And all of a sudden, ahead of me, moved swiftly in the sea and across my way a sheet of dazzling blue brightness, and it frightened me. Often as I had seen the sea and swum in it, I had never seen the like of this, nor had heard of it. The sheet of silver fire turned and drew toward me, and I ceased swimming, and stood, treading water, watching it. Out of its midmost fires darted long streaks of light, everywhere, lightning swift, coming and going ceaselessly.
Into the midst of that brightness rushed five bolts of flame, and scattered it. The water boiled, alive with the darting fires around me and under my feet, and my heart stood still with terror. Yet I was not harmed. And then I saw one of those great white-hot silver bolts hurl itself from sea to air in a wide arch, and fall back again into the water with a mighty splash; and all the flying water seemed to burn as it fled.
Truly it was but a school of mackerel, and the porpoises which fed on the silver fish, all made wonderful by the eerie fires of a summer sea; but I could not tell that all at once. I think that I knew what it was when the great sea pig leaped, for his shape was plain to me. The shoal went its way, and after it the harmless porpoises. But the sea was fairly alight now; all round me it shone with its soft glow, and my body was wondrous with it, and I seemed to float in naught but light.
Then I think that I wandered in my mind, what with the fright and weariness; for I had been five or six hours in the water, and it was long since I had tasted food. It came to me that I was dead at last, and that I was far in the sky, floating on bright air, with stars above me and stars below. And that seemed good to me. I rested, paddling just enough to keep myself upright and forget my troubles in wonderment.
Surely that was a voice singing! There was a strange melody I had never heard the like of, and it came from the brightness not far from me. I came back to knowledge of where I was with a start, trying to make out from which direction it sounded.
"This is a nixie trying to lure me to the depth," I thought. "Truly, he need not take the trouble; for thither I must go shortly, without any coaxing."
I turned myself in the water, trying to see if I could make out the singer, but I could not. Seeing that no other was likely to be swimming in Portland race but myself, I had no thought that the song was human.
But I could find nothing. When my face was seaward, I saw far off the ships I had left, indeed; and one seemed to have set her sail, for it showed as a square patch of blackness against the sky, but no voice could come from them to me. Presently I thought that somewhat dark rose and fell on the little waves between me and her, but that was doubtless the tunic I had given to the water. I did not think of wondering why I still saw it after all this long swim, but I seemed to have made no headway from the ships, which were as near as when I last looked at them.
So I turned again and swam easily, as I thought, shoreward. The song went on, but it seemed to ring in my ears as the drone of our miller's pipes comes up from the river on a still summer evening. Yet it grew more plain.
Then I saw the ships before me. I was swimming in a circle, my right arm mastering the left, I suppose. That told me how weary I was, if I had not known it to the full before. At that moment the song, which was close to me, stopped, and a fiery arm rose from a wave top against the sky, and seemed to hail me.
"Ho, Wilfrid! have you had enough yet? By Aegir himself, you are a fine swimmer!"
Through the brightness came a sparkling head, round which the foam curled in fleecy fire; and shining as I shone, Thorleif the viking floated up to me and trod the water.
"What, you also?" I said. "Both of us drowned together at last?"
And with that I went into the brightness below me, and troubled no more for anything.
It was indeed Thorleif whom I saw as the deadly faintness of utter weariness and want of food came over me, and I sank. The Danes had hardly lost sight of me from the ships, for they had drifted backward and forward on the tide as I drifted, and I was never more than a mile from them. Until the tide turned to the eastward there had been no wind of any use to them, and that which came with sunset was barely enough to give them steerage way. So they had watched me for want of somewhat else to do, being worn out with the long fight; and when I was far off, some keen-sighted seaman would spy my head as it rose on a wave, and cry that the Saxon was yet swimming.
Now, if there is one thing that the northern folk of our kin think much of in the way of sports, it is swimming, and it seems that I won high praise from all. Maybe they did not consider how a man who is trying to win his home again from captivity is likely to do more than his best. At all events, I had never so much as tried a swim like that before, nor do I think that I could compass it again. Presently, when the turn of the tide brought with it no eddy into the bay which set me homeward, Thorleif would let me go no longer, and followed me in the boat with two men; which was easy enough, for I swam between the ship and the place where the red glow of burning Weymouth still shone in the northern sky. He could not leave me to drown.
For a time, in the growing dusk, he could not find me. Then the sea fires showed me black against their glow, and the sea tempted him, and he leaped in after me, singing to cheer me, for it was plain that I was nearly spent. When he brought me up from the depth again I had little of the drowned man about me, for I had fainted. I remember coming round painfully after that swoon, and eating and drinking, and straightway falling into a dreamless sleep on the deck of the ship; and I also remember the untoldly evil and fishy smell of the seal oil they had rubbed me with.
When I came to myself, my first thought was that a solid wall of that smell stood round me; but such were the virtues of the oil and the rubbing that when I woke after eighteen hours' sleep I was not so much as stiff. It would ill beseem me to complain thereof, therefore, but it might have been fresher.
When I woke from my great sleep it was long past noon. I lay in the shelter of the gunwales under the curve of the high stern post, wrapped in a yellow Irish cloak, and in my ears roared and surged a deep-voiced song, which kept time with the steady roll of oars and the thrashing of the water under their blades. The ship was quivering in every timber with the pull of them, and I could feel her leap to every stroke. The great red and white sail was set also, and the westerly breeze was humming in it, and over the high bows the spray arched and fell without ceasing as oar and sail drove the sharp stem through the seas. Thorleif was in a hurry for some reason.
Only one man was on the after deck, steering, and he was fully armed. Save that his brown arm swayed a little, resting on the carven tiller, as the waves lifted the steering oar with a creak now and then, he was motionless, looking steadily ahead under the arch of the foot of the sail. The run of the deck set me higher than him, and I could not see more than the feet of some men who were clustered on the fore deck. But I could look all down the length of the ship, and there every man was armed, even the rowers. They had hung red and yellow wooden shields all along the gunwales, raising the bulwark against sea and arrow flight alike by a foot and more, and the rowers were fairly in shelter under them, if there was to be a broadside attack.
I never doubted that a fight was intended, though I could not tell why. Every man was at his post--two to each oar bench beside the rower, one with ready shield, and the other with bent bow, and these were looking forward also as they sang that hoarse song which had roused me. I do not know that I have ever heard aught so terrible as that. The wildness and savageness of it bides with me, and of a night when the wind blows round the roof I wake and think I hear it again. But it set me longing for battle, even here on the strange deck, and I would that I might join in it.
And then I knew that my own weapons lay beside me, and I sprang up, and grasped the sword and seax in haste to buckle them on. They rattled, and the steersman turned his head and laughed at me. It was old Thrond.
"That is right, lad," he said, turning his head back to watch his course again. "None the worse for the wetting, it seems."
Truth to tell, I felt little of it, being altogether myself again after the rest. So I laughed also, setting aside for the moment the question of what my fate was to be. It was plain that the man who saved me from the sea and gave me back my arms did not mean to make a captive of me in any hard sort.
