The Iron Arrow Head or The Buckler Maiden: A Tale of the Northman Invasion

THE RESCUE

A night and almost a whole day had passed since Anne the Sweet, taken into one of the underground cells of the abbey of St. Denis by Father Fultrade, had escaped the outrageous purposes of the monk.

Deepest darkness reigned in the dungeon in which Anne the Sweet was confined. The feelings of terror and despair that at first seized her at being separated from her mother, had been followed by mental and physical prostration. Her tears had run dry. Seated on the stone slabs of the cell with her back to the wall, the young girl dropped into a feverish slumber agitated by sinister dreams. One time, it was the monk Fultrade who appeared before her, and then she awoke shuddering with horror – a horror that was intensified by the brooding darkness around her. At other times Anne dreamed that she had been forgotten in the underground chamber, and felt herself a prey to the agonies of hunger while her torture was rendered still more excruciating by the heart-rending cries of her mother, likewise a prey to the torments of famine. Suddenly the young girl was awakened from her cruel dreams by a loud noise of voices and steps that tumultuously drew near. She leaped up, listened, and recognizing the voices of Eidiol and of Guyrion the Plunger, she bounded towards the door which she struck with all her strength, crying:

"Father! Brother! Deliver me! Come, come to my help!"

"Step back from the door, my child!" answered the skipper. "We shall break it in."

Beside herself with joy, the young girl fell back a few steps. Shaken from its hinges by the blows of the iron bars that Eidiol and Guyrion and Rustic the Gay wielded with energy, the door soon fell over and Anne rushed into the arms of her father and brother; but looking around as if missing someone she had expected to see, she asked with fear:

"And my mother? Where is my dear mother?"

"You will see her in an instant, my child. It is from her I just learned about the treason of the infamous monk," answered the dean of the Skippers' Guild, who could not bestow sufficient caresses upon the daughter whom he feared to have lost. "When she saw me," continued the happy father, "poor Martha felt such a pang that she lost consciousness. Fortunately she returned to her senses, but her weakness is such that she could not walk out of the cell in which she also was confined. It is near by."

"But you here, father, in this abbey?" the young girl inquired, as soon as her first emotions were calmed. "And you, too, brother? And you, Rustic? Am I dreaming? Is it yourselves I see in this dungeon?"

"The Count of Paris posted some archers along the banks of the Seine in order to stop all the vessels that ascended the river," the old man explained. "Two of his soldiers took me to Rothbert. I had an altercation with him, and he ordered me locked up here."

"And the traitor thereupon sent us one of his men to say that my father wanted to see us immediately," added Guyrion; "we came without suspecting any harm – "

"And we had hardly set foot inside the abbey," broke in Rustic the Gay, "when the count's soldiers fell upon us unexpectedly and took us also prisoners."

"But you are now free," replied Anne. "Who set you free?"

"The Northman pirates, my dear child."

"Great God!" cried the young girl affrighted and clasping her hands. "Oh! father! were those pagans merciful to you?"

"Pagans who set us free are better than Christians who imprison us. Moreover, these brave and wily folks entered the abbey by strategem, and have slaughtered about a hundred Frankish soldiers, without counting the monks whom they despatched."

"After which, sister," proceeded Guyrion, "they started to pillage the basilica and the abbey. There is a heap of booty, as high as the portal of the cloister, piled up in the court-yard."

"And then," said Rustic, "the Northmans descended into the cellar to stave in the heads of the casks of wine that the abbot kept there. In this way they landed at the entrance of the gallery that leads to these underground dungeons. Expecting to find large treasures locked up there, they broke in the door. They found us huddled together in the gallery. Their chief, a magnificent young warrior whom they call Gaëlo, ordered them to treat us well and to assist us in setting the rest of the prisoners free. That is the history of our own deliverance."

"Thus, my child, we reached the cell in which your mother was confined," added Eidiol, again embracing Anne the Sweet.

