The North Star/Chapter 20
XX
“HIDE ME, HIDE ME, THORA!”
It was a weary, terrified man, who came to the door of Thora’s handsome house in Rimul. Close behind came another, ill-favored, sullen, and complaining. In her hall, hung with rich tapestries, Thora was seated when her thrall maiden told her of the two pilgrims at the door. The girl did not recognize either of the men in their beggarly dress.
Thora rose, and walked out towards the door. Her rich robe of embroidered velvet trailed after her, and a long, dark cloak of silk fell from her shoulders. Masses of golden curls, piled high upon her shapely head, were interlaced with jewels. Beautiful, haughty, scornful, she swept past the obsequious throng of thralls, men and women, with whom Earl Haakon had surrounded her.
In one corner of the room a woman sat spinning. Her dress was of the coarsest, and a heavy, dark veil hung over her head. As she heard the sound of Thora’s velvet robe she drew further into her corner, and her sad blue eyes were full of terror. As she passed the crouching figure, Thora paused. A look of loathing and contempt came over her face. “Thou miserable, idle thrall!” she almost screamed to the frightened woman. “How dost thou dare stop working? I will turn thee out of doors to work with the men in the ditches. Spin faster, I say!” Thora stamped her foot. “Magda! bring me here the lash for this idle wench.”
“O Lady, have pity!” The woman held out her hands, and as she did so, one could see the cruel welts left by the lash on their tender surface. Snatching the whip from the maid’s hands, Thora brought down the cutting lash, time and again, on the woman’s face and shoulders. She screamed with pain, and when her mistress threw away the whip, she buried her swollen, lacerated face in her bleeding hands.
Thora laughed contemptuously. “So thou art the thing Earl Haakon found so fair he stole thee from thy husband, and roused all his people so I know not if there be any safety for my own self in his kingdom. Some Finnish witch did sure put a spell upon him when he could find thee so fair. I warrant, if thou art many days with me, no man shall find thee fair enough to steal thee again.”
Thora swept out of the room, and poor Aasa crept out to bathe her face, and go back to the weary spinning that she was never allowed to stop.
“Shelter! Shelter and food!” the pilgrim craved piteously. The voice revealed what the changed appearance had concealed.
“Jarl Haakon! My lord, what means this unseemly disguise?”
“Hush! hush, Thora!” he whispered in terror. “Speak not my name! Hide me! Hide me, somewhere! The peasants are close upon me, the angry peasants, armed to kill me, Olaf Tryggevesson has come. He is in Norway. I helped to murder his father. I drove his mother into exile. Olaf is the true king, and the Norsemen worship him. He will have no mercy! I have held his place too long. He cannot have any mercy. Hide me! Hide me, Thora!”
The woman laughed scornfully. “Hide thee? Hide thee? Oh, thou art the brave viking! Thou art the noble, fearless overlord of the land! Thou hast run from thy enemies to a woman, and thou dost beg her to hide thee. Oh, thou craven! Thou false of heart! Why dost thou come to me now? What set thy people against thee, but thy own false faith to me, and the false heart that made thee bring the woman, Aasa, before me, as if my beauty had grown stale to thee? Why should I shelter thee? Why should I hide thee? Hark! the tramp of horsemen!”
Thora drew from her belt a gold-hilted dagger. “When they come,” she said, “I will bid Brynjulf slay thee with his own knife, and I will slay the woman thou didst steal.”
“Thora! dear Thora! Most beautiful of women. Thou canst not be so cruel!” Earl Haakon’s face grew ashy pale as the sound of horsemen came nearer. Again Thora laughed in scorn. Then the other pilgrim approached the door. Very meekly he spoke.
“Lady, it is true my master hath not kept faith with thee. He was bewitched. A Finnish sorceress put a spell upon him and so blinded his sight that he saw not thy beauty. These wenches he thought so beautiful are but hags beside thee. None but a poor, bewitched man, under a spell, could give them a look, when one so beautiful as thou art near. Of a truth, thy beauty doth pain my poor eyes, like the sun at noon, when the ice floes break under its beams.”
Thora smiled graciously at the speaker. “I know thee now. Thou art Kark, my lord’s own thrall. Thou wert once a wise man and faithful to Jarl Haakon.” Her tone was very gracious. “How didst thou let him be bewitched and ensnared into all this trouble?”
Kark shook his head. “He could not withstand the sorceress. But see, now, my lady. Jarl Haakon hath set thee in a high place. If he perish in this danger, where will thy place be? Hide us, till this present storm blows over, and thou wilt rise again as the Jarl’s favorite. Nay, lady, thou mayest be even queen of Norway when we have driven out this bold viking.”
“It is even as he says, my beautiful Thora. None other shall ever share my heart. None other shall share my throne.”
Thora looked doubtfully at the earl. She did not reply for a moment, and in the silence the tramp of the advancing peasants came nearer and nearer. Earl Haakon grew paler, if possible, and Kark glanced anxiously around.
“Thora! Thora! My beautiful one! My only one! My queen!” whispered the earl in a trembling voice.
“Come, then,” said the woman, “I will see what I can do.”
“There is a ditch underneath the pig-sty, my lady,” suggested Kark, whose brain was more than usually active, preparing some scheme for safety.
“Underneath the pig-sty?” repeated Thora in disgust. “Are ye truly but swine that walk upright? Would ye herd with the swine?”
Kark made answer in meek haste, “Nay! nay! my beautiful lady, I would not name the swine in thy hearing, save that thy gracious pity must know that a living hog is of more service to thee than a dead man could be. If the pig-sty be not inviting, my jarl and I will surely be as handsome in the mud of thy swine as in our own blood when the knives of the peasants shall find us.”
For reply, Thora led them around the house to the field in the rear. The men and maids at work without thought their mistress was but hiring two new hinds, or that Earl Haakon had sent her two more thralls to do her bidding.
At the head of the covered ditch which ran under the pig-sty, stood a large stone. Telling Kark to lift one of the boards which concealed the ditch, Thora bade the earl and his thrall to go down into the underground passage. Then Thora brought them food and blankets and candles, with flint and steel. She placed the boards back and left them in their dark and noisome hiding-place.