The North Star/Chapter 31
XXXI
GUDRUN
A year after his coronation, Olaf was engaged one morning in his council chamber with a Greek priest named Sergius. Thorgills the bard had been singing to the king, and the priest had been reading aloud from a pile of books before him.
Olaf was seated, Saxon fashion, in a high carved chair, his feet resting upon the skin of a white bear. Seeing him unsurrounded by any signs of royalty, we are impressed with the native majesty of the grand viking. His year of reigning seemed to have added new power to the tall form, and new suppleness to the sinewy frame. His golden brown beard, curling about his lips, hung over his broad chest like wheat in the autumn. His blue eyes were as keen as swords, and the line from the wide forehead, along the length of the nose, was almost without a curve. His position, though one of ease, was full of latent strength. Something light brown and shaggy and strong and fleet about Olaf, suggested a red Irish setter,—even the appealing look which he would turn to Thorgills when some question of state that could not be decided with a swift stroke troubled his mind. A knock was heard, and Jarl Sigvalde entered.
“Welcome, my dear Thane!” cried Olaf, heartily, and the Greek priest smiled a greeting. “Father Sergius and I have just been talking of our stubborn heathens, and we can see no other way to make them bend to the Cross but by torturing them.”
Earl Sigvalde was silent, and Thorgills quickly laying aside his harp, faced the Greek. “And what sayest thou, Father Sergius?” The bard’s voice was very earnest. “Out of all these volumes canst thou find no way to bring our people to the Cross save only by torture?”
Father Sergius paused before replying, and Olaf broke out:
“It is all they deserve. They should be lashed and scourged, even as the Christ was—aye, they should be crucified, too—if their heathen hearts are too hard to give Him the place of Odin and Thor.”
“But, Father Sergius,” interposed Earl Sigvalde, “thou thyself hast read to us that Christ prayed for pardon for them that crucified Him.” The earl’s voice was very smooth.
Father Sergius looked up. “I have told King Olaf,” he said, “that our Patriarch, Michael of Constantinople, hath written us that the heathen must not be publicly punished. But the more obstinate among them must learn that they will have to suffer if they openly confess Odin and Thor.”
“How like a Greek!” sneered Sigvalde, in an undertone, that however reached the priest and brought a flush to his face, as he bent again over his books. Thorgills, looking anxiously at Olaf, asked: “My King, why dost thou not send to Rome, to the German pope, Bruno, who is called Gregory. He was a prince before he was a pope, and out of the royal blood, that must ever speak in a man, he will advise thee how best to conquer the hardness of our heathens. Thou and I, my King, have learned that there was neither fire nor sword when Christ entered Erin. They confessed Him, not amid tortures, but conquered by the love and gentleness of Patrick; and thou knowest there are no stronger Christians, not even in Greece, whence our forefathers received the faith, than these true Irish Christians, who love their friends so fast, and fight their enemies so hard. Let us learn how Patrick wrought the new faith into the heathen heart.”
Sergius was gathering up his books, preparatory to leaving, when Olaf cried out: “Nay! Sergius, stay! This matter of the heathen lies very heavy upon my soul. Thou hast spoken of the land of Erin, Thorgills. I would give ten years of my life, to see my Norway as full of true Christians.”
Sergius had risen to leave. “May it please thee, my lord King, to excuse me from further council on this matter. I must meditate and write again to Michael, at Constantinople, for advice.”
“Well! well, Sergius! Think wisely on this matter until we further discuss it.”
As the Greek left the room, Olaf turned to Sigvalde. “I own, my Thane, I am sorely troubled over this question. I am a true Norseman, and only a sea-king after all. I know but the way of my sword to carry my will.”
“Then why vex thy soul with the heathen,” argued Sigvalde, in a soothing tone. “Leave them to Sergius and the other Greek priests, and do thou, my Olaf, spread the wings of the ‘Alruna’ out on the high tides and let us go down and plague our cousins, the Angles, for a space.”