"Only mightily hungry," I said. "It seems that I have slept heavily."
Thrond jerked his free thumb toward a pitcher and wooden bowl that were set near me, without looking round.
"So I suppose," he said. "Eat well, and then we will see what sort of a viking you make. You have half an hour or so."
Ale and beef there were, ready for me, and I took them and sat down at the feet of the old chief, with my legs hanging over the edge of the fore deck. Thence I could see that Thorleif was forward, and that away to the northward of us a ship was heading across our course, under sail only. The two other Danish ships were far astern of us, but their oars were flashing in the sun as they made after us.
Then I looked northward for England, but there was only the sea's rim, and over that a bank of white summer clouds. Under the sun, to the south, was a long blue line of hills whose shapes were strange to me, and that was the Frankish shore. We were far across the Channel, and still heading eastward.
"Thrond," I said, "are you after that ship yonder?"
"Ay. She will be a Frankish trader going home, and worth overhauling. Maybe there will be no fight, however; but one never knows."
Now it was in my mind to ask him what would be done with me, but I did not. That was perhaps a matter which must be settled hereafter, and not on the eve of a fight at sea. Moreover, I thought that a Frankish ship was fair game for any one, and that if I were needed there was no reason at all why I should not take a hand in the fight. Certainly I should fare no worse for taking my plight in the best way I could. So I held my tongue and went on eating.
One or two of the men looked up from the oars and grinned at me, and of these one had a black eye, being the man I had knocked off the deck. It was plain that he bore no malice, so I smiled back at him, and lifted the jug of ale toward him as I drank. He was a pleasant-looking man enough, now that the savagery of battle had passed from him.
Now I would have it remembered that a Saxon lad reared on the west Welsh marches is not apt to think much of a cattle raid and the fighting that ends it, and that with these Danes, who were so like ourselves, we had as yet no enmity. It seemed to me that being in strange company I must even fit myself to it, and all was wonderful to me in the sight of the splendid ship and her well-armed, well-ordered crew. Maybe, had we not been speeding to a fight the like of which I had never so much as heard of, I should have thought of home and the fears of those who would hear that I was gone; but as things were, how could I think of aught but what was on hand?
We were nearing the vessel fast, and seeing that she did not turn her head and fly, old Thrond growled that there was some fight in her.
"Unless," he added with a hard chuckle, "they have never so much as heard of a viking. Are there pirates in this sea, lad?"
"They say that the seamen from the southern lands are, betimes. I have heard of ships taken by swarthy men thence. The Cornish tin merchants tell the tales of them."
"Tin?" said Thrond. "Now I would that we had heard thereof before. I reckon we passed some booty westward. Eh, well, we shall know better next time."
After that he was silent, watching the ship ahead. She was a great heavy trader, with higher sides than this swift longship.
And presently, as I watched her, a thought came to me, and I was ashamed that I had not asked before if it was true that my cousin had not been hurt in the fighting.
"He was not harmed," answered the old chief. "He hurt us; he is a good fighter. Get yon shield and hold it ready to cover me. It is not worth while to have the helmsman shot, and it will set a man free to fight forward."
Now the ship was within arrow shot, and we could see that there were few men on her decks. Thorleif hailed her to heave to, sending an arrow on her deck by way of hint. Whereon she shot up into the wind, and her sail rattled down. Thrond whistled to himself.
"Empty as a dry walnut shell, or I am mistaken," he said between his teeth.
Then he shouted to Thorleif, and some order came back. The sail was lowered, and the ship swung alongside the stranger under oars only, while a rush of men came aft. Thorleif hailed the other ship to send him a line from the bows, and one flew on board us as we shot past. Then in a few moments we were under easy sail again, towing the great trader slowly after us; and the men were grumbling at the ease of the capture, thinking, with Thrond, that it boded a useless chase. Thorleif came aft to speak with the shipmaster from our stern.
Then there climbed on the bows of the trader a tall, handsome young man, at the sight of whom I could not withhold a cry of wonder, for I knew him well. He was Ecgbert the atheling, nephew of our great king Ina, and the one man whom Bertric feared as a rival when he came to the throne. His father and mine had been close friends, and we two had played and hunted together many a time, until the jealousy of Bertric drove him to seek refuge with Offa of Mercia. I thought him there yet.
"Yield yourselves," said Thorleif, "and we will speak in peace of ransom. I will come on board with a score of men, and harm none."
"We have yielded, seeing that there was no other chance for as," said Ecgbert quietly. "Come on board if you will, but on my word it is hardly worth your while. We left in too great a hurry to bring much with us."
"Whence are you, then, and whither bound?"
"From Mercia, by way of Southampton, and bound anywhere out of the way of Quendritha the queen. We had a mind to go to Carl the king, but any port in a storm!"
"Well," said Thorleif, laughing, "I am coming on board. That must be a terrible dame of whom you speak, if she has set the fear of death on a warrior such as you seem to be."
Then he bade the men haul on the cable, and the ships drew together slowly. I had to leave the deck, being in the way of the men, and Ecgbert did not see me, as far as I could tell.
Thorleif and his men boarded the prize over her bows and went aft, Ecgbert going with them. The two ships drifted apart again, and I found my place by Thrond once more, while the men sat on the gunwale, waiting for the time when their chief should return.
"Who is the queen yon Saxon speaks of?" asked Thrond.
I told him; and as we had heard much of her of late, I also told him how men said that she had been found on the shore by the king himself. Whereon Thrond's grave face grew yet more grave, and he said:
"Lad, is that a true tale?"
"My father had it from the thane who was with the king when they found her alone in her boat."
"So her name was not Quendritha when she began that voyage?"
"I have heard that she was a heathen. Mayhap the king gave her the name when she was christened. It means 'the might of the king.'"
So I suppose that he did, for the hope of what his wife should be. Nor was the name ill chosen, as it turned out, for all men knew by this time that the queen was the wisest adviser in all the council of Mercia in aught to do with the greatness of the kingdom.
"I have ever had it in my mind that she would get through that voyage in safety," Thrond said. "Ran would not have her."
"What do you mean?"
"Lad, I saw her start thereon, or so I think. Tell me when she was found."
That I could do, within a very short time. My father and Offa had been wedded in the same year, as I had heard him say but a few days ago, at Winchester, as men talked of the bride whom we had welcomed, Quendritha's daughter. And as he heard, Thrond's face grew very dark.
"That is she. Now I will tell you the beginning of that voyage. I was a courtman then to the father of Thorleif, our jarl here, and I myself made the boat ready and launched her in it."
And then he told me that which I have set down at the beginning of this tale--neither more nor less. What was the fullness of the evil the woman had wrought he did not tell me, and I am glad.
When he ended he sat silent and brooding for a long time. The ship forged slowly and uneasily over the waves with the heavy trader after her, and on our decks the men were silent, waiting for word from Thorleif of what was to be done. We could hear him, now and then, laughing with the crew of the other ship as if all went easily.
