For The White Christ Part 32

"_Haoi!_ there's fighting, king's daughter!" shouted Olvir, his eyes aflame. But Rothada shrank back, and pressed her hands upon her eyes, to shut out the cruel sight.

"What! So fearful of a little bloodshed?" he exclaimed. "But I forget.

You 're still a cloister-dove. Come down and hide with your pages. I must look to the door when Floki comes knocking."

"Holy Mother! Why must there be so much of war and slaying?" wailed the girl.

"Ask the priests of your White Christ," retorted Olvir, and taking her hand, he led her quickly down the tower stair.

Having left the little princess in the care of her tiring-woman, he ran from post to post of the citadel's defences, that he might see with his own eyes whether every man was in his appointed position. Last of all, he mounted the great arch above the entrance, whose oaken doors stood ajar to welcome the retreating gate wardens.

At sight of his earl, a watchman who had climbed the main tower shouted down to him: "Ho, ring-breaker! Floki's gate swings open. The Asiamen ride into the burg."

"What of Floki?" demanded Olvir.

"I cannot see. But the other wardens gather in the great square. Ho!

there come the Crane and his men, a horde of swart curs yelping at their heels. The bands join, and the Asiamen run to shelter. Now the Crane turns this way."

"Good!" said Olvir. "They have little more than a bow-shot to come, and the crooked lanes will check the hors.e.m.e.n."

It was none too soon, however, that the men of the gate watches swung up the steep path after Floki and Liutrad, and poured through the archway into the citadel court. As the ponderous doors swung to behind them, the vanguard of the Saracen host came racing into view, hot on their trail. But when they saw that their quarry had reached cover, the swarthy riders contented themselves with a derisive yell, and wheeled swiftly about to seek shelter from the arrows of the vikings.

Olvir hastened down into the court.

"Well done! well done, vikings!" he greeted the returned warriors. "You had brisk play for a time, old Crane. What of the slain?"

"Go ask the Asiamen, earl," replied Floki, with a dry chuckle. "We have none to name, though you can see enough of scratches among my men. The black cats do not lack claws."

"I give thanks they are no sharper. Had your gate been opened when you first left it--"

"The traitors did well to open it at all. I clenched the chain-hooks with a sledge. For all their treachery, the curs gained nothing but scathe."

"Yet we can count one man fated. Tell me, Liutrad; did not Ottar pa.s.s out your gate upon my mare, to ride across the Arga?"

"He pa.s.sed the gate, earl, but not to cross the river. I heard him say that he was minded to ride around the burg to the Ebro Gate."

"Loki! my Zora,--my matchless mare!"

"Ho, earl!" called down a warrior on the wall; "here comes one waving a green branch. Shall I loose an arrow at the swart hound? He is like Earl Kasim as two peas."

"Hold!" commanded Olvir, and he ascended quickly to the parapet, Floki and Liutrad at his heels. As they gained the top and leaned with him over the battlements, they saw Kasim Ibn Yusuf, branch in hand, riding up the steep ascent. Poisoner or not, there could be no doubt as to the man's boldness.

"Thor smite me!" gasped Liutrad. "Zora!--he rides Zora!"

"It is a taunt," croaked Floki. "None but a fated man would venture such a deed. Let me drive an arrow through his hide, and the mare is yours again, ring-breaker."

Olvir was white with anger; but he shook his head.

"No," he lisped; "he bears a peace-branch,--he is a herald, and peace-holy,--the foul poisoner!"

"May Hel's hand soon grip him!" growled Floki; and then all three stood silent, glaring down on the approaching rider.

As he came within speaking distance, the Moslem peered up at the Norse chiefs, and waved his green branch in mocking salute.

"Greeting, kinsman!" he called. "I have returned to my city with a few friends, and so I am here to beg your hospitality for the night. Come down, I pray you, and join us in the market-place. What! you are silent? Is it thus you greet a guest? How speaks the Koran: 'For the weary guest, food and a bed; for the stranger in your gates, a wife and the queen of your drove.' Already you have made gift of the choice mare. The groom who brought her you will find, arrow-pierced, beyond the hill. He rode heedless into our very midst. I have besought you for food and shelter; for wife, I might name that fair houri who rode with Karolah's daughter--"

"Stay a little, dog," lisped Olvir, in a voice ominously gentle.

"First, tell me whether you come as envoy."

The vali raised his branch, and answered jeeringly: "I, Kasim Ibn Yusuf, envoy of the Beni Al Abbas, come riding from Saragossa, to tell you how I have outwitted the great Karolah and ridden over his camp."

"That is a lie, adder!"

"No; by the beard of the Prophet! In the dusk of evening we rode over Karolah's tent and trampled his bright banner in the dust. Now will you come forth with your braggart giants and meet my friends in the game of swords?"

"I am content to lie at ease for the night," rejoined Olvir, quietly, though his eyes were blazing.

"What! is my kinsman so backward when it comes to blows? I have heard that he besought Karolah for the forefront in battle. Yet it may be he is chilled by so long sitting behind the stone. I will try a last word to stir his cold blood. When I rode over Karolah's camp, Vali Al Huseyn opened to me the gates of Saragossa and shut them in the face of the Afranj. But when Karolah named the city's ransom, he demanded that I also should be delivered over to him. Urged to the treachery by my own wife's father, the false vali a.s.sented. I was forewarned none too soon to escape from Saragossa in the night. And yet, with all my haste, let it be known to you, son of Gulnare, that I found time to force the gate of the Balatt Al Arabi and bestow on your mother's father a scratch which all the skill of Kosru my geber could not heal."

"Enough, poisoner!" lisped Olvir, almost in a whisper. "If you value life, go--go quickly!"

Though the softly uttered words barely reached his ear, the Arab could see the look on the Northman's white face. Without a word, he wheeled Zora, and clattered down the slope at headlong speed.

"Ho, the murderous nithing!" jeered Liutrad. "He flees as from the Fenris-wolf."

"None too fast to outstrip an arrow," growled Floki. "Give the word, earl! My fingers itch to drive a dart into his swart back."

"No!" gasped Olvir; and he stood glaring after the fugitive, while the cold sweat gathered and ran down his white face. "Hel seize the foul murderer! He--he, my blood kin's slayer--has named me nithing!--and I cannot leave this cursed rock heap!"

"Thor! Must we then lie idle for the sake of a Roman keep?"

"And for the vala's sake!" added Liutrad, quickly.

"I am not one to forget the maid," grumbled Floki. "But a hundred men can hold the keep while we go out to the blood-game."

"No," broke in Olvir, harshly. "Far rather would I meet death than swallow the taunts of that poisoner. Yet Karl the Frank gave over this keep into my charge, and I hold the hard stones fast till Karl the Frank comes again. Wait till he knocks at the burg gates. It will then be for us to go out and open them to him."

A smile of terrible joy lit up the face of the sea-king, and he turned eagerly to the southward, as though he already saw the vanguard of the Frankish host.

CHAPTER XXIV

With guile the great one Would they beguile.

SONG OF ATLI.

When it became known through the citadel that there would be no sorties against the Asiamen until the coming of the Frankish host, the towers at once were crowded with watchers, all gazing southward along the Ebro road. But a bitter disappointment lay before the war-eager vikings.