King Olaf's Kinsman<br />A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in the Days of Ironsid by Charles W. Whistler (top 10 non fiction books of all time txt) 📕

"Into the boat, lord king--quick!" he said. "We shall be safe there."

Dazed and stiff I was, but I rose and followed Olaf; then Ottar pushed off, and we shot out towards the midst of the mere into safety.

Then the king stared at me and at Ottar for a moment in amazement, and then laughed until the woods rang again, and I and the scald were fain to join him. Never had I heard such sounds before in that haunted place.

"Now, Ottar," he said, when he could speak again, "never say more that you fear troll, or nix, or ghost--for you have done what you told me but half an hour ago was most unwise."

"I needs must do somewhat, lord king," said Ottar gravely, "and it came into my mind that these Danes would be as badly scared as should I have been had I met Gunnhild; and methought that Redwald's lady would forgive me for his sake."

"Aye, surely," I said.

Then--was it fancy, or a vision wrought on me by long looking at Ottar as he came across the red track of the firelight on the water, still dimpled by the boat, glided the white form of no earthly maiden, and was gone.

I saw it and said nought. Ottar sat in the stern facing us, and his eyes were away from the fire, and Olaf was beside me, and I thought that he started.

Then Ottar said:

"Can we go back by water, Redwald? It would be safer."

I showed him the channel which leads to the river, and he took the paddle with which he had so deftly sculled the boat across the mere, and as we left the overhanging trees and saw the faint glow of the rising moon across the open river we breathed more freely, and were safe.

Surely had it not been for the scald's ready wit both Olaf and I had been lying even now in the dark mere. For it would have been death to us all three had Ottar tried to rescue us sword in hand. It is his saying that he was so frozen with fear at first--until he knew we had met with mortals only--that he stood still and helpless, listening. Then came to him the thought of what to do, when he heard the talk of either ransom or drowning and knew that we were not slain. So even as Olaf had bidden him in jest, he had turned his cloak and had saved us.

But Ottar the scald's courage and craft are well known, and I have other thoughts concerning his fear. But I know this, that never again could he find that strange and sweet voice that had come to him in the need of his master.

Brand the thrall cowered in the house porch when we returned, and he was pale as a sheet, while his knees trembled even yet. We took him in and gave him wine and meat, and then asked him how the Danes got hold of him.

"Master," he said, "they caught me but a little while after I had left you--as I set snares for rabbits on the hill. I let them come to me, thinking them some of the king's men who are kindly. Then they said they needed a guide through the country to the sea, and kept me with them."

Then Olaf said to him:

"No ill will come of this seeing of the White Lady, for she came to save Redwald your lord; you may sleep in peace therefore, but it would be unlucky to say that you saw her."

Then the man said that he would not speak of the matter, and it was plain that he dared not do so. But he went away cheerfully enough, with his mind at rest from its fears.

"It would be ill luck for me if Rani heard of this," said Olaf, looking ruefully at us; "for we cannot deny that he warned us. My foster father loves rating a king now and then, though it be only a small one like myself."

So we said nought that night, and none asked where we had been. Now I slept next to Olaf, and in the night I woke with a new terror on me, and I put my hand on his and woke him.

"My king," I whispered, "what if Gunnhild and Hertha are indeed in the woods yonder? These Danes will have found them."

The king was silent for a moment, for the fear that my guess as to their hiding place might be right came to him also before he gave the matter thought.

"It is not likely. The thought of danger makes it seem possible again," he said. "But I like not these prowling Danes--they are looking for hiding places for themselves."

"She was safe before," I said, but a great fear came to me with his words.

There had been nought to drive the Danes to seek sheltered spots before, now they were sure to do so.

"This matter is not in our hands," said the king, when I said as much. "We can do nought. Pray, therefore, and sleep again. I think that you need fear little."

Then after a while he spoke once more.

"Redwald, saw you aught upon the mere while we sat in the canoe in its midst?"

"Aye, my king," I answered, knowing what he meant.

"I saw her also," he said.

So it had been no fancy of mine, but the White Lady of our house had indeed passed before my eyes. I began to wonder if this portended aught to me, but soon I thought that it did not, for the like peril in which I had been, and even then had hardly escaped from, had not befallen any of my kin, as I was in peril at her own place, which was a new thing. So I judged that she showed her thought of us only.

In the morning matters fell out so that we had never need to say what danger we had run. For the men had seen Brand's plight, which was pitiful, after Danes and thickets had done their work on him, and told Olaf that the man had met with and escaped Danes from the mere woods.