"Lad," said old Thrond, suddenly turning to me, "you had best forget all this. It is dangerous to know aught of the secrets of great folk; and if it comes to the ears of Quendritha that one is telling such a tale of her, the life of the man who has told it will not be worth much. Maybe I am wrong, and I speak of one who is drowned long since; for, indeed, it seems out of the way of chance that a girl could win across the sea from Denmark to a throne thus. And if it is true, she has done even as Thorleif's father bade her, and has left her ways of ill.
"And, yet," he said again, "if ever you have to do with her, remember what she may have been. It will be ill to offend her, or to cross her in aught."
"That is the hardest saying that our folk have of her," I said, "but I have heard it many a time."
"There is much in that saying," Thrond answered grimly.
"Well," I answered shortly, "I suppose that if any man will set himself against a king or a queen, he has to take the chances."
"Small chance for such an one if the queen be--well, such another as I helped to set adrift from our shore."
Meaningly that was said, and I had no answer. I was glad that Thorleif showed himself on the bows of the prize and hailed Thrond.
"Send the Saxon lad on board here," he said; "we have met with a friend of his."
That could be none but the atheling, and I leaped up. The men were heaving on the tow line, and the ships were slowly nearing each other.
"Thrond," I said breathlessly, "will Thorleif let me go?"
"Of course," he answered, smiling. "We only picked you up again to save your life. He had a mind to land you on the English shore presently; for he said you had kept faith with us well, and he could not let you suffer therefor."
The bows of the trader grated against our stern, and one of the men gave me a hoist over her gunwale with such good will that I landed sprawling among the coils of rope on the fore deck. When I gathered myself up I saw Ecgbert and Thorleif aft, while the Danes were rummaging the ship, and I made my way to them. And as I came the atheling stared at me, and then hastened forward with outstretched hand of welcome.
"Why, Wilfrid, old comrade, how come you here? I heard only of a West Saxon, and whether this is luck for you or not I do not know."
"Good luck enough, I think," I answered, with a great hand grip. "I had not yet let myself wonder how long it would be before I saw home again."
His face fell, and he looked doubtfully at me.
"I cannot take you home, Wilfrid; I am flying thence myself. The Danish chief will set you ashore somewhere at his first chance, he says."
"Why, what is amiss again?"
"The old jealousy, I suppose," he answered grimly. "As if a lad like myself was likely to try to overturn a throne! Here had I hardly settled down in Mercia as a fighter of the Welsh and hanger-on of Offa's court, when there come Bertric's messengers, asking that I should be given up, and backing the demand with a request for closer alliance by marriage. Offa, being an honest man, was for sending the message back unanswered. But the queen had a mind for the match, and as I was in the way, it was plain to me that I must be out of it. So I did not wait for Quendritha to remove me, but removed myself."
"Alone?" I asked.
"Alone, and that hastily. You do not know the lady of Mercia, or you would not ask."
Now I thought to myself that in the last half hour I had learned more of that lady than even Ecgbert knew, and I felt that he was wise in time, if Thrond's tale was true; which, indeed, I began to believe. But it did not seem right to me that an atheling of Wessex should be alone, without so much as a housecarl to tend him and stand at his back at need. I minded what my father taught me since I could learn.
"Here is your duty, son Wilfrid. First to God; then to the king; then to the atheling, the king's son, and then to father and mother; then to the shire reeve and the ealdorman, if so be that they are loyal; and then to helpless woman and friendless poor man. But to the weak first of all, against whomsoever will wrong them, whether it be the king or myself."
"Where will you go, atheling?" I asked, speaking low, for I had many things warring in my mind.
"I cannot tell yet. I am an outcast."
Then I knelt on the deck before him and made him take my hands between his own, and I said to him, while he tried to prevent me:
"Whither you go I follow, to be your man in good or ill. Little use I am, but some I may be; and at least the atheling of Wessex shall not say that none would follow him."
"Wilfrid," he cried, "I cannot suffer you to leave all for me."
Then said Thorleif, who had been watching us in silence:
"Take him, prince, for you will need him. He has kept faith with us, though he might have escaped easily enough, because he thought his word withheld him. And he has proved himself a man in battle with the waters, as I know well. Let him go with you, and be glad of him."
"I am loath to take him from his folk to share my misfortunes."
"That is naught," said Thorleif. "Pay a trader who is going to England to tell other chapmen to pass the word to his folk where he is. They will hear in a month or less."
"Hearken to the chief, my prince," I said. "That is easy, and it will be all I care for. If my father hears that I am with you, he will be well content."
"More than content, Wilfrid," said Ecgbert, smiling. "We of the line of Ina know your folk of old. Well, be it as you will, for, on my word, I am lonely; and I think, comrade, that if I had choice of one to stand by me, the choice would have fallen on you.
"There was little need, chief, for you to tell me that Wilfrid of Frome was steadfast. We are old friends."
"Bide so, then. Friends are not easily made," answered Thorleif, laughing. "Now tell me what you are thinking of doing. Maybe I can advise you, being an adventurer by choice, as it seems you must be by need. But first I will offer you both a share in our cruise, if you will turn viking and go the way of Hengist and Horsa, your forbears. Atheling and thane's son you will be to us still, if you have to take an oar now and then."
"Kindly spoken," said Ecgbert; "but this I will tell you plainly. It had not come into my mind to think that Bertric needed to fear me until he showed that he did so. Had he left me to myself, I had been as good a subject of Wessex as Wilfrid here. But now it seems to me that maybe he has some good reason to think that the throne might be or should have been mine. Wherefore it is in my mind to seek the great King Carl, and learn what I can of his way of warfare, that presently, when the time comes, I may be the more ready to take that throne and hold it."
"Why, then," said Thorleif, watching the face of the atheling, "I will tell you this from out of my own knowledge of Wessex. If you learn what Carl can teach you, you will, if you can raise a thousand followers, walk through Wessex into Mercia, and thence home by East Anglia to London town, and there sit with three crowns on your head--the greatest king that has been in England yet. For your folk know no more of fighting, though they are brave enough, than a herd of cattle. But it will be many a long year before you know enough, and then you will need to be able to use your knowledge."
"Can you tell me where to find Carl the king? It may be that I have years enough before me to learn much."
"Those who want to learn do learn," quoth Thorleif. "It is in my mind that, unless a Flemish arrow ends you, Wessex will have to choose between you and Bertric presently."
Then he told us where he had last heard of the Frankish king, which was somewhere on the eastern Rhine border. And at last, being taken with the fearless way of the young atheling, said that if he would, he himself would see him as far on his way as the Rhine mouth. And in the end Ecgbert closed with the offer, and left the Frankish ship accordingly.
Thorleif's men had sought every corner of her by that time, and had some store of silver money to show for their long chase, and were satisfied. As for the shipmen of their prize, I think they were well enough content to be let go in peace, and had little to say on the matter. Ecgbert was for giving them the gold ring which he had promised them as passage money, that being the only thing of value he had beyond his weapons; but Thorleif would not suffer him to do so, saying that his Danes would but take it from them straightway.
