For The White Christ Part 40

"You may well say that, my son!" exclaimed Fulrad. "Far n.o.bler are the victories of peace than war-won fame. If you have lost the wild joy of battle, you have gained the love of the folk you ruled, and a happiness--"

"Love and happiness? Ay; but not the love and happiness for which I long," sighed Olvir, and his hand went to the double strand of chestnut hair clasped around his throat. "Listen, Father Fulrad. Liutrad once wrote that he had told you of my betrothal. It was a secret which promised me joy; but it has brought me sorrow instead. Through all these years I have sent message after message to my little may, ever faithful to my pledge, ever longing for a word of love in answer. But she is silent,--she has forgotten me in your cold cloisters."

"Forgotten!" cried Gerold, in protest. But Fulrad made a hasty sign to him to be silent, and answered Olvir gravely: "Be patient, my son. Much may chance in so long a time. The maiden was yet a child. None can say whether or not she has forgotten you. However that may be, bear in mind that you have won high favor in the king's eye. That alone should give you joy."

"Nor have you altogether lacked the joy of battle, Olvir," added Gerold.

"Liutrad has told me how, at the very first, you searched out the mountain Vascons in their fastnesses, and avenged the death of Roland."

"Vengeance? I found little joy in that. There was more in the finding of Ironbiter, my brother's sword, which he flung among the swart Saracens, and which Floki took from a dying Vascon. I 'd had enough of blood."

"No need to tell us, my son, how you turned to the arts of peace. You have ruled with wisdom; you have tempered justice with mercy. Few counts give heed to the welfare of those they rule. You, not content with the administration of justice, have aided the landfolk out of your own treasure. The Lombards whom you brought in have shown the folk better methods of tillage, and I hear that our own men have sought to teach the rude s.h.i.+pwrights of Bordeaux your Norse art of s.h.i.+pbuilding.

Our lord king will not soon forget such deeds."

"If he approve them, why, then, does he deal so harshly with the Saxons?" demanded Olvir, with sudden heat. "No Frank pays the t.i.the he has put upon the forest-folk. He has taken away their cherished freedom, and saddled them with stern laws that will goad them to revolt."

"No, no, lad; only to crush out their stubborn heathenism."

"A sight for the heathen fiend-G.o.ds!--a world-hero priest-ridden!"

"Saint Michael, no, Olvir!" cried Gerold, and he burst into a boyish laugh. "You 'd not say that had you been with us in Rome. Listen! It is now some five years since one of the learned deacons found a parchment, under seal by the Kaiser Constantine, whom men call the Great, giving to the Holy Father the t.i.tle to Rome and all Italy. Yet our lord king set aside the claim, and, as you know, caused the Holy Father to crown little Carloman as King of Italy, under the name of Pepin."

"By Thor! those are good tidings. I had not heard that part of the tale, though I heard of the crowning of the bairns. William of Toulouse saw to that. The short-nosed count wrote to me, in the name of King Louis of Aquitania, demanding aid in his war against the Saracens. I sent back word that the Count of the Vascon Mark was not the man of any bairn or of any bairn's nurse."

"We heard of that sending, Olvir, even in the Saxon Mark," said Gerold.

"William did not trouble you the second time."

"No; but the shrewd Neustrian waited his chance, as you know. And now, by Thor, I'm done with all that. Like my sea-wolves, I 've sickened of this mild Southland. Ho for the gritting snow and the icy breath of the frost-giant!" and the sea-king thrust over the Raven's tiller to steer out into the open sea.

The voyage Rhineward was very boisterous for the season, and Abbot Fulrad spent much of his time on a cot beneath the Raven's quarter-deck.

But Gerold proved himself a better sailor, and after the second day was able to keep his place with Olvir beside the tiller. Standing thus, with the n.o.ble s.h.i.+p beneath him racing at the head of the fleet, Gerold could not only comprehend, but could share in the Northman's keen enjoyment of the whistling gale and the high-leaping waves. He felt, as few landsmen might, the wild fascination of the viking life.

