Chapter 18

Mayhap I need not say that I forgot the message which took me to this place, seeing that it was of no great account. Gerda and I had much to say to one another of matters which would be of note to none but ourselves, and the time fled unheeded by us.

Whereby it came to pass that presently came footsteps through the woods, and here were Hakon and Bertric smiling at us, and Gerda was blushing, though she would not leave my side. Bertric laughed lightly when he met us.

"Hakon," he said, "I told you that there would be no trouble in this matter. Now, Lady Gerda, and you, comrade, I am going to be the first to wish you all happiness. And I will say that thus our voyage ends even as it ought."

"It is not ended yet," said Hakon. "Still it remains for Malcolm to win her home back for his bride that shall be, though that may be easy."

Then he, too, spoke words of kindness to us both, and they were good to hear; until at last he would tell us news which had come from Thrandheim for himself, and that also was of the best.

The land had risen for him at the first sound of his name. Eric was far away to the south and east, in the Wick, fighting with men who would not bow to him, and all went well. The ships would go up to the ancient town on the morning's tide.

"But now," he said, "I have no one to send with Gerda, for Thoralf will take his wife and daughter with us. Will she wait here for the winter, or will she sail, as once before, with you two to serve and guard her?"

"Let us sail at once, King Hakon," she said, laughing. "It would be impossible for me to wish for better care than that I have learned to value most of all."

"Nay, but you shall be better attended at this time," Hakon said, smiling.

And so in the end we learned that the matter had already been arranged in all haste, for they had found two maidens to attend Gerda, and the rough after cabin of the ship had been made somewhat more fitting for her by the time we sailed in the morning.

Now we took Gerda back to Thoralf's wife, and thence I fled with Bertric to the ship, there being more to say than I cared to listen to. Dalfin sat on the deck, and he rose up sadly to greet us, with a half groan.

"Good luck to you," he said, gripping my hand. "I have heard the news. On my word, it was as well that we had no chance to get to my father's court, or I should have been your rival, and there would have been a fight. I will not say that it might not be a relief to break the head of someone even now--but that may pass. The luck of the torque has left me."

"Come with us after all," I said. "No doubt Arnkel will be willing to give you just that chance."

But he shook his head. "No, I bide with Hakon. But there is Asbiorn yonder who will see to Arnkel. And I am sorry for Arnkel if they meet."

Now, whether it was true that Dalfin had his own thoughts concerning the companion of our dangers I cannot say; but he bided with Hakon, and thereafter won honour enough from him, and, indeed, from all with whom he had to do. Princelike, and in all ways a good comrade, was Dalfin.

So it came to pass that very early in the next dawning the ship slid away from under the lee of the islands and headed southward on her voyage, with cheers and good wishes to set her forth. The last message we had from shore came from Dalfin the Prince, and that was an Irish brogue of untanned deerskin, laced with gold, which flew through the dusk like a bat to Gerda's feet from the deck of one of Hakon's ships as we passed her. Words in the Erse came also from the dim figure who cast it, whereat Phelim and I laughed. Gerda asked what they were, and we had to tell her.

"Good luck to you for the thief of my heart," he cried. "If I had not got one, and may never set eyes on your sweet face more, I would wish you the same today and tomorrow."

"Not much heart-broken is Dalfin," said Bertric, laughing.

Thereafter is little which need be told of that voyage in the still, autumn weather of the north. We passed, at times sailing, and now and then with the oars going easily, and always in bright weather, through the countless islands which fringe the Norway shores, some bare and rocky, and some clad with birch and fir even to the edge of the waves. Far inland the great mountains rose, snow-capped now, and shone golden and white and purple in the evening sun; and everywhere the forests climbed to meet the snow, and the sound of the cattle horns came at the homing hour to tell of the saeters hidden in the valleys.

Once we met a ship passing swiftly northward under oars, and were not so sure that we might not have to fight or fly. But her crew were flying from the south, and hailed us to know if it were true that Hakon had come from England to claim his own. And when we hailed in answer that so it was, and that we were of his force, the men roared and cheered while we might hear them. Eric's day was done.

I think that it was on the fifth day that we came at last to the break in the line of fringing islands which marks the opening of the Stavanger Fjord. There we met the long heave and swell of the open sea, and it was good to feel the lift and quiver of the staunch ship as she swung over the rollers again.

