Fire is needfulTo him who is come in,And whose knees are frozen;Food and raimentA man requiresWho o'er the fell has travelled.Ha'vama'l
"I tell you I must go over the track once more. It may have slipped out of my girdle at some of the places where I tripped."
Alwin's words rose in frosty cloud; for he was Leif's unheated sleeping-room, drawing on an extra pair of thick woollen stockings in preparation for his customary outing.
"It is foolishness. Four times already have you been over the ground without finding it. A long brass-halted knife could not have been overlooked if it had been there. I tell you that you lost it among the rocks of the hollow, and that you would be wise to give it up."
Sigurd's answer came in muffled though emphatic tones, for he was huddled almost out of sight among the furs on the chest, as he waited for his companion to complete his dressing. Now that genuine winter weather was upon them, the loft was necessarily abandoned as a sleeping apartment; but it still served as a dressing-room for such slight and speedy alterations as were attempted.
As he pulled on the big heelless skeeing-shoes, Alwin sighed anxiously. "I must find it. Any day Leif may miss it and ask."
"He is not likely to, since he has already gone a week without noticing its absence. And if he should, you have only to say that you borrowed it to protect yourself from wolves. That will not be much of a lie, Skroppa being nearer wolf than human. He will feel that he was wrong to have denied you a weapon, and he will only scold a little."
"It is true that he is in a good temper again," Alwin admitted. "Yesterday I heard Tyrker tell Valbrand that many more chiefs had asked concerning Christianity; and last night, after Eric had gone to sleep in his seat, I heard Leif say to Thorhild that if now he could only do some great deed to prove the power of his God, it was his opinion that half of Greenland would be ready to believe."
Sigurd crept out of the bearskins with a shiver. "I say nothing against that. But let us end this talk. My blood-drops are so frozen they rattle in my body."
He thumped down the steps as though rigid with cold, and jumped and danced and beat his breast before he could bring himself to stand still long enough to fasten on his skees.
"Where shall we go, then?" Alwin asked, as they glided out of the gate in the dim light of an Arctic winter day. "It may be that to go over that road again might become a misfortune. Once I saw Kark looking after us with a grin which I would have knocked off his face if I had not been in a hurry."
Sigurd instantly faced toward the snow-crusted hills that lay between them and Eric's Fiord. "Then to-day it will be useful to go in another direction, so that any suspicions he has may go to sleep again. If Thorhall had been at home, he would have overtaken you before this. His green eyes are well fitted for spying."
Perhaps it was this reference to green eyes that recalled to Alwin the scene of the foretelling. Perhaps it had never gone very far out of his mind.
After they had swung along a while in silent enjoyment of the swift motion and the answering tingle in their blood, he said abruptly: "It may be that there was some truth at her tongue-roots, after all."
Sigurd made a sly move with his staff, so that the other suddenly tripped and fell headlong; whereupon he said gravely: "Lo, I believe so too, for behold, already it has come true that 'I see your body lying on the ground.'"
Alwin consented to laugh, as he picked himself up and untangled his runners; but he was too much in earnest to be turned aside.
"I do not mean in regard to that," he said, when they were once more in motion. "I mean what she told concerning some new untrodden land."
Sigurd became instantly attentive, as though the reference had been much in his own mind also.
"It has occurred to me that perhaps she was speaking of that western land you told me of. It might be that this would be a way out of my difficulties. If I could escape to that land with Helga, so would I at once save her and gain my freedom."
Sigurd's eyes brightened, then gloomed again. "Yes,—but that 'if' is like a mile-wide rift in the ice. You can never get over it."
"It might be that I could get around it. I tell you I shall go out of my wits if I cannot see some trail to follow, no matter how faint it is. Tell me what else you know of this land."
They were starting down a slope at the speed of the wind, but Sigurd suddenly leaped into the air with a cheer; and cheered again as he landed, right-side up and unstaggered, at the bottom of the hill.
"By Michael, I will do better than that! I will take you to talk with one of Biorn's own men. One is visiting Aran Bow-Bender now, across the fiord. I heard Brand Knutsson say so last week."
"By my troth, Sigurd," Alwin cried eagerly, "when things come to one's hand like that, I believe it is a sign that he should try his luck with them! Would we have time to go there to-day?"
"Certainly; do you not see that the light is only just fading from the mountain tops? so it can be but a little past noon. The only difficulty is that the ice may not be in a condition for us to cross the fiord. A warm land-wind has been blowing for three days; and even in the North, where the seal-hunters go, the ice often breaks up under them. But now allow me to get my bearings. That is the smoke from Brattahlid, behind us; and yonder I see the roofs of Eric's ship-sheds. Here,—we will go in this direction until we come to a high point of the bank."
Across the white plain that stretched in that direction, they skimmed accordingly. Once they came upon a herd of Eric's reindeer, rooting under the snow for moss; but aside from that, they saw no living thing. Low-hanging gray clouds seemed to have shut out the world. Now and then, from far out in the open water came the grinding and crunching of huge ice-cakes, see-sawing past each other. Once there sounded the reverberating thunder of two icebergs in a duel.
