The Roots of the Mountains<br />Wherein Is Told Somewhat of the Lives of the Men of Burgdale, Their by William Morris (best sales books of all time .txt) 📗

But after a while she wiped the tears from her face and turned p. 107to him and said: ‘My friend, the Wolf shall lead thee no-whither but where I also shall be, whatsoever peril or grief may beset the road or lurk at the ending thereof.  Thou shalt be no thrall, to labour while I look on.’

His heart swelled within him as she spoke, and he was at point to beseech her love that moment; but now her face had grown gay and bright again, and she said while he was gathering words to speak withal:

‘Come in, Gold-mane, come into our house; for I have many things to say to thee.  And moreover thou art so hushed, and so fearsome in thy mail, that I think thou yet deemest me to be a Wight of the Waste, such as Stone-face thy Fosterer told thee tales of, and forewarned thee.  So would I eat before thee, and sign the meat with the sign of the Earth-god’s Hammer, to show thee that he is in error concerning me, and that I am a very woman flesh and fell, as my kindred were before me.’

He laughed and was exceeding glad, and said: ‘Tell me now, kind friend, dost thou deem that Stone-face’s tales are mere mockery of his dreams, and that he is beguiled by empty semblances or less?  Or are there such Wights in the Waste.’

‘Nay,’ she said, ‘the man is a true man; and of these things are there many ancient tales which we may not doubt.  Yet so it is that such wights have I never yet seen, nor aught to scare me save evil men: belike it is that I have been over-much busied in dealing with sorrow and ruin to look after them: or it may be that they feared me and the wrath-breeding grief of the kindred.’

He looked at her earnestly, and the wisdom of her heart seemed to enter into his; but she said: ‘It is of men we must talk, and of me and thee.  Come with me, my friend.’

And she stepped lightly over the threshold and drew him in.  The Hall was stern and grim and somewhat dusky, for its windows were but small: it was all of stone, both walls and roof.  There was no timber-work therein save the benches and chairs, a little about the doors at the lower end that led to the buttery p. 108and out-bowers; and this seemed to have been wrought of late years; yea, the chairs against the gable on the daïs were of stone built into the wall, adorned with carving somewhat sparingly, the image of the Wolf being done over the midmost of them.  He looked up and down the Hall, and deemed it some seventy feet over all from end to end; and he could see in the dimness those same goodly hangings on the wall which he had seen in the woodland booth.

She led him up to the daïs, and stood there leaning up against the arm of one of those stone seats silent for a while; then she turned and looked at him, and said:

‘Yea, thou lookest a goodly warrior; yet am I glad that thou camest hither without battle.  Tell me, Gold-mane,’ she said, taking one of his spears from his hand, ‘art thou deft with the spear?’

‘I have been called so,’ said he.

She looked at him sweetly and said: ‘Canst thou show me the feat of spear-throwing in this Hall, or shall we wend outside presently that I may see thee throw?’

‘The Hall sufficeth,’ he said.  ‘Shall I set this steel in the lintel of the buttery door yonder?’

‘Yea, if thou canst,’ she said.

He smiled and took the spear from her, and poised it and shook it till it quivered again, then suddenly drew back his arm and cast, and the shaft sped whistling down the dim hall, and smote the aforesaid door-lintel and stuck there quivering: then he sprang down from the daïs, and ran down the hall, and put forth his hand and pulled it forth from the wood, and was on the daïs again in a trice, and cast again, and the second time set the spear in the same place, and then took his other spear from the board and cast it, and there stood the two staves in the wood side by side; then he went soberly down the hall and drew them both out of the wood and came back to her, while she stood watching him, her cheek flushed, her lips a little parted.

p. 109She said: ‘Good spear-casting, forsooth! and far above what our folk can do, who be no great throwers of the spear.’

Gold-mane laughed: ‘Sooth is that,’ said he, ‘or hardly were I here to teach thee spear-throwing.’

‘Wilt thou never be paid for that simple onslaught?’ she said.

‘Have I been paid then?’ said he.

She reddened, for she remembered her word to him on the mountain; and he put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her cheek, but timorously; nor did she withstand him or shrink aback, but said soberly:

‘Good indeed is thy spear-throwing, and meseems my brother will love thee when he hath seen thee strike a stroke or two in wrath.  But, fair warrior, there be no foemen here: so get thee to the lower end of the Hall, and in the bower beyond shalt thou find fresh water; there wash the waste from off thee, and do off thine helm and hauberk, and come back speedily and eat with me; for I hunger, and so dost thou.’

He did as she bade him, and came back presently bearing in his hand both helm and hauberk, and he looked light-limbed and trim and lissome, an exceeding goodly man.

When he came back to the daïs he saw that there was meat upon the board, and the Friend said to him:

‘Now art thou Gold-mane indeed: but come now, sit by me and eat, though the Wood-woman giveth thee but a sorry banquet, O guest; but from the Dale it is, and we be too far now from the dwellings of men to have delicate meat on the board, though to-night when they come back thy cheer shall be better.  Yet even then thou shalt have no such dainties as Stone-face hath imagined for thee at the hands of the Wood-wight.’

p. 110She laughed therewith, and he no less; and in sooth the meat was but simple, of curds and new cheese, meat of the herdsmen.  But Face-of-god said gaily: ‘Sweet it shall be to me; good is all that the Friend giveth.’

