The North Star/Chapter 41
XLI
THE BEST BOW IN ALL NORWAY
A tall young archer stood one day before King Olaf. “Ah! is it thou, Einar Thambsbarkelver (Twanger of Thamb)? How goes the world with thee, surest and best of archers? And how is Thamb? Still the best bow in Norway? Still able to speed an arrow straighter than the wind may drive?”
“Aye, my King,” the archer replied, touching the string of the bow in his hands affectionately, as a minstrel fingering the sweetest chords of his harp. “I can still twang as fine music from Thamb as ever Thorgills drew from his harp. But, my King, the whistling music of Thamb’s arrows has been silent a long time.”
The archer looked significantly at Olaf, who flushed at the implied rebuke at his long abstinence from viking. Einar went on: “Thamb and I have been idle so long that my hand will forget its skill, and Thamb will lose his straight, whistling notes.”
“Nay! nay! Einar. Such skill as thine is not easily forgotten, and such songs as Thamb can sing are not soon lost. Ah! how I remember our last fight with the Danes! Dost remember it, Einar? It was a valiant fight, and all day long Thamb sang and sang, and for every note he sent across the water, a Dane lay dead between the head and the tail of the Visund viking ship.”
“Aye, my King—a right valiant fight. I remember it well. Dost thou remember too—” the archer’s eyes were sparkling a keen blue light like finely tempered steel, and his hand still fondling the unheard notes of his bow—“how Thamb sped an arrow straight at the bison’s head that stood at the prow of the Danes’ ship, and the arrow pierced the bison’s eye? Then I quickly sent after it a mate to pierce the other eye.”
“True! true!” replied Olaf, “I remember it full well.” The king’s face was clearer, his voice happier, and his manner brighter than they had been since Gudrun’s cruel blow.
“Well, Einar, what are the vikings doing now at sea?”
“The most of them, my King, are going down to harass the Angles and the Scoti, but one of them, a bold viking he is, cleaves close to thy own shores. He is called Raud the Strong. All the south coast of Norway must pay him tribute, and his ships are the largest and the swiftest that have ever sailed the North Sea.”
“Larger and swifter than the ‘Alruna?’” Olaf demanded anxiously.
“Aye, my King, the largest and swiftest we have ever seen, and their coming strikes terror to the people of all the south coast.”
“A viking to strike terror to mine own people, and plague up the waves of mine own sea! It shall not be for long. By the Sign of the White Christ, I will meet this viking in a ship greater than his own.”
Einar’s eyes glinted a bluer light at the prospect of a near engagement for Thamb and himself.
Olaf continued: “This very evening will I discourse to the earl-folk of this matter. We will look what coin there is in the coffers, and we will drain them to fit out our ships. I would I could speak of this matter to Thane Sigvalde. Thou knowest him, Einar, the Jarl of the Jomsvikings. He hath seen many sea fights and he doth know better than any one else the cost of each ship, and what its outfit shall be. But Jarl Sigvalde hath been cold to me of late, and I know not why.”
“It is said among the women, my King, that Jarl Sigvalde is angered that thou didst slight the Lady Aastrid, who kept thy memory so strong in the hearts of thy people, when thou wert wandering, and that thou wouldst not wed the maiden she loved, the Lady Freda.”
“Nay! nay! Einar,” the king said, with some confusion. “The gentle Lady Freda faded as a flower.”
“She was fair as any blossom.” The young archer’s voice was full of softer feeling than one would expect from such a lover of sea fights, but Einar was eighteen, and Freda had been one of the fairest maidens of the Norseland.
“Aye, she was fair,”—Olaf’s tone was very gentle,—“and ever frail and white, like the foam on the crests of the waves, that the first breath of the north wind may scatter to naught. Frail and white, and she died even as the foam flashes away in the sunlight.”
The archer did not reply, and the king resumed the conversation upon the topic so congenial to both of them.