"If there were any bears on that ice, they have found by this time that there can be even worse things than men with spears," Sigurd observed, as he listened.
It is doubtful whether Alwin had heard the noise at all. He answered, absently: "Yes,—and if we do not wish to come to the subject at once, we can say that we are cold and dropped in to warm ourselves."
"To say that we are cold will always be truthfully spoken," Sigurd assented, his teeth chattering like beads. "I do not believe that Stark-Otter was much chillier when he pulled off his clothes and sat in a snow-bank."
It turned out to be even more truthful than they imagined. They had little more than left the shore and ventured out upon the ice, when the gentle east wind developed into a gale, that presently wrapped them in the blinding folds of a snow-storm. The ice became invisible a step ahead of their feet. They had retained their staffs when they left their skees upon the bank; but even feeling their way step by step was by no means secure. It was not long before Alwin went through, up to his neck; and if he had been uncomfortable before, he was in wretched plight now, drenched to the skin with ice-water.
"If you also get in this condition, we shall both perish," he chattered, when he had managed to clamber out again by the fortunate accident of his staff's falling crosswise over the hole. "I will continue to go first; and do you hoard your strength to save us both when I get too stiff to move." It proved a wise precaution; for in a few minutes he broke through again, and it took all his companion's exertions to pull him out. Before they reached the opposite shore, he had been in four times, and was so benumbed with cold that Sigurd was obliged to drag him up the bank and into the hut of Aran Bow-Bender.
One low room was all there was of it, and that was smoky and dirty, the air thick with the smells of stale cooking and musty fur garments. Dogs were lying about, and there was a goat-pen in the corner; but a fire roared in the centre, a ring of steaming hot drinks stood around it, and behind them sat a circle of jovial-hearted sportsmen, who seemed to ask no greater pleasure than to pull off a stranger's drenched garments, rub him to a tingle, and pour him full of hot spicy liquids.
To return that night was out of the question. Alwin was too exhausted even to think of it,—beyond a sleepy wonder as to whether a scolding or a flogging would be the penalty of his involuntary truancy. He even forgot the existence of the man he had come to see, though the round, red-faced sailor dozed in a corner directly opposite him.
Sigurd, however, was less muddled; and he had, besides, a strong objection to returning the next morning, to be laughed at for his weather-foolishness.
"If we do not want to be made fun of, it would be advisable for us to take someone back with us to distract people's attention," he reasoned, and laid plans accordingly. The next day, as they began buckling up their various outer garments preparatory to departure, he suddenly struck into the conversation with a reference to the festivities at Brattahlid.
In a moment the sailor-man's eyes opened, like two round windows, above his fat cheeks.
The Silver-Tongue spoke on concerning the products of the Brattahlid kitchen, the fat beeves that were slaughtered each week, the gammons and flitches that were taken from the larder, and the barrels of ale that were tapped.
As he settled his boots with a final stamp, and stretched out his hand toward the door, Grettir the sailor arose in his corner.
"Hold on, Jarl's son," he said thickly. "If it is not against your wish, I will go with you." He made a propitiatory gesture to the group around the fire. "You will not take it ill, shipmates, if I leave you now, with many thanks for a good entertainment. The truth is that it has always been in my mind to visit this renowned Eric, if ever I should be in this part of Greenland; and now that some one is going that way to guide me, I think it would be unadvisable to lose the chance."
"The matter shall be as you have fixed it, Grettir," Sigurd said politely, "if you are able to run on skees with us."
Grettir laughed in a jovial roar, as he helped himself to a pair of runners that rested on antlers against the wall. "You have a sly wit, Sigurd Jarlsson. You think, because I am round, I am wont to roll like a barrel. I will show you."
And it proved that, for all his bulk, he was as light on his feet as either of them. In those days, when every landlubber could handle a boat like a seaman, every sailor knew at least something about farming, and could ride a horse like a jockey. All the way back, he kept them going at a pace that took their breath.
In the excitement of welcoming so renowned a character to Brattahlid, reprimands and curiosity were alike forgotten. By the time they had him anchored behind an ale-horn on the bench in the hall, he held the household's undivided attention. Good-natured with feasting, and roused by the babel around him, he began yarn-spinning at the first hint.
"The western shore? No man living can tell you more of the wonders of that than I,—not Biorn Herjulfsson himself!" he declared. And forthwith he related the whole adventure, from Biorn's rash setting out into unknown seas, to his final arrival on the Greenland coast.
To hear of these strange half-mythical shores from one who had seen them with his own eyes, was more than interesting. The jarls' sons listened breathlessly while he reeled out his tale between swallows.
"And the fair winds ceased, and northern winds with fog blew continually, so that for many days we did not know even in what direction we were sailing. Then the sun came into sight, and we could distinguish the quarters of heaven. We hoisted sail, and sailed all day before we saw land, but when we came to it we knew no more what it was than this horn here. Biorn said he did not think it was Greenland, but he wished to go near it. It had no mountains but low hills, and was forest-clad. We kept the land on our left and sailed for two days before we came to other land. This time it was flat and covered with woods. Biorn said that he did not think this was Greenland, for very large glaciers were said to be there. We wished to go ashore, as we lacked both wood and water, and the fair wind had fallen. There were some cross words when Biorn would not, but gave orders to turn the prow seaward. This time we sailed three days with a southwest wind, and more land came in view, which rose high with mountains and a glacier. Biorn said this had an inhospitable look, and he would not allow that we should land here either. But we sailed along the shore, and saw that it was an island. After this we had no more chances, for the fourth land we saw was Greenland."
