King Alfred's Viking: A Story of the First English Fleet, Charles W. Whistler [hardest books to read .txt] 📗

must answer for you two at the font," he said.

"For Kolgrim also, I pray you, Father Neot," said I; "for he will be baptized with us."

"Ay, for honest Kolgrim also," he answered; "but what of old Thord, my reprover?"

"He will have nought to do with the new faith," I said. "But at least he does not blame us for leaving the old gods. He says he is too old to learn what we younger men think good."

"I will seek him and speak with him again," Neot said. "I think I owe him somewhat."

Then we thanked the holy man for the honour that he was showing us; but he put thanks aside, saying that we were his sons in the truth, and that the honour was his rather.

Now in the seven weeks that we waited for Guthrum at Aller, while the priests whom Alfred sent taught him and his chiefs what they should know rightly before baptism, Osmund and I were wont to go to Taunton, across the well-known fens, and bide for days at a time in Odda's house there, and we told Thora for what we waited.

She had come to England, when she was quite a child, with the first women who came into East Anglia, and already she knew much of Christianity from the Anglian thralls who had tended her. And when she had heard more of late from Etheldreda and Alswythe, she had longed to be of the same faith as these friends of hers, and now rejoiced openly.

"Ranald," she said, "I had not dared to speak of this to my father, but I was wont to fear the old gods terribly. They have no place for a maiden in their wild heaven. There are many more Danish ladies who long for this change, even as I have longed. Yet I still fear the wrath of Odin for you and my father."

"The old gods are nought--they have no power at all," I said, bravely enough; though even yet I had a little fear in thus defying them, as it seemed.

"Then I will dread them no more," she answered. "Nor do I think that you need fear them."

So I comforted her, and bade her ask more of Etheldreda, who would gladly teach her; and the matter passed by in gladness, as a trouble put away, for she and I were at one in this. I will say that I had half feared that she whom I loved would have been angry with me.

Now on that night Osmund and I and Harek would ride to Heregar's house over the shoulder of the Quantocks, with some message we had to take to him from Alfred; and we went without any attendants, for the twelve miles or so would have no risk to any one, and the summer evening was long and bright.

Yet we were later in starting away than we should have been, and so when we were among the wilder folds of the hills, where the bare summits rise from wooded slopes and combes, we were overtaken by a heavy thunderstorm that came up swiftly from the west behind us, darkening the last sunset light with black clouds through which the lightning flickered ceaselessly.

We rode on steadily, looking for some place of shelter; but it grew very dark, and the narrow track was rough, and full of loose stones that made the going slow. Presently the clouds settled down on the hill crest and wrapped us round, and the storm broke afresh on us, with thunder that came even as the darkness was changed to blue brightness with the lightning flashes that played around us almost unceasing. There was no rain yet and no wind, and the heat grew with the storm.

Soon the nearness of the flashes scared our horses, and we had to dismount and lead them, and in the darkness we lost the little track among the heavy heather. And then there seemed to me to be a new sound rising among the thunder, and I called to Harek, bidding him hearken.

It came from seaward, and swelled up louder and louder and nearer, until it passed over our heads--the yelp and bay of Odin's wild hounds, and the trample and scream of his horses and their dead riders. A great fear fell on me, so that the cold sweat stood on my forehead, while the hunt seemed everywhere above us for a moment, and then passed inland among the thunder that hardly drowned its noises.

Then Osmund the jarl cried out:

"That was Odin's hunt. I have heard it before, and ill came thereof. He hunts us who forsake him."

And out of the darkness Harek answered, without one shake in his brave voice:

"Odin's hunt in truth it was, and the ill comes to Odin, who must leave this land before the might of the Cross. We who bear the sign of might he cannot touch."

Then I remembered myself, and the fear passed from me, and I was ashamed. I had no doubt now that there was need for Odin's wrath, seeing that he was surely defeated. And Osmund was silent also, thinking doubtless the same things; for he had taken on him the prime signing long ago, and had forgotten it maybe.

Then we went on, and the storm grew wilder. Harek sang now, but what the words were I cannot tell. I think they were some that he had learned from Alfred.

Now we began to go down the southern slope of the highest neck of the hill, as it seemed, though we could not rightly say where we were, and in a little silence that came between the thunderclaps I heard the rattle of hoofs as of another rider coming after us, going faster than we dared.

"Here is one who knows the hill well," I said; "maybe he will guide us."

And then the lightning showed the horseman close to us. He reined up, and cried in a great voice:

"Ho, strangers! are you wandering here?"

"Ay; we are lost till the storm passes. Can you guide us to shelter before the rain comes?" I said.

"Whence come you?" he asked.

"We are Alfred's men from Taunton--going to the thane's house at Cannington."

"Ay, is that so? Then I will guide you. Follow," he said, and he rode on.

