The Wanderer’s Necklace E-Book

H Rider Haggard

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The book is full of unforeseen incidents. At the heart of the story is a guy who is much more honest and bolder than he seems. And of course there is love. Love leads this story, love strengthens it, and also corrupts it in a cunning way. This is a power struggle, a story about kindness, true friendship, sacrifice, conspiracy, and so on.

Leseprobe

Contents

BOOK I

AAR

Chapter 1. The Betrothal Of Olaf

Chapter 2. The Slaying Of The Bear

Chapter 3. The Wanderer’s Necklace

Chapter 4. Iduna Wears The Necklace

Chapter 5. The Battle On The Sea

Chapter 6. How Olaf Fought With Odin

BOOK II

BYZANTIUM

Chapter 1. Irene, Empress Of The Earth

Chapter 2. The Blind Caesar

Chapter 3. Mother And Son

Chapter 4. Olaf Offers His Sword

Chapter 5. Ave Post Secula

Chapter 6. Heliodore

Chapter 7. Victory Or Valhalla!

Chapter 8. The Trial Of Olaf

Chapter 9. The Hall Of The Pit

Chapter 10. Olaf Gives Judgment

BOOK III

EGYPT

Chapter 1. Tidings From Egypt

Chapter 2. The Statues By The Nile

Chapter 3. The Valley Of The Dead Kings

Chapter 4. The Caliph Harun

Chapter 5. Irene’s Prayer

BOOK I

AAR

CHAPTER 1

THE BETROTHAL OF OLAF

Of my childhood in this Olaf life I can regain but little. There come to me, however, recollections of a house, surrounded by a moat, situated in a great plain near to seas or inland lakes, on which plain stood mounds that I connected with the dead. What the dead were I did not quite understand, but I gathered that they were people who, having once walked about and been awake, now laid themselves down in a bed of earth and slept. I remember looking at a big mound which was said to cover a chief known as “The Wanderer,” whom Freydisa, the wise woman, my nurse, told me had lived hundreds or thousands of years before, and thinking that so much earth over him must make him very hot at nights.

I remember also that the hall called Aar was a long house roofed with sods, on which grew grass and sometimes little white flowers, and that inside of it cows were tied up. We lived in a place beyond, that was separated off from the cows by balks of rough timber. I used to watch them being milked through a crack between two of the balks where a knot had fallen out, leaving a convenient eyehole about the height of a walking-stick from the floor.

One day my elder and only brother, Ragnar, who had very red hair, came and pulled me away from this eyehole because he wanted to look through it himself at a cow that always kicked the girl who milked it. I howled, and Steinar, my foster-brother, who had light-coloured hair and blue eyes, and was much bigger and stronger than I, came to my help, because we always loved each other. He fought Ragnar and made his nose bleed, after which my mother, the Lady Thora, who was very beautiful, boxed his ears. Then we all cried, and my father, Thorvald, a tall man, rather loosely made, who had come in from hunting, for he carried the skin of some animal of which the blood had run down on to his leggings, scolded us and told my mother to keep us quiet as he was tired and wanted to eat.

That is the only scene which returns to me of my infancy.

The next of which a vision has come to me is one of a somewhat similar house to our own in Aar, upon an island called Lesso, where we were all visiting a chief of the name of Athalbrand. He was a fierce-looking man with a great forked beard, from which he was called Athalbrand Fork-beard. One of his nostrils was larger than the other, and he had a droop in his left eye, both of which peculiarities came to him from some wound or wounds that he had received in war. In those days everybody was at war with everybody else, and it was quite uncommon for anyone to live until his hair turned grey.

The reason of our visit to this chief Athalbrand was that my elder brother, Ragnar, might be betrothed to his only surviving child, Iduna, all of whose brothers had been killed in some battle. I can see Iduna now as she was when she first appeared before us. We were sitting at table, and she entered through a door at the top of the hall. She was clothed in a blue robe, her long fair hair, whereof she had an abundance, was arranged in two plaits which hung almost to her knees, and about her neck and arms were massive gold rings that tinkled as she walked. She had a round face, coloured like a wild rose, and innocent blue eyes that took in everything, although she always seemed to look in front of her and see nothing. Her lips were very red and appeared to smile. Altogether I thought her the loveliest creature that ever I had looked on, and she walked like a deer and held her head proudly.

