I

Randvar the Songsmith

“A man’s foes are those of his own house”—Northern saying.

“A man’s foes are those of his own house”

—Northern saying.

In the old world over the ocean the storm of the Norman Conquest was raging, but no rumble of it reached across the water to the new world and that oasis in the wilderness which men call now the lost city of Norumbega, but which was known in those days as the Town of Starkad Jarl. There in the primeval forest the breath of October was a silver elixir in the air, and the morning breeze carried only the notes of hunting-horns. When half a dozen young Norsemen came galloping down a tree-arched aisle, their talk dealt with no greater matter than the latest freak of their Jarl’s freakish son.

“It is seen from the hoof-marks that he hasnot turned aside. We need not wait long to overtake—”

“Suppose he should not want to turn back—”

“Heard I never of a jarl’s hunt that began by hunting the Jarl’s son!”

“He was quiet in riding out of the Town with us; what caused him to spur ahead?”

“Only that he had a whim to be alone, as he is apt.”

“I remember how he broke away once last spring.”

“It may be that this fall he has done it once too often. Starkad is wroth.”

So the talk ran on until the tall leader drew rein, signalling to those behind him to check their pace.

“Slowly!” he said. “Yonder is his horse tethered. It would ill become us to ride upon Starkad’s son as though we were charging a boar.”

“Even though we shall be as ill-received as if we were,” the youngest of the horsemen added with a laugh of some uneasiness.

The leader smiled tolerantly. He wore on his long body fine clothes of scarlet leather, and on his thin lips the semblance of a perpetual smile.

“Everything grows big in your eyes,” he observed. “There! I think I see gray cloth among those green bushes. It were best to ride on untilwe come where he may see that there are too many of us to withstand; then one of us can dismount and approach him with the message.”

The youngest of the riders laughed again, this time somewhat sarcastically. “No one is better fitted to take that task on him than yourself, Olaf, Thorgrim’s son. For what else did you spend your fosterhood in France but to get smooth manners to use in rough places?”

“Yes, yes! By all means, Olaf is the man!” the others chorussed, a hint of malice in their promptness.

If Thorgrim’s French-reared son read the sign, it made no difference in the confidence of his bearing. He answered that if it was their wish he would certainly undertake the errand, and immediately swung from his saddle as gaining the green bushes, they came into view of the wearer of the gray kirtle.

Prone on the earth’s broad bosom the young noble had thrown himself and lay with his head pillowed on his folded arms, a figure of utter abandon. Only at the clink of spur and bridle-chain did he turn upon his side and fling back a mass of blood-red hair from a face of startling pallor. What look came into it when he beheld the horsemen, they were not near enough to tell. By the time Olaf stood before him, his teeth were showing a snarl.

“Well, dog, you have tracked your quarry,” he said. “No wonder your trainers set store by you! What is the rest of your master’s bidding?”

Olaf laughed lightly. “Certainly, Jarl’s son, you should be a scald; you speak so glibly in figures. Starkad sends you orders to turn back and take your place again in the following.”

Starkad’s son drew himself slowly into a sitting posture. Then of a sudden his body was convulsed with laughter,—laughter mocking as the mirth of a devil.

“Who am I that I should stand in the way of the Jarl’s will?” he gasped between his paroxysms, and shaking with them rose to his feet.

But when he had come where the youngest of the riders was holding his horse in waiting, either the young man’s ill-concealed uneasiness, or some reminder growing out of it, caused his mood to change. With his foot in the stirrup he lingered, sobering until his face betrayed even the pinching hand of dread. Vaulting into his saddle, he spoke to his attendant without looking at him.

“I see they have turned my hound Sam into the pack, though the wound on his foot is still unhealed. Will you, Gunnar, do one thing for me? Separate him from the rest and bring him to me in a strong leash.”

“In this as in everything you have only tospeak to have your will,” Gunnar gave the prescribed answer absently. It was not until he felt the foot of a friend behind him that he awoke to the mockery of the phrase, and glanced up appalled.

But the exasperation lightning at him did not strike. Amid silence, breathless, storm-charged, the Jarl’s son took the reins from him, wheeled his horse and rode back up the leafy path and out of sight.

