Adventure (magazine)/Volume 42/Number 2/Swain's Stone

by Arthur D. Howden

SWAIN'S STONE

A COMPLETE NOVELETTE

by Arthur D. Howden

Author of "A Son of Strife," "Beyond the Sunset," etc.

SWAIN pushed on through the low, dwarf trees of the wood, trees that had been battered and shoved and bent into caricatures of themselves by centuries of booming winds. He was sure, now, that he had missed the reindeer stag at the streamlet far back beyond the scaur of Nafar, but he heard in the distance the sounding roar of the surf and so he continued, hoping that he might be fortunate enough to encounter some belated fisherman who would save him the long tramp home to Dungalsbae along the rocky shore.

The sun was near to the ocean's western rim as he burst through the last copse and gained the verge of the broken cliffs, a ball of crimson, incandescently aflame, flooding the burnished surface of the water with a peculiarly hard, glittering light. There was an effect of stillness, which halted him in his tracks. The cliffs stood up to right and left as far as he could see, iron-bare, savage, menacing. Over the gravel beach at their foot waves rolled with a continuous, grinding beat. And far across the restless waters of Pentland Firth the opposite cliffs of Straumsey stood up like a great ship in the waste of waters.

His eyes swept the scene with instinctive pride. As a picture, of course, it meant nothing to him—except the thought that here his father ruled under the Two Jarls, aye, from the shores of the firth southward across the dales and hills of Caithness into the depths of Sudrland, where the dimly defined marches of Scotland began—the last outpost of the Norse power. But the pride gave way to surprize, and then anger, as his gaze dropped to the rock-bound cove of Morkaorsbakki, almost a stone's throw beneath him.

A long dragonship was fending in betwixt the treacherous reefs, its crawling oars swift to respond to the steering sweeps astern, and behind it followed two ten-oared barges, all three craft crowded with people and heaped high with gear. Who came to these waters unannounced? Strangers, for certain. For Swain had left his father's stead at Dungalsbae that morning, and no word of visitors had been received up to that time.

Were they far rovers from the Norse viks, or Iceland outlaws or fierce freebooters from the Sudreyar? Whoever they were, they must answer to Olaf of Dungalsbae, and whichever of his sons came first upon them. Swain's action was as instinctive as his first feeling of pride in the vista of lands and waters he helped to rule. He strode down from the cliffs, without even staying to loosen his sword or draw an arrow from his quiver.

When he reached the pebbly beach the nose of the dragonship had taken ground and from her starboard gunwale a long plank had been outthrust to land. A group of men stood amongst the boulders about a woman, and servants were shifting bundles ashore. The newcomers saw Swain when he was still out of earshot, and they watched his approach with a curiosity savored with amusement. It was almost as if he were the tresspasser, and not they, and he fumed with a young man's wrath, under the mockery of their eyes. He clinched his bow-stave very tight; a frown wrinkled his forehead, and his lips under the down of his new beard met in a straight line.

"Who are you?" he called.

The group fell apart, leaving two who stood advanced, the woman and a youth of Swain's years, swart-skinned and black of hair where Swain was fair and ruddy. The woman was as tall as a man. Her hair was long and gray. But it was her face that caught Swain's attention, and held it. It was full and unlined, and her eyes were a bleak green. They made mock of him without changing their expression.

"And who are you?" she answered.

The youth at her side bellowed with laughter, and a chuckle came from the housecarles and servants at their back. The work of unloading the longship was abandoned that all might enjoy the baiting of Swain.

"I am Swain Olaf's son," replied Swain, battling with his temper. "None lands here without rendering account to my father, who governs this land for the Two Jarls."

A second laugh greeted this.

"What two Jarls?" demanded the dark young man.

"Jarl Paul and Jarl Harald," said Swain, puzzled. "It is plainly to be seen that you are not Orkney-born."

There was a third bellow of laughter, louder and more prolonged.

"We do not know the Two Jarls," returned the dark young man.

"Nay, there are no longer two jarls," added the gray-haired woman with the cold, green eyes.

"Now, do I know you are outlanders," insisted Swain, "and I warn you it is ill-doing, whether you come in dragonship or barge, to make merry with the Two Jarls, for their rule runs from Fridarey to the castles of the Scots."

"But we say to you, Swain Olaf's son, that there are no longer two jarls," said the gray woman.

"You say what you do not know," declared Swain, "and moreover, you come where you have no right to be. Shift your gear back aboard, and make sail for Dungalsbae. If you have any right in these lands my father will admit you."

"To my own lands?" mocked the woman.

"These are not your lands."

"Nay, then, are they Olaf Gutorm's son's?"

"They——"

Swain cut himself short, overcome with doubt. His father's lands did not run so far west and north, of that he was sure.

"They are the jarls'," he replied in surly defiance.

"If they are the jarls', they are mine, also," she said placidly.

"We shall make trial of that," shouted Swain, drawing his sword.

The dark youth was not a moment slower in the same act, but the woman waved him back.

"Hold, Olvir," she commanded. "Do you not know me, Swain?"

He shook his head.

"I know only that you have no right here."

"Touching that we shall shortly make a test," she remarked. "Did you ever hear of Frakork Maddan's daughter?"

Swain made a gesture of disgust.

"That wizard!"

"I am she, and I will wither your arm, so that you can not draw a sword."

Swain's answer was to hack at her so swiftly that only the interposition of the dark youth's blade saved her head.

"Ha," grunted Swain, dancing to the attack, and slicing an arm off a housecarle who rashly sought to interfere; "if you are Frakork, old witch, this puppy should be Olvir Rosta, your grandson, who has his name from his love of strife. He shall have his belly full of me, Frakork, and you, too."

"Be quick in feeding him, then," she retorted grimly, as her retainers closed around. "You shall be raven's bait this hour hence. No, back, men, all! Let Olvir slay him, and if by chance he harms Olvir, you shall gut him on the beach."

This was the manner of the beginning of Swain's adventures, unpremeditated of himself. It was also the first coming into Caithness of Frakork Maddan's daughter and Olvir Rosta, and in afterdays, and for many years to come, their feud dripped a wide trail of blood all across the Orkneys and Scotland and into the Hjaltlands^[1] and the Sudreyar^[2] and south to Ulster and Dublin and Man. But of this all of those concerned recked little that afternoon on the beach of Morkaorsbakki. The housecarles and serving men made a wide ring, and Frakork stood inside it, her face as expressionless as ever, her green eyes blazing with the fire of the evil spirits that possessed her—or so all men said, and with reason. And Swain and Olvir Rosta leaped and struck and hewed at each other, with the keen zest of young men under spell of deadly hatred.

They were evenly matched. Swain was tall in his person, very shapely as men go, sinewy, lithe, sure on his feet as the reindeer of the upland dales. Olvir was somewhat shorter, with a broader spread of chest and shoulders, not so long a reach, perhaps, but a mighty striker of blows. In their tempers also they were alike, blazing swift to wrath, fearless of opposition, reckless of numbers, reckoning always to surprize an enemy off-guard, wholly self-confident.

Back and forth they stamped across the shingles, from the water's edge to the line of boulders that marked the limits of high tide, and the housecarles rattled swords on shields whenever Olvir landed a blow or compelled Swain to sidestep or spring in air to save himself; but when Swain struck to advantage there was a quiet so tense that you could feel it, and Frakork's green eyes smote at Swain's unprotected back as if she thought to smite him with physical strength.

There was no difference between them until Swain hewed with his blade at Olvir's head, and Olvir, aiming to avert the blow, guarded with his own blade. Sparks flew as the swords clashed, and Swain's edge slipped along Olvir's as far as the hilt, where it caught in the breaking-nick that was planned for just such an event. Snap! The high, clear song of shattered steel. Three-fourths of Swain's blade flared like a meteor in the sunset glow and rang upon the beach pebbles out of his reach. He stood defenseless, with only the hilt and a few inches of jagged blade left in his hand.

A roar went up from housecarles and servingmen. Frakork's expressionless face was blank as ever, but in the cold pools of her eyes an icy fire began to burn. Olvir shouted his triumph, and sprang forward, sword aloft to strike off Swain's head. But Swain was not there. Instead, he crouched, and leaped forward under the swing of the blow. His arms clasped Olvir's waist. He heaved his enemy high above his head, and poised him there, like a stone in the basket of a catapult on the walls of Mikligard.^[3] An instant he held him, while not a breath was drawn. Then Olvir Rosta shot forward, like the stone from the catapult, and thudded two spears' lengths off upon the shingly beach.

A snarl of baffled rage from the housecarles, and the ring boiled in to tear Swain limb from limb. But again he was not there. The instant he had hurled Olvir Rosta from him, he spun on his heel and sprang at Frakork, confidently aloof inside the seaward face of the ring. His great arms clutched her; he pressed her tall body in front of him; the fragment of his sword was at her heart.

"There's not much to you, witch, for one so big," he growled. "Hold back your people now, or you shall try your sorcery on the——."

The milling housecarles stood aghast at what they saw. Those in the rear pushed forward, but the front rank dug toes deep in the gravel and held back. Frakork was a hard mistress, true; but she paid well. Her followers never lacked for plunder. Also, they were in a bad plight, if anything happened to her, their leader, for reasons which have yet to appear. So they waited, swords quivering, eyes bemused.

"Will you die, Frakork?" demanded Swain impatiently.

"Some day, yes," she answered coolly.

"And now?"

"Now, I am thinking, youth. I have lived three of your lives. Death means little to me. Thinking means all."

"I am growing weary of holding this sword against you," snapped Swain. "And if you think to lead me to betray myself because you are a woman, remember that I know you also for a witch."

She twisted her head, so that she could plunge her green eyes daggerwise into his open blue ones. He shuddered, and involuntarily pressed the broken sword against her ribs. The blood stained her robe, but she made no outcry.

"Stand back, all my people," she bade them calmly. "Do some of you look to Olvir there. Let this young madman go free."

And when Swain started to carry her with him along the beach toward the path to the cliff-top, she exclaimed:

"I have said that you shall go free. Will you not set me down? I am an old woman, after all, young man, old enough to be your grandmother."

"You are a witch and a wizard, by what men say," he returned sourly. "I will let you down when I can trust to my own legs to carry me hence. And my father will have something to say of folk who come raiding his lands as you do."

"I have said they were not his lands," she answered.

"The Two Jarls', then," he panted, for the path had begun to climb.