Thorgills drew nearer to Olaf. “Nay, my King, leave not thy poor heathen people to the Greeks. The Greeks have ever been too cunning for the blunt purpose of the Norsemen. I like not yon priest of Constantinople. Thou and he are not matched in council. Strong as thou art, his keen mind can pierce all the clear depths of thine; and he can change the current of thy designs to suit himself, and his Byzantine master. Thou dost remember, my King, I have told thee the Greek priests and patriarchs have not held faith with Bruno. For two hundred years the Byzantines have considered only their independence from Rome, and they have not hesitated to send one message to the Western Church, and at the same time to contradict it to the Eastern Church. I have seen too much of the manner of these Greeks, my King, not to beware of them, and now that they are counselling thee to harshly bring the heathen to Christ, I can no longer be dumb.” Thorgills turned pleadingly to Earl Sigvalde, “Thou, my Jarl, who watched over our Olaf’s rights so long, add now thy voice to mine. Let him not fill his kingdom with groans of hate because our heathen are slow in accepting Christ. Thy noble lady, the king’s kinswoman, hath taught the Norse maidens to spin to the music of our Olaf’s sagas, and must she see him put in peril the crown she guarded so long? Constantinople is jealous of every land Rome gains. Michael works upon this jealousy among his people, and, my Olaf, they would make thee their tool.”
“They shall not! They shall not!” The king’s voice rang through the chamber. “I swear by the sign of the White Christ, the torture of the heathen shall cease this day.”
“Mayest thou keep that vow, my King,” said Thorgills. “In a little while thou canst send back the Greeks, whom the people love not. There is a sore dissension between the Western and the Eastern Church, Rome and Constantinople, Bruno and Michael. Every year the Byzantines are getting farther away from Rome, and becoming more determined to be rulers of the Church. When the great break comes, let us be with the Western mother of our faith.”
Olaf remained in deep thought for awhile. Then Earl Sigvalde, who had listened in silence for some time, spoke:
“King Olaf, I have come to speak of other matters to thee. Nay, Thorgills, thou too must hear me,” for the bard had risen to leave. “Thy faithful people think that their master has long enough mourned his fair Irish princess, and that it were well for thee to wed, and place some noble maiden of Norway beside thee on thy throne.”
Olaf lifted an anxious face to the Thane. “Jarl Sigvalde, I would do anything for my people but that. My heart is so bruised for my blue-eyed Gyda that I can have no thought of any maiden.”
“Couldst thou not strive to think of some noble lady?” suggested Sigvalde.
“Of a truth, I have scarce glanced at any of our maids, but now I do remember I saw one weaving, at the house of thy Lady Aastrid. It seemed as if she appeared like my Gyda,—not so gentle mayhap, but somewhat like. She sat near the Lady Aastrid as I came in, and when the others rose with maiden smiles and blushes to greet me, she only held her head somewhat higher, as a princess might do, and she neither smiled nor blushed. She was very comely, I do remember, but all unsmiling. But, ah me! my Jarl, I think not of any maiden, only of my Gyda. My heart is still full of her. Thou must go? My duty, then, to thy lady, my noble kinswoman.”
As Sigvalde left, the servants brought in the tapers. At a sign from his master, Thorgills tuned his harp, and sang through the dying of the Norwegian day.
“I like not the maiden, Sigvalde,” the Lady Aastrid declared.
“I do not recall her,” the old earl answered shortly, although be knew but one maiden who fitted Olaf’s description.
Lady Aastrid’s noble face was clouded, “It was Gudrun, the daughter of Ironbeard,” she said slowly, as if hesitating to believe it herself. “Aye, it was Gudrun, dark and tall, and all unsmiling, and without the gentle shyness of a young maid.”
Earl Sigvalde listened in silent satisfaction. Surely King Olaf was walking to his fate with rapid steps.
When Earl Sigvalde returned from his visit to the king, he had repeated such portions of the conversation as he thought best. Knowing Olaf’s strong will, he did not hesitate to tell his wife what the king had said concerning Gudrun, for he knew that if Olaf’s fancy fell upon Ironbeard’s daughter, no consideration of prudence would prevent his marriage.
So the earl watched his wife, while she revealed her alarm so plainly, and she questioned him very closely as to each word of the king, and she studied each saying deeply.
