Part 14

“What I should do is to be grateful that I was hindered from killing the boy. To have had that news come to Erna’s ears—” She felt the muscles harden in his arm with the clinching of his fist. Then he went on somewhat anxiously: “Yet she would like his deed little better. I hope there is no likelihood of her hearing of it. It seems that he has not fled to the forest, since you say he was before the lawmen. I suppose Olaf has taken him under his safeguard?”

She shook her head without raising it. “You do not know Thorgrim’s son, if you think he troubles himself about a tool after it has served his purpose. In the first place, he prevented the boy from running away that he might send him as a witness before the lawmen. Then, when that had been accomplished, he resigned him willingly to Helvin’s demand. Nothing has been done to him as yet, for it was not until to-day that the herb-woman would say how it was like to go with your life—so has your heart-wound puzzled everyone—but to-morrow they are to take him out and hew off his hand—” She broke off in a gasp, as the Songsmith’s fingers crushed her arm unknowingly.

“Ill will it be, then! Do they forget that he is but a child?”

The eyes which she lifted to his were Valkyria’s eyes, that would look without flinching on the torture of a friend’s foe.

“Now you argue like the goddess Frigg when, because it was young, she allowed the mistletoe-bush to become the shaft which killed Balder the Beautiful. If you had got your death from the boy, Helvin would have had him slain,—and it would have been rightly done!”

The song-maker’s broad shoulders shrugged as once more he leaned forward upon his knees.

“Though it may sound less well to your ears, Jarl’s sister,” he said dryly, “the true reason why Helvin is set against the boy is because the young one was the hinderance in the way of my killing Olaf. Is it also out of love towards me that Eric’s friends have failed to help him? Or is it another reason that no one dares to go against the Jarl’s pleasure?”

“It might be that and yet be no shame to their manhood,” she answered suddenly, and put back the clustering masses of her hair to look at him with earnestness. “An unheard-of thing is his temper becoming, Randvar! The evening after the duel, he rode out to Mord’s house and went in where Olaf lay and stood for the space of two candle-burnings staring down at him, without speaking, only tearing his mantle between his teeth. And yesterday when he was here, he put to me the most unexpected question. He asked me if ever I saw our father in my sleep, or in dark corners. And when I said, ‘By no means,’ he laughed—cold trickled over me at the sound!—and muttered that Starkad showed favoritism in giving all the visits to him. Heard you ever anything to equal that in strangeness?”

“Never,” the song-maker assented. But he said no more, nor moved so much as his bent shoulders. After a glance up at him, she began studying his face from the ambush of her hair, and sank so deep in musing that she started when he spoke.

“Where have they caged the cub?”

“In that storehouse loft, which has been thought bad enough to be a prison since a guard killed another one there by pushing him through the floor-hole so that he drowned in the beer-vat below.” She came further out of her study to slip her hand into his, where it hung between his knees. “Laugh if you will, my friend, still I shall hold it for true that no one has freed the little snake because no man will lift a finger for one who has injured you. Only bolts keep the door—no guard stands watch there—any could have helped him if they had a mind.”

He did laugh, shortly and suddenly; then pressing her hand, he released it and stood up.

“By this time, the Jarl will have returned from Flokki’s; and I will go to him.” As she rose swiftly, he lifted one of her silken braids and laid it lightly across her lips. “Noble maiden, I am a wild hawk that has been caged over-long. Let me stretch my wings, and I shall come back all the more gladly,—if so be your kind mood lasts until to-morrow.”

Above the shining bar of her hair, her color flamed so brightly that she was fain to extinguish it upon his breast. Her words came to him faintly:

“Will you believe, when I tell you that I have made this plan,—that to-morrow shall be our wedding-day?”

He stood a long time looking down at her, then said slowly: “If—after this—you fail me, I shall lose the wish to live.”

“If ever I fail you again, I give you leave to die,” she answered.

Then she let him take from her mouth a kiss of farewell; she clasped behind her the hands that wished to hold him back, and let him go forth into the starlit night.