All the housecarles and servingmen of the dragonship and the two barges were clustered, gape-mouthed, upon the shingle, watching as Swain backed away, Frakork's body interposed between himself and any venturesome spear-caster or archer.

"And I have said these lands are not those of the Two Jarls', either," she retorted. "There are no longer Two Jarls."

"Why?" he asked simply.

"Because, Swain, one of them is dead—and that has made a vast deal of trouble for me, who had planned otherwise, and is like to make more trouble for me, and in the long run, I think, also, for you."

"As how?" asked Swain, setting her down.

"Ah, that is for the future to show."

"But you are a wizard," objected Swain, "and so should know the future."

"I do not serve my enemies," she observed dryly. "May I return to my people?"

"Yes, and tell them to take you away. Go west of Raudabiorg, if you would keep from harm's way."

"You are young," she said, after a moment. "Ask your father where Maddan Moddad's son's lands began hereabouts. Ask, also, who inherited them."

"Rather, I'll ask the priest for a charm against your spells," snapped Swain.

She gave him a queer look.

"I am no forelooker," she said slowly, "but I feel I shall hear more of you, Swain Olaf's son. And it would have been better for you, if you had driven what was left of your sword into the heart of Olvir Rosta when you held him in your arms. He is a bad enemy, is Olvir. You shall yet hear from him—and from me."

"Why should I fear an old woman and a boy I have beaten, unarmed?" sneered Swain.

Her green eyes searched his face, feature by feature. Of a sudden her countenance, so fresh, so unlined, for all the pile of years her unbent shoulders bore, became convulsed with a passion so demoniac that Swain started back with arm raised to protect himself—from what he did not know.

"Because there is no weapon like hatred," she shrilled. "Boy, I have been the death of one mightier than you shall ever be. Many a strong man has died when I overlooked him. Beware lest I overlook you."

Swain's common sense came to his rescue.

"You have tried to already, and failed," he declared.

"How do you know?" she asked, as the unholy fires died in her eyes.

"If you might have done so, you would have done it by now," he argued.

She gave him a shrewd glance.

"I can see that you have more wit than many might suppose," she commented. "However, Swain, if I can not reach you, I can reach those you love and who are near to you. You have insulted me, Frakork Maddan's daughter, who have the blood of jarls in me, and you have cruelly beaten my grandson. You shall pay for it, Swain Olaf's son. You shall pay to the last drop of blood, and the last sob of grief, and the last throb of anguish. I swear it! I swear it, by the old gods our people have cast off since Olaf Tryggvi's son preached the White Christ—and I swear it by the Christian Devil! I swear it by all the evil there ever was or ever will be!"

There was something fiendishly unearthly about her spare figure outlined against the cliff-edge, with the background of flaming sunset and tossing waters, metallic in the level glare. Her arms tossed aloft in a final gesture of denunciation, and Swain turned from her and ran.

 

II

IT WAS dark when Swain trotted past the outbuildings of his father's stead, but the open doorway of the skalli cast a beam of yellow light from the hearthfire into the shadows. On the doorstep sat his brothers, Valthiof and Gunni, cleaning fish.

"You found no reindeer, Swain?" greeted Valthiof, the oldest of the three.

"I found a stag, and lost him," answered Swain. "But I found that, too, which was greater sport."

"What?" asked Gunni, the youngest.

"A man-fight and a witch."

Valthiof and Gunni dropped their gutting-knives and rose, excited, to their feet.

"What talk is this, brother?" demanded Valthiof. "Do you jest?"

Swain pushed past them, and called his answer over his shoulder:

"I must have speech with our father. Follow, and you shall hear all."

But in the ale-room he encountered his mother, Asleif, who was superintending the maids as they drew off a cask. She was as tall as Frakork the witch, and her golden braids were as heavy and unbleached as a girl's. Her face was the face of a mother of warriors, lofty, yet gentle.

"Walk softly, my son," she said. "Your father has had sad news this night."

"I know," answered Swain. "And I have sadder for him."

There was a pine-torch in an iron holder, and by its glare she saw a spatter of Frakork's blood on his jerkin.

"You have killed a man!" she exclaimed.

"Better if I had!" he returned bitterly, remembering the witch's jeers. "Come with me, mother, and you shall hear all."

From the ale-room they passed into the hall, a long room, with a peaked roof and a fire blazing on a stone hearth in the center, its smoke eddying amongst the rafters. Along the walls hung skins of wild beasts, and arms and armor. Benches lined the sides, and against the south wall was built the high seat of Olaf. Beside him, as Swain entered with his mother and brothers, sat a huge barrel of a man with a narrow, cruel face and a great forked beard that was black as the smut on the wainscoating.

"So you are home at last, Swain," said his father in a tone of displeasure. "It is not fitting that you should wander in at any hour when we have a guest who is a famous man."

Swain bowed respectfully.

"I am content that you shall judge me when you have heard my tale," he replied.

"Fair-spoken," exclaimed the black-bearded guest in a voice like a thunder-peal. "You bear a great name, youth. Look well to it!"

And he laughed as if he had said something funny—and Valthiof and Gunni laughed with him. But there was a little line between Asleif's brows, and Olaf frowned.

"Our guest bears the same name that you do," explained Olaf to his son. "He is Swain Briostreip (Breaststrap), Jarl Paul's forecastle man."

"Yes, Swain Olaf's son, look well to your name," repeated Swain Briostreip, draining an immense horn of ale. "It is a responsibility. I can see that you are large for your years, but you must never let a man confuse us in some niddering deed."

"My son is a brave youth and as little likely to cause shame as another," interrupted Olaf impatiently.

"No doubt, no doubt," assented Swain Briostreip. "Is he a good drinker? Come, young Swain, let us see the measure of your belly. Here is this horn I have quaffed at a draft. Let us see if you can empty it in two."

But Swain shook his head.

"I am no ale-drinker," he said.

"What do you drink?" laughed Swain Briostreip. "Water?"

"Enough, enough," interposed Olaf a second time, seeing the flush that mantled his son's face. "The boy is no weakling, Swain, and that should satisfy you. He can follow the reindeer stag for a day and a night without tiring."

"Aye," replied Swain Briostreip, "but can he follow a man?"

"I can fight with a man," snapped young Swain.

"Ha, ha, ha," roared Swain Briostreip. "Innocence has barked an answer. Well, young Swain, next time the Jarl sends me roving you shall come with me, and we'll make trial with you against the English, who are strong men of their hands."

"I shall go on my own roving cruises," retorted Swain Olaf's son.

"You are disrepectful in your speech," reproved his father. "Also, boastful. And this is a time for sober thoughts. Our guest comes from Jarl Paul with word that his brother, Jarl Harald, is dead."

"Then she said truth!" exclaimed Swain in bewilderment.

"Who said truth?" demanded Swain Briostreip.

And Asleif stepped nearer to her son, as he replied, reciting in as few words as possible his adventure of the afternoon. His father and his namesake heard him to the end without interruption.

"You did well, Swain," said Olaf, then.

"Aye, but he might have done better," added Swain Briostreip. "Why did you not slay Frakork when you had her in your power? She will be the death of many more for that, even as she told you."

"No son of mine slays women, unless he must," spoke up Asleif.

Swain Briostreip raised his bristling black eyebrows.

"They call you a wise woman, Asleif," he answered. "Yet your words are foolish."

"What must be, must be," she said. "And a brave man is not a woman-killer in this land."

"But there is some question as to whether a witch is in truth also a woman," Olaf reminded her.

Swain Briostreip laughed again, so that the smoke bellied up into the open space under the roof's peak.

"Men call me an outsitter^[4] and a sorcerer—yet am I nonetheless a man!" he cried.

There was no answer, and all in the hall eyed him askance, for he had an evil reputation for his dealings in the black magic of the old Norse gods, and Bishop Williams, at Egilsey, had threatened him with excommunication—from which, indeed, he had been saved only by Jarl Paul's influence.

"Is there such a thing as magic?" asked Asleif doubtingly.

"And you are called a wise woman!" scoffed Swain Briostreip.

"That is she!" retorted Olaf. "None wiser."

"I might tell you tales that would——"

Swain Briostreip broke off abruptly, and gloomed at the rafters.

"But Jarl Harald's death is proof for you," he continued presently.

"Aye, you have yet to tell us how it came about," pressed Olaf.

"It was the work of Frakork, past doubt," said Swain Briostreip. "She did not boast amiss to my young namesake here. As you all know, she has always favored Jarl Harald, who indulged her wickedness, and hated Jarl Paul, who is holy enough—" this with something of a sneer—"for the shaven-heads of Egilsey. So, when the Two Jarls held feast at Orphir a few days since, she prepared a shirt for Jarl Paul, which was so woven with a powerful spell that the touch of its cloth meant death to whoever wore it. But as it chanced, while she was finishing it, Jarl Harald, himself, entered the stofa, and perceiving it lying upon a bench, made shift to try it on. Nor would he stop when Frakork entered, and seeing him with it drawn over his head, cried out that he should put it off. The next day he sickened, and the day after he died. And the bruit of what had happened getting about, Jarl Paul banished Frakork and her kindred from the isles, knowing well that if she remained about his person she would compass his death in some other way."

"Why did he not slay her outright?" asked Olaf.

"Nay, she denied the shirt had wrought Jarl Harald's death, and said the truth—that she would have been the last to cause his death. And she has so many friends amongst the disaffected Jarl Paul was loath to cause more trouble—if only because his cousin, Rognvald Kolson, has become a favorite of King Harald in Norway, and presses for a share in the islands. So the end was that he banished Frakork to the lands she had of her father in Caithness, admonishing her that she should cause no more trouble; and it was to acquaint you with this, and Jarl Paul's wish that you should leave her at peace, so long as she keeps peace, that I was sent hither."

"Where do Maddan Moddad's son's lands begin?" asked young Swain from the skalli floor.

"Why, this side of Morkaorsbakki, as I remember," replied Olaf.

"Then she had the right of me in that," said Swain, "for she bade me ask you where they began and who inherited them."

"She has the right of it," Olaf admitted, "and see to it, Swain, that you keep away from her stead. If Jarl Paul has let her go in peace, it is not for us to make more trouble."

"Aye, if you seek trouble, young water-drinker, come with me next time I fare over Rann's bath," invited Swain Briostreip, emptying his ale-horn. "You shall have trouble—and perhaps a broken head."

Young Swain glowered at him.

"I do not fear you," he muttered.

Swain Briostreip's face became a threatening mask.

