The Black Jarl/Chapter 13

ARALD THE JUST had prepared a feast of feasts. Torches were set thick against the walls. On the dais was Harald's seat, and beside it one especially constructed for Svend. Then came one for Edvard Haakonsson, and down the side of the long table places for the men according to their rank. To Harald's left were the seats for the women, commencing with his fair daughter. Next Thyra was a place for Brynhild, chief of Svend's maidens.

Odors of roast meat filled the great room as the guests gathered. Svend the Bloody walked across with Harald, and took his seat. Magnus, just returned from the woods, gave Svend a look that spoke volumes, and then turned away. But he whispered to Brynhild, and in turn she spoke to her maidens, bidding them flee into the woods if trouble began.

"Your kinsman is absent," Harald said to Svend.

Thyra, too, had noticed his absence, but she thought only that he had been delayed on his visit to the witch.

"Perhaps he will come soon," Svend replied to Harald. "You need not await him. He is a man of moods, and no doubt is out by one of the fires watching the thralls at play."

So Harald gave the sign, and the company was seated. A procession of thralls entered, carrying huge platters of meat and heaping the long tables with food, and filling the goblets. Roast oxen, swine, sheep, and fowls were placed before the guests, but not horse meat, since Harald was a Christian.

Standing in his place, Harald the Just made sure that everything was as he had ordered, and men and women waited for him to speak before eating.

"This is the feast I long have wished to serve," Harald said. "It means that friendship and not war shall abide hereafter between us and our neighbors. Too long have we met only for violence, and now let us meet in peace."

Svend's face remained inscrutable, but it seemed that Magnus was like to choke. All eyes were upon Harald the Just.

"Jarl," he said, turning toward Svend the Bloody, "our religions are not the same, so we must be tolerant toward each other. It is a custom of the Christians, when they sit down to meat, to give thanks to their God for his bounty. I and my people observe this custom."

"You would observe it now?" Svend cried.

"No insult is intended, jarl."

"Yet I see one in it," Svend declared hotly. He thought that here was an excuse ready made for him. "We are your guests, yet you would hurl your queer ceremonies at us. You would pray to your strange God in our presence!"

"Peace!" Harald said, holding up his hand.

"How can there be peace in the face of this?" Svend cried. "Think you I am a craven jarl to let such a thing pass unnoticed? Think you I would let an ancient enemy flaunt me so?"

"Peace, neighbor!"

But Svend the Bloody sprang to his feet. His eyes suddenly were blazing with the frenzy of a fanatic.

"I hold to the gods of my fathers!" he cried. "I recognize none other, nor allow others to do so in my presence! Thor!"

It was the signal. Magnus turned quickly and waved his hand to a man standing near the door. That man sprang outside, grasped a torch, and whirled it thrice above his head.

"Thor!" cried Magnus.

"Thor! Odin and Thor!" shouted Svend's men.

Svend the Bloody sprang backward and darted from the dais, and a waiting warrior handed him sword and shield. Back to the walls darted the men, to grasp their shields and weapons.

"Thor! Strike for Thor!" Svend shouted. "Thor is with us!"

And so the battle began.

There was a deal of turmoil, yet not so much as might have been expected. Svend and some of his men noticed at the moment that weapons had appeared as though by a miracle in the hands of Harald's men. And then Svend guessed that Harald had feared this thing, and had prepared for it, so as not to be caught off guard.

The women scattered like leaves before a high wind. Brynhild and her maidens ran for the door and won through to the woods. Harald's women ran shrieking for the stairs and the landing, Thyra among them. Up the steps they rushed, and into the rooms, and there they barred the heavy doors.

"Strike! Strike for the cross!" Harald was shouting.

Thralls ran screaming toward the doors, to be met by Svend's men and cut down. Arrows flew. Swords crashed against shields. Javelins flashed across the great hall. Spears clattered against the walls.

Into this mêlée rushed Edvard Haakonsson, his face aflame with rage. A single glance was enough to show him that the thing had gone beyond remedy. Already dead and wounded men were stretched on the floor. The great tables had been overturned. Harald's food was scattered, and not even a hound stopped to claim it.