In a moment Olaf was spurring after Starkad’s son, but the remainder of the escort appeared to be in no great haste to follow. First they waited while Gunnar examined the buckle of his girth; then they turned to scrutinize two figures just emerging into the open from a brush-hidden trail a few paces on their right.

Two young stags browsing the scarlet berries under the pines would scarcely have looked more natural to the scene, for one was a savage of that new-world race which the early Norse explorers called Skraellings, with hair as black as freshly turned leaf-mould, and a shining naked body of the hue of an oak-leaf in November; and the other, in the deerskin garb of a forester, with uncovered locks reflecting the sun, was a descendant of the Vikings themselves and showed untamed blood in his handsome face as he raised it to look ahead at the horsemen.

The red man the courtiers passed over indifferently, but on the white one they were beginning favorable comment when the call of a distant horn cut them short. Wheeling hastily, they gave their horses spur and rein, and passed up the shaded alley like a whirl of frost-tinted maple-leaves.

Upon them, the young forester made but one remark. He and his companion had halted as at a parting of the ways, and his hands were busy detaching a deer’s-horn cup from his belt.

“I would travel a day’s journey to see a horse run like that,” he said. “Often I dream of feeling one between my knees, and waken because my enjoyment is too real for a vision.”

The young savage’s throat gave out a sound of comprehending, and his friend did not wait for a longer response. He had filled the horn from a flask of porcupine-skin that hung around his neck; now he raised it aloft.

“To you, comrade! May your arrows and your swallows always go the right way. Skoal!” he toasted, then refilled the cup and handed it to the other, who answered in the same Northern tongue, though haltingly.

“To my brother! May he drink much of his enemies’ blood—as much as his friends have drunk of his wine. Skoal!”

It was not seen that the Northman made anygrimace. While his mouth showed no bloodthirstiness, its hard line bespoke one used to grim ways. He said carelessly:

“My foster-mother has the gift of double sight, but even she has never seen that I have enemies. How came that notion into your head, brother?”

After the manner of his kind, the Skraelling was deliberate in answering, letting the purple juice trickle slowly down his throat; but he finished at last, and nodded in the direction of the departed courtmen.

“There went some of the young men who follow the head of my brother’s people. They are more bright than white fire-bugs with the gifts they get for their friendship. My brother is also young—a warrior—the son of a warrior—yet he lives apart in the forest, with a handful of women and old men—gets himself nothing. It must be that he has enemies among his people.”

The young forester shrugged his broad shoulders. “No gifts would I buy at the price Starkad Jarl asks, comrade. My little foster-brother Eric is page to his daughter; I know the lot of those who follow him. When he gives the sign they go to roost, whether they are sleepy or not. When his priest rings a bell they say their prayers, even though it break in at a time when cursing would come more easily to them. It is not allowed themto enjoy any sports that he sets his face against; and they drink no lower in the cup than he gives them leave. May illness eat me if I would ever tame myself to run with such a pack! That a man like my father should have been willing to lie quiet in a woman’s net is something I shall never be able to comprehend. I understand him better when I see how he built the Tower with the lower part left open so that the wind could blow on him all the year round and help him to forget that he was under a roof.”

Once more the Skraelling’s deliberate speech was delayed, this time by a baying of deep-voiced hounds rumbling up out of the distance like thunder. Following it, the pack streamed past—stragglers bursting from the brush behind them to skirt them with extended noses or jostle between them, leaving froth-flecks on their sides—and hard after the hounds rode the hunting party, led by a band of green-clad pages winding gilded horns. With the leisureliness of one whose pride forbids a display of curiosity, the Skraelling set his eagle face again over his shoulder; and his companion, who had started to remark upon the scene, gave up with a shrug the attempt to make himself heard against the blaring.

The din passed at last, and on its heels came a colorful train—stately old priests and chieftainsgravely discussing the hunts of their youth, high-born maidens with shining uncovered locks, and matrons whose lace veils floated cloudily from their moonlike faces, stocky young thralls bent under hampers and wine-skins, and towering leather-clad guardsmen bearing bright spears on their shoulders. With the hoof-beat of the prancing horses deadened by the matted leaves, they went by as lightly as shapes in a vision, each for an instant illumined as he passed where a shaft of sunlight fell through a rift in the arching tree-tops.