"Beware lest I overlook you," he grated in a rumbling whisper. "Do you know, boy, that I outsit with the spirits of the dead, that I can bide by the houghs of your father's father and all his people, aye, and their enemies, and stir them to haunt you? Do you know that I can put a curse——"

Young Swain laughed his derision.

"Nay, Swain Briostreip, I do not think you are as powerful a sorcerer as Frakork, and she put a spell upon me to wither my arm, but no harm came to me. I do not fear you."

Swain Briostreip half-rose from his seat. There was a filmy cloud over his eyes.

"Swain shall be the bane of Swain," he muttered as if to himself.

Olaf caught him by the shoulder, and dragged him back into his seat.

"The boy is my son," said Olaf sternly. "He is forward, which is not surprizing at his age and after he has just won his first fight, but that is no reason for a man of your name——"

"It is the name will do it," interrupted Swain Briostreip.

"Why, that is to be seen," rejoined Olaf. "Fill up your horn. Asleif, send a maid for more ale, and do you, boys, go about your business. This is men's talk here."

Swain Briostreip sank moodily on the bench.

"Aye, it is to be seen," he agreed. "Be careful, young water-drinker. For your father's sake, I have not overlooked you. But be careful. And keep your name from mine."

This was the beginning of the quarrel between Swain and Swain Briostreip, which was the cause of Swain's later adventurings.

 

III

DURING the months that followed Swain and his brothers often sailed past Morkaorsbakki in their fishing-boat, and marked the skalli and outbuildings which Frakork's people had raised and the long shed over the dragonship on the beach; but there was no intercourse between the steads at Dungelsbae and Morkaorsbakki, and when Olaf's people hunted inland they gave the witch-woman's lands a wide berth.

At Yule Olaf's family sailed to Orphir to celebrate the feast with Jarl Paul and his chief odalmen and boendr, and they were present when ambassadors from Rognvald Kol's son presented their lord's demand, approved by King Harald of Norway, that Jarl Paul should yield up to Rognvald one-half of his lands, being the share which Jarl Harald, Paul's brother, formerly had held.

"And why should I do this?" Jarl Paul asked mildly of the messengers.

He was, above all things, a man noted for the easiness of his disposition, generous with his retainers and chiefs, averse to warfare and leaning upon such others as Swain Briostreip when he must resort to violence.

"Mark you," he went on, "King Harald is my lord, and I so own him, yet I see not why he should undertake to disperse my lands, without consulting me. If Rognvald was my brother or my son or my nephew, it might be different; but he is, in fact, my cousin, twice removed."

Swain Briostreip swaggered to the front of the skalli, which was crowded with Jarl Paul's people.

"Yes," he shouted, "why should our good Jarl give to his second cousin what he owes to his own family? Go back to your master, and tell him that the men of Orkney will teach him better manners if he has the courage to put his claim to the chance of battle."

"That will we," returned the chief of the ambassadors, unabashed. "And our lord says by us further that if Jarl Paul's answer is unfavorable he will spare no expense and no amount of blood-letting to drive him from his lands. Coming in peace, he will take only the half. Coming in war, he will take all."

"Brave words!" answered Swain Briostreip. "But words do not win battles or carry dragonships."

"That is to be seen," replied the ambassadors.

"Yes," agreed Jarl Paul, still without heat, "and do you go back to your master, and bid him for me learn modesty and justice."

The odalmen and boendr in the hall loudly applauded this speech, for at that time Jarl Paul was popular, both because of his mild manners and because he had not taken the opportunity of his brother's death to deal harshly with any of those who had been of Jarl Harald's train, saving only Frakork and her following, for whom no man had a good word to speak. And the ambassadors went down to the shore and boarded the longship which had carried them from Norway, and the younger men who had been present in the skalli accompanied them out of curiosity to see them depart upon so unusual a venture as a voyage to Norway at Yuletide.

Swain Olaf's son, with his brothers Valthiof and Gunni, was of these young men, and it was he who exclaimed when the longship turned west past Grimsey and Straumsness, instead of sailing southeast, through Medallands Hofn and between the mainland and Glumshorn, into the eastern sea.

"That is a strange way for Norway," he said.

"You have made the voyage so often," mocked Valthiof, with a brother's scorn.

"But see, brother, that way they dare the full force of the Western Ocean, and the other——"

"They are men old in seafaring," rebuked Gunni. "You will be trying to instruct Jarl Paul next—just because you have been in a fight and a witch tried to spell you!"

But Swain persisted in returning to the skalli and seeking speech with his father at Jarl Paul's high table. Olaf heard him out indulgently, as did the Jarl and several other chiefs who were within earshot; but Swain Briostreip could not forego the chance of belittling him.

"By Thor and Odin!" swore the sorcerer, knowing that thereby he shocked all true Christians. "It is my namesake, the water-drinker. And now he has discovered a plot against our good Jarl. You grow rapidly in fame, Swain Olaf's son. Our lord must call upon you for counsel with the oldest and wisest, I see."

Swain flushed and his hand went to his sword, but he answered the taunt steadily. "Nay, I am not of those who swig ale the while enemies plot against the Jarl," he said.

There was a laugh at this, for Swain Briostreip was the greatest hornman of the Orkneys. Men came from the Sudreyar and as far as Iceland to match drinks with him.

"If you can not drink, perhaps you can pluck a horn from the air," snarled Swain Briostreip, and without more warning, he hurled the vessel in his hand at young Swain's face.

Swain's hand shot out from his shoulder; there was a smack as his palm met the rounded surface; and the next instant he had tossed the horn back upon the table in front of the black-bearded giant.

"I can do all things that an ale-drinker can do," he said.

This time again the laugh was with him, and Jarl Paul, himself, took up the conversation.

"I can see you are a youth of promise, Swain Olaf's son," he remarked kindly. "But as your lord, I would advise you to practise with your weapons before you make an enemy of as famous a man as Swain Briostreip."

"Practise or not, it is all the same thing," rasped Swain Briostreip. "He bears my name, and there shall be trouble from that some day. I have said it. Swain shall be the bane of Swain."

"No, no," insisted the Jarl. "He is a brave youth, and to be encouraged. I take it kindly that he came to acquaint us with his suspicions of Rognvald's men; but his father will be the first to tell him that it matters little which way they went home, so long as they went and tell faithfully how our Orkneymen resented their message."

There was much cheering at this, and clashing of swords and ale-horns on the tables, and under cover of it, Swain withdrew, fuming inwardly at the reception he had had, and vastly displeased, notwithstanding the Jarl's courtesy. Nor was he less disgruntled later when he sought again to interest his father in the route the longship had followed, and Olaf rebuked him sternly for youthful folly and immodesty in daring to thrust his advice, uninvited, upon grown warriors and chiefs.

 

AFTER the Yule feast the gathering broke up, and Olaf and his family sailed home across the Pentland Firth, scudding desperately before the harsh wind that blew from the northwest; and all the time Swain was wondering in his mind how the messengers of Rognvald could have driven their longship against such mighty blasts with no lee to protect them. But he said no more about it, having had his lesson, and he spent the balance of the Winter with his brothers, hunting and fishing and managing the affairs of the stead under his father's instructions.

It was late Spring before Swain had occasion to sail westward through the firth, and being alone at the time, he steered close enough in shore to examine the appearance of Frakork's stead at Morkaorsbakki. Great was his surprize to see dragonship and barges gone, and the skalli boarded up. From a single out-house a plume of smoke rose, and a few women and old men worked in the planted fields. Swain came to a decision with his usual impetuosity. He ran back until a tongue of land hid his movements from the steading, then put in to shore and drove his keel up on a stretch of the shingly beach. From here it was a half-hour's walk to Frakork's fields, and he made no difficulty of bespeaking one of the servants.

The old man trembled under Swain's interrogation, but held to the assertion that he knew nothing of his mistress's plans. She and Olvir Rosta, with all the able-bodied men, had sailed west for the Sudreyar as soon as the Winter winds had lost their most dangerous violence. What they were planning to do he did not know, go a-viking, most likely. Olvir Rosta, young as he was, had successfully conducted a raiding cruise the Summer before. And Swain's gorge rose at the thought that this youth, no older than himself, whom he had bested, unarmed, was two cruises ahead of him already. He relinquished a temptation to put a torch to the skalli, and returned to his boat, in no mood for fishing.

To add to his discomforture, his father heard his news with scant interest.

"Frakork keeps a full company of housecarles," Olaf said. "She must feed them and pay them, and such lands as she has left will not do that. It is natural for her to send Olvir on viking cruise. They are burning in the Sudreyar or Ireland—it is nothing to us, so long as they keep the peace in Caithness."

Twice again in the next month Swain visited Morkaorsbakki, but without securing more information; and Summer was at hand when a Danish merchant put in to Dungalsbae and reported having sighted Frakork's dragonship in Scotland's Firth. Another month passed, and then one day a barge dashed up to the beach in a shower of foam, the oarsmen pulling as if their lives depended upon it. One of Jarl Paul's housecarles sat in the bow, and he leaped to shore without waiting to help in beaching the craft.

"A summons from the Jarl!" he shouted to Olaf and his sons. "Shove out your longship and muster your men. Rognvald is in the Hjaltlands and Frakork and Olvir Rosta are leading a fleet from the Sudreyar to join him. The Jarl's men gather at Westness in Hrolfsey."

With that he was off again, and Olaf's people set about the task of hauling out the dragon, which lay in its shed on Dungelabae shore. The sails were taken down from the rafters in the women's bower, where they had been kept dry and warm, and the oars and sweeps and the mast and gear were routed from beneath the skalli's benches. Weapons and armor were stripped from the walls and loaded in the decked after-cabin, and Asleif and her maids packed the forecastle space with food and ale and water. The older men who were no longer fit for cruises went over the seams to make sure there were no leaks, and stowed a sufficiency of stones under the midships planking, partly for ballast and partly for use as missiles in close fighting.

Then there was a final mustering of tenants, servants and housecarles, and eighty of the strongest were told off for crew. It was still early in the afternoon when all was ready, and Olaf and his sons gathered in front of the skalli to say good-by.

"I have bidden old Gorm Fostrison take charge here for you, wife," said Olaf, "seeing that it is not fitting when the Jarl is in great need of our aid, that one of our sons should remain at home."

"That is as it should be, husband," replied Asleif. "Our sons, now that they are grown men, can not be behind their father."