So the great trader lumbered off southward, and I and the atheling sat with Thrond and Thorleif, and told and heard all the story of the raid on Weymouth until the stars came out. And I was well content; for no Saxon can ask aught better than to serve his lord, whether in wealth or distress.
Now I might make a long story of that voyage with Thorleif, for there were landings such as had been made at Weymouth, and once just such another fight. And ever the lands where we touched grew more strange to me, until we came to the low shores of the Rhine mouths, hardly showing above the gray waves of the sea which washed their sad-coloured sand dunes. And there Thorleif landed us at a fishing village, among whose huts rose the walls of a building which promised us shelter at least.
Terribly frightened were the poor folk at our coming, but they took us, with the guard Thorleif sent ashore with us, to the building, and it turned out to be a monastery, where we were most welcome. And there we bid farewell to the Danes, not without regret, for we had been good comrades on the voyage. There was a great difference between these crews of men from one village under their own chief, and the terrible swarms of men, gathered none knows whence, and with little heed to their leaders save in battle, which came in after years. We saw the Dane at his best.
Now after that the good abbot of the place passed us on from town to town until at last we came to Herulstad, where Carl the mighty lay with his army, still watching and fighting the heathen Saxons of the Rhinelands. And there Ecgbert was welcomed in all friendliness, and our wanderings were at an end. Even the arm of Quendritha could not reach the atheling here, though Carl and Offa were friendly, and messengers came and went between the two courts from time to time.
In that way I had messages sent home at last, and my mind was at rest. It was, however, nearly a year before my folk heard of me, as I learned afterward. But close on five years of warfare lay before me ere I should set foot on English ground again.
Looking back on them, it seems that those five years with Carl the Great were long, but in truth they went fast enough. With Ecgbert I went everywhere that war was to be waged, whether on the still half heathen, unwillingly christened Saxons, who were our own kin of the old land; or across on the opposite frontier, where the terrible Moors of Spain had not yet forgotten Roncesvalles. For us it was fighting, and always fighting, and little of that most splendid court of the king did we see; for Ecgbert had set himself to learn all that he might, and he was not one to do things by halves. Nor had I any wish to be anywhere but near him.
They were good years, therefore, if we had our share of danger and hardship to the full, and must needs bear the marks of it ever after. Once I was sorely wounded, and Ecgbert tended me through that as a brother rather than as my lord--even as I would have tended him, only that he was never hurt. Some of us grew to think that he had a charmed life; but I thought that he was kept for the sake of what was to be in days to come, when England was worn out with warfare between the kingdoms, and would welcome a strong hand over her from north to south.
I know not whether it was Carl himself who bade Ecgbert wait for that day, but it is likely. The atheling was in no haste to return to England, and it was his word that until he was needed he should bide here and learn.
But when the time went on he had thought for me, and one April day, as we rode together, he bade me go home and see that all was well with my folk. I had some fever on me at that time, for we were among the Frisian marshlands, and it had fallen on me when I was weak from the wound I spoke of, so that I could not shake it off. It came every third day, and held me in its grip for the afternoon, cold as ice, and then hot as fire, and so leaving me little the worse, but always thin and yellow to look on. Moreover, it always seemed to come on the wrong day for me, when I needed to be most busy, so that over and over again Ecgbert had to ride out without me. There were plenty more of us in the same case that year, when we were hunting Frisian heathen rebels to their strongholds in their fens.
"I must lose you in one way or the other, comrade," Ecgbert said. "Either you will die here, which is the worst that could befall you, or else you must go home to England. Now there is a fair chance for you, for Carl is sending some messengers with presents to the young King of East Anglia, who has yet to be crowned. Go with them, and take him greetings from me."
But before I could bring myself to agree to parting from him he had to put this before me in many ways, for I could not bear to leave him. And at last he laid his commands on me that I must go. He said it was time that he had a friend who knew his hopes in England, watching how matters went for him, and that I could best do it. So there was no way out of it, and I had to go.
And when I knew that, there woke in me the longing for England which lies deep in the heart of every one of her sons, wheresoever he may be across the seas, and the days were weary before Carl's messengers should sail. I think that Ecgbert envied me, with the same longing on him; but one could only know it from his silences, or from the way in which he would talk to me of all that I should see again.
Two days before we sailed I was sent for by Carl himself; which was an honour indeed for me. Very kindly he thanked me for past services, as if I had not rather served Ecgbert than himself; and he gave me new arms of the best from head to foot, and a heavy bag of gold moreover, that I might not say that Carl the Great was sparing of his reward to those who had fought for him. I did not need that, for he had been more than generous to us for all these years, and any man knows that it is an honour to have served with the greatest of kings, and to have spoken freely with him.
I told Ecgbert that I must return to him when I was free from the fever, but he shook his head.
"Nay, but you have your work at home, and mine lies here," he said. "Your father has no other child, and, he needs you. I am well off here till that day we wot of comes. Wait for it in patience, and then we shall meet again. There will be no comrade like you for me till then, but I shall know I have one at least who will welcome me presently if you go now."
He made it light for me; but it was a hard parting, and I will say no more of it. The ship left the little Frisian port whence we sailed, and he stood on the shore and watched us until I could see him no more; then for a time a loneliness fell on me which made me a poor companion for the gay Frankish nobles with whom I was to go to East Anglia.
Not that it mattered much after an hour or so, when we met the waves of the open sea; for they were no sort of companion to any one, even to themselves, and the seamen had their laugh at them.
But for myself, not being troubled with the sickness, the sea worked wonders. For the first time for many a long month the ague fit had less hold on me when its time came next day. Then a Frisian sailor saw that I had the illness he knew so well and over well, and would have me take some bitter draught he made for me out of willow bark, saying that Carl's leeches knew somewhat less than nothing concerning ague. Whether it was the sea air, or the draught, or both, the fit did not come when next it was due; and the seaman said I was cured, for the power of the ill was broken. He had time to say that again, for we had head winds the whole way across, and were nigh a week before we made the mouth of the great river which goes up to Norwich, where we hoped to find the king, Ethelbert. And by that time the Franks were themselves again, and my colour was coming back, and the joy of home was on me, and we were gay enough.
It was on the last day of April that we saw the English shores again, early in the morning, with the sun on the low green hills of Norfolk. By sunset we were far in the heart of the land, at Norwich, and across the wide river the cuckoo was calling. We had left a leafless land, and here all was decked in the sweet green of the first leaves, and all the banks were yellow with the primroses. I heard the Franks scoffing at the houses of the town, and at the wooden tower of the church which rose from among them; but I cared not at all, for nothing like the beauty of sky and land had they to show me beyond the sea.
And when the men thronged to the wharf, it seemed to me that never had I looked on their like for goodliness and health, as their great English laugh rang out over their work, and the sound of the English voices made the old music for me.
The king was not at Norwich, but inland at Thetford, and there we must seek him. But his steward rode down to us from the hall, which stands a mile from the river, on its hill. Thither we were led in all state as the messengers of the great king, and there we bided for a day or two while they made ready a train of horses which should take us to our journey's end. We had some wondrous gifts for Ethelbert from Carl.
