Sigurd threw him a keen glance. "Is it your intention to do anything exciting, like quarrelling with Thorhall as you did last night? Let me stay and share it."

There was a little embarra.s.sment in Alwin's laugh. "No such intention have I. I wish to see the hunters ride in."

The hunters were an imposing sight, as they swept into the court, and broke ranks with a cheer that brought heads to every door. White-robed thralls ran among the champing horses, unsaddling them; scarlet-cloaked sportsmen tumbled heaps of feathered slain out of their game-bags upon the gra.s.s; horns brayed, and hounds bayed and struggled in the leash.

But Alwin forgot to notice it, he was hurrying so eagerly to where Helga, Gilli's daughter, walked between her strips of bleaching linen, sprinkling them with water from a bronze pan with a little broom of twigs.

The outline of her face was sharper and the roses glowed more faintly in her cheeks, but she welcomed him with her beautiful frank smile.

"I was hoping some of you would think it worth while to come over here.

It is a great relief for me to speak to a man again. I am so tired of women and their endless gabble of brewing and spinning. Yesterday Freydis, Eric's daughter, drove over, and all the while she was here she talked of nothing but--"

"Eric's daughter?" Alwin repeated in surprise. "Not until now have I heard that Leif had a sister. Why is she never spoken of? Where does she live?"

Helga shrugged impatiently. "She lives at Gardar with a witless man named Thorvard, whom she married for his wealth. She is a despisable creature. And the reason no one speaks of her is that if he did he would feel Thorhild's hands in his hair. There is great hatred between them.

Yesterday they quarrelled before Freydis had been here any time at all.

And I was about to say that I was glad of it, since it brought about Freydis' departure: all the time she was here she spoke of nothing save her ornaments and costly things. Oh, I do not see why Odin had the wish to create women! It would have been pleasanter if they had remained elm-trees."

Alwin regarded her with eyes of the warmest good-will. "It would become a heavy misfortune to me if you were an elm-tree,--though it is likely that I should speak with you then quite as often as I do now. Except at meals, I seldom see you. But I never pa.s.s your window that I do not remember that you are toiling within, and say to myself that I am sorry for your bad luck."

"I give you thanks," answered Helga, with her friendly smile. "Where have the other men gone? I wished to speak with Sigurd."

"They have gone to the landing-place, to watch for a ship that Valbrand sighted this morning from the rocks."

She cried out joyfully: "A ship in Einar's Fiord? Then it belongs to some chief of the settlement, who is returning from a Viking voyage!

There will be a fine feast made to welcome him."

Alwin followed her doubtfully up the lane between the white patches. "Is it likely that that will do us any good? It is possible that Leif will not be invited."

The heat of her scorn was like to have dried the drops she was scattering. "You are out of your senses. Do you think men who trade among the Christians are so little-minded as Eric? Leif is known to be a man of renown, and the friend of Olaf Trygva.s.son. They will be proud to sit at table with him."

"It may be that he will refuse to feast with heathens."

"That is possible," Helga admitted. She emptied her pan with a little flirt of impatience, and sighed. "How tiresome everything is! To sit at a table where one is afraid to move lest there be a fight! I speak the truth when I say that this is the merriest diversion I have,--standing out here, watering linen, and watching who comes and goes. And now that my pan is empty, I must betake myself indoors again. Yonder is Valbrand beckoning you."

It is probable that Alwin would not have hurried to obey the summons, but with a nod and a smile Helga turned away, and there was nothing for him but to go forward to meet the steersman.

The old warrior regarded the young favorite with his usual apathy. "It is the wish of Leif that you attend upon him directly."

"Is he in his sleeping-room?"

"Yes."

It occurred to Alwin to wonder at this summons. His usual hour for reading came after Leif had retired for the night. If the chief had overheard the dispute with Thorhall! He lingered, meditating a question; but a second glance at Valbrand's battered face dissuaded him. He turned sharply on his heel, and strode across to the storehouse that had become Leif's headquarters.

A loft that could be reached only by a ladder-like outer stairway, and was without fireplace or stove or means of heating, does not appear inviting. But one has a keener sense of appreciation when he considers that the other alternative was a bed in the great hall, where the air was as foul as it was warm, and the room was shared with drunken men and spilled beer and bones and sc.r.a.ps left from feasting. Alwin had no inclination to hold his nose high in regard to his master's new lodgings. England itself offered nothing more comfortable.