Still, she did not please Ragnar, who whispered to me that she was sly and would bring mischief on all that had to do with her. I, who at the time was about twenty-one years of age, wondered if he had gone mad to talk thus of this beautiful creature. Then I remembered that just before we had left home I had caught Ragnar kissing the daughter of one of our thralls behind the shed in which the calves were kept. She was a brown girl, very well made, as her rough robe, fastened beneath her breast with a strap, showed plainly, and she had big dark eyes with a sleepy look in them. Also, I never saw anyone kiss quite so hard as she did; Ragnar himself was outpassed. I think that is why even the great lady, Iduna the Fair, did not please him. All the while he was thinking of the brown-eyed girl in the russet robe. Still, it is true that, brown-eyed girl or no, he read Iduna aright.

Moreover, if Ragnar did not like Iduna, from the first Iduna hated Ragnar. So it came about that, although both my father, Thorvald, and Iduna’s father, Athalbrand, stormed and threatened, these two declared that they would have nothing to do with each other, and the project of their marriage came to an end.

On the night before we were to leave Lesso, whence Ragnar had already gone, Athalbrand saw me staring at Iduna. This, indeed, was not wonderful, as I could not take my eyes from her lovely face, and when she looked at me and smiled with those red lips of hers I became like a silly bird that is bewitched by a snake. At first I thought that he was going to be angry, but suddenly some idea seemed to strike him so that he called my father, Thorvald, outside the house. Afterwards I was sent for, and found the two of them seated on a three- cornered, flat stone, talking in the moonlight, for it was summer-time, when everything looks blue at night and the sun and the moon ride in the sky together. Near by stood my mother, listening.

“Olaf,” said my father, “would you like to marry Iduna the Fair?”

“Like to marry Iduna?” I gasped. “Aye, more than to be High King of Denmark, for she is no woman, but a goddess.”

At this saying my mother laughed, and Athalbrand, who knew Iduna when she did not seem a goddess, called me a fool. Then they talked, while I stood trembling with hope and fear.

“He’s but a second son,” said Athalbrand.

“I have told you there is land enough for both of them, also the gold that came with his mother will be his, and that’s no small sum,” answered Thorvald.

“He’s no warrior, but a skald,” objected Athalbrand again; “a silly half- man who makes songs and plays upon the harp.”

“Songs are sometimes stronger than swords,” replied my father, “and, after all, it is wisdom that rules. One brain can govern many men; also, harps make merry music at a feast. Moreover, Olaf is brave enough. How can he be otherwise coming of the stock he does?”

“He is thin and weedy,” objected Athalbrand, a saying that made my mother angry.

“Nay, lord Athalbrand,” she said; “he is tall and straight as a dart, and will yet be the handsomest man in these parts.”

“Every duck thinks it has hatched out a swan,” grumbled Athalbrand, while with my eyes I implored my mother to be silent.

Then he thought for awhile, pulling at his long forked beard, and said at last:

“My heart tells me no good of such a marriage. Iduna, who is the only one left to me, could marry a man of more wealth and power than this rune-making stripling is ever likely to be. Yet just now I know none such whom I would wish to hold my place when I am gone. Moreover, it is spread far and wide throughout the land that my daughter is to be wed to Thorvald’s son, and it matters little to which son. At least, I will not have it said that she has been given the go- by. Therefore, let this Olaf take her, if she will have him. Only,” he added with a growl, “let him play no tricks like that red-headed cub, his brother Ragnar, if he would not taste of a spear through his liver. Now I go to learn Iduna’s mind.”

So he went; as did my father and mother, leaving me alone, thinking and thanking the gods for the chance that had come my way–yes, and blessing Ragnar and that brown-eyed wench who had thrown her spell over him.

Whilst I stood thus I heard a sound, and, turning, saw Iduna gliding towards me in the blue twilight, looking more lovely than a dream. At my side she stopped and said:

“My father tells me you wish to speak with me,” and she laughed a little softly and held me with her beautiful eyes.

After that I know not what happened till I saw Iduna bending towards me like a willow in the wind, and then–oh, joy of joys!–felt her kiss upon my lips. Now my speech was unsealed, and I told her the tale that lovers have always told. How that I was ready to die for her (to which she answered that she had rather that I lived, since ghosts were no good husbands); how that I was not worthy of her (to which she answered that I was young, with all my time before me, and might live to be greater than I thought, as she believed I should); and so forth.

Only one more thing comes back to me of that blissful hour. Foolishly I said what I had been thinking, namely, that I blessed Ragnar. At these words, of a sudden Iduna’s face grew stern and the lovelight in her eyes was changed to such as gleams from swords.

“I do not bless Ragnar,” she answered. “I hope one day to see Ragnar–” and she checked herself, adding: “Come, let us enter, Olaf. I hear my father calling me to mix his sleeping-cup.”

