Wulfric the Weapon Thane - Charles W. Whistler (best affordable ebook reader TXT) 📗

we spoke of that for a while, and how I must order things at Reedham while he was away.

"Lodbrok, our friend, will go back with you," he said. "Now, have you noted any envy at the favour in which he is held by Eadmund?"

"Aye, Father," I answered, "from Beorn, the falconer."

"So you, too, have had your eyes open," went on my father; "now I mistrust that man, for he hates Lodbrok."

"That is saying more than I had thought."

"You have been away, and there is more than you know at the bottom of the matter. The king offered Lodbrok lands if he would bide with us and be his man, and these he refused, gently enough, saying that he had broad lands of his own, and that he would not turn Christian, as the king wished, for the sake of gain. He would only leave the worship of his own gods for better reasons. Now Beorn covets those lands, and has hoped to gain them. Nor does he yet know that Lodbrok will not take them."

Then I began to see that this matter was deeper than I had thought, and told my father of the first meeting of Lodbrok and Beorn. But I said that the falconer had seemed very friendly of late.

"Aye, too friendly," said my father; "it is but a little while since he held aloof from him, and now he is ever close to Lodbrok in field and forest. You know how an arrow may seem to glance from a tree, or how a spear thrust may go wide when the boar is at bay, and men press round him, or an ill blow may fall when none may know it but the striker."

"Surely no man would be so base!" I cried.

"Such things have been and may be again. Long have I known Beorn, and I would not have him for enemy. His ways are not open."

Then I said that if Beorn was ever near Lodbrok, I would be nearer, and so we left the matter.

There was one other thing, which was more pleasant, which we spoke about at that time. And it was about the betrothal of my sister Eadgyth. For it had come to pass that Egfrid, my friend, had sought her hand, and the match pleased us all. So before the king and my father went to Winchester there was high feasting, and those two were pledged one to the other. Then was a new house to be built for them at Hoxne, where the wedding itself should take place.

"Maybe Halfden will be here by that time," said Lodbrok to me. "I wish, friend Wulfric, that honest Egfrid had not been so forward, or that you had another fair sister."

Now though that saying pleased me, I could not wish for the wild viking as husband to our gentle Eadgyth, though I loved him well as my own friend. So I said that I thought Halfden's ship was his only love.

"Maybe," answered the jarl; "but one may never know, and I think it would be well for English folk and Danish to be knit together more closely."

But when I asked him why this should be so, he only smiled, and talked of friendliness between the two peoples, which seemed a little matter to me at that time.

Now when the time came, my father having gone, we two, Lodbrok and I, went back to Reedham, while my mother and Eadgyth stayed yet at Thetford for the sake of Egfrid's new house building, for he would have it built to suit her who should rule it.

Strange and grievous it was to me to see our shipyard empty, and sad to have to tell the story of the good ship's loss to those whose mourning was not yet over. Yet they were sailors' wives and children, and to them death at sea was honourable, as is to a warrior's wife that her husband should fall in a ring of foes with all his wounds in front. And they blamed me not; but rather rejoiced that I was safe returned.

Now without thought of any foe, or near or far, Lodbrok and I hunted and hawked over our manors, finding good sport, and in a little while I forgot all about Beorn, for I had seen him go in the king's train as they rode out to Winchester.

Out of that carelessness of mine came trouble, the end of which is hard to see, and heavily, if there is blame to me, have I paid for it. And I think that I should have better remembered my father's words, though I had no thought but that danger was far away for the time.

We hunted one day alone together, and had ridden far across our nearer lands to find fresh ground, so that we were in the wide forest country that stretches towards Norwich, on the south of the Yare. Maybe we were five miles from the old castle at Caistor. There we beat the woods for roebuck, having greyhounds and hawks with us, but no attendants, as it happened, and for a time we found nothing, not being far from the road that leads to the great city from the south.

Then we came to a thicket where the deer were likely to harbour, and we went, one on either side of it, so that we could not see one another, and little by little separated. Then I started a roe, and after it went my hounds, and I with them, winding my horn to call Lodbrok to me, for they went away from him.

