The Ward of King Canute Part 6

After all, it was not unthinkable. Her riding would never betray her; and in the confusion, who would notice whether or not she used her sword? She did grow a little cold as the possibility of being killed occurred to her; but even that darkness gave birth to a light. Being dressed in man's garments, it was likely that the Valkyrias would mistake her for a boy; if she bore herself bravely, it was possible that they might carry her up to Valhalla. Should she once reach her father's arms, he would not let Odin himself drive her forth. The hot tears gathered under her lids. If only she could get to her father! He would be glad to see her, and he would be proud of her; Rothgar himself had said it. Even Fridtjof would not be ashamed that she had borne his name.

She must be very careful about that, she realized suddenly. He had never known what the word "fear" meant; even in Valhalla he would turn from her, should she disgrace him. It would become an unheard-of wickedness to borrow a name from the helpless dead if you could not wear it worthily. Her conscience smote her now, for her s.h.i.+rking, and she struggled to her feet.

None too soon; above the outside din a horn clarioned, loud and clear.

Through the hush that followed could be heard the voice of Canute, a.s.signing their positions to the different bands.

"I and my kinsman, Ulf Jarl, shall be foremost. To the right of my standard Edric Jarl shall stand, and the men with whom he joined us. He shall have another standard. To the left of my bodyguard shall stand the men of Eric of Norway. Friends and kinsmen shall stand together. There each will defend the other best."

Then Rothgar's harsh voice sounded, shouting her name,--Fridtjof's name.

Giving her scarf a hasty twist about her arm, she knotted it with her teeth; and seizing the sword in her little brown hand clotted with her own blood, she ran out into the tumult.

Chapter VII. The Game of Swords

It is better for the brave man Than for the coward To join in the battle.

It is better for the glad Than for the sorrowing In all circ.u.mstances.

Fafnisma'l.

It would have been a dull soul that would not have been stirred by a sight of Danish camp. The host was like a forest of mighty trees tossing and swaying before the approach of a storm. Lines of moving shot lightning flashes through the dusk of the shady grove; while the hundreds of jubilant voices blended into rumbling thunder. Through the tumult, the blaring horns thrilled like pulse-beats.

Flaring crimson under her brown skin, Randalin's Viking blood leaped to answer the call. For Rothgar's shout she gave another, and laughed out of sheer delight when he tossed her upon the back of a pawing horse.

Away with woman's fears! The world was a grand brave place, and men a race of heroes. To ride by their sides, and share their mighty deeds, and see their glory,--what keener joy had life to offer? Away with fear, with foreboding! The present was all-glorious, and there would be no to-morrow.

Shrill and clear from the opposite hill came the notes of the English horns, as down the green slope moved the ranks of English bowmen. The hum of Danish voices sank in a breathless hush; through the stillness, Tovi, the royal bannerman, galloped to his post. A rustle, a boom, and the great standard was unfurled, giving to the breeze the dread Raven of Denmark. Anxious eyes scanned its mien; should it hang motionless, drooping--but no, it soared like a living bird! Exultation burst from a thousand throats.

Down the line came the young King upon his white war-horse, clad for the battle as for a feast. The sun at noonday is not more fiercely bright than was his face. His long locks flowed behind him on the wind like tongues of yellow flame; and like northern lights in a blue northern sky, the leader's fire flashed in his eyes. So Balder the Beautiful might have come among the Jotuns. So the brawny sweating hard-breathing giants might have jostled and crowded toward him, expectant, adoring.

As he came, he was calling out terrible reminders: words that were to the ears of his champing host what the smell of blood is to the nostrils of wolves.

"Free men, true men, remember that ye face oath-breakers! Remember how they have spoken fine words to us of plighted faith...and when we have believed them and laid down our arms...they have stolen upon us in our sleep..and murdered our comrades! And our kinswomen whom they had taken to be their wives! Remember Saint Brice's day! Remember our murdered kin!"

On he went down the line; and like a trail in his wake, rose an answering chorus of growls and clas.h.i.+ng steel. Down some of the battered old faces tears of excitement began to flow, like the water out of the riven rock; while the delirium of others took the form of mirth, so that they sent forth wild terrible laughter to swell the uproar.

