Chapter 6

It must not be supposed that the gifts of Carl the Great were given, and his greetings spoken, offhand, as it were, by us. There must needs be a gathering of the Witan of the East Anglians, that all might be done with full honour both to Carl and his embassy. I must say that it somewhat irked me to be treated with much ceremony, as a Frank and paladin of the great king, instead of being hailed in all good fellowship as a thane of England, who was glad to get home again. However, there was no help for it till our errand was done; for it was out of his goodness that Carl had given me a place among his messengers, saying that they must have some one of their number who could act as interpreter, and I would not be ungrateful even in seeming.

So I had no chance yet of private speech with Ethelbert, when I might give the message from Ecgbert; which was indeed the main reason of my coming here instead of going straight home. That chance would best be sought when the state business was done; for since no man in all England rightly knew where Ecgbert was at this time, and he had no mind that many should, my business would wait well enough. So I bent myself to enjoy the feasting and the hunting parties the court made for us all; and pleasant it was, in all truth. And every day fresh companies of the great folk of the land came in, till the town was full of thanes and ladies and their trains, gathered to see and hear what had come from beyond the seas.

So one day I rode with Werbode, who was all eagerness to see the land (to which his forbears would not come when Hengist asked them, by the way, as he told me) across the great heaths that lie north and east of Thetford, with Erling after us, leading two greyhounds which had been lent us from the royal kennels. There were bustards in droves on these heaths, and roe deer to be found easily enough by those who had skill to seek them in the right places. The bustards were nesting; but that is the time when one can best course the great birds, and many a good gallop we had after them.

Whereby we lost ourselves presently, and made light of it until we had wandered for some hours, and then remembered that we had never seen a man of whom to ask the way back to the town. Of course we tried to make our way back by the sun, but ever there would seem to grow up a thicket or wood before us, which we must skirt, or some marshy lake shone across our path in a hollow of the heath; and it was slow work, and the horses grew weary as ourselves. The hounds trailed after us with bent heads, hardly rousing themselves to tug at the long leash when a hare scudded from its form away from us, for they had had their fill of sport by that time. And it grew near sunset before we met with any trace of man. There was not even a track across the wild upland which we could follow.

"We shall have to make a night out of it," said I at last. "However, that will not matter. Here is game enough for us and to spare."

"And no ale to wash it down withal," said Werbode and Erling in a breath.

"Why, then, we will find the best water we can," I answered; and we rode on our way looking for a clear pool.

And then the first sound which told us that any one was near came to us.

There rose from off to our left, where a patch of woodland lay, a cry that made each one of us rein in his horse and stare at the others.

"That was some one in dire distress," said I.

"A woman crying for help," said Werbode.

Then we forgot our own plight, and set spurs to our horses and rode toward the place whence the cry came. We heard it once more, and that quickened us. My horse pricked up his ears, and broke into a long stride that left the other two behind in a few minutes, as if he knew that there was need for dire haste. I had to ride carefully, too, for there were holes and great stones among the heather.

So I was the first to see what was amiss; and it seemed bad enough. Round the spur of the cover I came, and there before me I saw a wild throng of men, savage as any I have ever seen in the mines of our Mendips--bareheaded save for great shocks of black hair, barefooted and hoseless, dressed in untanned hides of deer and sheep, and armed with uncouth clubs and spears on rough ash poles. They did not hear my coming, and they had their faces from me at first. Twenty or more of them there were; and two horses rolled on the ground hard by them, and they had been hamstrung, as one glance told me. One man, too, in the dress of a housecarl, lay not far off, wounded sorely. He saw me, and beckoned wildly to me. And next I knew why, for out of the throng came three men dragging a lady roughly away from the rest; and as their comrades parted to let them pass, I saw another man on the ground, and with his back to a third a gray-haired noble, who held back the wild men with long sweeps of his sword. He was trying to follow those who held the lady.

I saw all that at once, in a flash, for it broke on my eyes the moment I cleared the thickets of the cover; and as I saw I shouted and bore down on the throng, calling to my comrades to hasten. Then the men knew that I was on them.

They yelled to one another, and, without waiting to see if more followed me, left the lady and the men who fought for her, and scattered, flying. It seemed to me that the best thing I could do was to keep them in a mind to fly, and I rode after them. One or two I rode down; and I heard a wild outcry as some met Werbode and Erling when they came up. But they did not make for the wood, as I expected, but for the open heath. They ran like deer up the swell of a rising ground and passed over it.

When I came to the top of that I saw a wide stretch of bare land before me, like miles of that which we had passed, hardly heather-covered, and stony, and over it fled the men. There was no place where they could hide. And yet before my very eyes they vanished. One after another they went till but one was left, still flying. I took my eyes from him for a moment, and he too was gone. There was not so much as a bustard on the heath, which a moment before had been full of fleeting figures.

