A King's Comrade Part 10

"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.

CHAPTER V. HOW WILFRID MET THE FLINT FOLK, AND OTHERS.

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 emba.s.sy. 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 fellows.h.i.+p 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 p.r.i.c.ked 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 pa.s.s, I saw another man on the ground, and with his back to a third a gray-haired n.o.ble, 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed, 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 a.s.sailants 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 pa.s.sed 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.