II
Thorgnyr the Lawman
Now there was mighty discontent among the bonder-folk because of this slaying of Aki, and much murmuring against Styrbiorn and his lawless and unbridled vein who should so slay the man and pay no boot therefor. In the end the King himself did boot it, and so these growls died down for the while.
When it was spring, the King fared north into the coasted parts of Helsingland and into Jarnberaland a-guesting, and it was full summer when he came home, riding with them of his bodyguard down to the high arm of the firth over against Sigtun. It was a windy day of driving mist that made gray and ghostly the whole face of the countryside, blotting out the hills and woods and confounding water and sky in the same hue and tone of pale grey without colour; only the water was darkened with the little shadows innumerable of the hastening waves, and here and there a reef showed, darker than aught else visible, and against it the flash of breakers that leapt and fell. Like swooping birds, black squalls swooped and chased one another, scurrying in zigzags far and wide, doubling and turning, always with little glass-smooth strips of calm water on the edges of the squalls. And there were swift changing markings made by the wind and tide, as it were a white sword and a black that crossed edges on the troubled surface of the loch. A man on a dark horse came riding up from the waterside to meet the King. The King knew him for Earl Wolf.
“Thy colour looketh trouble,” said the King. “What’s the tidings?”
The Earl told him in his ear, as one who disburdeneth himself of a weighty matter and a grievous and feareth the while lest evil betide him, as sometimes it betideth to those who tell bad news to kings. A pretty tale in truth the Earl had to tell: of a Thing summoned in Upsala against all law, the King being not there; and at the Thing fierce disputes betwixt the bonder-folk of the one part and Styrbiorn and his friends of the other, with all the grief of Aki’s slaying dug up anew and all their old counts against Styrbiorn, wherein at last Styrbiorn said loudly that he was, of his father’s right, King of half the realm of Sweden, and they should learn it to their cost. Whereupon, great uproar among the bonders, who in fine carried it with so high a hand that they feared not to choose and proclaim one Lambi the White, a man from Stocksound in Tenthland, King in Styrbiorn’s despite of that half of the kingdom claimed by him; and therewith the Thing broken up in a tumult, so that it had wanted but a little to have befallen a battle betwixt the King’s men and the bonders.
The King heard him out, and was silent for a little space, his countenance clouded. At length, “It agreeth i’ the main,” said he, “with that which I knew hereof already.”
“You did already know?” said the Earl, much wondering.
“Many are the King’s ears. Was Thorgnyr not there to stop them when they made this fair election?” asked the King.
“There was he, it is most certain,” said Earl Wolf. “But he did little enough to stop them.”
“I do trust Thorgnyr in all things else,” said the King, “but not in aught that toucheth Styrbiorn. He hath been ever against him.”
The Earl was silent.
“Was Thorgnyr there,” asked the King, “whenas they fell a-pelting of you with stones and muck to drive you from the Thing, thee and Styrbiorn?”
“You did know that too, King?” said the Earl. “I did think to have told you that later, not to light in a moment too hot a fire of anger in you. And yet, a pretty scout; a pretty shaming. ’Twere well to engrave the memory of those stones on the skin-coat of some of ’em.”
“Thou’st not yet answered me,” said King Eric: “was Thorgnyr in it when they stoned you from the Thing?”
“Lord, I’ll not lie to you,” answered the Earl; “he was not. O’ the contrary, I am apt to think that Thorgnyr, i’ the midst o’ this pother, was like naught so much as an unhandy cook, who, when he had brewed him this kettle full of trouble, did sit it over the fire until it boil, and did find too late he had not power in’s lean scragged arms to lift it off again afore all the mess should bubble over.”
“I must see Thorgnyr,” said the King. “Hast thou a boat here to put us across to Sigtun?”
The Earl brought him down to the water and showed him three ships, enough to take the King and all his company. They two stood together on the bank while the King’s men embarked. Earl Wolf looked angry as a man might be, biting of his moustachios and spitting out the hairs. The King, so long as he thought good, let him abide in this taking; then, wearying of the entertainment, “Let not fear shut thy mouth,” he said. “If I will hear Thorgnyr, how much more thee, which art blameless in this matter?”
“Have my thanks, King, for that,” said the Earl. “He is thy dog, I’ll not gainsay it. But here, where it toucheth Styrbiorn, will you see Thorgnyr? Will you hear this? How? this Lambi, this man of naught, this scurvy shagrag, chosen and proclaimed (flatly ’gainst the law) joint King in your noble young kinsman’s room? and will you see Thorgnyr? will you bandy words with him?”
“Why wilt thou make such faces?” said the King.
“It was not so in Sweden aforetime,” said Earl Wolf, in a hot anger fanned by the breath of his own angry speech. “Did not King Ingiald Evil-heart formerly burn six kings in Upsala, ’cause he would have no man share his dominion? Can you for shame—” but here he came to a full stop in his declaiming, having not so wholly suffered his indignation to master his sober senses that he should not mark that look in the King’s eye suddenly turned upon him, and be cowed by it to submission.