There is only one of these Frankish companions of mine of whom I need speak, and that one was a young noble from our old land, named Werbode. I had seen somewhat of him in these last wars, for he had led the men of his father, and had been set under Ecgbert, who had won to high command. So we were both Saxons, and of about the same age; and it was pleasant to find ourselves together on the voyage, for he was a good comrade, and, like myself, not altogether thinking and feeling with the Franks.
So we saw much of each other on the voyage, and now it was pleasant to take him about the old town, and show him what the new home of the Saxon kin was like here in England. There was a great fair going on at this time, and we enjoyed it; for though there was not the richness of wares we had been wont to see at the like gatherings of merchants and chapmen beyond the seas, here were mirth and freedom, and rough plenty, which were as good, or better.
And presently he said that here we had horses which were as fine as any he had ever seen, and that put a thought into my mind. I would buy one for myself rather than ride one found me by the town reeve; for I had to get home to Somerset, and I would make no delay.
"Well, then," says Werbode, "let us go and see if you people have forgotten the ancient Saxon manner of horse dealing."
So we went to the horse fair, and there our foreign dress drew every dealer in the place round us as soon as I had looked in the mouth of one likely steed. After which, as may be supposed, it was not likely that I could make any choice at all; but we two sat on the bench outside the town gate, and had, I think, every horse in the fair trotted past us, whether good or bad. And at last the noise, and to tell the truth the wrangling of the dealers, grew tiresome, and we went our way, some other buyer having taken their notice for a moment.
And then it chanced that we came to a quiet place where a man, armed and with two armed helpers, had a string of slaves for sale. The poor folk were lying and sitting on the ground, with that dull look on them which I hate to see, and I was going to pass them, throwing them a penny as I did so. Werbode was laughing at the ways of the horse dealers, and did not notice them; for the sight was common enough after any war of ours with Carl, when the captives who could not ransom them were sold.
And then one of them leaped up with a great cry, and hailed me by name.
"Wilfrid! Wilfrid of Weymouth!"
I turned sharply enough at that call, for the last thing that one could have expected was that my name should be known here in the land of the East Angles. And who of all whom I knew in the years gone by would name me as of Weymouth? I had but been there as a stranger.
"Wilfrid the swimmer!" said the man, stretching his bound hands to me.
The slave trader cracked his whip and rated the man for daring to call to me thus, bidding him be silent. But I lifted my hand, and he held his peace, doffing his cap to me with all reverence for the fine dress and jewelled weapons--Carl's gift--that I wore.
I did not heed his words of apology, but looked at the ragged, brown-faced man who called to me. He was thin and wiry, with a yellow beard, and his hands were hard with some heavy work. Yet his face was in some way not altogether strange to me, though I could not name him. He was no thrall of ours or of my cousin's, so far as I could tell.
"Wilfrid--thane--whatever you are now," he said, for I would not suffer the trader to prevent his words, "you gave me a black eye at Weymouth, and thereafter drank 'skoal' to me when we chased the trading ship."
Thereat Werbode laughed.
"Faith," he said, "if every thrall to whom I have given a black eye or so has a claim on me--"
But his words went on unheard as far as I was concerned. I seemed to have the very smell of the smoke of burning Weymouth in my nostrils, and the wild rowing song came back to me. I minded the man well, and it went to my heart to see the free Danish warrior tied here at the mercy of this evil-eyed slaver, for I knew that he was as free born as myself.
I turned sharply on the merchant, and asked him how it came about that he had this man for sale.
"He is a freeman, and I know him," I said.
Nevertheless it came into my mind that he had been taken prisoner at the time of some such landing as that wherein I had first seen him.
"He is a shipwrecked foreigner, lord," was the answer; "a masterless man whom I bought from the Lindsey thane on whose manor shore he was stranded."
But it seemed to me that there was a look of fear in the eyes of this slave trader. It came when I, whom he had taken for a Frank noble from my dress, spoke to him in good Wessex. Whereby I had a shrewd guess that all was not so fair and lawful as he would make it seem.
"He lies," growled the Dane. "Some thrall picked me up, and this man took me from him. He was on the prowl for castaways on the morn of the storm. Nigh dead I was, or would have fought."
He spoke low and quickly, and the trader seemed not to understand his Danish. But I saw that he spoke the truth.
Now I think that if this shipmate of mine had been fairly taken captive as he raided, I should have let him take the reward of his work. But this chance was a different matter.
"Show me the receipt for payment to that thane of whom you speak," I said. "If you can, well and good; if not, then we will go to the sheriff and see this matter righted. I know the man as a freeman."
"Ay, in his own land," said the trader, beginning to bluster. "What is that to me? Here in England he is masterless--"
"No," said the Dane; "this is my master. Heard you not how I owned to a black eye from him?"
And he looked at me in a half proud way which told me how the bonds had broken him, and yet how they had not yet made him shameless if he must beg me for help to freedom.
Then said Werbode quietly:
"Where is that receipt? I suppose that if you paid for his man, my friend has to repay you for ransoming him. It is a simple matter."
"I do not carry it with me, stranger. You know not this land of ours. It is at my inn. I can show it, of course."
"Well, then," said I, "I will take my man and answer for him. Bring the writing to the house of the sheriff, where I lodge, and what is there set down I will pay you."
Now there were a dozen idlers gathered by this time, and seeing that the trader hesitated, I called to one, who seemed to be a forester by his staff and green jerkin, and bade him fetch the sheriff, if he could find him. I would have the matter settled here. Whereon the slaver gave in.
"Well, then," he grumbled, "I hold you answerable for him. Take him, and get your money ready.
"Let him free," he said, turning to his men.
That they did with somewhat more readiness than one would have expected. The Dane shook himself and looked round him. And then, without a word of warning, he sprang straight at the slaver and wrested his whip from him. Then he swung him round by the collar of his leather jerkin, and lashed him in spite of the sword which the man drew. The idlers shouted, and Werbode laughed, while the two men had all they could do to prevent the other slaves from breaking away; or else they themselves had no reason to object to seeing their master tasting his own sauce.
The heavy plaits of the whiplash curled round the legs of the trader, and he writhed. They caught his short sword and twitched it from his hand, to send it flying among the gathering crowd, and then the man lay down and howled for mercy. But the thralls of the crowd were only too pleased with the sport, and as I and Werbode did not interfere, to do so was no one else's business.
At last the Dane held his hand, and left his tyrant groaning. He broke the whip stock and twisted the thong from the end of the fragment. Then he tied it round the neck of the slaver, and rose up and saluted me in the way of the Danish courtman.
"Whither, lord?" he asked, quite coolly. "I am ready."
"Better go back to the sheriffs," I said. "Maybe we shall have to answer for this, and we will tell him first."
"No," he said, with the ghost of a smile; "you will not set eyes on this man again. What I told you is true. He has no more right to me than the thrall who found me; less, maybe, for I suppose the thrall would have taken me to his lord, who had some claim on me for a castaway."
