For The White Christ Part 24

"Come, then; we 'll go back. Now, dear one, what are your good tidings?"

"Wait a little, my hero. Tell me first of your meeting with Count Rudulf, my father, and with my--my mother."

Olvir half frowned, and drew a little apart, as he recalled his encounter in the wild beech forest.

"What are your tidings?" he insisted.

The girl glanced up at him with a look which, though of but a moment's duration, brought out with startling distinctness her resemblance to the grisly old forest count. Then her scarlet lips parted in a smile that showed her strong white teeth, and she replied slowly: "I bend to the bidding of my lord. Know, then, that our lord king desires the company of his daughter on his southward war-faring, and, that the princess may not be lonely, he has asked the queen to choose her a journey-mate from among the bower-maidens."

"The king takes the little vala on such a war-faring! and you, of all the queen's maidens, are chosen to go-- By Loki, there are tales of Pepin's son! Were I sure-- Ah! that boding of the witch,--her own mother!"

"You speak in riddles," said Fastrada, sharply. "What of my mother's boding?"

"No good word to you and me," replied Olvir; and he told briefly of the meeting with the old count and his witch wife. As he spoke, his scorn of spells and evil bodings came back to him, and he cast off the doubt which had fallen upon his heart. But when, smiling at his foolish fear and jealousy, he glanced down at the maiden, he caught a glimpse of her eyes, green and narrow-lidded as her father's. They were still green when the girl met his look full-faced, and asked in a sibilant voice: "You are sure--my mother--she said a king--one grey of eye?"

"And I am neither!" muttered Olvir. "Yet were she twice your mother, I 'd laugh at such witchery."

But Fastrada turned from her lover's smiling look. She paused, and gazed down at the weed-grown ash-heap at her feet, her eyes again narrowed to a line.

A sudden chill fell upon Olvir. If the maiden truly loved him, why should she stand pondering that wild foretelling? Half angered, he glanced away, and his eye was caught by a glinting in the gra.s.s. He went ahead, and found the missing brooch.

"Here is your clasp, daughter of Rudulf," he said coldly.

Heedless of his tone, Fastrada took the ornament, and stared fixedly at the garnets with which it was studded.

"The queen's gems are far more precious," she murmured, half aloud.

"I will win you the like, maiden," answered Olvir, quickly, but his frown deepened.

For a while Fastrada made no response. Her eyes were still downcast, and her face was dark with doubt and inward struggle.

"_Ai_--my mother," she at last whispered; "not often do her bodings fall amiss! Yet once I knew the fiends to fail her-- Ah, if--"

The words faltered on the girl's lips, and she glanced up furtively at her lover. But at sight of his look she started back with a stifled cry.

Olvir's face was white as new ivory, and his eyes glittered like an angry snake's.

"So, witch-daughter," he lisped softly as a young child, "this is your Frank love. It is a merry game to play fast and loose,--a merry game!

It seems that I fared to Rhine Stream on my lord king's errand,--both as to father and daughter. 'A king, grey of eye'--and he has chosen you to go as mate for--his daughter. So; the game is played! We will accept your mother's boding; we will trust to her fiends."

"Olvir, Olvir!--my hero! What is this? Why do you speak so cruelly?

Ah, do not shrink from me! I was mad--mad! Truly, I love you, Olvir!

I will never love another. Take me back--into your heart!"

"You mistake, daughter of Rudulf," replied Olvir, a harder note in his lisping voice. "My heart held the image of a maiden pure and true; you have shattered that holy image. How can I hold love in my heart, when you have thrust in doubt? Love! You say you love me, when you could stand for an instant weighing my love against a queen's crown--love!"

His voice cut like a lash. The girl winced, and looked appealingly into his face. But she saw only contempt and anger. Then her own eyes hardened. The daughter of grey Rudulf and the Wend witch was not one to repay scorn with a smile. The very excess of her pa.s.sion for the Northman served now to heighten her fury and hatred. As she turned upon him, her beautiful features were distorted with a look more startling than the wolfish visage of her father.

"Love!" she cried, half hissing the word. "You speak of love,--you, the heathen outlander! This stone beneath my feet knows more of love than you! Your blood is but ice,--salty ice! Take your ring, and begone!"

"Now do I see the werwolf!" muttered Olvir, and, flinging down Fastrada's ring, he trod his own into the ashes and turned away, proud and angry-eyed.

CHAPTER XVII

What hath wrought Sigurd Of any wrong-doing That the life of the famed one Thou art fain of taking?

LAY OF BRYNHILD.

White with fury, Fastrada yet stood glaring at the spot where Olvir had disappeared, when she heard a firm tread on the other side. As she looked about, she caught a glimpse of Roland approaching through the coppice. Her first impulse was to spring away before the king's kinsman could come upon her. But almost at the first step she paused and turned again, with a smile of wolfish joy.

When Roland burst from the thicket, the girl came running to meet him, her silken dress torn, her hair capless and dishevelled, her face blotched with earth.

"Save me! Save me, lord count!" she gasped. "In the name of your mother, do not let him harm me!"

"What is it? Who would harm you?" demanded Roland, in amazement.

But the girl flung herself on the ground before him, sobbing and moaning, and for a while it seemed as though she could not speak. The sight of her at his feet stirred to the depths all the love and pity of the Frank's heart. He stooped and sought to lift her; but she shrank from his touch, and hid her face in her hands.

"Leave me!" she moaned. "I had forgotten; not to you can I look to avenge my wrong."

"Wrong!" he repeated, and his blue eyes flared. "By my sword, I swear, daughter of Rudulf, I will avenge your wrong. Name the man."

Fastrada ceased her sobbing, and half raised herself. With one hand still across her face, she whispered brokenly: "He sought to-- Ah, I cannot name it! but you came, and he fled. He is--he was the man I loved--I trusted."

"Olvir!--my brother?" cried Roland, and he staggered as though struck.

For a moment he stood, white and rigid, in an agony of doubt. But Fastrada's keen wits were sharpened by hate.

"O my hero! my dark-eyed hero!" she moaned. "Why should you wrong your betrothed? Why seek to harm the maiden who loved you so?"

"Where did he go?" gasped Roland. A terrible anger had seized upon him.

His face was crimson with rage, his eyes bloodshot. Even as he spoke, he drew the heavy Norse sword at his side, and when, with head averted, the girl pointed behind her, he rushed away like a berserk in the fury.

Instantly Fastrada sat up to listen, her narrowed eyes dry and hot, her face white, her lips drawn away from the teeth in two blood-red lines.

She was so intent on following Roland's headlong flight that Duke Lupus glided out of the coppice and gained her side unheeded. With all his subtlety, the Vascon did not lack courage; but he could not restrain a shudder when he saw the look on the girl's face. He crossed himself hastily, and would have slipped back to the coppice, had not Fastrada turned and perceived him. For a little the two glared at each other.

Fastrada was first to speak.

"Spy!" she hissed.

But Lupus had recovered from his first superst.i.tious dread. Unheeding the scornful term, he bent eagerly forward and half whispered: "I am not blind, maiden. You burn for vengeance. Who has wronged you? Tell me!

I can aid."

Fastrada shook her head sullenly; but her fury was too great to be repressed.

"Vengeance!" she cried fiercely. "You speak truth; I thirst for vengeance! Nothing will quench my thirst but the heart's blood of that false heathen. The base outlander sought my shame."