XX
“Need proves a friend”—Northern saying.
“Need proves a friend”—Northern saying.
“Need proves a friend”—Northern saying.
“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.
“IhateOlaf,” he sobbed.
“It is likely that you do now, since he has stopped making much of you,” the Songsmithreturned 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. Icannot 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.
“Ibegit 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 onthe 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 beforeIshall be able to run,” he reflected ruefully, and began to realizehow 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.