The Ward of King Canute Part 4

"In the Troll's name, who are you?" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "How came you here?"

The pale lips moved, but no sound came from them.

Their fruitless twitching seemed to irritate him. He made a petulant gesture toward the half-filled goblet. "Why do you stand there making mouths? Drink that and get a man's voice into your throat, if you have anything to say to me."

"A man's voice!" The girl stared at him. "A _man_'s voice?" Then, like lungfuls of fresh air, it entered into her that she was not really the naked fledgeling she felt herself. She was in the toils, surely, but there was a sh.e.l.l around her. Glad to hide her face for a moment, she seized the goblet and drained it slowly to the last drop. If only she could remember just how Fridtjof had borne himself! As she swallowed the last mouthful, a recollection came to her of the thrall-women grumbling over Fridtjof's wine-stained tunics; and she carefully drew her sleeve across her mouth as she set down the cup.

Leaning back in his seat, the King took frowning measure of his guest, from the toe of her spurred riding-boot to the top of the green cap which she had forgotten to remove. His mood seemed wavering between annoyance and amus.e.m.e.nt; a word could decide the balance. With her last swallow he repeated his challenge.

"Are you capable now of giving me any reason why I should not have you flogged from the camp? Is it your opinion that because I choose to behave foolishly before my friends, I am desirous to have tale-bearing boys listening?"

"Boys" again! Randalin's sinking spirit rallied at the a.s.surance as her fainting body had revived under the rich warmth of the mead.

She managed to stammer out, "I entreat you not to be angry, Lord King.

It was the fault of the man on guard that I came in as I did. And I did not understand six of the words you spoke,--I beseech you to believe it."

That she had in truth been too frightened for intelligent eavesdropping, the remaining pallor of her face made it easy to believe. The scales tipped ever so little.

"Did you think you had fallen into a bear pit?" the King asked with a faint smile, that sharpened swiftly to bitterness. "After all, it would matter little what anyone told of me. Without doubt your kin have already taught you to call me thrall-bred and witless. Little more can be said."

That from the warrior whose foot was already planted on the neck of England! In her surprise, Randalin's eyes met his squarely. "By no means, King Canute; my father called you the highest-minded man in the world."

The young leader flushed scarlet, flushed till he felt the burning, and averted his face to hide it. He said in a low voice, "Many things have been told of me that I count for naught, but this--this has not been said of me before. Tell me his name."

"He was called Frode, the Dane of Avalcomb." The red mouth trembled a little. "He is dead now. He was slain last night, by Norman Leofwinesson, who is Edric Jarl's thane."

As both horseman and sentinel had started at that name, so now the King straightened into alertness, forgetting everything else.

"Leofwinesson? What know you of him or his Jarl? Where are they? When saw you them?"

"Last night; when they lay drunk in my father's castle at Avalcomb, after--"

"Avalcomb? Near St. Alban's? The swine!" The monarch was a soldier now, shooting his questions like arrows. "After I bade them at Gillingham come straight to me! How many were they? Where is the Jarl?"

"He was not with them. It was Norman of Baddeby who led, and he had no more than five-and-fifty men. It was spoken among them that they would join you at sunset to-day--"

Canute's hand shot out and gripped her arm and shook it. "You know this for certain? I will have your tongue if you lie to me! You are sure that they intend coming,--that it is not their intention to play me false and return to Edmund?" His voice was stern, his gaze mercilessly direct. An hour before, the girl would have shrunk from them both.

One can learn life-lessons in an hour. She faced the roughness now as one faces a rush of bracing north wind. "I know what I heard them say, Lord King. They said that Edric Jarl had marched on to St. Alban's to lie there over-night. Leofwinesson stopped at Avalcomb because he wished to vent his spite upon my father. It was their intention to meet at the city gate at noon and come on to join you. They will be here before the sun is set."

Canute released her arm to reach for his goblet. "I wish I could know it for certain," he muttered. "But it is as the saying has it, 'Though they fight and quarrel among themselves, the eagles will mate again.'" He looked at her with a half-smile as he refilled his cup, motioning toward the other flagon. "Fill up, and we will drink a toast to their loyalty and to your beard; they appear to be equally in need of encouragement."

Draining it off, he sat staring down into the dregs, twirling the stem thoughtfully between his fingers.

By the time she had shifted her weight twice for each foot, the pet.i.tioner ventured to recall him.

"It gives me some hope, to hear what you say about suspecting Edric Jarl," she said timidly; "for that makes it appear more likely that you will be willing to give me justice on his man."

"Justice?" The King's mind came back to her slowly, as from an immense distance. "By Thor, I had forgotten! There have not been so many to me on that errand... Though I take it well that you should trust me...

Yes, certainly; I will be king-like once. Stand here before me, while I question you."

She caught her breath rather sharply as she stepped forward. Would she be able to tell a straight story? She stood with fingers interlacing nervously.

"Tell me first how you are called?"

"I am called Fridtjof Frodesson."

"Frode of Avalcomb! Now I know where I have heard that name; my father spoke it often, and always with great respect. It will go hard with me if I must return an unfavorable answer to his son. Tell me how his death was brought about."

