Part 7

“Make me a song in tune with the forest, Songsmith,” she requested. “Olaf’s French ballads that chime so well with my bower sound in this place like the tinkling of bells, though I would not seem thankless in saying so.”

Olaf rose and acknowledged playfully the apologetic gesture she made him.

“Be in no fear of hurting my feelings, madam, by preferring his songs over mine,” he said. “I have amusement in trifling with the singing-craft, as becomes a high-born man; but to do such work seriously is the portion of churls.”

She took back the conciliating hand to fold it on the other in her lap, and spoke a trifle haughtily. “In France, it may be so, beausire. Among Norsemen, skaldship has always been held in honor. If the truth must be told, I am in best tune with Norse ways.”

“Then will I take away the discordant note of my presence,” he said, and smiled at her quizzically as he turned. But he was not so unscathed that his eyes could pass the Songsmith as they encountered him; there, with his will or without it, they froze. “Unless,” he added, “the forester has the wish to make some reply to me.”

Time was when the forester would have replied with the tongue of his snake-skin scabbard, but he was not dull in learning new ways. Almost his smile was a match for Olaf’s as he answered:

“To what end should I do that, courtman? It is not for the contented moon to bark at the jealous dog.”

It was not only Thorgrim’s son who drew breath quickly, then; every maiden of the group caught hers with a little scream. The Jarl’s sister rose swiftly, standing erect as a red lily.

“This thing comes ill to pass that you forget me as well as yourselves,” she said.

After a moment, Olaf lowered his glittering eyes and finished his withdrawal; when Brynhild sank again to her place among the mossy roots, and settled herself as one preparing for a treat.

“Sing, I pray you,” she said to the Songsmith.

For him, Olaf ceased to exist. Unslinging his rude harp, he leaned easily against a tree before her and sang her a Skraelling love-song, a song made of murmuring brook-sounds, of the calls of mating birds, of the wild note of the blast in the tree-tops, a song that tuned well with the hush and the haze of the autumn forest. In a silken tangle of interlocked arms, the women made a rapt circle around him; and the Jarl’s sister was drawn forward on her moss-cushion. She freed a long breath when the last note had died away among the leafless branches above them.

“It seems to me,” she said slowly, “that the work which interpreters do between men of different tongues is the work that song-makers do between people of different ranks. When I hear you sing, creatures who have seemed to me no more than beasts become human like myself. If there were enough singers to interpret people to one another, perhaps there would be no strife in the world.”

Pleasure so deepened the color in the Songsmith’s face that he was glad to shake his long hair over it by bowing low; he was saved the necessity of answering for after a little Brynhild spoke again, sinking back in her seat to regard him thoughtfully.

“The first time that ever it happened to me to hear your voice was also in the forest, as you sang the Song of Fridtjof the way you would have liked it to happen. Ever since then I have wondered what kind of ending you gave to it. It seems to me that this would be a good time to sing it, if you are willing that we should get further good from your gift of song.”

“The _best_ time!” cried Yrsa, clapping her hands; while urgent murmurs came from all the rest, from Sigrid, the haughtiest of the matrons, down to the shyest of the maids.

Once Randvar would have struck up without further consideration; now he fingered the harp-strings hesitatingly before he answered.

“Jarl’s sister, we have not quarrelled for two weeks, and I confess that the friendliness has been worth much to me. I beg you not to urge me to do that which will set us against each other again.”

Her eyebrows went down with displeasure, then up in wonder.

“I do not know what you mean,” she said.

“The ending I have made would offend your pride, noble one; and then your scorn would tread on the heel of my temper. When plenty of paths open before us, why choose one that we know leads to bad walking?”

Why, indeed? Unless because she was a woman? Her gray Valkyria eyes lighted as at a challenge, for all that she remained leaning against her tree.

“You make a mistake, Songsmith,” she told him, “to think that I would be offended with you for doing a thing which I asked you to do. Give me a chance, I pray, to show that I am not so without sense.”

Randvar drew his harp up higher upon his breast, then lowered it until it rested upon the ground.

