“They are going to set him adrift on the river, of course. Is it possible that you have not heard of it? Saint Olaf was disposed of in that way, because after the battle his foes would for no sake allow him to be buried on Norwegian ground. His friends put his body on a boat and sent it out to sea; and so bound was old Starkad to follow him in everything, he gave orders long ago that this should be his end also. It will happen as soon as the sun sets, and it will be a great sight to see. I came over here myself to look at it, since Brynhild has little need of pages while she sits mourning in her bower.”
Randvar made no answer, for they came just then to the top of the ridge and saw below them the broad river, uncoiled through the land like a Midgard serpent of glittering gold, and saw beyond it the spreading grain-fields and vine-clad slopes of the Jarl’s Town, its light streaks of stone walls winding between dark tree-trunks, its clusters of brown roofs blotting the gay autumn foliage, its clouds of gray smoke drifting across the bright face of the sky.
Around every group of roofs circled broad acres of farm-land and pasture-land, for the settlement was no straggling line of cabins, no huddle of tented booths, but a typical Norse town almost as prosperous as Nidaros itself. From the Jarl’s domain, the scores upon scores of great estates radiated like spokes from a hub, separated from it and from one another by stretches of wood and grassy common, and bound together by tree-arched lanes and broad white roads, and by the shining highway of the river with its stone wharves and anchored ships.
Truly it was a wonderful sight to come upon in the midst of the new-world wilderness. The two on the ridge lingered to gaze at it, and Randvar’s air-castles paled beside the deeper interest of reality.
He said thoughtfully: “It is a testing-place of men’s mettle. They alone will get fame here of whom it can be said that they are well-tempered.... Only by many accomplished men coming to a spot at one time, with all their wealth on their backs, could such a stronghold be built inside the space of two-score years. Do you know, young one, how many people make up the Town?”
“While I cannot say for certain,” Eric answered, “I think I have heard it reckoned that there are two thousand, counting in women and thralls; for it is said that every one brought all his kin and his property with him. That was not a little to take out of Norway at one time. Starkad was wont to say that if Saint Olaf’s foes did get a great gain over him in the battle in which they slew him, yet was it some loss to them when so many of his following preferred rather to go into exile than to bear the new rule—”
Randvar’s uplifted hand checked him. “Hush! I heard a horn,” he said, and they held their breath in listening.
For the first time they noticed that the sounds of the day had waned with its light, which was now almost gone, no more of the sun’s fiery ball remaining than would have served for a signal-light on the hill-top. Already the eastern side of the trees was sombre with shadow; and the lazy splash of the river seemed to fill the world until, faint and sweet, the funeral music was brought to them by the breeze. Growing momently stronger with the emerging of the train of sable-garbed horsemen from the little wood through which the road ran, the dirge throbbed solemnly in their ears.
Upon Eric the Page it seemed to be borne in suddenly that he was in charge of a grand spectacle with which to amaze and delight his forest-bred companion. He assumed the responsibility willingly.
“Now am I well pleased,” he said, “that you are going to get so good a chance to see something of court ways. That is the black bearskin that they are carrying the corpse on. Those men riding beside it are the priests. The tall haughty one is the Bishop. The name given him is Magnus Fire-and-Sword, because he has the custom of burning and slaying all who do not believe as he does. The clumsy one coming last men call the Shepherd Priest, because it was his lot to herd sheep on a Swedish dairy-farm before it came into his head to be a holy man. The leather-clad fellows who ride after him with bags at their saddle-bows are guards bearing the treasures that are to go with Starkad,—his armor and his weapons and his jewelled ornaments, even the gold circlet he wore on his head. The new Jarl would have it so; he would not keep so much as a—That is he—Helvin, Starkad’s son—with the red hair—riding a black horse—do you see?”