Swords From the Sea Read Online Free PDF

the duel, and after all he had fallen as easily as a common man.
    He had fallen and the duel was over. "Back to your benches, lads! " cried the Viking. "Out oars and away!"
    When the oars churned the water white under the star-gleam, he stood by the steering sweep, watching for pursuit. No sail followed. Slowly the lights of the great city merged and dwindled astern. Fiddle Skal was singing to the laboring messmates of the sword that wrought a lordling's doom. But Brian wondered why the sea was without hue and cry after them.
    In his mind he recalled that afternoon, when he had seen again the two men that sold him Irene. The bearded Greek peddler had been fishing in a skiff; but Theophile had brought a message to the ship. Theophile, that confidential man with the staff, had said that Dukas would fight the duel that evening, coming out in his barge to meet the dragon ship midway between the city and the Asia shore after the first starlight. Theophile had whispered it, showing fleetingly a signet ring in his hand. And now Brian wondered.
    He washed the blood from his head and went down into the cabin where Irene was sitting, with a curtain cloth on her knee. The place looked bright now and not at all like a wolf's throat. She held out her hands to him. "You are brave, my lord."
    It pleased him, but still he did not forget the doubt in his mind. "I am thinking," he explained, "that Dukas the Caesar did not relish that duel of ours. It may be that he did not seek it. Yet that man of his, Theophile, showed me his signet ring."
    Irene sewed a stitch or two. "It was not his. I saw it." She sighed and thought for a moment. "The ring was the Emperor's. Aye, Theophile must have been his spy."
    Brian could make little of this. "Then why, after that, didst thou pray me to sail away?"
    "Because-" she lifted her eyes suddenly to him-"I was afraid for thee. Do not think now of that which is past, and I will not." She took his face between her hands and smiled unsteadily. In her heart she had said farewell to the sunlit palace by the Judas trees. "Wilt thou take me to that land where the lotus eaters are, and no one remembers aught?"
    "Aye-if it will make thee glad, my lovely one."
    "So glad," she said softly, "so glad."
     

Out of the mist the dragon's head appeared. Then came its body, long and low and lined with shields. From the mist it wallowed toward the shore. It turned into a narrow bay, long oars moving slowly like fins at its side.
    So, upon a winter's noon when the snow lay deep under the firs, the dragon ship came into Thord's bay. The first to see it was a young girl, walking upon the outer wall of Thord's hall.
    Bright quick eyes she had, and she knew well the like of ships. An instant she stared with a swift-drawn breath, and then was flying down the stone steps, her tawny hair twisting about her slender throat. Into the great hall she burst.
    "My father, a Viking ship has put into the shore." And she stamped her foot. "Make haste!"
    Sir Thord, a broad, mild man, reached behind his chair for his weapons. In other days he had fought off raids of the Vikings who came in their long boats from the northern sea. But of late he liked better to trade with them. Times were hard and he had few men to follow him when he went warfaring out of the manor.
    Another man got to his feet. A champion he was, tall and dark, with a shield of arms embroidered on his long robe. He had fur at his wrists and throat, this Valgard-for he was the king's warden of the coast who gathered in tithes and hung up miscreants. Few could match him ahorse or afoot, with sword or ax or spear. A man of mark-a fine huntsman, and rich. He laughed across the table at the excited girl.
    "God send," said he, "that this seafarer be the Red Elf. I have looked long for him."
    The girl, Astrid, had heard much talk of the Red Elf, who was the most elusive of the Vikings. Men said that he sailed all the seas, in any weather. He followed war like a raven, and he wooed the