CHAPTER XII

Now behold the fourth rede: If ill witch thee bideth, Woe-begetting by the way, Good going farther Rather than guesting, Though thick night be upon thee. LAY OF SIGRDRIFA.

Though the blast struck quartering in the faces of the skaters, the brunt of its force was broken by the king's body; so that the others, dragged on by his bull-strength and Olvir's wiry vigor, held to a pace which lost none of the distance they had gained on the wolf-pack before the storm burst.

"Thor!" shouted Liutrad, hoarse but joyful. "We cheat both werwolves and storm-fiends! We shall soon be sitting by the glowing hearth!"

"God grant it!" replied Karl. "Yet you crow too soon, lad. There's a turn ahead will bring us into the teeth of the wind. Even now we should be swerving."

"Saint Michael!" gasped Gerold. "We can never drive against this blast!"

"No, by Thor!" called back Olvir. "Even now we can scarce hold our own--and behind comes the horde! We are doomed if we linger on the ice. To the bank, lord king! There's no other way!"

"A hard truth, Dane hawk! Yet it is better to freeze than to be torn by ravening beasts. _Heu_! I know of a hut among the oaks. To the forest! The pack runs blind, with neither sight nor scent. They 'll follow the river and pass us by."

"To the bank!" shouted Liutrad and Gerold; and the line of skaters swung around to glide inshore. Blinded by the whirling flakes, they drove upon the low bank before aware of its nearness. Staggering and half falling, they stumbled across the rough ice-rim, and flung themselves down upon the bank to tear at their skate-thongs.

Olvir did not wait to untie knots. Even as he loosed his grip on young Karl, he drew his silver-hilted dagger. In a twinkling he had freed both himself and the boy, and was springing to the side of Rothada. Thrusting her skates with his own and young Karl's into his empty quiver, he drew the maiden to her feet. The others had all freed themselves, and sprang up together.

"Leave no scent for the wood-fiends! Hold to your skates, and follow me!" commanded Karl. Flinging his younger son upon his shoulder, he grasped Hildegarde by the hand, and rushed headlong in among the oaks.

Liutrad caught up Pepin as the king had taken his brother, and dashed away after their leader. Olvir and Gerold, with Rothada between them, followed as closely upon his heels. They were none too quick. Hardly had they covered a hundred paces, when behind them a sudden burst of fierce yells rang out across the wind.

"God save us! they 've turned!" gasped Rothada; while Gerold gripped his sword-hilt and loosened the blade in its sheath, in readiness for his last fight. But the yelling cry died away as quickly as it had swelled out. The wolf-pack had overshot the snow-swept trail, and were racing on around the river-bend. For many minutes, however, the king led on into the forest without slackening his swift stride. He did not check himself until Hildegarde stumbled and half fell.

"Dear lord, I am very weary," she sighed.

Halting so abruptly that Liutrad almost ran upon him, Karl caught his queen in his free arm, and drew her close.

"Rest, sweetheart," he said gently. "We are safe for a time."

"A long time, lord king," added Liutrad. "Even should the pack turn, they 'd do well to hunt us out in this wild flurry."

All the party drew close together, and stood panting, while the shrieking storm-fiends swirled the snow about them in dizzy eddies. Soon, however, Olvir felt Rothada shiver beneath his cloak.

"Lead on, lord king," he said. "To linger here is death! Lead on to your hut."

Karl raised his head, and peered around through the driving snow.

"By my sword, Olvir," he muttered; "you ask what is beyond my skill. Here among the trees the blast swirls down from every quarter. Who could guide through such a storm?"

"Then we must wander blindly. If we stand, we shall perish of cold."

"Follow, then. We 'll try at a venture."

"Stay, sire!" warned Gerold. "What comes behind you?"

Karl turned sharply to stare at the huge form which loomed up out of the snow-mist and drifted by within a spear-length. As it passed, the great shape swung about its steaming muzzle to sniff at the party, and then it lumbered on at the same leisurely gait.

"A bear!" muttered Karl; and he drew back to shield his helpless charges.

Liutrad sprang before him with brandished spear.

"White biorn!" he cried,--"white biorn! What does the berg-rider in Frank Land?"

"Were I yet heathen," rejoined Olvir, "I 'd say we look upon the king's sprite."