“To shame at that which is not shameworthy,” said the King after a minute, very quiet, “belongeth to a fool, not to a king. And thou, that hast been a famous skipper in thy time! Ay,” said the King: “that was well thought on. Yonder little cock-boat shall serve.” That was a little boat some fifteen foot long, that went with one of the big ships; and the King made the Earl go aboard of her and put off, they two alone. The King made Earl Wolf sit in the stern and steer, and made him hoist sail and steer for Sigtun. “Now I will see somewhat of thy seamanship,” said the King.
The Earl sailed handily, keeping his course as near as man could in that stormy weather; but ever and again, struck broadside by a charging squall, he must slack sail or throw her head into the wind.
“Is it as I think?” said the King, “that thy practice agreeth not with thy so loud babble? Make fast the sheet and keep her on a straight course to Sigtun, or it shall go ill with thee.” Nor would he harken at all to the Earl’s protestings, but threatened him with a great spear with an iron head a foot long; so that the Earl obeyed, and in a moment the boat was swamped and both King and Earl thrown into the water.
When they that were by the ships saw this they were put in a mighty stew and ran out a rowboat, but both King and Earl swam strongly and were come ashore before those others were well started out to rescue them. The King shook himself like a dog and fell a-laughing with great shouts of laughter. He clapped Earl Wolf on the shoulder, who stood there as a man not well knowing whether to laugh or be cross, wringing the water out of his breeches and kirtle. “Let me alone to rule Sweden,” said the King; “and do thou thy part to lesson thy foster-son with good and wholesome rede. And learn him not thy fashion of seamanship, but mine. For certain it is, there’s no shore to swim to, as here, whenas kingdoms are overset.”
Thorgnyr Thorgnyrson the Lawman came that same evening, obedient to the sending of Eric the King, to hold talk with him in a little fire-hall where the King was wont to sit when he would be private. The King made Thorgnyr sit on a low stool before the King’s feet. Old of years was Thorgnyr, and his beard both long and white, and his brow much furrowed, and with great shaggy eyebrows obscuring his eyes, and his cheeks hollow and lined, and his nose like an eagle’s beak. The head of him was bald.
The King said, “Fowls and beasts which herdeth and flocketh: is it to this pass thou wilt bring me the Swede-realm, Thorgnyr?”
Thorgnyr looked at him in silence for a moment. Then he answered and said, “To be free with you, King ’tis a younger than I and a nearer your own blood you should abraid with these unfortunes, not me.”
“So,” said the King: “sith old men’s hands grow feeble and let fall authority, we are to blame it on young blood that it runneth strong? We were best geld our young men, think’st thou, to make ’em docile, so as we may live out our time in quiet? or expose ’em all, and breed up girl-children only, that I and thou in our dotage may still find obedience?”
Thorgnyr bowed his head. “I marvel not, Lord, if you be angry. But if I wrought not my best for your interest so far as in me lay, then ask I no further thing at your hands than the loss of all I can lose: goods, lands, liberty, and last my life withal.”
“By whose authority,” said the King, “was this assembly holden, when the Thing was broken up according to law and I gone otherwhere for a season?”
“There was no authority for it, Lord,” answered he.
“Was it thy doing, Thorgnyr?” said the King.
He answered, “No.”
“Was it against thy strong withstanding?” said the King again.
“Lord, you must not press me over hard,” said Thorgnyr. “It was neither by my will nor counsel: that I can surely swear unto you.”
The King sat very still. Then he said, not raising his tone, yet with a note in his voice that menaced like a great dog’s growl, low and dangerous, “Is it come to this, that it must be tried out at last whether I or the bonders hath the lordship of this land of Sweden?”
The old man was silent, staring into the fire.
“I will have thine answer,” said the King.
Slowly Thorgnyr turned and looked in the King’s face. “Then answer me my question, King: Whether with the sun or with the rain ripeneth the corn unto harvest?”
Chin in hand, the King leaned over the arm of his carven chair, studying that old man where he sat bent in the dancing firelight, one pale fine hand tight-clutched across the other shoulder, holding close about him the gathered folds of his cloak of minivere, as if even by that hot fire his lean body was a-cold, the other clenched on his knee. After a while the King began to say, “Thou and I wax old. And when we are laid in howe the ordering of these things shall lie in other men’s hands, and they will order them as the Fates shall ordain. Belike it were a wise man’s part to let alone: what must be must be. Yet is that not my way. And besides, Thorgnyr,” said the King in an altered voice, “I do love this lad.”
After a pause, “Thou art silent,” said the King. “What dost think on?”
“Must I tell you, Lord?”
“Thou must,” said the King.
For a minute, Thorgnyr abode silent. Then, “This it is, then,” answered he: “that Styrbiorn’s stout stomach shall likely undo both he himself and us.”
“Pshaw!” said the King, “thou’rt jaundiced. Thou seest all yellow.”