"They are trolls, thane!" cried Erling from beside me.

He, too, had seen the moorland and the men who had gone. Then Werbode rode up to me, and he looked and gasped.

"They went over this hill! I would swear it!" he said. "Where are they?"

"I do not know," I answered blankly, and, to tell the truth, with a bit of a chill down my back. "I should be better pleased if I did."

"See," said Erling, pointing, "there are the mounds wherein they live. They are trolls;" and with that he began to mutter I know not what heathen spells against them.

There were little low mounds everywhere, as I saw now.

"Trolls!" said Werbode, with a laugh. "One can't slay trolls. I saw Wilfrid cut one down, and there he lies even yet."

"Nay, but one can, if so be the sword is rightly charmed," answered Erling.

"Well, they have gone," said I. "Do you two go and see after these folk they were attacking, and I will bide here to watch that they do not come back."

"That is the work of the man, not the master," quoth Erling. "Here I bide, for I have runes which are of power against any trolls. I am not afraid."

Nor did he seem so; and I told him to call if but one man showed himself, and so rode back to the little party we had saved. The man who I had seen was of rank was bending over the lady, who lay where the wild men had left her; and his unhurt servant was watching beside him. The wounded man was sitting up and trying to bind a hurt in his thigh with a scarf, which, from its gold fringes, was plainly that of his mistress.

The thane rose up when he heard us coming, and saluted us. He was a handsome man of sixty years or so, richly dressed, who had plainly had a bad fall when his horse went down. There were three or four of his assailants lying where they had been round him as I came.

"Many thanks, sirs," he said. "It was going hard with us when you came up. Now is no time for ceremony, or I would say more. I do not know if my daughter lives yet."

I dismounted, and Werbode held my horse while I went to the side of the thane and looked at his charge. Wonderfully beautiful that young maiden seemed in the red light of the sunset, even though her face was white and her fair hair all tangled over her shoulders, and her rich dress all in tatters from the hands of the wild men. And at first I thought that she was dead. Then I minded that unless she had died of fright, which was possible, I had seen no harm done her beyond rough handling, while those who held her had fled from me without delay or heed to how she fell from their hands; and I knelt and tried to find the pulse in her wrist, very gently.

Her white hand fell limp and cold, but the fluttering beat was there.

"Not dead, thane, but fainting," I said. "Let your man get water; there is a pool yonder."

The housecarl started toward it, but as he passed one of the helpless horses, he turned to that and brought me a horn from the saddlebags. It had wine in it, and that was better. The old thane tried to get some of it into the lips of the lady, and succeeded while I rubbed her hands.

And all the while Werbode had his eyes on Erling, whose gaunt form was clear against the sky as he sat still on his horse and watched the heath for the trolls to return on us. Behind him the two hounds sat, careless.

"She is coming round," said the thane, with a sigh of relief.

Seeing that so she was, I rose up and stood aside, not caring to be right before her eyes as she opened them, lest she should be frightened again. Slowly she came to herself, trembling, and looking round fearful of what she might find about her. But when she saw only her father and the man, she tried to smile and sat up, with a little clutch at her disordered dress as if she wanted to straighten it.

"That is better," said the thane heartily. "Those thieves have fled, and all will be well, thanks to our good friends here."

The maiden looked round, and saw that I was a stranger, and at that the colour came back of a sudden to her cheeks, and she tried to set her hair hastily out of her eyes. Whereat her father laughed at her, and then she was herself again.

"I think we had better be going on before it grows dark," I said. "Do you know the road to Thetford?"

"My man here does. But you will not leave us--at least yet?"

"We are seeking the same road," I answered. "Now our horses are at the service of the lady and yourself. I suppose we are not far from the town, if we cannot find it;" and I laughed.

"Matter of ten or twelve miles, lord," said the housecarl.

"Why, then, the sooner we go the better. Lucky that the May twilight is long."

"We have met you in the nick of time," said the old thane courteously. "From your dress I take it that you are one of the Frankish paladins we were on the way to see. But do they always talk good Wessex at the court of King Carl?"

"No," laughed Werbode. "Sometimes they talk old Saxon--as I do."

The thane bowed, and let that matter rest. Then he looked ruefully at the two crippled horses, and set his arm round the lady, who had risen and was leaning on him.

"I thank you for that offer of a horse," he said. "I had twelve good men with me when we started across this moor, and you see all who are left. One after another they have been shot by unseen men as we rode, until these swarmed out on us as you saw."

"Who are they?" I asked, rolling up my cloak to set it pillion-wise behind my saddle for the lady.