XX

“_Need proves a friend_” —Northern saying.

Steep as the way to Heaven seemed the steps of the prison loft as Randvar dragged himself up them; yet he dared not pause on the unsheltered landing, but goaded his nerveless fingers on to their task of drawing the bolts. Whining, the rusty bars yielded, and he staggered into the musty gloom. Closing the door behind him, he leaned against it to recover his breath.

Across every corner of the huge one-windowed room, the spider Night had woven dense shadows. Like a small blue fly in the meshes of a black web, Eric was curled upon the straw-littered floor,—a forlorn and crumpled fly with limp legs and gaudy wings adroop. To stare at the opening door, he started up; but recognizing the Songsmith in the wink of time that the tall form was silhouetted against the starlight, he tipped over again, hiding his face upon the straw as though he would burrow into it, while his voice rose in a muffled wail:

“Oh, foster-brother, do not be angry with me! Do not be angry with me!”

“Come here—and give me your shoulder—to that bench yonder,” Randvar commanded between breaths.

When it had been twice repeated, the boy obeyed shrinkingly. As soon as he felt the weight lighten on his shoulder, he would have drawn back into the darkness again if the hand had not slipped down his arm to his wrist and held him. He curved his other arm before his face, then, and began to wail anew.

“I beseech you not to scold me! I have had all the blame that I can stand!”

“I am not going to scold you,” the song-maker said wearily. His head had fallen back heavily against the wall behind him, and his eyes were shut. “It has happened to older people than you to think that the man who gives them hard words is their foe and the man who smiles on them is their friend. If you have not found out yet that you behaved badly, no good is to be had from talking about it.”

The boy burrowed further into the bend of his arm.

“I _hate_ Olaf,” he sobbed.

“It is likely that you do now, since he has stopped making much of you,” the Songsmith returned sternly, “still it should be remembered for a while longer that you thought enough of him once to try to take my life for his sake.”

Wriggling, the culprit tried hard to pull away. “Now you are scolding me, though you said you would not. You know I did not mean to stab you.”

His foster-brother shook the arm he held. “Never lie to me, Eric!”

“I am not lying to you,” Eric lifted up his voice and wept. “Never did I lie to you in my life,—not even though I had meddled with your skin-boat and you were trimming a willow switch as you asked me about it. If you had any sense, you would guess that it had gone out of my mind that I was holding a knife. I thought I was striking you with my fist,—and for that you cannot throw blame on me for you have told me yourself that a man must be loyal to the lord he has chosen, and Olaf says the Devil gets all pages who do not fight for their masters. I thought that if I attacked you, you would turn on me, and he would get a chance to recover himself and—”

The Songsmith brought him nearer by the wrist he held, and drew down with his other hand the arm shielding the woe-begone face.

“Say that over again, Eric, while I look in your eyes.”

They were swollen eyes, and now resentful and now beseeching, but clear as blue lakes to show what lay under them. Before the explanation was half repeated, his foster-brother showed that he accepted it by drawing him into a close embrace and holding him so. Feeling the encircling arm change from a shackle to a caress, the boy subsided on the broad shoulder and wept there unrestrainedly.

“Tell them that you do not blame me, so they will not look at me the way they did. You cannot imagine how they behaved! When I met some of my best friends out of Brynhild’s house, not a maiden of them would speak to me. And old Visbur said that the forest bred traitors like acorns, and that they ought to hang like acorns on the trees; and his eyes—you could not bring before your mind how his eyes looked!”

“I wish I could not!” the song-maker muttered, and shook himself as though he were a baited bear and his memories sharp-toothed hounds. But the boy pressed harder against him.

“You must not go until you promise me your help. The guards will act in any way you say,—tell them to let me go back to the Tower. If you knew how much I want to see my mother and Snowfrid!—and Lame Farsek and the others—who look at me as if they thought well of me. I cannot bear to be looked at the other way. My heart will break if I have to see one of these hateful court-people again. Until I get to be a man, when I shall come back and kill Olaf and—Foster-brother, you are not going to refuse me?”

