The Long Ships (41 page)

Then, over the clang of weapons and the screams of wounded and dying men, there arose a terrible sound of baying, and Father Willibald, with a spear clutched in his hand, came running round the corner of the house with the great Irish hounds, which he had freed from their kennel. All four of them were raging mad, with froth on their lips, and they sprang savagely at the peddlers, who were convulsed with terror at the sight of them, for hounds of the size of four-month calves were a spectacle to which they were unaccustomed. Such of them as could disengage their adversaries turned and fled toward the river, with the hounds and Orm’s men at their heels. Two of them were overtaken and killed, but three managed to make good their escape through the water. Orm hobbled after them as fast as he could, for he feared Östen might be among those who were getting away; but when he came back to the house, he found Rapp seated on a log, leaning on his ax, and regarding a man who lay stretched on the ground before him.

“Here is the master peddler himself,” said Rapp as he saw Orm approach, “though whether he is alive or not is more than I know. He was no mean fighter, though I say it myself.”

Östen was lying on his back, pale and bloody, his helmet split by a blow from Rapp’s ax. Orm seated himself beside Rapp and looked down at his defeated enemy, and the sight so cheered him that he forgot the pain from his wound. Ylva and Asa came running out of the house, with joy and anxiety mingled in their faces. They tried to persuade Orm to come indoors at once that they might dress his wounds; but he remained where he was, staring at Östen and mumbling beneath his breath. At last, he said:

“Now I know
A gift full worthy
To be sent
To Sven my brother.
Peddler, he
Shall have his head;
But the hair on it
Shall not be red.”

Father Willibald now joined them. He examined Orm’s wound and ordered him to go at once into the house, saying that if he could not walk he must allow Rapp and the women to carry him there. Then he bent down over Östen and felt with his fingers the place where Rapp’s ax had made its mark.

“He is alive,” he said at last, “but how long he will live I cannot tell.”

“I shall send his head to King Sven,” said Orm.

But Father Willibald answered sternly that such a thing was not to be thought of, and that Östen and the other wounded peddlers who were still alive were to be carried into the house.

“This night’s work will keep me busy for some time,” he said jubilantly.

Father Willibald was always a man of determination, but never more so than when there was any sick or wounded man to be dealt with; for then no man dared to say that it should be otherwise than as he commanded. So everyone who could lend a hand had to help carry the wounded men into the house and make them comfortable there.

Orm had no sooner been assisted to his room and had his wound dressed than he fainted; for he had lost a great quantity of blood. The next day, however, he felt better than he could have expected. He reflected with satisfaction on the way everything had turned out, and said that the peddlers’ boy was to remain in his household for always and was to be treated as one of the family. He learned that he had lost two men killed, and that two others had been badly wounded, as also had one of the hounds; but Father Willibald thought it likely that, with God’s help, they would all eventually recover, the hound included. Orm was grieved at losing two of his men, but he comforted himself with the thought that things might easily have turned out worse. Of the peddlers, Östen and two others were still alive, apart from the three who had escaped into the river. In the bathhouse they had discovered two men who had been hit by the chopping-block. One of these was dead, and the other had a broken leg and a crushed foot. Father Willibald had had all the wounded men taken into the church, where he had bedded them in straw. There they were receiving the most careful attention, and every day it became more evident that the little priest was by no means discontented with the labor of looking after them. For of late there had been few calls upon his skill as a physician, so that time had begun to grow somewhat heavy on his hands.

Orm was soon on his feet again, with little to show for the wound he had received; and one day Father Willibald came to the dinner table with a more than usually cheerful look on his face and announced that even Östen, who had been the most gravely wounded of them all, now looked to be on the road to recovery.

Rapp shook his head doubtfully at this piece of news. “If that is so,” he said, “my aim is less sure than it used to be.”

And Orm, too, thought it little cause for joy.