And she kissed each of them calmly and without tears, but if there was any difference in her farewells she lingered longest over Swain. As has been said, she was known for a wise woman, and some claimed that she had the gift of fore-looking; but be that as it might, it is certain she had the feeling that Swain was destined for great things.

Swain had thoughts of his own. The dragon had been floated, and his father was preparing to go aboard over the landing- plank, when he made a suggestion, which men afterward' said did much to alter the course of events.

"See you, father," he said. "There are two ways for Frakork's fleet to come up from the Sudreyar."

"Undoubtedly," returned Olaf.

"If they come by the west of Hrossey and through Efjusund the Jarl's people will sight them," continued Swain.

"Any fool would know that," rejoined his father. "Get to your point, boy."

"My point is this: If they come by Pentland Firth and then up the east coast of Rognvaldsey, how is our lord to know of their coming? He may be surprized."

"That is well-thought," agreed Olaf. "What is your plan?"

"That you leave me behind you in my red fishing-boat, which can outsail any longship in these parts, and I will keep a watch off Rognvaldsey, and if I see Frakork approaching I will sail on before them and carry word to you at Westness."

Olaf clapped him on the shoulder.

"You have used your wits, Swain. You shall do so. And Jarl Paul shall know of your forethought."

So when the longship stood out past Pentland Sker, the red fishing-boat lurked behind, running close-hauled under the lee of Rognvaldsey, the first of the larger island masses of the Orkneys, which lies to the south and east of Hrossey, called by the islanders the Mainland, because it is the largest.

Swain watched the dragonship gradually dwindle in the distance like a red-and-green insect crawling on its sixty oars across the quiet Summer sea. To the south he could see the smoke rising from Dungelsbae steadroofs and inland from scattered farms. A fisher's cottage showed on tiny isle Sker. The coast of Rognvaldsey at his back was dotted with steads and cots, mainly deserted in fear of a descent from Frakork's people or some wide-roving longship of Rognvald's fleet. And the waters of the Firth stretched absolutely empty, almost at rest for once, disturbed by no more than a slow, easy lift and swing, except where treacherous currents ripped and swirled in the center of the channel.

Nothing happened before darkness shut down, and Swain knew that no fleet would attempt that passage at night, so he beached his craft in a cove on Rognvaldsey and slept until the eastern sky began to whiten with the first hint of day. With that he munched such food as he had in his waist-pouch and put out into the Firth. He was scarce a quarter way to Sker when low in the west he sighted a clump of masts and hulls stealing quietly toward him.

He counted them as well as he could, half-disposed to wonder if they could really be his quarry. Now that his fears had been justified he was inclined to question his own eyes. But no twelve vessels sailing in close company in those waters were bound upon a peaceful errand. A fleet meant war or piracy; and in the circumstances they could be no other than Frakork's contingent bound north to meet Rognvald's longships from Norway—and Swain experienced a sensation of misgiving at the idea of two such strong forces combined against Jarl Paul.

There was one thing for him to do—outsail the enemy with word of their approach. He ran up his sail, squared off before the steady southwest breeze, and the red fishing-boat slipped through the water at a pace that soon dropped the clump of masts below the shadowy horizon's rim.

Rognvaldsey was no more than a gray cloud astern of him as the sun came fairly out. He left Borgarey on his left and ran through the gut between Kolbeinsey and its attendant rocks and Deerness, bore up to the north again and ran into the heart of the islands, past the Midi of Deerness. It was early morning when he sighted Jarl Paul's fleet, five dragonships, fully manned, off Westness, and his heart sank anew at the odds against them. But he rallied his courage as he remembered that most of the dozen masts he had sighted had been too low to rise over war-dragons. A part, the greater part, of Frakork's fleet were open barges, and could never meet a longship in open fighting. At any rate, there were no more than two courses—to fight or to flee. And he knew the Orkneymen too well to believe that they would yield before the heaviest odds when flight meant exile. So he hauled taut his sheet, and wove in and out of the rocks to the side of the Seascraper, Jarl Paul's dragon, lying at the outer end of the line of ships.

 

IV

JARL PAUL and his chiefs stood on the quarter-deck of the Seascraper, arguing the plan of battle, and Swain marveled at the various views expressed. To him there was but one course to pursue.

"It is all very well what the water-drinker says," bawled Swain Briostreip; "but we have yet to reckon with Rognvald, and the last news we had was that he had put into Alasund in the Hjaltlands with six dragonships. Suppose we go against Frakork and Olvir, and Rognvald comes upon us from the rear? My counsel is that we steer for Alasund and account first for Rognvald. It may be we can pick up another dragon or two on the way."

"Not so," objected a second man, Sigurd of Westness, who was very rich and chary of his future. "My counsel is that we await them all here, for if they best us at sea, nevertheless we can then take to the land, which we know well, and they will be hard put to it to——"

"The land!" sneered Swain Briostreip. "You mean your land. Westness means nothing to the rest of us."

And so they disputed back and forth, Olaf alone arguing openly for meeting Frakork's fleet. Jarl Paul stood in the midst of them in his silvered coat of mail, with his sword at his side and his raven shield on his arm, and pulled his mustaches and wrinkled his brows, inclining now this way and now that. For he was a man who believed in justice and was fond of decisions that inspired no resentment, and therefore he dreaded to do aught which would create dissension in his following.

Swain, still standing by the helmsman's bench on the quarter-deck, listened to all this talking with steadily growing impatience, and at last he could support it no longer. Availing himself of a temporary lull in the debate, he thrust himself forward and called out to the puzzled Jarl—

"Do you see the sun, my lord?"

Jarl Paul followed his pointing finger toward the sky.

"Yes, Swain; but what has that——"

"The day shortens apace," rejoined Swain. "You have talked close to an hour already, and Frakok's people are so much nearer to you, and Rognvald's likewise, if they have started. I am a youth, with no right to be here, but I say it is foolish for tried warriors to waste time in this fashion. This is more like the women's stofa in my father's skalli than the quarter-deck of a dragonship. Make an end of talking, and do something."

All in the group stared at him with a surprize which on several faces rapidly became resentment or anger. Never before had a youth whose beard was scarce grown so harangued his betters.

"What manner of cub is this?" demanded Sigurd.

"Is it so you train your sons, Olaf?" asked Thorkel Flettir.

But Swain Briostreip roared the loudest of all, so loud that the crews of the other longships came to the shield-walls on their starboard sides and stared in amazement, wondering what was happening aboard the Seascraper.

"Who are you, water-drinker, to speak as an equal to your father's friends? For this I will whip you the length of the gangway. Too long you have been allowed to nourish your insolence."

Olaf knew not what to say. He believed Swain had spoken justly, and at the same time his feelings were outraged by his lack of respect.

"The boy means well, Lord Jarl," he stammered.

"He means insolence," shouted Swain Briostreip. "Ho, in the waist there! Fetch me a rope's-end, well-knotted."

But Jarl Paul stopped him.

"No fighting, my friends," he commanded, stepping to young Swain's side. "We shall need our swords for our enemies, and our ropes'-ends for captives. Also, I think there is much in what Swain Olaf's son has said. He is a forward youth, yet a wily. If I mistake not, it was he who drew our attention last Yule feast to the fact that Rognvald's messengers sailed west from Orphir, instead of east."

"It was I, Lord Jarl," answered Swain sturdily; "and it would have been better for you if you had heeded me at that time, and sent after them, for it is certain that they fared toward Caithness and arranged this hell-brewing of today with Frakork and Olvir."

"Hold your tongue, boy," his father ordered unhappily. "Men have lost their's for less than you have said."

Jarl Paul dropped his hand on Swain's shoulder. "No, I take it in good part," he answered. "The youth means well, and if he lives he will be a great warrior. He has given wise counsel, and I shall accept it; and as a sign of my approval I shall retain him at my side in the fighting, for I know one as quick-witted as he will be equally ready with his hands."

There was grumbling over this, but Jarl Paul was firm in his decisions, once he had been driven to reach them, and there were certain men, Sigurd of Westness, for one, who were not sorry to see a slight put upon Swain Briostreip.

The outsitter made no secret of his feelings as the chiefs dispersed to their ships.

"It is sufficiently humiliating to bear the name of an unwhipped puppy," he snarled, "but how much worse it is to fare battleward with him on the same deck. We shall have to detail our stanchest shield-men to protect him, and if Frakork's men come aboard he is more likely to injure his friends with his sword than do harm to our enemies."

Young Swain held his peace, partly because at that moment Jarl Paul held his arm.

"It is a well-manned ship which carries two such fire-eaters, an old one and a young one," the Jarl said with a smile. "With Swain on the forecastle and Swain on the quarter-deck we shall sweep all before us."

"From the mast to the dragon, yes," grunted Swain Briostreip.

"It will be you who give ground first, Swain Ale-drinker," flashed young Swain.

A laugh broke from all the chiefs.

"Words are words," hinted Swain Briostreip darkley. "And I say, Swain will be the bane of Swain."

"Peace, peace," called Jarl Paul. "Get to your station. Put the oarsmen in the benches and make ready the sail. We have far to go before nightfall."

 

THE ships moved speedily, and they were off Tankerness when the masthead men sighted twelve sails rounding the point of Muli. Jarl Paul frowned at the spectacle.

"They are twice our number in men," he muttered. "I reckon naught of the extra ships, except that it will enable them to come on us from all sides."

"But how if we bound our ships together, Lord Jarl?" Swain suggested eagerly. "Two and two, with your dragon alone between both pairs?"

Jarl Paul stroked his beard, considering.

"That is a wise thought, young Swain," he said finally. "But if you permit me to save argument this time, I shall use it as coming from my own mind."

And he had the sail lowered, until the following ships came up, when the orders were shouted from deck to deck and cables made fast, prow and stern, so that, as Swain had advised, the five dragons lay in three tiers, two in the first, the Jarl's alone in the second, and two more astern of the Seascraper. The oars were drawn in, helms were donned and weapons laid out, and they awaited the enemy's coming, nor did they wait long.

At the first sight of Jarl Paul's raven sails, the twelve invaders increased their speed, and Swain, on the Seascraper's quarter-deck, could see the spray spurting from the oar-blades and swashing back from the shapely prows as they drew nearer. Their decks were jammed with men, squat, hairy fellows from the Sudreyar; lean Irishmen; immense, red-haired Scots. A distant shouting grew louder and louder, and with a faint, sighing hiss-tsst the first arrow quivered into the Seascraper's side.

"Hither, shield-men!" ordered Jarl Paul. "Give the helmsmen cover. No, not you, young Swain. I want you at my side."

