Chapter 8

BROTHERHOOD.

True are the words of the Havamal, the song of the wisdom of Odin, which say, “One may know and no other, but all men know if three know.”

Therefore for all these years my father told none of us the secret of Havelok’s birth; and when Arngeir married my sister Solva he made him take oath that he would not tell what he knew to her, while she, being but a child at the time of the flight, had forgotten how this well-loved brother of hers came to us. But it happened once that Grim was sick, and it seemed likely that he would die, so that this secret weighed on him, and he did not rightly know what to do for the best, Havelok at the time being but seventeen, and the time that he should think of his own place not being yet come. At that time he told Arngeir all that he foresaw, and set things in order, that we three should not be backward when need was.

He called us to him, Havelok not being present, and spoke to us.

“Sons,” he said, “well have you all obeyed me all these years, and I think that you will listen to me now, for I must speak to you of Havelok, who came to us as you know. Out of his saving from his foes came our flight here; and I will not find fault with any of the things that happened, for they have turned out well, save that it seems that I may never see the land of my birth again, and at times I weary for it. For me Denmark seems to lie within the four square of the ancient stones; but if you will do my bidding, you and Havelok shall see her again, though how I cannot tell.”

Then I could hardly speak for trouble, but Withelm said softly, “As we have been wont to do, father, so it shall be.”

“Well shall my word be kept, therefore,” Grim said, smiling on us. “Listen, therefore. In the days to come, when time is ripe, Arngeir shall tell you more of Havelok your foster-brother, and there will be signs enough by which he shall know that it is time to speak. And then Havelok will need all the help that you can give him; and as your lord shall you serve him, with both hands, and with life itself if need be. And I seem to see that each of you has his place beside him—Radbard as his strong helper, and Raven as his watchful comrade, and Withelm as his counsellor. For ‘Bare is back without brother behind it,’ son Radbard and ‘Ere one goes out, give heed to the doorways,’ son Raven; and ‘Wisdom is wanted by him who fares widely’ son Withelm. So say the old proverbs, and they are true. No quarreller is Havelok; but if he must fight, that will be no playground. Careful is he; but he has met with no guile as yet, and he trusts all men. Slow to think, if sure, are so mighty frames as his becomes, even when quick wit is needed.”

He was silent for a while, and I thought that he had no more to say, and I knew that he had spoken rightly of what each was best fitted for, but he went on once more.

“This is my will, therefore, that to you shall Havelok be as the eldest brother from this time forward, that these places shall not have to come suddenly to you hereafter. Then will you know that I have spoken rightly, though maybe it seems hard to Radbard and Raven now, they being so much older.”

Then I said truly that already Havelok was first in our hearts. And that was true, for he was as a king among us—a king who was served by all with loving readiness, and yet one who served all. Maybe that is just what makes a good king when all is said and done.

Then my father bade us carry him out of the house and down to the shore where there was a lonely place in the sandhills, covered with the sweet, short grass that the sheep love; and, while Raven and I bore him, Withelm went and brought Havelok.

“This is well, father,” he said gladly. “I had not thought you strong enough to come thus far.”

“Maybe it is the last time that I come living out of the house,” Grim said; “but there is one thing yet to be done, and it must be done here. See, son Havelok, these are your brothers in all but blood, and they must be that also in the old Danish way.”

“Nothing more is needed, father,” Havelok said, wondering. “I have no brothers but these of mine, and they could be no more so.”

Thereat my father smiled, as well content, but he said that the ancient way must he kept.

“But I am sorely weak,” he added. “Fetch hither Arngeir.”

It was because of this illness that none of us were at the fishing on that day, and Arngeir was not long in coming. And while we waited for that little while my father was silent, looking ever northward to the land that he had given up for Havelok; and I think that foster-son of his knew it, for he knelt beside him and set his strong arm round him, saying nothing. So Arngeir came with Raven, who went for him, and my father told him what he needed to be done; and Arngeir said that it was well thought of, and went to work with his seax on the smooth turf.

He cut a long strip where it seemed to be toughest, leaving the ends yet fast, and carefully he raised it and stretched it until it would make an arch some three spans high, and so propped it at either end with more turf that it stayed in that position.

Then my father said, “This is the old custom, that they who are of different family should be brothers indeed. Out of one earth should they be made afresh, as it were, that on the face of earth they shall be one. Pass therefore under the arch, beginning with Havelok.”

Then, while my father spoke strange and ancient runes, Havelok did as he was bidden, kneeling down and creeping under the uplifted turf; and as I came after him he gave me his hand and raised me, and so with each of the other two. And then, unbidden, Arngeir followed, for he too loved Havelok, and would fain be his brother indeed.

