The Last of the Vikings Part 20

"Bretwul," said he, uncovering his shoulder, "for mercy's sake undo those bandages! My arm swells, and they screw me tight as a vice, and give me a sickening pain."

Ethel, however, advanced, and with firm and nimble fingers undid the clumsy bandages, cleaning and was.h.i.+ng the festering wound wonderfully gently, but resolutely, and without faltering. Without faltering or hesitancy also, she bathed and salved, lotioned and bandaged it again.

Oswald, with the pa.s.siveness of a tired child, submitted to it all.

"Ah!" said he, "now I've got a chance."

But this done, Ethel's culinary arts were called into requisition, and delicacies from the mere, the flock, or the chase succeeded each other with tempting regularity.

"If the wound could have had but a week's start of the fever, I should have been hopeful," said she to Eadburgh.

But this was not to be, for next day Oswald became restless, with occasional wanderings of the mind, and this was speedily followed by a total relapse. Never for a moment, by night or by day, except for the most necessary things, did Ethel quit his side; and never was there a moment, by night or day, but either Bretwul or Wulfhere watched by his bed. And when the fever was at its height, it was as much as the two strong men could do to hold him in his bed.

During this season of mental aberration, he would be at one time engaged in mortal strife with his hated rival Vigneau. Anon, he was over seas with Alice de Montfort, a refugee in a foreign land. Then the graphic scene enacted in the dungeon beneath the castle, where Alice, torch in hand, and alone, saved him out of the hands of her own countrymen, and gave him liberty and life, was acted over again, with intense realism of voice and gesture.

Frequently he recoiled, with horror depicted in his countenance, as Ethel gently smoothed his pillow, or moistened his parched lips. Then he would call vehemently for the fair Norman with the dark eyes and raven tresses.

Ethel heard all this with agony at heart, and often the tear, unbidden, dropped upon the coverlet as she bent over him. Often she would murmur to herself,--

"He thinks not of me. I am but a Saxon girl, to pet and speak gently to.

Would he were harsh and forbidding, like this stranger! But he is what he is, and G.o.d made me a woman, and I will bear this burden, as too oft a woman must; for he will never know, and that will make it bearable."

So for many weary days and nights the resolute struggle of life and death for victory went on, and the weary, anxious watchers looked on, helpless, except to pray and hope that favouring Providence would give the victory as they wished.

At last the crisis pa.s.sed. Thanks to the wonderful physique and recuperative faculties of the patient, combined with the ceaseless care and patient nursing of the Saxon maiden, the strong man vanquished, and cast off the malignant foe. Then commenced the slow rallying from the utter prostration, and the gradual regaining of strength.

CHAPTER XXII.

A VIKING'S LOVE.

"Love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave."--Song of Solomon, viii. 6.

During the time that Oswald was recovering from the prostration consequent upon the fever, he and Wulfhere drew carefully a plan for the fortress already determined upon. Every detail was gone carefully over and elaborated. In the meantime, also, messengers were despatched far and near, and artificers and handicraftsmen rallied to the work.

Speedily the foundations were dug, and the outer walls encircling the summit began to rise steadily and rapidly before the persistent and energetic labours of the Saxon refugees. Each one wrought with a will, knowing that life and freedom depended upon their ability to raise a fortress strong enough to defy their enemies.

Ere the Normans were aware of what was going on, a rampart had been erected, which was soon to develop into a stronghold, impregnable, and secure against a.s.sault. This first line of defence having been raised, vigorous attention was given to the interior. Wells were dug, stables were built, habitations also sprang up as by magic. Women and children hurried into it, bringing everything they had saved from the desolation of the past. Cattle were driven into it at night, and emerged in the morning to feed around its shoulders, pus.h.i.+ng their way in sheer audacity down into the green valleys, for there were always bands of st.u.r.dy outlaws in the woods between them and danger--outlaws, who snared game, which literally swarmed in the woods, or cut their timber for their bows and arrows. For these men the Normans were no match in the solitudes which were familiar to them, and they soon learnt to have a semi-friendliness with them, and to court relations.h.i.+ps with the hill-men, all of which decidedly made for peace. But to a tacit acknowledgment of these outlaws the Norman leaders were bitterly opposed. De Montfort feared that this thing would grow until it became a menace to his own position, though he remembered most vividly the words used by Oswald on that memorable night when he confronted him in his own house as though he had dropped from the clouds, when, in burning words, the Saxon told him that they wished to be at peace, but would a.s.sert their right to pasturage, and to freedom. De Montfort also feared the effect this thing would have upon William, if once he learnt that his subject was conniving at an incipient rebellion, which might ultimately threaten the peace of the kingdom. So, what between the pleadings of his daughter Alice for peace towards the hara.s.sed Saxons, and the sharp lesson they had taught him once before, that they were an enemy not to be trifled with on ground of their own choosing, the days and weeks sped on in delays and hesitation as to how this defiance on the part of a handful of desperate men, who defended themselves with such vigour when attacked, should be met; seeing also that they were, upon the whole, non-aggressive and peace-loving when left alone to the pursuit of peaceful avocations.

The Saxons encamped were, nevertheless, a strange and motley company, and nothing less than the sagacity, watchfulness, and marvellous forbearance of Oswald, coupled with the matchless valour and firmness which he displayed, would have served to restrain the undisciplined and heterogeneous company over whom he ruled. There was a moiety of desperate and blood-thirsty men who were almost incapable of restraint, and who were so blinded by their hatred of the Normans that motives of prudence or of policy were most hateful to them, and Oswald's efforts to enforce self-restraint upon his own followers, and to cultivate friendly relations with the enemy, were gall and wormwood.