So the two fleets came together, men shouting, oars rattling, shields and armor clanking as the missiles drove home. Frakork's vessels split into two divisions and came up on each flank of Jarl Paul's line. Only one of them was sufficiently large by itself to lie against any of Jarl Paul's dragons, and that was Frakork's own longship. The others were smaller longships or else open barges, holding thirty men apiece. These flung themselves indiscriminately against the joined dragons. But Frakork held off until she made sure which was Jarl Paul's.

Then the hostile dragon turned in, and Swain for the first time identified the witch-woman's tall figure on the quarter-deck, dressed in mail coat and with shield on arm and spear in hand. On the forecastle stood a squat, dark-browed figure, which he knew must be Olvir Rosta, and he caught up a spear from the deck and hurled it with all his might at Olvir's breast. But at that moment the stem of Frakork's ship rammed the Seascraper's side forward of the mast, and he was pitched from his feet and overthrown with the Jarl and all who had not caught hold of the bulwarks. When he stood up, Olvir and a swarm of housecarles had boarded the Seascraper, and Swain Briostreip, descending from the forecastle, was battling madly to hold the waist in front of the mast, while the archers of Frakork's quarter-deck drove their shafts into the huddled ranks.

"This is a bad business," said Jarl Paul, surveying the shambles on his own deck. "What was that?" as a long object whistled past his shoulder.

"It was Frakork's spear, Lord Jarl," answered Swain, pointing to the writhing body of one of the helmsmen, pierced through shield and mail.

Jarl Paul made to cast his own spear back at the impassive figure whose rich robes flowed beneath the covering harness, but he held his hand.

"No, I can not assail a woman," he said. "Our Lord was born of a woman."

"But not that woman," objected Swain practically.

Jarl Paul smiled.

"True, Swain, and yet it seems to me your father told me that once you might have killed her, but did not."

"I shall know better next time," returned Swain, and cast another spear at her.

But she interposed her shield and it glanced off into the ranks of her archers.

"The spear is not made that can kill me, Swain Olaf's son," she called shrilly across the narrow space that separated them. "I shall not die by steel. Ho, archers, shoot me those two, Jarl Paul in the silver mail and the youth at his side."

The arrow-flight battered their shields and rang on helms and mail, and Jarl Paul grimaced at the bite of a shaft that found a shoulder-joint.

"Hitherto, you have given counsel, Swain," he said. "But now, if you will listen to me, we shall abandon this place, where we are of no use, save to attract the enemy's archers and the guile of that witch, and drop into the waist. Unless I greatly err, your namesake is hard-pushed."

"Even as I said he would be," boasted Swain.

"All the more reason, then, for you to save him," replied the Jarl.

He lifted his voice in a shout that quelled the fighting amidships.

"Olvir Rosta, stand forth!"

Olvir lowered a bloody sword, and turned his eyes toward the quarter-deck.

"Who calls?" he demanded.

"Your lord and Jarl."

And with this, Jarl Paul threw the spear he had withheld when he faced Frakork. It drove like a beam of light lengthwise of the crowded gangway, over the heads of friends and foes, and Olvir lifted his hacked shield to catch it.

"You must throw harder than that, Jarl Paul," he answered, plucking it from the tough linden-wood, and he flung it back so fast that no man saw it, and Swain marveled how the Jarl was able to raise his shield in time. The point tore through the emblazoned raven and clanged upon the Jarl's breast with such force that he fell to the deck, and all men held their breath, thinking that he was dead. But in the next moment, Jarl Paul had scrambled to his feet again, and he leaped from the quarter-deck to the waist and ran forward, shouting:

"To me, Jarl's men! To me! Paul goes forward!"

Swain followed him, struggling first to force a passage between their own men, but soon breast to breast with Olvir's housecarles, brawney, war-hardened fellows, who feared nothing afloat. They were pushing steadily aft, herding the Seascraper's men before their shield-wall, and Swain was boxed in with the herd, until a swirl in the fighting carried him amongst the rear benches next to Swain Briostreip.

"Ho, water-drinker," barked the outsitter, "how is it you have not broken Olvir's shield-wall?"

"I have waited to see you fling him back from the forcastle," replied Swain.

"He never set foot on the forecastle," foamed Swain Briostreip, which was true, for the enemy had boarded farther aft.

Jarl Paul disengaged himself from the wavering line across the Seascraper's waist, and hurled himself upon the two Swains.

"All is lost if we do not fight Olvir off," he cried. "Come! We must try one more charge."

Young Swain slipped in a puddle of blood as he made to accompany the Jarl, and barked his knee upon a jagged stone which stuck up from the ballast under the deck-planks.

"Here is the way to fight Olvir off," he shouted, heaving the stone above his shoulder, and he tossed it over the heads of their men into the opposing ranks.

It cracked the helmet of one of Olvir's housecarles and crushed the head beneath. There was a gap in that menacing shield-wall, and the Jarl's men stormed into it, their courage revived.

Swain Briostreip was down on his knees, tugging at a second stone, as young Swain stooped for a third.

"This is for Olvir, himself," roared Swain Briostreip, poising his missile to take aim.

Swain Olaf's son staggered up beside the sorcerer, his eyes seeking Olvir's swart face in the shield-wall.

"I'll hit him first!" he challenged, as he identified Frakork's grandson at the far edge of the opposing line, balanced on the larboard gunwale.

The two stones whistled through the air side by side, but midway of their arc they struck each other, and one shot downward to smash the arm of a luckless housecarle. The other struck Olvir Rosta a glancing blow on the shoulder, and he went spinning overside.

A shout of dismay rose from his followers. A yell of satisfaction came from the Jarl's men, and they surged forward with a rush that drove their enemies before them. Swain Olaf's son, racing to the gunwale to seek trace of Olvir, had a brief glimpse of a pair of unarmored men roping an inert figure in the water, and then he was caught in the whirlpool that swept the last of Olvir's people back to Frakork's dragon. Several of the Seascraper's crew started to climb after the fugitives, but Swain Briostreip pulled them back.

"Stay aboard, Jarl's men!" he bellowed. "They are cutting the grappling-ropes—and we have not enough strength to carry their deck without aid. Wait for our friends, and we'll give chase."

From Farkork, herself, came an answering call, thin and penetrating:

"Out oars, all! Never heed those fools, if they board. We'll take care of them. Back water! Back, all oars! Pull, larboard oars! Back, starboard! Steady, away! Pull, starboard—pull, all!"

Young Swain, hanging to the rigging, saw the long dragonship crawl around on its tail, as it were, and make off, its oars dipping wearily and with effort, its waist strewn with dead and wounded men. His eyes were fastened upon two figures on the quarter-deck—Frakork, tall and stately in her armor, undaunted in the face of defeat, and Olvir Rosta, struggling to his feet beside her, arguing with fierce gestures against flight.

"The witch is the wiser of the two," sneered Swain Briosteip in his ear. "Well, water-drinker, that was a good plan of yours, to use the ballast-stones. But not many could have hit their mark at the first throw, as I did."

"As you did?" repeated young Swain.

"Who else? And but for your stone's striking mine in mid-flight I should have hit Olvir fair in the chest and he would have been dead by now."

Swain swallowed hard.

"It was my stone struck him," he gasped.

Swain Briostreip chuckled.

"The boy's head is turned," he appealed to Jarl Paul, who was close by. "He thinks he did all."

"He did much," returned the Jarl pleasantly.

"But he says it was his stone that hit Olvir!" exclaimed young Swain.

"Very likely," said Jarl Paul soothingly. "He is an old warrior, Swain Olaf's son. But no man on my ship fought better than you, as I will tell all men."

"Nevertheless," persisted Swain stubbornly, "it was my stone struck Olvir, and but for the ale-drinker's hitting it in air, it would——"

"Ha, ha, just what I said," laughed Swain Briostreip. "What a boastful youth!"

"But I——"

"But you!" mocked the outsitter. And with sudden wrath: "Have a care! You tempt me too far, young Swain. From your father's son I have accepted much, but there is a point past which none ventures. No man alive can rob me of my deeds. A cut throat lies that way!"

Swain Olaf's son's sword was out, but Jarl Paul came between them.

"Here are two men will be the death of me, their lord," he protested, half-laughing. "Peace, both of you! At the least, it was Swain's stone struck Olvir down. No man can deny that."

There was a laugh from the housecarles and servants of the Jarl around them, for the wit of the contention pleased all.

"Yes, yes, Swain did it," men called out all over the deck. "It was Swain's stone, whatever be said."

"Aye, and not Swain Briostreip's," growled young Swain.

"I said Swain's," repeated the Jarl. "Put up your sword, young Swain. See, the enemy are fleeing right and left. Your father and Eyvind Melbrigdi's son have cleared five of them. We must give chase."

And this was the way of the battle which some men called "The Hunting of Frakork," but others named "Swain's Stone." No two men agreed upon who flung the stone, but all said Swain did it. And like the stone thrown in the pool, which sends ripples farther than the eye can follow, this stone, which could not be traced to the hand that flung it, impelled happenings which ran on and on over the years, until it would be difficult to say where they stopped—if they have ever stopped.

 

V

JARL PAUL'S five dragonships followed the remnants of Frakork's fleet along the east coast of Hrossey and Rognvaldsey into the Pentland Firth, but when the enemy turned their prows toward the Sudreyar the pursuers abandoned the chase and steered back to Tankerness. In the night two more longships came to them, together with many additional troops, so that it was possible for the Jarl to man the five small longships taken from Frakork, and in the morning he found himself at the head of a fleet of twelve ships, big and little. All men were agreed now that the one thing to do was to fall upon Rognvald at once before he had word of Frakork's defeat, and they sailed north for the Hjaltlands, regulating their course so that they should reach Alasund about dusk.

At Alasund everything fell out as had been planned. Rognvald and most of his men were ashore, and Jarl Paul's fleet easily possessed themselves of his six dragons after slaying the ship-tenders, all except one who swam to the beach and carried tidings of the disaster to his master. That night the Orkneymen slept on their rowing-benches, and in the morning Rognvald came to the shore with his troops, and shouted a challenge to Jarl Paul to land and fight out their quarrel, shield-wall to shield-wall, so that it should be finally settled.

