Hypatia or New Foes with an Old Face Part 36

'Thanks, my friend. Heroes, you have a cellar for monks as well as for wine? I will trouble you with this hero's psalm-singing tonight, and send my apparitors for him in the morning.'

'If he begins howling when we are in bed, your men won't find much of him left in the morning,' said the Amal. 'But here come the slaves, announcing dinner.'

'Stay,' said Orestes; 'there is one more with whom I have an account to settle-that young philosopher there.'

'Oh, he is coming in, too. He never was drunk in his life, I'll warrant, poor fellow, and it's high time for him to begin.' And the Amal laid a good-natured bear's paw on Philammon's shoulder, who hung back in perplexity, and cast a piteous look towards Wulf.

Wulf answered it by a shake of the head which gave Philammon courage to stammer out a courteous refusal. The Amal swore an oath at him which made the cloister ring again, and with a quiet shove of his heavy hand, sent him staggering half across the court: but Wulf interposed.

'The boy is mine, prince. He is no drunkard, and I will not let him become one. Would to heaven,' added he, under his breath, 'that I could say the same to some others. Send us out our supper here, when you are done. Half a sheep or so will do between us, and enough of the strongest to wash it down with. Smid knows my quant.i.ty.'

'Why in heaven's name are you not coming in?'

'That mob will be trying to burst the gates again before two hours are out; and as some one must stand sentry, it may as well be a man who will not have his ears stopped up by wine and women's kisses. The boy will stay with me.'

So the party went in, leaving Wulf and Philammon alone in the outer hall.

There the two sat for some half hour, casting stealthy glances at each other, and wondering perhaps, each of them vainly enough, what was going on in the opposite brain. Philammon, though his heart was full of his sister, could not help noticing the air of deep sadness which hung about the scarred and weather-beaten features of the old warrior. The grimness which he had remarked on their first meeting seemed to be now changed into a settled melancholy. The furrows round his mouth and eyes had become deeper and sharper. Some perpetual indignation seemed smouldering in the knitted brow and protruding upper lip. He sat there silent and motionless for some half hour, his chin resting on his hands, and they again upon the b.u.t.t of his axe, apparently in deep thought, and listening with a silent sneer to the clinking of gla.s.ses and dishes within.

Philammon felt too much respect, both for his age and his stately sadness, to break the silence. At last some louder burst of merriment than usual aroused him.

'What do you call that?' said he, speaking in Greek.

'Folly and vanity.'

'And what does she there-the Alruna-the prophet-woman, call it?'

'Whom do you mean?'

'Why, the Greek woman whom we went to hear talk this morning.'

'Folly and vanity.'

'Why can't she cure that Roman hairdresser there of it, then?'

Philammon was silent-'Why not, indeed!'

'Do you think she could cure any one of it?'

'Of what?'

'Of getting drunk, and wasting their strength and their fame, and their hard-won treasures upon eating and drinking, and fine clothes, and bad women.'

'She is most pure herself, and she preaches purity to all who hear her.'

'Curse preaching. I have preached for these four months.'

'Perhaps she may have some more winning arguments-perhaps-'

'I know. Such a beautiful bit of flesh and blood as she is might get a hearing, when a grizzled old head-splitter like me was called a dotard. Eh? Well. It's natural.'

A long silence.

'She is a grand woman. I never saw such a one, and I have seen many. There was a prophetess once, lived in an island in the Weser-stream-and when a man saw her, even before she spoke a word, one longed to crawl to her feet on all fours, and say, "There, tread on me; I am not fit for you to wipe your feet upon." And many a warrior did it.... Perhaps I may have done it myself, before now .... And this one is strangely like her. She would make a prince's wife, now.'

Philammon started. What new feeling was it, which made him indignant at the notion?

'Beauty? What's body without soul? What's beauty without wisdom? What's beauty without chast.i.ty? Best! fool! wallowing in the mire which every hog has fouled!'

'Like a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman who is without discretion.'

'Who said that?'

'Solomon, the king of Israel.'

'I never heard of him. But he was a right Sagaman, whoever said it. And she is a pure maiden, that other one?'

'Spotless as the'-blessed Virgin, Philammon was going to say-but checked himself. There were sad recollections about the words.

Wulf sat silent for a few minutes, while Philammon's thoughts reverted at once to the new purpose for which alone life seemed worth having.... To find his sister! That one thought had in a few hours changed and matured the boy into the man. Hitherto he had been only the leaf before the wind, the puppet of every new impression; but now circ.u.mstance, which had been leading him along in such soft fetters for many a month, was become his deadly foe; and all his energy and cunning, all his little knowledge of man and of society, rose up st.u.r.dily and shrewdly to fight in this new cause. Wulf was now no longer a phenomenon to be wondered at, but an instrument to be used. The broken hints which he had just given of discontent with Pelagia's presence inspired the boy with sudden hope, and cautiously he began to hint at the existence of persons who would be glad to remove her. Wulf caught at the notion, and replied to it with searching questions, till Philammon, finding plain speaking the better part of cunning, told him openly the whole events of the morning, and the mystery which a.r.s.enius had half revealed, and then shuddered with mingled joy and horror, as Wulf, after ruminating over the matter for a weary five minutes, made answer-

'And what if Pelagia herself were your sister?'

Philammon was bursting forth in some pa.s.sionate answer, when the old man stopped him and went on slowly, looking him through and through-

'Because, when a penniless young monk claims kin with a woman who is drinking out of the wine-cups of the Caesars, and filling a place for a share of which kings' daughters have been thankful-and will be again before long-why then, though an old man may be too good-natured to call it all a lie at first sight, he can't help supposing that the young monk has an eye to his own personal profit, eh?'

'My profit?' cried poor Philammon, starting up. 'Good G.o.d! what object on earth can I have, but to rescue her from this infamy to purity and holiness?'

He had touched the wrong chord.

'Infamy? you accursed Egyptian slave!' cried the prince, starting up in his turn, red with pa.s.sion, and clutching at the whip which hung over his head. 'Infamy? As if she, and you too, ought not to consider yourselves blest in her being allowed to wash the feet of an Amal!'

'Oh' forgive me!' said Philammon, terrified at the fruits of his own clumsiness. 'But you forget-you forget, she is not married to him!'

'Married to him? A freedwoman? No; thank Freya! he has not fallen as low as that, at least: and never shall, if I kill the witch with my own hands. A freedwoman!'

Poor Philammon! And he had been told but that morning that he was a slave. He hid his face in his hands, and burst into an agony of tears.

'Come, come,' said the testy warrior, softened at once. 'Woman's tears don't matter, but somehow I never could bear to make a man cry. When you are cool, and have learnt common courtesy, we'll talk more about this. So! Hush; enough is enough. Here comes the supper, and I am as hungry as Loke.'

And he commenced devouring like his namesake' 'the gray beast of the wood,' and forcing, in his rough hospitable way, Philammon to devour also much against his will and stomach.

'There. I feel happier now!' quoth Wulf, at last. 'There is nothing to be done in this accursed place but to eat. I get no fighting, no hunting. I hate women as they hate me. I don't know anything indeed, that I don't hate, except eating and singing. And now, what with those girls' vile unmanly harps and flutes, no one cares to listen to a true rattling warsong. There they are at it now, with their caterwauling, squealing all together like a set of starlings on a foggy morning! We'll have a song too, to drown the noise.' And he burst out with a wild rich melody, acting, in uncouth gestures and a suppressed tone of voice, the scene which the words described-

An elk looked out of the pine forest He snuffed up east, he snuffed down west, Stealthy and still.

His mane and his horns were heavy with snow; I laid my arrow across my bow, Stealthy and still.