The Ward of King Canute Part 20

Meanwhile the son of Lodbrok strode to and fro, declaiming wrathfully.

"There is not an honest bone in the imp's body," he wound up. "It is certainly my belief that he was in league with the Englishman; and his freedom was the reward he got for drawing me off."

"Certainly you are a very shrewd man," Canute murmured. But something in his voice did not stand firm; his foster-brother darted him a keen glance. His suspicions were well founded. Canute's face was crimson with suppressed laughter; he was biting his lips frantically to hold back his mirth. The temper of the son of Lodbrok left him in one inarticulate snarl. Turning on his heel, with a whirlwind of flying cloak and a thunder of clashing weapons, he would have stalked away if the King had not made him the most peremptory of gestures.

"No, wait! Wait, good brother! I will show you whether I offend you intentionally or not! It is--it is--the--the jest--" Again he became unintelligible.

Rothgar stopped, but it was to glower over his folded arms. "Do you think I do not know as well as you that I behaved like a fool? What I dislike is that you cannot see as plainly that your ward is a troll.

Because his womanish face has caught your fancy, you will neither blame him yourself nor allow others to make a fuss--"

"That is where you are wrong," the King interrupted, with as much gravity as he could command. "When Fridtjof Frodesson comes again into your presence, I give you leave to take whatever revenge you like. Lash him with your tongue or your belt, as you will; and I promise that I will not lift finger to hinder you from it."

"And not hold it against me?" Rothgar demanded incredulously.

"And not hold it against you," Canute agreed. Then he tilted his head back to laugh openly in the other's face. "Will you wager a finger-ring against my knife that your mind will not change when my ward stands again before you?"

The Jotun smiled grimly. "Is that the expectation you are stringing your bow with? It will fail you as surely as the hair of Hother's wife failed him. The wager shall be as you have made it; and may I lack strength if I do not deal with him--" He paused, blinking like a startled owl, as his royal foster-brother leaped to his feet and fronted him with shouts of laughter.

"You dolt, you!" Canute cried. "Do you not see it yet? Frode's child is a woman!"

Rothgar's jaw dropped and his bulging eyes seemed in danger of following. "What!" he gasped; and then his voice rose to a roar. "And the Englishman is her lover?"

"You are wiser than I expected," the King laughed. "I intend to call you Thrym after this, for it is unlikely that Loke made a greater fool of the Giant. Your enemies will make derisive songs about it."

Stamping with rage, the Jotun hammered his huge fist upon a tree-trunk until bark flew in every direction. "King, I will give you every ring off my hand if you will give me leave to strangle her!"

"You remind me that I will take one of your rings now," Canute said, reaching out and opening the mallet-like fist that he might make his choice. Then, as he fitted on his prize and held it critically to the light, he added with more sympathy: "I will arrange for you a more profitable revenge than that. I will make a condition with Edmund that the Etheling's odal shall not be included in the land which is peace-holy, and that to ravage it shall not be looked upon as breaking the truce. Then can you betake yourself thither and sit down with your following, and have no one but yourself to blame if you fail a second time. Only,"--he thrust his knuckles suddenly between the other's ribs,--"only, before we get serious over it, do at least give one laugh.

Though she be Ran herself, the maiden has played an excellent joke upon you."

"I do not see how you make out that it is all upon me," Rothgar said sulkily. "It did not appear that you got suspicious in any way, until I told you myself what she talked like. You did not have the appearance of choking much on her stories."

The King seemed all at once to recover his dignity. "I will not deny that," he said gravely; "and have I not said that I expect to be angry about it presently? Certainly I do not think she has treated me with much respect. That she did not tell you, is by no means to be wondered at; it might even count as something in her favor. But me she should have given her confidence. That she should dare to offer her King that lying story about her sister's death--" His face flushed as though he were remembering his emotion on receiving that same story; and his foster-brother's observation did not tend to mollify him.

"And not only to offer it," the son of Lodbrok chuckled, "but to cram it down his throat and make him swallow it."

