Complete Works of William Morris, page 285
Leuchnar had risen while the king was speaking, and stood before him till he ceased with head sunk down on his breast; then raised his face, radiant now with a certain joy, to Olaf’s; he spoke no word, as though that joy, or something else, confused and hurrying, that went with it, was too great for him; but, bending, kissed the king’s hand and departed.
Then Olaf again leaned from the window and watched him go by again swiftly, till the sound of the horse-hoofs had died away: then he turned toward the council chamber, thinking:
“His face was not like the face of a man who is going to do what he thinks wrong: I fear lest he go as my ambassador — nay, do I fear? Yet surely that will be the best way to speed his own wooing — O, Gertha! Gertha! — perhaps the sword will cut this knot so close wound up together now; yet I will not pray for that, only that Leuchnar may live.”
Then presently he was in the midst of his lords. Oh what a weary ride that was of Leuchnar’s! It was early morning when he started, high noon by the time he drew rein at the cottage door; and that joy which at first he had in his noble deed faded from off his face as the sun rose higher, even as the dew did from off the face of the meadows, and when he dismounted at that house of Sigurd’s, his face was woful and ghastly to look on.
He knocked at the door, then entered when no one answered: he said out aloud, though he saw no one there, as if he distrusted his power to repeat that lesson got by heart with such pain: “I bear a message to the Lady Gertha.”
Only the cool duskiness of the heavy-shadowed oak beams met his eye, only the echo of his own hollow voice, and the chirp of the sparrows, the scream of the swifts, — met his ear.
For Gertha was not within; but from the wood she had seen the glimmer of his arms in the hot noontide, and came down, stately and slow, unmoved to look on, but her heart of hearts wavering within her with hope and fear and ecstasy of love: perhaps (O poor heart, what wild hope!) it might be the king.
She met him just at the door from whence he had turned to seek her: he durst not meet her eyes, those grand fire-orbs that had pierced him through and through that other day; if he had looked up at her face he would have seen the disappointment, the sickness of hope deferred, showing somewhat there in spite of her efforts to keep the appearance of it back.
He, with his face turned away, said, in a hard voice as before, “I bear a message for the Lady Gertha.” No blush coloured her pale cheeks, no start or trembling went through her grand form; she still held that flower in her hand, holding it with queenly sway, for it fitted in her hand like a sceptre: she said gently, “If you want Lady Gertha, you must go elsewhere, my lord; I am Sigurd the husbandman’s daughter.”
“But you are Gertha that we heard sing that day,” he said fiercely, and turning his eager eyes suddenly on her.
“Yea,” she said, trembling a little now, and turning even paler; for she saw how matters went with him, and feared, not any violence from him, for she soon read him through and through, but rather that he should fall down dead before her, his passion rent his heart so.
“Gertha, Olaf the king says, Will you be queen?” he said, still looking hungrily at her.
The crimson blood rushed up over her face, then went to her heart again, leaving her very lips grey. She paused a moment, with her arms stretched straight down, and her hands clenched: she said, without looking up:
“Tell him, ‘No;’ I am too lowly, not wise enough, I should shame him; I will not be queen — But” —
What wild passions rushed through poor Leuchnar’s heart! how he fought with that Devil which had looked him steadily in the face so long, ever since he was born till now.
She stood there still before him, with arms stretched downward, hands clenched; he seized her by the wrist, and almost shrieked out; “But what? — Gertha! Gertha! before God, do you love him?”
Her colour came again as she looked him in the face, put very close to her’s now, so close that she felt his breath upon it; she said calmly, almost proudly, “Yea, I love him; how could it be otherwise?”
“Some token then, for Christ’s sake; quick, Gertha! and where will you be in the war time?”
“My father goes with me to-morrow to the city. I shall dwell at St. Agnes’ convent of nuns till Borrace is defeated.”
“Then some token! — here!” (and he tore down from the cottage eaves a bunch of golden stone-crop) “if you love him (think of God, Gertha,) kiss this.”