"The flintknappers, I suppose," he said. "But I am a stranger to these parts, and I have but heard of them as dwelling about these heaths."

Then I would have the thane mount my horse; and I lifted the maiden up behind him, and wrapped Werbode's cloak round her, having a smile and thanks for the service. And when they were ready I whistled for Erling, and he came back to us at a canter, looking behind him now and then. But there was no sign of any follower.

"Ten miles from the town," I said to him, "and more heath to cross. We must hurry. But we cannot leave those horses to suffer."

"Our horses; and I have tended them, lord," said the rough housecarl, with a bit of a shake in his voice. "Leave that to me."

He drew his seax, and we went on. The poor beasts could never rise again, and that was the only way. The thane knew, and rode round the wood end, and we went with him. Then Erling lifted the wounded man on his own horse, and walked beside him.

"You and I will ride in turn," said Werbode. "As I am mounted, I will take first turn for a mile or two. It will be all the same in the end."

Presently Erling came alongside me, leaving the housecarl to mind his comrade. He held out a broken arrow to me.

"I said they were trolls," he remarked. "See, this is an elf shot."

And truly the arrow which he had drawn from one of the horses had as well wrought a flint head as I have ever seen--lustrous black, and covered with tiny chippings.

"It is a better made head than usual," I said; "but many a thrall has naught but flint-headed arrows in his quiver as he tends the swine in the forest. They are good enough against the forest beasts."

Erling laughed. "Maybe. But they have slain ten of this party. I have no mind to hear them whistling about my ears again."

"Again?" said I.

"Oh ay; they had a shot or two at me yonder. The arrows came from nowhere and missed me, so it did not seem worth while to call you. I could not see any one."

Now it seemed to me that I had found a cool and valiant man in this Dane.

"I think that I should have wanted to take cover," I said. "These are perilous folk to have to do with. I wonder what became of them?"

"Gone into the mounds we saw," said he. "Betimes in our land men have seen such mounds raised, as it were, on pillars at night, and under them halls full of dancing trolls. But if the seer will go near them, all is gone. And mostly thereafter he dies."

"Not many trolls could get under those mounds we saw," I said. "See, there are more here; they are too small for dwellings."

There was indeed one of the heaps of earth close at hand to us, and Werbode rode toward it to see that none of the wild men lurked in its shelter. He reached it, and then his horse started and leaped aside, almost falling; and through a rattle of falling stones my comrade called to the steed to "hold up."

Whereon we supposed, of course, that he had been served as the horses of the thane had been crippled, and Erling and I ran to him, sword in hand, bidding the others go on. But when we came to the side of Werbode, we found him staring into a pit which seemed to have opened under the weight of his horse; and there was no sign of other danger.

"Strange folk these," he said. "I suppose this is a trap. The ground over it was as solid as anywhere, to all seeming. I was nigh into it."

The pit was ten feet deep or so, and it was plain that out of it had come what made the mound, though one could not see how. When I looked in I saw that the ground had given way over the roof of a passage hewn in the soft chalk, and that the opening of it must have fallen in long ago. The twisted stems of the sparse heather on the mound and all around it told of years, if not of long ages, that had passed undisturbed.

"There is the trolls' house," said Erling, shrinking back somewhat.

The level sunlight showed me walls of dull gray chalk, with the marks of the pick on them still. There was a layer of black and white flints bedded in either wall, halfway up, and on the floor were piled stones chosen from it carefully. I wondered who had handled them, and when. Erling moved a little aside, and a shaft of sunlight darted down the passage and reached its end, and showed me those who had wrought here.

Two white skeletons sat against the wall, with a pile of flints between them. There was a lamp hewn from chalk on the top of that, and the stain of its smoky flame was on the wall behind it. One man had a pick made of the brow tine of an antler, greater than any which the red deer carry nowadays, across his knees, and another like pick lay by the bones of the other skeleton. That one had a broken thigh, and he seemed to bend over it in pain.

"Holy saints," said Werbode, in a whisper, "they were buried alive!"

So they must have been; but who shall know when? They had delved in the chalk for the flints they needed for their weapons, and their mine had fallen in at the mouth, and they could not escape. The stones had, doubtless, broken the leg of that one in falling. But by the token of the deer-horn pick I take it that it was ages ago when this happened, maybe before the days of the Welshmen whom we found here. Yet even then, as the red sun lit up the place of their death, we could see that the marks of their chalky hands bided on the handles of their picks, fresh as if made yesterday.

"Come away," said Erling. "I like it not. This is over troll-like for me."

I do not think that either of us was sorry to leave that sight. We went one on either side of Werbode, with our arms across the crupper of his horse, and hastened after the thane and his charge, who were half a mile away by this time, waiting for us. But we never heard any elvish arrow whistling after us, or saw any more of the uncouth folk.