Canute's heels also began to ring with ominous sharpness upon the frosty ground. "She must be Ran herself! Oh, you need not be afraid that I shall not get overbearing enough after I am started! Had she been no more than her father's daughter, her behavior would have been sufficiently bad; but that she whom I had made my ward should withhold her confidence from me to give it to an Englishman! Become his thrallwoman, by Odin, and betray my people for his sake! Now, as I am a king, I will punish her in a way that she will like less than strangling! I tell you, her luck is great that she is not here to-night."

Chapter XIX. The Gift of The Elves

Fair shall speak And money offer, Who would obtain a woman's love.

Ha'vama'l.

It was the edge of a forest pool, and a slender dark-haired girl bending from the brink to see herself in the water. Looking, she smiled,--and small wonder!

Below her, framed in green rushes, was the reflection of a high-born maiden dressed according to her rank. Clinging silk and jewelled girdle lent new grace to her lithesome form, while the mossy green of her velvet mantle brought out the rich coloring of her face as leaves bring out the glowing splendor of a rose. Gold was in the embroidery that stiffened her trailing skirts; gold was sewn into her gloves, and golden chains twined in her l.u.s.trous hair added to the spirited poise of her head a touch of stateliness. No wonder that her mouth curved into a smile as she gazed.

"It cannot be denied that I look woman-like now," she murmured. "It is a great boon for me that he likes my hair."

Then the water lost both the reflection and the face above it as a sweet voice sounded up the bank, calling, "Randalin! Randalin!"

Picking up the branchful of scarlet berries which she had dropped, Frode's daughter moved toward the voice. "Are they about to go, Dearwyn?" she asked the little gentlewoman who came toward her around a hawthorn bush, lifting her silken skirts daintily.

Dearwyn shook her head. "My lady wishes to try on you the wreath she has made. She thinks your dark locks will set it off better than our light ones."

"I was on my way thither," Randalin said, quickening her steps.

With timid friendliness in her pretty face, Dearwyn waited, and the Danish girl gave her a shy smile when at last they stood side by side; but their acquaintanceship did not appear to have reached the point of conversation, for they walked back in silence to the spot where the Lady Elfgiva's train had halted on its journey for a noonday meal and rest.

Along the bank of a pebbly stream, between pickets of mounted guards, the troop of holiday-folk was strung in scattered groups. Yonder, a body of the King's huntsmen struggled with braces of leashed hounds. Here were gathered together the falconers bearing the King's birds. Nearer, a band of grooms led the King's blooded horses to the water. And nearer yet, where the sun lay warm on a leafy glade, the King's beautiful "Danish wife" took her nooning amid her following of maids and of pages, of ribboned wenches and baggage-laden slaves.

As her glance fell upon this last picture, Randalin drew a quick breath of admiration. While they waited for the bondwomen to restore to the hampers the crystal goblets and gold-fringed napkins that even in the wood wastes must minister to such delicate lips, one merry little lady was launching fleets of beech-nut rinds down the stream; another, armed with a rush-spear, was making bold attack on the slumbers of some woodland creature which she had spied out basking on the sunny side of a stump; and in the centre of the open, the Lady Elfgiva was amusing herself with the treasures of red and gold leaves which silk-clad pages were bringing from the thicket.

Gazing at her, Randalin's admiration mounted to wistfulness. "Were I like that, I should be sure of his feeling toward me," she sighed.

Certainly, as she looked to-day sitting under the towering trees, it was easy to understand why the King's wife had been named "the gift of the elves." Every lovely thing in Nature had been robbed to make her, and only fairy fingers could have woven the sun's gold into such tresses, or made such eyes from a sc.r.a.p of June sky and a spark of opal fire. From the crown of her jewelled hair to the toe of her little red shoe, there was not one line misplaced, one curve forgotten, while her motions were as graceful as blowing willows.

