The North Star/Chapter 36
XXXVI
THE FUNERAL BAKED MEATS COLDLY FURNISH FORTH THE MARRIAGE FEAST
Earl Ironbeard’s obsequies were those of the true Norseman, His body, clad in full suit of mail, had been placed upon the prow of his ship. Then the vessel was set on fire and cut loose to drift far down the tide.
His followers made a merry funeral feast; and with many potations of ale and mead, they swore to avenge him.
After these ceremonies, at which she was a prominent figure, Ingrid returned to Nidaros. To her stern soul it seemed as if the old gods had truly come to her aid, in avenging her husband’s death, when Olaf proclaimed his betrothal to her daughter.
To the sorceress it appeared as if Olaf had signed his own death sentence; so certain was Ingrid of using Gudrun to avenge her father’s death and compensate for their wrongs. In this grimly exultant mood she returned to her home, where Gudrun awaited her.
After relating how the king had offered marriage to the orphan daughter as a blood atonement, the old dame ordered a fine supper. At the sight of the steaming boar’s-head and spiced wine and ale that appealed to her keen appetite, Ingrid, in spite of the recent tragedy, grew merry and triumphant. Gudrun was troubled over the news.
“Ah! my Gudrun, sit thou here at the head of the table!” cried her mother. “I would tell thee what were fit to give thee the best of appetites. But first,” pouring out a horn of wine and lifting it to her lips, “I drink to the health of Queen Gudrun of Norway! Ah! girl, that were a pledge to sweeten the bitterest ale, even the harsh drink of the Danes. This very morn King Olaf did proclaim his betrothal to thee. I stood in the inner room and heard and saw, though I was not seen. He spoke to the earls of his council. I watched them as they drank in his tidings as it were a very bitter draught. I thought my Lord Thorgills would choke upon it, and my Lady Aastrid—ha, ha, ha! It were a sight to see her. It seemed as if she thought Olaf Tryggevesson were possessed of the seven devils that their White Christ drove out of the Jew in His day, and I wot she thinks thou art equal to the seven. Her favorite maiden, Freda, the pale, white daughter of Jarl Gormo, is dying. She hath blinded her life in the glare of the sea-king, and hath not the eagle in her sight, like thee. So she will sooner see the sepulchre than the queen’s bower. And in despite of them all, thou, my Gudrun wilt be queen. Aye, in despite of Olaf himself, for I doubt not that with my magic power thou hast, too, in thy blood, some of the magic of thy heathen foremothers, and thou hast with thy dark beauty bewitched the king.”
Gudrun sat in wonder, unable to understand her mother’s tone of triumph.
“But, my mother,” she said pleadingly, “dost thou not remember I said last night I would not wed the king? I bade thee so say to him when thou didst go to the palace this morning. What wild words hast thou now, of King Olaf proclaiming our betrothal? Thou dost know that I told thee—aye, thee, my mother—that I would not wed the king.”
“True, girl, thou didst say some foolish words like that; but I remembered that my Gudrun had vowed to me to wed this viking and avenge our wrong. Thou hast vowed, remember. Naught but thy death can release thee. Thou hast sworn by the hammer of Thor and the blood of the Dragon. Aye, girl! last night thou didst say senseless things as a maiden will. A maiden’s wit sits not steady long. Yesterday thou wert full of a girl’s folly, because thy rough viking grew soft under thy beauty and thy tears. To-day thou hast been proclaimed the king’s bride, and in a month thou wilt be wed. So no more tears, my Gudrun. As much beauty as thou wilt to stronger make the spell thou hast cast over this Olaf, our mightiest on sea or land.”
Twilight was falling over the palace next evening, and Olaf sat alone in his guest-chamber. He was striving to think of state matters, of the conversion of the heathen, of the building of more ships since Sweyn of Denmark had been threatening the shores of Norway. Strive as he might to think of his kingdom, the thought of Gudrun was the ruling one.
As he sat thus, he heard a woman’s voice pleading with the guard beyond the curtain. Olaf started as he recognized the tone, and he was about to draw aside the curtain himself, when the guard entered. In his hand the man held a broad bracelet of burnished gold with a red ribbon wound around it. He handed it to the king.
