The Thrall of Leif the Lucky Part 38

Silence fell like a shroud upon the scattered groups. With a queer little smile upon her drawn lips, Helga softly unsheathed her dagger and ran her fingers along its edge. Alwln, earl's son, drew a long breath, and the muscles of his white face twitched a little; then he pulled himself together resolutely. With one hand he plucked the knife from his belt and cast it into the chief's lap; with the other, he tore his tunic open from neck to belt.

"I have asked no mercy," he said, proudly.

Leif made no motion to pick up the weapon. Instead, a glint of something like dry humor touched his keen eyes.

"No," he said, quietly. "You have asked nothing of what you should have asked. You have even failed to ask whether or not you have deceived me."

With her dagger half drawn, Helga paused to stare at him.

"You--knew--?" she gasped.

Leif smiled a dry fine smile. "I have known since the day on which Tyrker was lost," he said. "And I had suspected the truth since the night of the day upon which we sailed from Greenland."

He made a gesture toward the shield-maiden that was half mocking and half stern. "You showed little honor to my judgment, kinswoman, when you took it for granted I should not know that love alone could cause a woman to behave as you have done. Or did you think I had not heard to whom your heart had been given? That my ears only had been dead to the love tale which every servant-maid in Brattahlid rolled like honey on her tongue? Or did you imagine that I knew you so little as to think you capable of loving one man in the winter and another in the spring? Even had the Norman borne no resemblance to the Englishman, still would I--"

"But..." Helga stammered, "but--I thought that you thought--Rolf said that Sigurd--"

For perhaps the first time in his life, Rolf's cheeks burned with mortification as a derisive snap of the chief's fingers fell upon his ear.

"Sigurd! Your playmate! With whom you have quarrelled and made up since there were teeth in your head! By Peter, if it were not that the joke appears to lie wholly on my side, I could find it in my heart to punish the four of you without mercy, for no other crime than your opinion of my intelligence!"

Alwin took a hesitating step forward. He had been standing where his first defiance had left him, a light of comprehension dawning in his face; and also a spark of resentment kindling in his eyes.

Now he said slowly, "It is not your anger which appears strange to us, chief. It is the slowness of your justice. That knowing all this time of our deceit, you have yet remained quiet. That you have allowed us to live in dreams, and led us on to behave ourselves like fools! We have been no better than mice under the cat's paw." He glanced at Helga's thin cheeks and the pain-lines around her mouth, and the full force of his indignation rang out in his voice. "To us it meant life or death, heaven or h.e.l.l,--was it worthy of a man like you to find amus.e.m.e.nt in our suffering?"

Though it was as faint as the rustling of leaves, unmistakable applause swept around. Rolf dared to clap his hands softly.

The chief replied by a direct question, as he leaned back against the maple and eyed his young rebel piercingly. "Befooling and bejuggling were the drinks you prepared for me; was it not just that you should learn from experience how sour a taste they leave in the mouth?"

Though moment after moment dragged by, Alwin did not answer that. His eyes fell to the ground, and he stood with bent head and clenched hands.

The chief went on. "You who could so easily fathom the workings of my mind, should have no need to ask my motives. It may be that I found entertainment in playing you like a fish on a line. Or it may be that I was not altogether sure of my ground, and waited to be certain before I stepped. Or perhaps I was curious to see what you would do next, and felt able to gratify my curiosity since I knew that, through all your antics, I held you securely in the hollow of my hand. Or perhaps--" Leif hesitated for an instant, and there crept into his voice a note so unusual that all stared at him,--"or perhaps, in becoming sure of my ground, I became uncertain of the honor of the man whom I wished to place highest in my friendship, and so deemed it wisest to remain under cover until he should reveal all the hidden parts of his nature. It may have been for any or all of these reasons. You, who have come nearer to me than any man alive, should have no difficulty in selecting the true one."

Was it possible that reproach rang in those last words? It sounded so strangely like it, that Tyrker involuntarily curved his hand around his ear to amend some flaw in his hearing.

Alwin's face underwent a great change. Suddenly he flung his arms apart in a gesture of utter surrender.

"I will strive against you no longer!" he cried, pa.s.sionately. "You are as much superior to me as the King to his link-boy. Do as you like with me. I submit to you in everything." He fell upon his knee and hid his face in his hands.