A buzz of comment rose from all sides. "Is that all that you made of such a chance as that?"—"Certainly the gods waste their favors on such as Biorn Herjulfsson."—"Is he a coward, or what does he lack?" "He is as dull as a wooden sword."
Now whether or no all this coincided with the private opinion of Grettir the Fat, has nothing to do with the matter. Biorn Herjulfsson had been his chief. The sailor rose suddenly to his feet, with his hand on his knife and an angry look on his red face.
"Biorn Herjulfsson is no coward!" he shouted fiercely. "I will avenge it in blood on the head of him who says so."
Eric was not there to keep order; a dozen mouths opened to take up the challenge. But before any sound could come out of them, Leif had risen to his feet. "Are you such mannerless churls that I must remind you of what is due to a guest?" he said, sternly. "Learn to be quicker with your hospitality, and slower with your judgment of every act you cannot under-stand. Grettir, I invite you to sit here by me and tell me more concerning your chief's voyage."
When Grettir had gone proudly up to take his seat of honor, and the others had returned to their back-gammon and ale, Sigurd looked at Alwin with a comical grimace.
"Now I wonder if my cleverness in bringing this fellow here has happened to overshoot the mark! Leif is eager to get renown; suppose he takes it into his head to make this voyage himself?"
Alwin sank his voice to a whisper: "The idea came to me as soon as he called Grettir to him. But it was not your doing. Now the saying is proved true that 'things that are fated take place.' Do you remember the prophecy,—that when I stand on that ground I shall stand there by the side of Leif Ericsson?"
Much goes worse than is expected.Ha'vama'l
The light of the short day had faded, but the wind had not gone down with the sun. Powdery snow choked the air in a blinding storm. One could not distinguish a house, though it were within a foot of his eyes.
"If I do not come to the gate before long," Alwin observed to the shaggy little Norwegian pony along whose neck he was bending, "I shall believe that the fences have been snowed under."
He had been sent out to find another of Biorn's sailors who chanced to be visiting in the neighborhood, to invite him to come to Brattahlid and tell what else he might know concerning his chiefs voyage,—a subject in which Leif had become strangely interested. Alwin had accomplished his errand, and was returning half-frozen and with a ravenous appetite that made him doubly impatient over their slow progress.
"If we do not get there before long," he repeated to the pony, with a dig into his flanks, "I shall get afraid that the drifts have covered the houses also, and that we are already riding over the roofs without knowing it."
But as he said it, a tall gate-post rose on either side of him; and the pony turned to the left and began groping his way across the courtyard to his stable.
The windows of the great hall glowed with light, and warmth and jovial voices and fragrant smells burst out upon the storm with every swing of the broad door. As soon as he had stabled his horse, Alwin hurried toward it eagerly, and, stamping and shaking off the snow, pushed his way in through the crowd of house-thralls, who were running to and from the pantry with bowls and trenchers and loads of food. He hoped that Leif was there, so that he should not have to go back across the snowy courtyard to the sleeping-loft to make his report. Stopping just inside the threshold, he looked about for him, blinking in the strong light and shaking back the wet fur of his collar.
It seemed as though every member of the house-hold except Leif were lounging along the benches, waiting for the evening meal. Eric leaned against one arm of his high-seat, talking jovially with Thorhall the steward, who had returned that morning from seal-hunting. Thorhild bent over the other arm, and gesticulated vigorously with her keys, as she gave her housekeeper some last directions regarding the food. Further along, Sigurd and Helga sat at draughts. Near at hand, a big fur ball, which was the outward and visible sign of Tyrker, was rolled up close to a chess-board. Only Leif's cushioned seat was empty.
With petulant force, Alwin jammed his bearskin cap down upon his head and turned to retrace his steps. Turning, his eye fell upon an object that Eric had just taken from the steward and held up to the light to examine. The flames caught at it eagerly, flashing and sparkling, so that even at that distance Alwin had no difficulty in recognizing the brass-hilted knife. Eric burst into a mighty roar of laughter. His voice, never greatly subdued, penetrated to every corner of the room. "I could stake my head that it is Leif's! I myself gave it to him for a name-fastening. And you found it in Skroppa's den? Oh, this is worth a hearing! Here is mirth! In Skroppa's den,—Leif the Christian! Ho, Flein, Asmund, Adils, comrades,—listen to this! No jester ever invented such a jest."
He got on his feet and beckoned them with both arms, stamping with laughter. Catching sight of Alwin's white face at the door,—for it was ashen white,—he beckoned him also, with a fresh burst of malicious laughter.
