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“It must be worse before it gets better”—Northern saying.
“It must be worse before it gets better”—Northern saying.
“It must be worse before it gets better”—Northern saying.
“It must be worse before it gets better”
—Northern saying.
His ruddy face thrice ruddy with cold, Bolverk, the guardsman, came stamping into the great trading-booth, kicked the door shut upon the ice-bound out-of-doors and let go a shivering breath of appreciation at the sight of the fur-littered weapon-hung room, down whose middle fires were leaping, and along whose wall-benches shaggy-maned hunters and sleek-locked Skraellings sat consuming hot drink in the intervals of bargaining.
“Hail, friends!” he greeted the company. “Now does the bread of life seem to be buttered on both sides! Here are you on the inside, as snug as fleas on a goat; and outside, I just met a young one merry because his breath froze in such clouds that he had only to stick a knob-ended root between his lips to have the appearance of smoking like a Skraelling.”
The double row of faces that had turned towardshim answered variously by grins or jests or grunts, but the trader’s headman looked up from the heap of beaver skins that thralls were sorting before him to wave a cordial hand.
“Now this day seems to have been set for the return of long-absent people! Welcome to you, Bolverk the Bold! Not so much as a hair have I seen of you for three months and more.”
“That is easily true,” the guardsman assented, “for since Treaty Day I have camped as far south as Freya’s Tower. And I have worn out my shoes there, as you may see. How long would it be before you could look me up another pair? From the appearance of your benches, I should not say that the lack of my custom had caused suffering to you.”
“Nay, it is your company that we have suffered for,” the trader’s man answered, as became a trader’s man. “But I need not keep you waiting if you will give to Eldir, here, one of your old shoes for a sample.”
He beckoned a bondsman to attend on the guard, while with his head he signed another thrall to bring forward the smoking ale; and Bolverk succumbed contentedly into a seat.
“Mind this, that you get me a pair that is easy across the toes,” he admonished the slave kneeling before him. Then he stretched out hishand to take the offering of the one standing beside him, and questioned lazily as he sipped: “Who are the rest of the long-absent people who have arrived?”
“Some score of them you may see before you; and in that end room yonder, among the gold things, is Olaf, Thorgrim’s son,—the most open-handed man! Since Treaty Day, for some reason, he has turned his back on the court and dwelt at the house of Mord the Grim, and only—”
Bolverk left off sipping to interrupt joyfully: “Now I wonder if it is going to happen that there is a fight? As I turned in here, I looked down a lane and saw Randvar the Songsmith headed in this direction.”
The row of hunters straightened, some of them rolling on their tongues the word “fight”; some raising their horns with shouts of “The Songsmith!” but the trader’s man shook his head above the furs to which he had turned back.
“They cannot lock horns. The lawmen have bound them to peace, on pain of outlawry to the one who breaks it. On the way home from the treaty-making, it befell that the Songsmith flew at Olaf, and would have given him a swift death if men had not come between them. They do not dare to do aught else than be good. It is unlikely, moreover, that the Songsmith has theslightest intention of coming hither. So long as he has that deerskin husk and that battered sword, no use has he for a trading-booth.”
Disapproval was in the headman’s gesture as he kicked aside the fur heap he had finished examining. But Bolverk shook his helmed head in disapproval of him.
“It is your traders’ thrift that talks now, comrade, not your Norse spirit,” he said. “Some bad habits the Fates allot every man at his birth; and he should be considered lucky who uses up his allowance of them on clothes, and keeps his mind high and his courage without stain, as Randvar, Rolf’s son, has done.”
“Yes, yes!” chorussed the fur-clad hunters, banging the benches with their fists. And the youngest of them brought his drink-drenched body upright with a jerk, and tried to look severely through sleepy eyes.