“My singing-mood has passed,” he said shortly, “but I will tell you the ending, since you will have your way. My story branches from your skald’s song where Fridtjof comes to ask Ingeborg of her brother Helge. Your song has it that when Helge refuses to make the match, because Fridtjof has no more than a freeman’s rank while Ingeborg is king-born, she takes it quietly and marries the old King Ring and sees no more of the man she loves, until Ring gets so old as to be tired of living and gives her to the young man, with his crown and the other things he is through with. Bah!” The Songsmith warmed in spite of himself, flung back his sun-burnished mane with the fierce grace of a stallion. “A man of spirit, your Fridtjof! Mine would have laughed in her face. My Fridtjof takes her in the teeth of Helge’s refusal; and she comes to him willingly, as befits a woman of brave kin; and he wrests Ring’s kingdom from him in battle. That is the way I end it.”

“That is the best way!” cried two little pages who had come up with cups of hot spiced wine, and their shrill enthusiasm changed the women’s breathless listening into laughter.

The Jarl’s sister laughed too, turning aside to beckon her favorite, Eric, to bring her own particular cup.

“Have thanks for the telling, Songsmith,” she said, and swung the horn lightly aloft in the graceful gesture of drinking to him. “Would it be to your mind now to tell us some tale of forest adventure?”

No word of comment! It was in accordance with her promise not to be offended, but Randvar discovered of a sudden that he would rather she had quarrelled with him. He did not answer her question, but busied himself drinking the wine that was offered him. When he had given the cup back, he said abruptly:

“It is to my mind to see first how this matter stands. Maybe you believe that because she was king-born, Ingeborg would marry Ring even though she had love towards Fridtjof?”

“I do not believe that she would have had love towards Fridtjof,” Brynhild answered calmly.

He felt himself growing angry as he asked her why not.

Her shapely shoulders rose. “For one thing, his manners would not be at all after her taste. He would think it big and manful to be careless about his clothes and his hair and such matters, and she would think it disgusting.”

A moment Rolf’s son was dumb, marvelling that a word-arrow could sting so; then, as blood to a wound, his temper surged into his face, till Eric thought it an imposing thing to step in front of his mistress. Immediately after, he was picking himself out of a briar-patch, a dozen steps away; and Randvar faced the Jarl’s sister, his voice deep with ire.

“Have you the intention to tell me,” he demanded, “that it is a woman’s turn of mind to care only about the cut of a man’s garments or the length of his hair? That a great love could not lay hold of her as a hurricane lays hold of an oak and shake down all little matters like acorns?” He folded his arms tightly across his breast as he waited for her answer, conscious that if she should shrug her shoulders at him again he would be tempted to shake her.

But she yawned instead.

“I dare say it might befall a bondmaid to get carried out of herself,” she assented. “Rulers’ daughters learn to rule themselves, and noblewomen take everything coldly.”

He unfolded his arms, then, and began to laugh. “Coldly! It were good had I a shield to show you yourself in as you say that, Starkad’s daughter! Through every fibre of your beauty, from the light in your eyes to the ruddy gold of your hair, runs the color of flame. The red of your lips is the fiery blood of the North that no ice can cool; and every motion of your slim hand kindles fire in the breasts of the men who look on you. Jarl’s sister, when that fire shall break out against your rule, it will blaze as much higher than a bondmaid’s passion as your spirit is stronger than hers. Coldly!” He laughed again, as he stepped back to swing his harp over his shoulder.

It seemed that his laughter pressed her pride hard; she rose suddenly, her hand crushing a mottled eagle-feather she had picked up; but she did not quite lose the composure she had pledged. After a moment she tossed the feather aside, smiling haughtily.

“Behold how you are so bent on a quarrel that you try to make one all by yourself,” she said. “Let us talk about something else. I wish you would tell me whether it is because the Skraellings cannot say the word ‘Norway’ that they call the Town by that queer name of ‘Norumbega’—But, listen! Is it as it seems, that I hear my kinsman calling you?”

