The North Star/Chapter 11
XI
BRYNJULF’S WIFE
“Tell me again of her beauty, Kark,” Earl Haakon bade his thrall.
They were sitting together upon the deck of his ship in the Fiord of Gauldale. With his son Erlend, the earl was on his annual journey through the provinces that paid him tribute. When the earl and his thralls went ashore to collect the taxes, Erlend remained in command of the ship and guarded the booty already gathered. Since the sacrifice of Erling and the consequent anger and estrangement of Earl Erik, Erlend was the only son whom Haakon could keep near him.
As the overlord was speaking to Kark, Erlend watched him anxiously.
“What boots the woman’s beauty to thee, my father? Is she not Brynjulf’s wife?”
“A dog of a peasant!” the old earl answered. “What right has my vassal, my thrall almost, to the most beautiful woman in Norway? I only say, I will see this wife of Brynjulf. After all, she may not be fairer than Thora.”
“She will not be fair for long if Thora’s sharp nails find her face. But see thou, my father. Our people have not forgotten Erling’s death, and they say above their breath that they want not an overlord with his hands red from the blood of his own son. Let the woman go. Her husband is a strong man among the peasants of his valley. Dost thou not remember, my father, the long years of contest thou didst have with the sons of Erik Blood-Ax, before thou couldst be overlord; and what broke their power and the power of their mother Gunhild, the sorceress who bewitched all Norway, till nothing could withstand her? Her brood would be overlords of Norway to-day, save that her son, Sigurd Sleva, strove to steal the wife of the boor, Klypp Thorson, and all the yeomen rose up against him; and Thorson’s own dagger avenged the insult to his fireside; and for this was the whole brood of Gunhild swept away. The Norsemen love us not too dearly. They give their taxes none too gladly. There is a rumor on the winds of Olaf Tryggevesson sailing along the coasts of Denmark. Olaf of the race of Harold Fairhaired, whom the Norsemen worship. The scalds even say that this valiant, daring Olaf is Odin himself come again to Norway, as he comes, once in a hundred years.”
“They say he is Odin?” Earl Haakon laughed loudly. “The fools! The miserable, dumb fools! This Olaf, this hunted orphan of a murdered king, is the vowed apostle of the Christ. He carries on his shield the crucifix, the image of the Nazarene, who died without a blow. Erlend, boy, thou dost weary me. I would learn further of this wife of Brynjulf. What name has she, Kark?”
“She is called Aasa, my Jarl, and there is no other so beautiful in thy kingdom. All the best of the land is thine, and why yield this fairest of women to a low born hind, whom thou canst pay for his wife with a handful of gold?”
“My father, listen, and thou, hound of a Kark, keep silent.”
“Erlend, boy! I will have none of thy preaching. Thou art fit to mate with an Irish bishop. But I am a Norseman. Odin and Thor, and the woman for every year that they gave our fathers is religion enough for me. I will have none of the pale, bleeding Christ, and the one woman for youth and old age, that the Christians have. But I will beware. I have not forgotten how Sigurd Sleva met the dagger of the peasant at the Thing of Vors, before thou wert born, lad. Kark here and a few thralls will go into Gauldale and bring back this Aasa; and we will sail away before the brave peasants whom thou dost fear so greatly will have time to hear the news. Go now, my Kark, my faithful thrall. We have been boy and man together since thou wert given to me as my tooth gift. Take thou a few thralls and mind, no bloodshed, if thou canst help it. Say to Brynjulf that I will give him full gold for the woman.”
Brynjulf, a prominent farmer in the fertile province of Gauldale, lived in a pretty stone cottage that stood upon the sloping hillside. Around it spread the flowering orchards and well-tilled fields. In the near meadow, sleek kine roamed over the tender grass, soft and green in the springtime verdure. Within the cottage, surrounded by her maidens, Aasa sat day after day at her spinning-wheel. On no other head in Norway grew such skeins of golden hair, on no other cheek glowed such a bloom of roses, and in no other eyes were such depths of starry azure light, as one could see when he beheld the wife of Brynjulf. Beautiful as she was, Aasa was even more highly honored among the peasants of the valley for her loyalty to her husband and her devotion to her home and children.
On this fateful spring day, while Aasa sat spinning, she would drown the whir of her wheel now and then with some Norse saga, and her maidens would join their voices with hers. Out on the green sward at the side of the cottage, Brynjulf was teaching his two sturdy young sons to aim and speed their arrows. At Aasa’s feet sat a tiny golden-haired maiden of four winsome summers. And into this peaceful Eden, as a serpent to sting to death its innocent happiness, came the message of Earl Haakon. Kark and the terrible thralls stood before Brynjulf.
“Who art thou, and what is thy errand?” the peasant asked, noting the ill-favored stranger.