Across the open stretch of sea we sailed, and the land along which we coasted was flat and sandy, all unlike that which we had passed for so many days. But beyond that the mountains were not far, though in no wise so high as those farther north. And at last Gerda showed us the place where she had thought to lay Thorwald, her grandfather, to rest in his ship. We could see the timber slipway, which still had been left where it was made for that last beaching, and we could see, too, that here and there the land was turned up into heaps, where the place for the mound had been prepared. There was a little village also, and a hut or two had been burnt.

"Our doing," said Asbiorn. "Forgive us, Queen Gerda."

"You at least had no part therein," she said gently. "The rest is forgotten. Now we have no long way to go before I am again at home."

Now the land rose again from the level of the Jederen marshes we had passed, and we had high black cliffs to port and ahead of us. Along their feet the great rollers of the open sea broke, thundering, even in this quiet weather, and the spray shot up and fell in white clouds unceasingly. It was wonderful even now, and what it would be like in a day of gale and heavy seas might be guessed. And still we held on, with Asbiorn at the helm, though I could see as yet no opening in the mighty walls that barred our way onward. Gerda at my side laughed at me, in all pride in her homecoming, and in the wild coast at which I was wondering.

The cliffs seemed to part us as we neared those before us, and I saw a deep and narrow cleft between them into which we steered. The sail was lowered now, and the oars manned, and so we passed from the open into the shadow of the mighty cliffs which rose higher and higher as we rowed between them. For half a mile the swell of the sea came with us, and then it died away, and we were on still, deep water, clear as glass, but black in the shadow of the grim and sheer rock walls. The rhythm of the leisurely swing and creak and plash of the long oars came back to us from either side as if we rowed amid an unseen fleet, and when the men broke into the rowing song they were fain to cease, laughing, for the echoes spoiled the tune.

The fjord opened out before long, and there was another passage to the sea, up which came a little swell from the open. The cliffs to our right had been those of a great island which lies across the mouth of the fjord itself, which we were but now entering. And then again the cliffs closed in, and we were in the silence. On the verge of the cliffs here were poised great stones, as if set to roll down on those who would try to force a passage, but they were more than man might lift. They might have been hove here by Jotuns at play, so great were they, in truth.

Now, it was Asbiorn's plan that we should try to reach the upper end of the fjord, where the hall and village lay, in the dusk of evening, if we could do so, unseen. Gerda knew that it was unlikely that we should be spied until we had passed higher yet; or, at least, were we seen, that none would wonder at the return of a ship which was known to be that of Heidrek. The brown sail which had been our terror might help us here and now.

Far up its reaches the fjord branched, one arm running on toward the east, and the other, which was our course, northward. Here, at the meeting of these branches, there was a wider stretch of water, ringed around with mountains which sloped, forest clad, to the shores, and dotted with rocky islets round which the tide swirled and eddied in the meeting of the two currents, for it was falling.

We had timed our passage well, and would wait here until we might find our way to the hall as the men were gathered for the evening meal. Our plan was to land and surround the building, and so take Arnkel if we could without any fighting.

Hidden away at the foot of a valley here was a little village, but at first we saw no signs that we were noticed. Presently, however, when Asbiorn had taken the ship into a berth between two of the islets, and the men were getting her shore lines fast to mooring posts which seemed to be used only now and then, a boat with two men in it came off to us thence, and we were hailed to know what we needed in these waters.

Asbiorn answered, saying that we were friends, waiting for tide up the fjord, and they went ashore on the islet next them, and came across it to us. Then Gerda rose up from where she sat watching them and called them by name, and they started as if they had seen a ghost, so that she laughed at them. At that they took courage, and came nearer.

The stern of the ship was not more than a couple of fathoms from the rock, and there they stood, and it was good to hear their welcome of the lady whom they had deemed lost. Then they came on board, and there was rejoicing enough, both in the finding, and in the peace which would come with Gerda's return. They told us how that Arnkel was carrying on his mastership here with a high hand, being in no wise loved. They said that men blamed him for bringing Heidrek on the land, seeing that he had made terms with him when it would have been as well to fight; and that, moreover, there were not a few who believed that in some way he had a hand in the loss of Gerda. Now, he was trying to gather the men in order to go to the help of Eric the King, who was fighting in the Wick, as we had heard, and that was not at all to the mind of those who had followed Thorwald. War in the Wick, beyond their ken altogether, was no affair of theirs.