“A maiden with a dark veil and heavy cloak bade me give thee this, my King, and by this token, she pleads for a word with thee!”
Olaf took the bracelet tenderly. He had himself clasped it upon Gudrun’s upper arm.
“Bid her enter,” he told the guard.
A moment later a graceful figure enveloped in a long cloak hastily entered the room. Throwing aside the veil, the girl knelt before the king.
“What is it, my Gudrun?” Olaf asked, extending his hand to her and placing her in a chair beside him. His whole strong heart was aroused at the sight of this proud woman at his feet, and at the evidence of her distress. Gudrun struggled a moment with her sobs, and falling again upon her knees, she faltered out: “My King! my King! give me but leave to quit thy kingdom. My life is not safe in Norway.”
“Thy life not safe? Who dares threaten thee?”
“Not one, openly, my King; but I see their hate in every eye. The warriors, aye, the women even, scarcely let me breathe the air with them; because I am the daughter of Ironbeard and my mother is the Finnish sorceress. Thy earls and thy warriors—they are strong men, my King, and I am but a poor, weak maid—and I fear their wrath.”
“Poor little Gudrun!” Olaf said, stooping down to lift her up, and with a tenderness in his tone one would hardly believe possible in the sturdy sea-king. “And thou wouldst leave Norway?”
“Aye, my King, and hide myself in some Finnish village, far from the danger and the hate of my own land.”
“And if I make this land the safest place on earth for thee? I will give thee a king’s protection; aye, my Gudrun,” bending over the sobbing girl, “I will be thy faithful husband, as well as thy king, and,” drawing her to his breast, “if so I make my heart thy shelter, who in all Norway will dare to threaten the wife of Olaf Tryggevesson and the queen of his kingdom?”
Gudrun started away from him, crying vehemently, with real anguish in her voice: “No! no! my King! I am not worthy to be thy wife. It is even as they say; the false blood is in me, and I could not be thy true wife. Only let me hide myself from the hate of Norway; and thou, my King, take to thy heart some maiden who may have no other thought than thy love.”
It was a cry wrung from Gudrun by the nobleness of Olaf, and it was the last spark of nobility in her soul. “Only let me leave thy kingdom,” she pleaded again. The remembrance of her vow to her mother, in sight of Olaf’s tenderness, unnerved her; and she seemed to desire but one thing, to hide herself from the king. Had he wooed her like a conqueror, seeking only to subdue her proud spirit, it might only have added fuel to her hatred; but this loving, gentle Olaf was so different from the man she had been taught to hate, that all her womanhood rebelled against the iniquity of returning treachery for true affection.
“No! no! my Gudrun! thou shalt not leave my kingdom. I, its king, would feel that all its light left with thee.”
Gudrun sorrowfully shook her head and pleaded the more to leave.
“Then must I play the king in place of the lover, and tell thee it is my royal will to wed thee.”
“Stay!” Gudrun cried out haughtily. “That mayest thou not do. It were better for thee, King Olaf, to go to sea in the rottenest viking ship of thy fleet, in the wildest storm of the North Sea, than to command the daughter of Ironbeard to be thy wife.”
Olaf smiled. “Thou too, little maid? Thou thyself canst foretell how dangerous thou wilt be, even as the warriors and the women tell me to beware of thee. Never yet did Olaf Tryggevesson shrink from danger. I have courted it on sea and land; and when the danger is as winsome as thou, my proud Gudrun, I will cast all warnings aside and make it mine.” He took her unresisting into his arms. “Ah! my Gudrun, if I can make a tender, loving wife out of thy sturdy spirit, it were a conquest worthy of a king, aye, worthy even of Olaf Tryggevesson, whom the Norsemen call their mightiest.”
Gudrun bent her head in silence.
“No word, my dark-eyed maiden? Well, then I must conquer thy words of love with my own. Go now, Gudrun, Thou art my betrothed bride.”
