XI
“A wise man’s guess is a prophecy”—Northern saying.
“A wise man’s guess is a prophecy”—Northern saying.
“A wise man’s guess is a prophecy”—Northern saying.
“A wise man’s guess is a prophecy”
—Northern saying.
Out in the long trading-hall there was a confusion of shuffling feet, as the company rose to show respect to the Jarl’s kinswoman; but over the inner chamber such silence reigned that the rows of rich garments hanging around the walls took on the semblance of listening figures. Rooted where his sister had left him, the Jarl stood gazing incredulously at his friend, and the song-maker’s head was bowed over the cap he was tearing in strips.
Helvin said at last: “Songsmith, you took oath that no man could give you aught,—is it as it would seem, that what you desire is a woman’s help?”
The Songsmith made no other answer than a movement of his bent shoulders, but that was answer enough. Starkad’s son said disgustedly:
“This is how it is, then,—you have sulked and chafed for lack of my sister’s favor, even thoughyou have my friendship and every honor that friendship can devise. There is more shame in your falling before her than of all men else. I wonder not that you were ashamed to own it to me. To confess that after all your boasted wildness you had put on her yoke as tamely as any mincing courtman among them! Tamely? Cravenly! How does this hang together, that you have a man’s pride yet like any whipped hound give love in return for abuse!”
“Trolls, lord!” the song-maker gasped, flinging his cap on the floor.
Helvin made a change from scorn to sternness. Placing his foot upon an iron-bound chest, he set his elbow on his knee in an attitude of exhortation.
“Curse and stamp as much as suits you,—I should do no friend’s part if I did not deal severely with you. You go not hence until I have given you such a bitter dose as shall cure your mind of that sickness while life lasts in you. So take breath to swallow—”
Randvar let breath go, instead, in desperate protest. “It needs not, lord! I am cured. Could you give me anything to equal her look in bitterness? I am cured from this day forth. Give me leave to go.”
But the Jarl’s outstretched arm made a bar across the path to the door.
“Too sudden is your recovery; it suggests that of a child who sees the medicine-bowl coming his way. It has come to this, that I shall be convinced only when we have talked the matter out at length and—What! wincing already? Is that a sign of sound flesh? Face about, there! You may make up your mind to one of two things: either to answer my questions and so disgust yourself with your folly, or else to listen while I drag your weakness forth into such bright light as—”
“I will answer,” Randvar said between his teeth, and set them hard.
“Begin then by telling me what I think I know already, that she had no reason for believing her dignity trod upon.”
“Who shall say what looks like reason to a woman? If you must know, she had this much cause that on Treaty Day we disputed together about a matter and in an evil hour it happened that I was proved to be right, and when I saw it, I smiled,—no more than a twitching back of the lips, lord! In the same breath I asked her to excuse it! But she left me without a word, refused me admittance when I went to her hall, flouted me when I accosted her—slighted—scorned—Only the Devil who made them knows why women do anything!” He gave the cap a vicious kick as he started to pace the floor.
But Helvin added severely: “And only the Lord who made men knows why they hanker after such creatures! Behold how your own mouth has convicted you of the greatest folly!”
That was all, perhaps, that the song-maker was able to behold, even though his gaze halted here and there upon garments and weapons as he moved restlessly to and fro. At last he cried out for mercy.
“I will confess myself the greatest fool alive if it will save me from your tongue! I know now what I have always suspected, that King Helge in the song wasted his time in avenging it on Fridtjof that he loved the boneless Ingeborg. That love alone was punishment enough—” Like one struck by a new thought, he stopped before the Jarl.
“It occurs to me, lord,” he said, “that you are not carrying out your share of that song! Here am I, a man of no more than free birth—since no one gets his rank from his mother—who have dared to love a ruler’s daughter. Why do you not rage against it, as is to be expected? I swear an oath that I would rather endure your wrath for my boldness than continue this talk about my weakness.”
“That choice is less hero-like than it sounds, my friend,” Helvin answered gravely. “You doyourself wrong if you do not know that since Time’s morning a man whom Odin has led into the high-seat of skaldship has been held the equal of any blood. And you do me wrong to think that I should forget the nobleness of your mind, whatever your rank. Is it not even because I love you as the very eyes in my head that I cannot bear to see you bend your neck to a pride-crazed woman?”
He took his foot down from the coffer to face the song-maker fairly.
“Oh my comrade, what shall I do to ease you?” he said. “Will you that I should grapple with you and pluck out the barb, though your heart-roots come with it? Or are there any kindly services I might do to heal the flesh and let the thing remain imbedded and forgotten? Do you prescribe now for my love,—I swear no dose shall be too bitter. Though that course be not so good, I would still go to her myself on your behalf, were there hope that she had a heart in her bosom to answer when one knocked.”
“It is not that she has not a heart, lord. It is that I am not high enough to reach the bolt upon its door,” Randvar answered sadly. He wrung the hand that had clasped his, then threw himself down upon the chest and buried his face in his palms. His words came disjointedly.
