The Iron Star - And What It Saw on Its Journey Through the Ages Part 6

"Know thou, stranger, King Knut is more than king of men. The sea itself obeys him."

Had Ulf been older he would have pa.s.sed it by unnoticed. As it was he merely asked Knut, with lifted eyebrow,

"Are these captains thine advisers?"

The King flushed hotly and turned to his flatterers.

"Sayest thou I am the lord of the sea--that it will obey my word?"

A dozen voices shouted "Yea!" in as many different ways. The King looked at them steadily for a moment, then with a half-smile waved his hand to his throne from which he had arisen, and said,

"Carry me that to the sh.o.r.e, and do thou attend."

It was low tide, but the young flood had begun to come in, and when the throne was placed well out toward the water, Knut seated himself and said,

"Wait! now shall we see the value of advisers."

Presently the incoming tide drew near, and the King arose, stretched out his hand to the waters and said,

"Back! I, Knut the Great, command thee. Back!"

Never a word replied the sea, but still the unceasing tide crept steadily on.

"Back, I say! Knut, Master of the Sea, commands it!"

Lip-lap, lip-lap came a gentle wave with a white fringe, circling in eddies landward, and splashed ever so gently under the royal chair; and if the King had not lifted them with haste the royal feet would have been wet. Then said the King, grimly smiling,

"It is well my men have proved their worth as captains, and need not be judged by this."

And his councillors were ashamed, and could not look him in the face for many days. But to Ulf he made presents of value.

Then said Ulf, with a rueful laugh,

"King Knut, I had deemed I had at least one thing worth offering as a gift to a King," and with the word he laid before him the white bear's hide, tanned with the head on, and in the cleft of it still stood the keen-edged battle-axe.

Knut's eye twinkled, reading now the reason for the young man's discomposure, for in his hall lay stretched a wealth of just such trophies, and he asked how it was won.

"Singlehanded," said Ulf.

"A shaft to each leg, then spear to the throat and axe to the brain."

Then said the King, significantly,

"If I have eleven other bearskins, am I not eleven times the better able to know its worth? It _is_ a gift for a King!" and Ulf was content.

And History tells that in after days, when King Knut wanted to make an especially valuable gift to the Minster of Crowland, he could think of nothing richer than twelve great white bearskins, one for each of the twelve Apostles. I like to believe that one of them had a deep cleft in the back of the head, where Ulf's axe sank in. But I think Knut knew the value of a good steel weapon too well to give _that_ away, for we read in another book that such an axe once owned by him was handed down till Harold of England owned it, and with it he cut to pieces a suit of armour hung on a post, by way of showing his strength to the King whose guest or prisoner he was--for at the time he was a little of both. And every stroke slashed that armour in such great holes that I think the axe that did it must indeed have been of Star, or nickel steel, and of itself a gift for a King!

For many a day Ulf dwelt with the King, and even sailed to Denmark with him for a s.p.a.ce.

At last the time came for Knut to return to England, the larger country, where he lived for most of his reign, and Ulf went back with him and Edith with Ulf, of course. A mighty fleet sailed also,--never had either of them seen so many s.h.i.+ps before,--and when the roll of the oars in the rowlocks came slipping over the gla.s.sy sea it rumbled like muttered thunder. Stirred by the sound, here and there the wilder blades among the crews remembered old war-days, and struck up the Northmen's warsong, the laughing, murder-singing "Yuch-hey-saa-saa- saa," that had carried terror with it to the lands beyond the water; and the trading vessels within hearing swung hastily southward and rowed away for dear life, fully believing that war had come again.

SPARK IX.

HOW THE STAR HELPED TO WIN A THRONE.

And war did come in time. Four kings rose and fell in Ulf's own lifetime. England was one great battlefield for many a year after Knut had died. Harold, Harthaknut, Eadward, and yet another Harold, one after another had their little say, and their own troubles,--the troubles of kings who know no better cure for them than war.

But Ulf was not of these. Too wise to linger long in that unfriendly air after the death of his friend the great King, he kept the seas as a free trader, and far and wide roamed the longs.h.i.+p which he commanded. The gruff old captain who guarded the port of Wisby [Footnote: Wisby, A famous old walled town on the island of Gottland.]

against all sea-thieves, cracked his face into what was meant for a happy smile when his watchers told him that the inrus.h.i.+ng craft looked surely enough like Ulf's. The laughter-loving fisherwomen of Marwyk [Footnote: Marwyk. An old seaport on the coast of Flanders.] sprang up and threw silvery herring at each other from pure glee when their fa.r.s.eeing eyes spied out the flag of his vessel and read its strange device. That flag was like no other's, for it was as black as a crow's wing, save in the centre, where gleamed in the snow-white embroidery of Edith Fairhair a snarling white bear's head.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Once, indeed, Ulf got lost. For three full weeks he never saw a star.