But when Olvir began to talk of Trondheim Fiord and the joys of a home visit, Gerold quickly sought to turn his thoughts back to the honors and friends.h.i.+ps he had won in Frank Land. The king was eager to see his Dane hawk, and it was not right for Olvir to delay for even a short visit in the North. What might he not expect of the king's favor, when Worad, who was not half so learned, had been raised to the judgment-seat of the Count Palatine? Then there was Liutrad, beloved of all in the king's hall, and one of the foremost pupils in Alcuin's School of the Palace,--ah, yes, Alcuin! Surely Olvir would be eager to meet the famed Anglo-Saxon scholar, whom the king had at last induced to come to his court.

To all this Olvir listened with a cold ear. But when, having vainly tried to arouse interest by tales of Fastrada's unsuccessful suitors, and of her reputed dabblings in witchcraft with the Magian leech Kosru, Gerold at last gained leave of Fulrad to tell how the king had finally yielded to the wish of Hildegarde, and bidden Rothada to leave the Convent of Ch.e.l.les, in which she had so long secluded herself, he struck the right note to stir his companion. He had then only to add the rumor that the king's purpose in compelling the presence of the daughter of Himiltrude was to betroth her to some outland king.

Here were tidings which touched Olvir to the quick. From the moment he heard them he was aflame to reach the Rhine and the hall of Karl. He might have been willing to forgo the king's favor; but the possibility of Rothada--the little vala--being betrothed to another roused all the tender love and affection which he felt toward the maiden, and intensified that love tenfold by a single touch of jealousy.

His should be the king's daughter, if it were within the power of man to win her! The thought that the king planned to give her to another stirred him to deepest anger, which, when it left his heart, gave place to a great longing to see again the little maiden's violet eyes and pure young face.

And so, while the Raven drove on up the stormy channel, the sea-king no longer saw rising before him the iron cliffs of old Norway. In his thoughts were now pictured the quiet convent garden of Ch.e.l.les, and in that garden, walking among the roses with Gisela, his little may, sweeter than ever, and no longer a child.

CHAPTER II

It is marvel And the red blood Runs not as the rain Runs in the street.

FINNESBURH.

When at last the gale-driven fleet sighted the dune sh.o.r.es of the old Rhine Mouth, and the s.h.i.+ps steered in across the bar, no time was lost in beginning the ascent of the river. From a pa.s.sing Frisian trader, the crews learned that war had broken out anew in Saxon Land; and after such tidings there was no need to urge the viking oarsmen to their benches whenever, in rounding the wide bends of the stream, the breeze chanced to come ahead. Olvir was not more eager than were they to reach Mayence, where both Abbot Fulrad and Gerold thought they might now look to find Karl and the court. When the _missi_ started south, the king was about to leave for Aix, to enjoy the warm baths, and plan the building of the grand palace and the domchurch, which were so long to commemorate his reign. By this time, however, he should have returned to the Rhinegau, to urge on the construction of the new palace of Ingleheim.

But as the fleet lay to for provisions at the great stone bridge of Constantine, which spanned the Rhine at Cologne, the monks of Saint Martin of the Isle brought full account of the b.l.o.o.d.y disaster at Sunthal, to avenge which Karl the King had a month since gathered a great host and swept north into Saxon Land.

The various stories of the battle, though contradictory on many points, all agreed as to the main outline. The Sorbs, taking advantage of the fact that the grim Count Rudulf lay at Fulda helpless from the goring of a wild boar, had stirred up trouble in their mark. To quiet them, Karl had levied a host, under the command of Count Worad, the High Marshal Gilo, and Adalgis the Chamberlain, and had unwisely added to the host a contingent of Saxons.

In the midst of the forest these Saxons had deserted and fled across Eastphalia, to join the great war-earl Wittikind, who had once more returned from Denmark with fire and sword. Following the deserters to the Weser, the Franks came upon a small host under the command of Count Teutoric of the Frisian Mark, who had counselled that all should join in a united attack on the Saxon camp.

But the jealous counts planned secretly to make the attack without the famed kinsman of the king. Thinking to overwhelm the Saxons by the impetuosity of their a.s.sault, they had rushed upon the Saxon war-hedges in wildest disorder; only to be caught by the crafty Wittikind as Herman, his great predecessor, had trapped the Roman Varus. The greater part of the Frankish host, including Adalgis, Gilo, and twenty counts, had been slaughtered, and Count Worad had barely managed to bring three hundred warriors out of the ambush.

