Vandrad the Viking Part 15

Arne had just finished his tale. There was a moment's angry silence, and then the king glanced round the host of weather- beaten Vikings and high-born chiefs and cried,--

"Who will punish these cowardly rebels of mine?"

A dozen voices instantly claimed the service. Loudest of them all was that of Ketill, now married to a wealthy widow and a person of considerable importance, and the black-bearded Viking stepped forward as he spoke.

"Give me this service, king," he said. "I have lived at mine ease too long of late. Laziness begets fat."

There was a laugh at Ketill's words, for his person had never been noted for its spareness.

The Viking frowned and exclaimed,--

"Let those laugh who have tested my steel."

"Well I know your bravery, Ketill," began the king, "and there is no man--"

At that instant the ring of men round him suddenly opened and Estein stood before his father. His face was more animated than any had seen it for many a long day, and in a firm voice he said,- -

"I will lead this expedition."

Steel rang on steel as every armed warrior there clashed his approval. By all the G.o.ds whose names he could remember Earl Sigvald swore that the true Estein was come back, and King Hakon exclaimed joyfully,--

"There speaks my son at last. Prepare yourself then, Estein. Ill tidings have been changed to good."

"And you, Ketill," said Estein, turning to his former companion, "will you come with me?"

"That will I," answered Ketill. "I want no braver leader. But the G.o.ds curse me if we roast not a few score men this time, Estein."

For two days there was a turmoil of preparation round Hakonstad, and on the third Estein's two warships sailed down the fiord. He had with him Helgi, Ketill, and a picked force; and as he stood on deck and watched the towering precipices slip by, and the white clouds drift over their rough rim of pines, his heart beat high.

The message of the Runes was ringing in his mind, and the spirit of roving and adventure boiling up again.

They sailed far up the coast, and then, leaving their ship in a northern fiord, struck inland across the mountains. The country they were going to lay among the lakes of North Sweden. Its people were more barbarous than the Norwegians, and had long been in a state of half-subjection to the Norse kings. There was not likely to be hard fighting; for small as Estein's force was, the natives were badly armed and little esteemed as warriors. The country, however, was difficult, so the men marched warily, their arms ready for instant use, and a sharp watch kept all the time. The sun came out hot by day, but at nights it felt very cold and frosty. With all the haste they could make they pushed on by the least frequented routes and the most desolate places. During the first day after they had crossed the mountains, they only saw one farmhouse, in a forest clearing, and that, when they came up to it, was still and deserted. On the following day they pa.s.sed a small hamlet on the banks of a river, and a little later another farm. In neither was there a sign of an inhabitant to be seen, and they seemed for all the world like dwellings of the dead.

"This is pa.s.sing strange," said Helgi. "Unless, perhaps, the Jemtlanders spend the winter in holes and caves, like the bears they resemble in all but courage."

"The alarm has spread, I fear," answered Estein. "We must make the more haste."

"Ay," said Ketill; "on, on!"

Towards evening the head of the column emerged into a small clearing, and the foster-brothers, who were marching in the middle, heard a cry from the van. Then Ketill's gruff voice called out,--

"After him! Nay, slay him not! Have you got him? Ay, bring the knave to Estein."

The little army came to a halt, and a poor-looking man, clad in a skin coat, and trembling violently as they dragged him along, was brought before Estein.

"Spare my life, n.o.ble captain!" he pleaded, casting himself on his knees. "I am but a poor man, I beseech you."

"Silence, rascal!" thundered Ketill, "or we will have your coward's tongue out by the root."

"Tell me, if you value your life, what means this solitude?"

Estein demanded sternly. "Nay, shake not like an old man with palsy, but speak the truth--if by chance a Jemtlander knows what truth is. Where are the people?"

"n.o.ble earl, they have heard of your coming, and fled. No man will await you; you will see none in the country."

"Do none mean to fight?" asked Helgi.

"Great prince," replied the fellow, "the Jemtlanders were never a warlike race. Even the king, I hear, is prepared to fly."

A contemptuous murmur rose from the Nors.e.m.e.n.

"Let us begin by hanging this man," said Ketill, "and then fire, fire through the country!"

"I shall see first whether he has spoken the truth," answered Estein. "Bind him, and bring him on."

The man was bound and guarded, and the march was continued. Early the next morning two men were found together in a cottage, and they told the same tale.

"Little glory is there in marching against such a people," said Estein. "Bind them, and hasten on."

About an hour later the little army emerged from a hillside forest, and saw below them a small merchant town. The rude wooden houses straggled along the edge of a great frozen lake, whose snow-powdered surface stretched for miles and miles in an unbroken sheet of dazzling whiteness. Between the sh.o.r.es and the outskirts of the woodlands lay a wide sweep of cultivated country.

Everywhere a thin coating of snow covered the ground, and the air was sharp enough to make the breath of the men rise like a cloud of steam as they marched in battle order down the slope.

"There are men in the town!" cried Helgi suddenly. "I see the glint of the sun on weapons. Thanks be to the G.o.ds, we shall have a fight!"

"Ay, they are coming out," said Estein. "Halt! we shall take advantage of the slope, and await them here."

The men halted, and grasped their weapons, and in expectant silence their leaders watched a small troop defile out of the town.

"Call you that an army?" growled Ketill. "There are barely a score of them."

"Ay," said Helgi, with a sigh, "there will be no fighting to-day."

About twenty men, dressed in skins and fur coats and wooden helmets, and slenderly armed, had left the town, and now came slowly up the hill. Their leader alone wore a burnished steel helmet, and carried a long halberd over his shoulder. Immediately behind him walked two boys, and at the sight of them Helgi asked,- -

"What mean they by bringing boys against us?"

"Hostages," suggested Estein laconically.

When this motley company had come within a hundred yards of them, they stopped, and their leader advanced alone.

As he drew near to the Nors.e.m.e.n, Estein stepped out a pace or two to meet him, but they stood so close that Helgi and Ketill could hear all that pa.s.sed. They saw that the stranger was a tall, elderly man with a clever face and a dignified bearing.

"Hail, Estein Hakonson!" he said.

"You know my name, it seems," replied Estein, "and therein have the advantage of me."

"My name is Thorar," said the chief, speaking gravely and very courteously, "lawman of this region of Jemtland"--he made a sweeping gesture with his hand as he said this--"and a friend hitherto to the Northmen."

"I know you by repute as a chief of high birth, and one who has long been faithful to my father. Yet, methinks, it was something less than faithful to drive his scatt-gatherer from the country and slay his followers."