"And you, you little priest-robed puppet, come nearer, so you shall not lose a word. Oh, it will be great fun for you! And for you, my Thorhild,—and the haughty-headed Helga! And gray old Tyrker too! Listen now, Graybeard, and learn, even with one foot in the grave. Saw you never such a game as this foster-son of yours has played with unchanging face!" He choked with his laughter, so that his face grew purple; and the household waited, leaning from the benches, nudging and whispering; the servants gaping over the dishes in their hands; Alwin standing by the door, motionless as the dead; Sigurd sitting, still as the dead, in his place.
Stamping and rocking himself back and forth, and banging on the arm of his seat, the Red One got his breath at last, and bellowed it out. "Leif the Christian in the den of Skroppa the Witch! His knife proves it; Thorhall found it among the rocks at her very door. Saw I never such slyness! Think of it, comrades; he is driven to ask help of Skroppa,—he who feigns to scowl at her very name!—he who would have us believe in a god that he does not trust in himself! Here is an unheard-of two-facedness! Never was such a fraud since Loki. Here is merriment for all!"
He continued to shout it over and over, roaring with mocking laughter; his men nudging each other, sniggering and grinning and calling gibes across the fire. Leif's men sprang up, burning with rage and shame,—then stood speechless, daring neither to deny nor resent it.
Alwin made a quick step forward to where the firelight revealed him to all in the room, and cried out hoarsely: "Here is falsehood! My hand, and no other, took Leif Ericsson's knife to the den of Skroppa the Witch."
Motion and sound stopped for a moment,—as though the icy blast, that came just then through the opening door, had frozen all the life in the room. Then a voice called out that the thrall was lying to cover his master; and Eric's laughter burst out anew, and the jeering redoubled.
But Alwin's voice rose high above it. "Fools! Is it worth while for me to give my life for a lie? Ask Sigurd Haraldsson, if you will not believe me. He knows that I went there on Yule Eve, to ask concerning my freedom. The knife slipped from my belt as I was climbing the rocks. Leif knew of it no more than you. Ask Sigurd Haraldsson, if you will not believe me."
Sigurd rose and tried to speak, but his tongue had become like a withered leaf in his mouth, so that he could only bow his head.
Yet from him, that was enough. Such an uproar of delight broke from Leif's men as drowned all the jeering that had gone before, and made the rafters ring with exulting. Alwin knew that, whatever else he would have to bear, at least that lie was not upon him, and he drew a deep breath of relief. All the light did not die out of his face, even when Leif stepped out of the shadow of the door and stood before him.
She had not spoken falsely who had said that the fire of Eric burned in the veins of his son. In his white-hot anger, the guardsman's face was terrible. Death was in his stern-set mouth, and death blazed from his eyes. Rolf, Sigurd, Helga, even Valbrand, cried out for mercy; but Alwin read the look aright, and asked for nothing that was not there.
While their cries were still in the air, Leif's blade leaped from its scabbard, quivered in the light, and flashed down, biting through fur and hair and flesh and bone. Without a sound, Alwin fell forward heavily, and lay upon his face at his master's feet.
That all men might know whose hand had done the deed, Leif flung the dripping sword down beside its victim, and without speaking, strode out of the room.
Then a strange thing happened. Helga ran over to where the lifeless heap lay in a widening pool of blood, and raised the wounded head in her arms, and rained down upon the still white face such tears as no one had ever thought to see her shed. When Thorhild came to take her away, she cried out, so that every one could hear:
"Do you not understand?—I loved him. I did not find it out until now. I loved him with all my heart, and now he will never know! I—loved him."
Cattle die,Kindred die,We ourselves also die;But the fair fameNever diesOf him who has earned it.Ha'vama'l
Out of doors the stir of spring was in the air; snow melting on the hills, grass sprouting on the plains. Editha's troubled face brightened a little, as she turned up the lane against the sun and felt its warmth upon her cheek.
"It gives one the feeling that it will melt one's sorrows as it melts the snow," she told herself.
Then she passed through the gate into the budding courtyard, where her eye fell upon Leif's sleeping-loft, with Kark running briskly up the steps; and the brightness faded.
"But there is some ice the sun cannot melt," she sighed.
On the threshold of the great hall, Thorhild stood waiting for her. Inside, all was confusion,—men placing tables and bringing in straw; maids spreading the embroidered cloths and hanging the holiday tapestries. The matron's head-dress was awry; her cheeks were like poppies, and her keys were kept in a perpetual jingle by her bustling motions.
She cried out, as soon as Editha came within hearing distance: "How long you have been, you little good-for-nothing! I have looked out four times for you. Was Astrid away from home? Did you return by Eric's Fiord, and learn whose ship it is that is coming in?"
The little Saxon maid dropped her respectful curtsey. If at the same time she dropped her eyes with a touch of embarrassment, the matron was too preoccupied to observe it.
"I was hindered by necessity, lady. Astrid was not away from home, but she was uncertain whether her son would wish to sell any malt, so I was obliged to wait until he came in from the stables."
"Humph," sniffed Thorhild; "Egil Olafsson has become of great importance since his father was mound-laid. This is the third time I have been kept waiting for his leave." She turned on the girl sharply. "By no means do I believe that to be the reason for your long absences. I believe you plead that as an excuse."
Editha caught at the door-post, and her face went from red to white and back to red again.
"Indeed, lady—" she began.
