For the White Christ: A Story of the Days of Charlemagne

by Robert Ames Bennet

Often as the king was accustomed to visit that city, Worms could never remember so gay a festival as the wedding of the new queen. The narrow streets had been cleaned of excessive filth; bright cloths and banners hung from all the larger buildings, and the townfolk, heedless of the autumn breeze, gaped from window and doorway at the gaily attired lords who filled the streets with their armed henchmen. All Speyer and Mayence and Frankfurt and the country-side for miles around had come to see the royal wedding. The tradefolk had cause to rejoice in a surfeit of custom; and many a year passed before the beggars and slaves forgot the royal bounty doled out to them at the gate of every church and cloister in the burg.

Yet the giving was not all on the part of royalty. Lords and tradefolk vied with each other in their gifts to the king's bride, until Fastrada's bower overflowed with the finest of silks and woollens, coffers of jewels, and the richest garments of women's wear.

But in the midst of her abundance, the daughter of Rudulf sat cold and still, taking no part in the gay chatter and delighted outcry of the bower-maidens. There was a change, however, when, on the morning of the wedding, Rothada came running to her with the gift sent by Olvir,--a necklace of sapphires, the largest in the hoard of Sheik Al Arabi. At sight of the gift, Fastrada's eyes shone with the hue of the all but priceless gems, and she hastened to fasten the necklace about her rounded throat in place of the river pearls sent by her father.

The press of counts and officials in the burg was so great that when they thronged with their retainers into the domchurch, on the heels of the palace lords and the embassies from outland courts, they filled the great edifice to the very doors. As to the common folk, they had to stop outside in the church court and in the street. While they waited in the frosty air, those more favored by birth or fortune stood massed in dense ranks in the nave and feasted their eyes on the royal ceremony. Priests and officials were clad in their most ornate raiment, and the king himself had laid aside his plain dress for a costume unrivalled in magnificence by the most extravagant among his lords.

Very different was the appearance of the bride and her maidens. All were dressed in white silk, and, with their white wimples, looked far more like novices than bridesmaids. Even Rothada, who walked beside the bride, wore no gold or gems. As the girlish procession passed softly around into the chancel, the only jewel to be seen among them was the great opal on the hand which the bride held clasped to her bosom.

But when Fastrada advanced past her maidens to kneel before the high altar, she raised her head, with a sudden upwelling of exultant pride, and Olvir, gazing from his post behind the king, saw with wonder that his sapphire necklace lay about her throat. Then, as he stood staring, he met her glance, which had passed by the splendid figure of the king to fix upon himself. The look flashed upon him like a stab out of the darkness. In a moment it had come and gone, leaving him astounded and full of dread. As the lightning reveals the storm-swept landscape, so that instant's glance had opened to him a glimpse of the girl's inmost soul, torn between triumph and despairing hate and the old love for her lost hero.

Shocked and humiliated, Olvir stood in a half-daze, heeding neither the chanting of the choir nor the solemn words of Fulrad. His heart was numb with a vague foreboding of evil, and his mind whirled with a chaos of wild fancies. For a time he pictured himself as one entangled in the dreadful deeds and bitter fate of the Nibelung heroes.

But when at last Abbot Fulrad had pronounced the benediction, and Karl, placing the diadem upon the brow of his queen, rose up from the altar steps to lead her away, Olvir regained his calmness. He told himself that the queen's strange glance was only an illusion,--that the false light of the waxen tapers had deceived his eyes, and he was a vain fool to have imagined that any thought of himself could have come to the king's bride at the very steps of the altar.

In his revulsion of feeling, he joined heartily in the outcry of the Franks, and, side by side with Rothada, followed the royal couple from the church. But during the wedding feast, while all others stared constantly at the glittering figure of the king and the calm white face of his bride, Olvir was fully satisfied with the sight of his little princess. Though he had overcome the dread which had chilled his heart, he had no wish to meet such another look from the new queen.

The next day, however, Olvir heard with pleasure the summons to appear before the king and the queen in the bower. Even when, having saluted the king, he bent to kiss the slender hand on which glowed the many-hued opal, no thought of doubt or distrust entered his mind.