For The White Christ Part 53

Soon the nearest horn resounded within a spear-throw, and Olvir flung open the door, that the red firelight might glow out into the storm.

Hardly had he done so, when a gigantic white figure leaped out of the swirling snow-mist, and halted within two paces of the doorway, to lean, panting, upon the long shaft of a halberd.

"Greeting, Floki," said Olvir, in a very quiet tone. "You come over-late to the skating."

"Forgive, earl!" replied the tall viking. "Let the king say if the storm did not burst before the signs boded; and, more, we 've had a game on the way."

"Saint Michael!" cried Karl; "you 're torn, man,--you bleed! The wolves!"

"They had their chase, lord king; now they rest on the ice. Only a few turned back before us. After the blood-game, we spread out from either bank. A witling could have guessed that you 'd tricked the grey dogs in the flurry."

"Come within," said Olvir. "The others draw near. I 'll bind up your shoulder while they gather."

"Let be, ring-breaker. I would not bring blood before the queen and our little vala. It is only a flesh nip, and can wait. Here come those whom I outran. Make ready the women and bairns, and we 'll bear all to the king's burg."

"Better for them to linger by the warm hearth till the storm is spent,"

said Olvir.

But Karl struck his fist into his open palm.

"No! by all the fiends, no!" he swore. "We linger no longer under this unholy roof. Ho! within there,--Liutrad--Gerold! Cast the brands among the f.a.gots, and let all come out. Guests arrive; we should have hearth-cheer for all."

Obedient to the king's command, the young men swept the blazing brands from the hearthstone across to the high-heaped stack of fuel. Quickly the flames licked in among the dry f.a.gots, and spread to right and left.

Then, puzzled, but satisfied that they had done the king's will, the young men followed the others from the hut. As they pa.s.sed the threshold, a dozen vikings came leaping out of the white swirl, wild with delight at sight of their little vala.

In the midst of the rejoicings, the fire within the hut burst hissing through the sodden thatch, and poured out overhead in a torrent of smoke and flames. Then the red tongues began to thrust between the half-rotted logs of the wall; for the hut within was dry as tinder. The leeward wall soon became a solid sheet of flame.

As all drew back from the blazing hut, a second band of vikings came shouting through the forest, guided by the horns. Hot after these ran half a hundred Franks and Northmen, with Fulrad, the valiant old churchman, at their head, brandis.h.i.+ng a boar-spear.

At sight of the abbot, Karl beckoned to him, and called imperiously for the shouting to cease. When both Franks and vikings had gathered in a ring of wondering listeners, he laid his hand on Olvir's shoulder, and raised his voice high and clear above the uproar of the storm.

"Listen, liegemen and vikings! It is fitting that friends should return gift for gift. This day my Dane hawk has given to me a gift beyond price,--the lives of my queen and children. Had not the hero turned back to play with death in the teeth of the wolf-pack, all my loved ones would have met their fate on the frozen stream. Now, therefore, I pledge to the son of Thorbiorn the hand of my daughter Rothada, and, that none may doubt my faith, the maiden shall plight her troth with the hero. Whenever he has fulfilled the terms I have set for him, they shall wed. Fulrad will receive their vows."

A great shout of mingled astonishment and delight burst from the lips of the snow-shrouded onlookers. But all fell silent again as Olvir and Rothada clasped hands.

So, their hearts br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with love and joy, sea-king and king's daughter plighted their troth before the priest, in the midst of the swirling storm. Out of the jaws of the wolf-pack, they had won not only life, but joy.

When the vows were spoken, and the abbot had blessed the betrothed, the Franks joined full-voiced in the shouts of the vikings. For the time at least there was only one among all present who did not share in the joy of the lovers. While all others pressed forward about them, Fastrada alone drew back, cold and silent, and with another look than friendliness in her narrow-lidded gaze.

Deft hands had already lashed together spear-shafts and branches for litters to bear the women; and now Hildegarde and the two maidens were placed on the swaying seats. Brawny warriors perched the king's sons on their shoulders; and all marched away through the whirling snow, to the accompaniment of blaring horns and the wild shouts of the vikings.

CHAPTER XIV

An ill day, an ill woman, And most ill hap!

LAY OF GUDRUN.

Never had Olvir or Rothada known a happier winter. As betrothed lovers they were allowed much greater freedom than would otherwise have been held seemly. Hildegarde often invited the Northman, with Gerold and Liutrad, to her bower, and there the lovers would sit by the hour in a quiet window-nook, watching the games of the king's children. Sometimes the young men and the bower-maidens joined in the play, and there was wild merriment in the bower. At other times the presence of the king restrained the roisterers to more sedate amus.e.m.e.nts.

But Olvir was not always left in peace with his betrothed. The many churchmen at Thionville, with Alcuin at their head, were untiring in their efforts to convince him of the divine right of the Pope and Holy Church. Over and over again, Olvir stated the high ideals of life which he had gathered from the Gospels by his own reading, but the pious churchmen had no ears for such heresy. Who so sacrilegious as to dispute the dogmas of the wise and holy Augustine? Even Karl was puzzled and annoyed by Olvir's failure to accept the argument of "authority."

But though Olvir found it no great task to withstand the priests, his position was not so easy when he came to the well-wishers who appealed to his heart instead of his head. Hildegarde had ma.s.ses sung for his conversion, so great was her concern. Between his wish to gratify both king and queen and his desire to win his bride, Olvir came far nearer to losing the struggle than through any arguing of the priests. Yet through it all he held fast to his first stand, even at the times when Karl himself, roused by the failures of his churchmen, took part in the dispute and sought to sweep away the defences of the Northman by the sheer force of his giant will.