Above the tumult his voice rang like a bell: "Heroes and sons of heroes, remember you fight cowards! Remember that, since the days of our fathers, they have made gold do the work of steel. To get gold to buy peace, they will sell their children into slavery. Sooner than look our swords in the face, they will yield us their daughters to be our thralls! Oath-breakers, nithings! Will you be beaten by such? Vikings, Odinmen, forward!"

His answer was the bursting roar of the Danish battle-cry. Like an avalanche loosed from its moorings, they swept down the hillside upon the English bow-men. From that moment, Randalin rode in a dream.

At first it was a glorious dream. On, on, over the green plain, with the wind fresh in her face and the music of the horns in her ears. The son of Lodbrok was beside her, singing as he went, and tossing his great battle-axe in the air to catch it again by the handle. In front of them rode Canute the King; in his hand his gleaming blade, whose thin edge he tried now and again on a lock of his floating hair, while he laughed with boyish delight. Once he turned his bright face back over his shoulder to call gayly to the Jotun:

"Brother, you were right in despising craft. When the battle-madness fills a man, he becomes a G.o.d!" On, till the bowmen's faces were plain before them; then suddenly it began to hail,--"the hail of the string."

Arrows! One hissed by the girl's ear, and one bit her cloak, to hang there quivering with impotent fury. The man on her right made a terrible gurgling sound and put up his hand to tear a shaft from his throat.

Would they be slain before--Canute rose in his stirrups with a great shout. The horns echoed it; the trot became a gallop, and the gallop a run. On, on, into the very heart of the hail-cloud. How the stones rattled on the armor! And hissed! There! a man was death-doomed; he was falling.

Her cry was cut short by the flas.h.i.+ng of a blade before her. They had pa.s.sed through the hail and reached the lightning! Throwing up her sword, she swerved to one side and escaped the bolt. Another faced her in this direction. The air was shot with bright flashes. Swish--clas.h.!.+

they sounded behind her; then a sickening jar, as Rothgar's terrible axe fell. A yell of agony rent the air. Swish--clas.h.!.+ the blows came faster; her ear could no longer separate them. The thud of the falling axes became one continuous pound. Faster and faster, heavier and heavier,--they blended into a discordant roar that closed around her like a wall. Here and there and to and fro, Rothgar's great charger followed the King; and here and there and to and fro, on her foam-flecked horse, Randalin followed the son of Lodbrok, staring, dazed, stunned.

Her wits were like a flock of birds loosed from the cage of her will, alighting here, upstarting there, without let or hindrance. Sometimes they stooped to so foolish a thing as a notch on her horse's ear, and spent whole minutes questioning dully whether the teeth of another horse had made the wound or whether a sword had nicked it in battle. Sometimes they followed the notes of the horns, as the ringing tones pa.s.sed the order along. From the blaring blast at her ear, the sound was drawn out on either side of her as fine as silver wire, far, far away toward the hills. It gave her no conscious impression of the vastness of the hosts, but it brought a vague sense of wandering, of helplessness, that caused her fluttering wits to turn back, startled, and set to watching the pictures that showed through rifts in the swirling dust clouds,--an Englishman falling from his saddle, his fingers widespread upon the air; a Danish bowman wiping blood from his eyes that he might see to aim his shaft; yonder, the figure of Leofwinesson himself, leaping forward with swift-stabbing sword. But whether they were English who fell or Danes who stood, she had no thought, no care; they meant no more to her than rune figures carved in wood.

The sun rose higher in the heavens, till it stood directly overhead, and sweat mingled with the blood. Suddenly, the girl awoke to find that Rothgar's singing had changed into cursing.

"Heed him not, King," he was bellowing over his horse's head. "We have no need of trick-bought victories. We bear the highest s.h.i.+elds; warrior-skill will win. We need not his snake-wisdom."

To the other side of the young leader, Thorkel the Tall was spurring, bending urgently from his saddle. "Craft, my King! Craft! It will take till nightfall to decide the game. Why spill so much good blood? Listen to Edric the Gainer--"

Canute's furious curse cut him short. "To the Troll with your craft!

Swords shall make us, or swords shall mar us. Use your blade, or I will sheathe it in you."

Only the wind that took it from his lips heard the Tall One's answer; for at that moment his horse reared and sheered away before a spear-p.r.i.c.k, and into the rift a handful of English rushed with shouts of triumph.

