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

land along the coast, south of the haven, where I was riding with my falcon and the great dog Vig, which Raud and his brother would have me take for my own after the wolf hunt.

Gladly I rode hack with my news to find Ingvar in the ship garth, and there I told him who came.

"A ship, maybe. How know you she is Halfden's?" he said carelessly.

"Why, how does any sailor know his own ship?" I asked in surprise.

Then he turned at once, and smiled at me fairly for the first time.

"I had forgotten," he said. "Come, let us look at her again."

And I was not mistaken, though the jarl was not so sure as I for half an hour or more. When he was certain, he said:

"Come, let us make what welcome for Halfden that we may."

And we went back to the hall, and at once was the great horn blown to assemble the men; and the news went round quickly, so that everywhere men and women alike put aside their work, and hurried down to the wharf side. And in Ingvar's house the thralls wrought to prepare a great feast in honour of Jarl Halfden's homecoming.

Soon I stood with the jarls and Osritha at the landing place, and behind us were the courtmen in their best array. And as we came to the place where we would wait, Halfden's ship came past the bar into the haven's mouth.

All men's faces were bright with the thought of welcome, but heavy were my thoughts, and with reason. For Halfden's ship came from the sea on no course that should have borne him from Reedham, and I feared that it was I who must tell him all. Yet he might have been drawn from his course by some passing vessel.

The long ship flew up the channel, and now we could see that all her rail was hung with the red and yellow shields that they use for show as well as to make the gunwale higher against the arrows, and to hinder boarders in a fight. And she was gaily decked with flags, and shone with new paint and gilding in all sea bravery. Not idle had her crew been in the place where they had wintered, and one might know that they had had a good voyage, which to a Dane means plunder enough for all. But surely if Halfden had been to Reedham, the long pennon had been half masted.

It were long to tell how the people cheered, and how they were answered from the ship, and how I spied Halfden on the fore deck, and Thormod at the helm, as ever. And when Osritha saw Halfden's gay arms and cloak and all the bright trim of the ship and men, she said to me, speaking low and quickly:

"They have not been to Reedham, or it would not have been thus."

And it was true, for there would have been no sign of joy among those who had heard the news that waited them there.

I knew not how to bear this meeting, but I was not alone in my trouble, for nearer me crept Osritha, saying to me alone, while the people cheered and shouted:

"How shall we tell Halfden?"

The two jarls were busy at the mooring place, and I could only answer her that I could look to her alone for help. Now at that I knew what had sprung up in my heart for Osritha, and that not in this only should I look for help from her and find it, but if it might be, all my life through. For now in my trouble she looked at me with a new look, answering:

"I will help you, whatever betide."

I might say no more then, nor were words needed, for I knew all that she meant. And so my heart was lightened, for now I held that I was repaid for all that had gone before, and save for that which had brought me here, gladly would I take my perilous voyage over again to find this land and the treasure it now held for me.

At last the ship's keel grated on the sand, and the men sprang from shore waist deep in water, to take her the mighty cables that should haul her into her berth; and then the long gangplank was run out, and Halfden came striding along it, looking bright and handsome--and halfway over, he stopped where none could throng him, and lifting his hand for silence cried for all to hear.

"Hearken all to good news! Lodbrok our Jarl lives!"

Then, alas! instead of the great cheer that should have broken from the lips of all that throng, was at first a silence, and then a groan--low and pitiful as of a mourning people who wail for the dead and the sorrowful living--and at that sound Halfden paled, and stayed no more, hurrying ashore and to where his brothers stood.

"What is this?" he said, and his voice was low, and yet clear in the silence that had fallen, for all his men behind him had stopped as if turned to stone where they stood.

Then from my side sprang Osritha before any could answer, meeting him first of all, and she threw her arms round his neck, saying:

"Dead is Lodbrok our father, and nigh to death for his sake has been Wulfric, your friend. Yet he at least is well, and here to speak with you and tell you all."

Then for the great and terrible sorrow that came at the end of the joyous homeward sailing, down on the hard sand Halfden the Jarl threw himself, and there lay weeping as these wild Danes can weep, for their sorrow is as terrible as their rage, and they will put no bounds to the way of grief of which there is no need for shame. Nor have they the hope that bids us sorrow not as they.

