CHAPTER XXVI

Unmeet we should do As the doings of wolves are, Raising wrongs 'gainst each other As the dogs of the Norns, The greedy ones nourished In waste steads of the earth. LAY OF HAMDIR.

When Liutrad returned with the sombre Benedictine robe for his earl, he found Olvir pacing restlessly up and down the Aisne bank.

"You 're slow, lad," he said impatiently; and flinging on the gown, he at once called to Zora. But Liutrad had more knowledge of the king's humor.

"Curb your eagerness, earl," he said. "Wait until after the baptizing, and our lord king has eaten and eased himself with the noon rest. When he wakens, his mood will be fairest."

"Yours is the better judgment, lad," assented Olvir. "My hour of grace is already past, and it will matter little--Loki! We 've forgotten that I cannot ride Zora into the burg. Worad will soon be searching me out, and the mare is as well known as I."

"We must leave her hid in the wood nearest the burg. My horse shall stand in waiting for you by the palace gate. He is heavy, but can race that far at good speed."

"Well schemed, lad! I shall swoop among the limed twigs of the werwolf, and they shall not hold me! Do you call to mind, lad, that day among the sand dunes, when we outrode the angry Danes?"

"Remember! Thor's hammer, but those were merry days!" cried Liutrad; and with that he and Olvir fell to recalling the stirring scenes of their hunts and their fights on land and sea since the day when Olvir Thorbiornson came to Lade, with his grim foster-father, and won the heirship of the high-seat.

Noon came and passed, and the two still talked on with the care-free tones of men at a feast. None might have dreamt from their manner that they were desperate men, prepared, if need were, to defy the might of the great king.

At last, noting by the fall of the sun-rays through the foliage how the time passed, Liutrad gave the word, and they made ready to enter Attigny.

Worms during the wedding of Fastrada was not more gay than was now the little burg on the Aisne. All the court and all the townfolk rejoiced with their king in the fond belief that the bloody Saxon struggle had at last come to an end. The streets were thronged with revellers, through whose midst Olvir, muffled in his cowl, walked unnoted behind Liutrad's horse, straight to the great palace built by the second Clovis.

No official would have thought to bar the entrance of the king's favorite scribe into the most private apartments of the king, without Karl's express command, and where Liutrad went, he had no difficulty in gaining admittance for his priestly fellow. But when they came near the door of the king's chamber, Liutrad thought it best that he should wait outside in the passage. While they stood talking, they heard within the sibilant, purring voice of the queen, and at the same time the Grand Doorward approached, to inquire their purpose. Olvir's gaze grew stern, and he drew Liutrad away, with quick decision.

"Go, bring your horse into the courtyard--to the steps of the palace doorway," he said. "Should I come out in haste, do not wonder if I take the beast from you with a show of force. The Franks should know of nothing against you till you 've fled with their king's daughter."

"Olvir! You mean our lord king no harm?"

"God forbid--greatly as he has wronged me! Only, I 'd not linger in the werwolf's power should all go ill."

"Saint Michael grant you have no need of flight!"

"My thanks. Go quickly!"

Liutrad hurried away, and Olvir stepped forward to meet the doorward, his head bent beneath the cowl, and his lips muttering a Latin phrase.

"Hold," commanded the pompous official. "What is the priest's purpose at the door of our lord king?"

"To enter it, fool!" muttered Olvir, in Latin, and, as the Frank bowed to the blessing, he spoke in a tone of authority: "Lead me to his Majesty. I come from Fulda and--"

"Ah, the wise Abbot Baugulf. Follow me, priest, and pray for grace that you do not stammer and stand dumfounded when you enter the presence of majesty."

Olvir made no answer, and the doorward, judging that he had sufficiently impressed the humble priest, flung aside the curtains, and announced his entrance. "A messenger, your Majesty, from Abbot Baugulf."

"Let him stand and enjoy with us the verses of our Albinus," replied Karl, without turning his gaze from Alcuin, at the foot of the royal couch.

Olvir stopped short, and, from the depths of his cowl, swept the room with his glance. Evidently the king had thought the morning's ceremony sufficient work accomplished for the day, even for his all but tireless energy. In place of the usual crowd of counts and court-officials, pressing about the royal couch to report their actions and receive fresh orders from the king, there were present only Alcuin and Fastrada the queen, who was seated beside her lord on the edge of the massive couch.

At a nod from Karl, Alcuin raised his gold-illumined scroll, and recited his Latin rhymes in a voice that went far toward easing the waywardness of the feet. The king was very hearty in his praise of the poet's efforts; but Fastrada murmured an ironical criticism: "A fair song, my lord,--for children and priests. I myself would rather hear the heart-stirring lays of our fathers."

"They are the fierce songs of heathen warriors, my dame, ill fitted for the lips of God's children," protested Alcuin.

