The Ward of King Canute Part 7

"Whose head was that?" he demanded.

Thorkel's face was a lineless mask. "I believe his name was Osmaer," he answered without emotion.

"It was unheard-of good fortune that he should be so like Edmund in looks."

The young King's face was suffused with bitterness. "Good fortune!" he cried sharply. "Good fortune! Am I a fool or a coward that I am never to win except by craft or good fortune? Had you let me alone--" His voice broke, so bitter was his disappointment.

His foster-father regarded him from under lowered lids.

"Would you have won without them to-day?" he inquired.

"Yes!" Canute cried savagely, "had you given me time. Yes!"

But what else he answered, Randalin never knew. Some unseen obstacle turned in their direction the stream of rushing hors.e.m.e.n. In an instant the torrent had caught them in its whirling eddies, and they were so many separate atoms borne along on the flood. To hold back was to be thrown down; to fall was to be trampled into rags. The battle had changed into a hunt.

Thundering hoof-beats, crashing blows, shrieks and groans and falling bodies,--a sense of being caught in a wolf pack took possession of the girl; and the feeling grew with every sidelong glance she had of the savage sweating dust-grimed faces, in their jungles of blood-clotted hair. The battle-madness was upon them, and they were no longer men, but beasts of prey. Amid the chaos of her mind, a new idea shaped itself like a new world. If she could but work her way to the edge of the herd, she might escape down one of those green aisles opening before them. If she only could! Every fibre in her became intent upon it.

A little opening showed on her right. Though she could not see the ground before her, she took the risk and swung her horse into the breach. His forefeet came down upon the body of a fallen man, but it was too late to draw back. Gripping her lip in her teeth, she spurred him on. The man turned over with a yell, and used his one unbroken arm to thrust upward his broken sword. The blade cut her leg to the bone, and she shrieked with the pain; but her startled horse had no thought of stopping. Making his way with plunges and leaps, he carried her out of the press sooner than she could have guided him out. Once on the edge, he broke into a run. The agony of the shaken wound was unbearable.

Shrieking and moaning, she twisted her hands in the lines and tried to stop him. But her strength was ebbing from her with her blood. By and by she dropped the rein altogether and clung to the saddle-bow.

They reached the woods at last, cool and sweet and hushed in holy peace.

The frantic horse plunged into one of the arching lanes, and the din of the hunt died behind her; silence fell like a curtain at their heels; even the thudding hoof-beats were softened on the leafy ground. Randalin lay along the horse's neck now, and her senses had begun to slip away from her like the tide from the sh.o.r.e. It occurred to her that she was dying, and that the Valkyrias could not find her if she should be carried too far away from the battle-field. Trying to hold them back, she stretched a feeble hand toward the trees; and it seemed to her that they did not glide past quite so rapidly. And the green river that had been rushing toward her, that pa.s.sed under her more slowly too.

Sometimes she could even make out violets amid the waves. But the waves were rising strangely, she thought,--rising, rising--

At last, she felt their cool touch upon her fore-head. They had risen and stopped her. Somewhere, there was the soft thud of a falling body; then the cool greenness closed around her and held her tenderly, a crumpled leaf that the whirlwind had dropped from its sport.

Chapter VIII. Taken Captive

No one turns from good, if it can be got.

Ha'vama'l.

Lying drowned in cool silence, the girl came slowly to a consciousness that someone was stooping over her. Raising her heavy lids, eyes rested on a man's face, showing dimly in the dusk of the starlight.

He said in English, "Canute's page, by the Saints!"

A chorus of voices answered him: "The fiend's brat that pierced your shoulder?"--"Choke him!"--"Better he die now than after he has waxed large on English blood."--"Finish him!"

Opening her eyes wider, she found that heads and shoulders made a black hedge around her.

The victim of her blade straightened, shaking his s.h.a.ggy mane. "Were I a Pagan Dane, I would run my sword through him. But I am a Christian Englishman. Let him lie. He will bleed his life out before morning."

"Come on, then," the chorus growled. "The Etheling is asking what hinders us."--"Make haste!"--"The Etheling is here!"

While the warrior was turning, a new voice spoke.

"Canute's page?" it repeated after some unseen informant. "Is he dead?"