The crowd closed in round the slaver, and the other slaves raised a sort of wretched cheer as we went away. Soon we turned the corner of the street and came to the outskirts of the fair again, and none had followed us. There the decent folk stared at us and our ragged follower somewhat, and a thought came to me.
"Comrade," I said, for I could not mind his name, "let me rig you out afresh before we part."
"They call me Erling," he said. "Have you so many men to serve you that we must needs part?"
"No," I answered, "but I am no sort of a master to serve. I will help an old comrade home, however."
"Home was burnt a year ago," he said. "Let me bide with you, thane; I must be some man's man. You will go back to the west presently, I suppose?"
"Yes, after a time. What of that? for it is not your way."
"Your way is mine, unless you drive me from you. You have given me my freedom, and I know it. Let me serve you freely."
"Well," said I, "you will be my only servant when once I leave King Carl's train, with which I have come."
"So much the better," he said. "I am likely to be as handy a servant as you can find, in most things."
"Oh," said Werbode, laughing, "take him, Wilfrid. Free service is not to be despised. Moreover, if you want any one well and soundly beaten, here is your man."
"I can keep the thane's back at a pinch, young sir," said the Dane quietly. "That mayhap is more than most will do if they are hired."
"Faith, I believe you could," said Werbode, looking the man's wiry frame up and down.
"Take him, Wilfrid."
"Why, then," said I, "so I will, and gladly, for just so long as I please you as a master. And when you will leave me, you shall go without blame. Now let us see to clothing you afresh."
So we went to the quarter of the fair where such things as we needed were to be had, and there we took pleasure in fitting my new follower out in all decent housecarl attire, not by any means sparing for good leather jerkin and Norwich-cloth hose and hood, for I would not have him looked down on by our Frankish servants. And, indeed, with weapon on hip and round helm on head, over washed face and combed hair, he seemed a different man altogether. The old free walk of the seaman came back to him, and he looked the world in the face again as the free warrior he was.
He had been Thorleif's own court man, he told me, and knew the ways of one who should follow his lord, whether in hall or field, and I will say at once that so he did. I had little to teach him beyond some Saxon ways which came strangely to him at first.
We went back to the king's hall, and there I told the sheriff somewhat of the business with the slaver, and he laughed.
"Not the first time I have heard the like," he said. "If the man complains, pay him. But if he is a man stealer, as is likely, you will hear naught of him, and he will get him from Norwich as fast as he may."
As I suppose he did, for neither I nor the sheriff heard more of him, and next day his place in the market was empty.
I asked Erling of his shipwreck, and if Thorleif had been lost, but he could not tell me. He had been washed off the fore deck as the ship met a great breaker, and with him had come an oar, which he clung to for long hours, making his way shoreward as best he might. The ship was in danger at the time, and he lost sight of her very soon. Presently some eddy of tide took him and cast him on the sands of Humber mouth, and there he lay till he was found. That was a month ago, and since then he had been hawked up and down the coast with the other slaves till we met.
"But I was such a scarecrow, and so savage withal, that no man would look at me," he said. "It was a good day for me when the knave brought me to Norwich. Mayhap it was a lucky day for him also, for sooner or later I should have got adrift, and then you would not have been looking on to hold me from paying him somewhat more than a beating."
Next day was the last of the fair, and again I went to seek a horse, with my new follower after me. There was less choice but more quiet, and soon I found that Erling knew more of the points of a steed than I did. A Dane is a born horse dealer. So I sent him one way while I went another, and when I was almost despairing of finding what I thought would suit me, he came in search of me, leading a great skew-bald horse, bright brown and white in broad splashes all over him, in no sort of pattern. After him came a man who might be a farmer, and looked as if he cared not whether he sold the beast or kept him.
"The best horse in the fair, thane," Erling said to me. "I will not praise his colour; but if you forget that and look at his build, you will like him."
So I did; but if a man wanted to be noticed everywhere in such wise that folk would reckon a week's time from the day when the man on the skew-bald rode through the village, he could not choose a better mount, and I said so, laughing.
"There is somewhat in that," Erling allowed; "but if you ride through the foe at the head of your men on such an one, none can deny that you did it. Nor can your men say that they lost sight of you."
In the end I mounted and tried the horse. Presently I rode him out of the town and away across the heaths, and had no fault to find with him. Indeed, by the time that I brought him back I did not care if he was of all the colours of the rainbow, for he was the best horse I ever backed.
Then the franklin who owned him asked me a long price for him, and I left Erling to settle that. Afterwards I knew that the man was a known breeder of these horses, and that men thought me lucky to get the steed. I think the Dane managed to bate somewhat of the price, but very little, for it was a matter of taking or leaving with the owner.
After that I bought a horse for Erling, or rather he chose one and I paid for it; but that was a small matter, for the last day of the fair brought prices down.
Then I had to put up with the jests of my friend Werbode concerning my new horse, and the older Franks thought his colour was a bit of vanity on my part. Werbode said that he was an unsafe beast to go chicken stealing on, for he would be too well known on a dark night; and the others said that they supposed that men would know that I had come home now. But that sort of jest one gets used to in camp life, and I cared not. I had a better steed than any one of them, whether here or across the sea, and presently, as we travelled toward Thetford, they knew it, and forgot to laugh at his skin.
So we left Norwich, and rode across the moorlands to find the king; and the gladness of homecoming grew on me every day, so that I longed for the state affair to be over, that I might turn my horse's head south and west for my own home. And thus, in all gladness, and joying in every mile of the way, we came to Thetford, strong with its earthen ramparts above its still river, and were made most welcome at the hall of Ethelbert the king. There had gone messengers before us to tell of our coming, and the greeting was fitting for the men of Carl the Great.
Truly I saw the Franks smile at one another as we were led into the great hall, homely and pleasant, with its open timbered roof and central hearth, arms and antlers and heads of forest game on walls, and bright hangings round the high place at the upper end; for it was but a hut compared with the palaces of their own master. But when Ethelbert the king came from his chamber to greet us, they had no eyes for aught but him. Young and handsome and free of speech and look as he was, none could doubt that here was one who was worthy of his throne, for in every way he seemed a king indeed. He minded me of Ecgbert, and if he did that, it may be certain that I need add no more to my praise of him.
Now it happened that the day after we reached Thetford was a Sunday, and I need not tell what a pleasure it was to me to hear again the old English services that once I had thought so long, as a boy will. And on that day, for the first time, it came to me that my man, Erling the viking, was a stark heathen, Odin's man. Truly he came to the church with me, and there he stood and stared at all that went on, quietly and reverently enough, but in such wise that I thought that he had somewhere seen the like before. So presently when we came forth from the church I asked him if he had no knowledge of the faith.
"Ay," he said; "I have helped to burn a church or two in my time, and now I am sorry therefor. I have heard good words in this place, so that I think I know why you were ready to risk gold to free a captive. Let me go with you again."
"I will find some good priest who shall tell you more and teach you," said I.
But he shook his head.
"That is another matter," he answered. "Let be for a time. I am content to go your way and see what it is; but no man, if he is worth aught, will leave the gods of his fathers offhand, not even for the faith which is good for you and for Carl the king, and this king here who has death written on his handsome face."