Then the tone of Leif's voice became so frankly friendly that Helga's beautiful head was raised as a drooping flower's by the soft spring rain.

"Already you have heard your sentence. The fair words I spoke to Robert the Norman I spoke also to Alwin of England. When I promised wealth and friendship and honor to Robert Sans-Peur, I promised them also to you.

Take the freedom and dignity which befit a man of your accomplishments and--with one exception--ask of me anything else you choose."

With one exception! Helga sprang forward and caught Leif's hand imploringly in hers. And Alwin, still upon his knee, reached out and grasped the chief's mantle.

"Lord," he cried, "you have been better to me, a hundredfold better, than I deserve! Yet, would you be kinder still... Lord, grant me this one boon, and take back all else that you have promised."

The chief's brawny hand touched Helga's face caressingly.

"Do you still believe that I would rub salt on your wounds, if it were in my power to relieve you?" he reproached them. "But one man in the world has the right to say where Helga shall be given in marriage; he is her father, Gilli of Trondhjem. Already I have done him a wrong in permitting, by my carelessness, that one of thrall-estate should steal his daughter's love. In honor, I can do no less than guard the maiden safely until the time when he can dispose of her as pleases him. I do not say that I will not use with him what influence I possess; yet I advise you against expecting anything favorable from the result. I think you both know his mercy."

CHAPTER x.x.x

FROM OVER The SEA

At night is joyful He who is sure of travelling entertainment; A ship's yards are short; Variable is an autumn night; Many are the weather's changes In five days, But more in a month.

Ha'vama'l

It developed, however, that the lovers' chances for happiness did not hang upon so frail a thread as the mercy of Gilli of Trondhjem. While the exploring vessel was still at sea, with the icy headlands of Greenland only just beginning to stand out clearly before her bow, unexpected tidings reached those on board.

Watching the chief, who stood by the steering oar, erect as the mast, his eyes piercing the distance ahead, Sigurd put an idle question.

"Can you tell anything yet concerning the drift-ice, foster-father? And why do you steer the ship so close to the wind?"

Without turning his head, Leif answered shortly, "I am attending to my steering, foster-son."

But as the jarl's son was turning away, with a shrug of his shoulders for the rebuff, the chief added in the quick, curt tone that with him betrayed unwonted interest, "And I am looking at something else. Where are your eyes that you cannot see anything remarkable? Is that a rock or a ship which I see straight ahead?"

Sigurd's aimless curiosity promptly found an object; yet after all the craning of his neck and squinting under his hand, he was obliged to confess that he saw nothing more remarkable than a rock.

Leif gave a short harsh laugh.

"See what it is to have young eyes," he said. "Not only can I see that it is a rock, but I can make out that there are men moving around upon it."

"Men!" cried Sigurd.

Excitement spread like fire from stern to bow, until even Helga of the Broken Heart arose from her cushions on the fore-deck and stood listlessly watching the approach.

Eyvind the Icelander muttered that any creatures in human shape that dwelt on those rocks, must be either another race of dwarfs, or such fiends as inhabit the ice wastes with which Greenland is cursed; but an old Greenland sailor silenced him contemptuously.

"Landlubber! Has it never been given you to hear of shipwrecks? When Eric the Red came to Greenland with thirty-five ships following his lead, no less than four of them went to pieces on that rock. It is the influence of Leif's luck which has caused a shipwreck so that the chief can get still more honor in rescuing the distressed ones."

The Icelander grunted. "Then is Leif's luck very much like the sword that becomes one man's bane in becoming another man's pride," he retorted.

While he threw all his strength against the great oar, the chief signalled to Valbrand with his head.

"Drop anchor and get the boat ready to lower," he commanded. "I want to keep close to the wind so that we may get to them. We must give them help if they need it. If they are not peaceful, they are in our power, but we are not in theirs."

As the boat bounded away on its errand of mercy, every man and boy remaining crowded forward to watch its course. In some way it happened that Alwin of England was pushed even so far forward as the very bow of the boat, and the side of the shield-maiden.

The sun rose in her glooming face when she turned and saw him beside her.

"I have hoped all day that you would come," she whispered; "so I could tell you an expedient I have bethought myself of. Dear one, from the way you have sat all the day with your chin on your hand and your eyes on the sea, I have known that you needed comfort even more than I; and my heart has ached over you till once the tears came into my eyes."