Karl nodded to him, smiling. "Ah, my Albinus, you speak true; I, as head of God's church, must agree with you. It is well that our subjects should not sing the heathen lays. Yet they are the songs of our fathers, and I would not have them wholly lost to our children. But I keep waiting the good abbot's messenger. Stand forward, my son, and deliver over the scroll sent by your superior."

"I bear no scroll, Frank king. The message is on the tongue of the wolfshead," answered Olvir, in a clear voice, and he flung aside the priest's robe, to stand before the king in full war-gear.

"How? Olvir! King of Heaven!" cried Karl, and he sprang up to confront the Northman as he had confronted Gerold in the East Tower,--with bared sword. But Olvir gazed fearlessly into his angry eyes.

"Twice before has my father's sword been brandished to strike down his son," he said. "The edge of Ironbiter in a king's hand is fair fate for a warrior."

"Wretched man! why do you force me to anger? I have yielded to mercy,--I gave you full time to quit my realm. Yet now you stand before me, threatening."

"My sword hangs in its sheath. Had I come to avenge myself for the outlaw's doom, I could have leaped upon the son of Pepin while the priest murmured his verses. Is the king answered?"

Karl lowered his Norse sword, and gazed down moodily at the outlaw.

"By my faith, Dane," he muttered, "I had thought you bold beyond most; but this passes belief."

"A man will do much for his honor and his love, King of the Franks. I am no longer your liegeman; you have broken the fetter which bound us. I have been named wolfshead. Without my knowledge, I have been doomed to outlawry. Now I come to ask a hearing."

"You come too late, murderous Northman!" exclaimed Fastrada. "Our lord king has rendered judgment. Your doom is sealed. Go quickly, outlaw, before the scullions beat you from the palace with their spits."

Olvir looked into the beautiful evil face, smiling with malignant triumph, and the white fury seized upon him.

"I do not speak to the witch's offcast daughter. My appeal is to the King of the Franks," he lisped.

The king gasped in sheer amazement; then the blood leaped into his face, and his eyes flamed. He turned to thrust out his fist at the gaping doorward, and commanded harshly: "Away, fool! Bid the High Marshal and his riders lead this Dane wolf Rhineward, in bonds. The bloody outlaw shall not fare at will about my realm. Go!"

"My lord,--dear sire!" cried Alcuin, as the doorward sprang away; "hear the youth--"

"Silence, priest! None shall pule over this false Dane! Doubly has he earned the tree,--the mire-death. Yet I have spared his life; I have shown mercy."

"It is not for mercy, but for justice that I ask, King of the Franks," replied Olvir; and then, as the thought of his little princess came upon him, his voice broke into despairing appeal: "Hear me, lord king! Be just to the liegeman whom you once honored. Do not send me from your realm wolfshead, that those who hate me may jeer my name, and my friends listen to the scoffing with sealed lips. I will go; I will go gladly, lord king; only, take from me the shame of your dooming, and bless the parting liegeman with a king's gift,--the hand of his betrothed."

"By the King--"

"Hear me, dear lord, I beg you! by the sword in your hand, by this ring on my wrist, gift of Hildegarde--of Hildegarde who so loved my little princess!--I swear to you, dear lord, that I had no part--"

"Do not heed him, King of the Franks!" hissed Fastrada. "Look upon this cruel blade, my lord,--the knife which pierced the feeble greybeard! What justice for the murderer? What mercy for the traitor? I demand vengeance upon my father's betrayer. He shall sink in the slime, or the plunging horses rend him asunder! Vengeance!"

"Go, Olvir!" muttered the king, thickly; "go--before I forget that I once loved you."

A gasping sob burst from the Northman. Karl could not have struck a blow more cruel. The stricken man turned slowly about and passed from the chamber, groping his way as though blinded. The king and the scholar stared after him, hushed and motionless. Not until he was gone did they heed that the queen had glided out by the bower doorway. Then Alcuin began to pray aloud, and the king bent while the priest implored the blessing of Heaven upon the soul of the outlaw.

But Olvir, passing slowly from the doorway along the shadowy corridor, felt a hand thrust out from another curtained entrance to draw him within. Still half dazed, he yielded to the grasp. The hangings fell to behind him, and he found himself face to face with the queen. For a little they stood staring at each other, the queen's face still and cold as a mask. Olvir looked quietly into her dilating eyes, and then, without a word, he turned to go. But Fastrada put out the hand on which glowed her magic opal, and caught his shoulder in an eager grasp.

"Stay, Olvir!" she said. "Give heed, and learn that all is not lost to you."

"The king has spoken, witch's daughter."

