"Then now is Hroar ready," he called loudly. "Now will Ironbiter split the skull of this base-born changeling as it split the skull of the man he calls father."

A terrible oath burst from the lips of Floki; but Olvir silenced him with a look. Then, white to the lips, the young sea-king turned again to his enemy.

"Dare you repeat that lie?" he asked in the soft lisp that betrayed to his steersmen how deadly was his anger.

"So the bairn begins to quake," jeered the Dane, deceived by the Northman's seeming mildness. "Even so quaked that braggart Thorbiorn when I swung Ironbiter his own sword above his head."

"That is a double lie," rejoined Olvir, in the same quiet voice. "If you met Thorbiorn, son of Starkad, in battle, it was not he who quaked.

Nor did you slay the hero. When he lay dying, pierced by the darts of hidden foes, the boy Karl ran from behind and thrust him in the back.

Floki is no liar."

"No, by Odin," boasted Hroar. "Floki did not see all. Pepin's son sought to stay me when I ran to end the snared wolf. Would that I had broken the back of the meddlesome bairn! Floki has told how he drove me from his camp before I was half done my play with the thralls."

"Enough, murderer!" cried Olvir. "Now are you doomed; look on your bane!"

With the words, the young sea-king's hand gripped the hilt of his curved sword. The blade flashed from its sheath like a tongue of blue flame.

Proudly its wielder held the weapon up before him and gazed at the play of iridescent light on its mirror surface.

"Al-hatif, the Priceless! the Beautiful!" he half whispered. Then suddenly his black eyes flamed with a terrible joy. He flung off his cloak and leaped down before Hroar, whirling the blade about his head.

"Come, Dane! come, coward!" he shouted. "Long have I sought you. Come to the serpent's kiss! come to your bane! Hel's blue hand outstretches; Fenir shall rend you!"

At the biting taunts the Dane's ma.s.sive figure quivered with pa.s.sion, and all the malevolence of his nature showed in his brutal face. Up swung his ponderous sword, and he advanced upon his foe like an aurochs bull.

"Leap, bairn!" he yelled. "Ironbiter swings; he will split your swart face!"

But the Northman did not leap.

"Strike and see," he called tauntingly.

Even more scornful than his words was the Northman's bearing as he lowered his sword and stood with the little shield raised overhead. To thus set himself in the way of his huge opponent seemed little short of madness alike to the Danish vikings and to Roland. The Frank could not restrain a groan of despair, while Rothada, darting back to his side with a flask of wine, cried out in terror. Already the great sword whirled overhead to cut down their champion.

A glance at the Norse steersmen might have rea.s.sured the captives. The blond young giant and his lofty companion were waiting the outcome of Hroar's attack no less calmly than their slender leader. Cool and quiet, Olvir faced the savage Dane, his lip curled in a haughty smile; but his eyes glittered like an angry snake's. Stung by the scorn of the smile, Hroar put all his strength into the sweep of his sword.

"Thor aid!" he roared, and the sword whirled down with terrific force.

But the Northman only smiled the more scornfully and caught the blow on his tilted shield with such consummate skill that the blade glanced harmlessly aside from the steel surface.

A deafening uproar greeted the feat, the Danes on the one side crying out their wonder, while the Northmen across answered with shouts of triumph. The noise ceased as abruptly as it burst out. Olvir had raised his curved sword and tapped the hauberk of the Dane in warning.

Had he wished it, he could have slain his enemy then; for Hroar was so astonished by the turning of the blow that he stood with lowered shield.

"Ward yourself, Dane!" cried the Northman; and as Hroar started back, the Damascus sword began to dart forward like the beak of a striking heron. Up whirled Ironbiter for a second stroke; but Olvir did not wait its fall. With a wild cry he hurled himself upon the Dane like a maddened wolf. Above, below, on all sides, his sword flashed around Hroar's shield in thrusts so swift that no eye could follow. In vain Hroar sought to cut down with sweeping strokes the bright figure that leaped in upon him till the two shields clashed; in vain he sought to avoid the lightning sword-thrusts that dazzled his eyes.

Bleeding from a dozen stabs, his shield-arm pierced and cheek laid open, the ferocious Dane drew back appalled. His glaring eyes no longer saw a human foe before him; that shimmering, leaping figure was Thor, the Danish Thor, terrible in his youth and beauty.

Step by step the Dane retreated, until his back struck the bulwark. The touch spurred him to desperate fury. But he sprang forward, only to reel back again before the stabs of the pitiless sword. The end was now come. Half dazed, he dropped his shield to meet a leg feint, and the blade lunged through his unguarded neck, so that the point stood out a span behind.

CHAPTER IV

There the King, the wise-hearted, ... the mighty king.

LAMENT OF ODDRUN.

On the picturesque Garonne bank, beneath the Roman walls of Ca.s.seneuil, lay the camp of the Frankish host. Since Easter the levies of blue-eyed Allemanni and dark-eyed Aquitanians and Bretons had been pouring in to swell the ranks.

For a mile around, the fertile hills were dotted with tents and booths.

Overhead stretched a canopy of blue haze, the smoke of the countless fires. Long lines of ox-wains trailed in from all parts of the land; great droves of cattle browsed in the meadows; and water craft of all sizes sailed to and fro on the Lot and the Garonne, or lay moored along the banks while busy sailors shifted cargo. The larger vessels were from Bordeaux and the sea; others plied between Ca.s.seneuil and Toulouse, where a smaller host--Burgundians and Lombards, and the Goths and Gallo-Romans of Septimania and Provincia--were being mustered by Barnard, the king's uncle, to invade the Saracen country by way of Narbonne. The grandson of Karl the Hammer was gathering his might to strike the pagans such another blow as had shattered their host on the plains of Touraine.