One could see him plainly when the lightning came, and it showed a tall man, grey bearded, and clad in a long hooded horseman's cloak, under which gleamed golden-shining mail. Well mounted on a great horse he was also, and its sides were white with foam on the dark skin, as though he had ridden hard.

We mounted and went after him, with the lightning playing round us and glancing from the mail of our leader as his arm threw the cloak back over his shoulder from time to time. He led us along the hill crest northward, crossing the places where the fire beacons had been; and we wondered whither he was taking us, for shelter here was none. And now the storm grew wilder, with the wind and chill of coming rain.

Then he turned downhill, riding fast until we came to a place where rocks lay loose and scattered everywhere, and our horses stumbled among them. There he reined up suddenly, holding up his hand, and shouting through the uproar of wind and thunder:

"Hold, for your lives! Hearken!"

We stayed motionless, listening, and again we heard the cry and clang of Odin's hunt, coming now from inland over us, and I made the sign of the Cross on my breast, in fear thereof.

"Ho for Odin's hunt!" the strange man cried, in his mighty voice. "Hear it, Alfred's men, for you shall join it and ride the wind with him if you defy him."

"We fear him not," said Harek; "he has no power over us."

"Has he not?" the man roared, facing full upon us; and as he did so the lightning glared on him, and I saw that his drawn sword was aloft, and that from its point glowed a blue flame, and that blue flames also seemed to start from his horse's ears. One-eyed the man was also, and he glowered on us under shaggy eyebrows.

Harek saw also, and he raised his hand towards the man and signed the holy sign, crying:

"Speak! who are you?"

Thereat the man gave a hoarse roar as of rage, and his horse reared, trampling wildly on the loose rocks, and, lo, he was gone from before our eyes as if he had never been, while the thunder crashed above us and below us everywhere!

"Odin! the Cross has conquered!" Harek cried again, in a voice that was full of triumph; and the blood rushed wildly through me at the thought of what I had seen.

Then Harek's horse shifted, and his hoof struck a great stone that rolled as if going far down the hill, and then stopped, and maybe after one could count five came a crash and rattle underneath us that died away far down somewhere in the bowels of the hill. And at that Osmund shouted suddenly:

"Back to the hill; we are on the brink of the old mine shaft! Back, and stay not!"

Nor did we wait, but we won back to the higher ground before we drew rein.

"We have met with Odin himself," Osmund said when we stopped and the thunder let him speak.

"Ay, and have driven him hellwards by the might of the holy sign," said Harek. "Nearly had he lured us to death, unbaptized as we are, in that place."

"Come," said Osmund; "I know where we are now. We are well-nigh under the great fort, and there is a farm near at hand."

We found that soon and the rain came, and the storm spent its fury and passed as we sat under cover in the stables waiting. Then came the moonlight and calm, and the sweetness of rain-soaked earth and flowers refreshed, and we went on our way wondering, and came to the thane's with the first daylight. And I thought that our faces were pale and marked with the terror of the things through which we had gone, and maybe also with a new light of victory {xvii}.

Chapter XIV. King Alfred's Will.

When we came back to Aller, the first thing that I did was to tell Neot of our meeting with Odin while his wild hunt went on through the tempest, telling him how that I had feared unwisely, and also of Harek's brave withstanding of the danger.

"It is said that our forefathers met Odin in like wise in the days of the first christening of our race," he said. "I do not know what to make thereof, seeing that I hold Odin as nought; but I think this, that in some way Satan tried to destroy you before you were baptized. Wherefore, whether Odin or mortal man drew you to that place, I have no doubt what power saved you."

But Sigehelm thought that we had met with Satan himself in the shape of the old god, and so also thought Guerir the hermit, who told strange tales of like appearings among the Welsh hills where he was born.

As for Alfred the king, he marvelled, and said even as Neot. But he added this:

"I know the mine shaft well, and it is in my mind that some day Odin's bones will be found at the bottom thereof. Nevertheless there is more than mortal in what has happened to you by way of trial."

Now came the time when Guthrum and his thirty comrades should seek the king, and I have no words to tell of that time when in the peaceful church we heathen stood white-robed and unarmed altogether at the font, while Sigehelm, with a wonderful gathering of priests, enlisted us as warriors of the Cross. It was, as all men think, the most mighty victory that Alfred had ever gained.

At that time he chose Guthrum as his own son in the faith, and named him Athelstan {xviii}, as the first and most noble stone of the new building up of the church among the Danes. Neot would not have our names changed, for he said we had wronged the faith in them not at all. Odda stood for Osmund, as Neot for us.

After that was joyous feasting, and the loosing of the chrism bands at Alfred's royal town of Wedmore, whither we went in bright procession through the long summer day. Four days we bided there, till we knew that the great Danish host was on its march homewards, and then Guthrum and his comrades must join it. But before he went he accepted from Alfred the gifts that an under-king should take from his overlord, and they were most splendid. All men knew by those tokens given and taken that Alfred was king indeed, and that Guthrum did but hold place by his sufferance. Those two parted