The Path of the King | Page 5

allowed to sit with the men in the hall, when
bows were being stretched and bowstrings knotted and spear-hafts
fitted. He would sit mum in a corner, listening with both ears to the talk
of the old franklins, with their endless grumbles about lost cattle and ill
neighbours. Better he liked the bragging of the young warriors, the
Bearsarks, who were the spear-head in all the forays. At the great feasts
of Yule-tide he was soon sent packing, for there were wild scenes when
the ale flowed freely, though his father, King Ironbeard, ruled his hall
with a strong hand. From the speech of his elders Biorn made his
picture of the world beyond the firths. It was a world of gloom and
terror, yet shot with a strange brightness. The High Gods might be met
with in beggar's guise at any ferry, jovial fellows and good friends to
brave men, for they themselves had to fight for their lives, and the End
of All Things hung over them like a cloud. Yet till the day of Ragnarok
there would be feasting and fine fighting and goodly fellowship, and a
stout heart must live for the hour.
Leif the Outborn was his chief friend. The man was no warrior, being
lame of a leg and lean and sharp as a heron. No one knew his begetting,
for he had been found as a child on the high fells. Some said he was
come of the Finns, and his ill-wishers would have it that his birthplace
had been behind a foss, and that he had the blood of dwarves in him.
Yet though he made sport for the company, he had respect from them,
for he was wise in many things, a skilled leech, a maker of runes, and a

crafty builder of ships. He was a master hand at riddles, and for hours
the housecarles would puzzle their wits over his efforts. This was the
manner of them. "Who," Leif would ask, "are the merry maids that
glide above the land to the joy of their father; in winter they bear a
white shield, but black in summer?" The answer was "Snowflakes and
rain." Or "I saw a corpse sitting on a corpse, a blind one riding on a
lifeless steed?" to which the reply was "A dead horse on an ice-floe."
Biorn never guessed any of the riddles, but the cleverness of them he
thought miraculous, and the others roared with glee at their own
obtuseness.
But Leif had different moods, for sometimes he would tell tales, and all
were hushed in a pleasant awe. The fire on the hearth was suffered to
die down, and men drew closer to each other, as Leif told of the tragic
love of Helgi and Sigrun, or how Weyland outwitted King Nidad, or
how Thor went as bride to Thrym in Giantland, and the old sad tale of
how Sigurd Fafnirsbane, noblest of men, went down to death for the
love of a queen not less noble. Leif told them well, so that his hearers
were held fast with the spell of wonder and then spurred to memories of
their own. Tongues would be loosened, and there would be wild
recollections of battles among the skerries of the west, of huntings in
the hills where strange sights greeted the benighted huntsman, and of
voyaging far south into the lands of the sun where the poorest thrall
wore linen and the cities were all gold and jewels. Biorn's head would
be in such a whirl after a night of story-telling that he could get no
sleep for picturing his own deeds when he was man enough to bear a
sword and launch his ship. And sometimes in his excitement he would
slip outside into the darkness, and hear far up in the frosty sky the
whistle of the swans as they flew southward, and fancy them the
shield-maids of Odin on their way to some lost battle.
His father, Thorwald Thorwaldson, was king over all the firths and
wicks between Coldness in the south and Flatness and the mountain
Rauma in the north, and inland over the Uplanders as far as the highest
springs of the rivers. He was king by more than blood, for he was the
tallest and strongest man in all the land, and the cunningest in battle.
He was for ordinary somewhat grave and silent, a dark man with hair
and beard the colour of molten iron, whence came his by-name. Yet in
a fight no Bearsark could vie with him for fury, and his sword Tyrfing

was famed in a thousand songs. On high days the tale of his descent
would be sung in the hall--not by Leif, who was low-born and of no
account, but by one or other