“I tell thee, my lady, it were only a foolish gossip to repeat it.” Sigvalde’s memory had been so taxed to recall each word of the king that he was growing a little testy. “He only remembered that he saw a maiden seated beside thee weaving. But his heart is still full of the Irish princess, and he thinks not of any maiden. Olaf said so himself. It was the king’s word when we brought marriage to his mind.”
“Who spoke of marriage?” the old earl’s handsome wife queried, an unusual sharpness in her gentle voice. “Men are ever flying to the event, leaving no time to travel over the road surely. But, Sigvalde, my dear lord,” drawing near and placing her hand coaxingly upon his arm, “when Olaf spake of Gudrun—she was the maiden I am sure; no other would look so on our Olaf but she of the black brood of Ironbeard—think thou now, my lord, when the king spake of her, did his face seem as if it were a pleasing fancy to picture the girl?”
Earl Sigvalde’s brow was corrugated with heavy lines of thought, as this question, too delicate for his strong grasp, lay before him.
“I remember not, Aastrid, how he looked, but I do remember me that he said—and a king’s word is no light saying—that his heart was full of Gyda, and that he could think of none other—”
“Yes! yes! I know that so he said,” Aastrid spoke decidedly, but the tone of conviction was absent from her tone.
Earl Sigvalde looked at his wife, somewhat puzzled. “Something is working in thy woman’s wit, my lady. I know not what it is; but if it be to turn our Olaf’s thought to that dark maiden of the brood of Ironbeard, I pray thee to desist. I warn thee that I can have no fellowship in such plan. Before that maiden was born, her father and her kinsmen were Olaf’s sworn enemies, and I would not see him wedded there for all Norway. Olaf is just the sort of a strong rough viking to be snared by a maiden, and if she have not smiles on her lips, love in her heart, and loyalty in her soul to give him, it were his ruin. So, my lady wife, beware, and keep this dark, unsmiling maiden out of the king’s thought and sight.”
“It is what I planned to do when thou first did speak, my lord. Thou dost think too roughly, and these be delicate matters, fit only for the hands and wits of women. I strove to make thee recall how looked the king, and how he spake over Gudrun; for I would know how far his thoughts have wandered there. My lord, our Olaf says his heart is full of Gyda. So he thinks, but my woman’s wit tells me he is no longer warming his heart with the pale image of her memory, but is turning to the living brightness around him in the smiles of our Norway maids. No need to tell him so. When it is winter, we sit around the fire and think of no better warmth, but when the summer steals into our chamber, we let the hearth grow cold and seek the great fires that the sun builds over the world. So the king is letting the fire of Gyda’s memory fade; and when he seeks the sunshine without him, he must not find a thunderbolt under the smiling clouds. That would it be, I fear, to wed the dark Gudrun. But this must we not speak aloud, and least of all to Olaf. Should we vex his first fancy it would take sudden fire, even as a struggling flame grows to a blaze with the fretting of the wind.”
“Thou wilt not have the maiden near thee when Olaf visits thee?”
“Nay! my lord, nay! That would but start his wonder at her absence, his anger even if he thought she was unfairly treated. Gudrun is an earl’s daughter, and Olaf will not let pass a needless discourtesy even to an enemy. No! my lord, leave these matters with us weavers and spinners. They are as fine as the threads we are used to handling, and your very touch will but tangle and break them. I will not treat the maiden, Gudrun, otherwise than I have done, but by her side will I place the daintiest maids I can find. I like not that Olaf seems to find a likeness to Gyda in the girl, and I will search through the courts of the earls for maidens that are somewhat like what I have heard the Irish princess was. But the night grows, Sigvalde, my lord, and not many Paters and Aves may we say if further we talk. In our orisons let us bring this matter to mind, and we will give to the Virgin and the Saints a charge to help us in finding a fit maiden to rule with Olaf over Norway.”
Then rising, the Lady Aastrid called for more lights, and for the house carles to gather at prayer. With Earl Sigvalde, she passed from the room where they had been discoursing, down a long hall, the servants following in the order of their respective offices in the household. At the end of the hall Aastrid opened the door of an oratory. The room was a small square one, and the walls were adorned with sacred pictures, set in jewels after the Greek fashion. A large crucifix hung in the centre, and beneath this the lectern, at which the lady sat and read homilies from the writings of the early fathers of the church, and beside which she knelt to recite the Paters and Aves.