She bowed her head, and touched the yellow flowers with her lips; as she did so, he bent and kissed her forehead; then, with the flowers yet in his hand, he sprung impetuously to his saddle and gallopped as if for his life. The Devil was conquered at last.
“Poor knight!” said Gertha, looking after him pityingly, “then he loves me too; it seems wrong to feel happy when such a noble knight is so miserable.”
Yet she did feel very happy, and soon forgot poor Leuchnar and his sorrows, who was riding meanwhile wildly through the forest; yet, as he drew further from her, the madness of his passion abated a little; he gave his horse rest at last, and, dismounting, lay down on the ferns by the side of the forest-path, and there, utterly worn out in mind and body, fell asleep; a dreamless sleep it was at first, as deep as death almost, yet, as it grew lighter, he fell to dreaming, and at last woke from a dream wherein Gertha had come to him, shrieked out that Olaf was slain, then thrown her arms about his neck; but, as he tried to kiss her, he awoke, and found himself under the beech-boughs, his horse standing over him, and the bridle, hanging loose from the bit, dangling about his face; for the horse doubted if he were dead.
He rose from that dream with a great wrench of his heart, and, mounting, rode on soberly. The moon shone down on him now, for he had slept far into the night. The stone-crop was fading fast, and as he looked at it, he doubted whether to curse it or bless it, but at last raised it to his mouth and kissed it, knowing whose lips had touched it before, looking half-fearfully over his shoulder as he did so; perhaps he thought a little also how Olaf’s face would flush into perfect beauty for joy, when he saw it; for joy mixed with a certain regret for himself.
So, when he reached the palace, quite late at night, when the moon was already setting, he found Olaf standing in the great hall alone, looking pale and wearied.
Leuchnar came quite close to him, and said, taking his hand and smiling a sick smile, “Olaf, she sent you this, kissing it.”
Olaf caught the faded flowers, kissed them a thousand times, knelt, and held them against his heart, against his forehead. He murmured — what words I know not, or, knowing, shall not say; while Leuchnar stood by with that old bitter smile on his lips. Poor fellow! he had expected sudden clasping of Olaf’s arms about him, praise for his nobleness, consolation for his failure. Ah! did he not know himself what a passion love was? Then why did he expect from so true a man as Olaf protestation that he was the first when truly he was but the second? O! you all know what it is to be second in such a race; it is to be nowhere. Why he, too, if he had been successful, would have forgotten Olaf, and the way his sword flashed in the battle. It was only now in his disappointment that a certain natural instinct made him catch at all the love that came across him of whatsoever kind. That was why he thought so much of Olaf now. Yes, and in a little time he did think of all this, and smiled no more. “Poor Leuchnar!” he said to himself, “you must be very far in the background now, know that for certain. Then, did you not know all this when you knelt here some twelve hours back? O! foolish Leuchnar! yet, poor Leuchnar, too!”
And he was now so far from smiling that, but for his manhood, he would have wept for self-pity. Moreover, Olaf came to him and said, laying his hands on his shoulders, and leaning forward towards his face:
“You are the noblest of all men, and will in nowise lose your reward.”
And Leuchnar knew that, or he might have gone mad; yet he prayed that his reward might be death presently, in the joyous battle.
So, on the morrow, they marched to meet King Borrace; and, on the evening of the third day, encamped but a little distance from his pirates.
And when, on the next morning, they stood in battle array, and the king rode up and down their line, Leuchnar saw in his helm the bunch of stone-crop, now quite withered.
Then that day, among the aspens, they joined battle.
CHAP. III. — THE LIGHT OF ISRAEL.
Then, in the midst of them, the old man rose up and spoke, while all the rest sat silent, some gazing fixedly on the ground, some on the fair dead king, that lay there before them.