It was a young voice, and deep and soft, for all the note of quiet authority ringing through it; something in its tone was agreeably different from the harsh utterance of the first speaker. Randalin's eyes rose dreamily to find the owner. He had ridden up behind the others on a prancing white horse. Above the black hedge, the square strength of his shoulders and the graceful lines of his helmed head were silhouetted sharply against the starry sky. Why had they so familiar a look? Ah! the n.o.ble who had followed Edmund--

So far she got, and then all was blotted out in a flash of pain, as the man nearest her put out a hand and touched her torn limb.

"Wriggling like a fish, lord," he answered the new-comer.

A sound on the soft turf told that the horseman had alighted. "The bantling is of too good quality to leave," he said good-naturedly.

"Catch my bridle, Oswin. Where is he wounded?"

He made a quick step toward her, then paused as suddenly, his chin thrust out in listening. A gesture of his hand imposed a sudden silence, through which the sound became distinct to all ears,--a trampling and crashing in the brush beyond the moonlit open. As they wheeled to face it, a shout came from that direction.

"What ho! Does the Lord of Ivarsdale go there?"

He whom they had called the Etheling drew himself up alertly. "I make no answer to hedge-creepers," he said. "Come out where you can be seen."

The voice took on a mocking edge. "There is no gainsaying that I feel safer here. I am the messenger of Edric of Mercia."

Only a warning sign from the Lord of Ivarsdale restrained an angry chorus. He said with slow contempt, "I grant that it is well fitting the Gainer's deeds that his men should flinch from the light--"

"Misgreet me not," the mocking voice interrupted. "Before c.o.c.kcrow we shall be sworn brothers. I bear a message to King Edmund. And I want you to further me on my way by telling which direction will fetch me to his camp."

Derisive laughter went up from the band of King's men. Their leader snapped his fingers. "That for your slippery devices! Is the Gainer so ill-advised as to imagine that he is dealing with a second Ethelred?"

"I tell you to keep in mind," the voice retorted, "that before the c.o.c.k crows we shall be sworn brothers."

The Etheling's anger leaped out like a flame; even in the starlight it could be seen how his face crimsoned.

"No, as G.o.d lives!" he answered swiftly. "It is not to Edmund alone that the Gainer is loathful. Should he pa.s.s the King's sword, a hundred blades wait for him, mine among them. Seek what he may seek, he shall not have peace of us. When I guide a wolf to my sheep-fold, I will show you the way to Edmund's camp. Take yourself out of reach if you would not be sped with arrows."

A jeering laugh was the only answer, but the tramping of hoofs suggested that his advice was being taken.

When the sound had faded quite away, the Lord of Ivarsdale breathed out the rest of his resentment in a hearty imprecation, and, turning, came on to his patient. His voice was as gentle as a woman's as he dropped on his knee beside the slim figure.

"What is your need, little fire-eater?"

A memory of her haunting terror stirred in the girl. Shrinking from him, she made a desperate effort to push away his outstretched hand, threatening him in a broken whisper.

"If you touch me--I will--kill you."

They were brave men, those Englishmen. The Etheling only smiled, and one of his warriors chuckled. With a touch as gentle as it was strong, he put aside her resisting hands and began swiftly to cut away the blood-stiffened hose. Darkness closed around Randalin again, darkness shot with zigzag lightnings of pain, and throbbing with pitiful moans.

The idea took possession of her that she was once more on the battle-field, that it was the cries of the men who were falling around her which pierced the air, and their weapons that stabbed her as they fell. Then their hands clutched her in a dying grip. Horse-men loomed up before her and came nearer, and she could not get out of their path, though she struggled with all her force. The hoofs were almost upon her... Uttering a wild scream, she put forth all her strength in a last effort.

"It will be like holding a young tiger, lord," a harsh voice suddenly reached her ear. She came to herself to find that soldiers were lifting her up to the horseman, where he sat again in his saddle. She recognized the squareness of his shoulders; and she knew the gentleness of his touch as he slipped his free arm around her and drew her carefully into place, making of his stalwart body a support for her weakness. No strength was in her to struggle against him; only her wide bright eyes sought his, with the terror of a snared bird.

Meeting the look and understanding a small part of its question, he said a rea.s.suring word in his pleasant low-pitched voice: "Be of good cheer, youngling; there is no thought of eating you. I will bring you to a cup of wine before moonrise, if you hold fast."