Edvard's first thought was for Thyra, and he saw with happiness that none of the women remained in the great hall. He would grasp a shield, he decided, and fight his way to the bottom of the steps, there to guard her.

He picked up the first shield that came to his hand, and drew his sword. Close behind him Eric armed himself from a dead man. Together, side by side, they fought their way across the wide room, struggling to reach the bottom of the stairs.

And now Edvard Haakonsson discovered a queer thing—that Svend's men were trying to cut him down. There could be no mistake about it. Men who knew him slashed at him as they passed. Once he caught sight of the grim face of Magnus, and saw the evil gloating in it.

And Harald's men, naturally, turned their blades against him also. Edvard Haakonsson stood alone, surrounded by his foes. Save for Eric the Dumb, there was none to stand back to back with him.

Days before he had sensed that Svend loved him not. He had not taken the trouble to seek the reason for it, nor did he now. He whirled his blade around his head and started to carve his way to the bottom of the flight of steps.

Harald's men had shown themselves to be no weaklings. Even to the frenzied Svend it appeared that Harald's warriors had been prepared, and that they were to be reckoned with in the battle. With the men from the woods in the place, the forces were about equal.

But Harald's men were fighting on territory they knew well, and their cause was just. They rallied to their chieftain's call and smote their enemies. Man after man went down before them. Svend the Bloody called a rally in vain.

Edvard Haakonsson attempted to avoid slaying, since he did not wish to cut down one of the house of Harald, nor a man of his uncle's. But soon he found that he could not. They pressed him into a corner, and he won free with Eric. He saw Magnus fighting to get near him, and realized the man's intent.

"Thor! Thor!" Svend was shouting. "Thor, give us strength!"

Escaping thralls had met with Svend's thralls, and outside the house they were fighting. Outbuildings burst into flame. Shrieks and cries of pain and howls for mercy rent the air.

Edvard Haakonsson found himself in a corner again, and started to follow a wall. He wanted only to be near Thyra, should there be danger for her, either from Svend's men or the flames. From the corners of his eyes he saw that the battle was slowly going against Svend the Bloody. Harald's men stood firm, and their blades were red with the blood of their foes.

"Thor! Thor!" Svend's men bellowed.

Through the cutting, slashing throng Edvard fought his way, crying to Eric to follow. He was more than halfway across the big room now. If he could reach the steps, he felt that he could hold them against all comers, unless an arrow shot him down.

And suddenly he found himself on the edge of a group of Svend's men, and Svend himself in command. Svend had been trying to reach Harald the Just, but had not been able to do so. Harald was against the opposite wall, fighting as well as any of his followers. He turned and looked at them, his eyes flaming.

"Thor! Thor!" rang the shouts.

"The cross!"

There was no pretense now. It was Thor against the cross, and all men knew it. And they knew also that Svend the Bloody had planned this thing. But Svend's plans were not working out as he had expected. He was separated from Magnus, or he would have given fresh orders. He saw his men falling on every side. Svend had been in too many battles not to read the outcome. Harald and his men were to be victors.

So this was the end! To die was bad enough, but to die at the hand of an ancient enemy was worse. In that moment Svend the Bloody became a maniac. The hot blood surged through his veins.

"Strike!" he shrieked. "Strike for Thor!"

And so Edvard Haakonsson met him face to face.

"Kinsman! Call away your men!" the black jarl cried. "You are outdone! It is a penalty for the treachery you tried!"

"You—" Svend the Bloody whirled toward him. "A curse on the day you came out of the south!" he cried. "Man with the heart of a woman!"

He flung the others aside and his blade was raised. Edvard Haakonsson darted backward, to save his life and to keep from slaying his uncle.

Svend would have followed, but he did not. For as the others turned to meet fresh foes and let Svend settle this family affair, Svend found himself confronted by a new enemy—a man with blazing eyes and protruding tongue, Eric the Dumb.

It was enough for Eric that he had seen Svend raise blade against Edvard Haakonsson. But there was more than that. Far back in his memory Eric had a flash of a scene in Svend's own house, when the Bloody One had slain a thrall with a single blow of his fist.

