The North Star/Chapter 23
XXIII
MAIDOCH AND THE LADY AASTRID
While King Olaf tarried at Nidaros, Earl Sigvalde and his wife paid him full honor. Thorgills and the Irish exiles stood together on the edge of the throng surrounding the king. Fiachtna drew Maidoch close to him. “The king hath come into his own,” he said, “and we are now in the land of a great Christian monarch.” As Fiachtna spoke Thorgills watched the peaceful face of the old jarl, and the wistful eyes of the maid.
“She longs still for her Irish land,” the scald told himself. “I marvel if any other love will be strong enough to conquer her heart. She is but a child yet, and the woman’s soul hath not awakened in her. It is the child’s soul as yet.”
Thore Klakka had been completely dumbfounded by the success of Olaf. He thought he must surely be dreaming, or bewitched, when all the assembled chieftains and their vassals acknowledged Olaf for their king. The crew of the “Aastrid,” and the other ships, who had been instructed to fall upon Olaf and his men, fell back, and dared not an attack in the face of the great army of armed peasants. Thore stood like one bereft of reason, in the midst of the coronation ceremonies. When he realized its significance he resolved to adapt himself to the new conditions, and await his chance of revenge.
Earl Sigvalde, and the Lady Aastrid, had prepared a great banquet in their hall at Nidaros, in honor of King Olaf. While the feast was at its height, Thorgills left the hall and sought the Lady Aastrid in her bower. The stately, handsome wife of the Earl of the Jomsvikings rose up with full welcome to greet the scald. “After my own king,” she said cordially, “there is none more welcome than thou, most faithful of scalds.”
“That word of greeting is most grateful, my lady, because I would ask a boon at thy hands. There sit in the banquet hall an Irish jarl and his daughter, a little motherless maid. They were captured on the Irish coast by Ulf, the pirate Dane, and King Olaf ransomed them. I would crave shelter for them, and a home beside thee for the little maid. She is gently born, well schooled, and of a most modest behavior. She has full skill on the lute, and can read runes more swiftly than any scald,—I mean the runes of her own land. Then she knows full Latin, and many psalms that the nuns in Ireland taught her, and her needle is a weapon of magic, so many wonderful things can it make. She can weave and spin, and make most gossamer laces.”
The Lady Aastrid smiled into Thorgills’ eager face. “Hath the little Irish maid woven a web about thee?” Then, as the scald flushed in confusion, she added kindly: “Nay! nay! it was but a jest. Thy heart hath been all thy king’s. Thou wouldst ask shelter for the maid among my women. It shall be gladly given; and for the old jarl there shall be full welcome, too. Bid them come to me now.”
Thorgills went back to the banquet hall, and pressently returned with Fiachtna and Maidoch.
Lady Aastrid greeted them graciously. She bade them sit down while she asked them of their adventures and trials. Fiachtna told of the attack upon his home by the Danes, the pillage and burning of his castle and the capture of his daughter and himself and some young men on his estate. As her father rehearsed the sad scenes through which she had passed, Maidoch’s expressive face showed how keenly she had suffered.
“How beautiful she is!” thought the Lady Aastrid, “and what grace and courtesy hath the old jarl! The girl is, of a truth, a winsome maid, and I marvel not that our faithful Thorgills, Olaf’s own shadow in peace and in peril, hath set the music of his soul to the thought of this gentle maiden.”
Aloud she said, laying her hand caressingly on Maidoch’s arm, “Thou hast seen many sorrows in thy brief life, but I wot thy dark days are over. God hath denied me son or daughter, and if thou wilt come to me, I will rest my heart upon thee, as a mother loves to rest upon a dutiful daughter. Thou shalt sit at my hearth as my own, until thou shalt find a dearer place beside some faithful lord.”
Maidoch looked up in sad silence. Her heart was full of gratitude to the noble woman who so generously offered her a home and that greater boon, a mother’s care. How churlish she was, not to reply at once, in her eager thankfulness. But Lady Aastrid’s suggestion of a lasting home and a husband in that strange land, sent a chill to her heart that paled her cheek and locked her lips.
Fiachtna broke the silence. “Most noble and most gracious lady, I have not words enough to thank thee for thy thought of this little maid.”
And for thyself, my Jarl, I would gladly have thee for steward over my household. My lord Sigvalde, the Jarl of the Jomsvikings, is often absent, and the matters of his estate are neglected.”
Thorgills said: “My Jarl Fiachtna hath full learning, and would gladly aid thee, my lady, to instruct thy household in the faith of Christ.”
“That would be better still,’ Lady Aastrid assented heartily. “We need some learned men among us, for truth to tell,” the lady sighed, remembering Earl Sigvalde’s career, “our earl-folk do naught but fight, and follow some viking chief. Now our ‘North Star’ has risen. Our Olaf, our Christian king, has come among us and claimed his own. I would aid him in my humble way to make our Norraway full of faithful Christians.” Lady Aastrid turned to Maidoch, who was looking at her with wistful eyes. “And thou, little maid,—wilt thou come and fill my lonely heart for a space?”
Thorgills drew his breath quickly as the girl ananswered, “O lady! I will serve thee and love thee and call myself full honored.” The words came in a rush of grateful tenderness.
“So, then, thou art my daughter until—” and the Lady Aastrid turned meaningly to Thorgills, “some Norseman, like a strong viking, shall steal all thy love and thy duty from me.”
The terror flashed into Maidoch’s misty blue eyes. In their dark depths they seemed as the waters of the Salten Fiord, when the brume of December floats over their blue unrest. Thorgills’ face flushed, and he listened eagerly. Maidoch looked beseechingly at the Lady Aastrid. “I will serve thee, dear lady,” she said, “as long as thou wilt bear with me. But if I must stay in this strange land, let it be always at thy side.”
Lady Aastrid looked puzzled, but Maidoch’s voice was of such sweetness, her sad smile so tender, and her whole bearing so full of gentle grace, that the elder woman could not gainsay her. But the Lady Aastrid noted the moody silence of the scald and the eager tone of Fiachtna, as he said: “My little maid hath seen so many sorrows that her thought is ever turned toward her Irish home, as it were a home where sorrow found her not; but, dear lady, we are houseless and homeless, and must make our patient dwelling in the stranger’s land. If they are all of such noble kindness as thou art, the stranger’s land will be our peaceful home.”
Then Thorgills took Fiachtna with him where the men of the house were lodged, and Lady Aastrid sent the bower women to show Maidoch to her couch.