THE NEWS of the fight at Gröning soon spread throughout the district, and Gudmund of Uvaberg came riding over with a flock of distant neighbors whom Orm had not seen before to learn the details of it from his own lips. They drank deeply of Orm’s ale and rejoiced exultantly as he described the battle to them. This, they vowed, was a fine thing, for it would increase still further the good name of the border country and the respect in which its inhabitants were held by the world outside. They had much, too, to say in praise of the great hounds, and begged that their own bitches might be allowed the favor of contact with them; and when all the salt and cloth was shown to them, together with the rest of the booty that Orm had won, they sighed that such luck had not come their way. They bargained for the salt-peddlers’ horses, and a satisfactory agreement was soon reached, for Orm had by now many more horses than he required, and felt that he could not honorably ask too high a price, since he had paid nothing for them himself. Then the more muscular of his guests tried their strength at lifting the chopping-block; and though those who watched them named dead men they had known in their childhood who had been able to perform more difficult feats than this, still, nobody was able to throw it as far as Orm had done. This still further improved Orm’s spirits, and he told them not to take their failure too hard.

“I am not sure that even I could throw it so far again,” he said, “without the help that great anger gives a man.”

They were all curious to see Östen and wondered greatly that Orm had spared his life. A knife in the throat, they declared, was always the best medicine for men of that sort; and they counseled him earnestly not to stock up trouble for himself and others by allowing the man to go free. To do so, they said, would surely bring unpleasantness in its wake; of that he could be certain, for they were accustomed to the ways of Smalanders and knew them to be a people who nursed their wrongs. Many of them wanted to go into the church to look at the man and talk to him; it would be interesting, they said, to hear whether he regarded the border country as good terrain for head-hunting. But Father Willibald bolted the door and remained deaf to their entreaties to be allowed to enter. They might, he said, be granted admission at some later date, if God so willed it, but he would not permit them to taunt a wounded man who was still hardly able to lift his head.

So they had to forgo that pleasure; but before riding away, they agreed over their stirrup-cups that Orm must now be regarded as a chieftain even among the Göings, and that he was a worthy scion of Sven Rat-Nose, even though he had allowed himself to become baptized; and they swore that they would take his part in any feud that might develop as a result of all this.

Orm gave each of them his measure of salt as a parting gift and for the maintenance of neighborly relations. Then they rode away from Gröning at a thunderous gallop and in the best of spirits, swaying in their saddles and screeching like jays.

The boy was greatly alarmed when he heard that Östen looked likely to recover, and thought it a bad thing for him; for, he said, if Östen lived he would surely kill him in revenge as soon as he got the chance. But Orm assured him that no harm would come to him, and said that he was to lose no sleep on that score, whatever might be Östen’s feelings in the matter. The boy was called Ulf, and from the first he was much cosseted by Asa and Ylva, who hardly knew how to reward him for the great service he had done them all. Asa set to work sewing him better clothes with her own fingers; and she and Father Willibald agreed that the boy was, without doubt, an instrument of God, sent to save them from the machinations of the Devil. They asked him how he had come to join the peddlers. He replied that he had run away from a cruel uncle with whom he had lived down on the coast and at whose hands he had suffered great unkindness and privation ever since his mother and father had been drowned while fishing; and that the peddlers had engaged him to look after their horses.

“But they gave me little to eat,” he continued, “so that I was always hungry except when I could steal food from houses; and I had to stay awake each night to watch the horses, and was beaten if anything happened to them. But the worst was that I was never allowed to ride, however leg-weary I became. In spite of all this, I fared better with them than with my uncle; but I never bore them any love, and am glad to be free of them. For here I have what I never knew before: food enough to eat and a bed to sleep in, so that I will gladly remain with you forever if you do not send me away. I am not even afraid to be baptized, if you think it necessary.”