After that my father took a sharp flint knife that he had brought with him, and with it cut Havelok’s arm a little, and each of us set his lips to that wound, and afterwards he to the like marks in our right arms, and so the ancient rite was complete.

Yet it had not been needed, as I know, for not even I ever thought of him but as the dearest of brothers, though I minded how he came.

Now after this my father grew stronger, maybe because this was off his mind; but he might never go to sea again, nor even to Lincoln town, for he was not strong enough. What his illness was I do not rightly know, hut I do not think that any one here overlooked him, though it might be that from across the sea Hodulf had power to work him harm. It was said that he had Finnish wizards about his court; but if that was so, he never harmed the one whom he had most to fear—even Havelok. But then I suppose that even a Finn could not harm one for whom great things are in store.

So two years more passed over, and then came the time of which one almost fears to think—the time of the great famine. Slowly it came on the land; but we could see it coming, and the dread of it was fearsome, but for the hope that never quite leaves a man until the end. For first the wheat that was winter sown came not up but in scattered blades here and there, and then ere the spring-sown grain had lain in the land for three weeks it had rotted, and over the rich, ploughed lands seemed to rise a sour smell in the springtime air, when one longs for the sweetness of growing things. And then came drought in April, and all day long the sun shone, or if it were not shining the clouds that hid it were hard and grey and high and still over land and sea.

Then before the marsh folk knew what they were doing, the merchants of Lincoln had bought the stored corn, giving prices that should have told men that it was precious to those who sold as to the buyers; and then the grass failed in the drought, and the farmers were glad to sell the cattle and sheep for what they could gain, rather than see them starve.

Then my father bade us dry and store all the fish we might against the time that he saw was coming, and hard we worked at that. And even as we toiled, from day to day we caught less, for the fish were leaving the shores, and we had to go farther and farther for them, until at last a day came when the boats came home empty, and the women wept at the shore as the men drew them up silently, looking away from those whom they could feed no longer.

That was the worst day, as I think, and it was in high summer. I mind that I went to Stallingborough that day with the last of the fresh fish of yesterday’s catch for Witlaf’s household, and it was hotter than ever; and in all the orchards hung not one green apple, and even the hardy blackberry briers had no leaves or sign of blossom, and in the dikes the watercress was blackened and evil to see.

But I will say that in Grimsby we felt not the worst, by reason of that wisdom of my father, and always Witlaf and his house shared with us. Hard it was here, but elsewhere harder.

And then came the pestilence that goes with famine always. I have heard that men have prayed to their gods for that, for it has seemed better to them to die than live.

With the first breath of the pestilence died Grim my father, and about that I do not like to say much. He bade us remember the words he had spoken of Havelok our brother, and he spoke long to Arngeir in private of the same; and then he told us to lay him in mound in the ancient way, but with his face toward Denmark, whence we came. And thereafter he said no more, but lay still until there came up suddenly through the thick air a thunderstorm from the north; and in that he passed, and with his passing the rain came.

Thereof Withelm said that surely Odin fetched him, and that at once he had made prayer for us. But the Welsh folk said that not Odin but the White Christ had taken the man who had been a father to them, and had staved off the worst of the famine from them.

Then pined and died my mother Leva, for she passed in her sleep on the day before we made the mound over her husband, and so we laid them in it together, and that was well for both, as I think, for so they would have wished.

So we made a great bale fire over my father’s mound, where it stood over the highest sandhill; and no warrior was ever more wept, for English and Welsh and Danes were at one in this. We set his weapons with him, and laid him in the boat that was the best—and a Saxon gave that—and in it oars and mast and sail, and so covered him therein. And so he waits for the end of all things that are now, and the beginning of those better ones that shall be.

That thunderstorm was nothing to the land, for it skirted the shores and died away to the south, and after it came the heat again; but at least it brought a little hope. There were fish along the shore that night, too, if not many; and though they were gone again in the morning, there was a better store in every house, for men were mindful of Grim’s teaching.

Now, of all men, Havelok seemed to feel the trouble of the famine the most, because he could not bear to see the children hungry in the cottages of the fishers. It seemed to him that he had more than his share of the stores, because so mighty a frame of his needed feeding mightily, as he said. And so for two days after my father died and was left in his last resting, Havelok went silent about the place. Here by the shore the pestilence hardly came, and so that trouble was not added to us, though the weak and old went, as had Grim and Leva, here and there.

Then, on the third day, Havelok called Arngeir and us, and spoke what was in his mind.

“Brothers, I may not bear this any longer, and I must go away. I can do no more to help than can the weakest in the town; and even my strength is an added trouble to those who have not enough without me. Day by day grows the store in the house less; and it will waste more slowly if I am elsewhere.”

Then Arngeir said quickly, “This is foolishness, Havelok, my brother. Whither will you go? For worse is the famine inland; and I think that we may last out here. The fish will come back presently.”