Randvar hoped that she did, realizing that his humor made a change of scene advisable. He welcomed the sound of his name shouted peremptorily from the group around the bowlders. A muttered word and a hasty bow, and he was in retreat, trampling savagely every creeping green thing he encountered.

The temper of the group into which he came matched well his own. The three old counsellors were growling like three dogs over a bone; and like a bone picked almost bare of endurance, the Jarl held his rigid place among them. He turned sharply as the song-maker approached, and Randvar was startled to see how in that short time the fleeting expression had become fixed upon him. Fierceness unmistakable it showed now. In the struggle to hold it under, he had bitten his lips bloody.

“Songsmith,” he said, “you know best why you gave me the counsel to fare across the river with but few men, and trust myself unarmed in the Skraelling camp. If any power lies at your tongue-roots, make the reason clear to these Mimir-heads. I have tried until my tongue foams like a goaded horse, but it seems that I do not speak their language.”

Sigvat Smooth-Speech made him a gesture that was half deprecating, half paternal. “There is nothing new in that, lord, that to the ears of age the fancies of youth sound like a forgotten language. To talk of trusting a wild man that he may trust you—Jarl, the Fenrir-wolf will be let loose before good-will come of that!”

“To talk of trusting wild beasts because they have the shape of men!” snorted the adviser who stood beside Sigvat.

And Mord the Grim frowned at the son of Rolf, as he stroked the grizzled beard that clung to his chin like foliage to an oak’s lower branches after its poll is bare.

“Jarl, it will never answer our end that you should give yourself into the guidance of a raw woodsman. That the youth is skilled in woodcraft, no one gainsays,—let him rule your hunting, then. Since he has the singing-gift, hand over your entertainments to him. But when it comes to a matter in which one may so act that men’s lives hang on it—lord, leave that to us!”

“Leave that to us!” the others echoed.

Helvin made no reply. He had flung himself back upon the wolfskins and was gazing far away into the haze, his blood-streaked lip held between his white teeth. It was left for Randvar to answer.

Long enough to conquer the itch to bandy words with them, the forester stood pushing about a stalk of orange-splotched fungus with his moccasined foot. Then he spoke curtly:

“To this I will reply that because you are raw in knowledge of the Skraellings, you could not follow the track of my reasoning. But like enough you will believe that I am not guessing if I prove how sure of it I am. On what I have said, I will lay down my life. Say, then, that the Jarl shall leave me bound in your hands to suffer death for any harm that befalls him.”

The stillness seemed to deepen around them as the three old chiefs drew nearer to him. It was Mord who broke the silence.

“That you would bear yourself boldly was to be looked for, but it will not stand to your good if your dream-spinning has made you over-trustful. Though there be no guile behind it, and your mistake be the most excusable that man was ever tricked into, you should not come off with your life.”

“I shall make no mistake,” Randvar answered.

Again the stillness settled, as the Grim One’s eyes probed from their beetling ambush. But he moved at last with a curt gesture.

“So be it,” he assented, and laid a light hand on the young Jarl’s knee. “Lord, all is in readiness.”

As though the touch were fire, Helvin started up. “Too long have we waited as it is! Songsmith, I forgot to listen to your pleading, but it must have been all-powerful. Thorbiorn, be good enough to call those whom I have chosen to accompany me,—I have warned you openly that no old men shall have part there. Such suspicion as cries from your wrinkles would breed murder in a lamb’s heart! Call Bolverk and five guardsmen, and Gunnar and—” He broke off at the spectacle of Randvar delivering his sword into the keeping of Mord. “What is the meaning of this?”

When Mord had told him in a few words, he burst out angrily.

“That shall not be! He is my friend. The risk is mine. How is any peace-talk to be made without him? Who else can speak enough of the Skraelling tongue?”

“It is no less your people’s risk,” the old counsellor made him stern reminder; and Randvar reassured him briefly:

“Lord, when I learned the Skraelling tongue of the sachem’s son, as I told you, he learned Norse of me in return.”