He abandoned vengeance to press his face coaxingly against the Songsmith’s, and try to forestall the answer he read there.

“I _beg_ it of you! You wanted me to go back to see Erna,—and now I will do everything she asks of me. Foster-brother, listen! I will not once forget to chop the wood or fetch the water. I—Listen! If I do, she can tell you and you can—”

“What I am trying to say,” the Songsmith made himself heard at last, “is that my words would have no weight at all with the guards. Even the Jarl’s favor I dare not lean on this time—Stand still! I am not saying it to frighten you, only to show you that carefulness is necessary. The worst part of your bad fortune is past, for I have already planned it that you are to slip away to-night. Yonder is the door with the bolts drawn, and beyond the court lies an open road to the forest. Some starlight is in the court-yard, but there are also many trees; and you have learned Skraelling tricks of skulking. The night has only just passed its noon, so you are unlikely to see any one,—but a beggar snoring on the steps of the women’s house. You can avoid the sentinels at the gates by getting over the wall where the Jarl’s stable shadows it. After you are once in the road, you know what to do as well as I. Luck go with you!”

Before the last word was out, the boy had reached the door; but the impulse was not quite strong enough to carry him through it. Digging his boot-toe into the straw, he hesitated, squirming in evident anguish of mind.

“Are you going to stay here and be their prisoner instead of me?” he faltered.

A light that was not starlight made the Songsmith’s white face bright as he turned it towards him. “You show in this that you have a good heart, little comrade; but you need not trouble yourself. I do not intend that any one shall know that I have been here. As soon as you have had time to get clear of the court-yard, I shall go back and lie down under a tree, and pretend that I have been swooning there all night.”

Again the boy laid a hand on the door; then again he turned,—and this time he came all the way back and threw his arms about his foster-brother’s neck in a strangling hug. From somewhere under the curly mop came the broken whisper:

“Say that you think as much of me as ever.”

Tousling the yellow head in the old familiar caress, his foster-brother gave him the desired assurance and tried to disengage himself; but Eric clung burrlike.

“Never did I love Olaf one-half as well as you,—may the Giant take me if I did! When are you coming back to the Tower? Olaf says that the Jarl behaves so badly towards you that one of you will surely kill the other, if you do not run away.”

“If I were not unwilling to pay compliments to Olaf, I should say that truth came out of his mouth,” the song-maker muttered; then he put the boy from him firmly. “Do you want to linger so long that the thralls will be waking up and coming out to catch you?”

Eric made one dash at his foster-brother’s cheek, flattening his face against it, and was gone through the narrowest opening of the door.

Like the patter of spring rain, the tap of his feet on the steps came back to the Songsmith. Smiling faintly he followed him with his fancy, pictured him holding himself down to creep across the court, then letting himself out as he reached the sheltered lane, snuffing in freedom until he broke and ran—ran—ran like a homeward-turned horse.

“It will be some time before _I_ shall be able to run,” he reflected ruefully, and began to realize how exhausted he was now that excitement like a prop had fallen from under him. He shook his knees irritably.

“Troll take a man’s legs, that will go back upon him at such a time as this!” he muttered. “If I do not look out, I shall founder here.... He has had time now to gain the lane.... I wish I knew if the room is really darkening, as it seems, or if it is only a trick of my eyes!” He tried in vain with groping hands to sweep the shadows from before him, then to shake off the heaviness settling on him.

“A grim jest that would be, to be caught within three strides of an unbarred door!” he told himself with an impulse of anger. Again he shook off the heaviness, desperately; summoning all his strength, he rose to his feet.

One step he made, and part of another; then his knees sank under him as under a crushing weight; his body sank until his head rested on the floor,—then it seemed that the floor began to sink! After that, he let the Fates have their way.

XXI

“_What must be is sure to happen_” —Northern saying.