"The young chief Gaëlo quitted us to join old Rolf, the chief of all the Northman forces," rejoined Guyrion, "who had just disembarked near the abbey. He entered the place and now holds it with a large body of men. The pirates are now hastily throwing up earth-works above the abbey on the side of Paris. Before sailing up towards the city they wish to fortify themselves here so as to have a safe place of refuge."

"Halloa! Halloa, there! Where are the Parisian skippers?" Gaëlo's voice was at this moment heard calling out from a distance. "Come here, my worthy men; Rolf wishes to see you!"

"Young man," said Eidiol to the pirate who was approaching them, "we thank you for having set us free. We shall follow you. But grant that my son remain near his sister and mother, who, like ourselves, were locked up in this underground prison. They need his protection."

"Let it be so," answered Gaëlo.

While Anne the Sweet and her brother walked to the cell where Martha lay, the dean of the Skippers' Guild of Paris, together with Rustic the Gay and his other men, followed Gaëlo to be presented to Rolf, who was feasting in the apartment recently occupied by the gourmandizing and craven Abbot of St. Denis. On their way thither, the young pirate left Eidiol and his men for an instant, and ran to one of the lower apartments of the abbey whither the Beautiful Shigne, whose wound, although serious, was not mortal, had been transported and was being tended. When Lodbrog the berserker, still under the spell of his vertigo of fury dashed into the crypt of the mausoleum of Clovis where the wounded warrior maid lay, the structure would inevitably have been demolished had he not stumbled at the first step of the short stone stairs that led down into the cell, and rolled to the bottom where he fell prostrate, bleeding to death from the wounds that he had received, not a few of which would have even singly proved mortal.

CHAPTER IX

THE NORTHMAN SEA-KING

Rolf, the Sea-King and supreme Chief of the Northman pirates, was a man far advanced in years. His beard and hair, naturally of a yellow blonde, were heavily streaked with grey. Numerous scars criss-crossed his face, which was of a brick-red hue, tanned and copper-colored by the sun and the sea air. His physiognomy was rendered hideous by a saber cut that put out his left eye and cut his nose off to the bone. His single eye glistened like a burning coal under its bushy eye-brow; his heavy lips, half-hidden under his bristling moustache and by his shaggy beard, imparted to his mouth a scoffing and sensuous expression. Rolf was of middle size and of athletic frame. His arms were abnormally long. Like his champions, the Northman Chieftain wore an armor of iron scales. But, in order to feast and frolic more at ease, he had doffed his cuirass, and now kept on only a jacket of reindeer-skin, blackened at several places by the friction of his armor, and that fell open from time to time, exposing his shirt and, under his shirt, a chest as hirsute as that of the bears of the northern sea. The pirate chieftain was just finishing his repast. Canons and a few other surviving dignitaries of the abbot served Rolf upon their knees. The friars looked haggard and were pale with fear. He allowed them to move about only on all fours, or upon their knees when they were wanted to reach out dishes and wine cups to him. Every time that the movements of these servitors seemed too slow, either the pirates themselves, or former serfs of the abbey, who now saw their opportunity to avenge the ill-treatments that they had been subjected to, quickened, with kicks and sticks, the motions of the holy men.

Rolf, just finishing his sumptuous feast, seemed to be in great good humor. Half seas over with the old wines of Gaul, he was indulging himself in the well upholstered easy-chair of the abbot. He had just placed a woman on each knee, when, back from his call upon the Beautiful Shigne, and at ease concerning her recovery, Gaëlo entered the banquet-hall, accompanied by Eidiol, Rustic and the other skippers whom he was to present to Rolf.

"So the priests of this place were keeping you prisoners!" remarked Rolf to the skippers while wiping with the back of his hand his thick moustache, still wet with wine. "You should side with us against the church rats and the castle falcons!"