There were no more than half-a-dozen of them, and all were on foot, the two whose gold-hilted swords proclaimed their n.o.bility of birth sharing the lot of their lesser comrades according to the old Saxon war-custom; but it needed not the daring of the attack to mark them as the very flower of English chivalry. The young n.o.ble, who hovered around his chief much as Rothgar circled about Canute, would have been lordly in a serf's tunic; and the leader's royal bearing distinguished him even more than his mighty frame.

At the sight of him, Rothgar uttered a great cry of "Edmund!" and moved forward, swinging his uplifted axe. But the Ironside caught it on his s.h.i.+eld and delivered a sword-thrust in return that dropped the Dane's arm by his side. As it fell, Rothgar's left hand plucked forth his blade, but the English king had pressed past him toward his master.

Canute's weapon had need to dart like a northern light. The n.o.ble and one of the soldiers had forced their way to the side from which Thorkel had been riven, and a third threatened him from the rear. Three blades stabbed at him as with one motion.

It was a strange thing that saved him,--Randalin could explain it least of all. But in a lightning flash it was burnt into her mind that, while her King's sword was a match for the two in front of him, the one behind was going to deal him his death. And even as she thought it, she found that she had thrown herself across her horse's neck and thrust out her sword-arm,--out with the force of frenzy and down into the shoulder of the Englishman. In a kind of dazed wonder, she saw his blade fall from his grasp and his eyes roll up at her, as he staggered backwards.

Canute laughed out, "Well done, Berserker!" and redoubled his play against those before him.

A turn of his wrist disarmed the soldier, and his point touched the young n.o.ble's breast; but before he could lunge, the mighty figure of Edmund rose close at hand, his blade heaved high above his head.

For such a stroke there was no parry. A kingdom seemed to be pa.s.sing.

Canute threw his s.h.i.+eld before him, while his spur caused his horse to swerve violently; but the blade cleft wood and iron and golden plating like parchment, and falling on the horse's neck, bit it to the bone.

Rearing and plunging with pain, the animal crashed into those behind him, missed his footing and fell, entangling his rider in the trappings.

Bending over him, the Ironside struck again.

But the son of Lodbrok had still his left arm. Bearing his s.h.i.+eld, it shot out over the body of his King. The falling brand bit this screen also, and lopped off the hand that held it, but the respite was sufficient. In a flash Canute was on his feet, both hands grasping the hilt of his high-flung sword.

It was a mighty blow, but it fell harmless. A sudden surge in the tide of struggling bodies swept the Ironside out of reach and engulfed him in a whirlpool of Danish swords. He laid about him like mad, and was like to have cleared a pa.s.sage back, when a second wave carried him completely from view.

Canute cursed at the anxious faces that surrounded him. "What means it, this swaying? What is herding them? Who are flying? Fools! Can you not tell a retreat? Bid the horns blow--"

"The Englis.h.!.+" bellowed Rothgar. "The English are flying--Edmund's head!

Yonder!"

Frode's daughter had Viking blood, but she hid her face with a cry.

There it was, high upon a spear-point, dripping, ghastly. Could the sun s.h.i.+ne upon such a thing?

Ay, and men could rejoice at it. Above the panic scream she heard cries of savage joy. But Canute sat motionless, on the new horse they had brought him. "It is not possible," he muttered. "The flight began while he still faced me. It was their crowding that saved him."

To stare before him, Rothgar let the blood pour unheeded from his wounded arm. "Yonder Edmund rides now!" he gasped. "You can tell him by his size--Yonder! Now he is tearing off his helmet--" Nor was he mistaken; within spear-throw the mighty frame of the Ironside towered above his struggling guard. As he bared his head, they could even distinguish his face with its large elegantly-formed features and Ethelred's prominent chin. Brandis.h.i.+ng his sword, shouting words of rea.s.surance, exposing his person without a thought of the darts aimed at him, he was making a heroic effort to check the rush of his panic-stricken host. There was no question both that he was alive and that he knew who was belying him; even as they looked he hurled his spear, with a cry of rage, at the form of Edric Jarl.

Missing the Mercian, it struck down a man at his side; and high above the voice of the ill-fated King rose the shrill alarms of the traitor's heralds.

"Fly, ye men of Dorsets.h.i.+re and Devon! Fly and save yourselves! Here is your Edmund's head!"

Randalin stared about her, doubting her senses. But light had begun to dawn on Canute. He wheeled sharply, as Thorkel pushed his horse to their sides.