Coming back to his senses, the Songsmith lay awhile adjusting his memory.... Once, he had fallen asleep on bloody grass and wakened amid the silken fragrance of the women’s house.... Here was another change.... Cobwebbed rafters and bare walls and heavy air as close as the grave. He snuffed up a resentful breath of it—then forgot to exhale in the suddenly added consciousness that some one was gazing at him. Turning his head, his eyes met gray eyes staring at him from a jungle of blood-colored hair.

On the bench to which the song-maker had been helped the night before, Helvin Jarl was now sitting, his elbows on his knees, his hands dropped between to hold the sword with which he was stirring and prodding the straw of the floor. He laid the flat of the blade against Randvar’s breast as the Songsmith started up, forcing him gently back.

“Lie still. No one is looking to see whether we go through with the foolish rules which some simpleton has laid down. I have sent the guards below.” He took the blade away as he felt the song-maker yield to its pressure, sheathing it as he went on: “Their state was laughable, between not knowing whether they should get my wrath because they had not at once carried you out of here, or because they had not at once slain you. See how they have tried to trim both sides of their sail to the wind, by making you comfortable and at the same time holding you prisoner.”

He nodded floorward, and Randvar noticed for the first time that a charger of food and drink stood within reach of his hand, that a cushion had been put under his head and a cloak spread over him. At another time he might have smiled. Now his gaze came back with unrelieved gravity to the Jarl’s face that in some way was strange to him.

“Which kind of behavior is most to your mind, lord?” he asked.

Clasping his hands behind his head, Helvin leaned back against the wall and returned his look sombrely.

“I am only just getting to know surely, comrade. When they brought me word this morning that you had set free the brat who stepped between Olaf and death, there was a spell when my fingers itched for your throat. You can see that I came to you straight out of the hands of my shoe-boy.” He lifted one of his legs to show that the silk bands which should have been wound around it were still hanging. “If the sight of your peaceful sleep had not fallen coolingly upon my hot humor, there is a likelihood that ... that....” Though his eyes remained upon the song-maker, they set in a vacant stare. “You would be lying there like an empty wine-skin ... and I should be raving beside you, trying to put back the wine I had spilled ... seeing it creep away towards the cracks ... feeling it slip slimy through my fingers.... Ah!”

The hand that had gone out groping before him he dashed against his eyes as though to break the spell that bound them, springing to his feet with a wild cry.

“Why do I torture myself with what is not true? I have not slain you. You are alive, for all that you have the color of a dead man. Speak to me! Drive away this madness!”

White as the dead the song-maker was, as much from increasing alarm as from the weakness of his blood-drained body; yet he managed to lift himself to his knees and then to his feet, to stand steadying himself against the wall. Only his voice failed to obey his summons, so that he was glad to have the pause filled by the thundering tread of a man hurrying up the steps. In the doorway appeared a guard, his spear gripped in his hand.

“Jarl, was it for help you cried out?” he demanded.

A moment Starkad’s son held his breath, as though the nethermost deeps of his mind must be dredged for adequate words,—then all words seemed to prove inadequate. Snatching a wine-flagon from the tray, he hurled it at the intruder’s head. The force with which it crashed against the doorframe suggested what it would have done to the mark that it missed.

How the guardsman took his leave, Randvar did not see. Dropping down upon the bench, he burst into high-keyed laughter.

“Help—against—_me_!” he gasped, and leaned there laughing until Helvin’s hand fell upon his shoulder and shook him with friendly severity.

“Stop! That is the end of such laughter that weeping follows it. Stop! Drink this.”

The pressure of a cup against his lip compelled obedience, and the draught brought some of his strength back to him; but the Jarl’s remained the dominating spirit.

“More of that is needed, and food in your stomach. I will be your dish-bearer for a change,” he said, and himself dropped down cross-legged on the straw beside the charger that he might pass up its contents.

