King Alfred's Viking: A Story of the First English Fleet by Charles W. Whistler (intellectual books to read txt) 📖

that this betokened long continuance thereof, and so it seemed likely to be.

But through it all we heard no tidings of the king; and in one way that was good, for had he been taken by the Danes, they would have let all men know thereof soon enough. But we feared that he might have been slain by some party who knew not who he was, and that fear hung heavily over us all.

Next we had a messenger from Odda, who was at Exeter, asking for sure word of what had befallen; and the one hope we had yet was gone, for he too knew nothing.

Very sad and silent was Osmund the jarl, though he and Thora were most kindly received as honoured guests by the Lady Alswythe and the household of the thane.

Once I asked him what his plans were, for we were both strangers, and I knew him best.

"Presently," he said, "I shall try to get back to Guthrum. While I am here I will be held as if I were no one--as a harmless ghost who walks the house, neither seeing nor hearing aught. If there were Welsh to be fought, I would fight beside you all, gladly, for Alfred; but as the war is against my own folk, I can do nothing. I will neither fight for them nor fight against them; for King Alfred and you, my friend, gave me life, and it is yours. I think that some day I may be of use to Alfred in helping to bring about a lasting peace."

"If we find him," I said.

"Ay, you will find him. He is hiding now for some wise reason that we shall know. I think it is not known how his plans are feared by our folk. I am sure that of this midwinter march the Danes will say that it is worthy of Alfred himself."

Nevertheless we heard nothing of him, though the thane had men out everywhere trying to gain news. All that they heard was the same tale of dismay from whoever they might meet, and I think that but for a chance we should not have found him until he chose to come forth from his refuge.

Heregar the thane had a strange serving man, the same who had ridden with him and me to meet the Danish forces; and this man was a fenman from Sedgemoor, who knew all the paths through the wastes. Lean and loose-limbed he was, and somewhat wild looking, mostly silent; but where his lord went he went also. They said that he had saved the thane's life more than once in the great battles about Reading, when the Danish host first came.

This man was out daily, seeking news with the rest; and one day, just a week after we had come to Cannington, when the frost had bound everything fast again, he came home and sought his master.

Heregar and I and Osmund sat together silently before the fire, and he looked from one to the other of us outlanders.

"Speak out, Dudda," said Heregar, who knew his ways; "here are none but friends."

"Ay, friends of ours sure enough; but are they the king's?"

"Most truly so. Have you news of him?"

"I have not; but I have heard some fenmen talking."

Then Osmund rose up and went his way silently, as was his wont; and Dudda grinned at us.

"He is a good Dane," he said; "now I can speak. They say there is some great lord hiding in the fens beyond the round hill where Tone and Parret join, that we call the Stane--somewhere by Long Hill, they say. Now I mind that one day when the king rode with you across the Petherton heights, he looked out over all the fens, and called me and asked much of them. And when I told him what he would, he said, 'Here is a place where a man might lie hid from all the world if he chose.' So he laughed, and we rode on."

"I mind it," said Heregar; "but it was many years ago."

"I think he may be there, for our king weighs his words, and does not forget. I held his horse at your door in Chippenham the other day, and he spoke to me by name, and put me in mind of little things for which he had laughed at me in those same old days. He is a good king."

So said Dudda, the rough housecarl; and it is in my mind that the kindly remembrance would have wiped out many a thought of wrong, had there been any. That is a kingly gift to remember all, and no king has ever been great who has not had it; for it binds every man to his prince when he knows that aught he has done is not forgotten, so it be good to recall.

So it came to pass that next day, very early, we rode away, taking Harek and Kolgrim and this man Dudda with us, well armed and mounted and full of hope, across the southward ridge that looks down over the fens of the meeting of Tone and Parret, where they are widest and wildest. No Danes had crossed them yet, and when I saw what they were like I thought that they never could do so.

And as I looked at the long chains of ice-bound meres and pools that ran among dense thickets of alder and wide snow-covered stretches of peat bogs, it seemed that we might search in vain for one who would hide among them. Only the strange round hill on Stanmoor seemed to be a point that might be noted on all the level, though Dudda told us that there were many islets hidden in the wooded parts.

We went to the lower hills and then to the very edge of the fenland, skirting along it, and asking here and there of the cottagers if they knew of any folk in hiding in the islets. But though we heard of poor people in one or two places, none of them knew of any thane; and the day wore on, and hope began to grow dim, save for Dudda's certainty that what he had heard was true.