Then she raised her hand and made the sign of the Hammer over the board, and looked up at him and said:

‘Hath the Earth-god changed my face, Gold-mane, to what I verily am?’

He held his face close to hers and looked into it, and him-seemed it was as pure as the waters of a mountain lake, and as fine and well-wrought every deal of it as when his father had wrought in his stithy many days and fashioned a small piece of great mastery.  He was ashamed to kiss her again, but he said to himself, ‘This is the fairest woman of the world, whom I have sworn to wed this year.’  Then he spake aloud and said:

‘I see the face of the Friend, and it will not change to me.’

Again she reddened a little, and the happy look in her face seemed to grow yet sweeter, and he was bewildered with longing and delight.

But she stood up and went to an ambrye in the wall and brought forth a horn shod and lipped with silver of ancient fashion, and she poured wine into it and held it forth and said:

‘O guest from the Dale, I pledge thee! and when thou hast drunk to me in turn we will talk of weighty matters.  For indeed I bear hopes in my hands too heavy for the daughters of men to bear; and thou art a chieftain’s son, and mayst well help me to bear them; so let us talk simply and without guile, as folk that trust one another.’

So she drank and held out the horn to him, and he took the horn and her hand both, and he kissed her hand and said:

‘Here in this Hall I drink to the Sons of the Wolf, whosoever they be.’  Therewith he drank and he said: ‘Simply and guilelessly indeed will I talk with thee; for I am weary of lies, and for thy sake have I told a many.’

p. 111‘Thou shalt tell no more,’ she said; ‘and as for the health thou hast drunk, it is good, and shall profit thee.  Now sit we here in these ancient seats and let us talk.’

So they sat them down while the sun was westering in the March afternoon, and she said:

‘Tell me first what tidings have been in the Dale.’

So he told her of the ransackings and of the murder at Carlstead.

She said: ‘These tidings have we heard before, and some deal of them we know better than ye do, or can; for we were the ransackers of Penny-thumb and Harts-bane.  Thereof will I say more presently.  What other tidings hast thou to tell of?  What oaths were sworn upon the Boar last Yule?’

So he told her of the oath of Bristler the son of Brightling.  She smiled and said: ‘He shall keep his oath, and yet redden no blade.’

Then he told of his father’s oath, and she said:

‘It is good; but even so would he do and no oath sworn.  All men may trust Iron-face.  And thou, my friend, what oath didst thou swear?’

His face grew somewhat troubled as he said: ‘I swore to wed the fairest woman in the world, though the Dalesmen gainsaid me, and they beyond the Dale.’

‘Yea,’ she said, ‘and there is no need to ask thee whom thou didst mean by thy “fairest woman,” for I have seen that thou deemest me fair enough.  My friend, maybe thy kindred will be against it, and the kindred of the Bride; and it might be that my kindred would have gainsaid it if things were not as they are.  But though all men gainsay it, yet will not I.  It is meet and right that we twain wed.’

She spake very soberly and quietly, but when she had spoken there was nothing in his heart but joy and gladness: yet shame of her loveliness refrained him, and he cast down his eyes before hers.  Then she said in a kind voice:

‘I know thee, how glad thou art of this word of mine, because p. 112thou lookest on me with eyes of love, and thinkest of me as better than I am; though I am no ill woman and no beguiler.  But this is not all that I have to say to thee, though it be much; for there are more folk in the world than thou and I only.  But I told thee this first, that thou mightest trust me in all things.  So, my friend, if thou canst, refrain thy joy and thy longing a little, and hearken to what concerneth thee and me, and thy people and mine.’

‘Fair woman and sweet friend,’ he said, ‘thou knowest of a gladness which is hard to bear if one must lay it aside for a while; and of a longing which is hard to refrain if it mingle with another longing—knowest thou not?’

‘Yea,’ she said, ‘I know it.’

‘Yet,’ said Face-of-god, ‘I will forbear as thou biddest me.  Tell me, then, what were the felons who were slain at Carlstead?  Knowest thou of them?’

‘Over well,’ she said, ‘they are our foes this many a year; and since we met last autumn they have become foes of you Dalesmen also.  Soon shall ye have tidings of them; and it was against them that I bade thee arm yesterday.’

Said Face-of-god: ‘Is it against them that thou wouldst have us do battle along with thy folk?’

‘So it is,’ she said; ‘no other foemen have we.  And now, Gold-mane, thou art become a friend of the Wolf, and shalt before long be of affinity with our House; that other day thou didst ask me to tell thee of me and mine, and now will I do according to thine asking.  Short shall my tale be; because maybe thou shalt hear it told again, and in goodly wise, before thine whole folk.

‘As thou wottest we be now outlaws and Wolves’ Heads; and whiles we lift the gear of men, but ever if we may of ill men and not of good; there is no worthy goodman of the Dale from whom we would take one hoof, or a skin of wine, or a cake of wax.

‘Wherefore are we outlaws?  Because we have been driven p. 113from our own, and we bore away our