When the pair came toward her over the carpet of leather-hued leaves, she put out a white hand in beckoning. "Come here, my Valkyria, and let me try if I can make you look still more like a gay bird from over the East Sea."

"You have made me look a very splendid bird, lady," Randalin said gratefully, as she knelt to receive the woodland crown.

Elfgiva patted the brown cheeks in acknowledgment, and also in delight at the effect of her handiwork. "You are an honor to my art. Do you know that the night before you came to me I dreamed I held a burning candle in my hand, and that is known by everybody to be a sign of good. A hundred plans are in my mind against the time that this peace shall be over, and we are obliged to return to that loathful house where we suffer so much with dulness that the quarrels of my little brats are the only excitement we have."

Still kneeling for the white fingers to pat and pull at her head-dress, Randalin looked up wonderingly. "Is it your belief that King Canute will not carry out his intention, lady, that you say 'when the peace is over'? I know for certain that it is expected to last forever."

"Forever?" The lady's voice was an echo of sweet mockery. "Take half a kingdom when a whole lies almost within his reach? Now I will not deny that the King is sometimes boyish of mood, but rarely that foolish." She seemed to toss the idea from her with the leaves she shook from her robe as she rose and moved back a step to see the wreath from a new point.

"Turn your head this way, child. Yes, there is still one thing wanting on this side; berries if I have them, or gra.s.ses if I have not,--here are more berries! Oh, yes, I declare that I expect to be very merry through your spirits! You shall have the rule over my pages and devise games and junketings without end."

Humming gayly, she began to weave in the bright berries; and it struck Randalin that here was a good opportunity to make the plea she had in her mind. She said gravely, "I shall be thankful if you are able to manage it, lady, so that I may go back with you."

Pausing in her work, Elfgiva looked down in surprise. "Now what should prevent?" she asked.

The girl colored a little as she answered: "It was in the King's mind once, lady, that a good way to dispose of Randalin, Frode's daughter, would be to marry her to the son of Lodbrok. If he should still keep that opinion--I would prefer to die!" she ended abruptly.

But the King's wife laughed her rippling laughter that had in it all the music of falling waters. "Shed no tears over that, ladybird! Would I be apt to let such an odious bear as Rothgar Lodbroksson rob me of my newest plaything? Whence to my dulness a pastime but for your help?

Though he were the King's blood-brother, he should tell for naught.

You do not guess half the entertainment your wild ways will be to me. I expect it will be more pleasant for me to have you than that Norman ape which Canute sent me at the beginning of the summer,--which is dead now, unfortunately, because Harald would insist upon shooting his arrows into it. There! Now my work could not be improved upon." Again she moved back, her beautiful head tilted in birdlike examination. Randalin arose slowly and stood before her with widening eyes.

But it was not long that the Lady of Northampton had for her or for the wreath. Now her attention was attracted to the farthest group of guards and huntsmen, whose motions and shouting seemed to indicate some unusual commotion. Bending, she peered curiously under the branches. "I wonder if it has happened that the King has sent someone to meet us?" she exclaimed. "I see a gleam of scarlet, lady," the maiden of the riverbank came to tell her eagerly.

But even as Elfgiva was turning to despatch a page for news, the throng of moving figures parted, and from it two hors.e.m.e.n emerged and rode toward them. One was the mighty son of Lodbrok, clad in the scarlet mantle and gilded mail of the King's guard. The other, who wore no armor at all, only feasting-clothes of purple velvet, was the King himself.

The whole troop of b.u.t.terfly pages rushed forward to take possession of the horses; the little gentlewomen made a fluttering group behind their mistress; and Elfgiva, laughing in sweetest mockery, swept back her rosy robes in a lowly reverence.

"Hail, lord of half a kingdom but of the whole of my heart!" she greeted him.

Canute seemed to drink in her fairness like wine; his face was boyish in its radiance as he leaped from his horse before her. "What! The first word a gibe?" he cried, then caught her in his arms and stilled her silvery laughter with his lips.