The royal pavilion stood in the heart of the camp, close to the river's bank. Above its peak floated the gold-bright folds of the three-forked standard, and the scores of messengers that came and went told that Karl the King was busied with the affairs of his vast realm. Those who pa.s.sed in saw first a striking a.s.semblage of the king's liegemen,--long-robed priests, counts in full war-gear, and court officials, ornate with silks and jewels. Here were warriors who had seen the fall of Pavia and helped to hew down the Irminsul; bishops and abbots who ruled ecclesiastical estates, the revenues of which were little less than princely; _missi dominici_,--those trusty liegemen who bore the king's will to outland lords, or journeyed through their appointed ridings to bring justice for all against the petty tyrannies of count and bishop and judge.

Yet though the pavilion held within it many of the most famous men of the greatest realm since the fall of the Western Empire, the new-comer would have been certain to pa.s.s by all alike with a hasty glance and turn half reverently to the low dais where Karl the King sat on his oaken throne. Aside from his jewelled sword-belt, there was little of gold or gems about the ma.s.sive figure; but beneath the sapphires and holy nail of the Lombard crown the grey eyes of the great Frank gazed out with calm power. War-counts and priests alike bowed before that glance; for in mind, as in body, Karl was master of them all.

The last of the _missi_ called into service had been despatched to inspect the four quarters of the realm, and the king was now in earnest consultation with two Moslem envoys. The contrast between the lean figure and patriarchal beard of the older Saracen and the blond, ma.s.sive-limbed Frank was as great as that between the king's jerkin and cross-thonged stockings and the envoy's green turban and flowing white burnous. Yet such of the bystanders as were accustomed to look beneath mere outward appearance saw in the Arab sheik's dark face an expression strikingly like that which gave such dignity to the fresh ruddy countenance of the king. Not all the wide difference in race and dress and years could hide the stamp of power with which Nature had marked the features of the two.

The other Saracen, who, like the king, appeared to be scarcely three or four years past thirty, showed warrior training in every pose and feature; but a covert sneer lurked beneath his impa.s.sive smile, and from eyes that blinked like those of a bird of prey he shot quick, evil glances at the surrounding Franks.

Presently there entered the pavilion a thick-set, tow-haired warrior, with red, beer-bloated features, who jostled his way to the front without wasting breath in apologies for his rudeness. As he approached the dais the younger Saracen glanced at him, and, with a seemingly careless gesture, touched the hilt of his scimetar. He turned away at once to join in the parting salaams to the king, while the boorish warrior returned to the pavilion's entrance. As he came to a halt near the Grand Doorward, he pointed outside, his low forehead creased in a savage scowl.

"Here comes the duke now, and in choice company," he grumbled. "The Merwing shall learn that Rudulf's daughter is not for a Vascon, though he be twice over the rightful heir of Clovis."

"Does Count Hardrat speak of the Vascon Wolf?" inquired the doorward, half heeding.

"Vascon fox!" rejoined Hardrat. The jest seemed to ease his ill-humor, and he turned his gaze to the duke's beautiful companion.

The girl was young,--certainly not more than seventeen,--but of all the queen's maidens, none could lay claim to so many suitors. Among her own people and the other blond Germans beyond the Rhine she would have been considered too dark for perfect beauty; but, North Rhine or South Rhine, few men could have looked at her without a quickened pulse-beat. There was allurement in every line of her softly moulded features, in the rich bloom of her olive cheeks, and in the silky meshes of her gold-brown hair. Envious rivals might say that her eyes were over-narrow for beauty, and her lips of too vivid a scarlet. None the less, the ardent warriors and courtiers, and more than one mitred churchman, longed for the kiss of that enticing mouth, and willingly gave themselves over to the spell of the bewitching eyes with their strangely shifting tints of blue and green.

Such was Fastrada, the daughter of Count Rudulf, youngest, fairest, and most sought for among the queen's bower-maidens.

It was not to be wondered, therefore, that as he strolled with her up to the pavilion Duke Lupus kept his small eyes fixed upon the girl in an amorous stare. Near the entrance he paused and sighed regretfully.

"Here is the king's tent, maiden," he said. "I wish it had been more distant. At your side the way was all too short. I am more than repaid that I left my horse at the villa gate for my suite to bring after."

The girl looked up, open-eyed, into the Vascon's sensual face, and replied with a simplicity that to a casual observer would have appeared almost naive: "The n.o.ble Lupus has done me great honor by his escort.

Our gracious queen will not soon forget such a favor."

"And the queen's most charming maiden--?"

Fastrada bent her head to hide a smile, but her voice was very soft: "Who could forget a kindness from the Duke of the Vascons,--from the rightful heir of Clovis?"

Lupus started, and glanced hastily before him into the pavilion. He had often boasted of his descent from that long line of l.u.s.tful, b.l.o.o.d.y, indolent Merwing kings, the last of whom had been deposed and his crown seized by Pepin the Short; but all of those boasts had been uttered when the usurper's son held court on the farther side of Aquitania. His relief was heartfelt when he perceived that only one other than himself had heard the dangerous compliment. Hardrat met his furtive glance with a meaning smile and came forward to bow before Fastrada.

"Saints grant I may be of service to our dame's fairest maiden," he said.

The girl lowered her eyes demurely.

"I bear a message to our lord king," she replied.