The Thrall of Leif the Lucky | Page 2

if in so doing he might aid the cause of some sworn
brother. Above all, they were a race of conquerors, whose knee bent
only to its proved superior. Not to the man who was king-born merely,
did their allegiance go, but to the man who showed himself their leader
in courage and their master in skill. And so it was with their choice of a
religion, when at last the death-day of Odin dawned. Not to the God
who forgives, nor to the God who suffered, did they give their faith; but
they made their vows to the God who makes men strong, the God who
is the never-dying and all-powerful Lord of those who follow Him.

The Thrall of Leif the Lucky

CHAPTER I
WHERE WOLVES THRIVE BETTER THAN LAMBS

Vices and virtues The sons of mortals bear In their breasts mingled; No
one is so good That no failing attends him, Nor so bad as to be good for
nothing. Ha'vama'l (High Song of Odin).
It was back in the tenth century, when the mighty fair-haired warriors
of Norway and Sweden and Denmark, whom the people of Southern
Europe called the Northmen, were becoming known and dreaded
throughout the world. Iceland and Greenland had been colonized by
their dauntless enterprise. Greece and Africa had not proved distant
enough to escape their ravages. The descendants of the Viking Rollo
ruled in France as Dukes of Normandy; and Saxon England, misguided
by Ethelred the Unready and harassed by Danish pirates, was slipping
swiftly and surely under Northern rule. It was the time when the priests
of France added to their litany this petition: "From the fury of the
Northmen, deliver us, good Lord."
The old, old Norwegian city of Trondhjem, which lies on Trondhjem
Fiord, girt by the river Nid, was then King Olaf Trygvasson's new city
of Nidaros, and though hardly more than a trading station, a hamlet
without streets, it was humming with prosperity and jubilant life. The
shore was fringed with ships whose gilded dragon-heads and
purple-and-yellow hulls and azure-and-scarlet sails were reflected in
the waves until it seemed as if rainbows had been melted in them.
Hillside and river-bank bloomed with the gay tents of chieftains who
had come from all over the North to visit the powerful Norwegian king.
Traders had scattered booths of tempting wares over the plain, so that it
looked like fair-time. The broad roads between the estates that clustered
around the royal residence were thronged with clanking horsemen, with
richly dressed traders followed by covered carts of precious
merchandise, with beautiful fair-haired women riding on gilded
chair-like saddles, with monks and slaves, with white-bearded lawmen
and pompous landowners.
Along one of those roads that crossed the city from the west, a Danish
warrior came riding, one keen May morning, with a young English
captive tied to his saddle-bow.
The Northman was a great, hulking, wild-maned, brute-faced fellow,

capped by an iron helmet and wrapped in a mantle of coarse gray, from
whose folds the handle of a battle-axe looked out suggestively; but the
boy was of the handsomest Saxon type. Though barely seventeen, he
was man-grown, and lithe and well-shaped; and he carried himself
nobly, despite his clumsy garments of white wool. His gold-brown hair
had been clipped close as a mark of slavery, and there were fetters on
his limbs; but chains could not restrain the glance of his proud gray
eyes, which flashed defiance with every look.
Crossing the city northward, they came where a trading-booth stood on
its outskirts--an odd looking place of neatly built log walls tented over
with gay striped linen. Beyond, the plain rose in gentle hills, which
were overlooked in their turn by pine-clad snow-capped mountains. On
one side, the river hurried along in surging rapids; on the other, one
could see the broad elbow of the fiord glittering in the sun. At the sight
of the booth, the Saxon scowled darkly, while the Dane gave a grunt of
relief. Drawing rein before the door, the warrior dismounted and pulled
down his captive.
It was a scene of barbaric splendor that the gay roof covered. The walls
displayed exquisitely wrought weapons, and rare fabrics interwoven
with gleaming gold and silver threads. Piles of rich furs were heaped in
the corners, amid a medley of gilded drinking-horns and bronze vessels
and graceful silver urns. Across the back of the booth stretched a
benchful of sullen-looking creatures war-captives to be sold as slaves,
native thralls, and two Northmen enslaved for debt. In the centre of the
floor, seated upon one of his massive steel-bound chests, gorgeous in
velvet and golden chains, the trader presided over his sales like a prince
on his throne.
The Dane saluted him with a surly nod, and he answered with