For The White Christ Part 70

"It is merry for lovers to ride in the greenwood."

"My thanks!" muttered Gerold, and he rushed into the palace courtyard.

His horse was dripping with sweat when, a mile up the Aisne bank, he raced to meet the three riders who came cantering through the groves.

It was a happy little party. He could see the blush of love and joy which had brought back the roses to Rothada's white cheeks, and her joyous laughter rang clear in the still air. How could he mar their happiness?

But now they were racing forward to meet him, Zora in the lead. A little more, and he was on the dewy turf beside Olvir, gripping his arms. After the first outburst of gladness, however, his face darkened with the shadow of his message.

"How's this, lad?" demanded Olvir. "You stand gaping, doleful as a bee-stung cub. G.o.d forbid that you bear ill tidings of our lord king!"

"I bear ill tidings, not of our lord king, but from him," answered Gerold; and he turned appealingly to Liutrad. "I cannot tell them! I cannot say it!"

"Speak! Speak out, man!" commanded Olvir, fiercely.

"Sea-king,--king's son! here is fit ending for your seven years of service. Now are you wolfshead throughout the length and breadth of the Frank realm,--you and all your following! You shall sail down Rhine Stream so soon as you can ride to Cologne. Worad rides after, to hunt you from the realm. If within an hour you have not left Attigny, your head shall pay for the loitering. Such is the command of Karl, King of the Franks, to the hero who has served him as a king's son--a king's son!"

Gerold paused, the words choking in his throat with grief and anger, and Olvir and Liutrad stood before him speechless, stunned by his message.

But Rothada slipped from her horse and ran to Olvir.

"Ah, Christ!" she moaned. "My hero outlawed!"

"The king your father has named him wolfshead, maiden," answered Gerold, and then his voice broke into plaintive appeal. "Why did you slay the old leech, Olvir? Why strike the greybeard? At the least, you should have taken your knife with you. Where were your nimble wits? But for the witness of the reddened blade--"

"Hold! Are you mad?" cried Olvir. "You babble of knives and slain men like a fool."

"Would that it were so, friend! But your knife, the ill-omened blade!

With my own hand I plucked it from the heart of the luckless Magian."

"How--my knife? None the less, it is a foul lie. I gave the blade long since to this dear one on my breast, and last night I placed it again in her hand, unused, when I spurned the cowering leech. Why should I slay the spy, when I was even then going with my betrothed to stand before her father? There would be nothing to betray."

"Thor's hammer!" roared Liutrad. "The werwolf has snared you, earl--"

"No, by Odin! The falcon bursts through the limed twigs. I 'll go to the king--"

"Too late--too late!" groaned Gerold. "She has shot her venomed shafts too well. After I, wretched man that I am, had brought the blade that sprung the werwolf's snare, Worad came also, with lies yet worse. The Thuringians have spared no pains. A score of high-counts have sworn that you lured old Rudulf to his death in an ambush of the Sorbs. It was then the werwolf triumphed. The king is filled with her venom; and yet--and yet even then he denied her and doomed you only to outlawry."

Olvir struck his thigh. "Thor! I thank him little for that, when I must go faring, and leave my bride to wed the werwolf's nursling."

"I have another knife," said Rothada, and she looked up at Olvir, her sweet lips straight and tense.

"No, king's daughter!" he answered her sternly; "it shall not come to that. I have the right to take you with me into my banishment. Now what is the vala's word?"

"Oh, my hero, I pray for light! If you must truly go-- But first, there is yet hope. My father does not know the truth."

"Would he listen were it told him? No, darling; come with me, that there may be an end of doubt."

"I cannot, Olvir,--I cannot go yet. First see my father. He is just; he will right the wrong he has put upon you."

"And if not?"

"He will, dear hero!"

"And if not?"

"Then--ah, Christ forgive me! I must break the will of the king my father. I must leave home and friends and father--unblessed!"

"No, little vala; not unblessed," broke in Liutrad, his deep voice trembling. "You shall be wed by a priest of G.o.d, who will shrive you of all sin in doing what is just and right."

"Enough," said Olvir. "I hold the pledge of my betrothed. Gerold will lead her back to the palace, and Liutrad will fetch my priest-robe. He will bring me in before the king during the noon rest. If I fail, but get free, I 'll ride straight across the Ardennes to Cologne. At nightfall, Liutrad will ride with the king's daughter; but they shall go by another way, down the Meuse to Nimeguen. There I will meet them with my longs.h.i.+ps. What says Count Gerold to the theft of the king's daughter?"

"Saint Michael! Could you think me so cruel as to hold her here in the power of that werwolf? Yet a word: there will be swift pursuit."

"They will follow me to Cologne."

"And a priest has his cowl," added Liutrad.

Rothada pressed her blus.h.i.+ng face against Olvir's shoulder.

"They shall not find our trail, dear hero," she whispered. "Berga in a forester's dress, and I as a page--"

"Freya guide you, my bride!" cried Olvir, and he pressed his lips to her downbent head.

CHAPTER XXVI

Unmeet we should do As the doings of wolves are, Raising wrongs 'gainst each other As the dogs of the Norns, The greedy ones nourished In waste steads of the earth.

LAY OF HAMDIR.

When Liutrad returned with the sombre Benedictine robe for his earl, he found Olvir pacing restlessly up and down the Aisne bank.

"You 're slow, lad," he said impatiently; and flinging on the gown, he at once called to Zora. But Liutrad had more knowledge of the king's humor.

"Curb your eagerness, earl," he said. "Wait until after the baptizing, and our lord king has eaten and eased himself with the noon rest. When he wakens, his mood will be fairest."

"Yours is the better judgment, lad," a.s.sented Olvir. "My hour of grace is already past, and it will matter little--Loki! We 've forgotten that I cannot ride Zora into the burg. Worad will soon be searching me out, and the mare is as well known as I."

"We must leave her hid in the wood nearest the burg. My horse shall stand in waiting for you by the palace gate. He is heavy, but can race that far at good speed."

"Well schemed, lad! I shall swoop among the limed twigs of the werwolf, and they shall not hold me! Do you call to mind, lad, that day among the sand dunes, when we outrode the angry Danes?"

"Remember! Thor's hammer, but those were merry days!" cried Liutrad; and with that he and Olvir fell to recalling the stirring scenes of their hunts and their fights on land and sea since the day when Olvir Thorbiornson came to Lade, with his grim foster-father, and won the heirs.h.i.+p of the high-seat.

Noon came and pa.s.sed, and the two still talked on with the care-free tones of men at a feast. None might have dreamt from their manner that they were desperate men, prepared, if need were, to defy the might of the great king.

At last, noting by the fall of the sun-rays through the foliage how the time pa.s.sed, Liutrad gave the word, and they made ready to enter Attigny.