My hounds took the roe, after a long chase, and I was at work upon it, when that white hound that I had given to Lodbrok came leaping towards me, and taking no heed of the other hounds, or of the dead deer, fawned upon me, marking my green coat with bloodstains from its paws.

I was angry, and rated the hound, and it fled away swiftly as it came, only to return, whining and running to and fro as though to draw me after it. Then I thought that Lodbrok had also slain a deer, starting one from the same thicket, which was likely enough, and that this dog, being but young, would have me come and see it. All the while the hound kept going and coming, being very uneasy, and I rated it again.

Then it came across me that I had not heard Lodbrok's horn, and that surely the dog would not so soon have left his quarry. And at that I hasted and hung the deer on a branch, and, mounting my horse, rode after the hound, which at once ran straight before me, going to where I thought Lodbrok would be.

When I came round the spur of wood that had first parted us I was frightened, for Lodbrok's horse ran there loose, snorting as if in terror of somewhat that I could not see, and I caught him and rode on.

When I could see a furlong before me, into a little hollow of the land that is there, before me was a man, dressed like myself in green, and he was dragging the body of another man towards a thicket; and as I saw this my horses started from a pool of blood in which lay a broken arrow shaft.

At that I shouted and spurred swiftly towards those two--letting the other horse go free--with I know not what wild thoughts in my mind.

And when I came near I knew that the living man was Beorn, and that the dead was Lodbrok my friend.

Then I took my horn and wound it loud and long, charging down upon that traitor with drawn sword, for I had left my hunting spear with the slain deer. He dropped his burden, and drew his sword also, turning on me. And I saw that the blade was red.

Then I made no more delay, but leapt from my horse and fell upon him to avenge myself for the death of him whom I loved. Would that I had had the axe whose use he who lay there had taught me so well, for then the matter would have been ended at one blow. But now we were evenly matched, and without a word we knew that this fight must be to the death, and our swords crossed, and blow and parry came quickly.

Then I heard shouts, and the noise of men running behind me, and Beorn cried:

"Stay us not, I avenge me of my friend," whereon I ground my teeth and pressed on him yet more fiercely, wounding him a little in the shoulder; and he cried out for help--for the men who came were close on us--and the well-cast noose of a rope fell over my shoulders, and I was jerked away from him well-nigh choked.

Two men ran past me and took Beorn, throwing up his sword with their quarterstaves, and it seemed to me that it was done over gently. Then they bound us both and set us on the ground face to face.

"Now here be fine doings!" said a man, who seemed to be the leader of the six or seven who had ended the fight.

"Aye, 'tis murder," said another, looking from Beorn to me and then to Beorn again; "but which is murderer and which true man?"

Now all these men were strangers to me, but I knew one thing about them from their dress. They were the men of mighty Earl Ulfkytel himself, and seemed to be foresters, and honest men enough by their faces.

"I am Wulfric, son of Elfric of Reedham," I said. "The slain man is Lodbrok, the Danish jarl, and this man slew him."

"He lies!" cried Beorn. "It was he who slew him, and I would revenge myself on him, for this Lodbrok was my friend."

Now I held my peace, keeping back my wrath as well as I might, for I began to see that Beorn had some deep plot on hand, thus to behave as if innocent.

"Why, so he cried out as we came," said one of the men when he heard Beorn's words.

"Maybe both had a hand in it," the leader said, and so they talked for a little.

Then came two of my own serfs, who had followed me to see the sport, I suppose, at a distance, as idle men will sometimes, when hunting is on hand, and with them came Lodbrok's dog, the same that had brought me. And when the dog saw Beorn he flew at him and would have mauled him sorely, but that the earl's men beat him off with their staves; and one took the leash that hung from my saddle bow and tied him to a tree, where he sat growling and making as though he would again fly at the falconer.

"Whose dog is this?" asked the leader.

"His," answered the serfs, pointing to Lodbrok.

"Dogs might tell strange tales could they talk," said the earl's man; "I misdoubt both these men. Let us take them to the earl for judgment."

"Where is the earl?" I asked.

"At Caistor," answered the man shortly, and I was glad that he was so near, for the matter would be quickly settled and I could go free.

"Unbind me, and I will go where you will," I said, but at that Beorn cried out.

"Loose him not, loose him not, I pray you!"

"Tie their hands