“Say rather, Lord,” replied Thorgnyr, “that were a blind goose that knew not a fox from a fern-bush. At this Thing, ill as it was that it should have come to such a pass, I could have smoothed all, but by his row and ruckling was all upsy-turvy turned, and the Thing broke up in an uproar. He first set the ball flying, and returned ’em gibe for gibe and fierce word for fierce word.”
The King said menacingly, “They stoned my kinsman and my Earl, I am let to know.”
“I could not help it,” said Thorgnyr. And he paused. “Will you suffer me to speak plain, Lord?”
The King said, “Speak.”
“You have known the truth of my mind these forty year and more. And afore that, my father served the King your father, and counselled him faithfully with wholesome counsel. Truly I say unto you, King, the Swede-folk will not abear to be spur-ridden; and most unbearable shall be the spurrings of this young man.”
“And I,” said King Eric, swinging round on him in a flash of anger, “will not abear false kings i’ the land.”
“If you will take my rede, Lord,” said Thorgnyr, quailing not at all, “you will be so high-minded as, eaglelike, to disdain this little fowl. I swear to you I had no part in it, but stay them then I could not. ’Twas done in a hot folly of rage, under what stress of provocation you do know. It will die out like a spark, unless you, Lord, by untimely blowing on’t should puff it to flame indeed.”
“I,” said the King, “tread down sparks, not blow ’em, whenso I’ve a mind to put ’em out. The bonders know me, and I them. If I reach not out mine hand now upon this Lambi they will not mistake the reason; nor he neither, if he have wit. Bid him keep quiet, or safest depart out of the land. Thou hast ways and means: see to it, thou. Styrbiorn I will send abroad for three years, furnishing his depart with both ships and men sufficient for notable doings if, as I think, he hath the parts to use them. So shall he redden tooth somewhat otherwise than on mine own men here in Sweden, and after three years come home ripe to be received into kingdom.”
“You plant well, King,” said Thorgnyr, shaking his head. “Pray Gods the mould prove not barren and unapt.”
A man of the King’s bodyguard came in and louting before the King asked would he see Styrbiorn. The King bade admit him straight. Styrbiorn came swiftly in, saw Thorgnyr, and came to a full stop betwixt the carved jambs of the doorway. He looked from the King to Thorgnyr, from Thorgnyr to the King. His face grew grim and the hair of his head was raised a little, like the heckles of a savage dog in the presence of an enemy. “It is the worst of shames,” said he, “if you, Lord, will discourse thus friendly with that old man. Let lead him out and hew him before the doors; that were a good deed.”
The King gazed sternly at him, but spake no word.
“Lord,” said Styrbiorn, standing still in the doorway in the light of the fire, “I came to ask a boon of you. And this it is, that you find me twenty ships, Lord, and suffer me go a-harrying. And give me leave too to slay your outlaw Lambi the White, which these shagamuffin bonders and that old man did openly name for king. And that was the biggest shame ever heard tell of.”
Thorgnyr’s eyes were bent on the young man from under their deep-jutting eaves. His face was calm and his brow unruffled, but none might see the eyes of him watching from those dark sockets where the fitful firelight never pierced.
“Kinsman,” said King Eric, “thou art young. Therefore at thine injustice and want of judgment I wonder not: years and knowledge shall mend it. For the rest, not twenty but sixty ships shalt thou have, and a full tale of men thereto, and it is my will that thou be three winters abroad. There shalt thou, being king-born, learn the trade of kings. After that, if out of so many and great scapes thou come back safe and sound, I think I shall find thee a man grown, and a right son of thy father’s, and a right kinsman of mine. And that shall be the best day of all my life’s days, when I shall receive thee in thy father’s stead, joint King with me in Upsala.”
When the King his uncle had so spoken, Styrbiorn’s face put off in an instant his fierce and dogged look and he looked upon the King with so open and merry a smile as must have made even an ill-willer wish to love him, and his hair bristled no more but lay down as it should upon his head. He came forward into the room.
“As for this Lambi,” said the King, “he is naught: a fly: a gob of spittle: I regard him not at all. I forbid thee, on thy life, to fight with him in Sweden or the coasts thereof. But if ye hap together in the outlands or on the main seas, why, let it befall as Fate shall will.”
“King,” answered Styrbiorn, “you have nobly dealt with me. And I swear to abide by all you bid me.”
The King said, “I will now that ye twain be friends, thou and Thorgnyr. I will you to handsel friendship to each other, here in this place.”
Thorgnyr held out his hand; but Styrbiorn paused, then stepped a pace backward. “I’ll give him my hand,” he said, “when I can give it with a good will. Another day.”
“Well,” said Thorgnyr, “at least I love open honesty.”
“The lad hath been sore tried,” said the King when Styrbiorn was gone. “I do see greatness in him.”
Thorgnyr looked at the King from the inscrutable dark of his deep-thatched eye-sockets. “Ay, Lord,” he said. “But the end tries all.”