It would seem that all objections had been met, but Helvin did not yield with his usual reasonableness. Instead, he stood scowling at the tree beside him, his hands picking and tearing at a gray lichen plastered on the bark. Finally, while they waited perplexed around him, he turned his head and looked at the Songsmith.

Meeting the look, Randvar stiffened and spoke amazedly: “Lord, what have I done?”

In words, Helvin made him no answer; but for the space of a heart-beat murder glared from his murky eyes. Then, flinging a sign towards the waiting escort, he strode down to the point where the horses waited at the fording-place, hailed eagerly by the idling groups.

Mord’s tap on the song-maker’s shoulder reminded him of his share in the bargain. Going aside with the three old men to the prison-chamber they had selected, he submitted his body to be bound to a tree with ropes of walrus-hide.

A wall of evergreens hid the water from his view, but he could follow the progress of the peace party only by interpreting the outbursts of the throng. A farewell of cheers marked the Jarl’s departure from this bank; a babel of comment showed when his dark-skinned hosts had received him on the other. Then a waning of interest betokened that he had passed beyond the spectators’ range of vision as the Skraelling ranks closed about him to conduct him to the council-fire.

With the suspension of the amusement, the crowd on the shore broke up and came strolling back; sound dwindled to the buzz of the gossips, the occasional shouts of the dice-throwers. Out of the lull there came again to the Songsmith the feeling that he was wakening from a dream, and this time the sensation remained with him.

Slowly, amid the chaos of his mind, thought took shape like this: “When a man is asleep, a hundred strange tokens are of no account; but too many of them in waking life should be taken heed of. I cannot see wherein I have done aught to deserve anger.... Once before has he been wroth without enough cause,—the night he came to the Tower.... Surely I must have been dreaming these five weeks to have so seldom thought of the strange things which took place that night!... Now I begin to understand why he harped upon his temper when he offered me to join his following. Offered? Commanded! Here is a riddle that is not solved yet! Why should he force the skaldship on me as though it were the penalty for some crime against him, instead of an honor for which every mouth is watering? Unless, indeed, he feels that his fretfulness makes it more a peril than a pleasure.... Certainly to follow a chief who for no cause whatever shifts from a friendly mood to a murderous one—Now that is not possible! I have ever found him the highest-minded man. Some hidden reason must lie under this. It must be that I have stumbled into some misdeed without knowing it. But what?... What?”

Slowly his thoughts lost shape, resolved into chaos again. He stood staring down abstractedly at the billowing leaves.

VIII

“_Courage is better than sword-strength_” —Northern saying.

Once, as time dragged by, the song-maker had a vague impression that Olaf was looking at him over a bush; but he was too absorbed to care whether it was so or not. He did not come out of his meditations until the dark hemlock tapestry before him was put aside by a white hand and between the gloomy branches there appeared the bright figure of the Jarl’s sister, the trailing riches of her gown up-gathered on her arm as she strolled forth to explore the recesses of the new guest-house.

At sight of him bound to a pine and staked in by three stark old chiefs looking like three shell-barked hickories in their sombre robes, she came to a stand-still, stood with shining head aloft as one who has caught the note of a distant battle-horn. At sight of her, the blood rose in a hot wave to the roots of his hair, and he muttered a prayer to the nearest of his keepers.

“Be kind enough to tell her that I have no man’s blame for anything,—that I put on these bonds of my own free will.”

It chanced that the man appealed to was Mord the Grim; the old counsellor justified the nickname by the look he bent on Rolf’s son.

“Are you forward in this direction, also?” he inquired. “Starkad’s daughter will not think that news so much worth having.”

Brynhild drew a step nearer and answered for herself: “I should think it a sad story if I did _not_ want news about a brave man’s fate. To come from a circle of merrymakers into a group of such menace—Though it were no more than a thrall that was bound here, I should wish to know what this betided him! I beg you to tell me as quick as you can.”

Like a nurse who would scare away an inquisitive child, Mord made his voice ominous. “You guess well that we are not in play, young maiden. The fellow has given himself as a hostage for the Skraellings’ good faith. If he has made any false step in truthfulness or judgment—” A motion towards the sword at his side completed the meaning. “I warn you that you will get sorry sport here. Be pleased to return to your playmates.”

