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

brother, and of Thoralf, my other companion of flight. They were both slain, one at Gainsborough and one at Medehamstede. Thormod was with Halfden in Wessex, where they had made a landing to keep Ethelred, our Wessex overlord, from sending to our help. But as to Halfden, men said that he would not come to East Anglia, for the Lady Osritha had over persuaded him.

Then, though I would not ask in any downright way, I found that Osritha was well, but grieving, as they thought, for the danger of her brothers--and of that I had my own thoughts.

So with talk of the days that seemed so long past, we went on into Hoxne woods, through which Raud said that he had learnt we must go to meet the host in its onward march from Thetford.

"Jarl Ingvar lets not the grass grow under his feet," I said.

We came to a place where the woodland track broadened out into a clearing, and there waited the other Danes, and with them, sitting alone now on the horse, was Eadmund the King.

Pale he was, and all soiled with the stains of war, and with the moss and greenery of his strange hiding place; but his eye was bright and fearless, and he sat upright and stately though he was yet with his hands bound behind him.

I rode past Ingvar and to Eadmund's side, and throwing myself from my horse stood by him, while the Dane glared at us both without speaking.

"Why run thus into danger, Wulfric my son?" said the king, speaking gently; "better have let me be the only victim."

"That you shall not be, my king," I answered; "for if you must die, I will be with you. But I have come to try to ransom you."

"There are two words concerning that," said Ingvar in his cold voice. "Maybe I will take no gold for Eadmund."

"What shall we give you then?" I asked, looking earnestly at him.

"You heard what I said this morning before the battle. I have no other terms but those. And I think they are light--as from the son of Lodbrok whom this king's servant slew."

Now Eadmund spoke, saying to Ingvar:

"Let me hear what are your terms for my freedom. In the slaying of Lodbrok my friend I had no part."

"That is easily said," Ingvar answered, frowning. "I have my own thoughts on that--else had I not been here. But this land is in my power, therefore I will let you go if you will hold it for me, and own me as overlord, doing my will."

"My answer is the same as it was this morning. It is not for me to give over this land into the hands of heathen men to save myself."

That was Eadmund's calm answer, and looking on Ingvar I saw the same bode written in his face as had been when I would not honour his gods. Then he spoke slowly, and his words fell like ice from his lips.

"It seems to me that this land is in the hands of us heathen without your giving."

"So that may be, for the time," answered Eadmund; "but your time of power has an end."

"Has it so?" said Ingvar, and his eyes flashed. "Where is your help to come from? Do you look to Ethelred?--He is busy in Wessex with more of us heathen. Where is Mercia?--It is ours. Will Kent help you?"

"Our help is in the name of the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth," answered Eadmund, lifting his eyes heavenwards so earnestly, that in spite of himself the wild heathen king followed their upward gaze for a moment.

It was but for a moment, and that weakness, as he would deem it, was the spark to light Ingvar's wrath, that as yet he had kept under.

"Hammer of Thor!" he shouted, "you dare throw that in my face! Now will I show you if heathen or Christian is stronger."

Then with his face white with rage he turned to his men: "Bind him to yon tree, and we will speak with him again!"

Now if it is well that I did not die with my king, it was well at that moment for me that my axe hung at my saddle bow, and that my horse--to which I had paid no heed in my troubles--had wandered a little way, for I should surely have fought to prevent this dishonour being wrought. And I sprung to reach the axe, for the short sword I wore was of no use against so many. But Raud was close on me, and he dropped from his saddle on my shoulders as I passed him, so that I fell, half stunned under him, and one of the other men ran up, and ere they had stripped and bound the king to a tree, I was bound hand and foot, and rolled by Raud into a thicket where I might escape Ingvar's eye. And, indeed, he paid no heed to me, but watched the king.

So must I lie there with my heart like to break, seeing all that went on, and I will tell it as best I may.

Ingvar strode to the young oak tree to which they had bound the king and looked fixedly at him. Then he said, "Scourge this man," and his men did so. But the king made no sign by word or motion. I saw Ingvar's rage growing, and he cried as his men forbore, shrinking a little from their quiet victim:

"Ask for mercy, Christian, at the hands of Ingvar the godar, the priest of Odin and Thor, and you shall go free."