So we went into the house hand in hand, and when they saw us coming thus, all gathered there burst into shouts of laughter after their rude fashion. Moreover, beakers were thrust into our hands, and we were made to drink from them and swear some oath. Thus ended our betrothal.

I think it was on the next day that we sailed for home in my father’s largest ship of war, which was named the Swan. I went unwillingly enough, who desired to drink more of the delight of Iduna’s eyes. Still, go I must, since Athalbrand would have it so. The marriage, he said, should take place at Aar at the time of the Spring feast, and not before. Meanwhile he held it best we should be apart that we might learn whether we still clung to each other in absence.

These were the reasons he gave, but I think that he was already somewhat sorry for what he had done, and reflected that between harvest and springtime he might find another husband for Iduna, who was more to his mind. For Athalbrand, as I learned afterwards, was a scheming and a false-hearted man. Moreover, he was of no high lineage, but one who had raised himself up by war and plunder, and therefore his blood did not compel him to honour.

The next scene which comes back to me of those early days is that of the hunting of the white northern bear, when I saved the life of Steinar, my foster- brother, and nearly lost my own.

It was on a day when the winter was merging into spring, but the coast- line near Aar was still thick with pack ice and large floes which had floated in from the more northern seas. A certain fisherman who dwelt on this shore came to the hall to tell us that he had seen a great white bear on one of these floes, which, he believed, had swum from it to the land. He was a man with a club-foot, and I can recall a vision of him limping across the snow towards the drawbridge of Aar, supporting himself by a staff on the top of which was cut the figure of some animal.

“Young lords,” he cried out, “there is a white bear on the land, such a bear as once I saw when I was a boy. Come out and kill the bear and win honour, but first give me a drink for my news.”

At that time I think my father, Thorvald, was away from home with most of the men, I do not know why; but Ragnar, Steinar and I were lingering about the stead with little or nothing to do, since the time of sowing was not yet. At the news of the club-footed man, we ran for our spears, and one of us went to tell the only thrall who could be spared to make ready the horses and come with us. Thora, my mother, would have stopped us–she said she had heard from her father that such bears were very dangerous beasts–but Ragnar only thrust her aside, while I kissed her and told her not to fret.

Outside the hall I met Freydisa, a dark, quiet woman of middle age, one of the virgins of Odin, whom I loved and who loved me and, save one other, me only among men, for she had been my nurse.

“Whither now, young Olaf?” she asked me. “Has Iduna come here that you run so fast?”

“No,” I answered, “but a white bear has.”

“Oh! then things are better than I thought, who feared lest it might be Iduna before her time. Still, you go on an ill errand, from which I think you will return sadly.”

“Why do you say that, Freydisa?” I asked. “Is it just because you love to croak like a raven on a rock, or for some good reason?”

“I don’t know, Olaf,” she answered. “I say things because they come to me, and I must, that is all. I tell you that evil will be born of this bear hunt of yours, and you had better stop at home.”

“To be laughed at by my brethren, Freydisa? Moreover, you are foolish, for if evil is to be, how can I avoid it? Either your foresight is nothing or the evil must come.”

“That is so,” answered Freydisa. “From your childhood up you had the gift of reason which is more than is granted to most of these fools about us. Go, Olaf, and meet your fore-ordained evil. Still, kiss me before you go lest we should not see each other again for a while. If the bear kills you, at least you will be saved from Iduna.”

Now while she said these words I was kissing Freydisa, whom I loved dearly, but when I understood them I leapt back before she could kiss me again.

“What do you mean by your talk about Iduna?” I asked. “Iduna is my betrothed, and I’ll suffer no ill speech of her.”

“I know she is, Olaf. You’ve got Ragnar’s leavings. Although he is so hot- headed, Ragnar is a wise dog in some ways, who can tell what he should not eat. There, begone, you think me jealous of Iduna, as old women can be, but it’s not that, my dear. Oh! you’ll learn before all is done, if you live. Begone, begone! I’ll tell you no more. Hark, Ragnar is shouting to you,” and she pushed me away.

It was a long ride to where the bear was supposed to be. At first as we went we talked a great deal, and made a wager as to which of the three of us should first drive a spear into the beast’s body so deep that the blade was hidden, but afterwards I grew silent. Indeed, I was musing so much of Iduna and how the time drew near when once more I should see her sweet face, wondering also why Ragnar and Freydisa should think so ill of her who seemed a goddess rather than a woman, that I forgot all about the bear. So completely did I forget it that when, being by nature very observant, I saw the slot of such a beast as we passed a certain birch wood, I did not think to connect it with that which we were hunting or to point it out to the others who were riding ahead of me.