For three full weeks, day after day, his vessel fled before the gale onward, ever onward, over the gray, desolate, wildly tossing water, until they had need to spread their sail to catch the rain, for watercasks were empty; and one dried herring per day for food was all that Ulf could spare his crew out of their scanty stock. Then the sun broke out warm and cheery and green isles began to show themselves.

"This is a new land," quoth Ulf. "I wonder much what races dwell in it," and kept all the brighter lookout.

Still, food must be had, and he was ready to pay for it with wealth or blows,--whichever might be most convenient to the occasion. As it happened, the choice was not left to him, for two galleys darted out from a narrow strait, each flaunting a strange flag, blood-red, with a star and a single crescent pictured on. it. Dark, swarthy faces rose above the bulwarks, and wild warcries in an unknown tongue.

"Allah! Allahu!"

Then came the hiss of javelins.

Cheerily laughed Ulf and all his men, amazed and amused at the odd white turbans and the white teeth showing so plainly against the dark of the threatening faces; and the Barbary pirates in turn were thunderstruck when, instead of cries of fright, out growled again that laughing war-song, the laughter of death which never failed to send a s.h.i.+ver through the hearer, be he never so brave, if he knew he had to face the singers. There were men on those galleys who had heard the "Yuch-hey-saa-saa-saa" before and knew well what was to follow. But flight was now too late. And thus the Iron Star first warred against the turbaned warriors of the Crescent.

Ulf found much spoil in those two vessels,--golden cups, beautiful silken robes, and jewel-hilted weapons,--after the slightly difficult task of taking them was over; and plenty of provisions also, with which warily he turned square round on his heel and sailed back again for twice three weeks until he was in familiar waters once more, well content with what he had. As to the pirates, they deserved all they got, and Ulf and his men had a merry time with them while the fight lasted, which was as long as one was left alive. For those were wild times!

Scarcely were they in a safe port and rested, however, when great tidings flew abroad. How did such news travel? s.h.i.+p told it unto s.h.i.+p, village sent word to village, perhaps signal-fires flashed it on from headland to headland, that in the north there was a great gathering of men of war, which always in those days meant battle. Hence Ulf wisely thought it well to fare northward himself and learn at first hand what it was all about. His hair was a little gray, now, and thin in spots where the helmet pressed; but his brain was just as ready for wise, long-headed plans as ever; and by his side a tall, slender lad now held his s.h.i.+eld and guarded him when shafts were flying, and Ulf's own bow was bent. He, too, was one of the silent; yet, when asked, said he was Wulf, the son of Ulf of Sigurd's Vik.

So, one morning just at sunrise the flag of the White Bear's Head was floating in the land breeze, as the longs.h.i.+p made its way into harbour among a vast fleet of other craft,--so vast that Wulf was surprised into speech, and Ulf himself admitted that he never had seen the like.

The sh.o.r.e was one great camp; an army gathered; and Ulf found himself nodding greeting to many an old acquaintance as they shouldered through it, Wulf and he, straight for the heart of the throng; Ulf still carrying in one hand his unbent sea-bow, and Wulf, the long, straight, two-handed sword of his father, as well as his own keen axe --of Star steel, both.

Under a large tent a consultation of leaders was going on, and a dark, thick-set, angry-looking man was laying down the law to them in the strongest words he knew--and he knew a great many--when Ulf strode in.

The captain stopped. Flashes of recognition shot into a face here and there; a wrathful growl came from one group, in the back of which was the mean, crafty face of Thorfin the Viking. Then the dark man strode sharply forward with a hearty greeting.

"What, Ulf the Silent? So you too will help an old comrade? This is well indeed. But what are these fellows growling about, like so many white-toothed mastiffs?"

"I've met their mates and them at Sigurd's Vik," quoth Ulf. "These few are what were left," and the other roared with laughter.

"You are the man I want, to keep these wild blades in order. A man like you is needed over them. I make you a sea-king here and now, and my clerk shall give you it in writing." And a sea-king Ulf was from that day, or, as we should now call it, "admiral,"--that is to say, a captain over other captains. It made Thorfin very angry, but since he cared a great deal for his own skin, he took considerable pains to keep in good order for many a day to come.

"But first," said Ulf, cautiously, "Tell me what this is all about."

Now those were the days when a king looked on his kingdom very much as though it was his private farm. It, and the people in it, existed chiefly for his sole benefit; and if they objected, so much the worse for the people. So, when Duke William of Normandy told Ulf a long story about his troubles, how Edward the Confessor, King of England and his cousin, had promised that when he died he would leave the kingdom to William, Ulf saw nothing strange in that.