Thorhild shook a menacing finger at her. "One never needs to tell me! She keeps you there to gossip about my household. Though she is my friend, she is as great a gossip as ever wagged a tongue."
Even though the hand still threatened her ears, one would have said that Editha looked relieved. She said, with well-feigned reluctance: "It is true that we have sometimes spoken of Brattahlid while I waited. Astrid looks favorably upon my needlework. Once or twice she has said that she would like to buy me—"
This time Thorhild snorted. "She takes too much trouble! Helga will never sell you to anyone. You need get no such ideas into your head. Why do you talk such foolishness, and hinder me from my work? Can you not tell me shortly whether or not you got the malt?"
"I did, lady. Two thralls will bring it as soon as it can be weighed."
"I shall need it, if guests arrive. And what of the ship? Did you learn whose it is? It takes till pyre-and-fire to get anything out of you."
Editha's rosy face, usually as full of placid content as a kitten's, suddenly puckered with anxiety. "Lady, as I passed, it was still a long way down the fiord. I could only see that it was a large and fine trading-vessel. But one of the seamen on the shore told me it was his belief that it is the ship of Gilli of Trond-hjem."
The house-wife's keys clashed and clattered with her motion of surprise. "Gilli of Trondhjem! Then he has come to take Helga!"
Editha nervously clasped and unclasped her hands. "I got afraid it might be so."
"Afraid, you simpleton?" The matron laughed excitedly, as she brushed all stray hairs out of her eyes and tightened her apron for action. "It will become a great boon to her. Since the Englishman's death, she has been no better than a crazy Brynhild. To take her out into the world and entertain her with new sights,—it will be the saving of her! Run quickly and tell her the tidings; and see to it that she puts on her most costly clothes. Tell her that if she will also put on the ornaments Leif has given her, I will give her leave to stop embroidering for the day."
Editha observed to herself, as she tripped away, that undoubtedly her mistress had already done that without waiting for permission. And it proved very shortly that she was right.
In the great work-room of the women's-house, among deserted looms and spindles and embroidery frames, Helga sat in dreamy idleness. The whirlwind of excitement that had swept her companions away at the news of approaching guests, had passed over her without so much as ruffling a hair. Her golden head rested heavily against the wall behind her; her hands lay listlessly upon her lap. Her face was as white as the unmelted snow in the valleys, and the spring sun-shine had brought no sparkle to relieve the shadow in her eyes.
Without looking around, she said dreamily: "It was one year ago to-day that I came into the trader's booth in Norway and saw him sitting there among the thralls."
Editha stole over to her and lifted one of her hands out of her lap and kissed it. "Lady, do not be all the time thinking of him. You will break your heart, and to no purpose. Besides, I have news of great importance for you. I have seen the ship that is coming up the fiord, and men say it is the vessel of your father, Gilli of Trondhjem."
With something of her old fire, Helga snatched her hand away and started up. "Do you know this for certain? And do you believe that Thorhild will give me up to him?"
"Worse than that, lady,—she is even anxious that he shall take you, thinking it will be to your advantage."
For awhile Helga sat staring before her, with expressions of anger and despair flickering over her face. Then, gradually, they died down like flames into ashes. She sank back against the wall, and her eyes faded dull and absent again.
"After all, what does it matter?" she said, listlessly. "I shall not find it any worse there than here. Nothing matters now."
Editha made a little moan, like one in sudden pain; but it seemed as though she did not dare to interrupt the other's revery. She stood, softly wringing her hands. It was Helga who finally broke the silence. Suddenly she turned, an angry gleam replacing the dulness in her eyes.
"Did the ship bring more tidings of the battle? Is it certain that King Olaf Trygvasson is slain?"
Editha answered, in some surprise: "It had not come to land when I was there, lady. I am unable to tell you anything new. But the men who came last week, and first told us of the battle, say that Eric Jarl is now the King over Norway, and there is no doubt that Olaf Trygvasson is dead."
Helga laughed, a hateful laugh that made her pretty mouth as cruel as a wolf's. "It gladdens me that he is dead. I am well content that Leif's heart should be black with mourning. He killed the man I loved, and now the King he loved is slain,—and he was not there to fight for him. It is a just punishment upon him. I am glad that he should suffer a little of all that he has made me suffer."
Editha moaned again, and flung out her hands with a gesture of entreaty. "Dearest lady, if only you would not allow yourself to suffer so! If only you would bear it calmly, as I have begged of you! Even though you died, it would not help. It is wasting your grief—" She stopped, for her mistress was looking at her fixedly.
"I do not understand you," Helga said, slowly. "Is it wasting grief to mourn the death of Alwin of England, than whom God never made a nobler or higher-minded man?" She rose out of her seat, and Editha shrank away from her. "I do not understand you,—you who pretend to have loved him since he was a child. Is it indeed your wish that I should act as though I cared nothing for him? Did you really care nothing for him yourself? Your face has grown no paler since his death-day; you are as fat as ever; you have seldom shed a tear. Was all your loyalty to him a lie? By the edge of my knife, if I thought so I would give you cause to weep! I would drive the blood from your deceitful face forever!"