Olaf and several other chiefs were for accepting this challenge, but in the end the Jarl decided against it for reasons which satisfied all his supporters. He pointed out that they had succeeded sufficiently in crippling Rognvald's ability to come against them by taking his dragons. Also, Rognvald still had upwards of five hundred warriors, who were schooled men-at-arms, professional vikings, while the Orkney levies were mostly composed of farmers and servants. And besides this, the Hjaltlanders were his friends and would muster sufficient support for him to overcome the superiority of the Orkneymen.

"It is probable that we should win," concluded the Jarl, "but we should lose many of our own people, and I see no reason for ruling the death of hundreds of my friends merely to secure the death of Rognvald. Moreover, he is the close friend of King Harald, and the king would never forgive me if I caused his death."

The upshot of it was that Jarl Paul sailed away to Orphir with the captured dragons, and Rognvald was left to accept the hospitality of the Hjaltlanders, until sufficient merchantships were secured to carry his expedition home to Norway. Although he was a stout warrior and afterwards gained a great reputation, it was many years before he lived down the humiliation of the defeat Jarl Paul had put upon him.

Jarl Paul was much pleased with the victory he had won, and he held a sumptuous feast at Orphir for all his friends and vassels. He was careful at this feast to single out both Swain Briostreip and Swain Olaf's son for equal honors, calling again and again upon the scalds to recite the story of their deeds, and the matter of Swain's Stone became a common jest of the countryside, so that if men disputed over who had done or said anything people laughed and said—

"It is another Swain's Stone."

He also made presents to those who had helped him, bestowing a farm upon Swain Briostreip and Frakork's lands and the isle of Gairsey upon Olaf of Dungelsbae. To Swain Olaf's son he gave the dragonship of Rognvald, Deathbringer, a splendid craft of thirty oars a side, with a red sail and upper works, saying—

"You have yet to go upon your first viking cruise, young Swain, but when you do I think the youths of the islands will flock to you, and it is my desire that you shall be prepared to win the success you deserve."

Swain thanked him, and with the help of his brothers and their people shifted the dragon to his father's new estate at Gairsey, where they hauled it ashore under a proper shed and made it safe for the Winter. All men approved the favor the Jarl showed him, except Swain Briostreip, who declared openly that it was a shame a boastful cub should be permitted to assume the place of a chief when he had never yet been on viking cruise or justified himself without older men's aid. But Olaf and the Jarl saw to it that the two Swains were kept apart, and no harm resulted at that time from their feud.

Of Frakork word came that she had established herself upon an estate in Sudrland under the protection of the Scots, and an Iceland rover brought news in the Autumn on his way to the north that Olvir Rosta had been plowing a path of blood and fire through the south of Ireland, taking vengeance where he could for the defeat he had suffered at Jarl Paul's hands.

"But he tells all men," added the rover, "that the one he holds chiefly to blame for what has happened to him is Swain Olaf's son, and he promises that the day will come when he will exact payment tenfold for Swain's Stone."

Swain Olaf's son was standing near in Jarl Paul's skalli, and he laughed.

"It is easily to be seen who Olvir thinks cast the stone," he observed.

"No, there are two named Swain," replied the Jarl. "How could Olvir be sure?"

"And one Swain is a famous man and the other is a niddering," said Swain Briostreip.

"Peace, peace," adjured the Jarl wearily.

But people took even more account of Swain Olaf's son after that, and Swain Briostreip sat out all the long Autumn nights men said, seeking a spell to put upon his namesake. So the days passed to another Yule.

 

VI

AS USUAL, Jarl Paul invited Olaf Gutorm's son and his family to the Yule feast at Orphir that year; but Olaf replied that he had so much work to do on account of his acquisition of Frakork's land at Morkaorsbakki that he must bide at home in Dungelsbae, and he was at pains to muster all his family and relations for the feast, seeing that it signalized a year of great prosperity. Swain and Valthiof and Gunni, with the young men of the tenants and the housecarles, were busy hunting and fishing a month in advance that there might be a sufficiency of food for all the guests.

Three days before Yule Asleif decided that she would pay a brief visit to her sister, who dwelt at Lambabiorg, a short distance south of Dungelsbae on the coast of Caithness toward the beginning of the Breida Firth; and Gunni elected to accompany her. Also, there was a cry this day from the kitchen-maids that the fish was all salted, and Olaf bade Swain, after carrying his mother and Gunni to Lambabiorg, to put out to sea and try for a full catch that there might be fresh fish for the guests who would commence arriving the next day.

"Stay out until you have covered the thwarts," he said, "if you are absent until Yule Eve."

There was no thought in the minds of any of them that danger was near, and indeed, as the luck fell it would have helped in no wise had Swain and Gunni and the few men with them remained at home. Rather, it was fortunate that by accident some of Olaf's family escaped the doom Frakork had plotted for all.

For what happened was this: Olaf and Valthiof had made their rounds of the stead the night before Yule Eve, seeing that the barns were fastened and the cattle shut in their pens, and sat at meat in the skalli, laughing at the troubles Swain must be having at sea, when there came of a sudden a wild howling and yelling from the stead-yard, and old Gorm Fostrison burst into the hall.

"Olvir's men are all about us!" he cried. "They have fired the stables and the ricks."

Olaf and Valthiof snatched up their swords and shields and ran to the entrance of the skalli, with a handful of servingmen at their backs, for most of their housecarles had been dispersed amongst the houses of the tenant farmers. There were not, altogether, more than six or eight men in the skalli at the time.

From the doorway they could see clearly by the towering flames of the burning ricks and outbuildings the scurrying figures of Olvir Rosta's men forming a ring around the skalli.

"This is a bad business," said Olaf.

"Let us run out and see if we can cut through them," suggested Valthiof.

"No, that way lies death. Let us, first, see if we can arrive at a composition with them."

And Olaf raised his voice and called for Oivir.

"Who is that?" answered Olvir, standing forward in the tightening ring about the skalli.

He wore a horned helm, after the fashion of the old viking people, and the fires made his sword shine red as if with blood as he held it naked in his hand.

"It is I, Olaf Gutorm's son. Why do you come here, burning and slaying, Olvir?"

"For vengeance. Who has taken my family's lands and aided to drive me from my own country?"

"You rebelled against the Jarl. I did no more than keep my faith with him."

"Words, all words," snarled Olvir. "I played a hand and lost. Now, I play a hand and win—and so that I may win, you must lose."

"I will pay you composition for your lands," offered Olaf. "I owe you no blood-money."

"You owe me for a stone that made me a laughing-stock amongst men," rejoined Olvir savagely. "And the payment for that stone shall be in blood."

"Put it to the trial of combat, then. We will come out and fight you."

"No, it will do you no good to come out, Olaf. We shall drive you back, and burn you in your own skalli."

He turned and signaled behind him.

"Bring up those torches, you men, and set the roof alight."

The words had not left his lips when the torches began to curve through the air and clatter on the sloping roof and eaves. It had been a dry Winter, and a smell of burning wood was wafted through the rafters. Olaf shook his head sadly.

"This is the end, Valthiof," he said. "Yet I will try once more."

And again he hailed Olvir Rosta, while the flames licked upward from the roof.

"Will you let some of us fight our way out, if we can?"

Olvir hesitated, and a tall, robed figure stole to his side from the shadows that dodged and shifted over the steading as the flames leaped and twisted.

"I will let Swain come out for that purpose," he answered.

"Swain is not here," replied Olaf. "He is where he will be safe to plot his own vengeance for this night's work."

"Then none may come out, except to be maimed and cast back."

"But there are women."

Again the robed figure glided into the light and inclined its head toward Olvir's ear.

"We will allow all the women to pass through us, safe and unharmed, saving only Asleif," he said then. "Of your family not one shall escape us, Olaf. If we do not slay Swain this time, yet his end is certain, for we will be his enemies to the day of his death."

"Swain can look to himself," returned Olaf grimly. "And it is bad for your plans, Olvir, that Asleif and Gunni, too, are safe. You will not make a clean sweep tonight. But I have one more request to make of you before we try steel and fire."

"What is that?" asked Olvir, and he signaled his men in closer, fearing a strategem to put him off his guard.

"I have here Gorm Fostrison. He is an old man. His father was my father's foster-brother. I would have you let him go free. He is not in this quarrel by any tie of blood."

Olvir Rosta made instant acceptance of this.

"He shall go free," he promised. "I admit it the more gladly because I am anxious to save a voice to tell your family how I have humbled them."

Gorm was very loath to go. He had taken a sword from the wall and was resolved to die by his master's side; but Olaf presented the case to him in a few words.

"I must have one to carry sure word of this to Swain," he said. "Also, I would have Asleif know how Valthiof and I died. I can not trust this to the maids."

"Very well," agreed Gorm, his face all working with grief. "It is the sorriest night of my life, but Swain shall be told, if they, indeed, let me live. Almost I hope they will betray their promise. What shall I say to Swain, master?"

"Tell him that Frakork's hand directed this work, and that my last word is to carry to her the doom she wrought for me."

"That is a message easy to remember, master. And what shall I say to Asleif?"

Olaf glanced back into the skalli. The heat of the burning roof was already perceptible, and the flames were spreading over the side walls. Bits of burning wood commenced to fall upon the beaten floor. The smoke was almost strangling, but through it, by the glare of the torches that stood in iron holders fixed to the roof pillars, he could see the door of the stofa at the far end. Beyond lay the bower in which he and Asleif had lived for twenty-odd years. He sighed.

"Tell her— No, tell her that my thought of her can not be compassed in words, Gorm. Bid her for me steel Swain and Gunni to stop not for blood-money or toil or danger or the passage of years, until Frakork and Olvir are dead. That is all."

Valthiof in the mean time had been mustering the sniveling maids from the kitchen and ale-room, and they were ready at the door. Olaf called again to Olvir, who stood a spear-cast distant.

"Gorm brings out the maids."

Olvir merely nodded his head, but the tall, robed figure appeared from the enshrouding shadows, and as the little file of women stumbled, weeping, across the steading, it went up to them and drew back the hood of each and stared into the lined face of Gorm.

"She is no fool, that witch," commented Olaf. "Many a man has been smuggled in woman's gear from a burning skalli. Well, Valthiof, how shall we make an end—in here where our foes can not exult over our sufferings. Or in the open?"

Valthiof was a simple youth, big as Swain in girth and stature, but without his quickness of wit. Withal, he was held honest and steadfast.

"It is my desire to take some of them with us, father," he said. "But I will be governed by you."

"That is an honorable wish," approved Olaf.

He turned to the five or six of the serving-men and housecarles who remained with them.

