Eric Brighteyes Part 51

Say, lovers, where shall ye kiss again?"

Then the light went out of her eyes and she laughed low. And ever as she whispered, the spoken words of the two in the shut bed grew fainter and more faint, till at length they died away, and a silence fell upon the place.

"Thou hast no cause to fear the sword of Eric, Gizur," she said.

"Nothing will wake him now till daylight comes."

"Thou art awesome!" answered Gizur, for he shook with fear. "Look not on me with those flaming eyes, I pray thee!"

"Fear not," she said, "the fire is out. Now to the work."

"What must we do, then?"

"_Thou_ must do this. Thou must enter and slay Eric."

"That I can not--that I will not!" said Gizur.

She turned and looked at him, and lo! her eyes began to flame again--upon his eyes they seemed to burn.

"Thou wilt do as I bid thee," she said. "With Eric's sword thou shalt slay Eric, else I will curse thee where thou art, and bring such evil on thee as thou knowest not of."

"Look not so, Swanhild," he said. "Lead on--I come."

Now they creep into the shut chamber of Gudruda. It is so dark that they can see nothing, and nothing can they hear except the heavy breathing of the sleepers.

This is to be told, that at this time Swanhild had it in her mind to kill, not Eric but Gudruda, for thus she would smite the heart of Brighteyes. Moreover, she loved Eric, and while he lived she might yet win him; but Eric dead must be Eric lost. But on Gudruda she would be bitterly avenged--Gudruda, who, for all her scheming, had yet been a wife to Eric!

Now they stand by the bed. Swanhild puts out her hand, draws down the clothes, and feels the breast of Gudruda beneath, for Gudruda slept on the outside of the bed.

Then she searches by the head of the bed and finds Whitefire which hung there, and draws the sword.

"Here lies Eric, on the outside," she says to Gizur, "and here is Whitefire. Strike and strike home, leaving Whitefire in the wound."

Gizur takes the sword and lifts it. He is sore at heart that he must do such a coward deed; but the spell of Swanhild is upon him, and he may not flinch from it. Then a thought takes him and he also puts down his hand to feel. It lights upon Gudruda's golden hair, that hangs about her breast and falls from the bed to the ground.

"Here is woman's hair," he whispers.

"No," Swanhild answers, "it is Eric's hair. The hair of Eric is long, as thou hast seen."

Now neither of them knows that Gudruda cut Eric's locks when he lay sick on Mosfell, though Swanhild knows well that it is not Brighteyes whom she bids Gizur slay.

Then Gizur, Ospakar's son, lifts the sword, and the faint starlight struggling into the chamber gathers and gleams upon the blade. Thrice he lifts it, and thrice it draws it back. Then with an oath he strikes--and drives it home with all his strength!

From the bed beneath there comes one long sigh and a sound as of limbs trembling against the bed-gear. Then all is still.

"It is done!" he says faintly.

Swanhild puts down her hand once more. Lo! it is wet and warm. Then she bends herself and looks, and behold! the dead eyes of Gudruda glare up into her eyes. She can see them plainly, but none know what she read there. At the least it was something that she loved not, for she reels back against the panelling, then falls upon the floor.

Presently, while Gizur stands as one in a dream, she rises, saying: "I am avenged of the death of Atli. Let us hence!--ah! let us hence swiftly! Give me thy hand, Gizur, for I am faint!"

So Gizur gives her his hand and they pa.s.s thence. Presently they stand in the store-room, and there lies Skallagrim, still plunged in his drunken sleep.

"Must I do more murder?" asks Gizur hoa.r.s.ely.

"Nay," Swanhild says. "I am sick with blood. Leave the knave."

They pa.s.s out by the cas.e.m.e.nt into the yard and so on till they find their horses.

"Lift me, Gizur; I can no more," says Swanhild.

He lifts her to the saddle.

"Whither away?" he asks.

"To Coldback, Gizur, and thence to cold Death."

Thus did Gudruda, Eric's bride and Asmund's daughter, the fairest woman who ever lived in Iceland, die on her marriage night by the hand of Gizur, Ospakar's son, and through the hate and witchcraft of Swanhild the Fatherless, her half-sister.

x.x.x

HOW THE DAWN CAME

The dawn broke over Middalhof. Slowly the light gathered in the empty hall, it crept slowly into the little chamber where Eric slept, and Gudruda slept also with a deeper sleep.

Now the two women came from their chamber at the far end of the hall, and drew near the hearth, s.h.i.+vering, for the air was cold. They knelt by the fire, blowing at the embers till the sticks they cast upon them crackled to a blaze.

"It seems that Gudruda is not yet gone," said one to the other. "I thought she should ride away with Eric before the dawn."

"Newly wed lie long abed!" laughed the other.

"I am glad to see the blessed light," said the first woman, "for last night I dreamed that once again this hall ran red with blood, as at the marriage-feast of Ospakar."

"Ah," answered the other, "it will be well for the south when Eric Brighteyes and Gudruda are gone over sea, for their loves have brought much bloodshed upon the land."

"Well, indeed!" sighed the first. "Had Asmund the Priest never found Groa, Ran's gift, singing by the sea, Valhalla had not been so full to-day. Mindest thou the day he brought her here?"

"I remember it well," she answered, "though I was but a girl at the time. Still, when I saw those dark eyes of hers--just such eyes as Swanhild's!--I knew her for a witch, as all Finn women are. It is an evil world: my husband is dead by the sword; dead are both my sons, fighting for Eric; dead is Unna, Thorod's daughter; Asmund, my lord, is dead, and dead is Bjorn; and now Gudruda the Fair, whom I have rocked to sleep, leaves us to go over sea. I may not go with her, for my daughter's sake; yet I almost wish that I too were dead."

"That will come soon enough," said the other, who was young and fair.

Now the witch-sleep began to roll from Eric's heart, though his eyes were not yet open. But the talk of the women echoed in his ears, and the words "_dead!_" "_dead!_" "_dead!_" fell heavily on his slumbering sense. At length he opened his eyes, only to shut them again, because of a bright gleam of light that ran up and down something at his side. Heavily he wondered what this might be, that shone so keen and bright--that shone like a naked sword.