The North Star/Chapter 22
XXII
“BE FAITHFUL TO ME, KARK”
Far into the night, Olaf’s followers feasted in the hall of Thora’s mansion at Rimul. In the fields around the dwelling, the tents had been pitched for their sleeping accommodation. On the morrow, the king would take up his march through the different shires to receive the allegiance of the chiefs. Olaf longed to reach the province of Viken to see in his kingly state the devoted mother who had watched over his infant and boyhood years of danger. Though his step-father, Lodin, was a rich and powerful jarl, Olaf wished that Aastrid should receive all the homage due to the king’s mother. Then too he wanted to secure Lodin’s influence in spreading the Christian faith. Olaf was burning with a noble impatience to see all his beloved Norway brought to believe in Christ the White. He dreamed of the cross on many churches, the sails of hundreds of ships each fluttering out the holy sign, and the Virgin’s head on countless prows, that cut the waves of the North Sea.
While the men feasted with the king, Thora and her bower women waited in another room. When the feast was over, and Olaf, with his personal attendants had been lighted to their tents, Thora bade her women good-night. Alone she stood at her bower-window, looking out upon the darkness. Her heart was heavy with fear. Would Olaf leave before he discovered Earl Haakon’s hiding-place? If the jarl could only rest securely until the morrow, then after Olaf had gone, Earl Haakon could take her in his ship to Iceland and they could spend their days in security. Long at the window she stood, watching intently the place where Earl Haakon and Kark lay in hiding.
When Olaf had leaped down from the stone at the head of the covered ditch, after making his offer of a generous reward to whosoever would find the false overlord, Earl Haakon fell back from the strained position in which he had sat listening to the king. The candle was burning low. Kark’s eyes had a greedy glare to the gaze of the earl. The thrall muttered: “It were a goodly quest to find thee, my Jarl, and a fortunate business to bring thee to King Olaf.”
The earl’s only answer was the oft repeated petition in a hoarse whisper, “Be faithful to me, Kark, and I will greatly reward thee.” Both men became silent, and Kark’s wolfish gaze upon the earl made the wretched man shudder. “My thrall,” he muttered as if half afraid of the answer to his question, “why art thou so pale, and now again as black as earth? Is it because thou art minded to betray me?”
“No!” growled the sullen thrall. Earl Haakon paused a moment, and in the stillness, the hammering throbs of his heart could be heard. Then in a conciliatory tone: “Be faithful to me, Kark. Remember, my thrall, thou art my tooth-gift. We were born in the same night, and our deaths will not be far apart.”
Kark made no answer. The candle burned lower and began to splutter. Kark’s glassy eyes grew heavy with sleep, and for a few moments he slumbered. All was deathly still. The sound of King Olaf’s feasting was hushed. Slumber fell upon the household, upon field and forest, upon hind and thrall, upon every living creature at Rimul, save the beautiful, terrified woman at her bower-window, and the wretched partner of her life, in his dark, foul hiding-place.
Kark’s sleep was a nightmare, and his groans and tossings so frightened Earl Haakon that he waked him. “What awful vision hath visited thy slumber, my thrall?”
Kark replied angrily, impatient of the breaking of his sleep: “My Jarl, I dreamed we were both on board the same ship, and that I stood at the helm.”
Earl Haakon was relieved that the dream was no more unlucky. He answered gently: “That must mean that thou rulest over thine own life as well as over mine. Be thou faithful to me, Kark, as behooves thee, and I will greatly reward thee.”
“So will Olaf Tryggevesson greatly reward the one that finds thee. I need not look, for I have found thee.” Kark was muttering so indistinctly that Haakon could not catch the words; but the wolfish glare of the thrall’s eyes sent a sickening chill to the jarl’s soul. Again Kark’s weariness dragged him down to a fitful slumber. His heavy breathing and the struggles of his sleep made Earl Haakon rouse him. “What vision of fright is troubling thee, my thrall?”
“It was no vision of fright, but a pleasing fancy,” answered the drowsy thrall. “I dreamed I was at your own house in Hlade, in your own place, and that Olaf Tryggevesson did put a gold ring about my neck.”
Earl Haakon was faint with fear and great weariness. A golden ring on his thrall’s neck! The sign of royalty! But he answered pleadingly: “Beware of Olaf Tryggevesson, and be faithful to me. The meaning of thy dream is this: If thou goest to seek Olaf Tryggevesson, he will surely put a red ring about thy neck—a red ring of thy own blood, when his dagger has found thy throat. Beware of Olaf, and be faithful to me, and thou shalt enjoy many good things as thou hast done before.”
Kark muttered: “I shall surely enjoy many good things with the booty of Olaf Tryggevesson, when I shall deliver thee into his hands.”
Kark, sullen and weary, would not yield to sleep. Earl Haakon, in terror of Kark’s eyes that seemed to be devouring him, was afraid to fall into slumber. His eyelids were swollen from the ceaseless watching, and his eyeballs burned painfully from the strain of staring so steadily at the thrall. Kark’s mood grew more savage. Weary in every joint, his eyes seemed distended with wolfish, unblinking gloating, on the earl’s pale face. The stillness lay like lead upon their hearts. The last inch of candle slowly melted—spluttered—flared up brilliantly—then died down in darkness. In the horror of the black pall that fell with the fading of the dim light, Earl Haakon’s over-wrought nerves gave way. He screamed aloud, shrilly, piercingly. He fell to the ground in a strong convulsion, and when the paroxysm passed he grovelled upon his hands and knees. His face was disfigured with muscular spasms, and he plunged forward upon his head. As he arose, Kark’s blazing, murderous eyes met his gaze, even as Kark’s sharp knife was driven up to the hilt into the earl’s strong-muscled throat.