After such tidings there was no longer holding the vikings in check.

The s.h.i.+ps were at once left in charge of a scanty s.h.i.+p-watch, and with the swiftness of a mounted levy the vikings swept north from the Rhine toward the Saxon Mark.

But near the Ruhr a rumor reached the eager band that the king was now at Fulda; and Olvir, at the urgent request of Abbot Fulrad, turned aside toward the monastery.

The march to Fulda across the war-trampled fields of Hesse was taken far more leisurely than the rush from the Rhine. The vikings had little heart for turning aside, and there was much grumbling among them at being cheated of the merry sword-play. Even at their slower pace, however, the third day found them close upon their journey's end, where they were fated to hear that which should cool the blood-fever of the grimmest berserk in their number.

Marching through the wild beech forest, the Norse band came upon Fulda late in the day. They found the half-cleared groves around the monastery filled with the booths of the Frankish host, and everywhere, by scores and by hundreds, the leathern-jerkined warriors were to be seen cooking their evening meal, or seated in groups to eat.

It was the time of day when the men of a victorious host should have broken into song and merriment. But a hush lay upon the Frankish camp, and the faces of the less brutal among the warriors bore the gloomy look of defeated men.

Uneasy with forebodings of evil, Abbot Fulrad spurred on to the monastery to see the king, and Gerold rode with him. Confident in the speed of Zora to overtake them, Olvir waited to direct the arrangement of the viking camp; but a quarrel between two berserks delayed him longer than he had intended. He had at last pacified the angry men, and was about to spring upon Zora, when Liutrad Erlingson came galloping through the wood, afire with eagerness to greet his beloved earl.

Leaping from the saddle, he flung his arms about Olvir and held him fast, too overjoyed to speak.

Olvir met the bear-like hug with a grip that forced the breath from the broad chest of his captor, and then, slipping eel-like from the ma.s.sive arms, he stepped back to view the young giant.

Like Gerold, Liutrad had not yet lost all his boyishness of look and bearing. His blue eyes lacked none of their old-time frankness, and his ruddy face still showed to the world the kindly spirit which dwelt within. Yet across his forehead was drawn a newly creased line, and there was a look in his eyes which even his joy at the meeting could not altogether hide.

"How now, son of Erling?" demanded Olvir. "Have the Christian priests taken the heart from your breast? You look as do these moody Franks.

Has the whole Christian host seen a b.l.o.o.d.y guardian-sprite?"

"Ah, Christ! do not speak of blood!" cried Liutrad, and he threw up his arm before his eyes.

"Read me the riddle, then," rejoined Olvir. "I wait."

"Would that another might tell that tale, ring-breaker! Holy Mother! I see all again,--the b.l.o.o.d.y swords, the headless slain splas.h.i.+ng into the Aller!"

"Thor!" muttered Olvir. "I had yet to learn that Christians could sicken at thought of sword-play."

"Sword-play! sword-play!" echoed Liutrad. "It was no sword-play, earl; it was slaughter."

"Out with it, lad. You speak in riddles."

"Yet it seems to me, earl, that the wide world must have thundered with the tidings. But listen. When the king in his wrath swept north through Saxon Land, Wittikind fled back again to Nordmannia, and all the forest-dwellers stooped beneath the heel of the Frank. At Verden, on the Aller, the king called before him the earls and eldormen of the Saxon folk. They came in a mult.i.tude, crying out against Wittikind, who had stirred them to take up the sword, and submitted themselves humbly to the will of the king. Some were thrust forward by their fellows, and many more stood out of themselves to meet, as leaders of the revolt, the expected doom. But the king was in no mood to content himself with so small a vengeance. The blood-mist was before his eyes,--he was maddened by the harrying of the forest-wolves. Of all the high-born Saxons,--four thousand and more earls and eldormen,--not one was spared.

In a single day the heads of all were hewn off and their bodies cast into the Aller. The stream flowed red into the Weser,--G.o.d grant I soon forget that sight!"

Again Liutrad flung up his arm before his eyes, and stood shuddering.

Olvir waited, silent and seemingly calm; but the lines about his mouth drew tense, and his dark eyes gazed past Liutrad into vacancy.