A Sea Queen's Sailing

by Charles W. Whistler

Whereby it was plain that here we were likely to do a very good turn to Hakon at once, and we were just in time. Our ship, which Heidrek had left here, was ready for sailing, as it seemed, and if we had come a day or two later we should have lost Arnkel, and maybe had trouble to follow.

Now, these two men were the pilots of the fjord, as we had guessed from their coming off to us. At first they were for going straightway and telling the men at the hall and town that Gerda had come, but we thought it best to take that news ourselves. They would steer us up the fjord in the dusk presently, and would answer any hail from watchers who would spy our coming.

So we waited for the turn of the tide, and armed ourselves in all bravery of gold and steel and scarlet as befitted the men of Hakon and of Gerda the Queen, for she should go back to her own as a queen should. And then a thought came to me, and I spoke of it to Bertric, and so went and stood at the door of the cabin where Gerda waited, and asked her to do somewhat for me.

"Will you not come back even as you went?" I asked. "Let the men see you stand before them as you were wont, in your mail and helm and weapons, the very daughter of warriors."

But she shook her head, smiling.

"No, Malcolm, it is foolishness. What need to put on the gear which seems to make me what I am not?"

"Nothing will make you less than a sea queen, my Gerda," I said. "Maybe I might say more than that, but you would think me only flattering. I would have you wear the arms as surety to your folk at first sight that you are indeed here again. It may save words, and time."

So I persuaded her, and she left me to don the war gear for the last time, as she told me. She would dress herself even as she had been clad for the funeral and as we had found her.

Then the tide turned, and slowly the current from the sea found its way up the fjord and reached us, and we warped out of the narrow berth between the rocks, and manned the oars and set out on the last stage of our voyage. The mast was lowered and housed by this time, and the ship ready for aught. Only we did not hang the war boards along the gunwales, and we had no dragon head on the stem, for that Heidrek had not carried at any time. We had no mind to set all men against the ship at first sight as an enemy who came prepared for battle.

We entered the northern branch of the fjord, and at once the high cliffs rose above us again, for the waterway narrowed until we were in a deep cleft of the mountains. The water was still as glass in the evening quiet, and as the stars came out overhead, we seemed to be sailing under one deep sky and on another. But the oar blades broke the water into brighter stars than those which were reflected, and after us stretched a wake of white light between the black cliffs, for the strange sea fires burnt in the broken waters brightly, coming and going as the waves swirled around the ship's path.