As the first pair of the noble maidens reached it, sitting gracefully erect in their saddles like gilded chairs, the forester motioned towards them.

“The one with her face turned away is the Jarl’s daughter, Brynhild the Proud. It is said that she is worth looking at, though it has never happened to me to do so.”

If the Skraelling looked at her, that was all the notice he vouchsafed. It was not until the last maiden had gone by that he was stirred to interest.

“That is the great sachem that the sun now shines on?” he asked.

“That is Starkad Jarl,” the Northman confirmed; and even as he said it, the old man with the jaw like iron and the beard like steel had passed on into the shade, and the light was playing on the comelygroup that followed, revealing foppish secrets of gay embroidery and golden buckle.

“Here are the battle-twigs we saw a while ago,” the young forester added. “I wish I knew if any of them is Helvin, the Jarl’s son.”

The Skraelling answered but one word. “Blood!” he said; and while the young men remained in sight his eyes rested on one in garments of gray, whose bowed head was hooded by hair of the very shade of clotted blood.

Looking after the young courtmen, the forester seemed to lose all who followed. When leaves had blotted out the last guard’s broad brown back, and the music of the horns had dwindled to a silver speck in the gray silence, he spoke musingly:

“Take Helvin, now, if you wish to judge what metal comes of Starkad’s forging. It is said that he was born with the wanderlust upon him, so that his every breath is a panting to take ship and travel over the sea-king’s road wheresoever the wolf of the sail might choose to drive him. But because the sons that came before him are dead, and the only other heir is a maiden, his sister, it is not allowed him to risk his life. It may be they will find out that they have cherished the scabbard and rusted the blade,—they say that the fire cased in his flesh has given him an unlucky disposition.”

The savage’s black eyes gave forth a sympathetic flash, though his training in repression kept the feeling out of his voice. He said calmly:

“A day will come when it will be over. The old man cannot live forever. Already he has passed so far beyond the timber-line that nothing grows on his scalp.”

The Northman shook his head. “Starkad’s death will bring Helvin no nearer what lies at his heart; he is oath-bound to take the rule after his father,—so full of fear are they lest quarrels over the inheritance gnaw at the root of the Jarldom. But I will say that I think his rule will prove to be a good thing for the Town, which is now in danger of becoming more lifeless than a bone-heap. From all I have heard of his dislike of making a show of himself and his love of free ways, I have good hopes of him. It has often been in my mind to take service under him when he shall get the leadership. For Starkad I have no respect whatever. It is told that when he was young he was called Starkad the Berserker, and had the most hand in every Viking voyage and man-slaying; but now that the sap has dried in him, and he has put on Olaf the Saint’s religion, he expects all men to live like monks.”

The Skraelling gazed reflectively in the direction of the vanished cavalcade.

“Truth to say, the young braves of my race do not feel much love for the white man,” he said, presently. “He comes among us as one who comes among animals—driving them out to possess himself of their feeding-ground—dealing with them only when he wants profit out of their hides. The grayheads give us counsel to live in peace with the settlers of Norumbega. On the four trading-days of the year when they let us into their walls, they trade us useful things for our furs. But those of us whose teeth are still firm in our jaws do not like it to be led in as white men’s cows are led in to be milked, then turned out to pasture, the bars put up behind them.”

Straightening, he stood a bronze image of wounded pride. The young forester, as he bent to fasten one of his moccasin-strings, looked up at him understandingly. The softening feature of the Northman’s face was his eyes, deep blue as an evening sky, under level brows, broad and dark. When the thong was tied, he put out a hand and rested it on his companion’s bare shoulder.

“Judge not, brother, all of the white race from the behavior of one overbearing old man. It seems to me as if your people and my people should dwell together like sons of one father. Our hands are equally open to a friend, and no less hard-clinched against a foe; and you do not surpass usmuch in freedom and fearing nothing. When it has befallen the other white men to see the wonder of your woodcraft as I have seen it, and to be sheltered and fed by your hospitality as I have been, there will be much awanting if they do not hold you as high in honor as I do.”

Unbending gravely, the born heir of the forest laid his hand upon the breast of the forest’s adopted son.