Sigurd was the acknowledged leader of these, and they, by their dense ignorance and superst.i.tions, fittingly represented the dark heathenism, and plunder, and bloodshed, characteristics of their Norse ancestors.

They were utterly unable to realise the fact, which Oswald saw most distinctly, that all hope of wresting the kingdom from the Normans by force of arms was an idle dream, unless the Normans should be involved in a struggle with other foes. They clung to their heathenish religion, encouraged by their grim old priest Olaf, who, periodically quitting his cave in an adjacent valley, haunted the settlement like a hyena on the scent of blood, and found little difficulty in stirring up the ferocious pa.s.sions of his followers, often to the verge of open revolt and mutiny.

Oswald surveyed the situation with the eye of a statesman; but the reconciling of these turbulent factions to his ideal was a task which required the utmost efforts of wisdom and valour too, and which perpetually threatened the peace of the camp.

These desperate complications were further intensified into a private and personal cause of enmity and hatred on Sigurd's part--as we shall presently see--by reason of his strange and fierce love for the fair Saxon, Ethel. Despite his pa.s.sionate endeavours to cast out the deep impression made upon him at his first interview with Ethel, we need scarcely say such efforts were utterly vain and futile. She was a beloved and familiar figure to every one in the little colony, and he was necessarily brought frequently into intercourse with her; and day by day he became more deeply involved. The love of the fierce Viking had this quality in common with more ordinary mortals; it was like a quagmire, in which, being once fairly entangled, the more he struggled to get free of it the deeper he sank, until all hope of extrication therefrom became perfectly impossible.

"Ethel, girl," said he, addressing her one day with the bluntness which was a characteristic of his whole nature and disposition; and his love-making was of a piece with his whole disposition, "I have no skill in the art of making love, or, what is pretty much the same thing, a make-believe of love, and I much fear me my rough manners and rough-hewn limbs commend me not to fair maidens like thyself. But since I saw thee first, feelings have been kindled in my breast which I thought were dead, and utterly out of place in these times. But scorn me not, Ethel.

Thou art as surely of Viking extraction on thy father's side as I am; and though I have no gentle manners, there is no honied falseness in my nature, and perhaps through thy gentle influence I may come to love the ways of peace."

This confession of love on the part of Sigurd was the very thing Ethel had been dreading to hear; and her confusion and sickness of heart were pitiably manifest.

"Alas! my lord," said she, "these are times when the funeral rites for our dead are more opportune than the marriage rites. I could not think of wedlock in times like these, when children born may well-nigh curse the day when they first saw the light."

"But I will carry thee to the court of Malcolm of Scotland, where thou shalt dwell in safety. My sword will receive a hearty welcome by him.

Then, if peace should come, we may return to our own land."

"My lord, you know not what you ask. These are not times for love. With my country laid desolate, and my people scattered, I can indulge no affection but for these."

"My love for my country is as great as thine, and wedlock between us two need not diminish our love for our country."

"Say no more, my lord. You know not what you ask. 'Tis painful to me, for I am not free to love."

Sigurd started as if stung by a serpent.

"Ah! what a dolt I must be, not to see it! How could a maiden come in contact with _him_, and not love him. Well, Ethel, Sigurd would throw no shadow across thy path. Happy be thy love, and its consummation timely!"

"My lord, I have no lover!" said Ethel, hastily leaving the room.

Sigurd slowly paced the room, in profound meditation. The memorable occasion when he found Oswald and Wulfhere in the company of the two Norman women pa.s.sed in review before his mental vision, and its significance laid hold upon his mind as it had never done before.

"Can it be," said he, "that _he_ should be insensible to such a treasure, and should add to his culpable blindness the base treachery of seeking an alliance with the Norman supplanter?"

The thought of this stirred his pa.s.sions into fury, and he nervously grasped the hilt of his sword, as though he meditated vengeance on some foe. "I will watch this thing, and if it be as I fear I will no longer ally myself with him; but woe be to him if my arm be stronger than his, for so base a betrayal can only be washed out in blood!"

So saying, he sallied forth, pacing round the fortifications in quest of Oswald, where he learnt that he and Wulfhere had betaken themselves towards the valley. Away he sped him, intent on probing this matter to the bottom; and instinctively his footsteps turned toward the spot where once before his ire had been roused at the conduct of the two he sought.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A VILLAIN DEMANDS HIS WAGES.

"Oh pilot! 'tis a fearful night; There's danger on the deep."

_The Pilot._

Count De Montfort strolled leisurely to and fro on the rising ground in front of the castle, rapt in admiration of the fine scenery and n.o.ble woods which environed it on all its sides. Then he turned to take a leisurely survey of the ma.s.sive proportions of the castle, and, with a veteran soldier's instincts, fell to a planning of additional fortifications, so as to increase its impregnability. Whilst thus engaged, a figure seen in the distance, caused the complacent smile to vanish from his countenance, and his visage grew dark with a frown. The intruder was none other than Baron Vigneau, who, after salutations, said,--

"When may I expect the fulfilment of the promise made to me at York, Count? Lady Alice has now had some months of preparation, and now the time has come when our nuptials should be celebrated."

"Well, what says the lady, Baron? If you have her consent there need be no further delay. I have no opposition to offer, though, as Alice's father, and wis.h.i.+ng her happiness, I am bound to say I wish you would eschew the wine-cup. I note with pain and concern this most unwholesome habit grows apace."

"Tut, tut, Count! Many thanks for your homily! But to the point in hand.

I have no recollection that the lady's consent had aught to do with the bargain. Soldiers usually dispense with ceremonies of that description, and, by your consent, we will still consider it apart from her ladys.h.i.+p's wishes or whims. 'Twas, I think, a part of the wages of services rendered."