"But not the queen. Listen, my gerfalcon. The famished bird wings back to the wrist of its keeper; the well-lashed steed comes to the call of the master. Your spirit is broken, proud Dane, and now my vengeance is slaked. There is gall in the cup. I wish to drink of a sweeter draught, which you shall give at my asking; for in my hand I hold for you good fortune,--honors and riches and power; the king's friendship again for his Dane hawk."

"And the price, werwolf?"

"Take heed of your tongue, Olvir! I have yet a score to settle with your puling nun-bride."

"She has another knife--"

"Take joy of the thought! Listen to me: I offer for her so much as the veil, and that at Chelles, where she will be with Gisela. Weigh it well, Olvir; on the one hand, peace for her; on the other, the knife--or Worad."

"The price?"

A deep blush suffused the queen's cheeks, and her eyes, blue and soft, gazed at the Northman from beneath their long lashes with an alluring glance.

"Surely the price is not too heavy," she murmured. "Men still hold me not uncomely--"

"Lord Christ--and to think! Ah, my world-hero, father of my betrothed! Far better the outlaw's lot! And in my anger I would have left you--beguiled by the plotters!"

"Olvir--Olvir! my hero,--my gerfalcon! Do not shrink from me--do not go--stay with me, Olvir! All the night I sat watching your ships sail away into the cold North. I cannot bear it! Men say the Norse maidens are fair-- My heart! another will lie in your arms. Stay--stay with me, bright hero! See; I beg--I, the queen, on my knees to you. My God--he goes! Turn again, Olvir, only turn. You shall have that also,--I pledge it on your knife,--the girl also,--everything! only turn!"

But Olvir neither paused nor turned about to the frantic woman. His eyes, clear and luminous with inward light, were upraised as though he looked into the blue sky, and his lips smiled as they murmured the hard sayings of the Carpenter's Son: "'Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely.... Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.'"

"He is mad--mad! I have stung him to madness!" cried the kneeling woman; and she struggled up to peer out through the hangings after the Northman. But when she saw him returning directly to the door of the king's chamber, she clutched at her bosom, and glided swiftly out after him. A blow between the helmet-rim and the gold collar of the hauberk--

But already the outlaw was at the other door. The doorward had not returned. He parted the curtains, and stepped within, unchallenged, even as the stealthy follower was upon him. The chance was lost.

With a soft rustle of silken robes the queen darted past the Northman, to fling herself into the king's arms.

"He is mad, dear lord,--mad!" she cried. "He entered my bower, and I alone! None but one crazed--"

"Peace, dame. It is you have lost your wit; I have come into wisdom," replied Olvir. "Peace to you and to your lord. I turn back, that, before I go, I may take oath to my tidings of how Hardrat and his fellows plot with Duke Tassilo and Adelchis the Lombard against the life and throne of the son of Pepin."

"So, outlaw," cried Karl, "you hold to that lie! Murderer and traitor--and now--"

"Peace, world-hero; do not speak the word you will ever rue," said Olvir, so quietly that, as the king answered, his voice sank to a mutter.

"My Grey Wolf fell on the Saale bank, pierced by the arrows of the Sorbs."

"Bid men go look upon the count's riven hauberk and the wounds which split his hard skull," rejoined Olvir. "Even Sorbs would not notch their swords on bone and iron, when the foe lay arrow-pierced. Yet more,--no crooked blade cuts like the sweeping longsword. My mail was proof; but the weals still show where the blows struck across my back. As to the slaying of the leech, does the king name me a witling, that I should strike, and leave the knife to tell the tale? Let your daughter bear witness. I gave the blade back into her hand when I turned from the cowering dotard to come before you. It must be she let it fall as I caught her to me. Another came, and found it lying ready for the foul deed--"

"Gerold!"

"No, lord king. What could the brother of Hildegarde gain by the slaying? No; it was another,--whom I could name. But I do not come for vengeance, dear lord; I come only to open your eyes to the truth, that the Thuringians may not take you unawares. Well was it you journeyed so swiftly out of Saxon Land. I call to mind the words of that red boar Hardrat: 'Never shall Karl cross again over Rhine Stream.'"

The king flung out his hand.

"God forgive me, Olvir!" he muttered. "The scroll which maddened me--"

"In seeking my death, lord king, they have sealed their own doom. I could not name them, so they have themselves sent their names to the lord whom they would have betrayed. It is God's will. My counsel to the King of the Franks: In the name of Christ, there has been much to rouse hatred and enmity against your rule,--harshness and cruelty. You have listened to the ill counsel of this misguided daughter of God. Therefore I say to you, bear in mind your own deeds, and be merciful to the wrongdoers. Now I go. The outlaw will not again trouble the son of Pepin. God be with you!"

