A Sea Queen's Sailing Part 29

Then out of the gate of the camp, which was toward the river, came a train of men, the leaders of which were mounted, and after them swarmed the levies again. Dalfin was bringing his father to see the place of the fight, and to welcome us as friends. It was not altogether a new thing that Norseman and Dane should be known as foes to one another here on the Irish coast, which both wasted. The folk called us the "white" and the Danes the "black" Lochlannoch, and I cannot say which they feared the most, though the Danes were the most hated. But the Irish kings were not slow to take advantage of our rivalries when they could.

Asbiorn came to me as I stood and watched the king coming out of the camp. His face was white and drawn, but he was calm enough.

"Who was the tall, young chief on the red horse?" he asked me.

"Dalfin of Maghera, whom you let go with me," I answered.

"So I thought. Now, I think that he has avenged that doing on the Caithness sh.o.r.e for you. It is not likely that my father has not fallen; he was the leader of the wedge. There is no feud now between you and me."

"There is not," I answered. "I do not know that I had ever thought of one as possible."

"There would have been had Hakon slain Heidrek," he said.

The old law of the blood feud had its full meaning to him.

"If Heidrek had stayed his men to meet us, Hakon would have given him terms rather than that this should have been the end," I said.

"I know it, for I heard him say so. But there was a touch of the berserk in my father since his troubles came. This is not the first time he has tried to fall fighting against odds. He would not have listened to Hakon."

He sighed heavily, and then shook himself, so that his mail rattled. I took his sword from the bottom of a boat on deck in which I had set it, and gave it back to him, and he girt it on.

"So that is the end," he said. "And now I am my own man. Well, it was a better end than might have been had Hakon waited to see if we came raiding to Norway, as we most certainly should. Now I can follow Hakon with a light heart, and maybe come to be known as an honest man once more."

He said no other word, but turned and went forward. Bertric looked after him and smiled.

"Hakon has a good follower there," he said. "I will see that he is not overlooked. Heidrek was the son of a king in Jutland, and the good blood will show itself at last."

"You know Hakon well," I said, having seen that the greeting between those two was not of an every day sort, or as between prince and follower merely.

"We two were long together in Athelstane's court," he answered. "I also am Athelstane's foster son. He has many, according to our custom."

There was a rush made for the entrance to the village by the Irish who yet loitered on the sh.o.r.e staring at us. Some of them had carried away the wounded from off the green already, and now they left nothing to be seen of the track of the Danes across it. The king was coming, and Hakon sent word to the cabin that the ladies should come and see him. We lay perhaps three hundred paces from the sh.o.r.e, and there was no sight to fray them now.

So they and we went to the after deck and watched, and there was not long to wait. But it was Dalfin who came alone, and mounted on a fresh horse. It was plain that he had been fighting, because he had his left arm in a sling, though he managed his horse none the worse for that. He rode down to the beach in all haste, with a dozen men after him, and waved his hand to us. Then he dismounted, and the men put off the nearest boat, into which he stepped. In five minutes he was on the deck, and greeting us.

"This is wonderful," he said. "All this morning I have been crossing the hills to reach here in the nick of time. I heard no news, and I saw no messengers. I did not even know that Heidrek had sailed hence and returned. Now you are here first, and one comes with a message from you on the spot. The luck of the torque lingers with Queen Gerda even yet."

He bowed to her in his way, and she laughed, and looked for the gold. He had not it on him now.

"Have you parted with it already?" she asked.

"With the torque, but not with the luck, as it is to be hoped," he said. "You will see my father wearing it soon. It must needs be on the neck of the head of the realm."

"What were you while you wore it?" asked Thoralf, who knew the Irish ways.

"Deputy king for the time," answered Dalfin dryly. "And in a hurry to hand it over to my father therefore."

Now, as Dalfin had elder brothers, and there were chiefs almost as powerful as the king himself, that was to be expected. Otherwise, our friend might have had an evil time between them. Unless he had chosen to put himself at the head of the men whom he had just led to victory, and called to them to set the torque wearer on the throne. They would have done it, by reason of the magic of the thing; but there was no thought of treason in the mind of Dalfin, though many a king's son would have grasped at the chance, holding, perhaps, that as the sign of royalty had come to him, the throne must needs come with it, though his father held it.

Then he told us how the fight had gone--how Heidrek fell at the forefront of his steadfast wedge, and how but few men had been taken unhurt. Hakon asked what he would do with those who were taken.

"Give them to you," Dalfin answered carelessly, "if you will take them out of this land."

"I was going to ask for the ship," Hakon said.

"She is yours already. You drove her ash.o.r.e, and the honour falls to us. We should only make a big fire of her and dance round it.

Where is the other?"

"Your men took her round the bend below. There will be no more trouble with Heidrek. We have his son, Asbiorn, here with us."

"Give him to me," said Dalfin at once; "give him to me, King Hakon.

I owe him much for a good turn he did me and Malcolm here, and I cannot see him a captive."

"Malcolm and Bertric have claimed him already," said Hakon, with a smile. "He is yonder, and has taken service with me, and I think I must keep him."

