CHAPTER XVI

But about and between Went baleful fate. LAY OF SIGURD.

As Roland had predicted, nothing arose to interfere with the plans of the maying party. Even Lupus found means to slip away from the king's presence. His excuse was that he wished to attend the queen. With the utmost show of deference, he and a pair of young pages had escorted her to the landing-stage, where she was sitting at ease in the midst of the royal children and half-a-dozen favorite bower-maidens, when the Norse ship-boats came racing up from the viking camp. The craft were steered by Olvir and Roland, Gerold of Bussen, and Count Worad.

Olvir's oarsmen were not the best among his vikings. Floki himself pulled bow-oar in Roland's boat. Yet the greater skill of the sea-king more than offset this disadvantage, and he steered in to the wharf foremost of all.

Forgetful of sore muscles and stiffened joints, the heritage of his ride, Olvir did not wait for his boat to make fast, but while it was yet turning, leaped out upon the landing-stage. Though he hastened at once to bow before Hildegarde, his eyes were fixed upon the glowing face which regarded him over the queen's shoulder. He had thought for none else. Hildegarde saw and understood. She met his half-stammered greeting with a smile, and motioned him to step behind her.

"Greet the maiden, Olvir," she said. "No wooer ever rode so far and so fast to win his true-love. I would not keep you waiting now."

Olvir thanked the kindly queen with a glance, and then he was beside Fastrada. It was the moment to which both had looked forward during all the six and twenty days of separation. For a time they stood with clasped hands, gazing into each other's eyes, too full of love and happiness to speak. They were so lost in mutual delight they did not heed that all the others had embarked and were waiting for them, until Rothada called out.

"Ah, sweetheart, we must go," sighed Olvir. "Yet, first, a word,--I bring good tidings."

Fastrada's eyes shone still brighter.

"I know, my hero," she murmured. "Yesterday my heart burned that you should have first seen Rothada; but I forgave her because of the joyful word she brought. Oh, my lord, how my heart leaps to see you once more! And you have ridden over Rhine and back again, with scarce a trace of the long journey! Who else in Christendom could do the like?"

"Who else would not do it for the loveliest among maidens?" replied Olvir; and with that, fearful of losing his self-control, he led the girl aboard his boat.

Hildegarde had intrusted herself to Roland, along with the children. All others had chosen places in the remaining boats, except only Rothada. Though begged by Worad to come with him, the girl had placed herself aboard Olvir's boat. Even Fastrada could not ask the little princess to leave; but her ready wit suggested how to make the best of the situation. At a word from her, Olvir told one of the pages to join them. The boy was only too pleased to gain such a merry companion as the king's daughter, and so, with much laughter and excitement, all was agreeably arranged, and the five boats sheered off into the stream.

Accustomed as were most of the party to the river scenery, all found much to delight the eye in the picturesque hills, the woods, and the flower-strewn dales, now in the full green of early summer. Nature added her share to the merry maying. There was no cloud to be seen, either in the sky or on the faces of the pleasure-seekers. Even Roland joined freely in the merriment, and unbent so far as to tell the king's children a wonderful tale,--all about wood-sprites and werwolves.

Of all the party, two alone had no thought to give to jest or laughter, and yet they were the happiest couple in the boats. Faint with blissful languor, Fastrada sat beside her lover, too overjoyed for words; while instinct alone guided Olvir's steer-oar, as his boat, leaping to the strokes of the big-armed oarsmen, raced upstream in company with the others.

All too soon, Gerold, in the lead, steered ashore to the crumbling stone quay of an old-time Roman estate. Through the trees could be seen the shattered walls of an immense villa, which, Lupus said, had been looted and burned by the Saracens on their way to Tours. But on landing, in place of proceeding to the ruins, the party turned aside to a nook in the abandoned garden, where a stream of pure water gushed from the mouth of a monstrous bronze dolphin.

Here a cloth was spread on the grass, and the bower-maidens played at housewife, while the younger men ran races to the boat for forgotten articles. After the meal a half-circle was formed before Hildegarde and the children, and each member of the party was called upon for a tale.

So with stories of dragons and saints, heroes and sprites, the hour of noon-rest was passed, and young Karl and Rotrude and Carloman slept with their heads on their mother's lap. But the other youngsters at last wearied of inaction, and Pepin begged to see the ruined villa. The idea was at once caught up by Worad and Gerold, and met with approval on all sides.

The villa had evidently been the country-seat of a Roman of great wealth. In size it was little less than a palace. The party rambled about the ruins during most of the afternoon, with no slackening of interest. From the ash-heaps beneath the fire-scarred walls the young men dug out pretty fragments of statuary and many whole tiles.

Fatigue and thirst, however, finally moved Hildegarde to call for a return to the fountain. When she started, supported between Roland and Lupus, her maidens and the younger men ran ahead to gather flowers with the children. Olvir and Fastrada, however, walked behind, and slow as was the queen's pace, theirs was yet slower. Lupus was quick to note their loitering, and when presently they were lost to view behind a turn of the wild-grown hedge, he sought to bring his royal mistress to a halt.

"Pardon me, gracious dame," he said; "is it seemly that Lord Olvir and the maiden--"

"What harm?" interrupted Hildegarde, smiling. "Are they not all but betrothed? This very evening Fulrad will hear them plight their troth. Come; one would think you had never loved."