Whereby it was plain that here we were likely to do a very good turn to Hakon at once, and we were just in time. Our ship, which Heidrek had left here, was ready for sailing, as it seemed, and if we had come a day or two later we should have lost Arnkel, and maybe had trouble to follow.

Now, these two men were the pilots of the fjord, as we had guessed from their coming off to us. At first they were for going straightway and telling the men at the hall and town that Gerda had come, but we thought it best to take that news ourselves. They would steer us up the fjord in the dusk presently, and would answer any hail from watchers who would spy our coming.

So we waited for the turn of the tide, and armed ourselves in all bravery of gold and steel and scarlet as befitted the men of Hakon and of Gerda the Queen, for she should go back to her own as a queen should. And then a thought came to me, and I spoke of it to Bertric, and so went and stood at the door of the cabin where Gerda waited, and asked her to do somewhat for me.

"Will you not come back even as you went?" I asked. "Let the men see you stand before them as you were wont, in your mail and helm and weapons, the very daughter of warriors."

But she shook her head, smiling.

"No, Malcolm, it is foolishness. What need to put on the gear which seems to make me what I am not?"

"Nothing will make you less than a sea queen, my Gerda," I said. "Maybe I might say more than that, but you would think me only flattering. I would have you wear the arms as surety to your folk at first sight that you are indeed here again. It may save words, and time."

So I persuaded her, and she left me to don the war gear for the last time, as she told me. She would dress herself even as she had been clad for the funeral and as we had found her.

Then the tide turned, and slowly the current from the sea found its way up the fjord and reached us, and we warped out of the narrow berth between the rocks, and manned the oars and set out on the last stage of our voyage. The mast was lowered and housed by this time, and the ship ready for aught. Only we did not hang the war boards along the gunwales, and we had no dragon head on the stem, for that Heidrek had not carried at any time. We had no mind to set all men against the ship at first sight as an enemy who came prepared for battle.

We entered the northern branch of the fjord, and at once the high cliffs rose above us again, for the waterway narrowed until we were in a deep cleft of the mountains. The water was still as glass in the evening quiet, and as the stars came out overhead, we seemed to be sailing under one deep sky and on another. But the oar blades broke the water into brighter stars than those which were reflected, and after us stretched a wake of white light between the black cliffs, for the strange sea fires burnt in the broken waters brightly, coming and going as the waves swirled around the ship's path.

So we went steadily for a long way, and then we came to a place where the rocky walls of the channel nearly met, so that one could have thrown a stone from the deck on either as we passed. High up on the left cliffside a little light glimmered, for a cottage hung as it were on a shelf of the mountain above us. The measured beat of the oars sounded hollow here as the sheer cliffs doubled their sounds. Some man heard it, and a door opened by the little light, like a square patch of brightness on the shadow of the hillside.

Then he hailed us in a great voice which echoed back to us, and one of the pilots answered him cheerily with some homely password, and we saw his form stand black against his door for a moment before he closed it, and he waved his hand to the friend whose voice he knew. The pilot told me that it was his duty to listen for passing ships thus and hail them. Beside his hut was piled a beacon ready to light if all was not well, and in the hut hung a great, wooden cattle lure wherewith to alarm the town. We were close to it now.

By this time it was as if I knew the place well, so often had Gerda told me of it. The fjord opened out from this narrow channel into a wide lake from which the mountains fell back, seamed and laced with bright streams and waterfalls, and clad with forests, amid which the cornfields were scattered wherever the rocks gave way to deeper soil. At the head of this lake, where a swift salmon river entered the fjord, was the hall, set on rising ground above the clustering houses of the town, and looking down over them to the anchorage and the wharf for which we were making. Behind the hall rose a sheer cliff, sheltering it and the other houses from the north and east.

All this I was to see plainly hereafter. Before me now in the dusk, which was almost darkness, as the ship slid from the narrows into the open, was the wide ring of mountains and the still lake, and across that the twinkling lights of the town, doubled in the water below them, and above them all the long row of high-set openings under the eaves of the hall itself, glowing red with the flame of fire and torches, and flickering as the smoke curled across and through them.

I wondered what welcome was waiting for us from those who were gathered there, as I stood with Gerda on my arm beside our comrades, who watched the pilots as they steered. Bertric was there, and Phelim, who by this time spoke the Norse well enough, besides Asbiorn.

