For The White Christ Part 30

"With an Arab, red bodes anger. I had it from Otkar."

"You look for treachery?"

"For all evil from one who shoots viper shafts. This red cloak is no good omen. Yet I am pledged to the king to hold the poisoner in peace."

"Floki might pick a quarrel with him. I myself would as lief try my axe on his swaddled skull. If these swart folk fight in single combat, one of us will soon make an end of him."

"No, lad; he is a haughty man. He might fight me, but not my follower; and I am bound by my word."

"Then we must wait and watch."

"Ay," muttered Olvir; and he stared hard at Kasim, who, being addressed by the king, was reluctantly turning away his gaze from the Afranj maiden.

When, with friendly dignity, Karl had acknowledged the vali's gifts, he turned to his daughter and her companion.

"The Saracen shall see how we of the North honor women," he said. "Take up the silken rolls and bring them before the maidens. When the child has made her choice, the daughter of Rudulf may take what she will."

Both girls cried out their delight, and Fastrada met the king's smiling look with a glance that stirred his ardent nature to the depths. A subtle change shadowed his stately features, and for a little he gazed at the girl as Kasim had gazed. Her eyes fell before his; and while she yet held them demurely downcast, Rothada's voice rang out again in childish delight. Olvir had chosen for her a white silk, embroidered in violet and gold.

At his daughter's cry, Karl turned suddenly about in his saddle and stared, frowning, at the walls of Pampeluna. The blinking vali before him saw his lips move, and caught the words which he muttered; but only Fulrad, that abbot learned in Holy Writ, might have divined his meaning,--"He that ruleth himself is greater--is greater--!"

Olvir, though so watchful of his Saracen kinsman, noted the strange look on the king's face. But then, in common with the greater number of the Franks, his attention was drawn by Fastrada. Two rolls of scarlet silk already lay in the girl's litter; yet, not content with these, she had seized upon a gorgeous purple. Her cry of gratified vanity fixed upon her the looks of all around.

Most maidens would have drooped their heads in modest shame at thus being made the centre of observation; not so the Thuringian. The rich coloring of her cheeks heightened, though not with shame, and her eyes sparkled like sapphires. Waving aside the attendants, she unrolled the purple silk, and, with a daring glance at the king, wrapped herself about in the folds of the imperial color.

Many of the Franks cried out their admiration of the maiden's gracefulness; but the few who were quick enough to perceive the audacious allusion of her act took good care to preserve silence. Karl, however, maintained his stern observation of the city battlements, and the girl, foiled of her expected triumph, s.h.i.+fted her attack to Olvir.

Here again she was to meet with disappointment. The young Northman returned her half-defiant, half-alluring look with an indifferent glance, and recalled his attention to Rothada.

The Thuringian's cheek paled. She let the folds of the purple silk slip from about her, and bowed forward in the litter, with hot eyes and thin-drawn lips, deaf to the murmured compliments of the courtiers. The strong white teeth gleamed between her tightened lips, and soon another look than suffering stole into her face.

In her sudden fury, the girl raised her head to transfix the Northman with her glance; and, instead, she met the solemn gaze of Roland's blue eyes.

From the giving of the silks to this decisive moment, the count had been watching her every look and action with closest attention. Until she bent her head, not even the slightest change in her expression had escaped him. And now, his gaze sharpened to the utmost keenness by the intensity of his feeling, he saw, as it were, the girl's dark troubled soul stand out bare before its lovely mask. The Frank shuddered, and crossed himself hastily.

At this moment the king suddenly recalled to mind Vali Kasim, who still stood bowing before him with Oriental obsequiousness. He smiled, and raised his hand. "Again we render thanks for your gifts, Count Kasim."

"_Bismillah_! I rejoice that my glorious lord is pleased. It is for me to serve him in all things. Therefore, I have brought my learned geber, Kosru the Magian, to make certain that your Majesty shall enjoy health and full strength while you honor our land with your gracious presence."

"Health!" repeated Karl, and he smiled as he drew up his ma.s.sive figure.

But then his glance chanced to rest on Rothada, and he signed to the Magian to join the royal suite. "It is well. The maidens may have need of leechcraft in a strange land. Our chamberlain will have command to make fitting return for your gifts, lord count."

"It is not for gifts I ask, most gracious sultan."

"What, then?" demanded Karl, his keen grey eyes fixed upon the Saracen's impa.s.sive face.

Kasim salaamed to the ground before replying. "My lord and sultan is gracious; he opens my lips. Let him not be offended. I have said that the people of my city are consumed with fear of the mighty Afranj; they tremble lest the fierce giants of the North be loosed in their midst."

"So--you would have me forego the placing of my wardens in your burg.