For he had been slain with one wound that had gone right through his breast to the heart, and his body was not hacked or disfigured. They had taken his rent armour from off him, and washed his corpse, and spread out his long yellow hair to right and left of his face, along the samite cloth, purple, gold-starred, that he lay upon; and, behind him, at his head, they had laid his sword and armour, the helm yet having that stone-crop in it, the ends of the stalks at least; for all the rest had been shredded off in that fierce fight. Great waxen candles burned all about him; two priests sat at the head and two at the foot of the bier, clad in gorgeous robes of deep sorrowful purple, gold-embroidered; for these men reverenced man’s body so, even when the soul was not so near to it as it had been, that, in those hours of doubt and danger, they thought the time well spent in making the body of their king, of him the best and most beautiful of all men, look as beautiful as God would ever have dead bodies look.
So, while some gazed on the ground, some on the fair dead king, none weeping, but all stern with thought; for they had to think of him as being present with them in their council, not dead, — while they gazed earnestly, the old man, Barulf, arose and said,
“Sons of the men that go from east to west, and round again to the east! I advise you this day to do such a deed of valour as you have never done yet. Death in God’s behalf, on the side of your friends, is not hard to bear, brothers, even when it comes slow and lingering; but how glorious to die in a great battle, borne down by over-many foes, to lie, never dead, but a living terror for all time to God’s enemies and ours, a living hope to the sons of God. And to die altogether, beholding, between the sword-strokes, the faces of dear friends all a-light with intensest longing — is not that glorious!”
Their stern faces lighted up with flushing of cheek and flashing of eye as he spake; for in their hearts was fear of something far worse than dying on that field between the aspens with friends’ eyes upon them. But Barulf went on.
“Yet, brothers, not this I bid you do. I give, as my counsel, that we depart this night, taking with us nothing but our arms, some small provision, and this dear dead thing here: turn our backs upon the foe, and depart, that we may reach the mother city, where the women and children are; and I think I have good reasons for this.”
“And how then shall we face the women and children?” said a young man moodily.
“Brother,” said Barulf, “will you be a coward, indeed, from fear of being thought a coward? your heart does not counsel this, I know; and as for the women and children, are they mere beasts, so as not to understand this? will they not say rather? ‘These men are warriors, they cannot fear death; then are they the braver to be so faithful, to be without fear of reproach for fear, so faithful to us above all things; we will love them all the more.’”
“But why should we not die here, fighting, Sir Barulf?” said another; “are there not men left when we are all dead?”
“Yea, dear knight, men, but not men enough. Think awhile — Adolf with his ten thousand men, and God’s snow and storm that are tens and tens of thousands, guard the passes against the emperor. Good — they are enough as it is; but take away half for the defence of the cities, the mother-city above all, which is the weakest, the most beautiful, the fullest of women and children of all — and then would five thousand be enough to guard those passes? Even as it is, were not this summer a cold one and the snows deep, the emperor might drive his serf-soldiers, with whip and sword-point over our dead soldiers’ bodies: but suppose they were lessened, our heroes would indeed die in their places, and would doubtless slay many of the enemy; but suppose they killed and wounded twice their own number, yet two days afterwards some 200,000 men would be marching over our land within fifty miles of the beautiful city.
“Again, Edwin and his 300 ships, diligently sailing into every nook and strait of the pirate island, and every day and night solemnly passing to and fro, with the white red-crossed banner at their mast-heads, guard the coast well; but let him land half, nay a third only of his men for the defence of the city, and in a week the sea-port towns and villages, safe from all scath now, would be blazing very high toward the heavens, and King Borrace’s red and black ship-sides would gleam with the reflection of the Greek fire, as the dragons of it leapt toward the harbour-mouth.