“Whosoever says aught slighting of Rolf’s son gives offence to me,” he made announcement. “I l-ove him because he wears clothes like mine. I l-l-ove him because he is poor. I l-l-l—”
“Poor!” The trader’s man laughed impatiently. “Good Bend-the-Bow, are you too drunk to understand that I am talking about the Jarl’s favorite, whose shabby belt-pouch is fuller of gold than your head of wits,—even when youare sober and they are all at home? If he were still a ringless forester, who would stir tongue about his habits? It is because he has gold to spend but is too careless to do it, that he has my blame; and I would lay my purse on it that this is a part of the cause why he has lost credit with the Jarl’s sister, as gossips say he has. Yet you need not think that I undervalue what is inside his shell. Far and wide, it is known that he brought this treaty to pass which is going to send such ship-loads to Norway in the spring as never left port before. For that, all traders lift their horns to him; and I should dislike to have it come to his ears that I—”
“Then hold your peace for here he comes!” the guardsman interrupted, and stood up with a genial bellow to pitch at the opening door one of the shoes which a thrall had just handed him.
It was a rash act since the new-comer might just as easily have been the Jarl as the Jarl’s song-maker—the trading-house standing at the junction of many paths—but it came to no bad end for the doorway actually did frame the tall sinewy form of Randvar, Rolf’s son, his harp occupying a cloak’s place at his back. At sight of him, even the Skraellings changed from bronze images into men with cordial eyes; while the hunters swung up their horns with a burst of cheers. Barely they gave him timeto hand over his broken harp to the trader’s man before they forced him into the place they had made for him, plied him with drink, with toasts, with questions and banter. Bolverk was obliged to limp over in one shoe to get a seat beside him, and get his attention for the confidences with which he was bursting.
They seemed to be of a nature more absorbing to the teller than to the listener for even while he gave one ear to them, Randvar left the other open to the hunter’s chaff, and broke out restlessly, now and again, to gibe back or to answer in their own tongue some inquiries from his Skraelling friends. But he did not fail to make the required promise to go down to the wedding-feast in the spring, and aroused himself with proper enthusiasm when the lover came at last to an exulting climax.
“There! If you can anywhere see a better lookout than that, I shall say your eyesight is keener than Erna’s.”
“Nothing but the sun’s can equal it in brightness! I call upon every man who hears my voice to drink to your luck at my expense,” the Songsmith answered promptly, and drew a handful of silver rings from his shabby pouch.
If cup-wishes count, never was bride more richly dowered than Snowfrid of Freya’s Tower. Whenit was over, the beaming Bolverk slapped his prospective foster-kinsman affectionately upon the back.
“Nowhere have I found a better comrade than you! To talk one’s affairs over with you is a good help. Now let me show as much friendship and hear how matters have fared with you, these three months. I can see one thing that you have not done, and that is to get fat.”
An old trapper clad in bear’s fur uttered a bear-like grunt.
“Huh! See the gainfulness of having young eyes! As soon as the boy came into the room, I saw that there were lines between his eyebrows like a wagon’s ruts,—and not an empty wagon, either! Better take to the forest again, Rolf’s son, if it weighs so heavily upon your spirit to be a Jarl’s favorite.”
“Better come back to the forest than bear any harness!” the young hunter who sat next to the Songsmith cried scornfully; and a chorus rose after him:
“Never did I think you would stand it, who hate rules as a bear hates a chain!”
“You are a fool to stay in it—”
“Sooner should the Troll take me than I should follow a man who behaved overbearingly, as one of Starkad’s breed must needs—”
“It is not possible that you can be contented in his service—”
“Come back—”
“What is the jest?”
“What is the cause of your grinning?”
The song-maker’s smile ended in his short laugh.
“You,” he answered. “It crossed my mind to fancy myself listening to a pack of wild wolves yelping at a tame one, who had found love for a man and followed him home and broken himself to house-ways. But I will give you a better answer than that to your foolishness.”
He leaned forward where all could see him, the fire showing his thin face to be unmistakably earnest.
“For what you said about Helvin’s behavior towards me, I will tell you the first half of a saying the courtmen have made, which is altogether truthful, and which is this: ‘If the Jarl’s song-maker should want the Jarl’s crown for a dog-collar, he would have to do no more than ask for it.’ And now, for what you said about my liking his service, I will give you the rest of the saying, which is even more true than what went before: ‘And if it should happen to the Jarl to want the Songsmith’s head for a hand-ball, he would have to do no more than ask for that.’ Is it clear to you now or not?”