“I know good of you; I will try to believe good of your people,” he said. “Come back with me now, brother. The lodge of the sachem, my father, is open to you. Always open to you.”

A second time the Northman shook his head. “That cannot be, comrade, for I came up here to learn a trap secret from an old huntsman, and having got it, I must hasten back and put it to use before I forget it. Do you on your side bear in mind, when next you paddle your bark-boat near the island, that the Tower will offer heartier welcome to none than to you.”

His hand fell from the bronze shoulder to the bronze palm, and with a strong clasp the two men parted,—the red man to melt into the russet shades beside them, the forester to go forward in the wake of the hunting party.

Had it blazed its path with axes, the cavalcade would scarcely have left a plainer track. Whereverfoot and hoof had failed to print themselves on the path of leathery leaves, there was always the clew of a bruised lichen or a fern with a broken spine. Swinging along easily, mile after mile, the forester devoted his superfluous breath to humming scraps of melody and his alert eye to reading the fantastic runes. Here a bleeding tangle of wild grape-vine stretched out plundered hands. Yonder a long golden hair, floating like fairy gossamer from a low-growing limb, showed how the forest had exacted weregeld. Still farther on, a patch of flattened moss and ploughed-up earth told sly tales of a horseman brought low. When he came at last to the place where his road branched westward from theirs, he yielded the rune-page with regret.

That he might overtake any of the company did not occur to him. His attention was centred in his song, gradually becoming articulate and rising melodiously from under his breath. It broke a word in two when he caught the hoarse snarl of a hound in the thicket ahead.

As well as though he could see through the intervening leaves he knew the hideous landmark that lay before him,—a pond which the Skraellings called by a word meaning “the black pool,” because some sinister combination of soil and shadow gave its water the appearance of being dullythickly black. Tradition added that rather than enter it, a fleeing stag would let his pursuer kill him on the brink. If any hunted thing had been brought to bay there now, the finish might be worth seeing. Quickening his step, the young Northman leaped the stony channel of a dead brook and swept aside the screening boughs.

Set amid frost-blasted bushes and leafless barkless tree-skeletons, the Black Pool met his gaze; but it was no four-footed creature that fought for life at the black water’s edge. Above the brush rose the gray-clad shoulders of the young courtman with the blood-colored hair. Rearing as tall as he, one of the great hunting-dogs had sprung upon him; while one hand strove to draw his dagger, the other was struggling to hold foaming jaws from his throat.

To see his peril was to will to aid him; and with the forester, to will was to act. But even as the impulse thrilled him, a strange sensation blotted it out. With his first forward motion, he was seized by a sudden whirling madness as though he had stepped within the ring of a whirlpool and was being sucked into a black abyss of horror.

It lasted but an instant. Battling against it, his fingers clutched instinctively at his knife-hilt, missed it and closed instead upon the blade, and the smart of cut flesh brought him to himself.But in the time that he hesitated, the courtman’s hand had freed his weapon and plunged it into the straining throat; there was a death howl, the hiss of spurting blood, and the danger was over. The great body relaxed, stiffened, sank heavily out of sight between the bushes, and the young man stood wiping his blood-bathed face upon his sleeve.

Bewilderment and shame claimed the forester. He with a lion’s strength in the girth of his chest and in his long sinewy limbs—he whose coolness had cheated Death a hundred times—heto falter when a man was in jeopardy of life before him! It was beyond belief.

He saw without caring that the courtman seemed all at once to become aware of another presence, and turned and espied him. He heard without heeding a peremptory order to approach. All that he was conscious of was a desire to get away and fight it out with himself. Raising his hand in apology, he stepped backward, pushed between two tall bushes, and let the wiry brush spring to like doors behind him.

As he drew clear of the branches a silvered arrow sped above them, so well aimed that it severed a lock of his hair. He caught his breath with a short laugh.

“I forgot that high-born men do not take it wellto be disregarded,” he muttered as he plunged into the undergrowth.

What would he have said if the shaft could have whispered as it whistled past that—back under the frost-blasted bushes—Starkad Jarl lay murdered, and that he of the guilty blood-colored hair believed the forester had witnessed his deed!

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