At length we came to the sea, and there, sure enough, saw a great ice- floe, which now and again tilted as the surge caught its broad green flank. When it tilted towards us we perceived a track worn deep into the ice by the paws of the prisoned bear as it had marched endlessly round. Also we saw a big grinning skull, whereon sat a raven picking at the eye-holes, and some fragments of white fur.

“The bear is dead!” exclaimed Ragnar. “Odin’s curse be on that club- footed fool who gave us this cold ride for nothing.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” said Steinar doubtfully. “Don’t you think that it is dead, Olaf?”

“What is the good of asking Olaf?” broke in Ragnar, with a loud laugh. “What does Olaf know about bears? He has been asleep for the last half-hour dreaming of Athalbrand’s blue-eyed daughter; or perhaps he is making up another poem.”

“Olaf sees farther when he seems asleep than some of us do when we are awake,” answered Steinar hotly.

“Oh yes,” replied Ragnar. “Sleeping or waking, Olaf is perfect in your eyes, for you’ve drunk the same milk, and that ties you tighter than a rope. Wake up, now, brother Olaf, and tell us: Is not the bear dead?”

Then I answered, “Why, of course, a bear is dead; see its skull, also pieces of its hide?”

“There!” exclaimed Ragnar. “Our family prophet has settled the matter. Let us go home.”

“Olaf said that a bear was dead,” answered Steinar, hesitating.

Ragnar, who had already swung himself round in his quick fashion, spoke back over his shoulder:

“Isn’t that enough for you? Do you want to hunt a skull or the raven sitting on it? Or is this, perchance, one of Olaf’s riddles? If so, I am too cold to guess riddles just now.”

“Yet I think there is one for you to guess, brother,” I said gently, “and it is: Where is the live bear hiding? Can’t you see that there were two bears on that ice-head, and that one has killed and eaten the other?”

“How do you know that?” asked Ragnar.

“Because I saw the slot of the second as we passed the birch wood yonder. It has a split claw on the left forefoot and the others are all worn by the ice.”

“Then why in Odin’s name did you not say so before?” exclaimed Ragnar angrily.

Now I was ashamed to confess that I had been dreaming, so I answered at hazard:

“Because I wished to look upon the sea and the floating ice. See what wondrous colours they take in this light!”

When he heard this, Steinar burst out laughing till tears came into his blue eyes and his broad shoulders shook. But Ragnar, who cared nothing for scenery or sunsets, did not laugh. On the contrary, as was usual with him when vexed, he lost his temper and swore by the more evil of the gods. Then he turned on me and said:

“Why not tell the truth at once, Olaf? You are afraid of this beast, and that’s why you let us come on here when you knew it was in the wood. You hoped that before we got back there it would be too dark to hunt.”

At this taunt I flushed and gripped the shaft of my long hunting spear, for among us Northmen to be told that he was afraid of anything was a deadly insult to a man.

“If you were not my brother–” I began, then checked myself, for I was by nature easy-tempered, and went on: “It is true, Ragnar, I am not so fond of hunting as you are. Still, I think that there will be time to fight this bear and kill or be killed by it, before it grows dark, and if not I will return alone to-morrow morning.”

Then I pulled my horse round and rode ahead. As I went, my ears being very quick, I heard the other two talking together. At least, I suppose that I heard them; at any rate, I know what they said, although, strangely enough, nothing at all comes back to me of their tale of an attack upon a ship or of what then I did or did not do.

“It is not wise to jeer at Olaf,” said Steinar, “for when he is stung with words he does mad things. Don’t you remember what happened when your father called him ‘niddering’ last year because Olaf said it was not just to attack the ship of those British men who had been driven to our coast by weather, meaning us no harm?”

“Aye,” answered Ragnar. “He leapt among them all alone as soon as our boat touched her side, and felled the steersman. Then the British men shouted out that they would not kill so brave a lad, and threw him into the sea. It cost us that ship, since by the time we had picked him up she had put about and hoisted her large sail. Oh, Olaf is brave enough, we all know that! Still, he ought to have been born a woman or a priest of Freya who only offers flowers. Also, he knows my tongue and bears no malice.”

“Pray that we get him home safe,” said Steinar uneasily, “for if not there will be trouble with your mother and every other woman in the land, to say nothing of Iduna the Fair.”

“Iduna the Fair would live through it,” answered Ragnar, with a hard laugh. “But you are right; and, what is more, there will be trouble among the men also, especially with my father and in my own heart. After all there is but one Olaf.”