With peremptoriness thinly disguised as courtesy, he stepped forward and swung back the branches that she might pass out of the prison-chamber. From the other side of the hemlock wall came like an invitation the rippling laughter of the gossips, the shouts of the dice-throwers. For an instant it was as though she stood on the threshold between two worlds.

It did not take her more than an instant to choose between them. Even disdainfully, she put aside Mord and the merrymakers.

“Do you think me fit only to watch throws for light stakes? I prefer to watch your game with the Fates,” she said, and joined the sinister group under the pine.

In his bound wrists, Randvar’s pulses leaped; but the three advice-givers raised a chorus of protest, of entreaty, of command. What would have resulted is doubtful if there had not come suddenly from the river-bank sounds that struck them dumb,—an outburst of voices rising high above the hum of the slope, a clangor of weapons, a piercing cry:

“The Jarl is attacked!”

In the wink-long hush that followed the outbreak there was discernible a distant noise of savage whoops and yells.

Forgetting his helplessness, the Songsmith tried to leap forward, so that the thongs that held him strained and creaked; and at the same instant the three old chiefs turned upon him such faces that Brynhild stepped in front of him as though their knotted hands on their hilts had already drawn their weapons.

“Make sure of it, first!” she demanded. “It may be no more than one of their hideous dances of entertainment. It is said that they sound as bad as battles.”

Disputing, their voices rose shrilly; but Randvar relaxed in his bonds, and bent his head to wipe off on his shoulder the cold drops that had sprung to his upper lip.

“You have a cool wit, Jarl’s sister!” he breathed. “That is the only thing it can be.” He spoke curtly to his keepers: “Why do you spend your force on me? There will be time enough for that hereafter. I advise you to see to it that your own people do not imperil Helvin by breaking the peace without cause.”

It seemed that that danger had already occurred to the old chieftains, as well it might with such uproar of voice and weapon coming from the river-bank. Before Randvar ceased speaking, Thorbiorn and Sigvat had plunged through the hemlocks into the seething caldron below. Now, cursing and brandishing his weapon, Mord flung himself after them, his voice distinguishable above the tumult until the din gradually sank and he occupied the air alone.

Far removed from the turmoil of the bank seemed the stillness of the hemlock nook where Rolf’s son stood worshipping Starkad’s daughter. Much as he had claimed to know of the spirit under her pride, he gathered wonder with gazing at her now. As Northern skies by Northern Lights, so were her gray eyes fired; and measured constraint had melted like ice from her motions. Swallow-swift, she had slipped through the branches and come back again, bearing in her white fingers a glowing brand from one of the deserted camp-fires.

He looked at her somewhat blankly, then, asking in wonder: “Are you going to light my funeral pyre?”

“I am going to set you free,” she answered, “so that you may have more chances for life than Mord’s mercy will grant you if it should prove that the Skraellings are not dancing.”

Her silken robes sweeping the leaves, she knelt down before him. Almost she had the fire laid to the ankle-thongs before he could speak.

“No, no! What is coming to me, I must abide here, as I have sworn.”

In her upturned face, Valkyria’s honor fought with woman’s pity. Yet though she took the brand away, she did not rise; the woman in her pleaded as before a lawman.

“Death is too hard an atonement for a mistake. Forfeit your post, your hopes of fame, but not your life. I admit that you must pay some fine,—but not your life!” Again she stretched forth the burning wood, desperately, this time, as one who dreads interference.

Strong as a hand, his voice overtook her. “No. I should get the greatest shame.”

The purpose failed in her face before her arm yielded; but at last she rose and cast the brand from her, and stood with hands pressed hard upon her breast.

He had seen in his visions that she would be true to a friend, but he saw now for the first time that she could suffer for one. His love fed on her distress, even while he hastened to reassure her.

“Let it not worry you a jot, sunbright maiden. No likelihood at all is there that I shall come to harm. As I know the temper of my sword, I know the trustworthiness of the men I am leaning on.”