The whirring sound of the spinning-wheels in Lady Aastrid’s guest hall grew softer, as the scald Thorgills strung his harp to sing the sagas to the bright-eyed maidens and handsome wives around him. Thorgills had come from the court that afternoon to sing for Aastrid and her guests, and to tell the earl’s wife that the king would presently visit her in person.
A tall, dark maiden, seated on the right of the hostess heard the news unmoved. Her head was held erect, and no smile came to her face as Thorgilis’ news set all the room to smiling.
“Didst thou hear, Gudrun?” asked the sweet voice of the girl on Lady Aastrid’s left, “the king is coming!”
“Yes, Freda, I heard,” the girl answered, and her look seemed to make her darker and handsomer.
Freda turned to the earl’s wife, “O Lady Aastrid! let us sing King Olaf’s saga, the one of his coming to Treland, and being chosen by the beautiful Princess Gyda. Thou thyself hast taught us the song, and we know it so well, and Thorgills will give us the notes.”
Aastrid nodded to the harper, who tuned his harp, and the saga began. The girls felt all the romance in the song, and sang it with full expression. Just as they reached the last stanza, telling of Gyda’s death, and had softened their voices, and were scarcely moving their wheels, in the tender cadence of the song, a tall form filled up the portals of the outer door. The song and its memories came to him at once. He seemed as if he had seen a spirit, as he strode up to the Lady Aastrid, and cried in a voice that drowned harp and song: “By the Sign of the White Christ, my noble kinswoman, I thought I did indeed behold Gyda risen from the dead, when I heard the song and looked upon this maiden.”
It was Freda. Her beautiful face grew crimson with blushes as she felt the eyes of all in the room upon her, and her own, dark-blue and tender, fell from Olaf’s startled glance.
A swift look of pleasure passed over Aastrid’s face; but she was again the stately matron, and taking Freda’s hand, said kindly:
“She is fair enough, and good enough, and of good enough birth, to look and to be like any princess I have ever known. She is the maiden Freda, the one daughter of Earl Gormo, one of thy stanchest friends, my King. He hath bequeathed his loyalty to this little maid, for she hath asked Thorgills to play the music of thy saga, and she hath sung it with all her heart.”
“It were worth while to do deeds, and go viking, if one’s sagas can be sung by thy lips, fair maid, and if one’s past sorrows can bring tears, that are precious as diamonds when they fall from such eyes as thine. Dost thou not think so too, maiden?” he said, turning suddenly from the blushing, beautiful Freda, to the cool, scornful Gudrun. Aastrid’s brow clouded as the king spoke to the dark maiden, and the girl noted it as she said slowly and proudly to Olaf:
“All women’s tears should be precious, my lord King, seeing they are the rarest gems we have, and costing dearest.”
Olaf looked puzzled. “What is thy name, maiden?”
“Gudrun, my lord King.”
“Who is thy father?”
“He that is called Ironbeard.”
“The Black Earl?” Olaf started, as he asked.
“Yes, my lord King.”
Olaf looked curiously at the girl for a second. She neither colored nor moved under his glance. Then he said, with great kindness in his deep tone, “I hope that thou and I will be better friends, maiden, than thy father and I have been.”
Gudrun made no reply, and as the king turned away, puzzled at her silence, Lady Aastrid muttered to herself, “A churlish, unmannerly wench!” Then aloud, “Sit here, my King, and Thorgills will give the maidens their notes that they may sing to thee.”
Olaf assented heartily. “Aye! aye!” he said. “Give me a stirring song, of war and fights by sea. I will wager the Lady Gudrun knows a song of heroes.” He turned to her.
“I know one of a sea-fight,” she said, “when my forefathers saw Odin himself come down and guide their ship out of the enemy’s reach.”
“Softly! softly! Gudrun!” said Olaf, with quiet rebuke. “We sing no more of Odin. We ask him no more to guide our vikings. We have put the cross where the raven spread on the sails, and the Virgin’s face for the dragon’s head at the prow.”
Gudrun stood silent, and Olaf continued: “Think again, lady; call to mind some saga that a Christian maid might sing to a Christian hero, to strengthen his arm and his heart for battle.”