At this moment I held up my hand, and they stopped talking.

CHAPTER 2

THE SLAYING OF THE BEAR

Leaping from their horses, Ragnar and Steinar came to where I stood, for already I had dismounted and was pointing to the ground, which just here had been swept clear of snow by the wind.

“I see nothing,” said Ragnar.

“But I do, brother,” I answered; “who study the ways of wild things while you think I am asleep. Look, that moss has been turned over; for it is frozen underneath and pressed up into little mounds between the bear’s claws. Also that tiny pool has gathered in the slot of the paw; it is its very shape. The other footprints do not show because of the rock.”

Then I went forward a few paces behind some bushes and called out: “Here runs the track, sure enough, and, as I thought, the brute has a split claw; the snow marks it well. Bid the thrall stay with the horses and come you.”

They obeyed, and there on the white snow which lay beyond the bush we saw the track of the bear stamped as if in wax.

“A mighty beast,” said Ragnar. “Never have I seen its like.”

“Aye,” exclaimed Steinar, “but an ill place to hunt it in,” and he looked doubtfully at the rough gorge, covered with undergrowth, that some hundred yards farther on became dense birch forest. “I think it would be well to ride back to Aar, and return to-morrow morning with all whom we can gather. This is no task for three spears.”

By this time I, Olaf, was springing from rock to rock up the gorge, following the bear’s track. For my brother’s taunts rankled in me and I was determined that I should kill this beast or die and thus show Ragnar that I feared no bear. So I called back to them over my shoulder:

“Aye, go home, it is wisest; but I go on for I have never yet seen one of these white ice-bears alive.”

“Now it is Olaf who taunts in his turn,” said Ragnar with a laugh. Then they both sprang after me, but always I kept ahead of them.

For the half of a mile or more they followed me out of the scrub into the birch forest, where the snow, lying on the matted boughs of the trees and especially of some firs that were mingled with the birch, made the place gloomy in that low light. Always in front of me ran the huge slots of the bear till at length they brought me to a little forest glade, where some great whirling wind had torn up many trees which had but a poor root-hold on a patch of almost soilless rock.

These trees lay in confusion, their tops, which had not yet rotted, being filled with frozen snow. On the edge of them I paused, having lost the track. Then I went forward again, casting wide as a hound does, while behind came Ragnar and Steinar, walking straight past the edge of the glade, and purposing to meet me at its head. This, indeed, Ragnar did, but Steinar halted because of a crunching sound that caught his ear, and then stepped to the right between two fallen birches to discover its cause. Next moment, as he told me afterwards, he stood frozen, for there behind the boughs of one of the trees was the huge white bear, eating some animal that it had killed. The beast saw him, and, mad with rage at being disturbed, for it was famished after its long journey on the floe, reared itself up on its hind legs, roaring till the air shook. High it towered, its hook-like claws outstretched.

Steinar tried to spring back, but caught his foot, and fell. Well for him was it that he did so, for otherwise the blow which the bear struck would have crushed him to a pulp. The brute did not seem to understand where he had gone –at any rate, it remained upreared and beating at the air. Then a doubt took it, its huge paws sank until it sat like a begging dog, sniffing the wind. At this moment Ragnar came back shouting, and hurled his spear. It stuck in the beast’s chest and hung there. The bear began to feel for it with its paws, and, catching the shaft, lifted it to its mouth and champed it, thus dragging the steel from its hide.

Then it bethought it of Steinar, and, sinking down, discovered him, and tore at the birch tree under which he had crept till the splinters flew from its trunk. Just then I reached it, having seen all. By now the bear had its teeth fixed in Steinar’s shoulder, or, rather, in his leathern garment, and was dragging him from under the tree. When it saw me it reared itself up again, lifting Steinar and holding him to its breast with one paw. I went mad at the sight, and charged it, driving my spear deep into its throat. With its other paw it struck the weapon from my hand, shivering the shaft. There it stood, towering over us like a white pillar, and roared with pain and fury, Steinar still pressed against it, Ragnar and I helpless.

“He’s sped!” gasped Ragnar.

I thought for a flash of time, and–oh! well do I remember that moment: the huge beast foaming at the jaws and Steinar held to its breast as a little girl holds a doll; the still, snow-laden trees, on the top of one of which sat a small bird spreading its tail in jerks; the red light of evening, and about us the great silences of the sky above and of the lonely forest beneath. It all comes back to me–I can see it now quite clearly; yes, even the bird flitting to another twig, and there again spreading its tail to some invisible mate. Then I made up my mind what to do.