“Think only what her love would be like, who is so steadfast in her friendship! Had you seen her that day of the Treaty when she came upon me in my bonds—! Why do I rail at her pride, when I would not have her bright head held one jot lower? When Mord turned upon me, I had her as my shield—Lord, when Olaf came against me with his knife, she closed with him! Her slim fingers twined vinelike around the great hole of his wrist. And one of her long braids flew out as she whirled and brushed like a bird’s wing across my lips! Likely it is the last time they will ever feel it.” He got up suddenly and resumed his walking, too deep in wretchedness to heed the quiver of mocking laughter to which Helvin was stirred.
“Think only what her love of her brother must be like, who was so cool-witted while she thought he was being slaughtered!” Starkad’s son murmured.
As swiftly as the mood came, so swiftly it passed. Stepping forward, he began to move beside his friend, speaking indulgently:
“Be of good cheer, comrade,—I foresee now that you shall even kiss her lips if you will.”
Randvar came to himself with a start, and stopped short in anger. “Lord, there are some remedies that even you may not try upon me.If this is done to deride—” His manner changed as he met the gentleness of the gray eyes. “Bear with me! I know you mean me only good. But I cannot see your cheer.”
“It is not to the man down in the thick of the fight, but to the man up in the crow’s-nest, that it is given to see which way the battle is going. You see only the fury of your foe. I see that she is putting that fury forward to hide the weakness that lies behind it.”
Again the song-maker checked his pacing, but this time to ask wonderingly: “Lord, what mean you?”
“My meaning is that she has found out that her breast holds love for you.”
“Love!”
“What else, my friend, would make Brynhild the Cold forget her estate and show openly—to Mord—to Olaf—to whomsoever chose to look—the store she set by your safety?”
So lightning-bright grew the radiance in Randvar’s face that it could last only lightning-long, then flickered and died in gloom.
“Lord, how dare I believe that? It might have been no more than friendliness, or woman’s pity.”
Through the mass of dark hair from which he had plucked off his jewelled cap, the Jarl ran his white hands, throwing back his head with a movement of impatience.
“Why is it that it comes so much easier to believe in Hel than in Valhalla? Is it because the earth-clods we are made of weigh us down when we try to mount? If I cannot prove her love to you through her gentleness, then will I prove it through her hardness. No ball leaps up high that has not gone down hard,—had she stooped no lower than pity, she had never risen so high as hate. Now I can make a guess that the most surprised person to whom Brynhild betrayed her love was Brynhild herself! One thing I hope,—that it was not this moment which a bantering fate took to make you smile?”
“What other time should it have been, lord? It was not until the excitement was over that I called to mind how she had boasted that nothing could shake her coldness. When I saw her—sword in hand—eyes ablaze—Odin himself would have drawn back his lips!”
“Then would Odin himself have gone behind the clouds for a while,” Helvin said; and one of his rare smiles, faint as a glimmer of arctic sunshine, touched the curves of his mouth. “Think of the firebrand it hurled into her pride, when she thought that this love which she herself had just discovered had been betrayed to you, and that you were triumphing—”
The Songsmith cried out the word “Triumphing!”with such bitterness in his voice that, to hide a smile, the Jarl turned away and feigned to be absorbed in a kirtle on the wall, nor looked around again until Randvar appealed to him. Dropped heavily upon the chest, the Songsmith sat frowning desperately at the floor.
“If you, lord, would but do one thing which is easy to you?” he said. “Furnish me with some errand that will bring me into her presence, even against her will. I mean so to act that it will be made evident to her that she misjudged in fearing I should become forward.”
Again the Jarl set his foot upon the coffer and his elbow on his knee, but the look he bent on his friend now had a hint of amiable amusement.
“True it is that much lies on that! You might feign sickness and be taken into the guest-chamber off the women’s hall, where it is the custom for sick men to—But the ill luck might befall you that unless you seemed balancing on the grave-edge, she would leave you to her women. Better would it be to make up some errand concerning the dress of state which she and her maids are covering with needlework for my wear—Yet that is not certain, either, for I have some fear that she might hear your message and then dismiss you before you could get out your conciliating words.”
Some diffidence had come into the Songsmith’s manner, as if he foresaw chaff for what he was about to say. Yet now he said it:
“One plan came to me, lord, by which I could show without words that I had a desire to please her. You heard how she spoke of woodsmen?... More than once has she upbraided me for wearing clothes unbefitting the son of Freya, the king-born. For myself, I prefer to be the son of Rolf the Viking, but for her sake—to show that I will do all in my power to deserve the honor she does me—I would go so far as to change—”
He broke off in embarrassment, for even as he had feared, the Jarl’s whimsical amusement increased. Laying hold of the shoulder before him, Helvin shook it banteringly.
“Let us hope it will not be with you as the priest’s story says it was with Samson and Delilah! And I will forbear reminding you that in casting off your forest garb you cast off my livery, and confess that I no longer stand first in your allegiance— Nay, I said that I would forbear reminding you of that, so never stir your tongue to protest. Now that I see that you have not thrown your dice for a worthless stake, I begin to find interest in the game. Call the trader in to set forth his goods. You shall go to her at once, while her heart is still at war with her temper forhaving ill-treated you. There is no good striving against me! I say you shall. Call Asgrim—Nay, if you will not, I will do it myself—Ah, that is better! Since I have staked my reputation as a foretelling man, I am going to see that the game is played properly.”