Gudrun was silently leaving, when Olaf called to her. “Yet stay a moment. Here is thy token.” He took the bracelet and clasped it on her upper arm where the long, flowing sleeve parted. Then, taking a bracelet from his own wrist, he placed it upon her other arm. “The token of our betrothal, Gudrun, and who dares show thee aught but reverence when thou dost wear the token from the king’s own arm?”
Then she glided away from him and was gone.
It was in a paroxysm of grief, humiliation, and anger that Gudrun told her mother that night of her interview with the king. She had sought out Olaf on an impulse; and now she was grieved at the part she had sworn towards the king, humiliated as she contrasted her own false heart with Olaf’s faithful affection, and angered with him that, in spite of her pleadings, he should still command her to wed him. Shrewd old Ingrid listened eagerly to the words spoken by the king. Seeing that the girl had been touched by Olaf’s affection, she sneered at her “softness,” adding to her humiliation by criticising her meekness, and roused her anger still further by affected surprise that her daughter should allow even a king to command her to wed him. In Gudrun’s excited mood, the sorceress, played upon the girl’s emotions like a skilful harper, bringing out the tones he desired.
“I vowed in rashness and in haste, my mother,” were her first words, “and I cannot keep my vow.”
“What vow?” asked the stern old woman.
“The vow I swore to wed the king and avenge thee.”
“That a rash vow! Why Gudrun, girl, thou hast hated Olaf Tryggevesson since thou wert old enough to know friend from foe. I thought thee a true Norse maid, almost a Valkyrie, fit to meet thy hero father, and thou art but a silly girl, after all, whom a king’s name may terrify.”
“Nay! nay! my mother, thou art unjust! When I so vowed I thought only of Olaf the king, in my father’s place, Olaf, our conqueror. When I thought of his wooing me, it was as a rough viking striving to subdue me because I was braver than the other maids. I gloried in my own strength and I longed to show him and all Norway that I could conquer the mightiest of their race. I have conquered—but what? Not a viking, not a king—only a noble man, loving me with all the strength that hath made him what he is, so valiant, so tender, so true! O my mother! I were the veriest wretch in Norway to repay with treachery such love as King Olaf hath shown me. I longed to throw myself at his feet, to confess to him my base vow, and then hide myself forever from his sight. He, Olaf the king, hath wooed me with all reverence, and asked me to share his crown.”
“And thou—and thou—?” Ingrid’s anxiety was so great she could scarcely speak.
“I denied him!” Gudrun whispered, terrified at the fire in her mother’s eyes. The grasp on her arm was cruel in its pressure, and Ingrid’s look seemed as if she could slay her. Gudrun’s trembling voice went on: “I begged him only for leave to quit his kingdom; and then—and then—he commanded me as my king to stay and be his wife.”
The clutch on the girl’s arm was released, and a sneer took the place of the murderous frown on Ingrid’s face. “Commanded thee? It were well! Thou hadst so lost thy spirit and thy wit at a king’s wooing, it were well for him to forget thou wert earl-born, and to bid thee to be his wife as thou wert a hind’s daughter, or a thrall maid.”
“Stop!” pleaded Gudrun, as if in pain. “He did command, but in all reverence.”
“Well! well!” said Ingrid, with a touch of good-humor, “I wot the rough viking too hath his moods of softness. Thou in thy beauty hath wept for him, and melted the sea-king’s strength. But have a care, my Gudrun. Olaf is but a viking after all. If thy spirit bend to his will thou wilt be but a puny queen, sitting but in sufferance at his side, and not taking thy place as one born to a throne.”
“I will not take such place at all, my mother. Have I not told thee so? And so thou must tell the king. He said our betrothal would be proclaimed, but thou, my mother, wilt tell him, the king, that I may not wed him.”
Ingrid’s voice was harsh and clear. “But thy vow, Gudrun?”
“I cannot—I cannot—told I not thee, my mother? I cannot keep my vow. I cannot wed the king to revenge thee. I so told him myself.”