And while he lay there, all men held their peace, looking in one another's faces, and only the jarls and Osritha and myself stood near him.

Very suddenly he raised himself up, and was once more calm; then he kissed the maiden, and grasped his brothers' hands, and then held out both hands to me, holding mine and looking in my face.

"Other was the meeting I had planned for you and me, Wulfric, my brother-in-arms. Yet you are most welcome, for you at least are here to tell me of the days that are past."

"It is an ill telling," said Ingvar.

"That must needs be, seeing what is to be told," Hubba said quickly.

But those wise words of Osritha's had made things easier for me, for now Halfden knew that into the story of the jarl's death, I and my doings must come, so Ingvar's words meant little to him.

"You went not to Reedham?" I said, for now the men were at work again, and all was noise and bustle round us.

"I have come here first by Orkneys from Waterford, where we wintered," he answered. "And I have been over sure that no mishap might be in a long six months."

"What of the voyage?--let us speak of this hereafter," said Hubba.

And Halfden, wearily, as one who had lost all interest in his own doings, told him that it had been good, and that Thormod would give him the full tale of plunder.

Then came a chief from the ship whose face I knew, though he was not of our crew. It was that Rorik whose ship the Bosham bell had sunk, and who had been saved by Halfden's boats. He knew me, after scanning me idly for a moment, and greeted me, asking why I was not at Reedham to make that feast of which Halfden was ever speaking, and so passed on.

So we went up to the great hall in silence, sorely cast down; and that was Halfden's homecoming.

Little joy was there on the high place at the feast that night, though at the lower tables the men of our crew (for so I must ever think of those whose leader I had been for a little while, with Halfden) held high revelling with their comrades. Many were the tales they told, and when a tale of fight and victory was done, the scald would sing it in verse that should be kept and sung by the winter fire till new deeds brought new songs to take its place.

Presently Halfden rose up, after the welcome cup had gone round and feasting was done, and the ale and mead began to flow, and he beckoned me to come with him. Hubba would have come also, but Ingvar held him back.

"Let Wulfric have his say first," he growled; and I thanked him in my mind for his thought.

So we went to the inner chamber, where Osritha would sit with her maidens, and Halfden said:

"This matter is filling all my thoughts so that I am but a gloomy comrade at the board. Tell me all, and then what is done is done. One may not fight against the Norn maidens {xiv}."

There I told him all my story, and he remembered how I had told him, laughing, of Beorn's jealousy at first. And when my tale was nearly done Osritha crept from her bower and came and sat beside Halfden, pushing her hand into his, and resting her head on his shoulder.

Then I ended quickly, saying that Ingvar had done justice on Beorn. And at that remembrance the maiden shivered, and Halfden's face showed that he knew what the man's fate was like to have been at the great jarl's hands.

"So, brother," he said, when I left off speaking, "had I gone to Reedham there would have been burnt houses in East Anglia."

"In Reedham?" said I.

"Wherever this Beorn had a house; and at Caistor where that old fool Ulfkytel lives, and maybe at one or two other places on the way thither. And I think your father and Egfrid your brother would have helped me, or I them."

So he doubted me not at all, any more than I should have doubted his tale, were he in my place and I in his.

Then I said that I myself had no grudge against Earl Ulfkytel, for he had sent me here.

"Why then, no more have I," answered Halfden; "for he is a wiseacre and an honest one, and maybe meant kindly. Ingvar would have slain both guilty and innocent, and told them to take their wrangle elsewhere, to Hela or Asgard as the way might lead them."

Now as he said that, I, who looked ever on the face of her whom I loved, saw that a new fear had come into Osritha's heart, and that she feared somewhat for me. Nor could I tell what it was. But Halfden and I went on talking, and at last she could not forbear a little sob, and at that Halfden asked what ailed her.

"May I speak to you, my brother, very plainly, of one thing that I dread?" she asked, drawing closer to him.

"Aye, surely," he answered in surprise.

"Remember you the words that Ingvar said to the priest of the White Christ who came from Ansgar at Hedeby {xv}, while our father was away in the ships?"

"Why, they were like words. He bade him go and settle the matter with Odin whom