"We river-pikes can escape the rats and the falcons easy enough," answered Eidiol. "Nevertheless, we love to see the falcons transfixed with arrows, and the rats drowned in their traps. We applaud your victory over the monks of St. Denis."

"Are you of the city of Paris?"

"Yes, seigneur; I am the dean of the Skippers' Guild."

"Will the Parisians defend their city?"

"If you injure the poor folks, yes; if, however, all you mean to do is to burn down the churches, levy ransoms on the rich abbeys and on the palaces of the Frankish seigneurs, then the people will not budge."

"So, then, the good people of Paris will offer us no resistance. That will be wise on their part. What with the reserve that I shall leave in this fortified abbey, and my two thousand vessels that will ascend the Seine as far as Paris, resistance could come neither from Count Rothbert nor from Charles the Simple. Your King will pay us ransom, after which we shall wing our flight towards the North on the tracks of the swans, – unless I should take it into my head to settle down in this country of Gaul, the same as my comrade Hastain did when he settled down in the country of Chartres. He! He! my champions! I am growing old. Perhaps I should settle down in this country, in some fat province rich in pretty girls and good wine! Oh, my champions! As our saga sings: 'I am an old sea-crow; for nearly forty years I have grazed with my wings the fresh waters of rivers and the briny waves of the sea'. Now, then, there must be an end of this, my brave champions! Charles the Simple has a daughter called Ghisèle. She is a girl of fourteen, and pretty enough to make one's head swim. Maybe I shall take the daughter of Charles the Simple to wife and demand of him a whole province for dower. What think you of this project?"

No less intoxicated than their chieftain, the pirates emitted loud roars of laughter and answered vociferously:

"We shall drink to your wedding, old Rolf! A handsome maid belongs in your couch. Glory to the husband of Ghisèle, the daughter of Charles the Simple."

"The old brigand is drunk as a thrush in autumn, Master Eidiol; what wild scheme is that which he pursues?" whispered Rustic to the old skipper.

A great tumult interrupted the answer. The noise proceeded from without, it grew louder and approached the apartment. Imprecations and threats were vociferated wildly. Presently the door burst open and several pirates rushed in, dragging after them Guyrion the Plunger, his face bathed in blood.

"My son!" cried Eidiol running towards the lad. "My son is wounded!"

"And your mother – your sister – where are they?" added Rustic, rushing upon the heels of the old skipper. "Oh! I fear me a great misfortune has happened!"

"These bandits have killed my mother from whose arms they strove to drag my sister," answered Guyrion in despair. "I sought to defend them – these men struck me over the head with a saber and knocked me senseless!"

"My wife dead!" exclaimed the old man stupefied; and turning to the chieftain of the pirates, he cried out in a thundering voice: "Rolf! Justice! Justice! I demand vengeance!"

"Yes, Rolf, justice and vengeance!" cried several of the pirates who rushed in with Guyrion. "This dog whom we bring here to you has killed one of our companions. We want justice!"

Rolf, more and more under the influence of the heady wine, seeing that he continued to empty cup after cup, answered in a husky voice: "Yes, my champions; I shall order that justice be done. Only let me finish this flagon of wine."

At the same moment other pirates rushed in. They carried Anne the Sweet unconscious in their arms and deposited her at the feet of the Northman chieftain saying:

"Old Rolf, here is a beautiful girl that we have reserved for you. She belongs to your part of the booty."

Eidiol, Rustic, Guyrion and the other skippers in their company ran to the rescue of Anne, but they were violently repelled and held back by the pirates.

"My champions, I shall administer justice!" cried Rolf from his seat in a maudlin voice; and addressing himself to Guyrion the Plunger, who, forgetful of his wound that bathed his forehead in blood, looked alternately with despairing eyes from his father to his sister who lay prostrate in a swoon: "Who are you? Where do you come from? Answer, young man!"

"He is my son," answered Eidiol, choking with rage. "He is a skipper, like myself, and he came to join me at the abbey, where I was retained a prisoner."