“Moreover, the Lord Hugh, in his fortified camp, holds his own well enough now against the three Dukes; who prowl always like accursed cowardly wolves as they are, gnashing their teeth when they think that their provisions cannot last much longer, not more than another month; and, stamping on the ground, invoke the devil, their cousin german, when they remember that not a blade of grass or ear of corn is left in the country behind them, laid waste as it was with fire, by the cruel fools as they marched: they, howling too for very rage when they see the wains in long lines entering Hugh’s camp, and when they hear the merry sound of the trumpets, mingled often with the chaunting of the priests and the singing of men, singing about death that is no death. Ah! they howl, the wolves disappointed enough now; but suppose Hugh were to weaken his camp so as no longer to be able to send out his swarm of light-armed, who prevent the enemy from spoiling the yet un-wasted country; then, also, no longer fearing an attack, the Dukes march nearer to him, get themselves corn and wine, cut off his supplies, march past him at last with their 50,000 men, not easy to destroy then. For cowards as the Dukes are, and imbecile drivellers, knowing nothing of war, yet have they along with them crafty captains, who, when their highnesses’ passions master them not, give good advice which is listened to, and the commoner sort, though robbers by nature and nurture, have yet a certain kind of courage, and much strength in body and skill of arms.”
In all the warrior’s faces you might have seen a gloomy conviction that his counsel was good; but they sat silent, it seemed such a shame to turn and flee before this enemy they had just beaten.
Yet never for a moment did they doubt but that their people would in the end prevail over the enemies that hemmed them in, whatever became of those 20,000 left alive there on the plain; and Barulf spoke to the better part of all their hearts, when he said:
“Does it then seem so hard a thing to you, sons of the men that go westward, that we, having fought for three days such a battle as this, should have at last to turn and flee, carrying our dead king with us? Oh! it is hard, very bitter and cruel, brothers; yet is it God’s will, and in his sight, doubtless, is as glorious as if we all died here in our places. And I am well assured that this and all things else only hasten us westward; it cannot be in any of your hearts that this people should fail. Nay, rather our sons’ sons in the after-time will speak of these as glorious days in which the nations hedged us about, but in which we prevailed mightily against them. —
“But for another matter” — and as he spoke, the memory came across him bitterly that the king they had chosen but two years since lay dead before them now: then his face changed, and so it was with all of them, now that they were free to think of that loss; for, but a little time back, he had been with them; even just now, as they talked in their old way of fresh battles, and thought of the swinging of the swords, he had almost seemed to be there alive; but now —
One of the priests who sat by him had fallen asleep, wearied out with tending the wounded and dying, and his head had fallen on his breast; another sat quite upright with his hands laid on his knees, thinking dreadful things of what was coming on the land; the third, a spare young man, black-haired and sallow-faced, in his nervous anxiety twitched at the border of his cope as he glanced about the tent, looking uneasily on the face, first of one, then of another, of those that sat there; the fourth, as he sat, sad-faced and great-eyed, thinking of his mother and sisters whom he had left in a castle of the lowland country, had taken one long yellow tress of the dead man’s hair, and was absently twining it about his fingers.
Then arose Leuchnar with about as miserable a look on his face as a good man can ever have, and said:
“Sir Barulf, I know what you were about to say, concerning the king” (a shudder ran through them all), “I have a message from the king to all of you. I was by him when the spear pierced his true heart; I drew him a little out of the fight; he said: ‘I am wounded to death; but, alive or dead, I must not leave this field, bury me just about where the enemy makes his last stand before he turns.’ For you see, knights, our dead lord was sure of this, that the fair city would be saved. Then the blood rising from his heart choked him somewhat, yet he said gaspingly: ‘Quick, Leuchnar, bend to my mouth.’ So I bent, and he said, faintly and hurriedly: ‘Undo my mail, and take the paper there, and give it to the lords and knights in council.’ So I took a paper from his breast over his heart; the spear had pierced it through, and had carried some of it into the wound, and the trickling blood had stained it; I took it from off the broken truncheon of the lance which was yet in the wound. I showed it to him, he bowed his head in token that all was well, when he had looked at it eagerly; then he said: ‘I wish to go, draw out the truncheon, faithful and true! poor Leuchnar!’ I drew it out; there was a great rush of blood; he smiled on me, and died.”
Thereon Leuchnar stepped from his place, and, going up to Barulf, gave him the paper, very much stained and torn. Barulf read it.