“Is aught doing in the shipyards, since the ship went to Ireland?”
“Nothing, my King. The hammers have been still a long time; and the oaks on the mountains that rise over against Sweden are falling with their own weight, seeing that there are none to hew them down into viking ships.”
“They shall not wait long to be hewn down,” Olaf replied with vigor. “Go thou down to the shipyards and bid the builders prepare to make a dozen ships. My own ship, in which I shall ride to meet this Raud, must be stronger and greater than any they have built. It must be greater than the ‘Alruna’ by many feet. I shall call it the ‘Crane.’ I have sent to Ireland for painters and carvers to finish the prows of my ships in most curious colors and cunning handiwork, for these Irish artists have great skill in carving
and in coloring. I have told my messengers to seek out the noble chief, Sir Eogan O’Niall, praying him by our former bond of friendship to send me these artists. Then shall the ‘Crane’ be nobly adorned to glide over the waters that I may meet and overcome this Raud, that thou sayest hath struck terror to my own people.”
“It were a good commission, my King, and I willingly will bear it.” The archer’s voice was full and round, in his hearty approval of Olaf’s warlike intentions.
“Go, then, to the builders, Einar, and learn how soon they may furnish my ships; and to-night I will hold council with the earl-folk and find out what money we may use, and I will bid them burnish up their war coats, against our meeting Raud.”
When the thanes gathered that evening to discuss with Olaf his sudden resolve to meet the viking Raud in a sea fight, Earl Sigvalde was not among them. The recent coldness of this thane to Olaf was openly remarked. Although he had made scarcely any more objection to the king’s marriage to Gudrun than the others, it was understood that this was the cause of their alienation. To this must also be added Earl Sigvalde’s keen sense of injury that Olaf should have forgotten all his and Aastrid’s many years of service.
Lady Aastrid was deeply grieved at her husband’s changed feelings towards Olaf, for the earl had thrown aside his show of friendship and spoke harshly and bitterly of the king. The noble dame would sigh to think that her lord would so far forget his loyalty, and she would shrink from considering how far such disloyalty might lead him.
The day after the king’s council with his earl-folk, Thorgills met Earl Sigvalde and said to him, “My Jarl, thou hast complained so oft of late that King Olaf was idly grieving for the false bride we wished him not to wed, thou wilt be glad to know he goes viking soon again.”
“How so?” inquired Sigvalde.
“He summoned the earl-folk last night to meet him.”
“Aye, I did receive the summons, but I went not, for my many ills of my many years hold me excused.”
“Thy years and thy ills, Jarl Sigvalde, seem to have come very speedily, since it was but a year ago that thou didst give thy word—a good wise word, too, it was, my Jarl—at all King Olaf’s councils. But to the matter of last night. The king is aroused over the viking of Raud the Strong, how he is harassing our own shore, and the spirit of our noble sea-king hath risen and he desires to meet this Raud in battle. Olaf hath asked for all the coin we can spare from the coffers, and knowing his people are happiest when following him at sea, or awaiting his return with all the spoils of the vanquished, the earl-folk have promised him full gold to fit out his ships.”
Earl Sigvalde smiled grimly. “The earl-folk are generous with the hard-wrung taxes of the Norse hinds, and all to gratify a sea-king’s vanity that brooks the deeds of no other viking in his hearing.”
“How now, Jarl Sigvalde? Didst thou not thyself complain that Olaf was forgetting how to fight, and that he was letting this Raud steal all his viking fame?”
“I may have said something of that import, Thorgills, it matters not. I am no longer in the council or confidence of the king.”
“By thy own fault, Jarl Sigvalde. Olaf would gladly welcome thee back.”
“I crave not his welcome, and I will not seek it. My Lord Thorgills, there are other kings who can reward their friends, and King Olaf, great as thou dost hold him, may go out viking once too often. I bid thee good-day;” and leaving Thorgills depressed with his dark hints, the earl departed.