“I will go to Lincoln. All know that there is plenty there, for the townsfolk were wise in time. There is the court, and at the court a strong man is likely to be welcome, if only as one who shall keep the starving poor from the doors, as porter.”

He spoke bitterly, for Alsi, the king, had no good name for kindness, and at that Withelm laughed sadly.

“Few poor would Havelok turn away,” he said, under his breath; “rather were he likely to take the king’s food from the very board, and share it among them.”

That made us laugh a little, for it was true enough; and one might seem to see our mighty one sweeping the table, while none dared try to stay him.

But many times of late Havelok had gone dinnerless, that he might feed some weak one in the village. Maybe some of us did likewise; but, if so, we learned from him.

“Well, then,” Havelok said, when we had had our wretched laugh, “Alsi, the king, can better afford to feed me than can anyone else. Therefore, I will go and see about it. And if not the king, then, doubtless, some rich merchant will give me food for work, seeing that I can lift things handily. But Radbard here is a great and hungry man also, and it will be well that he come with me; or else, being young and helpless, I may fall into bad hands.”

So he spoke, jesting and making little of the matter. But I saw that he was right, and that we who were strong to take what might come should go away. It was likely that a day of our meals would make a week’s fare for Arngeir’s three little ones, and they were to be thought for.

Now for a little while Arngeir tried to keep us back; but it was plain that he knew also that our going was well thought of, and only his care for Havelok stood in the way. Indeed, he said that I and Raven might go.

“Raven knows as much about the fish as did our father,” Havelok said. “He will go out in the morning, and look at sky and sea, and sniff at the wind; and if I say it will be fine, he says that the herrings will be in such a place; and so they are, while maybe it rains all day to spite my weather wisdom. You cannot do without Raven; for it is ill to miss any chance of the sea just now. Nor can Withelm go, for he knows all in the place, and who is most in want. It will not do to be without house steward. So we two will go. Never have I been to Lincoln yet, and Radbard knows the place well.”

I think that I have never said that Grim would never take Havelok to the city, lest he should be known by some of the Danish folk who came now and then to the court, some from over seas, and others from the court of King Ethelwald, of whom I have spoken, the Norfolk king. But that danger was surely over now, for Havelok would be forgotten in Denmark; and Ethelwald was long dead, and his wife also, leaving his daughter Goldberga to her uncle Alsi, as his ward. So Alsi held both kingdoms until the princess was of age, when she would take her own. It was said that she lived at Dover until that time, and so none of her Danes were likely to be at court if we went there and found places.

So Havelok’s plan was to be carried out, and he and I were to set forth next morning. Arngeir was yet uneasy about it, nevertheless, as one could see; but I did not at that time know why it should be so doubtful a matter that two strong men should go forth and seek their fortune but thirty miles away. So we laughed at him.

“Well,” he said, “every one knows Radbard; but they will want to know who his tall comrade may be. Old foes has Havelok, as Radbard knows, and therefore it may be well to find a new name for him.”

“No need to go far for that,” Withelm said. “The marsh folk call him Curan.”

“Curan, the wonder, is good,” Arngeir said, after a little thought, for we all knew Welsh enough by this time. “Or if you like a Danish name better, brother, call it ‘Kwaran,’ but silent about yourself you must surely be.”

We used to call him that at times—for it means “the quiet” in our old tongue—seeing how gentle and courtly he was in all his ways. So the name was well fitting in either way.

“Silent and thoughtful should the son of a king be,” says the Havamal, and so it was with Havelok, son of Gunnar.

Now when I came to think, it was plain that we three stood in the mind of our brother in the place which my father had boded for us, and I was glad. Well I knew that Raven, the watchful, and Withelm, the wise and thoughtful, would do their parts; and I thought that whether I could do mine was to be seen very shortly. If I failed in help at need it should not be my fault. It had been long growing in my mind who Havelok must be, though I said nothing of what I thought, because my father had bidden me be silent long ago, and I thought that I knew why.

We were to start early in the morning, so that we should get to the city betimes in the evening; and there was one thing that troubled the good sisters more than it did us. They would have had us go in all our finery, such as we were wont to wear on holidays and at feastings; but none of that was left. It had gone in buying corn, while there was any left to buy, along with every silver penny that we had. So we must go in the plain fisher gear, that is made for use and not for show, frayed and stained, and a trifle tarry, but good enough. It would not do to go in our war gear into a peaceful city; and so we took but the seax that every Englishman wears, and the short travelling spear that all wayfarers use. Hardly was it likely that even the most hungry outlaw of the wild woldland would care to fall on us; for by this time such as we seemed had spent their all in food for themselves and their families, and all the money in Lindsey seemed to have gone away to places where there was yet somewhat to buy.

