him round by the collar of his leather jerkin, and lashed him in spite of the sword which the man drew. The idlers shouted, and Werbode laughed, while the two men had all they could do to prevent the other slaves from breaking away; or else they themselves had no reason to object to seeing their master tasting his own sauce.

The heavy plaits of the whiplash curled round the legs of the trader, and he writhed. They caught his short sword and twitched it from his hand, to send it flying among the gathering crowd, and then the man lay down and howled for mercy. But the thralls of the crowd were only too pleased with the sport, and as I and Werbode did not interfere, to do so was no one else's business.

At last the Dane held his hand, and left his tyrant groaning. He broke the whip stock and twisted the thong from the end of the fragment. Then he tied it round the neck of the slaver, and rose up and saluted me in the way of the Danish courtman.

"Whither, lord?" he asked, quite coolly. "I am ready."

"Better go back to the sheriffs," I said. "Maybe we shall have to answer for this, and we will tell him first."

"No," he said, with the ghost of a smile; "you will not set eyes on this man again. What I told you is true. He has no more right to me than the thrall who found me; less, maybe, for I suppose the thrall would have taken me to his lord, who had some claim on me for a castaway."

The crowd closed in round the slaver, and the other slaves raised a sort of wretched cheer as we went away. Soon we turned the corner of the street and came to the outskirts of the fair again, and none had followed us. There the decent folk stared at us and our ragged follower somewhat, and a thought came to me.

"Comrade," I said, for I could not mind his name, "let me rig you out afresh before we part."

"They call me Erling," he said. "Have you so many men to serve you that we must needs part?"

"No," I answered, "but I am no sort of a master to serve. I will help an old comrade home, however."

"Home was burnt a year ago," he said. "Let me bide with you, thane; I must be some man's man. You will go back to the west presently, I suppose?"

"Yes, after a time. What of that? for it is not your way."

"Your way is mine, unless you drive me from you. You have given me my freedom, and I know it. Let me serve you freely."

"Well," said I, "you will be my only servant when once I leave King Carl's train, with which I have come."

"So much the better," he said. "I am likely to be as handy a servant as you can find, in most things."

"Oh," said Werbode, laughing, "take him, Wilfrid. Free service is not to be despised. Moreover, if you want any one well and soundly beaten, here is your man."

"I can keep the thane's back at a pinch, young sir," said the Dane quietly. "That mayhap is more than most will do if they are hired."

"Faith, I believe you could," said Werbode, looking the man's wiry frame up and down.

"Take him, Wilfrid."

"Why, then," said I, "so I will, and gladly, for just so long as I please you as a master. And when you will leave me, you shall go without blame. Now let us see to clothing you afresh."

So we went to the quarter of the fair where such things as we needed were to be had, and there we took pleasure in fitting my new follower out in all decent housecarl attire, not by any means sparing for good leather jerkin and Norwich-cloth hose and hood, for I would not have him looked down on by our Frankish servants. And, indeed, with weapon on hip and round helm on head, over washed face and combed hair, he seemed a different man altogether. The old free walk of the seaman came back to him, and he looked the world in the face again as the free warrior he was.

He had been Thorleif's own court man, he told me, and knew the ways of one who should follow his lord, whether in hall or field, and I will say at once that so he did. I had little to teach him beyond some Saxon ways which came strangely to him at first.

We went back to the king's hall, and there I told the sheriff somewhat of the business with the slaver, and he laughed.

"Not the first time I have heard the like," he said. "If the man complains, pay him. But if he is a man stealer, as is likely, you will hear naught of him, and he will get him from Norwich as fast as he may."

As I suppose he did, for neither I nor the sheriff heard more of him, and next day his place in the market was empty.

I asked Erling of his shipwreck, and if Thorleif had been lost, but he could not tell me. He had been washed off the fore deck as the ship met a great breaker, and with him had come an oar, which he clung to for long hours, making his way shoreward as best he might. The ship was in danger at the time, and he lost sight of her very soon. Presently some eddy of tide took him and cast him on the sands of Humber mouth, and there he lay till he was found. That was a month ago, and since then he had been hawked up and down the coast with the other slaves till we met.

"But I was such a scarecrow, and so savage withal, that no man would look at me," he said. "It was a good day for me when the knave brought me to Norwich. Mayhap it was a lucky day for him also, for sooner or later I should have got adrift, and then you would not have been looking on to hold me from paying him somewhat more than a beating."