"What mean you by that?" I asked, almost angrily. "On the face of Ethelbert?"
"Ay," he answered. "Cannot you see it?"
"Seldom have I seen a stronger or more healthy man! This is sheer foolishness."
"I do not speak of health," he answered. "Eh, well, we of the old race have the second sight now and then. On my word, I wish I had it not. Pay no heed to me an you will; it is best not."
Then he laughed, because I was almost angered with him, and said that maybe fasting with the slaver had made his mind full of forebodings.
"There was a boding in it at one time that the slaver was nigh his death, if so be that I got loose," he said. "That ended in a whipping for him. But I would that this Ethelbert had not that thin red line round his neck. It sets strange thoughts in one's head."
I told him to hold his peace, and he did so. But somewhat that night made me look to see what he meant. The king had no line such as he spoke of on his sunburned throat, so far as I could see.
It must not be supposed that the gifts of Carl the Great were given, and his greetings spoken, offhand, as it were, by us. There must needs be a gathering of the Witan of the East Anglians, that all might be done with full honour both to Carl and his embassy. I must say that it somewhat irked me to be treated with much ceremony, as a Frank and paladin of the great king, instead of being hailed in all good fellowship as a thane of England, who was glad to get home again. However, there was no help for it till our errand was done; for it was out of his goodness that Carl had given me a place among his messengers, saying that they must have some one of their number who could act as interpreter, and I would not be ungrateful even in seeming.
So I had no chance yet of private speech with Ethelbert, when I might give the message from Ecgbert; which was indeed the main reason of my coming here instead of going straight home. That chance would best be sought when the state business was done; for since no man in all England rightly knew where Ecgbert was at this time, and he had no mind that many should, my business would wait well enough. So I bent myself to enjoy the feasting and the hunting parties the court made for us all; and pleasant it was, in all truth. And every day fresh companies of the great folk of the land came in, till the town was full of thanes and ladies and their trains, gathered to see and hear what had come from beyond the seas.
So one day I rode with Werbode, who was all eagerness to see the land (to which his forbears would not come when Hengist asked them, by the way, as he told me) across the great heaths that lie north and east of Thetford, with Erling after us, leading two greyhounds which had been lent us from the royal kennels. There were bustards in droves on these heaths, and roe deer to be found easily enough by those who had skill to seek them in the right places. The bustards were nesting; but that is the time when one can best course the great birds, and many a good gallop we had after them.
Whereby we lost ourselves presently, and made light of it until we had wandered for some hours, and then remembered that we had never seen a man of whom to ask the way back to the town. Of course we tried to make our way back by the sun, but ever there would seem to grow up a thicket or wood before us, which we must skirt, or some marshy lake shone across our path in a hollow of the heath; and it was slow work, and the horses grew weary as ourselves. The hounds trailed after us with bent heads, hardly rousing themselves to tug at the long leash when a hare scudded from its form away from us, for they had had their fill of sport by that time. And it grew near sunset before we met with any trace of man. There was not even a track across the wild upland which we could follow.
"We shall have to make a night out of it," said I at last. "However, that will not matter. Here is game enough for us and to spare."
"And no ale to wash it down withal," said Werbode and Erling in a breath.
"Why, then, we will find the best water we can," I answered; and we rode on our way looking for a clear pool.
And then the first sound which told us that any one was near came to us.
There rose from off to our left, where a patch of woodland lay, a cry that made each one of us rein in his horse and stare at the others.
"That was some one in dire distress," said I.
"A woman crying for help," said Werbode.
Then we forgot our own plight, and set spurs to our horses and rode toward the place whence the cry came. We heard it once more, and that quickened us. My horse pricked up his ears, and broke into a long stride that left the other two behind in a few minutes, as if he knew that there was need for dire haste. I had to ride carefully, too, for there were holes and great stones among the heather.
So I was the first to see what was amiss; and it seemed bad enough. Round the spur of the cover I came, and there before me I saw a wild throng of men, savage as any I have ever seen in the mines of our Mendips--bareheaded save for great shocks of black hair, barefooted and hoseless, dressed in untanned hides of deer and sheep, and armed with uncouth clubs and spears on rough ash poles. They did not hear my coming, and they had their faces from me at first. Twenty or more of them there were; and two horses rolled on the ground hard by them, and they had been hamstrung, as one glance told me. One man, too, in the dress of a housecarl, lay not far off, wounded sorely. He saw me, and beckoned wildly to me. And next I knew why, for out of the throng came three men dragging a lady roughly away from the rest; and as their comrades parted to let them pass, I saw another man on the ground, and with his back to a third a gray-haired noble, who held back the wild men with long sweeps of his sword. He was trying to follow those who held the lady.
I saw all that at once, in a flash, for it broke on my eyes the moment I cleared the thickets of the cover; and as I saw I shouted and bore down on the throng, calling to my comrades to hasten. Then the men knew that I was on them.
They yelled to one another, and, without waiting to see if more followed me, left the lady and the men who fought for her, and scattered, flying. It seemed to me that the best thing I could do was to keep them in a mind to fly, and I rode after them. One or two I rode down; and I heard a wild outcry as some met Werbode and Erling when they came up. But they did not make for the wood, as I expected, but for the open heath. They ran like deer up the swell of a rising ground and passed over it.
When I came to the top of that I saw a wide stretch of bare land before me, like miles of that which we had passed, hardly heather-covered, and stony, and over it fled the men. There was no place where they could hide. And yet before my very eyes they vanished. One after another they went till but one was left, still flying. I took my eyes from him for a moment, and he too was gone. There was not so much as a bustard on the heath, which a moment before had been full of fleeting figures.
"They are trolls, thane!" cried Erling from beside me.
He, too, had seen the moorland and the men who had gone. Then Werbode rode up to me, and he looked and gasped.
"They went over this hill! I would swear it!" he said. "Where are they?"
"I do not know," I answered blankly, and, to tell the truth, with a bit of a chill down my back. "I should be better pleased if I did."
"See," said Erling, pointing, "there are the mounds wherein they live. They are trolls;" and with that he began to mutter I know not what heathen spells against them.
There were little low mounds everywhere, as I saw now.
"Trolls!" said Werbode, with a laugh. "One can't slay trolls. I saw Wilfrid cut one down, and there he lies even yet."
"Nay, but one can, if so be the sword is rightly charmed," answered Erling.
"Well, they have gone," said I. "Do you two go and see after these folk they were attacking, and I will bide here to watch that they do not come back."
"That is the work of the man, not the master," quoth Erling. "Here I bide, for I have runes which are of power against any trolls. I am not afraid."
Nor did he seem so; and I told him to call if but one man showed himself, and so rode back to the little party we had saved. The man who I had seen was of rank was bending over the lady, who lay where the wild men had left her; and his unhurt servant was watching beside him. The wounded man was sitting up and trying to bind a hurt in his thigh with a scarf, which, from its gold fringes, was plainly that of his mistress.