She caught the Saxon girl by the wrist and forced her upon her knees; her beautiful eyes were as awful as the eyes of a Valkyria in battle. The bondmaid screamed at the sight of them, and threw up an arm to shield herself.
"No, no! Listen, and I will tell you the truth! Though they kill me, I will tell yon. Put down your head,—I dare not say it aloud. Listen!"
Mechanically, Helga bent her head and received into her ear three whispered words. She loosed her hold upon the other's wrists and stood staring at her, at first in anger, and then with a sort of dawning pity.
"Poor creature! grief has gotten you out of your wits," she said. "And I was harsh with you because I thought you did not care!" She put out a hand to raise her, but Editha caught it in both of hers, fondling it and clinging to it.
"Sweetest lady, I am not out of my wits. It is the truth, the blessed truth. Mine own eyes have proved it. Four times has Thorhild sent me on errands to Egil's house, and each time have I seen—"
"Yet said nothing to me! You have let me suffer!"
"No, no, spare me your reproaches! How was it possible for me to do otherwise? If you had known, all would have suspected; 'A woman's eyes cannot hide it when she loves.' Sigurd Haraldsson bound me firmly. I was told only because it was necessary that I should carry their messages. It has torn my heart to let you grieve. Only love for him could have kept me to it. Believe it, and forgive me. Say that you forgive me!"
Helga flung her arms open wide. "Forgive? I forgive everyone in the whole world—everything!" She threw herself, sobbing, upon Editha's breast, and they clung together like sisters.
While they were still mingling their tears and rejoicings, the old housekeeper looked in with a message from Thorhild.
"Sniffling, as I had expected! Have the wits left both of you? Even now Gilli of Trondhjem is coming up the lane. It is the command of Thorhild that you be dressed and ready to hand him his ale the moment he has taken off his outer garments. If you have any sense left, make haste."
When the door had closed on the wrinkled old visage, Editha sent a doubtful glance at her mistress. But the shield-maiden leaped up with a laugh like a joyful chime of bells.
"Gladly will I put on the finest clothes I own, and feast the whole night through! Nothing matters now. So long as he is alive, things must come out right some way. Nothing matters now!"
It is better to live,Even to live miserably;..........The halt can ride on horseback;The one-handed, drive cattle;The deaf, fight and be useful;To be blind is betterThan to be burnt;No one gets good from a corpse.Ha'vama'l
"Egil! Egil Olafsson!" It was Helga's voice, with a note of happiness thrilling through it like the trill in a canary's song.
Egil turned from the field in which his men were and came slowly to where she stood leaning over the fence that separated the field from the lane. He guessed from her voice that they had told her the secret, and when he came near enough to see, he knew it from her face; it was like a rose-garden burst into bloom. His lowering brow scowled itself into a harder knot. With the death of his father, he had thrown aside the scarlet clothes of Leif's men, and wore the brown homespun of a farmer. From his neck downward, everything spoke of thrift and industry and peace. But his fierce dark face looked the harsher for the contrast.
Helga stretched her hand across the fence. "I am going to see Alwin, for the first time after all these months. They told me two days ago, but this is the first chance I could find. But even before I saw him, I thought it right to see you and thank you for your wondrous goodness. Sigurd has told me how they carried Alwin to you in the night, and you received him and sheltered him, and—"
Egil silenced her with a rough gesture. "I kept my oath of friendship; speak no further of it. Do you know where he is hidden?"
"Sigurd told me he is in the cabin of your old foster-mother, Solveig. I do not remember whether that is to the left or the right of the lane. But it is a most ingenious hiding-place. No one ever goes there, and Solveig is the most accomplished of nurses."
"Since you do not remember where it is, I will walk with you, if it is not against your wish." He shouted some final directions to the men in the field, then leaped over the fence and strode along beside her.
He appeared to have nothing to say, after they were once started, and they went through lane and pasture and field in silence. But as soon as she broke out with fresh praise for his kindness, he found his tongue in all its curt vigor.
"Enough has been said about that. I have been wishing to speak to you of something that happened at the feast the other night. Do you know that my kinswoman Astrid told Gilli of her wish to buy your bondwoman, and—"
For a moment there was something wolfish about Helga's white teeth. She struck in quickly: "Yes, I know. Gilli agreed to sell Editha to her, the day we sail. It is exactly what I expected of him. If Astrid should offer a little more, he would be apt to sell me. He is the lowest-minded—Bah!" It seemed as though words failed her. She threw her hands apart in a gesture of utter detestation. The glow was gone out of her face.
"What I wanted to say is, that if it is your wish, I will persuade my mother to withdraw her offer."
After a while Helga shook her head. "No. He would only sell her to some one else. It would trouble me to think of her among strangers, and your mother would treat her kindly." She paused, at the top of the stile they were climbing over, to look down at him earnestly. "I should be thankful if you would promise me that, Egil. You are master now, and can have your will about everything. Promise me you will see that she is well treated."
"I promise you." Helga threw a grateful look after him, as he went along before her. "Your word is like a rock, Egil. One could hold on to it though everything else should roll away."
The cloud was passing from her face. By the time she gained his side, the rose-garden was once more radiant in sunlight.