When he had come up the long flight of steps and swung open the heavy door, he had even an impulse of admiration. This, the state guest-chamber, was not without softening details. It was large and high and weather-proof, and boasted three windows. The box-like straw-filled beds, that were built against the wall, were spread with snowy linen and covers of eiderdown. The long bra.s.s-bound chests that stood on either side the door were piled with furs until they offered the softest and warmest of resting-places. A score of Leif's rich dresses, hanging from a row of nails, covered the bare walls as with a gorgeous tapestry. The table was provided with graceful bronze water-pitchers and wash-basins of silver, and was littered over with silver scissors and gold-mounted combs and bright-hilted knives, and a medley of costly trinkets. Near the table stood a great carved arm-chair.

At the sight of the man who leaned against its flaming red cushions of eiderdown, Alwin forgot his admiration. The chief's eyebrows made a bushy line across his nose. The young bowerman knew, without words, why he had been sent for. He stopped where he was, a pace within the door, angry and embarra.s.sed.

After a while, Leif said sternly: "You are very silent now, but it appears to me that I heard your voice loud enough in the hall last night."

"It was only that I was accusing Thorhall of a trick that he tried to put upon me. He allowed me to go up to the loft above the provision house without telling me that the flooring had been taken up, so that they might pour the new mead into the vat in the room below. In one more step I should have fallen through the opening and been drowned. It is plain he did it to avenge Kark. I should have burst if I had not told him so."

"I have commanded that my men shall not hold speech with the men of Eric except on friendly matters; that they shall avoid a quarrel as they would avoid death."

His tone of quiet authority had begun to have its usual effect upon his young follower; Alwin's head had bent before him. But suddenly he looked up with a daring flash.

"Then I have not been disobedient to you, lord; for I would not avoid death if it seemed to me that such shirking were cowardly."

A moment the retort brought a grim smile to Leif's lips; then suddenly his face froze into a look of terrible anger. He half started from his chair.

"Do you dare tell me to my face that, because I order you to keep the peace, I am a coward?"

Alwin gave a great gasp. "Lord, there is no man in the world who would dare speak such words to you. I but meant that I cannot bear such treatment as Thorhall's in silence."

Had another said this, the answer might have been swift and fierce; but Leif's manner toward this follower was always different from his way with others,--whether out of respect for his accomplishment, or a fancy for him, or because he discerned in him some refinement that was rare in that brutal age. The anger faded from his face and he said quietly: "Can you not bear so small a thing as that, for so great a cause as the spreading of your faith?"

The boy started.

"Without peace in which to gain their friendship so that they will hear us willingly, our cause is lost. It is not because I am a craven that I bear to be the guest of the man who sought my life, who turns his face from me when I sit at his board, who allows his servants to insult me.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to bear the martyrdom of the blessed saints!" He made a sudden fierce movement in his chair, as though the fire in his veins had leaped out and burnt his flesh.

Then, for the first time, Alwin understood. He bent before him, rebuked and humbled.

"Lord, I see that I have done wrong. I ask you to pardon it. Say what you would have me do."

"Put my commands ahead of your desires, as I put King Olaf's wish before my pride, and as he sets the will of G.o.d before his will."

"I promise I will not fail you again, lord."

"See that you do not," Leif answered, with a touch of sternness.

CHAPTER XVI

A COURTIER OF THE KING

A better burden No man bears on the way Than much good sense; That is thought better than riches In a strange place: Such is the recourse of the indigent.

Ha'vama'l

The next afternoon when Helga came out to water the linen, she found Alwin waiting for her, on the pretext of hunting in the long gra.s.s for a lost arrow-head.

He greeted her gayly: "I will offer you three chances to guess my news."

She paused, with her twig broom raised and dripping, and scanned him eagerly. "Is it anything about the ship that came yesterday? I heard among the women that it is the war-vessel of Eric's kinsman, Thorkel Fa.r.s.erk, just come back from ravaging the Irish coast. Is his wife going to make a feast to welcome him?"