“Aye, and what answer gave he? He commanded thee as thy king to wed him.” Ingrid turned to her fiercely. “Of what art thou dreaming? Hath all thy wit left thee? I tell thee, girl, thou shalt in one month be Olaf Tryggevesson’s wife, or the dreariest plain of Iceland shall hide thee, when the gossip goes forth that thou hast sought the king. Dost thou think I could endure the jeers of the men and women, who hate us so sturdily, when all the tongues of the court shall wag merrily of thy seeking the king? No gossip will they dare when thou art Olaf’s wife and Queen of Norway. So, for thy own good repute and by thy vow, sworn on the hammer of our mighty Thor, thou art pledged to King Olaf. In one month thou must be ready. So set the maidens at the spinning-wheel, and remember thy mother’s purse can reach far down when her daughter is making ready to be a king’s bride. Ho! there, Sveld! Bring the Lady Gudrun a flagon of ale! Let the supper be served! I tell thee, villain, and bid thee report to every hind and thrall on my estate, that the Lady Gudrun was this day betrothed to King Olaf. Let all pledge a full horn to Queen Gudrun of Norway.”
Sveld, the thrall, stood gaping in astonishment. “Why standest thou?” asked Ingrid, with more mirth than anger, looking at the man. “Haste thou to the kitchen and serve quickly the boar’s-head. I scent it now, and my nostrils invite the meat to my stomach.”
Sveld disappeared, and soon returned with other men, and with the thrall maids, and placed upon the table the boar’s-head, with the dried fish and spiced wine and ale. Gudrun silently accepted the additional respect which the servitors paid her, in accordance with Sveld’s great news of her important position, and sat thoughtfully regarding her mother until the meal was over. She then retired to her chamber, and throughout the long Norwegian twilight she heard the shouts of merriment that told how greatly the thralls were enjoying, in much ale and meat, the announcement of her new dignity. The girl’s heart was bitter. This marriage she knew must take place. Her vow must be kept. Her mother’s will was the law of her life. With strange inconsistency she turned the current of her anger against Olaf, and sat in the gloom thinking such dark, unholy thoughts of her betrothed husband as not often come to a maiden on the day of her betrothal.
The Lady Aastrid bent over the couch where the maiden Freda lay, pale and perishing as the last snow that meets the sudden warmth of spring. The deep love that had entered the girl’s life was melting its frail white beauty.
“It were kind of thee, my noble lady, to come at my bidding,” the girl said, trying to raise herself up to greet her old friend.
The stately matron bent down and kissed her. “Lie still, little Freda. Thou art only to be kissed and petted, until we can coax thee back to health.”
Freda’s eyes were moist, for Aastrid’s voice was full of tenderness and sympathy. She leaned forward, and seized her friend’s hand, and fixing her deep blue eyes on the matron’s face, said softly: “Thou art so full of tenderness for me, dear Lady Aastrid, I think thou dost surely know my grief.”
“Aye! my sweet Freda; and I bitterly upbraid myself, that I myself have given thee fatal fancies that have wrecked thy happiness. I thought of him first—his welfare—and I have wounded thee out of my great love for the king.”
“Nay! nay!” the girl protested,—“nor thou—nor he, my king—nor any one, save only my own foolish heart must be blamed. But, dear Lady Aastrid,” drawing her friend closer, “before I go—for I know surely that I am going—tell me of a truth—have I ever in unmaidenly manner showed forth my great love for the king? It so held my heart, and all its weight turned back upon me, and having naught else to rest upon, it is crushing out my poor life.”
“Freda!” the Lady Aastrid bent over and placed the golden head upon her shoulder, “if thou hadst been my own maid, I could not have better loved thy modesty in all that regards this unhappy king. For of a truth hath he hewn out a rough path for himself.”
The girl covered her face. “Now, little Freda, that is all past. Thou must hasten presently to health. I need thee to come to me again. The little Irish maid now hath only thought for her dying father. I am a sad and bitter woman, and I need thy sweet face.”
Freda shook her head. “I pray the White Christ for pardon, if I have given too great a place to an unhallowed love. If I live I will strive to atone for my sin, for sin I fear it was. But if I go, thou wilt speak words of comfort to my dear mother.”
Aastrid’s voice was too choked to reply. She pressed Freda’s hand lovingly, and after a few more gentle words she bade the young invalid farewell.