As a trout knows the rapids, his feet knew the snares; but to the stranger it was like walking in fetters. What with the distraction of watching his footing and the difficulty of aiming, two out of every three thrusts went astray; while for every lunge that went home he got a wound in return. Twice his foot twisted on a hidden stone and he measured his length on the ground, plastering pineneedles and earth to every blood-stain. Twice he tripped over a root and fell headlong and almost into the arms of his jeering opponent. That the combat was between equals, there could now be no question.
That there could be any doubt of his ultimate victory, however, did not appear to enter into the courtman’s reckoning. After each fall he merely became a little more quietly determined, came on with a little more glitter in his ice-blue eyes. His unshaken assurance exasperated the forester at last; when he saw a chance to end it, he seized the opportunity promptly.
At the next lunge, instead of springing aside he took advantage of a hollow behind him to duck suddenly, so that the blade hissed like an outleaping flame above his head. Then, before the other could recover, he sprang upon him. Seizing his sword-wrist in an iron grip, he forced it aside, tore his own right arm free from the clutching fingers, and raised it to strike.
His arm rose,—but it did not fall. In the very instant of aiming, a cloak flew between him and his mark, enveloping him head and shoulders, smothering him head and face. Muscular hands followed the cloak, pinioning his elbows and dragging him backward. Through the folds he caught a babel of exclamations; above them a girl’s anxious voice calling, “Is he wounded?” and a man’s rough tones answering dryly, “Only enough to spot his clothes, Jarl’s daughter.”
Jarl’s daughter! The forester had left off struggling—he understood that it would be foolishness in that grasp—now his wrath gave place to disgust. This was a pretty trick of the Fates, who had already snatched the fruit of victory from between his teeth, to follow it up by delivering him over to the upbraidings of an hysterical girl! Sullenly he gazed before him when at last they plucked off the cloak.
The first thing he saw was his little foster-brother in his gay page’s livery, just picking up the courtman’s plumed cap; but the sight did not improve his temper for he found that the boy avoided his glance of greeting. His brows drawing together, his gaze moved on over the picture.
It was a maiden’s following, certainly. The rugged men-at-arms surrounding him were far outnumbered by the slim pages who made a green hedge around the wounded favorite. Bright against the dark background, groups of maids and matrons rustled and fluttered. Only one figure in the scene had composure, a girl standing a few paces ahead of the others, erect and motionless as a stone column against tossing trees. It was her stillness that drew the forester’s attention to her curiously; then, looking, he forgot curiosity, forgot his recognition of her for the Jarl’s daughter, felt only the thrill of her beauty.
Long of limb, long of throat, she was nobly tall, her eyes but little below the level of his own. The habit fitting close the flowing curves of her body trailed heavily behind her, and a velvet mantle dragged from jewelled clasps; but her broad sloping shoulders bore their weight as lightly as her proudly poised head held up its great braids, hanging far down the purple folds like cables of red gold. No power had the sight of bared blades and struggling men to deepen or pale the exquisite color of her face, or shake the pride of her beautiful mouth. In their high spirit, her clear gray eyes were Valkyria’s eyes. Gazing at her, his heart leaped in his breast; he understood, for the first time, why a sea-wolf of a Viking might lie quiet in the net of a woman.
For the first time, also, he knew envy of his foe. Brushing aside the pages, the courtman advanced now, the long end of his mantle drawn up gracefully over his shoulder to hide the stains of his tunic. It was maddening to see how fit he looked to bend before Brynhild the Proud and set to his lips the hand she gave him.
“I should be glad to know, madam, that I am pardoned for thus marring your pleasure with alarm,” he said. “Scarcely can I be easy in my mind until I hear that.”