“Not yet!” I cried. “Keep it in play,” and, drawing my short and heavy sword, I plunged through the birch boughs to get behind the bear. Ragnar understood. He threw his cap into the brute’s face, and then, after it had growled at him awhile, just as it dropped its great jaws to crunch Steinar, he found a bough and thrust it between them.

By now I was behind the bear, and, smiting at its right leg below the knee, severed the tendon. Down it came, still hugging Steinar. I smote again with all my strength, and cut into its spine above the tail, paralysing it. It was a great blow, as it need to be to cleave the thick hair and hide, and my sword broke in the backbone, so that, like Ragnar, now I was weaponless. The forepart of the bear rolled about in the snow, although its after half was still.

Then once more it seemed to bethink itself of Steinar, who lay unmoving and senseless. Stretching out a paw, it dragged him towards its champing jaws. Ragnar leapt upon its back and struck at it with his knife, thereby only maddening it the more. I ran in and grasped Steinar, whom the bear was again hugging to its breast. Seeing me, it loosed Steinar, whom I dragged away and cast behind me, but in the effort I slipped and fell forward. The bear smote at me, and its mighty forearm–well for me that it was not its claws –struck me upon the side of the head and sent me crashing into a tree- top to the left. Five paces I flew before my body touched the boughs, and there I lay quiet.

I suppose that Ragnar told me what passed after this while I was senseless. At least, I know that the bear began to die, for my spear had pierced some artery in its throat, and all the talk which followed, as well as though I heard it with my ears. It roared and roared, vomiting blood and stretching out its claws after Steinar as Ragnar dragged him away. Then it laid its head flat upon the snow and died. Ragnar looked at it and muttered:

“Dead!”

Then he walked to that top of the fallen tree in which I lay, and again muttered: “Dead! Well, Valhalla holds no braver man than Olaf the Skald.”

Next he went to Steinar and once again exclaimed, “Dead!”

For so he looked, indeed, smothered in the blood of the bear and with his garments half torn off him. Still, as the words passed Ragnar’s lips he sat up, rubbed his eyes and smiled as a child does when it awakes.

“Are you much hurt?” asked Ragnar.

“I think not,” he answered doubtfully, “save that I feel sore and my head swims. I have had a bad dream.” Then his eyes fell on the bear, and he added: “Oh, I remember now; it was no dream. Where is Olaf?”

“Supping with Odin,” answered Ragnar and pointed to me.

Steinar rose to his feet, staggered to where I lay, and stared at me stretched there as white as the snow, with a smile upon my face and in my hand a spray of some evergreen bush which I had grasped as I fell.

“Did he die to save me?” asked Steinar.

“Aye,” answered Ragnar, “and never did man walk that bridge in better fashion. You were right. Would that I had not mocked him.”

“Would that I had died and not he,” said Steinar with a sob. “It is borne in upon my heart that it were better I had died.”

“Then that may well be, for the heart does not lie at such a time. Also it is true that he was worth both of us. There was something more in him than there is in us, Steinar. Come, lift him to my back, and if you are strong enough, go on to the horses and bid the thrall bring one of them. I follow.”

Thus ended the fight with the great white bear.

Some four hours later, in the midst of a raging storm of wind and rain, I was brought at last to the bridge that spanned the moat of the Hall of Aar, laid like a corpse across the back of one of the horses. They had been searching for us at Aar, but in that darkness had found nothing. Only, at the head of the bridge was Freydisa, a torch in her hand. She glanced at me by the light of the torch.

“As my heart foretold, so it is,” she said. “Bring him in,” then turned and ran to the house.

They bore me up between the double ranks of stabled kine to where the great fire of turf and wood burned at the head of the hall, and laid me on a table.

“Is he dead?” asked Thorvald, my father, who had come home that night; “and if so, how?”

“Aye, father,” answered Ragnar, “and nobly. He dragged Steinar yonder from under the paws of the great white bear and slew it with his sword.”

“A mighty deed,” muttered my father. “Well, at least he comes home in honour.”

But my mother, whose favourite son I was, lifted up her voice and wept. Then they took the clothes from off me, and, while all watched, Freydisa, the skilled woman, examined my hurts. She felt my head and looked into my eyes, and laying her ear upon my breast, listened for the beating of my heart.

Presently she rose, and, turning, said slowly:

“Olaf is not dead, though near to death. His pulses flutter, the light of life still burns in his eyes, and though the blood runs from his ears, I think the skull is not broken.”

When she heard these words, Thora, my mother, whose heart was weak, fainted for joy, and my father, untwisting a gold ring from his arm, threw it to Freydisa.