So the winter months slipped by, and at last in sunny nooks the earth began to peer through the holes in its white coverlet. Then the Moselle burst its fetters and rolled free in the suns.h.i.+ne, while Ostara of the Saxons came sauntering up from the Southlands, blowing open the leaf-buds with her fragrant breath and strewing behind her a trail of early blossoms.

Never had the outer conditions of the land seemed more in keeping with the quiet joy and peace of the Pascal season. The plans of Alcuin and Karl for a general educational movement throughout the kingdom were well under way, and gave promise of speedy fruition,--to the glory of the king and the uplifting of his subjects.

Into the midst of this peace and quiet the war-storm burst from the Saxon forests without forewarning. On the very eve of Easter Sunday, a messenger from Count Rudulf came riding in hot haste, with word that Wittikind was back again from the North, followed by a host of Nordalbingians.

Further tidings of disaster were not long delayed. From all parts of Saxon Land messengers came flying, with report of fire and sword, bloodshed and sacrilege. The wild forest-folk, Eastphalians, Westphalians, and Engern, had risen to a man, and, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Hessi and Alf and Bruno, were rus.h.i.+ng to join the standard of the indomitable Wittikind. Last of all came riders from Teutoric, Count of the Frisian Mark. The Frisians were marching eastwards across their fenlands, everywhere slaying and burning, like their Saxon kinsmen. All beyond the Rhine, from Thuringia to the North Sea, the land was aflame.

Such were the fearful tidings which were to bring sorrow to many a Frankish hearthside and shatter the great king's fond dream of peace.

Olvir's forebodings of what Verden should bring forth had been verified even more fully than he had expected. It was the hour of promise for Wittikind, son of Wanekind. All the internecine bitterness and jealousies of the tribes had melted away in the heat of their common fury against the Frank. For the first time in the long struggle, the utterly free forest-dwellers had forgotten the narrow boundaries of their s.h.i.+res, and placed themselves willingly under a common leader.

Yet, bitter as was his disappointment, Karl took up the renewal of the war with unflinching resolve to bend the stiff-necked heathen to his will. Riders were sent flying with the arrow-bode to all parts of the kingdom, while the king and his war-counts set about the planning of a campaign in the North greater than any that had ever gone before.

By the end of April the first of the war-levies had gathered at Cologne, where they were to be joined by the king. The first of May had been fixed as the day for the start, and on the evening before, all the high counts sat down to a farewell supper with the royal family. It was only the king's customary meal of four dishes and the roast, yet the occasion gave to it a distinction lacked by many a state feast.

Among the greater number of the guests the talk was all of the coming warfare,--of the long marches through the forests and over the broad heaths of Saxon Land; of possible battles, and the certain speedy overthrow of Wittikind. The gay Franks, many of whom were to find b.l.o.o.d.y death-beds under the Saxon beeches or in the yellow gorse, jested away the fears of their fair benchmates, and boasted how they would return, covered with glory and laden with the loot of the heathen.

But while most of the guests spent the meal-time in jests and boasting, there were a few who had little desire for merriment. Karl himself, though far other than disheartened that he was on the eve of the death-grapple with the fiercest and most stubborn of his many foes, was in no mood for gaiety. Had not the ravaging of the Saxons been enough to sober his thoughts, there were rumors of fresh plots against him at the court of Duke Ta.s.silo of Bavaria, while old Barnard, his uncle, had sent word from Italy of renewed attempts by Adelchis the Lombard to obtain a fleet and host at Constantinople from the Empress Irene.

But the king was affected most of all by the coming separation from his wife and children. Though it was intended that they should rejoin him in Saxon Land so soon as the full gathering of the Frankish host safeguarded the mark from Saxon raiders, his affection would not suffer him to part from his family without great reluctance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Go, Olvir!' muttered the king, thickly; 'go--before I forget that I once loved you.'" (Page 467)]

Saddened as were Karl and Hildegarde by the thought of parting, their grief could not compare with that of Olvir and his little princess.

Though the king left love behind, before him he saw glory and power; and even Hildegarde could look forward with pleasure to the success of her dear lord. Olvir, however, in leaving love, left all that he held dear.

The expected battles, which lured on so many others with their promise of blood-stained honors, meant no more to him than an unwilling rendering of his duty to the king.

"G.o.d grant, dear heart, that we meet the Saxons at once!" he burst out after a long silence. "A single great battle may shatter their war-earl's power, and end the b.l.o.o.d.y strife. With Wittikind crushed, the most stubborn of the forest-folk may well give up the struggle as hopeless."

"If only they might bend to our Lord Christ without so much as one battle!" sighed Rothada.

"If only they might, little vala!" echoed Olvir. "But the best we can look for is a pitched battle, and the more terrible the slaughter, the more hope for peace to follow."

"That is a fearful saying, Olvir!"

"The truth of sword-rule. But this is no time, dearest, to fret our spirits with such thoughts. We have enough to sadden us in our parting."

"Oh, my hero! If I were not so selfish, I would seek to lighten your heart. But I sit here, heavy with sorrow, while all others are gay.

See; even Fastrada has put away her brooding, and makes merry with Gerold and the pages, as once I used to do."

"She may well rejoice! War is as welcome to her as to my vikings; and no doubt she is merry that we are to be parted."