The Ward of King Canute Part 3

Why do you draw back? I tell you to make haste!"

Before she could so much as catch her breath, he had raised the tent-flap, pushed her bodily through the entrance, and dropped the linen door behind her.

Chapter IV. When Royal Blood Is Young Blood

The mind only knows What lies near the heart; That alone is conscious of our affections.

No disease is worse To a sensible man Than not to be content with himself.

Ha'vama'l.

Three richly dressed warriors, clinking golden goblets across a table,--so much Randalin caught in her first glance. On the spot where the sentinel had released her she stopped, stock-still, and with eyes bent on the ground tremblingly awaited the royal attention.

Clink-clank,--the golden goblet lips continued their noisy kissing. The hum of the low-toned voices droned on without interruption. Minute after minute dragged by. She ventured to shift her weight and steal an upward glance.

Her first thought was that a king's tent was very like a trader's booth.

Spears and banners and gold-bossed shields decorated the walls, while the reed-strewn ground was littered with furs and armor, with jewelled altar-cloths and embroidered palls and wonder-ful gold-laced garments.

The rude temporary benches were spread with splendid covers of purple and green, upon which silver lilies and gold-eyed peac.o.c.ks had been wrought with exquisite skill. And the rough-hewn table bore such treasures as plunderers dream of when their sleeping-bags are lying the most comfortably,--ivory relique caskets, out of which the sacred bones had been unceremoniously turned, gemmed chalices from earls'

feasting-halls, and amber chains and silver mirrors and strings of pearls from their ladies' bowers. Randalin's gaze lingered, dazzled, then slowly rose to examine the master of all this wealth.

He was not so easy to pick out. Of the three men around the table, only one was a graybeard; and of the two striplings left, either might have been the son of Sven of Denmark. Both were finely formed; both were dressed with royal splendor, and the hair of each fell from under a jewelled circlet in uncut lengths of shining fairness. The hair of the shorter one, though, was finer; and no red tainted the purity of its gold. When one came to look at it, it was like a royal cloak. Perhaps he might be the King! She wished he would raise his face from his hands, that she might see it. Then she noticed that his shoulders lacked the breadth of his companion's by as much as a palm's width; and her mind wavered. Surely so great a king as Canute must be broader-shouldered than any of his subjects! This youth was hardly brawny at all; as Vikings went, he was even slender. She turned her attention to the other man. He was big enough, certainly; the fist that he was waving in the air was like nothing so much as a sledge-hammer, and there was a likeness to the Jotuns in his florid coa.r.s.e-featured face.

As she watched it, Randalin felt a coldness creep over her. His great jaws were like the jowl of a mastiff. His thick-lipped mouth--what was it that made that so terrible, even in smiling? Watching it with the fascination of terror, it occurred to her to endow him with the appet.i.te of the drunken warrior at the table outside the tent. Suppose, just as they stood now, he should take the fancy to turn and kiss her lips; would anything stop him? In the drawing of a breath, her overwrought nerves had painted the picture so clearly that she was sick with horror.

Sister Wynfreda's red-hot iron would not keep him back, instinct told her. That sacrifice of beauty had not been simple-minded; it had been the one alternative. The girl's light-hearted boldness went from her in a gasp. Her shaking limbs gave way beneath her, so that she sank on the nearest bench and cowered there, panting.

Though the men were too intent to notice her, in some sub-conscious way her moving seemed to rouse them. Their discussion had been growing gradually louder; now the bearded man and the young Jotun rose suddenly and faced their companion, whose voice became audible in an obstinate mutter,--

"Nevertheless, I doubt that it was wise to join hands with an English traitor."

The older man said in a tone of slowly gathering anger, "I told you to make the bargain, and I stand at the back of my counsels. Have you become like the wind, which tries every quarter of the sky because it knows not its own mind?"

While the young man warned in his heavy voice, "You will have your will in this as in everything, King Canute; but I tell you that if you keep the bargain, you will act against my advice."

Randalin had been mistaken in her deductions. It was not the brawny body that was King of the Danes; the leader's spirit lodged in the slender frame of the youth with the cloak of yellow hair.

He raised from his hands now a face of boyish sullenness, and sat glaring over his clenched fists at his counsellors.

"Certainly it would become a great misfortune to me if I should act against the advice of Rothgar Lodbroksson," he made stinging answer. "He is as wise and long-sighted as though he had eaten a dragon's heart. It was he who gave me the advice, when the English broke faith, to vent my rage upon the hostages. Men have not yet ceased to lift their noses at me for the unkingliness of the deed." His eyes blazed at the memory.

They were not pleasant eyes when he was angry; the blue seemed to fade from them until they were two shining colorless pools in his brown face.

The son of Lodbrok shrugged his huge shoulders in stolid resignation; but the wrinkled forehead of the older man became somewhat smoother.

There was nothing Jotun-like about his long, lean features, yet his expression was little pleasanter on that account. From under his lowering s.h.a.ggy brows he appeared to see without being seen; and one distrusted his hidden eyes as a traveller in the open distrusts a skulker in the thicket.

He said in his measured voice, "In that matter my opinion stands with Canute. When bloodshed is unnecessary, it becomes a drawback. Craft is greatly to be preferred. One does not cross deep snow by stamping through it on iron-shod feet; one slides over it on skees."