"It is--it is, earl! No beast could pass so quietly. Follow your guardian sprite, sire! It leads you to safety!"

"Would you have me follow a forest fiend? And yet, beast or sprite, we can do no better! Come, then; our guide vanishes."

"Lead on, sire," answered Olvir; and all hurried in pursuit of the dim white figure. Once close upon it, they slackened their pace, and silently followed the wraith-like guide as it lumbered steadily onward into the forest.

Half a league or more had been passed, and both Hildegarde and Rothada were nearly outspent, when the strange guide swerved suddenly and disappeared. At the same moment a dark object, broader than any oak, loomed before the wanderers. They advanced, turning a little to one side, and there, only a few paces before them, they saw a red spot glowing in the dark barrier.

"The hut!" cried Karl.

Gerold sprang ahead, and, thrusting open a loose corner of the window parchment, peered into the hut. The others would have hurried past him to the rude door just beyond; but he uttered a low cry, and stepped before the king with outstretched hands.

"Stay, sire, stay!" he muttered in a hushed tone. "Better wolf and storm than witch-cheer! Look within!"

Startled by the warning, Karl and then Liutrad peered through the broken parchment, and each in turn drew back with the same look which distended the eyes of the Swabian. Last of all, Olvir put his eye to the hole. The first glance showed him a squalid little room whose walls of rotting logs stood out grimy and bare in the glow of the driftwood fire. The rafters of the low thatch were veiled by the smoke, indriven by the wind, which eddied through the roof-hole and sent little whirls of snowflakes hissing into the flames.

Crouched upon the rude hearth, across the fire from each other, were two women; and Olvir instantly recognized the one on the left as Fastrada. She sat with her head thrust forward, gazing keenly across at her hearth-mate.

After the maiden, Olvir felt little surprise when his glance turned to the tall woman who sat rocking to and fro on the edge of the hearth and crooning a strange song, while weasels played about her feet and ran up and down her outstretched arms. It was the girl's mother, the Wend mate of the old Grey Wolf.

The woman's head was uncovered, and Olvir stared with keen curiosity at her black hair and aquiline features. Her dark oval face still showed traces of great beauty; but age and witch-deeds had stained and withered her cheeks and caused the once beautiful eyes to sink deep into their sockets. Even without the weasels, the look of malignant joy on the witch's face would have set most hearts to quaking. But Olvir was smiling, half pityingly, at the dread which even the king had betrayed, when the witch chanced to turn so that the firelight struck upon her cheek. At the sight he started and almost cried out. It seemed to him that a red adder had thrust up from beneath the woman's neckband and laid its venomous head upon her cheek. When he stared more closely, however, he saw that the snake-head, though perfect in outline, was only a crimson blotch upon the witch's skin. He drew back with a grim laugh.

"No wonder she hid her face," he muttered. "What woman would not, with such a mark? But now--ho, lord king; why do we linger? Let us hasten in."

"In!" rejoined Gerold,--"a witch den!"

"She is Fastrada's mother,--the wife of Count Rudulf. She will gladly give hearth-cheer to her husband's lord. Come."

"Hold, Olvir. If we go, I lead," said Karl; and he thrust ahead to the hut door. He found the latch-string in and the door fast barred. His knock must have resounded through the narrow room like the beating of a hammer; but though he waited for an answer, all was silence within.

The king did not knock again. Setting down the half-frozen boy from his shoulder, he threw his weight against the door. Before the shock, it flew violently inwards, its bar snapped short in the socket. Having thus cleared the way, the king drew Hildegarde and the boy to him, and stooped to pass beneath the lintel. As the others pushed after him into the warm interior, they saw Fastrada start up and stand glaring at them with the horror of one who looks upon some grisly spectre.

The Wend woman had shrouded herself about in her grey cloak, and sat quietly in her place, staring at the forceful guests from the depths of her hood. Of the weasels nothing was to be seen but a pair of fiery little eyes peering out from the folds of the cloak upon her bosom. The witch was the first to speak.

"Odin bear witness," she said in a tone of quiet scorn. "It is very fitting that he who thus breaks in on helpless women calls himself King of the Franks."

"And over-lord of your lord, Wend wife. Make way by the fire for us."

"I make way for no one,--much less for Pepin's son," came back the hissing retort.