The thane rose up when he heard us coming, and saluted us. He was a handsome man of sixty years or so, richly dressed, who had plainly had a bad fall when his horse went down. There were three or four of his assailants lying where they had been round him as I came.
"Many thanks, sirs," he said. "It was going hard with us when you came up. Now is no time for ceremony, or I would say more. I do not know if my daughter lives yet."
I dismounted, and Werbode held my horse while I went to the side of the thane and looked at his charge. Wonderfully beautiful that young maiden seemed in the red light of the sunset, even though her face was white and her fair hair all tangled over her shoulders, and her rich dress all in tatters from the hands of the wild men. And at first I thought that she was dead. Then I minded that unless she had died of fright, which was possible, I had seen no harm done her beyond rough handling, while those who held her had fled from me without delay or heed to how she fell from their hands; and I knelt and tried to find the pulse in her wrist, very gently.
Her white hand fell limp and cold, but the fluttering beat was there.
"Not dead, thane, but fainting," I said. "Let your man get water; there is a pool yonder."
The housecarl started toward it, but as he passed one of the helpless horses, he turned to that and brought me a horn from the saddlebags. It had wine in it, and that was better. The old thane tried to get some of it into the lips of the lady, and succeeded while I rubbed her hands.
And all the while Werbode had his eyes on Erling, whose gaunt form was clear against the sky as he sat still on his horse and watched the heath for the trolls to return on us. Behind him the two hounds sat, careless.
"She is coming round," said the thane, with a sigh of relief.
Seeing that so she was, I rose up and stood aside, not caring to be right before her eyes as she opened them, lest she should be frightened again. Slowly she came to herself, trembling, and looking round fearful of what she might find about her. But when she saw only her father and the man, she tried to smile and sat up, with a little clutch at her disordered dress as if she wanted to straighten it.
"That is better," said the thane heartily. "Those thieves have fled, and all will be well, thanks to our good friends here."
The maiden looked round, and saw that I was a stranger, and at that the colour came back of a sudden to her cheeks, and she tried to set her hair hastily out of her eyes. Whereat her father laughed at her, and then she was herself again.
"I think we had better be going on before it grows dark," I said. "Do you know the road to Thetford?"
"My man here does. But you will not leave us--at least yet?"
"We are seeking the same road," I answered. "Now our horses are at the service of the lady and yourself. I suppose we are not far from the town, if we cannot find it;" and I laughed.
"Matter of ten or twelve miles, lord," said the housecarl.
"Why, then, the sooner we go the better. Lucky that the May twilight is long."
"We have met you in the nick of time," said the old thane courteously. "From your dress I take it that you are one of the Frankish paladins we were on the way to see. But do they always talk good Wessex at the court of King Carl?"
"No," laughed Werbode. "Sometimes they talk old Saxon--as I do."
The thane bowed, and let that matter rest. Then he looked ruefully at the two crippled horses, and set his arm round the lady, who had risen and was leaning on him.
"I thank you for that offer of a horse," he said. "I had twelve good men with me when we started across this moor, and you see all who are left. One after another they have been shot by unseen men as we rode, until these swarmed out on us as you saw."
"Who are they?" I asked, rolling up my cloak to set it pillion-wise behind my saddle for the lady.
"The flintknappers, I suppose," he said. "But I am a stranger to these parts, and I have but heard of them as dwelling about these heaths."
Then I would have the thane mount my horse; and I lifted the maiden up behind him, and wrapped Werbode's cloak round her, having a smile and thanks for the service. And when they were ready I whistled for Erling, and he came back to us at a canter, looking behind him now and then. But there was no sign of any follower.
"Ten miles from the town," I said to him, "and more heath to cross. We must hurry. But we cannot leave those horses to suffer."
"Our horses; and I have tended them, lord," said the rough housecarl, with a bit of a shake in his voice. "Leave that to me."
He drew his seax, and we went on. The poor beasts could never rise again, and that was the only way. The thane knew, and rode round the wood end, and we went with him. Then Erling lifted the wounded man on his own horse, and walked beside him.
"You and I will ride in turn," said Werbode. "As I am mounted, I will take first turn for a mile or two. It will be all the same in the end."
Presently Erling came alongside me, leaving the housecarl to mind his comrade. He held out a broken arrow to me.
"I said they were trolls," he remarked. "See, this is an elf shot."
And truly the arrow which he had drawn from one of the horses had as well wrought a flint head as I have ever seen--lustrous black, and covered with tiny chippings.
"It is a better made head than usual," I said; "but many a thrall has naught but flint-headed arrows in his quiver as he tends the swine in the forest. They are good enough against the forest beasts."
Erling laughed. "Maybe. But they have slain ten of this party. I have no mind to hear them whistling about my ears again."
"Again?" said I.
"Oh ay; they had a shot or two at me yonder. The arrows came from nowhere and missed me, so it did not seem worth while to call you. I could not see any one."
Now it seemed to me that I had found a cool and valiant man in this Dane.
"I think that I should have wanted to take cover," I said. "These are perilous folk to have to do with. I wonder what became of them?"
"Gone into the mounds we saw," said he. "Betimes in our land men have seen such mounds raised, as it were, on pillars at night, and under them halls full of dancing trolls. But if the seer will go near them, all is gone. And mostly thereafter he dies."
"Not many trolls could get under those mounds we saw," I said. "See, there are more here; they are too small for dwellings."
There was indeed one of the heaps of earth close at hand to us, and Werbode rode toward it to see that none of the wild men lurked in its shelter. He reached it, and then his horse started and leaped aside, almost falling; and through a rattle of falling stones my comrade called to the steed to "hold up."
Whereon we supposed, of course, that he had been served as the horses of the thane had been crippled, and Erling and I ran to him, sword in hand, bidding the others go on. But when we came to the side of Werbode, we found him staring into a pit which seemed to have opened under the weight of his horse; and there was no sign of other danger.
"Strange folk these," he said. "I suppose this is a trap. The ground over it was as solid as anywhere, to all seeming. I was nigh into it."
The pit was ten feet deep or so, and it was plain that out of it had come what made the mound, though one could not see how. When I looked in I saw that the ground had given way over the roof of a passage hewn in the soft chalk, and that the opening of it must have fallen in long ago. The twisted stems of the sparse heather on the mound and all around it told of years, if not of long ages, that had passed undisturbed.
"There is the trolls' house," said Erling, shrinking back somewhat.
The level sunlight showed me walls of dull gray chalk, with the marks of the pick on them still. There was a layer of black and white flints bedded in either wall, halfway up, and on the floor were piled stones chosen from it carefully. I wondered who had handled them, and when. Erling moved a little aside, and a shaft of sunlight darted down the passage and reached its end, and showed me those who had wrought here.
Two white skeletons sat against the wall, with a pile of flints between them. There was a lamp hewn from chalk on the top of that, and the stain of its smoky flame was on the wall behind it. One man had a pick made of the brow tine of an antler, greater than any which the red deer carry nowadays, across his knees, and another like pick lay by the bones of the other skeleton. That one had a broken thigh, and he seemed to bend over it in pain.