Part 20 (1/2)
Now all those who watched called out that this was a good offer and a manly one, though it might turn out ill for Eric; but Ospakar answered:
”Were I but well of my wound I alone would cut that golden comb of thine, thou braggart; as it is, be sure that two shall be found.”
”Who is the braggart?” answered Eric. ”He who twice has learned the weight of this arm and yet boasts his strength, or I who stand craving that two should come against me? Get thee hence, Ospakar; get thee home and bid Thorunna, thy leman, whom thou didst beguile from that Ounound who now is named Skallagrim Lambstail the Baresark, nurse thee whole of the wound her husband gave thee. Be sure we shall yet stand face to face, and that combs shall be cut then, combs black or golden. Nurse thee! nurse thee! cease thy prating--get thee home, and bid Thorunna nurse thee; but first name thou the two who shall stand against me in holmgang in Oxara's stream.”
Folk laughed aloud while Eric mocked, but Ospakar gnashed his teeth with rage. Still, he named the two mightiest men in his company, bidding them take up their swords against Brighteyes. This, indeed, they were loth to do; still, because of the shame that they must get if they hung back, and for fear of the wrath of Ospakar, they made ready to obey his bidding.
Then all men pa.s.sed down to the bank of Oxara, and, on the other side, people came from their booths and sat upon the slope of All Man's Raft, for it was a new thing that one man should fight two in holmgang.
Now Eric crossed to the island where holmgangs are fought to this day, and after him came the two chosen, flouris.h.i.+ng their swords bravely, and taking counsel how one should rush at his face, while the other pa.s.sed behind his back and spitted him, as woodfolk spit a lamb. Eric drew Whitefire and leaned on it, waiting for the word, and all the women held him to be wondrous fair as, clad in his byrnie and his golden helm, he leaned thus on Whitefire. Presently the word was given, and Eric, standing not to defend himself as they deemed he surely would, whirled Whitefire round his helm and rushed headlong on his foes, s.h.i.+eld aloft.
The great carles saw the light that played on Whitefire's edge and the other light that burned in Eric's eyes, and terror got hold of them. Now he was almost come, and Whitefire sprang aloft like a tongue of flame.
Then they stayed no more, but, running one this way and one that, cast themselves into the flood and swam for the river-edge. Now from either bank rose up a roar of laughter, that grew and grew, till it echoed against the lava rifts and scared the ravens from their nests.
Eric, too, stopped his charge and laughed aloud; then walked back to where Asmund stood, unarmed, to second him in the holmgang.
”I can get little honour from such champions as these,” he said.
”Nay,” answered Asmund, ”thou hast got the greatest honour, and they, and Ospakar, such shame as may not be wiped out.”
Now when Blacktooth saw what had come to pa.s.s, he well-nigh choked, and fell from his horse in fury. Still, he could find no stomach for fighting, but, mustering his company, rode straightway from the Thing home again to Swinefell. But he caused those two whom he had put up to do battle with Eric to be set upon with staves and driven from his following, and the end of it was that they might stay no more in Iceland, but took s.h.i.+p and sailed south, and now they are out of the story.
On the next day, Asmund, and with him Eric and all their men, rode back to Middalhof. Gudruda greeted Eric well, and for the first time since Swanhild went away she kissed him. Moreover, she wept bitterly when she learned that he must go into outlawry, while she must bide at home.
”How shall the days pa.s.s by, Eric?” she said, ”when thou art far, and I know not where thou art, nor how it goes with thee, nor if thou livest or art already dead?”
”In sooth I cannot say, sweet,” he answered; ”but of this I am sure that, wheresoever I am, yet more weary shall be my hours.”
”Three years,” she went on--”three long, cold years, and no sight of thee, and perchance no tidings from thee, till mayhap I learn that thou art in that land whence tidings cannot come. Oh, it would be better to die than to part thus.”
”Well I wot that it is better to die than to live, and better never to have been born than to live and die,” answered Eric sadly. ”Here, it would seem, is nothing but hate and strife, weariness and bitter envy to fret away our strength, and at last, if we come so far, sorrowful age and death, and thereafter we know not what. Little of good do we find to our hands, and much of evil; nor know I for what ill-doing these burdens are laid upon us. Yet must we needs breathe such an air as is blown about us, Gudruda, clasping at this happiness which is given, though we may not hold it. At the worst, the game will soon be played, and others will stand where we have stood, and strive as we have striven, and fail as we have failed, and so on, till man has worked out his doom, and the G.o.ds cease from their wrath, or Ragnarrok come upon them, and they too are lost in the jaws of grey wolf Fenrir.”
”Men may win one good thing, and that is fame, Eric.”
”Nay, Gudruda, what is it to win fame? Is it not to raise up foes, as it were, from the very soil, who, made with secret hate, seek to stab us in the back? Is it not to lose peace, and toil on from height to height only to be hurled down at last? Happy, then, is the man whom fame flies from, for hers is a deadly gift.”
”Yet there is one thing left that thou hast not numbered, Eric, and it is love--for love is to our life what the sun is to the world, and, though it seems to set in death, yet it may rise again. We are happy, then, in our love, for there are many who live their lives and do not find it.”
So these two, Eric Brighteyes and Gudruda the Fair, talked sadly, for their hearts were heavy, and on them lay the shadow of sorrows that were to come.
”Say, sweet,” said Eric at length, ”wilt thou that I go not into banishment? Then I must fall into outlawry, and my life will be in the hands of him who may take it; yet I think that my foes will find it hard to come by while my strength remains, and at the worst I do but turn to meet the fate that dogs me.”
”Nay, that I will not suffer, Brighteyes. Now we will go to my father, and he shall give thee his dragon of war--she is a good vessel--and thou shalt man her with the briskest men of our quarter: for there are many who will be glad to fare abroad with thee, Eric. Soon she shall be bound and thou shalt sail at once, Eric: for the sooner thou art gone the sooner the three years will be sped, and thou shalt come back to me.
But, oh! that I might go with thee.”
Now Gudruda and Eric went to Asmund and spoke of this matter.
”I desired,” he answered, ”that thou, Eric, shouldst bide here in Iceland till after harvest, for it is then that I would take Unna, Thorod's daughter, to wife, and it was meet that thou shouldst sit at the wedding-feast and give her to me.”
”Nay, father, let Eric go,” said Gudruda, ”for well begun is, surely, half done. He must remain three years in outlawry: add thou no day to them, for, if he stays here for long, I know this: that I shall find no heart to let him go, and, if go he must, then I shall go with him.”