Busy were those kind sisters of ours that night in making ready the last meal that we should need to take from them. And all the while they foretold pleasant things for us at the king’s court—how that we should find high honour and the like. So they set us forth well and cheerfully.

With the dawn we started, and Havelok was thoughtful beyond his wont after we had bidden farewell to the home folk, so that I thought that he grieved for leaving them at the last.

“Downhearted, are you, brother?” I said, when we had gone a couple of miles in silence across the level. “I have been to Lincoln two or three times in a month sometimes in the summer, and it is no great distance after all. I think nothing of the journey, or of going so short a way from home.”

“Nor do I,” he answered. “First, I was thinking of the many times my father, Grim, went this way, and now he can walk no more; and then I was thinking of that empty cottage we passed just now, where there was a pleasant little family enough three months ago, who are all gone. And then—ay, I will tell you—I had a dream last night that stays in my mind, so that I think that out of this journey of ours will come somewhat.”

“Food and shelter, to wit,” said I, “which is all we want for a month or two. Let us hear it.”

“If we get all that I had in that dream, we shall want no more all our lives,” he said, with a smile; “but it seems a foolish dream, now that I come to tell it.”

“That is mostly the way with dreams. It is strange how wonderful they seem until daylight comes. I have heard Witlaf’s gleeman say that the best lays he ever made were in his sleep; but if he remembered aught of them, they were naught.”

“It is not like that altogether with my dream,” Havelok said, “for it went thus. I thought that I was in Denmark—though how I knew it was Denmark I cannot say—and on a hill I sat, and at my feet was stretched out all the land, so that I could see all over it at once. Then I longed for it, and I stretched out my arms to gather it in, and so long were they that they could well fathom it, and so I drew it to myself. With towns and castles it was gathered in, and the keys of the strongholds fell rattling at my feet, while the weight of the great land seemed to lie on my knees. Then said one, and the voice was the voice of Grim, ‘This is not all the dream that I have made for you, but it is enough for now.’ That is the dream, therefore, and what make you of it?”

“A most amazing hunger, brother, certainly, and promise of enough to satisfy it withal. I think that the sisters have talked about our advancement at court until you have dreamed thereof.”

“Why,” he said, “that is surely at the bottom of the dream, and I am foolish to think more of it.”

Then we went on, and grew light hearted as the miles passed. But though I had seemed to think little of the dream, it went strangely with my thoughts of what might lie before Havelok in days to come.

As we went inland from the sea, the track of the pestilence was more dread, for we passed house after house that had none living in them, and some held the deserted dead. I might say many things of what we saw, but I do not like to think of them much. Many a battlefield have I seen since that day, but I do not think them so terrible as the field over which has gone the foe that is unseen ere he smites. One knows the worst of the battle when it is over and the roll is called, but who knows where famine and pestilence stay? And those have given life for king or land willingly, but these were helpless.

It was good to climb the welds and look back, for in the high lands there was none of this. Below us the levels, with their bright waters, were wrapped in a strange blue haze, that had come with the famine at its worst, and, as men said, had brought or made the sickness. I had heard of it; but it was not so plain when one was in it, or else our shore was free, which is likely, seeing how little we suffered.

After that we kept to the high land, not so much fearing the blue robe of the pestilence as what things of its working we might see; and so it was late in the afternoon that we came in sight of Lincoln town, on its hill, with the wide meres and river at its feet. I have seen no city that stands more wonderfully than this of ours, with the grey walls of the Roman town to crown the gathering of red and brown roofs that nestle on the slope and within them. And ever as we drew nearer Havelok became more silent, as I thought because he had never seen so great a town before, until we passed the gates of the stockade that keeps the town that lies without the old walls, and then he said, looking round him strangely, “Brother, you will laugh at me, no doubt, for an arrant dreamer, but this is the place whereto in dreams I have been many a time. Now we shall come to yon turn of the road among the houses, and beyond that we shall surely see a stone-arched gate in a great wall, and spearmen on guard thereat.”

It was so, and the gate and guard were before us in a few more steps. It was the gate of the old Roman town, inside which was the palace of the king and one or two more great houses only. Our English kin hate a walled town or a stone house, and they would not live within the strong walls, whose wide span was, save for the king’s palace, which was built partly of the house of the Roman governor, and these other halls, which went for naught in so wide a meadow, empty and green, and crossed by two paved roads, with grass growing between the stones. There were brown marks, as of the buried stones of other foundations, on the grass where the old streets had been.

All the straggling English town was outside the walls, and only in time of war would the people use them as a stronghold, as they used the still more ancient camps on the hills.

“Many times have you heard us tell of this place, Havelok,” I said. “It is no wonder that you seem to know it.”

“Nay,” he answered, “but this is the city of my dreams, and somewhat is to happen here.”