The king's brows met in a stern frown.

"That we shall soon see, woman," he said. "Liutrad, put this hag from the hearth."

"I, lord king!" muttered the young giant, and his ruddy face whitened. But then, crossing himself, he advanced resolutely upon the dreaded alruna. None the less, his relief was plain to be seen when the Wend woman rose and withdrew to the far end of the hut, without waiting to be forced.

Then at last, as the shivering guests crowded about the fire, Fastrada found her tongue. Springing forward, she threw herself at Hildegarde's feet, and loudly protested her delight: "My gracious dame--sweet queen! You're safe! safe! and the bairns and the little maiden--all alike have escaped the cruel--the cruel storm!"

"And the wolf-pack!" rejoined Pepin, proudly.

"Holy Mother!--wolves?"

"Nor was aid sent us, maiden," said Karl, sternly.

Fastrada half rose, and flung out her hands.

"Forgive me, sire!" she murmured. "I, too, was lost; I, too, wandered in the storm. Only a little while since I came upon this unholy den. Blessed be the saints who brought you to end my fears!"

"Why fears, maiden? Should any mother, however much a witch, harm her own child?"

Fastrada hung her head, visibly disconcerted by the answer. Her reply came haltingly, and in a tone almost too low to be heard: "Your Majesty, should I bear--should I suffer for her deeds? It is too much! Even my horror-- Ah, let her witchcraft meet with the just dooming of the king's law! She is no mother to me!"

"Ay, girl, no longer am I mother to you!" hissed out the Wend woman, and she glided around to the open door. At the threshold she turned, and, flinging back her hood, faced all openly. The twitching muscles of her sallow cheek gave to the crimson adder-head a fearful semblance of life, and the horror lost nothing by the malignant fury of her look and the sibilance in her low-pitched voice.

"So," she hissed; "the sly trull is bent upon saving herself. Having been caught in company with the Wend witch, she seeks to cast off the mother who bore her! Let her be content; she has proved herself a changeling. The daughter of the Snake could not be mother to a child so base and cowardly as to deny the bond of kinship. No longer is she blood of my blood or bone of my bone. I go; but, as parting gift, I leave her my curse,--the curse of one who was a mother. She shall taste of power, and it shall be as ashes in her mouth; she shall hunger for love, and hate shall wither her heart. Woe to her!"

Pausing, with upraised hand, the witch shifted her hateful gaze from her cowering daughter to the startled group about the fire.

"As for you, storm-guests," she went on, "learn that the witch-wife has gifts for all. To Pepin's son I give toil and sweat and bloody victory. Joy to the crusher of free folk! None may withstand the world-hero. Hoary-headed, he dies in the straw; for no longer are there foes to withstand him in battle. And then I see the storm gather in the frozen North. The dragons swim the salt waves; they fall upon Frank Land, ravening with fangs of steel and with flaming breath. The kin of Pepin's son flee as hares. Thor smites the White Christ! The Frank realm shatters in fragments!"

"Hold, fiend-wife!" roared Karl; and he turned threateningly upon the woman, all dread of her witchcraft forgotten in his deep anger. But she met him with a look which even his imperious will could not withstand. He stood spellbound, transfixed by the cold glitter of her sunken eyes. For a little she held him powerless,--him, the world-hero, king of half Europe. Then her thin white lips curled scornfully, and she turned from him to the others.

"Enough of Pepin's son," she scoffed. "As to these Norse curs, false alike to their folk and their gods, my curse is needless. The gods whom they have betrayed will exact full vengeance. But I put my curse on the brood of the bloody Frank,--maiden, bairns, and bed-mate,--all who stand before me. May the king's sons never wear crown; may the nun-maid lose her bright hero; may the fair queen know beforetime--"

The woman paused, and looked darkly from Hildegarde to her daughter. She was yet gloating upon the two when Rothada rose and came to her with outstretched arms.

"Ah, dame, good dame, be still!" she cried. "Christ forgive you the evil words! Turn to Him; cast out the hatred from your heart before your own curses creep in to wither it!"

"_Hei!_ what is this?" muttered the woman; and she drew back in bewilderment. Her eyes glared into the pleading eyes of the king's daughter with a look almost of terror. Suddenly, without a word, she turned and rushed out into the storm.