The hunters had no opportunity to answer. While they were still adjusting their minds to the amazing conviction that their one time comrade had meant what he said, the door was flung open with a flourish. In all his bravery of embroidered cloak and silver-spurred riding-boots, Eric the Page appeared and proclaimed in his young treble:
“Way for the Jarl’s sister!”
It was the first time the woodsmen had seen this woodland sprig in his splendor. To assail him with familiar greetings and ironical comment became instantly their sole object in life, carried on under their breath even after the Jarl’s sister had entered, and they had scrambled to their feet in rough homage. Randvar was able to step unobserved behind a smoke-blackened pillar and gaze with what bitterness he would upon the face that his pride had come to curse by day while his love starved for it in his dreams.
“I would give all I own in the world had I not known how to smile!” his heart cried out in sudden sharp wretchedness. Then he cursed himself for a fool, cursed her vanity for a curse worse than Helvin’s, and wore the rut deeper between his heavy brows with scowling at her as she passed.
Of rich purple, fur-edged, was the mantle that hung from her fine shoulders; and purple was the velvet hood that lay like an evening cloud uponthe sunset glory of her hair; but it needed not the royal coloring to betoken the loftiness of her temper. Even more than its wonted haughtiness was in the carriage of her head as she moved up the long room and passed into the inner chamber, which was the shrine of the jewelled ornaments and gold things.
Bolverk shut one eye expressively, when the fox-skin curtain had fallen behind her and her page.
“Every man to his taste!” he said. “Yet I for one feel no envy of Olaf, Thorgrim’s son, that he is kissing her fingers at this moment. Give me Snowfrid with the kissable mouth!” He was reaching for his horn to seal the sentiment when Randvar’s hand closed on his arm.
“Is Olaf, Thorgrim’s son, in there?” the Songsmith asked in his ear.
The man-at-arms regarded him admonishingly.
“Why, I think they say he is. But they say also that the one of you two who begins a fight will get outlawed.”
Randvar made no answer; his gaze had gone back to the door-curtain. If the French One should remain there after she entered, it would be a sign that his disfavor was at an end, that she had taken him back into her friendship—He broke off to watch with suspended breath.
Dashing the fox-skins aside, Mord the Grimstamped through the door; and after him Olaf backed into the room, bowing ceremoniously before the presence he was leaving. If further proof were needed that the greeting of the Jarl’s sister had not been cordial, that proof was furnished as he turned on the threshold and espied his rival watching him. Seizing his sword-hilt, regardless of Mord’s shrill expostulations, he strode towards the Songsmith.
They seemed for once to have changed places for Randvar made no more motion to attack than to evade, only stood smiling at him in unconcealed malicious enjoyment. When Thorgrim’s son was within a pace of him, he took off his fur cap and swept him a salute mockingly elaborate, then folded his arms upon his breast in the formal sign of peace.
White on purple showed the veins of Olaf’s forehead, as he came to a stand-still before the exasperating figure. Perhaps even at the price of banishment he would have purchased revenge, if his friends had not saved him from the rash bargain. To the utter disgust of the by-standers, three of the traders’ men seized upon him now and with respectful words but peremptory hands, dragged him past temptation and out of the door.
Raising a chorus of disappointment, the loungers closed again around the laughing Songsmith, scoldinghim, some of them, for not preferring banishment to a life of such restraint; others chaffing him for his decline in spirit; while the Skraellings became almost urgent in their desire to understand why two men should start to fight each other and stop before either was killed.
Lingering to buckle his many mantles, old Mord watched the group. When at last he was muffled for his ride, he halted on his way out to look at the jesting song-maker from under an arch of bristling brows.
“Since I see what a man you are to get friends behind you,” he said, “my wonder grows less at the boldness you showed at the treaty-making. Soon, instead of the favorite of the Jarl, you will be calling yourself the favorite of New Norway.”
Over the ring of tow manes surrounding him, Randvar gave back his look carelessly, wondering what new fuel his fiery prejudice had chanced upon. He found out when Mord had reached the door and, opening it, flung this parting shot over his shoulder.