But the king met his gaze sadly and firmly, answering:

"That were to own that you have power over me through your false gods."

"Power I have," said Ingvar; "ask for mercy."

Thereat the king answered no word, though his lips moved, and I alone knew what his words might be, for though his hands were bound he moved his noble head in such wise as to make the sign of the Cross. And I think that he spoke to himself the prayer of forgiveness that he had learnt therefrom.

Almost then had the Dane smitten him in the face, but to this cowardice Ingvar the king had not yet fallen. He drew back a few paces, and took his long dagger from his belt, and at that I thought that he was going to slay the king, and I closed my eyes, praying. But he spoke again.

"Ask for peace on the same terms for your people, if you will not for yourself."

Then the king grew pale, but he set his lips close, still gazing at Ingvar. Hard was this for him who loved his people so well.

The Dane's dagger flashed, and he hurled it at Eadmund, but so skilfully that it did but graze his head, sticking firmly into the tree trunk. And he cried in a voice that shook with rage:

"Answer me!"

But the king held his peace, closing his eyes, and waiting for what might come, most bravely.

Then Ingvar turned to his men, and bade them unsling their bows and see if they could make this man find his tongue. Seven of them went to work with a good will, but Raud and the others would not, but turned away.

The men shot, and in many places the king was pierced, and lo! he lifted up his voice and sang gloriously, even as if in the church and on some high festival, the psalm that begins "De Profundis". Nor did his voice falter, though now he might move neither hand nor foot by reason of the piercing of the arrows.

At that the men stayed in amazement, and one threw away his bow and turned aside to where Raud stood, near where I lay. But Ingvar ground his teeth with rage, and stamping on the ground, cried to the men to shoot again.

And again the arrows flew, and now it seemed to me that no more arrows might find mark in the king's body without slaying him; and before my eyes was a mist, and my mouth was dry and parched, yet I could not turn away and look no more. But the men fitted arrows to the bowstrings once more, while Ingvar stood still and silent with his strong hands clasped together behind him, gazing at the king, whose lips moved in prayer, the psalm being ended, and, as I think, his strength ebbing fast from his many wounds.

Now they were about to shoot once more, unbidden, keeping up their torture if they might; but there was one more merciful than the rest. Forward before the bowmen strode Raud, with his sword drawn, and he cried to Ingvar:

"Let me slay him, king, and end this for pity's sake!"

Ingvar turned his eyes gloomily on him for a moment, and then answered:

"What know you of pity? Slay him if you will."

Then when he heard that, Eadmund looked at Raud, smiling on him with a wondrous smile and saying:

"Thanks, good friend."

So Raud slew him in pity, and that was now the best deed that might be done.

Thereat I cried out once, and my senses left me, and I knew no more.


CHAPTER XIII. HOW BISHOP HUMBERT JOINED THE KING.

When I began to come to myself it was late afternoon. At first into my mind came the fancy that I sat on the side of King Eadmund's bed in the king's chambers at Reedham, and that he told me a wondrous dream; how that--and then all of a sudden I knew that it was no shadowy dream, but that I had seen all come to pass, and that through the arrow storm Eadmund had passed to rest.

All round me the trees dripped with the damp November mist that creeps from the river, and the smell of dead leaves was in my nostrils, and for a while I lay still, hardly yet knowing true from false, dream from deed. So quiet was I that a robin came and perched close to me on a bramble, whose last leaves were the colour of the bird's red breast, and there it sang a little, so that I roused to life with the sound. Then swooped down a merlin with flash of gray wings on the robin and took it, and that angered me so that I rose on my elbow to fray it away; and with that the last cloud left my mind and I knew where I was. Then, too, from where he waited my waking came Vig, my great Danish dog, who had been tied at the thane's house, and must have left the flying party to seek me. And he bounded in gladness about me.

Now I found that my bonds were gone, and next that my weapons were left me, and that but for cramp and stiffness I had not any tokens of what had befallen. And at first it seemed to me that Ingvar thus showed his scorn of me, though soon I thought that he had forgotten me, and that it was Raud who had freed me.

I heeded not the dog, looking only in one place. But the body of the king was gone, and his arms and mail were gone. The hoofmarks of Ingvar's horses were everywhere; but at last I made out that they had gone on through the wood.

Presently