For The White Christ Part 1

FOR THE WHITE CHRIST.

by Robert Ames Bennet.

BOOK ONE

Now death has seized-- Bale and terror--my trusty people, Laid down life have my liegemen all.

BEOWULF.

CHAPTER I

Swans of the Dane-folk-- The s.h.i.+ps of Sigmund-- Heads all gilt over, And prows fair graven.

LAY OF GUDRUN.

Early of an April morning of the year 778, a broad-beamed Frisian trade-s.h.i.+p was drifting with the ebb-tide down the Seine estuary.

Wrapped about by the morning vapors, the deeply laden little craft floated on the stream like a dreams.h.i.+p. The mists shut out all view of sky and land and sea. From the quarter-deck, the two men beside the steer-oar could scarcely see across the open cargo-heaped waist to where, gathered silently about the mast, a dozen or so drowsy sailors stood waiting for the morning breeze.

The remainder of the crew lay sprawled upon the casks and bales of merchandise, side by side with a score of Frankish warriors. All alike were heavy with drunken slumber. The s.h.i.+pmaster, a squat red-haired man of great girth, regarded the overcome wa.s.sailers with an indifferent eye; but the tall warrior beside him appeared far from pleased by the sight.

"Is it so you rule your s.h.i.+p, Frisian?" he demanded. "You should have stopped the wa.s.sail by midnight. Here we swim on the treacherous sea, while our men lie in drunken stupor."

"We are yet in the stream, lord count," replied the s.h.i.+pmaster. "As to my Frisians, a dash of salt water will soon rouse them. If your landsmen are farther gone, what odds? Drunk or sober, they 'll be alike useless when we strike rough seas."

The Frank's face lit with a smile as quick as its frown.

"There you are mistaken, Frisian," he said. "A man may bear the wild waters no love, yet owe them no fear. Twice I have crossed this narrow sea, as envoy of our Lord Karl to the kings of the Anglo-Saxons, and my henchmen sailed with me."

"Yours are king's men, lord count,--all busked like chiefs."

"Man for man, I would pit them against the followers of any leader.

Better a few picked warriors, so armed, than twice their number of common freemen."

"Well said!" muttered the Frisian; "a choice following. I 'd wager on them, even against Dane steel--except the sea-wolves of Olvir Elfkin."

"Olvir Elfkin? You speak of a liegeman of Sigfrid, King of the Nordmannian Danes?"

"No, lord count; Earl Olvir is far too proud to let himself be called the man of any king. I sail far on my trade-farings. At the fair of Gardariki, across the great gulf from the Swedes, I saw the Norse hero.

His father was one-time king of the Trondir, a folk who dwell beneath the very eaves of the ice-giants. His mother was an elf-maiden from the far Eastland. Another time I will tell you that tale, lord count. I had it from Floki the Crane, my Norse sword-brother. But now I speak of Earl Olvir's following. He is so famed in the North that the greatest heroes think it honor to fight beneath his banner; and he rules the mail-clad giants as our great King Karl rules his counts. Six seasons in all he has come swooping south from his ice-cliffs to harry the coasts of Jutland and Nordmannia; and though even now he is little more than a bairn in years, each time that he steered about for his home fiord he left a war-trail of sunken longs.h.i.+ps to mark his outbound course."

"I heard much of such sea-fights from that mighty Dane hero Otkar,--he who went over to King Desiderius and fought against our Lord Karl in the Lombard war."

"Ay; who has not heard of Otkar Jotuntop,--Otkar the Dane? This very Earl Olvir of whom I spoke is of kin to the hero."

"Even I have heard of Lord Otkar," called out a childish voice, and the speaker sprang lightly up the deck ladder. She was a lissome little maiden, barely out of childhood, yet possessed of an unconscious dignity of look and bearing that well matched her rich costume.

The warrior bowed low to her half-shy, half-gay greeting, and smiling down into her violet eyes, he replied in a tone of tender deference, "The Princess Rothada is early awake. Shall I not call the tiring-woman?"

The girl put up her hand to touch the coronet which bound her chestnut hair, and her glance pa.s.sed in naive admiration down the gold-embroidered border of her loose-sleeved overdress.

"Princess! princess!" she cried gayly. "To think that only four days have gone since with Gisela and the other maidens I waited upon the blessed sisters! And now I wear a ring and silken dresses, and the greatest war-count of the king my father--but are you not my kinsman, lord count?"

"Your cousin, little princess. My mother was a sister of our lord king."

"Then you shall no longer call me princess, but Rothada, and I shall call you Roland. Few maidens can own kinsmen so tall and grand!" and Rothada stared up in half-awed admiration at the count's war-dinted helmet and s.h.i.+ning scale-hauberk.

The warrior's blue eyes glowed, but there was no vanity with his frank pleasure.

"Saint Michael give me skill to s.h.i.+eld you from all harm!" he said.

"Surely he has already strengthened your arm. In all the land you stand second only to the king my father!--But you spoke of Otkar the Dane.

Tell me more about him, cousin. Already I know that he was a heathen count from the far North, more learned than any monk or priest, and in battle mightier even than my father. Two winters ago there came to Ch.e.l.les a maiden who knew many tales of the Saxon and Lombard wars,--Fastrada--"

Roland's cheeks flushed, and he stooped forward eagerly.

"Fastrada!" he exclaimed. "You knew her?"

"For a winter's time---"

"You will meet her again. She is now one of the queen's maidens,--the fairest of them all."

"Then you like her, cousin," replied Rothada, with innocent candor. "It was different with Gisela and me. Many of the maidens feared her, and she broke the holy rules and talked so much of warriors that the good abbess sent her away. Yet that is long since--she may have changed."

"None could but like her now, child," replied Roland, softly. Yet even as he spoke, some unwelcome thought blotted the smile from his face. He frowned and stared moodily out into the wavering mists.

The girl followed his look, and the sight of the water alongside recalled her to the present.

"See, kinsman," she said, with a sudden return of gayety, "the sailors spread the sail. How long shall we be upon the sea until we reach the Garonne?"

"Were we travelling by land, I could tell you, little princess. But I am no sea-count. Our s.h.i.+pmaster can best answer you."

The Frisian turned to the daughter of the great king with an uncouth attempt at a bow.

"Wind and wave are fickle, maiden, and no sea is rougher than the Vascon Bay," he grumbled. "But with fair wind I land you at Ca.s.seneuil while the lord count's hors.e.m.e.n yet ride in Aquitania."

"That I doubt, man," said Roland. "Yet here is promise of fair sailing.

The sun melts the mists, and with it comes the breeze to sweep them away."

"Ay; the fog breaks. Between sun and wind we 'll see both sh.o.r.es before the s.h.i.+p gains full headway."

"I already see-- Look, man! Can we be so close insh.o.r.e? What flashes so brightly?"

The Frisian wheeled about, an anxious frown lowering beneath his s.h.a.ggy forelock. His alarm was only too well founded. A puff of the freshening breeze swept before it the last bank of vapor, and revealed with startling clearness two grim black hulls, along whose sweeping bulwarks hung rows of yellow s.h.i.+elds. On the lofty prows shone the gilded dragon-heads whose glitter had first caught Roland's eye. The single masts were bare of yard and sail; but along each side a dozen or more great sweeps thrust out beneath the scaly s.h.i.+eld-row like the legs of a dragon.

"Danes!" gasped the Frisian, and from the grimly beautiful viking s.h.i.+ps, every line of which spoke of grace and speed, he turned a despairing eye upon his clumsy trade-s.h.i.+p.