"After all, I do not feel that I have a right to let anything grieve me much, since God has given Alwin back from the dead. I set my mind to thinking of that, and then everything else seems small and easily remedied. Even Gilli's coming it is possible to turn to profit. I have a fine plan—"
She broke off abruptly as, through a clump of white-birch trees, she caught sight of a tiny cabin nestled in their green shelter.
"That is Solveig's house; now I remember it! How is it possible that it has held such a secret for four months, and still looks just as usual? Let us hurry!" She seized his arm to pull him along. Only when he wrenched away and came to a dead stop, did she slacken her pace to stare at him over her shoulder.
"Do you wish to drive me crazy?" he shouted.
She thought him already so, and drew back.
He waited to take a fresh grip on his self-control. When he spoke at last, it was with labored slowness: "Every week for four months I have come to this door and asked the Englishman how he fared; and he has not wished for anything that I have not given it to him. The night they left him with me, I could have put my fingers around his throat and killed him; and no one would have known. But I held my hands behind me, and allowed him to live. So far, I have kept my oath of friendship. Do you wish me to go in with you and break it now?"
Before she could gather her wits together to answer him, he was gone.
Standing where he had left her, she stared after him, open-mouthed, until her eye fell upon the cabin among the bushes, when she forgot everything else in the world. She ran toward it and threw open the door.
The low room was smoky and badly lighted. Before she could distinguish her lover in the dimness, he was upon her, calling her name over and over, crushing her hands in his. She cried out, and lifted her face, and his lips met hers, warm and living. It was the same as though nothing had happened since last she saw him.
No, not quite the same; she saw that, the instant she drew back. Alwin was very thin, and in the half-light his face showed white and haggard. An ugly scar stretched half across his forehead. At the sight of it her eyes flashed, and she reached up and touched with her lips the fiery mark.
"How I hate Leif for that!" Then she saw the greatest change of all in him, the quiet grimness that had come upon him out of his nights of pain and days of solitude.
"That is unfairly spoken, sweetheart. I have but paid the price I agreed to pay if luck went against me. Leif has dealt with me only according to justice; that I will maintain, though I die under his sword at the last."
She drew a quick, sharp breath. In the joy of recovery, she had let herself forget that he is only half alive who lives under the shadow of a death sentence. She set her teeth over her lip to stop its trembling, and stiffened herself to the iron composure of a shield-maiden.
"It is true that you are yet in great danger. His anger has not yet departed from him, for not once has your name passed his lips. Sit down here and tell me what you think of your case."
Alwin recalled the weeping and fainting of his mother's waiting-women, in that far-off time of trouble, and pressed her hand gratefully as he took his seat by her side upon the bench. "You are my brave comrade as well as my best friend. I can talk with you as I would with Sigurd."
Just for a moment she laid her cheek against his shoulder. "It gladdens me that you are content with me as I am, instead of wishing me to be like Bertha of Trondhjem and other women," she whispered.
Then the memory linked with that name caused her to straighten again and look at him doubtfully. "Has Solveig told you all the latest tidings?"
"She has told me nothing for a week. She is up at the hall just now, helping with the spinning; but Editha was here two days ago. Is it of King Olaf that you are thinking? She told me of the battle; and I am full of sorrow for Leif. She told me that his room was draped in black, and that he stopped preparing for his exploring voyage and shut himself up for four days and four nights, without eating or speaking."
"He has begun his preparations again. His sorrow is not worth considering. Or, rather, I shall grieve with him when he grieves for you. The tidings that I mean concern Gilli of Trondhjem. Do you know that he has come to take me away?"
She wanted to see the despair in his face, that she might feel how much he cared; then she hastened to reassure him. "But do not trouble yourself over that. Even though I go with him, it will do no harm. If he tries to marry me to anyone, I will pretend that I think the marriage beneath me. I will work upon his greediness, and so trick him into waiting; and in a year you will come and rescue me."
"If I am alive!" Alwin interrupted her sharply. He sprang up and began to pace the floor, clenching his fists and knocking them together. "If I am alive I will come. But it is by no means unlikely that Leif will carry out his intention. Then you will be left in Gilli's power forever."
She laughed as she went to him and brought him back and pushed him down upon the bench.
"See how love makes a coward of a man as well as of a woman! But do not trouble yourself over that, either. Have you never heard the love-tale of Hagberth and Signe? How, the same moment in which she saw him hanged upon the gallows, she set fire to her house and strangled herself with her ribbons, so that their two souls met on the threshold of Paradise and went in together? If you die, I will die too; and that will arrange everything." She clung to him for a moment, and he feared that she was about to dishonor her shield by a burst of tears.
But in an instant she looked up at him with her brave smile. "We will end this talk about dying, however. Remember the old saying, 'If a man's time has not come, something is sure to aid him.' There is another fate in store for you than to lose your life in this matter, or you would have died when Leif struck you down. I love the cap that saved you! We will not talk about dying, but only of our hopes. I have planned how Gilli may be made useful, so that on his vessel you can escape to Norway."