"I know that you are all brave men," he said, "and not afraid to die with your master, but if there is one of you who thinks he might prevail upon Frakork and Rosta to let him go safe, I shall not blame him."

They shuffled their feet uncertainly, and then one, the oldest, answered:

"No, master, none of us would seek safety, if we might have it. We have plowed and reaped, sailed and fought, with you, and your fate shall be our fate, even as your enemies are our enemies."

The others rattled their swords on the shield-faces, and a bright light—brighter than the glare of the flames that were blazing all around them—shone in Olaf 's face.

"A man has not lived in vain who can count upon such followers to die with him," he cried. "Come! Let us slay and be slain!"

There was a great shout from Olvir's housecarles as the little band plunged into view from the burning house. So high roared the flames now that every tuft of grass and boulder in the steading stood out clear and distinct, and the cleverness of Frakork was revealed by the trick she had held in reserve for this moment. For she had six archers with her under a low wall, and these men loosed arrows into the group as soon as they appeared, killing several of the unarmored servingmen and wounding another. By the time Olaf and Valthiof came to blows with Olvir's swordsmen their strength was cut in half.

To Gorm and the group of maids, who stood under guard behind Frakork, the fight seemed to last interminably, but actually it was over in the time required for Olvir's shield-ring to close around Olaf's people. Two men Olaf slew, and a third died from the loss of an arm that Valthiof hewed off. Then they were overborne by dint of numbers, crushed between grinding shields, hacked and hamstrung—and their twitching bodies cast back into the raging furnace of the skalli.

The flames bellied in mad delight as the bodies were hurled through the doorway, and the green eyes of Frakork glowed with infernal joy. Gorm Fostrison shuddered and the maids hid their faces when the witch woman turned to them.

"This is the fate of those who joined in the 'Hunting of Frakork'!" she said. "Tell Swain Olaf's son that I go now to brew death for him, but I think it will be a long time coming. He is to be the death of many before his own end finds him."

Gorm Fostrison was a brave man, for all his age and his spindling figure.

"Where shall I tell Olaf to seek you, lady?" he asked.

The witch woman studied him impassively.

"Where he can not follow," she answered.

 

VII

SWAIN drove ashore before an easterly half-gale at dusk of Yule Eve, his boat brimming with haddock and plaice. His mother and Gunni met him on the beach, and he heard their tale in silence. When they had finished and Gorm Fostrison had added such details as he asked for, Swain walked to the ashes of the skalli and stared moodily at the gray waste which had been his home and was his father's tomb. Night had shut down, and the Winter stars sparkled frostily overhead.

"If I sought to satisfy myself, I should gather such men as we could reach, take ship with them and sail west until I found Olvir and his witch grandmother," he said.

"That is the best plan, anyway," urged Gunni impetuously. "And I will go with you."

But Asleif answered—

"It is best that you should try to determine what your father would have desired, Swain."

"That was my thought," he replied. "And he would have wished me to do two things—acquaint Jarl Paul with this insult to him, as well as to us, and make you safe."

"My safety means nothing to me," she returned. "My heart is under those ashes."

"Nevertheless, it means much to us," he said. "Moreover, it is to be remembered that Gunni is over-young to go on viking cruises."

"If you are old enough, I am old enough," declared his brother.

"No, you have yet to gain some of your strength. And also, our mother must be protected and helped, and our lands guarded. If one of us goes to sea, the other must stay by her, and since I am the oldest I say that I shall go and you shall stay."

Gunni grumbled sorely at this, but Asleif quieted him with a mournful gesture.

"How shall I be safe?" she asked Swain.

"At Gairsey, on our new lands, mother. It is plain that here you can not bide, without a roof to cover you or food to eat; and here, too, you would be exposed to a second raid from Frakork. Gunni shall take you to Gairsey, with Gorm to aid you in establishing yourself. I go now to Jarl Paul."

They started that night in two boats. The larger party sailed all the way to Gairsey by sea, but Swain crossed the Firth to Swefney, secured there a pilot for the inner waters, and kept on to Knarstane. From there he traveled overland to Orphir after a day's rest. He came into the Jarl's skalli just before evensong of Yule, and the feasting was halted the while he told his tale.

Of those present, at the high table and along the common men's benches, all exclaimed with sorrow, Jarl Paul most of all; but Swain Briostreip, who sat in his accustomed place at the Jarl's right hand, was silent. They were drinking mead in cups, and Jarl Paul made his cup-boy fill a cup for Swain Olaf's son, and because it was cold and he had traveled far, Swain accepted the drink, although, as has been shown, he was known from boyhood for his distaste for strong drink. Swain Briostreip extended his cup to be refilled at the same time, and he sneered when the cup-boy poured his namesake's only half-full at a sign from Swain Olaf's son.

"Bah, water-drinker!" he said. "You are a sluggard at your drink—and a sluggard at drinking must be a sluggard at fighting."

He tossed off his cup at a draft, winking his eye at the rest as Swain Olaf's son downed a half-cup with difficulty.

"It is for others to say if I have been backward in fighting," rejoined young Swain.

"You have not been in a hurry to avenge your father's death," declared Swain Briostreip. "Some men would have burned oar-holes before this in so good a cause."

"That is an unfair charge," interjected Jarl Paul before Swain Olaf's son could express resentment. "Every one of us knows that young Swain is as hardy a man of his hands as old Swain."

There was a mutter of approval which ran around the four walls of the skalli. If men feared Swain Briostreip for his bullying ways and his dabbling in black magic, they liked young Swain for his splendid figure, his forwardness in counsel, his energy in battle, and his native kindness for all who were friendly with him.

"It shall not be long before I launch a dragon to search for Olvir and Frakork, if my master the Jarl gives me permission," said young Swain now. "I came here to tell him that he had been defied, in order that he might take such measures as he deemed necessary for upholding his own name."

Men wondered at these words, for they were plainly meant to draw from Jarl Paul an offer to join in the search for Olvir; but this was farthest from Jarl Paul's thoughts. He was noted far and wide for his dislike of viking cruises and his unwillingness to fight, unless it was in defense of his own lands and rights. But he spoke young Swain courteously, as was also his wont.

"I see no reason for our entrusting a venture to these stormy Winter seas, Swain Olaf's son," he answered. "Your intention does you credit, and it is certain that sooner or later you should undertake to punish Frakork and Olvir; but there is time enough for that in the future, if they are not slain first by others for their countless misdeeds."

Swain thought a moment.

"Is it your meaning, Lord Jarl, that I should not launch my longship at once?" he asked.

"Yes, Swain, for you may depend upon it that Frakork and Olvir have bedded their ship for the Winter and retired into the hills of Sudrland, leaving watchmen to apprise them of the coming of any enemies. If you went against them now you would have your effort for your reward, much bloodshed, little accomplished—at most, the empty satisfaction of burning a deserted steading."

This was wise counsel, as was generally agreed, and Swain bent his head in acquiescence.

"I am a young man, Lord Jarl," he said. "I have much to learn. What you say is just, and I shall abide by it, hoping that when the time comes you speak of you will aid me in my task."

"I shall always be glad to aid you, both for yourself and for the memory of your father," the Jarl replied graciously. "And now, in token of my favor, I invite you to sit here at my left, and join the feasting with us. Olaf Gutorm's son was a famous man, and it will not irk his spirit to see his son given the place he used to hold."

Swain Briostreip rose from his seat on the Jarl's other side as young Swain climbed to the dais.

"The young rooster flies to the rafters," he growled. "Well, if the smoke blinds his eyes and he tumbles into the cooking-pot, whose fault will it have been?"

This caused a chuckle from the company, and Swain Olaf's son flushed.

"Were you speaking of me?" he asked.

"Why should I speak of you?" countered Swain Briostreip.

"Because you seem to have me on your mind," returned young Swain, regaining his placidity. "And I am not honored by it."

Now the chuckle went against Swain Briostreip, and a rumble came from deep down in his huge chest.

"That which shall be seen, shall be seen. But Swain shall be the bane of Swain!"

People thought little of his words because he had been drinking much, and the mead was heady; but when he descended from the dais Jarl Paul called after him:

"Why are you leaving us, Swain? Where do you go?"

He turned his head and leveled across his shoulder at young Swain a glance so instinct with evil that all who marked it shuddered and crossed themselves—especially after his answer.

"I am going into the night—to think."

"He means that he will sit out again with the dead spirits," men whispered one to the other, at the high table as well as on the common benches.

Jarl Paul frowned disapprovingly.

"He is a strange man, Swain Briostreip," he said. "Bishop William at Egilsey will not have him in the church, claiming he is in league with the devil, but after all and whoever he leagues with under the earth or over the earth, for me he has been stalwart on land and sea."

The feast continued, and there was much discussion of the year's events and the fighting and Frakork's and Olvir's raid upon Dungelsbae, and in the midst of it Jarl Paul turned to Swain Olaf's son and said:

"Swain, you are a youth I would always have at my back. I have it in mind to be a stout friend to you. Will you do me a favor?"

"Gladly, if I can, Lord Jarl," replied Swain. "What is it?"

"Do not take notice of Swain Briostreip when he seeks to insult you. I would not have you two fight for all the gear within these walls."

"But how if I can not escape it?" asked Swain.

"I have told you my wish," said the Jarl coldly.

"I will do what I may, Lord Jarl," responded Swain. "But there are limits to what a man can promise."

"It will be to your advantage if you oblige me," declared the Jarl; "and to your disadvantage if you do not."

Swain thought deeply over this, and he decided that he had best remove himself Lorn the feast, if the Jarl intended to hold him responsible for anything which befell betwixt him and his namesake. So he made to rise from the table, but Jarl Paul plucked him by the sleeve and restrained him, saying that they did not intend to bed that night. Indeed, it was midnight when Swain Briostreip lurched in through the skalli door again and resought his place on the farther side of the Jarl's chair.

By this time the mead was all gone, and the company were drinking ale in horns, each man using a horn to suit his taste. Swain Olaf's son, out of courtesy to the Jarl, who liked his guests to have a good time, was drinking very moderately from a small cow's horn, which, as a matter of fact, one of the cup-boys had fetched from the women's stofa. Swain Briostreip marked this at once, and he reached beneath the table and dragged up his own ceremonial horn, which he employed in his drinking competitions, an enormous receptacle as long as a man's arm.

Jarl Paul, observing that Swain Briostreip's gaze was fixed upon young Swain, leaned over to the black-bearded sorcerer and whispered in his ear.