At last we came to a long spur of high ground that runs out into the fen, about midway between Bridgwater and Taunton; and there is the village they call Lyng, where we most hoped to hear good news. The day was drawing to sunset, and we would hasten; so Heregar went one way and I another, each to distant cottages that we saw. The lane down which I and my two comrades rode seemed to lead fenwards, and it was little more than a track, deep in snow and tree bordered. The cottage we sought was a quarter mile away when we left the thane, and as we drew near it we saw an old woman walking away from it, and from us also. She did not seem to hear us when we called to her; and, indeed, such was the fear of Danes that often folk would fly when they saw us, and the faster because we called, not waiting to find out who we were.

Then from out of the cottage came another old woman, who hobbled into the track and looked after the first, shaking her fist after her, and then following her slowly, looking on the ground. She never glanced our way at all, and our horses made no noise to speak of in the snow.

We drew up to her, and then I saw that she had a hammer in her right hand and a broad-headed nail in her left. I wondered idly what she was about with these things, when she stooped and began to hammer the nail into the iron-hard ground, and I could hear her muttering some words quickly.

I reined up to watch her, puzzled, and said to Harek:

"Here is wizardry; or else what is the old dame about?"

"It is somewhat new to me," the scald said, looking on with much interest; for if he could learn a new spell or charm, he was pleased as if he had found a treasure.

Then I saw that she was driving the nail into a footprint. There were three tracks only along the snow--two going away from the cottage and one returning. That which went and returned was made by this old woman, as one might see from her last steps, which made a fourth track from the door.

"She is hammering the nail into her own footprint," I said, noting this.

Now she sang in a cracked voice, hammering savagely the while; and now and then she shook her fist or hammer, or both, towards where the other old dame had gone out of sight round a bend of the lane.

Then she put her hand to her back and straightened herself with a sort of groan, as old dames will, and slowly turned round and saw us.

Whereat she screamed, and hurled the hammer at Kolgrim, who was laughing at her, cursing us valiantly for Danes and thieves, and nearly hitting him.

"Peace, good mother," I said; "we are not Danes. Here is earnest thereof," and I threw her a sceatta from my pouch.

She clutched it from the ice pool where it fell, and stared at us, muttering yet. Then Harek spoke to her.

"Mother, I have much skill in spells, but I know not what is wrought with hammer and nail and footprint. I would fain learn."

"Little know you of spells if you know not that," she said, having lost all fear of us, as it seemed.

"I am only a northerner," Harek said. "Maybe 'tis a spell against a sprained ankle, which seems likely. I only know one for that."

"Which know you?" she said scornfully; "you are over young to meddle with such like."

"This," said Harek. "It works well if the sprain be bathed with spring-cold water, while one says it twice daily:

"'Baldur and Woden Went to the woodland; There Baldur's foal fell, Wrenching its foot.'

"That is how it begins."

Then the old woman's eyes sparkled.

"Ay; that is good. Learn it me, I pray you. Now I know that you have wizardry, for you name the old gods."

"Tell me first what hammer and nail work in footprint."

"Why, yon old hag has overlooked me," she said savagely. "Now, if one does as I have done, one nails her witchcraft to herself {xiii}."

"Whose footprint does the nail go into?" Harek asked.

"Why, hers surely. Now this is the spell," and she chanted somewhat in broad Wessex, and save that Baldur's name and Thor's hammer also came into it, I do not know what it all was. I waxed impatient now, for I thought that Heregar might be waiting for us.

But she and Harek exchanged spells, and then I said:

"Now, dame, know you of any thane in hiding hereabouts?"

Thereat she looked sharply at me.

"I know nothing. Here be I, lamed, in the cottage all day."

"There is a close friend of mine in hiding from the Danes somewhere here," I said, doubting, from her manner, if she spoke the truth. "I would take him to a safer place."

"None safer," she answered. "What is his name?"

Then I doubted for a moment; but Harek's quick wit helped me.

"Godred," he said; for the name by which the king had called himself once it was likely that he would use again.

"I know of no thanes," she said, though not at once, so that I was sure she knew somewhat more than she thought safe to tell.

Then she was going, but Harek stayed her.

"Yours is a good spell against the evil eye, mother," he said, "but I can tell you a better."

"What is it?" she said eagerly.

"News for news," he answered carelessly. "Tell us if you know aught of this thane, and I will tell you."

"I said not that there was a thane." she said at once.

"Nay, mother; but you denied it not. Come now; I think what I can tell you will save you trouble."

She thought for a little, weighing somewhat in her mind, as it seemed, and then she chose to add to her store of witchcraft.

"Yonder, then," she said, nodding to the dense alder thickets that hid the river Tone from us, across a stretch of frozen mere or flooded land. "I wot well that he who bides in Denewulf's cottage is a thane, for he wears a gold ring, and wipes his hands in the middle of the towel, and sits all day studying and troubling in his mind in such wise that he is no good to any one--not even turning a loaf that burns on the hearth before his eyes. Ay, they call him Godred."

Then my heart leaped up with gladness, and I turned to seek Heregar; but he was coming, and so I waited. Then