How shall it be held when all your warriors are withdrawn?"

"The walls are high, O sultan. The townfolk will bar out my lord's foes and my foes. Can my lord doubt that they will hold fast for the sultan of their own faith?"

"How, lord vali," demanded Anselm, the Count Palatine; "if your folk are so friendly, why should they seek to be rid of us? I would not be the one to speak of mishap; yet here is bitter truth, sire: Should not G.o.d and the holy saints give your Majesty victory; should we fare homeward, a war-broken host; would these timorous Navarrese then open their gates to give succor; or would they not rather seek our harm, to gain favor with the pagan king?"

Kasim smiled blandly, and would have spoken again, had not Karl held up his hand for silence. For a little, the king gazed at the thousand and more Saracen hors.e.m.e.n ma.s.sed together in dense ranks on the spot where they had been halted by the cry of their chief. Then he glanced up at the burg on the height and back to the little maiden behind him.

"O sultan of sultans--" began Kasim; but again Karl held up a restraining hand.

"I cannot grant your wish, lord count," he said. "I must hold to the compact. Count Olvir, you will guard this stronghold with your vikings, and Rothada and her companion shall remain here in your care. It had been wiser to have left the maidens at Ca.s.seneuil."

Olvir frowned with disappointment at this unexpected turn of events.

"It was not to sit behind stone walls, lord king, that I joined your host," he protested.

"Yet I ask it of you, my Dane hawk," replied Karl, gravely. "For a time, at least, I ask you to s.h.i.+eld this little maid, who is more precious to me than all the old Goth realm."

"For her sake," muttered Olvir, half reluctantly.

Karl spoke in a lowered voice: "For her sake, lad! I would not ask the service but for her. Would that I had not brought her across the mountains! I look for treason from this fawning hound. I must safeguard the maiden and this stronghold at all cost."

"Enough, lord king!" exclaimed Olvir. "I give you willing service."

CHAPTER XXII

Blithe then grew the breaker of rings.

BEOWULF.

Early two months had pa.s.sed since from the loftiest tower of Pampeluna's citadel Olvir had watched the Frankish warriors wind away across the green plateau, on their southward march to the Ebro. In all the dreary weeks of waiting no tidings had come back from the invading host,--not a word to tell whether Karl was battling for the old Goth realm on the Ebro's banks, or, finding Abd-er-Rahman too cautious to encounter him near Saragossa, had ventured on south to Toledo or to Cordova itself, in search of the fierce but wily old Emir of Andalus.

Whatever might be the truth as to the movements of the host, there could be no doubt that trickery was rife in its rear; for Karl most certainly had sent more than one messenger northward, and death or capture at the hands of the king's Saracen allies could alone account for their failure to bring tidings to Pampeluna.

At the end of the first month Floki was for taking a score or so of men, and going in search of the Franks; but Olvir told him that he would not risk one man, much less a score, to fall into the traitors' snare.

Instead, he set about strengthening the defences of the citadel, and levied on the townfolk for food, until the storerooms were filled to overflowing. The old Roman cisterns already held enough water to last out a six months' siege.

That he could hold the citadel against all comers Olvir had no doubt; but his warriors were far too few for him to man the burg walls. He had to content himself with a watch at each gate of half a hundred warriors, who, he planned, could hold their posts secure against any chance band of the enemy, or, in the event of an attack in force, could check the first a.s.sault, and so save the citadel from the possibility of a surprise.

In his vigilant watch over the safety of the citadel, the young Northman found little time to spend in the society of Rothada's miniature court.

Yet it was not seldom that he saw the little princess; for she often sought him out with the complaint that Fastrada was closeted with the wizened old Magian leech whom the king her father had left to care for her, and that she was weary of playing with the pages and the tiring-women.

On the morning of the day which opened the ninth week of waiting, Olvir came riding up to the great door of the citadel, after his round of the burg gates, and as he dismounted in the shadow of the archway, smilingly unlashed a roll of cloth from his saddle. Then he beckoned to one of the door wardens and said briefly: "The mare frets with so much stall-standing. Take her for a run across the Arga."

Overjoyed at the chance, the man sprang into the saddle, and Zora started down the steep path, picking her steps daintily but with a quickness that showed her impatience at the restraints on coursing within the burg.

A little later Olvir climbed out upon the roof of the citadel's main tower, the roll of cloth still in his hand. For a while he swept with his glance the neighboring heights and the broad harvest fields on the plain below the burg. All lay calm and peaceful in the hot suns.h.i.+ne, and his gaze turned with his thoughts to the cloth in his hand. Half smiling, he peered within its folds, and began to pace slowly to and fro across the narrow s.p.a.ce of the roof.