“First the cure,” she said, thrusting it away with her foot. “Moreover, when I work for love I take no pay.”

Then they washed me, and, having dressed my hurts, laid me on a bed near the fire that warmth might come back to me. But Freydisa would not suffer them to give me anything save a little hot milk which she poured down my throat.

For three days I lay like one dead; indeed, all save my mother held Freydisa wrong and thought that I was dead. But on the fourth day I opened my eyes and took food, and after that fell into a natural sleep. On the morning of the sixth day I sat up and spoke many wild and wandering words, so that they believed I should only live as a madman.

“His mind is gone,” said my mother, and wept.

“Nay,” answered Freydisa, “he does but return from a land where they speak another tongue. Thorvald, bring hither the bear-skin.”

It was brought and hung on a frame of poles at the end of the niche in which I slept, that, as was usual among northern people, opened out of the hall. I stared at it for a long while. Then my memory came back and I asked:

“Did the great beast kill Steinar?”

“No,” answered my mother, who sat by me. “Steinar was sore hurt, but escaped and now is well again.”

“Let me see him with my own eyes,” I said.

So he was brought, and I looked on him. “I am glad you live, my brother,” I said, “for know in this long sleep of mine I have dreamed that you were dead”; and I stretched out my wasted arms towards him, for I loved Steinar better than any other man.

He came and kissed me on the brow, saying:

“Aye, thanks to you, Olaf, I live to be your brother and your thrall till the end.”

“My brother always, not my thrall,” I muttered, for I was growing tired. Then I went to sleep again.

Three days later, when my strength began to return, I sent for Steinar and said:

“Brother, Iduna the Fair, whom you have never seen, my betrothed, must wonder how it fares with me, for the tale of this hurt of mine will have reached Lesso. Now, as there are reasons why Ragnar cannot go, and as I would send no mean man, I pray you to do me a favour. It is that you will take a boat and sail to Lesso, carrying with you as a present from me to Athalbrand’s daughter the skin of that white bear, which I trust will serve her and me as a bed-covering in winter for many a year to come. Tell her, thanks be to the gods and to the skill of Freydisa, my nurse, I live who all thought must die, and that I trust to be strong and well for our marriage at the Spring feast which draws on. Say also that through all my sickness I have dreamed of none but her, as I trust that sometimes she may have dreamed of me.”

“Aye, I’ll go,” answered Steinar, “fast as horses’ legs and sails can carry me,” adding with his pleasant laugh: “Long have I desired to see this Iduna of yours, and to learn whether she is as beautiful as you say; also what it is in her that Ragnar hates.”

“Be careful that you do not find her too beautiful,” broke in Freydisa, who, as ever, was at my side.

“How can I if she is for Olaf?” answered Steinar, smiling, as he left the place to make ready for his journey to Lesso.

“What did you mean by those words, Freydisa?” I asked when he was gone.

“Little or much,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders. “Iduna is lovely, is she not, and Steinar is handsome, is he not, and of an age when man seeks woman, and what is brotherhood when man seeks woman and woman beguiles man?”

“Peace to your riddles, Freydisa. You forget that Iduna is my betrothed and that Steinar was fostered with me. Why, I’d trust them for a week at sea alone.”

“Doubtless, Olaf, being young and foolish, as you are; also that is your nature. Now here is the broth. Drink it, and I, whom some call a wise woman and others a witch, say that to-morrow you may rise from this bed and sit in the sun, if there is any.”

“Freydisa,” I said when I had swallowed the broth, “why do folk call you a witch?”

“I think because I am a little less of a fool than other women, Olaf. Also because it has not pleased me to marry, as it is held natural that all women should do if they have the chance.”

“Why are you wiser, and why have you not married, Freydisa?”

“I am wiser because I have questioned things more than most, and to those who question answers come at last. And I am not married because another woman took the only man I wanted before I met him. That was my bad luck. Still, it taught me a great lesson, namely, how to wait and meanwhile to acquire understanding.”

“What understanding have you acquired, Freydisa? For instance, does it tell you that our gods of wood and stone are true gods which rule the world? Or are they but wood and stone, as sometimes I have thought?”

“Then think no more, Olaf, for such thoughts are dangerous. If Leif, your uncle, Odin’s high priest, heard them, what might he not say or do? Remember that whether the gods live or no, certainly the priest lives, and on the gods, and if the gods went, where would the priest be? Also, as regards these gods –well, whatever they may or may not be, at least they are the voices that in our day speak to us from that land whence we came and whither we go. The world has known millions of days, and each day has its god–or its voice–and all the voices speak truth to those who can hear them. Meanwhile, you are a fool to have sent Steinar bearing your gift to Iduna. Or perhaps you are very wise. I cannot say as yet. When I learn I will tell you.”