"That is all one could want for a man," answered Dalfin. "Now, I have to ask if you will go ash.o.r.e and meet my father. He would also see my two comrades, and, if it may be so, Queen Gerda."

But Thoralf would not hear of the king going ash.o.r.e, nor would Earl Osric. Gerda, too, shrank from facing the wild crowd of warriors and the sights of the field which she needs must see more or less of. Nor did Dalfin press the matter, for he knew that any little spark might be enough to rouse the wild Irish against the Nors.e.m.e.n.

It was but a chance that Hakon had played the part of an ally. So in the end Bertric and I went ash.o.r.e with Dalfin and the two hermits, as an emba.s.sy, so to speak, to represent Hakon.

We had a good welcome at all events, I suppose because men had heard the tale of our voyage and wreck, and maybe of how Hakon saved the hermits at last. Phelim had spoken thereof when he and I went ash.o.r.e just now, and word pa.s.ses swiftly without losing in the telling. They took us up through the village to the camp, and there a tent was pitched, large and open in front, as the court of the king.

The enclosure swarmed with men, wilder than any I had ever seen, and picketed rows of most beautiful horses were along one side.

It was a strange court. The n.o.bles were dressed in black or dull saffron-coloured tunics, with great, s.h.a.ggy cloaks of the natural hue of the wool they were made of, and but for the rich gold ornaments they wore on their arms and necks, there was little to choose between their attire and that of their followers. Not one wore mail, but their swords were good, and their spears heavy and well cared for. As for helms, they had no need of them. Their hair was amazingly thick and long, and was ma.s.sed into great shocks on their heads, and might turn a sword stroke. Even Dalfin had twisted his up into somewhat like what it might have been before he left Ireland, lest he should be out of the fashion, and it spoilt his looks, though it would be many a long day before he had it properly matted together again. It was strange to see men tossing these shocks aside as they turned.

One other thing I noted at once, and that was how every man, high or low, carried a long-handled axe, bright and keen. It was the only weapon of some, and if they knew how to handle it, maybe they needed no other.

Among all that crowd there were only two men who seemed to shine in any magnificence. One was the old king, who sat waiting us in a great chair, clad in royal robes of scarlet and white and green which no Irish looms could have compa.s.sed, with a little golden crown on his white hair, and the torque round his neck. The other was a bishop in mitre and all state robes, wonderfully worked, and with a crosier in his hand. Not having seen the like before I wondered most at him, but his looks were kind and pleasant. Phelim told me who and what he was afterward.

Myrkiartan came from his throne to greet us as we pa.s.sed through a lane of wild courtiers, who had looks which were not all of the most friendly for us. But we paid no heed to them, though I thought that Hakon was well advised when he sent us instead of coming himself. That first greeting was for us alone as the comrades of Dalfin, and it was a good welcome. Then the king went back to his throne with all ceremony, to receive us as the emba.s.sy from Hakon.

There was no little state kept up in this court, and matters were to be kept in their right order.

Now, I need say little of all this ceremony and the words which pa.s.sed of thanks to Hakon for driving the enemy to his end.

Myrkiartan made no suggestion that Hakon should stay here, and seemed more willing to speed him on his way elsewhere. Presently, he said, there should be sent to the strand oxen and casks of mead as provender for the voyage, and Hakon was most welcome to take the ship if he would.

Thereon Dalfin asked for the captives, and they were brought in--a dozen Danes, who stared at their captors haughtily in spite of their bonds. Then they spied Bertric in the splendid arms which Gerda gave him, for we had come fully armed, and they looked toward him as if they would ask his help, but were too proud to do so. And then of a sudden one of them spoke my name, and I knew him, though his face was half-hidden in the mud of the field on which some common chance had sent him down. It was that man of ours who had told me that there was always the chance of escape, and had tried to gnaw my bonds when we were in the ship's forepeak--Sidroc, the courtman. I did not pretend to know him then and there, thinking it might seem proof that Hakon was in league with Heidrek in some way.

Presently, when his low cry was forgotten, I looked at him, and he saw that I knew him, and was content.

"Look at the men, Bertric," said Dalfin. "See if there are any you will care to take. You know them."

"We cannot leave any of them here," Bertric said to me. "Hakon can set them ash.o.r.e anywhere if he does not like them. Asbiorn might manage them though, and with Hakon's men they will learn manners."

He spoke our own tongue of course, and the king asked what he said.

Dalfin said that Hakon would take them away altogether if the clemency of the king would allow it. Whereon the king waved his hand, and said that they should be sent down with the oxen.

Now, I did not think that this pleased the men of the court. There was a sort of uneasy murmur for a time, and then there was a silence, which grew somewhat awkward at last. I thought it was time for us to go, for there was nothing else to say, but the bishop came forward. He had been speaking with Phelim for some time, and now told Myrkiartan how that Hakon was a good Christian man and had saved the hermit brotherhood even now. That story made the black looks pa.s.s at once, and after that it was easy to take our leave and make our way out of the tent; and glad enough I was to be in the open once more. The whispering of the n.o.bles had not been pleasant at times.