Over the brown fists, the fierce bright eyes bent themselves upon him in his turn. The biting young voice said, "It is likely that Thorkel the Tall speaks from experience. It stands in my memory how well craft served him when he had deserted my father for Ethelred and then became tired of the Englishman. To procure himself peace, he was forced to creep back to my feet like a dog that has been kicked. Was there gold enough in his bribe to regild his fame?"

The gnarled old face of Thorkel the Tall grew livid; growling in his grizzled beard, his hand moved instinctively toward his sword. But Rothgar caught his arm with a boisterous laugh.

"Slowly, old wolf!" he admonished. "Never snarl at the snapping of the cub you have raised."

The King had not moved at the threatening gesture, and he did not move now, but he echoed the laugh bitterly. "In that, you say more truth than you know, foster-brother. He is a wolf, and I am a wolf's cub, and you are no better. We are all a pack of ravening beasts, we Northmen, that have no higher ambition than to claw and use our teeth. Talk of high-mindedness to such--bah!" He flung his arms apart in loathing; then, in a motion as boyishly weary as it was boyishly petulant, crossed them on the table before him and pillowed his head upon them.

His companions did not seem to be unused to such outbursts. Rothgar appeared to find it more amusing than anything else, for his mouth expanded slowly in a grin. A snort of impatience distended the nostrils of Thorkel the Tall. "At such times as these," he said, "are brought to my mind the words of Ulf Jarl, that a man does not really stand well upon his legs until he has lived twenty-five winters."

Up came the young King's yellow head. There was no question now about his temper. A spot of fiery red marked each cheek-bone, and his colorless eyes were points of blazing light.

"Better is it to stand unsteadily upon two legs than to go naturally upon four," he retorted. "If I also am a beast, at least there is a man's mind in me that tells me to loathe myself for being so. Even as I loathe you--both of you--and all your howling pack! Make me no answer or, by the head of Odin, you shall feel my fangs! You say that my will is like the wind's will. Can you not see why, dull brutes that you are?

Because it is not my will, but yours,--now Rothgar's beast-fierceness, now your low-minded craft. Because I am not content with myself, I listen to you. And you--you--Oh, leave me, leave me, before I lose my human nature and go mad like a dog! Leave--You laugh!" As he caught sight of Rothgar, he interrupted himself with a roar. His hand shot to his belt and plucking forth the jewelled knife that hung there, hurled it, a glittering streak, at the grinning face. If it had reached home, one of Rothgar's eyes would have gone out in darkness.

But the son of Lodbrok had known his royal foster-brother too long to be taken by surprise. Throwing up a wooden platter like a shield, he caught the quivering blade in its bottom, whence he drew it forth with good-humored composure.

"If you wish to give a friend a present, King, you should not throw it at him so angrily," he suggested. "Had you given me the sheath too, your gift would have been doubly dear."

The fiery spots in Canute's cheeks deepened and spread. He turned away without answering, and stood a long time beating his fingers on the table in a sharp tattoo.

What does it mean, the pause that follows the storm, when Nature's acc.u.mulated discontent has vented itself in a pa.s.sionate outbreak? The trees stand motionless, with hanging heads; the blue of the clearing sky is divinely tender; under the spangling drops, the flowers look up like tear-filled eyes. Does it mean repentance, or only exhaustion?

Gradually the color flowed back to the young King's eyes and softened them; gradually his mouth relaxed from its fierce lines and drooped in bitter curves. When at last his fingers stopped their nervous beat, it was to unfasten the sheath of chased gold which was attached to his waist, and stretch it out to Rothgar.

"Have it your own way," he said gravely. "It is right that I pay some fine; I have a troll's temper. Take the sheath. But do not make the mistake again of laughing at me because you cannot understand me. But one person may do that and live; and that person is a woman, and my wife... There is a strange feeling in my heart that we have begun to travel different paths, you and I,--and that it is because we no longer walk on the same level of ground, that we no longer see any object in the same light... And my mind tells me that in time to come your path will lead you down into the valley and my road will take me up the mountain-side,...until even our voices shall no longer reach across."

He came out of his dreaming abruptly. "It is not worth while to speak further. I do not blame my foster-father that he is lifting the corner of his mouth at me. And you--you think I am talking in my sleep. Leave me, as I ordered you. There is no unfriendliness in my mind at this, but I can command myself no further. Go."

Rothgar said, with some approach to formal courtesy, "I ask you to pardon it that I have done what you dislike, for I wish that the least of all the world. And I give you thanks for your gift." Their hands clasped strongly as the trinket pa.s.sed from grasp to grasp.

Then the sage and the soldier turned and strode past the cowering figure of Randalin and out of the linen doorway.

Chapter V. Before The King

Know if thou hast a friend Whom thou little trustest Yet wouldst good from him derive Thou shouldst speak him fair, But think craftily, And leasing pay with lying.

Ha'vama'l.

When the curtain had fallen behind his advisers, the young King threw himself back upon his rude high-seat and rested motionless among its cushions, his head hanging heavily upon his breast.

Crouching on her bench near the door, Randalin watched him as a fly caught in a web watches the approaching spider. She had forgotten her errand; she had forgotten her disguise; she had forgotten where she was; her one conscious emotion was fear. Her eyes followed his roving glance from spear to banner, from floor to ceiling, in terrible antic.i.p.ation.

It approached her; it turned aside; it pa.s.sed above her, hesitated, sank, touched her! Ashen-white, she staggered to her feet and faced him.

A lithe boyish figure with wide boyish eyes and a tanned boyish face,--Canute gazed incredulously; rubbed his eyes and looked again.