Lupus looked quickly away, and drew in his breath with a softly hissing sound. Nor was he the only one hurt. Roland groaned aloud and struck his fist upon his broad chest.

"Ah, Roland--I had forgot!" exclaimed Hildegarde.

The warrior's stern-set face relaxed, and he smiled sadly.

"God double my brother's joy!" he said.

And so the three passed on to where the young folk were playing May games around the fountain.

Meantime, the lovers had more than loitered on the way,--they had come to a full stop.

The moment Fastrada perceived that the queen and her companions were hidden by the foliage, she put a hand to her bosom, and exclaimed: "Hold, Olvir. I have dropped the brooch you gave me. It must have been at the last, when we started."

"I will run fetch it, sweetheart," replied Olvir, readily.

"And leave me here alone! I would sooner lose the clasp. Let us return together. I have good tidings, which the queen left for me to tell you."

"Come, then; we 'll go back. Now, dear one, what are your good tidings?"

"Wait a little, my hero. Tell me first of your meeting with Count Rudulf, my father, and with my--my mother."

Olvir half frowned, and drew a little apart, as he recalled his encounter in the wild beech forest.

"What are your tidings?" he insisted.

The girl glanced up at him with a look which, though of but a moment's duration, brought out with startling distinctness her resemblance to the grisly old forest count. Then her scarlet lips parted in a smile that showed her strong white teeth, and she replied slowly: "I bend to the bidding of my lord. Know, then, that our lord king desires the company of his daughter on his southward war-faring, and, that the princess may not be lonely, he has asked the queen to choose her a journey-mate from among the bower-maidens."

"The king takes the little vala on such a war-faring! and you, of all the queen's maidens, are chosen to go-- By Loki, there are tales of Pepin's son! Were I sure-- Ah! that boding of the witch,--her own mother!"

"You speak in riddles," said Fastrada, sharply. "What of my mother's boding?"

"No good word to you and me," replied Olvir; and he told briefly of the meeting with the old count and his witch wife. As he spoke, his scorn of spells and evil bodings came back to him, and he cast off the doubt which had fallen upon his heart. But when, smiling at his foolish fear and jealousy, he glanced down at the maiden, he caught a glimpse of her eyes, green and narrow-lidded as her father's. They were still green when the girl met his look full-faced, and asked in a sibilant voice: "You are sure--my mother--she said a king--one grey of eye?"

"And I am neither!" muttered Olvir. "Yet were she twice your mother, I 'd laugh at such witchery."

But Fastrada turned from her lover's smiling look. She paused, and gazed down at the weed-grown ash-heap at her feet, her eyes again narrowed to a line.

A sudden chill fell upon Olvir. If the maiden truly loved him, why should she stand pondering that wild foretelling? Half angered, he glanced away, and his eye was caught by a glinting in the grass. He went ahead, and found the missing brooch.

"Here is your clasp, daughter of Rudulf," he said coldly.

Heedless of his tone, Fastrada took the ornament, and stared fixedly at the garnets with which it was studded.

"The queen's gems are far more precious," she murmured, half aloud.

"I will win you the like, maiden," answered Olvir, quickly, but his frown deepened.

For a while Fastrada made no response. Her eyes were still downcast, and her face was dark with doubt and inward struggle.

"_Ai_--my mother," she at last whispered; "not often do her bodings fall amiss! Yet once I knew the fiends to fail her-- Ah, if--"

The words faltered on the girl's lips, and she glanced up furtively at her lover. But at sight of his look she started back with a stifled cry.

Olvir's face was white as new ivory, and his eyes glittered like an angry snake's.

"So, witch-daughter," he lisped softly as a young child, "this is your Frank love. It is a merry game to play fast and loose,--a merry game! It seems that I fared to Rhine Stream on my lord king's errand,--both as to father and daughter. 'A king, grey of eye'--and he has chosen you to go as mate for--his daughter. So; the game is played! We will accept your mother's boding; we will trust to her fiends."

"Olvir, Olvir!--my hero! What is this? Why do you speak so cruelly? Ah, do not shrink from me! I was mad--mad! Truly, I love you, Olvir! I will never love another. Take me back--into your heart!"

"You mistake, daughter of Rudulf," replied Olvir, a harder note in his lisping voice. "My heart held the image of a maiden pure and true; you have shattered that holy image. How can I hold love in my heart, when you have thrust in doubt? Love! You say you love me, when you could stand for an instant weighing my love against a queen's crown--love!"

His voice cut like a lash. The girl winced, and looked appealingly into his face. But she saw only contempt and anger. Then her own eyes hardened. The daughter of grey Rudulf and the Wend witch was not one to repay scorn with a smile. The very excess of her passion for the Northman served now to heighten her fury and hatred. As she turned upon him, her beautiful features were distorted with a look more startling than the wolfish visage of her father.

"Love!" she cried, half hissing the word. "You speak of love,--you, the heathen outlander! This stone beneath my feet knows more of love than you! Your blood is but ice,--salty ice! Take your ring, and begone!"

"Now do I see the werwolf!" muttered Olvir, and, flinging down Fastrada's ring, he trod his own into the ashes and turned away, proud and angry-eyed.