Nicanor - Teller of Tales Part 41

Reaching up, she thrust a flower behind his ear, as a young fop of the n.o.bility would wear it, and sprang away into the crowd laughing.

"The wish of innocence should be good omen; the G.o.ds grant it!" said Nicanor. He pushed onward through the press to get a nearer view of the Saxons; and heard as he came a great voice shouting a rhythmic chant.

Over the shoulders of those in front he could see a ring of Saxons surrounding the man who sang. As they listened they drank, and as they drank grew more emphatic in applause. The singer was a bull-chested fellow, purple-faced with his exertions. He swung his sword, he roared, he heaved himself upon his toes; and Nicanor, fellow-craftsman and maker of words, eyed him and smiled a smile of pity.

The shouting ceased; the man cast himself upon the ground and called for wine. Nicanor touched upon the shoulder one whose face showed that he understood the words.

"Friend, who is this dainty warbler, and what the burden of his song?"

"Who he is I know not," said the man, with a grunt of laughter. "What he sang was the greatness of his people, and their skill in war. Tell thou them a tale, Nicanor; these Saxons will listen all day to tales, and give good silver to the teller."

Nicanor shook his head.

"Nay; perhaps they understand not Latin over well, and I had rather that they understood than that they gave me silver. Now what are they going to do?"

Two men dragged the prisoner forward into the circle of the firelight.

He was afoot, but the hand free of the sling was bound to his body. That the poor wretch knew what they would do with him was plain; he cringed, and cast hunted glances around the ring of fire-lit, curious faces.

"I am Felix of Anderida, a Roman lord!" he cried in a high voice, his pale eyes wide with fear. "If there be any Roman among ye who will free me from these Saxon wolves, I will give him gold as much as his back may carry!"

A Saxon raised his hand and smote the lord upon the mouth, so that blood began to trickle down his chin.

"Cease thy bleating, thou white-eyed sheep!" he growled in Latin.

"That is not right, to strike a man unarmed and bound," said the man beside Nicanor. "I think our backs could carry a goodly sum of gold, eh, friend? These fellows be half drunken; it should not be difficult to get him free of them, and after, make him pay. I am of the collegium of smiths in Londinium, and I see many of my fellows here who would stand with me. Also, we could summon the militarii unto us and let them settle the matter; it is not lawful that these Saxons make away with a Roman after this fashion."

"I can hold them, if thou canst summon thy fellows quickly," said Nicanor. His tone was quite a.s.sured. "But it must be done at once, before they have worked themselves up to mischief over him."

"Do thou so then, and I will shake a staff aloft when he is safe," said the man, and slipped away among the people.

Before Nicanor could make his way through to confront the Saxons, who were preparing for brutal sport with their prisoner, the horses of the two chieftains broke through the ring and the riders dismounted in the open s.p.a.ce. The lord Felix twisted away from those who held him and ran to the younger chief.

"Call thy fellows from me!" he cried. "Each time when thou art not by they seek to torture me for their sport."

The brown-haired leader folded his arms across his chest and looked down upon his prisoner. He spoke, in Latin sufficiently fluent.

"Hast thou forgotten that I am Ceawlin, son of that Evor whom thou hast slain, and that my foot is upon thy neck and thy blood shall be let out in payment for my sire his blood? How then shouldst thou say what may or may not be done with thee, thou little toad?"

It was then that Nicanor came into the torchlit ring, walking carelessly, a song upon his lips. He stopped where the light fell fullest on him, facing the chieftains, shapely as a young pagan G.o.d in the strength and flower of his manhood, the red rose behind his ear. The speech of Ceawlin broke and stopped; his gaze fastened upon the intruder with the swift recognition of one strong man for another.

"Who is this man?" he said sharply. None answered; his own people did not know, and no one else seemed ready to stand sponsor. Ceawlin spoke again. "Who art thou, fellow? Art thou also of the Welsh?"

For as Briton was the Roman word, so Welsh, or waelisc, a foreigner, was the Saxon word, meaning merely one who was not of Teuton race, and given to those nations which spoke the Latin tongue.

"I am a Briton," said Nicanor. "Men call me the teller of tales, and I am come to buy from thee thy prisoner. What price wilt thou put upon him, O son of Evor?"

"How knowest thou me?" Ceawlin asked doubtfully. His voice became angered. "What price, quotha! No price that thou canst pay, sir teller of tales!"

"So? Didst ever hear of that ancient sea-king who put too high a price upon his spoils?" said Nicanor, with a laugh, choosing simple words that all might understand. Before Ceawlin had time to speak he swung around upon the listening men, standing tall in the ruddy light, his head thrown back to shake the hair from his eyes. "Listen, O friends, for it is a good tale, such as ye know how to love. Five black ships, dragon-prowed, rode out of the night, upon the black seas, upon the foam. Long were they, and lean, and swift as the vertragus, the hound that outspeeds the hart. Winds roared behind them; great birds swooped through the storm across their way; great waves rushed under them as they rode with rocking spars. Spray swept across the faces of those who manned them, as the hair of a woman sweeps across her lover's face; crashing they reeled through lifting seas, and swam to the crests of curling billows rimmed with pale fire, and the thunder of their going outroared the clamoring storm. Know ye the yell of the wind in the straining cordage, the heave and fall of the plunging deck beneath your feet? Know ye the sting of brine upon your lips, and the savor of the salt winds in your lungs, O ye sons of Evor?"