Eric raised the blade he held. Backward he sprang, and then launched himself forward. He had no method of fighting, but he had great strength. More through good fortune than skill did he avoid Svend's biting blade. And his own swept through the arc—and Svend the Bloody died!

Then Eric whirled around to find that his master was hard pressed by a circle of foes. He bellowed like a beast and charged. Blades bit at him and brought the blood—but they did not stop him. He won to Edvard's side, and together they fought their way on to the wall.

"See!" Edvard commanded. "That door! Behind it, Eric, is the maid I love! Stand before the door, and let no man enter! I will care for myself!"

There was no need of a second command. Perhaps Eric did not understand the full import of it, but he had heard the words. He was to stand on the landing at the top of the flight of steps, before the door, and allow no man to ascend.

He charged through the crowd of frenzied, fighting men, and won to the steps. He cleared them of foes, and took up his station. Below him the battle continued. Svend's men were in little groups now, their back to the walls, being slowly cut down. Magnus was still in the fighting, but his cries failed to rally the men who remained. The battle was lost, and they knew it well. And in the face of outraged hospitality they could expect no quarter from Harald's men. They could only fight on until they died. Like other men before them, they had followed an unworthy leader, and now were to pay for it.

For an instant Magnus found himself alone. He glanced quickly around the room. He saw the flight of steps and the landing at the top of them, and the door beyond. He saw Eric, too, but thought nothing of that.

If he could force his way up those steps perhaps he could manage to break into the room, he thought. There he could barricade himself, possibly escape, possibly even find the jarl's daughter and hold her as hostage for his own freedom after the fight.

He rushed to the steps and up them he started. Eric the Dumb growled a menace, and Magnus snarled his laughter. Often he had cuffed Eric aside when Eric had been a thrall. But it was a different Eric he faced now—Eric, the free man, who was remembering the wrongs he had suffered at the hands of many, including Magnus; Eric, who had been commanded by Edvard Haakonsson to let none up the steps and through the door.

Magnus whirled his blade and advanced, and Eric met him squarely. And thus they fought on the landing, while Edvard the Ax Thrower, watching from a little distance, struggled to get to the scene. Magnus, he believed, meant danger to Thyra.

Never before in his life had Svend's big lieutenant been so surprised as he was now. He faced a maniac who had no skill with the blade, but who had great strength and determination. He felt himself starting to give way, and called all his skill and courage into being.

Again he attacked, and Eric swung his blade in a great arc and struck him down. A startled expression came into Magnus's face. He braced himself against the wall. The wound was a bad one, but not mortal. And so once more he rushed to the attack.

But Edvard Haakonsson was at the foot of the flight of steps now. He shouted to Eric, but Eric did not hear. The Dumb One exposed himself to make another great sweep of his blade, and this time it bit home, and Magnus toppled and fell headlong down the steps.

The Ax Thrower was beside Eric in an instant. Now that the battle below was ebbing, now that he had won his way across the hall, he wanted to make certain of Thyra's safety. He rushed to the door, and tried it. It was fastened upon the inside, and he knew that it was useless to call—that she could not hear him above the din. He would have to break in.

"Guard the steps!" he commanded Eric.

An arrow sped past his head and thudded into the door, and a spear followed. Harald's men had seen him, nor guessed his real intention. They thought only that he intended harm to the daughter of their jarl.

And Brynhild saw him, too. She had come back to the house from the woods, like a female warrior. She had crept into the great hall, to find that Svend the Bloody was dead, and that Svend's men fast were being conquered. And so she had looked around for Magnus, and for the black jarl.

So it was that she saw Magnus go down, and Edvard Haakonsson dash up the steps. And now black rage surged in her heart at the man who had turned his back on her beauty and had looked with eager eyes at the white faced daughter of the Christian jarl. She seized a spear and hurled it with all her strength.

Her aim was good, but fortune was against her and with the Ax Thrower. For as the spear sped he stepped back to hurl himself against the door. And the weapon flashed before his eyes like a streak of flame, and thudded into the breast of Eric the Dumb.

"Master! Master!" the man gasped.

He dropped to the landing, and his blood wet it. A little pool collected in front of the door. And the black jarl stepped back to hurl himself forward again.