I told him as we went on of the pit we had seen, and how Werbode thought it was a trap. Whereon the housecarl laughed a little, and said that it was but an ancient flint working. The men who had fallen on the party were the descendants of those who had made it. The flints had been worked here from time untold even till now, and those who worked them today had all the craft of their forebears.

"Why, then, they went into their workings when they fled from us," I said.

"No doubt, thane. Where else should they go?" he said. "They came out of them on us."

"I wonder you brought your master and the lady across this heath at all," I said "it is a perilous place."

"It grew late, and it is the nearest way," said the man humbly. "Nor did I ever hear that the flintknappers, as we call them, harmed any."

"Nor did I," said the old thane. "It is somewhat fresh to me. Maybe parties like ours have passed here so often during this last week that at last the sight of gold and jewels has roused them to try to take from a weak band."

So we talked and went on as fast as we might, all the while keeping a lookout around us. The lady had, in some way which is beyond me altogether, set herself in such array again that I, for one, could hardly tell that aught had been awry on her; and I wondered that Werbode's red cloak had never seemed so graceful a garment on his broad shoulders. But she said little or nothing, leaning her head on her father as she rode with her arm round him, save when we asked her if all was well. I think she was very tired.

And so at last, with no more adventure, we came to the well-worn track which we were making for, and by-and-by, in the May moonlight, saw the twinkling lights of Thetford town, seeming to welcome us into the shelter of its protecting ramparts. I was glad to see them; but I had enjoyed that long tramp back, for some reason which was not plain to me, unless it had been the talk of the old thane and my comrades, and the sense of escape from danger.

Now we came to the great hall, and the grooms thronged round us to take the horses; and seeing that there was a lady, one told the steward, and he bustled out to help her. But there I was at hand, and lifted the maiden from the horse and set her on her feet, having to support her for a moment, for she was weary and stiff. So she stumbled a little and laughed at herself, and thanked me, and was glad of my arm to help her toward the great door of the hall.

Werbode and Erling went off with the horses to the stables, and some of the housecarls took charge of the wounded man. I heard him groan heavily as they took him from the horse.

Then the thane gave his name to the steward, and that was the first time I had learned it.

"Sighard, thane of Mundesley, and his daughter, the Lady Hilda."

They were led into the hall; and I went my way, or was going, for I had only passed down the steps, when some one called me.

"Paladin, one moment!"

I turned, for the Frankish title could be meant for no one but myself, and there was the old thane at the door.

"I did but take my daughter into the house, and I have yet to thank you and your comrades for your help. Believe me, I know how great it has been; but one is confused at these times. I think we shall meet again?"

"Doubtless," I said. "But it was chance which brought us to you, as we wandered."

"For which chance I have need to be thankful. It is not every one, however, who can make use of a chance as you did. If you had stood and stared for a moment instead of spurring your horse, I should have had a flint spear among my ribs. They ache at the thought thereof even now. Tell me your names at least."

"Wilfrid, son of the thane of Frome, in Somerset," I said. "I have served with King Carl for some years, and am here with his messages on my way home. My comrade is Werbode of old Saxony, one of the messengers also. The third of us is my man, a Dane."

Sighard laughed, as if highly amused. "That explains it all. I have been puzzling all the way hither at the divers ways in which you three spoke. Your Dane's tongue is almost good Anglian, and yet not quite. Werbode's Saxon is quaint, but good enough, as it should be; but broad Wessex from the mouth of a seeming Frank was too much. Not the best master in the world could compass it for you. Now I am right glad that you are of England. When she has got over her fright and is rested, the girl shall thank you also."

He shook hands with me heartily and left me, following his daughter. Presently I saw him as we sat at table, and he lifted his cup to me; but though he was on the high place, where of course we were set, I was too far off to speak to him.

Now I cannot say that I had much right to that title of paladin he had given me, unless it was as a messenger from the palace of King Carl. Thane I was in Wessex, now that I had come of age, by right of lands that came to me from my mother's side; but our folk got hold of the Frankish title, and used it for any one of us, so that I had to accept it. I did tell the old noble who led us that it was not by my wish that so they called me; but he stroked his beard and laughed at me.

"What does it matter?" he said; "it is naught but the old name for a palace officer. It is near enough. Trouble not about it; for if we have taken it to mean a warrior noble--well, I will not say that you have not deserved it, else Carl had never sent you with us."

One may guess that at supper that night I tried to see the Lady Hilda. But among all the bright array of ladies at that feast I could not spy her. And perhaps that is not to be wondered at, for long ere we came up all the baggage had been lost. By this time her court dress was being worn by swart women of the flint folk, far on the wild heaths. I dare say they fought over it.