Patient as the hand of a woman, his hand that had sped the missile ministered now to his friend. Now and again, over crust or bone, Randvar met in the gray eyes a brooding tenderness that tightened the muscles around his heart.

It was a relief when Helvin’s mind began to turn away to musing, drawing him over upon his elbow to lie staring into the empty cup he held, like a wizard reading fortunes in the wine-dregs. Dreamy as the note of droning bees, his voice sounded when presently he began to muse aloud.

“I only wish I could have found some excuse to give drink to Olaf.... Every moment I stood by him, I was wondering if there was not some way.... It would not have been necessary to kill him. One drop of the right herb-juice would be enough to addle his wits until he could pass for mad. Whatever he betrayed, I should have only to shrug my shoulders and tap my head. Conceive of his rage! It would have been sport for a king!”

As a dog over a sweet bone, he put out the tip of his tongue and noiselessly licked his lips. Wincing, Randvar spoke hastily:

“Jarl, this is an unprofitable mood! Recall it to your mind that Olaf knows nothing to betray.”

From the folds of strange craftiness that had been drawing over them, Helvin’s eyes looked up dazedly. Then—slowly—the gaze that he met steadied the flickering torch of his reason.

“Why, that is true,” he admitted. “I forgot that he had not yet found the carrion which his vulture-scent warned him of.... Still in the Fates’ hands is that happening.... Only I can see it coming ... slipping through their bony fingers....” In a mutter his voice died away. Stretched at full length he lay in brooding reverie, so sombre a figure that the cup of dregs took on new suggestiveness.

The song-maker began to speak quietly, gazing out through the open door where the rosy snow of blossoming crab-trees was banked against the blue sky, and sun like golden wine steeped all the noonday world.

“It befell me once to see a place far west of here where the earth had shaken and rent a rock in twain, and out of the chasm had leaped a brook of sweet water. So I think this happening with Eric must have shaken me; for like a well of water, a song rose in my mind while I slept,—a song that never had place there before.”

In the black morass of his musing the Jarl turned, lured by the will-o’-the-wisp curiosity.

“Never have I heard of a song coming in that manner,” he said. “Even you have always hammered them out before. Has it risen as far as your lips so that any of it could brim over into words?”

Though he continued to gaze out at the blowing trees, the song-maker bent all his energies upon his story-weaving.

“Little of it has yet got so high as that. But it will be a song about the good which is in a man even though his actions appear to be evil.... Perhaps I shall say that he had Thor’s wrath for turning to the Christ-faith; and the Thunderer cursed him so that he had no other choice than to do three nithing deeds, even though his mind was noble.... He will have a friend—perhaps it will be a maiden—who is brave enough to believe in his honorable mind in spite of the unworthiness of his actions.... I do not know yet what those crimes will be ... except that the first must be that he slays a kinsman—”

“Are—you—mad?” Starkad’s son said slowly.

With a start, Randvar turned. That the Jarl had risen gradually from his place on the straw he had realized, but he had taken it for interest. Now for the first time he looked at him. Looking, he sprang to his feet.

“What ails you?”

“Are you mad?”—Helvin repeated his slow question—“that you dare to make my life into a song and tell it to my face?”

“_Your_ life!” the Songsmith breathed. Then, even angrily, he swept the suspicion aside with his arm. “Lord, this is an unbecoming jest! You must know that such a song would be true of any man in the world.”

Futile as the dash of waves against a rock, the words fell down unheeded. Unmoved as a rock, Helvin stood gazing at him.

“Has your swooning so dulled your wits that you really cannot see that to sing that song in any one’s hearing would be to tell him that you saw me murder my father?”

It was too late to check the words, though Randvar’s arm had shot out in the attempt. Then he stood with his head gripped in his hands, like a man into whose mind a terrible truth is eating. As though he had forgotten he was not alone, he started when Helvin’s hand fell upon his breast and pressed him back upon the bench.

A strange softness had come into the voice of Starkad’s son,—a softness from which the ear recoiled as the hand recoils from the softness of decayed fruit.