For The White Christ Part 41

When the son of Erling dropped his arm, Olvir turned on his heel, without a word, and started to lead Zora back to his tent.

"Stay, earl!" exclaimed Liutrad. "The king will be waiting to welcome you."

"He may wait," answered Olvir, very quietly, and he kept on until lost to view beneath the striped viking tilt from which fluttered his starred banner.

When Liutrad, after greeting Floki and the crews, presently ventured to peer into Olvir's tent, he saw him seated beside a torch, alternately reading marked pa.s.sages in a pair of use-worn books. One of the books was new to Liutrad, both in binding and script; but the other he at once recognized as Otkar Jotuntop's Greek Gospels. At his cry of surprise, Olvir bade him enter and be seated, and then resumed his reading; but now he read aloud.

CHAPTER III

Too baleful vengeance Wroughtest thou.

WHETTING OF GUDRUN.

Vainly did Karl the King look that night for the coming of his Dane hawk. Neither Olvir nor Liutrad stirred from the viking camp. Nor did they go out in the morning until the king sent Gerold to call Olvir before him.

Though the bidding was worded in terms of heartiest praise, and though Gerold spoke it with the delight of one who sees a beloved friend about to attain the highest honors, Floki alone heard the message with pleasure. Liutrad turned quickly to his earl, with a troubled look, as though he dreaded some rash outburst. But his dread was baseless. Olvir showed neither delight nor anger. As quietly as he had led Zora back to the tent the evening before, he now called for the mare, and rode off to do the king's bidding.

Very shortly the three riders came to the monastery gates and entered the great courtyard. At the door of the hospice they leaped off, and, without pausing to exchange greeting with the counts who stood about the yard, turned at once to enter. As they pa.s.sed through the doorway, Olvir stepped before his companions and gazed up the long guest-hall.

Beyond the square of white light which poured down through the roof-hole, he perceived a group of men in the semi-gloom at the far end of the room. The king stood with his back to the entrance; but Olvir knew him at once by his powerful figure and the stateliness of his bearing.

Then, in turn, he made out Abbot Fulrad and Count Hardrat, old Rudulf of the Sorb Mark, and Baugulf, who had been chosen abbot in the year 780, when the venerable Sturm departed this life. There was one other present,--a stooped, thin-faced priest, unknown to Olvir.

The three young warriors had hardly crossed the threshold when Rudulf's slit eyes caught sight of them. At his guttural exclamation, Karl faced about and peered down the hall. In a moment he had recognized Olvir by the brightness of his mail, and was advancing with swift strides to meet him. The counts and priests followed, Rudulf supported between the two abbots.

Olvir and the king met in the full light beneath the roof-hole. The Northman's face was pale and stern, and as he halted, he raised his hand in formal salute. But Karl gave no heed to this coldness. His great hands clasped Olvir by the shoulders, and he stood beaming down into the young man's hard-set face.

"Greeting! greeting to my just steward,--to my bright Dane!" he cried.

"We grieve that you no longer rule over the folk of Vascon Land; but greater is our joy to welcome you in our presence."

Olvir quivered beneath the royal praise as though he had been struck, and his face flushed hotly. But, curbing his anger, he gazed direct into the king's eyes and answered with cold deliberation: "For whatever I have done, lord king, I have been repaid in full. Once the praise of the King of the Franks would have tasted sweet in my mouth; now gall is not more bitter."

A cry of amazement burst from the lips of the priests and counts, and Karl himself stepped back, frowning and bewildered.

"How now, Olvir?" he demanded. "What riddle is this?"

"A simple one, lord king. I 've had my fill of Christian ways. I would be faring over the whale-road, to a land where even the mad berserk slaughters only in the heat of battle."

"_Heu_! _heu_! down with the traitor!" shouted Rudulf and Hardrat in a breath, and the red-faced count tore his sword from its sheath. But Karl, with a sweeping side-stroke, like the blow of a lion's paw, met Hardrat's forward spring, and flung him sprawling upon the rushes.

For a little, while the others stood staring, some flushed and indignant, others pale with anxiety for their outland friend, Karl gazed down upon the Northman, his broad chest slowly heaving beneath his folded arms. Presently the look of half-angry wonderment which had seamed his face with deep lines gave place to a calm like that of his daring reproacher. He extended his hand, and replied to Olvir, not as the over-lord of half Europe to his retainer, but as man to man.

"Friend," he said with simple dignity, "you charge me with cold slaughter. G.o.d judge if I was cold! Had I not looked upon a harried land,--upon desecrated churches, upon priests and monks of G.o.d, helpless women and babes tortured with fiendish cruelty? Cold! My reproach is that I doomed the murderous traitors while wrath inflamed my soul.

However stern the judgment, the judge should not speak in anger. That alone I regret."

"Whether the sword fell in anger or in coldness, what Christian can justify such a slaying?" rejoined Olvir.

"Upon my head be it!" answered Karl, firmly. "If I have done wrong, mine is the retribution. But by the King of Heaven, I swear, I stand here with a clear conscience. Listen, Olvir. Your wits are keen as your sword; you have eyes. You shall look into my heart and see what I have set before me as the aim of my lifework. If when you have looked, you would still be faring, I shall not urge you to stay."

"Beware, lord king," growled Rudulf. "Would you tell the riddles of your kingcraft into the ears of this heathen Dane?"

"Silence, old wolf!" commanded Karl. "Who has better proved his trustiness than the Count of Vascon Land? But your warning comes in good season. I speak with Count Olvir alone."

Hushed by the rebuke, all silently withdrew with the Grey Wolf to where Hardrat stood brooding over his humiliation. When they were beyond ear-shot, Karl turned to the Northman, his face aglow with inward light.