Next day was the last of the fair, and again I went to seek a horse, with my new follower after me. There was less choice but more quiet, and soon I found that Erling knew more of the points of a steed than I did. A Dane is a born horse dealer. So I sent him one way while I went another, and when I was almost despairing of finding what I thought would suit me, he came in search of me, leading a great skew-bald horse, bright brown and white in broad splashes all over him, in no sort of pattern. After him came a man who might be a farmer, and looked as if he cared not whether he sold the beast or kept him.

"The best horse in the fair, thane," Erling said to me. "I will not praise his colour; but if you forget that and look at his build, you will like him."

So I did; but if a man wanted to be noticed everywhere in such wise that folk would reckon a week's time from the day when the man on the skew-bald rode through the village, he could not choose a better mount, and I said so, laughing.

"There is somewhat in that," Erling allowed; "but if you ride through the foe at the head of your men on such an one, none can deny that you did it. Nor can your men say that they lost sight of you."

In the end I mounted and tried the horse. Presently I rode him out of the town and away across the heaths, and had no fault to find with him. Indeed, by the time that I brought him back I did not care if he was of all the colours of the rainbow, for he was the best horse I ever backed.

Then the franklin who owned him asked me a long price for him, and I left Erling to settle that. Afterwards I knew that the man was a known breeder of these horses, and that men thought me lucky to get the steed. I think the Dane managed to bate somewhat of the price, but very little, for it was a matter of taking or leaving with the owner.

After that I bought a horse for Erling, or rather he chose one and I paid for it; but that was a small matter, for the last day of the fair brought prices down.

Then I had to put up with the jests of my friend Werbode concerning my new horse, and the older Franks thought his colour was a bit of vanity on my part. Werbode said that he was an unsafe beast to go chicken stealing on, for he would be too well known on a dark night; and the others said that they supposed that men would know that I had come home now. But that sort of jest one gets used to in camp life, and I cared not. I had a better steed than any one of them, whether here or across the sea, and presently, as we travelled toward Thetford, they knew it, and forgot to laugh at his skin.

So we left Norwich, and rode across the moorlands to find the king; and the gladness of homecoming grew on me every day, so that I longed for the state affair to be over, that I might turn my horse's head south and west for my own home. And thus, in all gladness, and joying in every mile of the way, we came to Thetford, strong with its earthen ramparts above its still river, and were made most welcome at the hall of Ethelbert the king. There had gone messengers before us to tell of our coming, and the greeting was fitting for the men of Carl the Great.

Truly I saw the Franks smile at one another as we were led into the great hall, homely and pleasant, with its open timbered roof and central hearth, arms and antlers and heads of forest game on walls, and bright hangings round the high place at the upper end; for it was but a hut compared with the palaces of their own master. But when Ethelbert the king came from his chamber to greet us, they had no eyes for aught but him. Young and handsome and free of speech and look as he was, none could doubt that here was one who was worthy of his throne, for in every way he seemed a king indeed. He minded me of Ecgbert, and if he did that, it may be certain that I need add no more to my praise of him.

Now it happened that the day after we reached Thetford was a Sunday, and I need not tell what a pleasure it was to me to hear again the old English services that once I had thought so long, as a boy will. And on that day, for the first time, it came to me that my man, Erling the viking, was a stark heathen, Odin's man. Truly he came to the church with me, and there he stood and stared at all that went on, quietly and reverently enough, but in such wise that I thought that he had somewhere seen the like before. So presently when we came forth from the church I asked him if he had no knowledge of the faith.

"Ay," he said; "I have helped to burn a church or two in my time, and now I am sorry therefor. I have heard good words in this place, so that I think I know why you were ready to risk gold to free a captive. Let me go with you again."

"I will find some good priest who shall tell you more and teach you," said I.

But he shook his head.

"That is another matter," he answered. "Let be for a time. I am content to go your way and see what it is; but no man, if he is worth aught, will leave the gods of his fathers offhand, not even for the faith which is good for you and for Carl the king, and this king here who has death written on his handsome face."

"What mean you by that?" I asked, almost angrily. "On the face of Ethelbert?"

"Ay," he answered. "Cannot you see it?"

"Seldom have I seen a stronger or more healthy man! This is sheer foolishness."

"I do not speak of health," he answered. "Eh, well, we of the old race have the second sight now and then. On my word, I wish I had it not. Pay no heed to me an you will; it is best not."

Then he laughed, because I was almost angered with him, and said that maybe fasting with the slaver had made his mind full of forebodings.

"There was a boding in it at one time that the slaver was nigh his death, if so be that I got loose," he said. "That ended in a whipping for him. But I would that this Ethelbert had not that thin red line round his neck. It sets strange thoughts in one's head."

I told him to hold his peace, and he did so. But somewhat that night made me look to see what he meant. The king had no line such as he spoke of on his sunburned throat, so far as I could see.