The Ward of King Canute | Page 7

His hair fell upon his shoulders in soft
wavy locks of raven blackness; but his face was turned away as his
hands fumbled at the fastening.
Sister Wynfreda rose and took a step forward, staring at him in
bewilderment.
"Fridtjof?" she questioned.
At the sound of her voice, the boy turned and hastened toward her.
Then a great cry burst from Sister Wynfreda, for the face under the
black locks was the face of Randalin.
Chapter II
Randalin, Frode's Daughter
At a hoary speaker Laugh thou never. Often is good that which the
aged utter; Oft from a shrivelled hide Discreet words issue. Ha'vama'l.
She made a convincing boy, this daughter of the Vikings. Though she
was sixteen, her graceful body had retained most of the lines and
slender curves of childhood; and she was long of limb and broad of
shoulder. Her head was poised alertly above her strong young throat,
and she was as straight as a fir-tree and as supple as a birch. A life
out-of-doors had given to her skin a tone of warm brown, which, in a
land that expected women to be lily-fair, was like a mask added to her
disguise. The blackness of her hair was equally unconnected with
Northern dreams of beautiful maidens. "Dark-haired women, like
slaves, black and bad," was the proverb of the Danish camps. Some
fair-tressed ancestor back in the past must have qualified his blood

from the veins of an Irish captive; in no other way could one account
for those locks, and for her eyes that were of the grayish blue of iris
petals.
The eyes were a little staring this morning, as though still stretched
wide with the horror of the things they had looked upon; and all the
glowing red blood had ebbed away from the brown cheeks.
She said in a low voice, "My father... Fridtjof..." then stopped to draw a
long hard breath through her set teeth.
For the moment Sister Wynfreda was not a nun but a woman,--a
woman with a great yearning tenderness that might have been a
beautiful mother-love. She ran to the girl and caught her tremblingly by
the hands, feeling up her arms to her shoulders and about her face, as if
to make sure that she was really unharmed.
"Praise the Lord that you are delivered whole to me!" she breathed.
"Gram told us--that they had taken you."
Gazing at her out of horror-filled eyes, Randalin stood quite still in her
embrace. Her story came from her in jerks, and each fragment seemed
to leave her breathless, though she spoke slowly.
"I broke away," she said. "They stood around me in a ring. Norman
Leofwinesson said he would carry me before a priest and marry me, so
that Avalcomb might be his lawfully, whichever king got the victory. I
said by no means would I wed him; sooner would I slay him. All
thought that a great jest and laughed. While they were shouting I
slipped between them and got up the stairs into a chamber, where I
bolted the door and would not open to them, though they pounded their
fists sore and cursed at me. After a while the pounding became an
exertion to them, and one began to talk about the mead that was waiting
below. And after that they whispered together for a space. At last they
began to laugh and jeer, and called to me that they would go down and
drink my wedding toast before they broke in the door and fetched me;
and then they betook themselves to feasting."

Sister Wynfreda bent her head to murmur a prayer: "God forgive me if
I have lacked charity in my judgment on the Pagans! If they who have
seen the light can do such deeds, what can be expected of those who yet
labor under the curse of darkness?"
"I do not understand you," Randalin said wearily, sinking on the grass
and passing her hands over her strained eyes. "When a man looks with
eyes of longing upon another man's property, it is to be expected that he
will do as much evil as luck allows him. Though he has got Baddeby,
Norman was covetous of Avalcomb. When his lord, Edric Jarl, was still
King Edmund's man, he twice beset the castle, and my father twice held
it against him. And his greed was such that he could not stay away even
after Edric had become the man of Canute."
It was the nun's turn for bewilderment. "The man of Canute? Edric of
Mercia, who is married to the King's sister? It cannot be that you know
what you say!"
"Certainly I know what I say," the girl returned a little impatiently. "All
English lords are fraudulent; men can see that by the state