“I know not the sagas of Christians,” she said contemptuously. “My fathers were heroes with Odin and Thor, and my father says the White Christ has stolen the valor of the Norsemen.”
“It is a lie, as deep as ever that traitor father of thine has told.” Olaf’s voice was terrible in its wrath. “How darest thou stand here with Christian wives and maidens, and tell of thy heathen gods, and despise the new faith that I would bring into the land. I tell thee, girl, the deeds of Christian martyrs before our kingdom had a name, or ever those forefathers that thou boastest of were born, would make any hero’s deeds grow to naught; and these same fathers of thine were viking kings for plunder, and harried the shores where old women and children dwelt. Fie upon thee! Say thy prayers better, maiden, and ask the Christ to forgive thee for bringing back thy heathen gods in this the day of His Grace.”
A perfect stillness was in the room, and Olaf’s voice was as a trumpet. The women were speechless with reverence for his words, and with wonder at the boldness of Gudrun. That maiden stood unmoved through all the king’s harangue, and if any emotion swept over the proud dark face it was anger or hatred, and anything but fear.
Olaf turned to Freda. “And thou, little maiden, with the eyes like my lost princess, thou hast a saga, I will warrant, fit for Christian lips to utter, and Christian ears to hear.”
“I have one poor little saga, my King, I will give it to thee if so thou willest, and wish it were better.”
Freda was a charming picture, in her shyness; and her eyes lifted timidly to Olaf’s face were full of a sentiment that could scarcely be called love, so much of awe and reverence were mingled with it. Gudrun regarded her with lofty contempt.
“Sing thy saga, Freda; I will warrant it is not so poor a one as thou wouldst have us believe;” and Olaf sat to listen.
Thorgills swept the strings of his harp, and played the notes of a saga he knew she loved. It was a weird poem, full of sad notes, telling of the parting of a maiden from her lover when he goes viking. Her voice rose with the stirring events at sea, the battle on the water, the maiden’s terror watching it from the shore, her prayer that her lover might conquer, and her triumphal notes when the arrow intended for him entered her own heart. Very thrilling was the thanksgiving little Freda sang, her voice vibrating with the suppressed timidity and the emotions of the poem as she told of the maiden’s gratitude that Christ the White had permitted her to suffer and die in her lover’s place.
When Freda finished, there was the silence of an audience deeply moved. Olaf broke forth, “Bravely done! thou daughter of brave Gormo! None but a true sea-king’s daughter could sing it as thou.”
Then the maidens sang other songs, and as he sat to listen, Olaf would smile at pretty Freda, and the Lady Aastrid would feel a great rejoicing over the prospect of success in her favorite plan. Down in the king’s mind, however, was a thought that had she known it would not have pleased the lady. The king’s glance wandered from Freda to Gudrun, and his thought ran thus: “The little one is pretty and maidenly and tender,—all that a man might cherish. But yon dark maiden! I would give much to bend that high head, and it would be worth much contest to subdue that spirit. She is of a bad traitor’s blood, that is tainted for many a day, but she is so sturdy in her hate that it were a prize to get her love.”
When Olaf rose to leave, his smile was for Freda, but his last look was on Gudrun’s dark, unbent head.
That night said the Lady Aastrid to Earl Sigvalde: “Our lord the king hath visited us while the maidens sat spinning, and I think the winter is over with him. The fire of memory is dying out, and he is turning to the spring sunlight without, and I believe, my lord, that our fair Freda, Earl Gormo’s winsome maiden, will be the especial sunbeam he will seek.”
“So! so! my lady,” the earl answered; “it were a good thing. Better and truer blood than Gormo’s is not in Norway. The maiden thou dost say is winsome?”
“Aye, as sweet as the violets of the Kiolen, and as fit to fill a man’s life with fragrance.”
“And looked he not on Ironbeard’s dark daughter?”
“Only in anger and reproof, for she would sing some heathen saga, and our Olaf would not hear it; so he turned to Freda and smiled upon her as she sang.”
Earl Sigvalde seemed relieved. “It is well he hath not been snared by the base brood of Ironbeard.” They then sat to their evening meal.