"Yes, yes, Lord Jarl," rumbled Swain. "None could feel gentler than I tonight. Is not this the feast good Christians celebrate with humility?"

And he laughed a great, thunderous, bull laugh that drew all eyes toward them. Abruptly he bent forward in front of the Jarl and offered his horn to young Swain.

"Here, boy," he said. "I will exchange horns with you, as our Lord Jarl bids me remember that we are to keep the peace with each other."

Swain was bewildered for a moment, uncertain how to act. Then he saw that the cup-boy, in bringing him the smaller horn at the Jarl's suggestion, had left before him the larger horn which he had rejected, one almost as big as Swain Briostreip's. He picked this up and extended it.

"I am glad to accommodate you," he answered.

The Jarl laughed, despite himself, and Swain Briostreip, snatching the larger horn from his namesake's hand, flung it on the floor-rushes.

"You could not empty even that, water-drinker," he fumed. "No, I meant that woman's toy you hold in your other hand."

"Oh, this one?" said Swain Olaf's son, lifting the little horn to the level of his eyes. "I am sorry, Swain, that I am still using it; but if you would like one similar I make no doubt the Jarl will find it for you."

Men laughed lustily at the idea of Swain Briostreip drinking from a woman's horn, and under cover of the mirth and Jarl Paul's attempts to distract the sorcerer's attention, young Swain slipped from the high table and gained the porch of the skalli, glad to fill his lungs with the cold, clean night air, after the drunken boisterousness and riot of the hall. He did not feel like sleeping, and as the bell was ringing for midnight mass in the Jarl's church opposite, he decided it would be a pious deed to seize the opportunity to say a few prayers for his father's soul.

 

WHEN he came from the church the night was bright with the distant glare of the northern lights, prancing in crazy splendor across the clear vault of the star-flecked sky. He heard the swash of the waves on the beach where Jarl Paul's longships lay in their sheds, and nearer at hand, the skalli blazed with torches and emitted snatches of song, shouts of laughter and a low murmur of many voices. But what attracted his principal attention was a huddled form on the hump of a burial hough in one corner of the churchyard. He knew that it was a man, and while he could see neither face nor gestures nor hear a voice, he received an impression of deadly menace which started the hair aprickling up the nape of his neck; and he walked quickly toward the skalli, guessing the grave-watcher to be Swain Briostreip, and anxious to show his good faith toward the Jarl by avoiding him.

He had passed the hough and was nearing the skalli door when he heard running feet behind him and turned to confront the outsitter's drawn sword. Swain Briostreip was a terrible figure in that hard blue light. His eyes were starting from their sockets. His beard bristled, and the skin under it was mottled crimson. Foam slavered from his mouth and lay on his mustaches. And his breath came in tense, gasping grunts, as if he dragged it up from some reservoir in the deeps of his being.

Swain Olaf's son unsheathed his sword, and leaped away before his enemy could strike.

"There is peace betwixt us," he cried. "The Jarl has said it."

"The spirits have said contrary," sobbed Swain Briostreip, and his blade hammered upon young Swain's. "Swain shall be the bane of Swain, they say."

Swain continued to fend him off, jumping waist-high to escape a side-cut; but the whistle of the steel, the clang of the meeting blades, the savage lust which sprang up in his breast as soon as his strength was matched with the other's, all these mastered him. He shoved from his path a servant who blundered upon them from one of the out-buildings, and cast off all restraint. If it was to be, it was to be. He had not wished it nor brought it about. He had done what he could to placate the Jarl; and now that this madman insisted upon the death of one of them, he decided it should not be his.

The frightened servant ran screaming into the skalli.

"Swain fights Swain!" he cried.

Dimly, Swain Olaf's son heard the clatter of upset benches, the babbling of dozens of maudlin voices, the stumbling of unsteady feet; but all the time the fore-part of his wits was intent upon the gleaming blade that swung at the end of Swain Briostreip's sinewy arm. Mad and evil the outsitter might be, but he was one of the best men-at-arms in the Northern Isles, and he had cunning and skill and long practise to pit against young Swain's untapped resources and steady eye and nerve.

The outcry in the hall grew louder, and Swain Olaf's son realized that if he was to slay his enemy he must act quickly. Once the Jarl reached them they would be forced apart.

He disengaged his blade, and stepped back.

"You have no stone to try this time, Swain ale-drinker," he mocked.

The sorcerer snarled an incoherent answer from his foam-flecked beard, and rushed to close quarters. The first chopping stroke Swain Olaf's son guarded, and he bent, as if beneath the power of the blow, until his left hand scraped the ground. When he stood erect he held a handful of dirt, which he tossed deliberately in Swain Briostreip's eyes. The outsitter staggered back, cursing, his fingers clawing at smarting pupils, and Swain Olaf's son calmly measured the distance, and slashed at the black-bearded throat.

The van of the feasters from the skalli were stopped in the doorway by the thump of Swain Briostreip's head at their feet. It lay there on the stone step, tortured eyes still blinking, as Jarl Paul pushed into the front rank.

"Who has done this?" he demanded.

Men looked at one another. The steading was deserted; Swain Olaf's son had dodged around the corner of the skalli, and he lurked there, within hearing, but out of sight, to discover the reception his deed encountered.

"Who has done this?" the Jarl asked a second time, and the trembling servingman was propelled before him.

"It was Swain," mumbled the varlet.

"Swain? What Swain?"

"Swain fought with Swain, lord."

"Swain Olaf's son?"

"Yes, lord."

Jarl Paul's mild face became passionate with fury.

"It is time this youngling was taught a lesson," he cried. "Not an hour gone I ordered him on pain of my displeasure to give up his quarrel with Swain Briostreip—and he went from my presence and straightway slew him! He shall pay me a stiff price for that—not blood-money, but outlawry."

Some men murmured against this, but others spoke up, saying that the killing had been done on Yule night, between the Jarl's skalli and the church, and in defiance of the Jarl's express command. And Jarl Paul refused to lessen the severity of his sentence, reinforced in the conviction of his justice by the approval of the majority of his friends.

"Let all here take note," he added. "Swain Olaf's son is an outlaw. He stays in these islands at his peril. And I visit this punishment upon him the more rigorously because I should have applied it equally to Swain Briostreip had the issue been different."

 

VIII

SWAIN, having heard all this, took counsel with himself, and sought the house of a friend, from whom he borrowed a horse. By this means he rode across the island to Rennadal, where he took ship for Gairsey, and was first to carry news of his outlawry to his family.

Asleif received the tale with a heavy countenance.

"I was prepared to have my son go forth to slay an outlaw, and now I hear that he is himself an outlaw, to be hunted, and perhaps, slain!" she exclaimed.

"There will be others slain, first, then," said Gunni. "We have plenty of brave fellows here, and more will come from Caithness at need. Swain can snap his fingers in the Jarl's beard."

"No, that would not be wise," answered Swain. "It is best that I should go viking for a season, but I see no reason why I should hasten unduly."

His mother regarded him intently.

"You have a plan, my son?"

He nodded.

"I am going to Bishop William at Egilsey. Jarl Paul, himself, told me the bishop was no friend of Swain Briostreip, and it is my thought that he will aid me."

"That is a wise thought," approved Asleif. "Also, the bishop was my mother's cousin, and on friendly terms with us. I will go with you, and we will make trial what he can do to relieve your troubles."

"And while I am at Egilsey," said Swain to Gunni, "do you run out the dragon Jarl Paul gave me and pass the word that if any restless men desire to try Winter viking they are like to have the opportunity."

"That will I," promised Gunni.

Asleif and Swain reached Egilsey that day, and Bishop William entertained them kindly. He was an honorable man, of much power, and he did not hesitate to congratulate Swain upon his having slain Swain Briostreip.

"It is a good riddance," he said. "The man was a turbulent fellow, always in broils, and he never tired of mocking at the church. He is where he should be. Do not concern yourself about it, Swain. You had better stay here in my house, where none will harm you, until I have composed the matter with the Jarl."

Jarl Paul was very wroth when he first heard that Bishop William had taken Swain under his protection, but several of the chiefs came forward and pointed out that Swain's family had been amongst his strongest supporters in the trouble with Rognvald, and he was constrained at length to agree that Swain should have all the time necessary to man and equip the dragonship, Deathbringer, muster a crew and make plans for the comfort of his mother and brother. More than this he would not do, not even to the extent of appointing a time-limit to Swain's outlawry.

"Let us see what he does," he said when Bishop William pressed him for more lenience. "He is a sudden young man."

"He is a better friend than foe," replied the bishop.

"Whatever he is, he is no longer my friend," snapped the Jarl.

When this was repeated to Swain he thought for a while, and said:

"Now I am free entirely to do as I please. I am no longer Jarl Paul's man. Hereafter I shall fight for my own hand always, no matter who is jarl or where I may be, for I see that it is power and not good intentions which carry a man to success."

"That is not always so," argued the bishop.

"It is so more often than not," answered Swain.

At the end of the Yule season he had made his preparations, and he said good-by to his mother and Gunni and steered Deathbringer out of Aurrida Firth westward and south to the Sudreyar. There he wintered in great comfort, receiving recruits constantly from the young men who had heard of his exploits, and in the Spring he embarked upon the first of the viking cruises which made his name a terror in all those seas and for hundreds of miles southward in France and Spain and the Moorish countries by Njorfasund.^[5] Nor did he forget his pledge of vengeance against Frakork and Olvir Rosta, but they evaded him for the time-being by taking service with the Scots king in Apardion^[6] where he could not come at them. The tale of his vengeance is the tale of his life and must be told in its own place.

But as for the manner and why and wherefor of his going a-viking, instead of biding quietly at home for at least half the year and contenting himself then with Summer raids in Ireland and England, they were all as set down here. It was because of a stone, but men have argued ceaselessly which was the first stone that raddled the pool of his life. Certainly, it was not the stone called Swain's Stone. That played its part, but it only carried farther the ripples already started. Perhaps the first stone to be accounted for was Frakork's weaving of the poisoned shirt for Jarl Paul, which Jarl Harald wore, and which sent Frakork and Olvir Rosta to Morkaorsbakki and Swain Briostreip to Dungelsbae. But what stone stirred the pool before that stone? No man knows.

 

1. Shetlands.
2. Hebrides.
3. Constantinople.
4. Sitting out at night to secure from the spirits of the dead foreknowledge of the future.
5. Straits of Gibraltar.
6. Aberdeen.

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Copyright, 1923, by The Ridgeway Company, in the United States and Great Britain. All rights reserved.