“A most beloved man you appear to be,—I bid you only beware how you carry it too far. The sagas do not lack instances of king-born men whose bane came out of their boldness. It would be unlucky if some one should whisper to the Jarl that you are ambitious to get more popularity than he has.”
The Songsmith doffed his merry mood at that, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Then they widened in dismay as darting past Mord to the threshold, they encountered the gray-clad form of the Jarl himself, silhouetted against the white glare of the sunlit snow.
In the pause that followed, Starkad’s son appeared to be the only one at ease. Inclining his head in acknowledgment of the advice-giver’s salute and the hunters’ uncertain murmur, he came slowly forward, drawing off his furred gloves.
“That is rightly said,” he assented, “that if such a whisper should come to my ears it would be very unlucky. The prophecy is wrong only in hinting that it is for the song-maker that the bad luck would come in.” He answered with a reproachful look Randvar’s look of relief.
What Mord answered could not be heard for the cheers that the hunters let forth for Helvin Jarl. Only the slamming of the door behind the advice-giver made a faint jar.
The Jarl thanked them graciously when the racket was over, then addressed himself to his friend:
“So long was your harp-string in mending that it pleased me to come on here and look for an arrow-ornament to take the place of the one I lost. Let us betake ourselves now to the search. It islikely to be in the inner chamber among the gold things.” Laying a hand upon Randvar’s shoulder, he moved him forward, speaking carelessly of this or that weapon on the wall.
But only so long as they were within ear-shot of the groups on the benches did the Songsmith yield to the pressure. Fire-color had flamed in his face. By main force he came at last to a stand-still, and spoke without looking at his companion:
“I think, lord, that I will not go in with you. I am not used to so much heat—and the smell of the furs—I will await you under the oak. I find that—I am not well. By your leave!”
But the tightening of his lord’s hand upon his shoulder showed that he did not have his leave.
“Not well? What nonsense is here! It was on my tongue to say that not since Treaty Day have I seen you wear such a merry face. For more than two months have you moped like a captive hawk, with sullen temper and feathers adroop, but now—Why, it was the first thing I marked when I looked through the door and saw you bantering with your hunter friends! Comrade, swear to me that your mind-sickness is not homesickness. If I should think that the fetters of my service were eating into your brave heart—”
“I swear I have no homesickness.”
“God is to be thanked for that! Take oath also that I would have no power to straighten the threads if you should tell me what the snarl is.”
The song-maker flung back his hair restlessly from his face of fierce unhappiness. “Jarl, it stings my pride that I have not been able to hide from you the soreness of my mind. Let it pass for the spring sap working in me. I take oath that no man alive can give me aught I want. Be pleased, lord, since it is your will!” As with one hand he put the matter aside, with the other he put aside the fox-skin curtain. After a moment, Helvin yielded and entered.
It was plainly indifferent to the Jarl that Brynhild the Proud should chance to be coming from the iron-bound chests, preceded by a walking heap of rainbow silks. He returned her reverence with a courtly greeting, then turned and made a kindly motion towards the figure drawn up rigid as a spear-shaft in the shadow of the doorway.
“We have seen little of you, my kinswoman, since you made the winter weather an excuse for staying away from our feasts,” he added, “yet do not lose us your remembrance. Will you not give a greeting to my song-maker here? It is not unlikely that he has felt the lack of your presence as much as you have missed his songs.”
Perforce, the Songsmith plucked the cap from his head and advanced. Perforce, her gaze was turned upon him.
“Oh, is it your song-maker?” she said indifferently. “I thought one of the woodsmen had followed you in to get some hunting-gear.” Deliberately she looked him up and down, her gray eyes more forbidding than a gray ice-waste under Northern skies. With a shrug she turned from him at last.
“If you please, brother, I think I would rather not greet him,” she said. “Better that we should look on it as though he were a woodsman after all, who might mistake my condescension and become forward.”
Courtesying as low as her manner was high, she swept past the Jarl and through the door, beyond which the silk-laden page was awaiting her.