Randalin thrust the sobs back from her throat; the tears back from her eyes. Only a clear head could deliver her out of the snare. She began slowly: "Leofwinesson set upon him last night, at the gate of the castle, and slew him. The Englishman had long been covetous of Avalcomb, so that even his fear of you was not so great as his greed. He had five-and-fifty men, and my father but twelve--besides me; he--we--had just come in from hunting. Then he rode over my father's body into the castle." She stopped uncertainly to glance at her listener.

The brightness of his eyes startled her, though they were not turned in her direction. They were blazing down into the cup that he was turning and pinching between his fingers. He said, half as though to himself: "Vermin! What would I give if I might take them in my teeth and shake them like the filth-fed rats they are! Ten hundred such do not reach the value of one finger of a warrior like Frode! I knew that the fetters of Thorkel's craftiness would pinch me some-where--" He broke off and flung the goblet from him, burying his hands in his yellow hair. "How I hate them!" he breathed between his teeth. "How I hate their smooth-tongued Jarl, and all their treacherous hides! Oh, for the day when I no longer need their aid; when I am free to strike!" The joy of his face was a terrible thing to hold in one's memory.

Perhaps he saw its awfulness reflected in the wide blue eyes, for he checked himself abruptly. When he spoke again, he had himself well in hand.

"I act like a fool to let you hear my ravings. Poor cub! it is likely you will call me a worse name when you find out how I am hindered! Yet go on and tell me the rest. How comes it that you escaped unharmed?"

With Gram's experience to follow, it was not hard to frame that answer.

"They knocked me on the head with a spear-b.u.t.t and left me for dead.

When I got my senses again, I found my way to the nuns of St. Mildred's; and they gave me food, and I rode hither."

"It is the Troll's luck! I--yet, go on. The day will come! Did they further harm within the castle? Have you women-kin?"

Randalin hesitated. Would it not be safer if she could deny altogether the existence of a daughter of Frode? But no, that was not possible, in the face of what Norman might reveal. She began very, very carefully: "It happened that my mother died before we came to Avalcomb; and my father had but one daughter. She was called Randalin. I did not see what became of her, for I was outside; but I think that she is dead. A--her thrall-woman told me that Leofwinesson pursued her to a chamber in the wall. And and because she could not escape from him--she--she threw herself from the window, and the stones below caused her death."

The King's hands clenched convulsively. "It is like them!" he muttered.

"It has happened as I supposed. If the master be like his men, I ask you in what their G.o.d is to be preferred to ours? Have no fear but that I will avenge your kinswoman. Those of her own blood-ties could do no more. And Frode also. You need not wait long for me when the day comes; the last hair of the otter-skin shall be covered, though I take from them the Ring itself. You shall see! Have patience, and you shall see!"

Upon burning ears the word "patience" falls coldly.

"Patience!" the child of Frode repeated.

Perhaps in days gone by the young King himself had rebelled at the tyranny of that word. Perhaps the smart of its scourge was still upon him. He put forth a kindly hand and drew the boy down beside him.

"Listen, young one," he said, "and do not blame me for what I cannot help. Had I come hither only to get property and go away again, as Northmen before me have come, it would not matter to me whom I killed, and I would slay Leofwinesson more gladly than I would eat; may the Giant take me if I lie! But I have come to the Island to set up my seat-pillars and get myself land. I think no one guesses how much I have the ambition at heart; even to me it appears a strange wonder. But it is true that I look upon the fair rolling meadows with such eyes of love that when it is necessary that I should set fire to them, it is as though I had laid the torch to my hair. And because of that, in order that I be not kept destroying them until they are not worth the having, I have made a bargain with Edric Jarl, who is dissatisfied with his king, that we are to support each other in the game. There it is all open to you. Leofwinesson is the man of Edric. Until such time as I get the kingship firmly in my hands, it would be unadvisable for me to reckon with him though he had slain my foster-brother. You see? It is the way the Fates order things. I must submit to them, though I am a king. Can you not, then, bend your head without shame, and wait with me?"

Reasoning was lost on Randalin. The bitterness of failure had swept over her and maddened her. Was she mistaken, then, about everything? Could those trembling old women behind the broken wall read the world like witches? Was everyone false or a beast? Oh, how her father had been wronged! She shook off the King's hand and faced him with blazing eyes, seeking for words that should bite like her thoughts. Then she became conscious that a word would precipitate a flood of hysterical tears, to the eternal disgrace of her warrior kin. All that was left for her was to get away without speaking. Out in the woods there would be no one to see; and the gra.s.s would hide the quivering of her lips. She put up her hand now to hide it and, struggling to her feet, began groping toward the door.

She did not stop when Canute's voice called after her,--not until she had reached the entrance, and the rattle of crossing spears, without, had told her that her way was barred. Then she whirled back with a sharp cry.

"Let me go! I hate you! Let me go!"

He did not bid his guards kill her, as she half expected. Instead, he said patiently, "I foresaw that you would take it ill; there is the greatest excuse for you. In your place I should be equally unruly.

Indeed, there is a likeness about our luck, which causes my heart to go out to you as it has done to no one else. I will grant your boon in time to come; so sure as I live, I will. And until then, since all your stock has been cut off, I will be your guardian and you shall be my ward, as though you were my own brother. Come, sit here, and I will tell you."

She repulsed him sharply. "No, no, you shall do nothing for me! I am going back. I ask you to let me go."

"Let you go, to starve under a hedge?"