"Again, Olvir, I call you friend," he began. "It is a precious word in the heart of a king; for it is seldom he can so name any man. I bear in mind how even at the first, at Ca.s.seneuil, you uttered words that were bitter, yet wholesome. I were a witling if I failed to value at the full one who has proved himself a just ruler,--one who dares speak his heart's thought in the face of a king, recking nothing of the king's disfavor. In all my realm I can name only two such men,--yonder deacon, whom men call Alcuin the Scholar, and yourself."

"He--Alcuin of York?"

"The Northumbrian. Why have I drawn the pale student from his island home, and made him gift of abbeys and lands? Be sure it is not alone that he is learned and the priests of my realm are unlearned,--not alone that he shall be a light to illumine the night of our ignorance. Rather is it that he, like yourself, Olvir, is a man who puts truth first and the king second. Therefore I have honored him, and therefore I shall honor you. I shall do for you that which tears my very heart-strings.

The day when you bow to our Lord Christ in baptism, that day I will betroth to you Rothada, my daughter."

Abruptly Karl paused and looked at the Northman. Olvir stood staring, half-dazed. He had steeled himself to meet reproach, anger, even flattery; but this mode of attack was unforeseen. All too clearly he realized the full meaning of the king's words; he had only to comply, and honors, power, riches, love, the little vala,--all were his. A deep flush reddened his dark face; his eyes sank before the king's kindly smile, and for a while he stood speechless. But then the flush faded from his cheeks, and he looked up, calm as before, and his eyes glowing with a strange light.

"My lord king has honored me with his praise," he said. "Yet he bids me stay, not because he has justified the b.l.o.o.d.y deed of Verden, but because by staying I may win a bride. It is a tempting offer. Were the maiden here before me, I doubt if I should have strength to withstand it; and then your Majesty would be certain loser. Should I sell my truth, even at such a price, the king's truthful friend would be farther away than Trondheim Fiord."

Karl studied the speaker with a steady gaze, and at the end smiled in keenest satisfaction.

"I have not wittingly tempted you, Olvir," he replied. "It was in no sense as a bargain that I spoke of Rothada. Yet I rejoice at this added proof of your worth. Listen now to the aim of my statecraft. If I do not justify my ways in your sight, I bid you G.o.d-speed."

"Do not believe, sire, that I long to go. I can value at its true worth the friends.h.i.+p of one whom I know to be a world-hero, and--and I have not forgotten my little may."

"Friends.h.i.+p and maiden,--both shall be yours, Olvir, if my tongue can make clear what is in my heart. You charge me with slaughter. The King of Heaven is my witness whether I wage war for blood. If I seek dominion, I seek it for the good of men and the fulfilment of G.o.d's will. Were you not a heathen, I would bid you read that grand writing,--Augustine's 'City of G.o.d.'"

"As to Christian writings, sire, I am content with the words of the White Christ," replied Olvir.

Karl gazed fixedly at the Northman, his brows gathered in deep thought.

"I wish that you had read Augustine's 'City,'" he repeated. "It would make plain to you the course of my statecraft. But it seems that I must light the way myself. First, I would have you look at the world through my eyes. If yours then see a difference, I ask you to tell me. Now let us gaze out upon the wide world, Olvir. What do we see in the East?--that vast giant of the past, the Empire of the East Romans, within a hundred years shorn of Egypt and Africa, of Armenia and Syria, by the fiery Saracens, before whose attacks the Christian Marks still crumble and wane. Look to the South,--that same pagan horde, winners and still fast holders of nine parts of the Christian Goth realm. Look to the Northeast,--hordes of savage Wends and Avars, waiting only a new Attila to sweep Europe with a second Hunnic harrying. Does my Dane hawk see?"

"I see, lord king."

"Then look beyond Rhine Stream, into the forests whence came Burgundians and Lombards, Allemanni and Bavarians, and my own folk, the tribes of the Franks. I have heard told the great story of the past,--how, one and then another, the wild hordes of the North came swarming from their forests, to crush and trample the Western Empire. They slew the priests of Holy Church, and trampled under foot all learning and goodness and art, until G.o.d, in His grace, bent Clovis the Merwing to His will."

"A word, lord king. I, too, have heard how the free forest-folk broke the sway of the subtle Romans. Who looks for praise on the lips of his foe? Bear in mind, sire, those who wrote the tale. Were not the scribes Romans? And what destruction of good could there be, when their own scribes who went before told how the realm was tainted throughout with utter foulness? The heathen warriors of the forest at least honored women and truth, and were free men. If, through contact with the Christian Romans, they forgot those traits--"

"Stay a little, lad. Is the Frank more false, more impure than the Saxon?"

"If Otkar spoke truth, lord king, the Saxons are purer than the Franks, and they are free; while in Frank Land I see a race of free men fast sinking into thraldom. As to the falseness of the Saxon, has not the forest-dweller learned the use of lies from across Rhine Stream?"

"My faith, you strike hard! But whether or no I give a.s.sent to that, it matters little. At the least, the heathen hosts of old-time shattered the peace and order of Rome. Where was peace, came war; where was safety, came peril. Order was swept away, and confusion reigned; and still it reigns throughout the Western World. But--listen, Olvir--I have set for myself the task of bringing again the old-time peace and order. Within my kingdom and upon my borders, where men are now given over to brute l.u.s.t and murder, they shall learn to bend to just laws.

Count and bishop, abbot and judge, free man and slave,--all hearts shall enshrine the image of our Lord Christ!"

Flushed with self-aroused ardor, Karl looked inquiringly at his stern-faced listener.