Kark had already observed that none but the women of the household were within call, and he answered with great insolence: “If thy lordship pleases, I am Kark, the thrall of Jarl Haakon. My master and thine is just beyond in the Fiord, collecting taxes.”
“Aye, aye! we know that full well; but I have given,—not willingly, to be sure,—but I have given my taxes already. What would thy master, Jarl Haakon, have now? His tax was full heavy upon me.”
Kark drew from the bosom of his tunic a well-filled purse. “The Jarl returns thee thy tax many times over and bids thee instead send him, in my care, thy wife Aasa.”
Brynjulf stood staring at Kark. “Art thou mad, thou hound of a thrall? Send him my wife? Nay, I swear to cleave thee where thou standest, if thou dost not take back thy villain’s message.”
Kark handed the purse to Brynjulf again. The peasant dashed it aside. “Let the gold of Jarl Haakon rot in his hand!—and thou, if I look upon thee, my knife will fly out of its sheath to slay thee.”
Kark turned sullenly aside, and with the thralls around him went back to the earl.
Brynjulf entered his cottage.
“What doth fret thee?” asked his wife; “thou dost seem to be bewitched, or as if thou hadst seen a ghost.”
Brynjulf looked at the beautiful woman and groaned aloud. He glanced around. No one near but the maidens spinning. Where could he look for help? For the peasant knew from the earl’s tyrannical temper that he would brook no opposition and that it was imperative to hide Aasa from the messengers of Haakon.
Even as the peasant planned, Kark, with a larger number of thralls entered the cottage.
“What means this?” demanded Brynjulf angrily, as the women rose in fright and prepared to fly.
“It means this, insolent hind: thy master, Jarl Haakon, asked thee fairly for thy wife, and sent thee full gold. Now he doth no longer ask thee, but commands thee to send him the woman, and if thou dost refuse, I will cut off thy head, and then we shall have small trouble to take her.”
Aasa listened in terror. She sprang to her husband’s side and clasped her arms around him.
“O slay me with thy own knife!” she wailed, “and let us die together; but send me not to the wicked earl.”
As she spoke, the thralls seized her and bound her hands. Brynjulf was thrown to the ground, and his hands and feet tied. Over him stood Kark with his knife drawn.
“Lie still, thou unruly hind, and I will not harm thee! If thou dost make an outcry, I will slay thee, and thy children then will have neither father nor mother. Think thou, Brynjulf! Jarl Haakon will pay thee well, and I can promise thee that Thora of Rimul will gladly aid thee to get Aasa back from the overlord.”
Brynjulf saw Aasa dragged from her home, and he remained bound and helpless until one of his little sons came in.
“O father!” cried the boy, “they have carried our mother to the ship. I-ran all the way to the Fiord. There I saw Jarl Haakon. Why did he take my mother? Is there no man strong enough to slay the wicked jarl?”
“Aye, my son,” answered Brynjulf, as the boy unbound him, “there is one, the North Star, our true king, Olaf Tryggevesson. When he comes Jarl Haakon’s day is over in Norway.”
“Then come, brother,” cried the boy. “We will take our bows and arrows and tell King Olaf we will serve him all our days if he will help us to bring back our mother.”
Brynjulf watched the boys as they went forth, and giving his little sobbing daughter to the women who had crept back to the house, Brynjulf went forth to tell his neighbors the story of the great wrong done to his home.
This was the last crime of Earl Haakon’s long and wicked career. Next day, and the day after, and for many days, the news of the overlord’s grievous injury to Brynjulf was borne along all Gauldale. In his own valley the peasants gathered and swore to avenge the insult.
In fear of the threatening bands of armed peasants that constantly greeted them, Erlend persuaded his father to send Aasa to the house of Thora, Earl Haakon’s favorite. Here poor Aasa remained in tears and sorrow, while Thora, furiously angry at her presence, devised some means to carry out Erlend’s suggestion that Aasa be sent back to her husband. But events were rapidly hastening. Scarcely had Erlend sent the wife of Brynjulf to Rimul, and had, as he hoped, removed the cause of the anger of the peasants, when Earl Haakon again sent Kark to bring him the wife of a wealthy yeoman named Orme Lyrja. Warned by the experience of Brynjulf, Lyrja kept the thralls by feasting them, until he had gathered a formidable array of his neighbors. Then he drove out the thralls of Jarl Haakon with jeers of contempt for them and for their master. This was the beginning of the great uprising of the peasants of Norway, that ended in disaster for the wicked earl.
To the door of every yeoman in Gauldale came the war arrow, bidding every hind prepare for battle. The arrow was drawn out of the door where it had been stuck by the messenger, and each man again stuck it in his neighbor’s door. Banded together under the leadership of Orme Lyrja, they marched to Medalhaus to find Earl Haakon.