She put her hand over his mouth as he would have spoken. "No, listen to me before you say anything against it. Gilli will sail next week. At that time Leif will be absent on a visit to Biorn Herjulfsson, who has just returned to Greenland from Norway. With Leif, Kark will go, so that we shall not have his prying eyes to fear. What would prevent you from stealing down to the shore, the night before we sail, and swimming out to the ship and hiding yourself in one of the great chests in the foreroom? The steersman will not hinder you, for I have spoken so many fine words to him, with this deed in view, that he is ready to chop off his head at my bidding. Thus will you get far out at sea before they discover you. Gilli will not know that he has ever seen you before, you are so white and changed; and when he has taken away all the property you have on you, he will say nothing further about the matter. So will you be brought to Norway,—and thence it is not far to your England, though I do not know if that is of any importance. But if you say that this plan is otherwise than ingenious, I shall be angry with you."
Alwin vented a short laugh. "It is most ingenious, comrade. The only trouble with it is that I have no ambition to go either to Norway or to England."
This time it was he who sealed her lips, as her amazement was about to burst through them.
"Give me a hearing and you will understand. I do not wish to go to England because I could do nothing there to improve my credit in any way. My kin have disappeared like withered grass, and the Danes are all-powerful. I do not wish to go to Norway because there I could never be more than a runaway slave; and though I strove to my uttermost, it is unlikely that I could ever acquire either wealth or influence,—and without both how would it ever be possible to win you? See how the North has conquered me! First it was only my body that was bound; and I was sure that, if ever I got my freedom, I should enter the service of some English lord and die fighting against the Danes. And now a Norse maiden has conquered my heart, so that I would not take my liberty if it were offered me! No, no, sweetheart; I have thought of it, night and day, until at last I see the truth. The only chance I have is with Leif."
Helga wrung her hands violently. "You must be crazy if you think so! He would strike you down the instant his eyes—"
"It is not my intention that he shall know me until he has had cause to soften toward me. Do you not remember Skroppa's prophecy? has not Sigurd told you of it?—that it is in this new untrodden country that my fate is to be decided? I will disguise myself in some way, and go on this exploring expedition among his following. I shall have many chances to be of service to him."
"But suppose they should not come soon enough? Suppose your disguise should be too shallow? His eyes are like arrows that pierce everything they are aimed at. Suppose he should recognize you at once?"
The new grimness again squared Alwin's mouth. "Then one of two things will happen. Either he will pardon me, for the sake of what I have already endured; or else he will keep to his first intention, and kill me. In neither case will we be worse off than we were four months ago."
Such logic admitted of no reply, and Helga gave way to it. But so much anguish was betrayed in her face, that Alwin gave another short laugh and asked her:
"Who is it now that love is making a coward of?"
She shook her head gravely. "I am no coward. It gladdens me to have you face death in this way, and to know that you will not murmur even if luck goes against you. But I do not wish you to throw your life away; and you know no prudence. Let us speak of this disguise. What have you fixed upon?"
"I acknowledge that I have accomplished very little. Solveig has told me of a bark whose juice is such that with it I can turn my skin brown like that of the Southerners. And I have decided to make believe that I am a Frankish man. I know not a little of their tongue, which will help to disguise my speech. But how I am to cover up my short hair, or account for my appearance in Greenland—" He shrugged his shoulders, and dropped his chin upon his fist.
Helga clasped her hands around her knee and stared at him thoughtfully. "I have heard Sigurd tell of a strange wonder he saw in France,—I do not know what you call it,—like a hood made of people's hair. A girl who had lost her hair through sickness was wont to wear it; and Sigurd did not even suspect that it was rootless, until one day she caught the ends in her cloak, and pulled it off. If you could get one of those—"
"If!" Alwin murmured. But Helga did not hear him. Suddenly, in the dim perspective of her mind, she had caught a glimpse of a plan. As she darted at it, it eluded her; but she chased it to and fro, seeing it more clearly at each turn. Finally she caught it. She leaped up and opened her mouth to shout it forth, when an impulse of Editha's caution touched her, and instead, she threw her arms around his neck and laughed it into his ear.
He drew back and gazed at her with dawning appreciation. She nodded excitedly.
"Is it not well fitted to succeed? You can escape to Norway as I planned, and after that you can easily reach Normandy. All that you lack is gold, and Leif and Gilli have covered me with that."
His face kindled as he mused on it. "It sounds possible. Sigurd's friends would receive me well for his sake; and after I had got everything for my disguise, I would have yet many good chances to return to Nidaros and board the ship of Arnor Gunnarsson, who comes here each summer on a trading voyage. Coming that way, who could suspect me?—particularly when it is everyone's belief that I am dead."
"No one!" Helga cried joyously. "No one! It is perfect!"
In a sudden burst of gratitude, he caught her hands and kissed them. "All is due to you, then. It is an unheard-of cleverness! You must be a Valkyria! Only a great hero is worthy of a maid like you."
Laughing with pleasure, she hid her face on his breast. And it must be that her plan possessed some of the advantages she claimed for it, for it came to pass that, on the same day that Gilli and his daughter set sail for Norway, a fair-skinned thrall with a shaven head disappeared from Greenland so completely that even Kark's keen eyes would have found it impossible to trace him.