A deep breath went through the circle, as though a breath from the outer seas had filled men's nostrils. Ceawlin licked his lips as though he had thought to find them stiff with salt.

"Ay--we know!" he said deeply, his eyes alight. "Hast thou then been also upon the seas?"

Nicanor laughed low.

"Nay, never I!" he said. "But I see that ye do know."

"Go on!" spoke a voice, impatient, from the circle.

They were his, every man, and he knew it. In his first words he had struck the chord which answered true in them, these lawless sea-rovers; they were his to play upon as a musician on his lyre. The sure instinct of his art taught him to tell of those things which they themselves knew best, which were nearest to them, to their own lives. The ring held silent, awaiting his next word, bearded men who leaned upon their spears and iron swords, and listened. They had eyes for none other than he, this tall youth with the black hair and the eyes of steel, who stood before them in his careless pose of triumph, with his red rose thrust behind his ear; who knew what they knew, felt what they had felt, made them see what he saw, and held them in the hollow of his hand. Caught up in his swift imagery, even they forgot their prisoner, who, it seemed, was further to one side, less in evidence among his guards. By now the Romans had drawn closer to the ring of Saxons, so that there was one dense crowd about the open s.p.a.ce--much narrowed now--where the chieftains and Nicanor stood.

Not for nothing had he listened to the talk of the deep-sea fishermen and the whalers who frequented Thorney, and stored in his memory all that they could give him. In his tale was the clamor of the wild north wind, the scream of wheeling gulls, the groan of straining timbers, the rush of bubbling foam beneath sharp prows. He told of swift battle fought over heaving waters, whose jaws yawned for their dead; and men hung upon his words. He told of the red medley of the fight; of the heavy fall and sullen splash of bodies into the grave which waited; of ships that grappled in their death-throes like wrestling men and sank locked in their grim embrace; of defeat and triumph, of high courage of men who lost, and the higher courage of mercy of men who won; and men's faces grew eager, who themselves had lived through scenes such as these, and themselves had watched the death of gallant ships.

Nicanor glanced over the ring and saw that the prisoner had disappeared, leaving not a ripple in the crowd to mark his trail. The absorbed faces of his hearers, and the sense of what was being done behind their backs, seized him, and he smothered a laugh. His voice flowed on, deep-toned, vibrant, working his magic upon them, talking against time.

Somewhere in the outskirts of the crowd a horse neighed loudly; there was a flurry among those people nearest the sound, and high over men's heads a staff was shaken. Nicanor's speech broke midway; this was the signal, and he no longer cared whether or not he held them. In that instant the spell was snapped; men stirred and whispered. And suddenly a shout of warning and anger went up--

"The prisoner! The prisoner hath gone!"

Forgotten were the tale and its teller; the inner group of Saxons surged into commotion and uproar. There was a rising storm of a.s.sertion and denial. Ceawlin strode to Nicanor, his link armor clashing softly as he moved.

"Now do I believe that thou hast had to do with this!" he cried in ready anger.

Nicanor laughed.

"Perhaps after all it had been better if thou hadst paid the price, lord Saxon!"

Swift words sprang to Ceawlin's lips, but the elder leader ran to them, shouting something in his own tongue. Ceawlin turned to answer, and Nicanor slipped away.

Face to face he came with a woman seldom seen beyond her jealous doors; a fat and shapeless bunch of garments topped by thin hair streaked with ruddy dye, a high white marble brow, an old face deeply lined. The woman was looking at him keenly, with boring vulture eyes. She spoke swiftly, in a voice clear-toned and silvery as a bell.

"I heard thee speak.... Once, long years ago, stood I in this place and heard a boy speak, an elfin, wolf-eyed child, who came out of the night and spoke with an un-childish tongue. Often since have I thought of him and the power within him, for though I was young in years yet was I old in knowledge, and I knew that never had I seen one like him. Into his hand I put a piece of silver, and I think it was the first that ever he had touched. Art thou that child?"

"Ay," said Nicanor. "That child was I. So it was thou who first didst teach me that silver could pay for souls." He thrust a hand into the pouch that hung at his belt and drew forth a broad piece of silver, holding it to her. "But I think it must be clean silver that pays for mine, O Chloris."

The woman flinched oddly. Both had forgotten the rising tide of excitement around them.

"Nay," she said. "I will not have it back. Canst not leave me the thought that there was one gift which I gave honestly--or is it with thee as ever with stony-hearted youth, swift to condemn, slow to understand?"

"Why should I condemn thee?" said Nicanor. "That is not mine to do until in me is nothing to condemn. Nay, rather could I pity thee."

The heavy lids opened slightly over Chloris's eyes.

"And wherefore?" she asked with a hard note in her flute-like voice. "If I pity not myself, why shouldst thou pity? Am I not loved, and have I not loved greatly? Have I not riches beyond thine imaginings?"

Nicanor laughed low and softly, his keen eyes on the old face.