So with twenty men we searched those covers in broad daylight, and found no token of any dwellers in the place. Nor were any Danes left, save one, and that was the man whom Olaf had smitten, for he had died. The embers of the fire were near him, and on the bank lay the severed belts that had bound us.

"These Danes have fought among themselves," said our men, and hove the body into the water. So the Dane lies there instead of Olaf the king and me, with the Welshmen whom my heathen forefathers cast into the black depths, in revenge for the death of the White Lady.

Now when we came back to Bures there was a tired horse standing by the house door, and in the hall waited a messenger from Colchester, and he brought the news that we looked for and yet feared, so that we had hoped against hope that it would not come.

A Frisian trader had put into the Colchester river, and he brought word that even now Cnut might be taking the sea for England, for in all the western havens of Denmark was gathered such a mighty host and fleet that no man had ever known the like, and he had heard that the day for sailing would soon come.

Then Olaf made no delay but rode to Colchester to see this shipmaster and speak with him, for he thought that he might find out from him what point on our coasts would be that at which Cnut aimed first.

So Gunnhild and Olaf were right, and the little peace we had had was to end. Now would come the last struggle of English and Dane for mastery in our land, and in my heart I wished that we had such a king as Olaf Haraldsson. For it seemed to me that we were not ready, though we had had a year and more in which to prepare.

When Olaf had gone I sought out Father Ailwin, for the danger that I had seen for Hertha lay heavily on my mind, and now also I would tell him of the certainty of coming warfare, asking him what he and Gunnhild would do. So I went to the place where one might be sure to find him during the last two days, and that was in the churchyard, where our people and Olaf's men were working together to raise for him a little wattled chapel among the ruins, that should serve at least until I could return and build the church anew.

It was a sore grief to me that the old one was gone, for in it had been crowned Eadmund the Holy, and it was rich with his gifts. And our hall had been the first house in which he had feasted as crowned king, so that we call the lane from church to hilltop St. Eadmund's Lane since he rode along it in all the pomp of that high festival after he left the altar. Only the ruins of God's house and man's abode were there now, but the lane was bright with the flowers that the good king loved, and the nightingale sang in the wooded banks even as when he listened to it in the old days. We had always these things to mind us of the martyr.

But Ailwin was not with the men, though he had been foremost in working and planning with them. Nor had any of them seen him that day.

So I waited for a little while and watched the work, wondering if I should live now to do all that I would in making new the place. And then as I walked to look across the bridge I passed a heap of earth that the men had thrown out for the place of a post, and I saw somewhat glittering in it, and stooped and took it up.

It was a silver penny, and when I rubbed the earth from it, I knew that it was one of Eadmund's, mint new and fresh as on the day when he stood in his robes and crown, even where I stood in the place of the old porch, while the people shouted and scrambled and fought in glee for the largess he threw among them. Doubtless this had been so thrown and had been trodden under foot and lost.

Now it came into my hands even when my thoughts were most troubled, and to me it seemed as a sign that I should surely return to the place that the saint had loved. I was greatly cheered thereat, for as I waited for Olaf to return I saw as it were the long hope of home and peace dashed from me, and the pain of the coming war grew plainer than I had known it in Ethelred's court. The old love of home had waked in me as I wandered in the places of my boyhood, and for the first time I learned the aching of the hearts of those who had known more of home than I, and would lose it.

But I was young, and it needed but a little thing to turn my thoughts, so this token as I say helped me to banish them. What might not Eadmund the Saint, who slew Swein to save his shrine from heathen hands, be able to do for me?

I would tell Ailwin presently, and ask him what vow I should make in return for this remembrance.

But Ailwin came not, and I grew impatient, and went to the cottage where he dwelt as the leech, at the head of the little street towards our hall. Maybe he would be there.

The door was open, and the little black cat that had been the leech's in the old days, and would not leave its house, sat in the sun on the step. I went inside and called, but there was no man. And then a footstep came from the road and in at the wicket, and a strange priest, younger than Ailwin, and frocked and cowled came in.

He saluted me gravely, and I bowed to him, and then he asked me where Redwald the thane might be found.

"I am he, father," I said.

"Then I have a message to you from Ailwin, your priest, whose place I am sent to take for a time."

"This is his house, father," I answered. "Let us come in and hear what he would tell me."

So we sat down inside the one room on the bench across the wall, and I wondered what I should hear.

"I will