Father Willibald said that it was, without a doubt, highly necessary, and baptized he would be as soon as he had received schooling in the Christian doctrine. Ylva set him to watch Oddny and Ludmilla, who were now able to walk and found no difficulty in escaping from the house and on two occasions had alarmed everybody by being discovered down by the river. The boy discharged this function assiduously, accompanying them wherever they went; this, he said, was better work than watching horses. He could whistle better than anyone they had ever heard, and knew many tunes, and could even imitate various birds; and both the girls loved him from the first. In time he came to be known as Glad Ulf, because of his merry temper.

Östen and his two wounded companions were by this time well enough to be moved; so they were taken from the church to the bathhouse, where an armed man kept constant guard over them. Father Willibald now tried to give them some instruction about Christian doctrine; but before long he came to Orm and said that the soil of their hearts was, in truth, stony and unreceptive to the seed of grace. This, though, he added, was no more than was to be expected.

“I am not a vain man,” he continued, “and do not hanker after fame or honor. None the less, I should feel that my life’s work had been well rewarded if I could become the first priest to baptize a Smalander. For there is no known instance of such a thing ever having been done before; and if it could be brought to pass, great indeed would be the rejoicing in heaven. But whether I shall be able to prevail upon these men is, I fear, doubtful, for their obstinacy is inordinate; and it would be a good thing if you, Orm, could help me with a word of admonition to this Östen.”

Orm thought this a wise and proper suggestion and said he would be glad to lend what help he could. “This I promise you,” he added, “that baptized they shall be, all three of them, before they set foot outside my gate.”

“But they cannot be baptized until they have listened to my exposition of the doctrine,” said Father Willibald, “which they absolutely refuse to do.”

“They will listen to mine,” said Orm.

They went together to the bathhouse, and there Orm and Östen met for the first time since the night of the battle. Östen was sleeping, but he opened his eyes as Orm entered. His head was swathed in bandages, which Father Willibald changed every day. He raised himself slowly into a sitting position, supporting his head between his hands, and looked unblinkingly at Orm.

“This is a good meeting for me,” said Orm, “for my head still remains on its shoulders, rather more securely, indeed, than yours; and I owe you thanks, too, for all the wealth you have so thoughtfully brought to my door. But I think you expected things to turn out otherwise.”

“They would have been otherwise,” said Östen, “if the boy had not served me treacherously.”

Orm laughed. “I never thought,” he said, “to hear you complain of treachery. But here is a question I should like you to answer. You have tried to take my head. Tell me, now, who has the best right to yours?”

Östen sat for some moments in silence. Then he said: “The luck has gone against me in this affair. I have nothing more to say.”

“Your luck would have been much worse,” said Orm, “if it had not been for this pious man, to whom your debt is indeed great. When I learned that King Sven wanted a head, my first thought was to send him yours, but this priest of Christ dissuaded me from carrying out my plan. He has saved your life and healed your wound, but even that has not satisfied his zeal, for he wants also to save your evil Smaland soul. So we have decided that you shall become a Christian, and your men with you. Nor have you any say in the matter, for your head belongs to me and I shall do as I please with it.”

Östen glared blackly at them both. “My family is great and powerful,” he said, “and no member of it sustains injury or insult without revenge. Know, therefore, that you will pay dearly for what you have already done to me, and dearer still if you force me to submit to any ignominy.”

“There is no question of anyone forcing you to do anything,” said Orm. “You are free to make your own choice. Will you have your head sprinkled by this holy man, who wishes you nothing but good, or would you rather have it stuffed in a sack and sent to King Sven? I can promise you that it will be packed very carefully, so that it will arrive in good condition, for I want him to know whose it was. It might be best to pack it in salt; I have plenty of that now.”

“No man of my family has ever been baptized,” said Östen. “Only our slaves are Christians.”

“You are evidently unaware,” said Orm, “that Christ specifically commanded that all men should be baptized, including Smalanders. Father Willibald can quote you the passage.”

“His very words,” said Father Willibald. “He said: ‘Go ye out into the world and preach my gospel to all men, and baptize them.’ He also said, on another occasion: ‘He that believeth and is baptized, his soul shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall burn in hell-fire.”’