"Stay, Olvir! You shall not go!" cried Karl, and, freeing himself from Fastrada, he came with a rush to seize the Northman's shoulders in his iron grasp. "Now I hold you fast, kinsman. You shall not go from me. No longer are you outlaw. You shall wed your betrothed, and stay in my hall, Count Palatine, in the stead of Worad of Metz. He whom the king has wrongfully doomed to shame shall sit on the king's judgment-seat."

"My lord! my lord!"--the queen's voice rose to a scream--"what would you do? My father! Kosru! See the bloody knife. You 'd take the murderer's word against a score--"

"Silence, woman! I have given heed long enough to your ill counsel; long enough have I, the king, turned a harsh face against my loyal liegemen, at the bidding of a woman. My folly has borne bitter fruit,--heart-burnings and strife. Go, hide your shame in the bower. Prepare yourself to live at peace with my high judge, else I--"

"Lord king!" protested Olvir, "is this time for harsh words? Listen, dear lord! Wisdom has come to me. I see how my own anger has brought my own sorrow. When, on the Garonne bank, I broke troth with the daughter of Rudulf, the outcome might have been far different had I curbed my tongue from scorn. If the maiden was at fault, my fault was the greater."

"O God!" moaned Fastrada, and she flung herself on the marble pavement.

But Karl did not look about from the serene face of the Northman.

"The Count Palatine has spoken," he said, gravely smiling.

"Would that it might so be!" answered Olvir, and his dark eyes grew dim.

"How then?" demanded Karl. But even as the words left his lips, the door-hangings parted, and Rothada darted across the room, blind to all else than her lover.

"Fly, hero!" she cried. "The courtyard swarms with the warriors; they come to take you! Fly! In the passage wait those who 'll lead you to freedom. Ah, Holy Mother!--too late!"

The passage without resounded with the tread and din of armed men jostling together in their haste. All eyes were fixed on the doorway as Gerold and Liutrad sprang into view. The Swabian paused at once, and stood hesitating, his face white and drawn with despair. But Liutrad strode across the room, tucking up his robe as he went. On the wall hung his great axe. He plucked it down, and turned about, with flaming eyes, as Count Worad rushed into the king's chamber, in the lead of a score of warriors.

But then the king's voice rang out, clear and joyful: "Stay your hand, viking-priest! And you, Count of Metz, take away your men. There's now no need of them."

"Father!" cried Rothada. "You smile! He is no longer outlaw!"

Karl drew her to him, and stood stroking her soft tresses, while the wondering warriors filed out of the king's chamber. When Worad, crestfallen and bewildered, had followed his men, Karl bent over his daughter.

"Do you, then, love him so much?" he murmured.

"More than life! God be praised, you 've listened to him!"

"I shall not soon forget how near I came to losing my Dane hawk,--and he flown hither to warn me of deadly peril! Let the traitors give thanks to Heaven for unmerited mercy. They will have a mild judge."

Olvir shook his head. "My heart leaps with joy that I have won again the friendship of the world-hero. Yet I ask two things only,--let my lord king give me my betrothed to wife, and bid me God-speed on my homeward faring."

"The maiden is yours, kinsman. But we cannot part either with her or you."

"Dear lord, I speak with clear vision. The heretic cannot sit in peace among those who bend to the Bishop of Rome; and more, it is best that we should go, both for ourselves and for the queen. I am weary of strife. My heart longs for the iron cliffs of my home land, for the salt billows roaring among the skerries, for the still waters of the fiord. The viking stifles in this sea-less land."

"Can nothing stay you, Olvir? Think what you ask! You tear at my very heart-strings. How can I send my child into the frozen North?"

"Not all is rime and frost with us, lord king. The summer is fair in our North land, and the Trondir are warm of heart. In time, I shall sit on the high-seat of my father. The king's daughter shall not lack either in honor or in love."

"I will gladly give you whatever else you ask, Olvir. But to part with my child--"

Gently Olvir put Rothada from him, and half turned. He spoke with the calm of utter despair: "It would seem the Norns have woven ill for me. I go into the North, and--I go without my bride."

"Ah, no!" gasped Fastrada. Struggling to her feet, she tore from about her throat the necklace of sapphires which the Northman had given her for wedding gift, and pressed it upon Rothada. "Take it, king's daughter; take it--even that!--only, bid him stay!"

Rothada thrust the blue stones from her, and drew herself up with a haughtiness which the king, her father, had never equalled. There was no grief in her white face as she made answer: "Am I such a one as you that I should bid my hero bend his will? He goes--"

"And you go with him!" The words burst from Karl's lips like a cry of anguish.

For a moment, Olvir stood as though dazed; then Rothada was locked fast in his arms. "My bride! Joy is ours, king's daughter!"

To them sprang their friends, with glad words,--Liutrad, Gerold, even the calm scholar Alcuin. In the midst, Olvir thrust them aside with friendly force, and Rothada and he stood forward, radiant, to return thanks to the great king.