There was some spur of hill between us and part of the town, for the light seemed to glide from behind it as we held on, but its mass was lost in the shadows. I was watching the lights as they came, one by one, to view, and then of a sudden, on the blackness of the cliff above the hall, shone out a cross of light, tall and bright and clear, as it were a portent, or as set there to guard the place. So suddenly did it come that I started, and I heard Father Phelim draw in his breath with some words which I could not catch.

"What is that?" I asked Gerda, under my breath and pointing.

She laughed gently, and her hand tightened on my arm.

"We were wont to call it Thor's hammer," she said. "We see it from time to time, and it brings luck. Now it greets me and you--but it is not the old sign to me any longer."

"It is strange," said Bertric. "Once you called on Asa Thor--and here is that one to whom you called, and yonder--"

"No, no," she said, clinging to me, "it is no longer Thor's hammer."

"It is the sign which shall be held dear here," said Phelim. "It is the sign that all good has come to this place."

"So may it be," said Gerda softly, and I thought that the reflection of the cross made a glimmering pathway from the hall to the ship which bore her homeward.

But I had no time to wonder how and why that sign was there, for now we were seen, and torches began to flicker along the wharf. Our pilots spoke to Asbiorn, and he passed the word for men to go forward with the shore warps, and the oar strokes slowed down. I thought I saw the broad gleam of light as the doors of the hall opened and closed again, and then a hail or two went back and forth from the shore and us. The oars were laid in and we were alongside the wharf, and quietly the rowers took their arms and sat in their places, waiting, as they had been bidden. There were not more than a score of men waiting us ashore, for it was supper time.

Then came a man from out of the town toward us, and by the time we were moored he was on the wharf opposite the stern. He had on helm and sword, but no mail, and his shield hung over his shoulder. The men made way for him, and in the torchlight I saw that he was gray-bearded and strong.

"It is Gorm the Steward," said Gerda to me, "He is my friend. Let me speak to him."

"Ho, shipmaster!" cried Gorm. "Welcome, if you come in friendship, as I suppose. Whence are you, and what would you?"

"Friends," said Asbiorn; "friends with a cargo some of you will be glad to see."

"Aye, aye," answered the steward. "You traders always say that. Well, that will wait for daylight. Meanwhile come up to the hall and sup."

Then his eyes lit on the silent, mail-clad men at the oar benches, and he started.

"Ho!" he cried sternly, "what is the meaning of all this show of weapons?"

"Speak to him, Gerda," I said then, seeing that it was time.

She went to the rail and leaned over it. The red flares shone on her mail and white dress and sparkling helm.

"Gorm," she cried softly; "Gorm, old friend--I have come home!"

He stood for a moment as if turned to stone there on the wharf. Then he shaded his eyes with his hand as if in broad daylight, and stared at Gerda for but a moment, for she spoke his name once more.

"Odin," he cried, "this is a good day--if my ears and eyes do not play me false--yet it is hardly to be believed. Let me come on board."

He hurried to the gangway, and there Gerda met him. One close look was enough for him, and he bent his knee and kissed her hand with words of welcome, and so would be made known to Bertric and myself. He looked us up and down with a sharp glance and smiled, and Gerda told her tale in a few words.

"True enough," he said; "for you wear the arms of the house, and wear them well. I never thought to see one in the war gear of the young master again and not to resent it--but Gerda will have made no mistake. Now, what will you do? Arnkel sits in the hall, and with him men who have come from Eric Bloodaxe the King."

"Hakon, Athelstane's foster son, is king," said Bertric. "There is news for you. He is at Thrandheim, and the north has risen for him. We are his men."

Gorm's eyes shone, and he whistled softly. "News indeed! This is a day of wonders. What next?"

"How many of the men in the hall will stand by Arnkel when Gerda is known?" I asked. "She would have no fighting if it can be avoided."

Maybe a dozen--men who never knew her. That is of no account, for there are two score of our folk supping there."

"Well, then," I said, "we will surround the hall and walk in quietly and call on Arnkel to surrender. If he does not, we must make him do so; but first Gerda's tale shall be told of him."

Then Gerda said: "Let me go into the hall first and speak with Arnkel face to face. I have no fear of him, and I think that my folk will stand by me."

Just for a moment we doubted if that was safe for her, but Gorm the Steward had the last word.

"Let it be so," he said. "Gerda shall call to her men, and they will not hang back. Then Arnkel must needs give in. Now, the sooner the better for all concerned."