Then again she shrugged her shoulders and left me wondering what she meant by her dark sayings. I can see her going now, a wooden bowl in her hand, and in it a horn spoon of which the handle was cracked longways, and thus in my mind ends all the scene of my sickness after the slaying of the white bear.

The next thing that I remember is the coming of the men of Agger. This cannot have been very long after Steinar went to Lesso, for he had not yet returned. Being still weak from my great illness, I was seated in the sun in the shelter of the house, wrapped up in a cloak of deerskins–for the northern wind blew bitter. By me stood my father, who was in a happy mood now he knew that I should live and be strong again.

“Steinar should be back by now,” I said to him. “I trust that he has come by no ill.”

“Oh no,” answered my father carelessly. “For seven days the wind has been high, and doubtless Athalbrand fears to let him sail from Lesso.”

“Or perhaps Steinar finds Athalbrand’s hall a pleasant place to bide in,” suggested Ragnar, who had joined us, a spear in his hand, for he had come in from hunting. “There are good drink and bright eyes there.”

I was about to answer sharply, since Ragnar stung me with his bitter talk of Steinar, of whom I knew him to be somewhat jealous, because he thought I loved my foster-brother more than I did him, my brother. Just then, however, three men appeared through trees that grew about the hall, and came towards the bridge, whereon Ragnar’s great wolfhounds, knowing them for strangers, set up a furious baying and sprang forward to tear them. By the time the beasts were caught and quelled, these men, aged persons of presence, had crossed the bridge and were greeting us.

“This is the hall of Thorvald of Aar, is it not? And a certain Steinar dwells here with him, does he not?” asked their spokesman.

“It is, and I am Thorvald,” answered my father. “Also Steinar has dwelt here from his birth up, but is now away from home on a visit to the lord Athalbrand of Lesso. Who are you, and what would you of Steinar, my fosterling”

“When you have told us the story of Steinar we will tell you who we are and what we seek,” answered the man, adding: “Fear not, we mean him no harm, but rather good if he is the man we think.”

“Wife,” called my father, “come hither. Here are men who would know the story of Steinar, and say that they mean him good.”

So my mother came, and the men bowed to her.

“The story of Steinar is short, sirs,” she said. “His mother, Steingerdi, who was my cousin and the friend of my childhood, married the great chief Hakon, of Agger, two and twenty summers gone. A year later, just before Steinar was born, she fled to me here, asking shelter of my lord. Her tale was that she had quarrelled with Hakon because another woman had crept into her place. Finding that this tale was true, and that Hakon had treated her ill indeed, we gave her shelter, and here her son Steinar was born, in giving birth to whom she died–of a broken heart, as I think, for she was mad with grief and jealousy. I nursed him with my son Olaf yonder, and as, although he had news of his birth, Hakon never claimed him, with us he has dwelt as a son ever since. That is all the tale. Now what would you with Steinar?”

“This Lady. The lord Hakon and the three sons whom that other woman you tell of bore him ere she died–for after Steingerdi’s death he married her–were drowned in making harbour on the night of the great gale eighteen days ago.”

“That is the day when the bear nearly killed Steinar,” I interrupted.

“Well for him, then, young sir, that he escaped this bear, for now, as it seems to us, he is the lord of all Hakon’s lands and people, being the only male left living of his issue. This, by the wish of the head men of Agger, where is Hakon’s hall, we have come to tell him, if he still lives, since by report he is a goodly man and brave–one well fitted to sit in Hakon’s place.

“Is the heritage great?” asked my father.

“Aye, very great, Lord. In all Jutland there was no richer man than Hakon.”

“By Odin!” exclaimed my father, “it seems that Steinar is in Fortune’s favour. Well, men of Agger, enter and rest you. After you have eaten we will talk further of these matters.”

It was just then that, appearing between the trees on the road that ran to Fladstrand and to the sea, I saw a company mounted upon horses. In front was a young woman, wrapped in a coat of furs, talking eagerly to a man who rode by her. Behind, clad in armour, with a battle-axe girt about him, rode another man, big and fork-bearded, who stared about him gloomily, and behind him again ten or twelve thralls and seamen.

One glance was enough for me. Then I sprang up, crying:

“Iduna’s self, and with her my brother Steinar, the lord Athalbrand and his folk. A happy sight indeed!” And I would have run forward to meet them.