“A message came for you both,” he said sleepily. “See, here, this bag; the owls have not ceased to screech since the moment I received it. I was down at the brook, drinking, when a man came from the Finnvedings’ camp and asked for you, Orm. I told him that you had gone to the Virds. Then he threw his bag across the water, so that it fell at my feet, and shouted that it was a gift for Orm of Gröning and his long-nosed priest. I asked him what the bag might contain. Cabbage-heads, he replied, and laughed and went away. It is my belief that it contains something worse. Here is the bag; I have not touched the strings.”
He dropped the bag at Orm’s feet, laid himself down, and fell asleep at once.
Orm stared darkly at the bag and then at the priest. Both shook their heads.
“There is devilry here,” said Father Willibald. “It cannot but be so.”
Orm untied the strings, and shook out the contents. Two human heads rolled on to the ground, and Father Willibald fell to his knees with a groan.
“They are both shaven!” he cried. “Priests of Christ, murdered by heathens! How can human understanding comprehend the will of God when such things are allowed to gladden Satan?”
He peered more closely at the two heads and flung his arms toward the sky.
“I know them, I know them both!” he cried. “This is Father Sebastian, a most pious and worthy man, whom our crazy magister was to release from his slavery. Now God has released him and has set him high in heaven among the blessed martyrs. And this is Brother Nithard of Reims, who was at one time with Bishop Poppo at King Harald’s court. From there he went to Skania, since when nothing has been heard of him; he, too, must have been made a slave. I know him by his ear. He was always ardent in his zeal and passion for the true faith; and once, at the Emperor’s court, he had an ear bitten off by one of the Empress Theofano’s monks from Constantinople, that city which Northmen call Miklagard, during an argument concerning the nature of the Holy Ghost. He used to say that he had given his ear in the fight against heresy, and that he was ready to give his head in the fight against heathendom. And now his words have been fulfilled.”
“If he wished it to be so,” said Orm, “we should not weep; though it is my belief that the Finnvedings did not render these god-men headless as an act of favor, however holy they may have been, but that they have done this deed and sent their heads to us as an insult and to cause us grief. This is our reward for having baptized Östen and his two men and allowed them to go in peace instead of killing them when we had them in our power. Perhaps you now regret, as I do, that we acted thus mercifully.”
“A good deed remains good and should never be regretted,” replied Father Willibald, “whatever consequences it may bring with it. These holy heads I shall bury in my churchyard, for from them much strength will come.”
“A stink is coming from them already,” said Orm darkly. “But you may be right.”
Then, at Father Willibald’s bidding, he helped to gather grass and leafy branches, with which they stuffed the bag. Among these, with great care, they placed the two heads, after which they refastened the strings.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CONCERNING THE THING AT THE KRAKA STONE
THE NEXT morning twelve men were chosen from each of the three border tribes, the Virds, the Göings, and the Finnvedings; and these men went to the places traditionally reserved for them, in a half-circle facing the Stone, with each twelve seated together. The rest of the men grouped themselves behind their chosen representatives to listen to what these wise men had to say. The twelve Virds sat in the center of the half-circle, and their chieftain rose first. His name was Ugge the Inarticulate, son of Oar; he was an old man, and had the reputation of being the wisest person in the whole of Värend. It had always been the case with him that he was never able to speak except with great difficulty, but everyone was agreed that this was a sign of the profundity of his thinking; it was said that he had been marked out as a wise man even in his youth, when he would sometimes sit through a three-day Thing without uttering a word, only now and then slowly shaking his head.
He now advanced to the Stone, turned to face the assembly, and spoke.
“Wise men,” he said, “have now gathered here. Very wise men, from Värend and Göinge and Finnveden, after the ancient custom of our fathers. This is good. I greet you all and pronounce that our decisions shall be received peacefully. May you judge wisely, and to the advantage of us all. We have come here to talk about peace. It is the way with men that some think one thing and some another. I am old and rich in experience, and I know what I think. I think that peace is a good thing. Better than strife, better than burning, better than murder. Peace has reigned between us tribes for three whole years now, and no harm has come as a result of this. Nor will any harm come if this peace is allowed to continue. Those who have complaints to make shall be heard, and their complaints judged. Those who wish to kill one another may do so here at the Stone, for such is the law and ancient custom of the Thing. But peace is best.”
When he had finished his speech, the Virds looked this way and that, for they were proud of their chieftain and his wisdom. Then the Thing-chieftain of the Göings rose. His name was Sone the Sharp-Sighted, and he was so old that the two men who were seated next to him took hold of his arms to help him get up; but he brushed them angrily away, hobbled nimbly forward to the Stone, and took his stand beside Ugge. He was a tall and scraggy man, desiccated and bent crooked with age, with a long nose and thin wisps of mottled beard; and although the day was fine and the late summer sun shone warmly, he wore a skin coat reaching to his knees, and a thick cap of fox fur. He looked immeasurably wise and had had a great reputation for as long as anyone could remember. His sharp-sightedness was famous; he could find where hidden treasure lay, and could look into the future and foretell the bad luck that lay there. In addition to all this, he had been married seven times and had twenty-three sons and eleven daughters; and it was said that he was doing his best to get round dozens of both, which made him much admired and honored by all the Göings.
He, too, pronounced peace upon the assembly and spoke in fine words of the peaceful intentions of the Göings, which, he said, were proved by the fact that they had undertaken no campaigns against either the Virds or the Finnvedings for four whole years. This, he continued, might be taken by foolish strangers to signify that weakness and sloth had begun to flourish among them; but if anyone thought this, he was wrong, for they were no less ready than their fathers had been to teach manners with point and blade to any man who sought to do them wrong, as could be testified by one or two people who had made the effort. It was also wrong to suppose that this peaceful attitude was the result of the good years they had enjoyed recently, with rich harvests, lush pasture, and freedom from cattle sickness; for a well-fed Göing was as doughty a warrior as when starvation cramped his belly, and of as proud a temper. The true cause of this desire for peace, he explained, was that men of wisdom and experience now prevailed, their counsel being accepted by the tribe.
“So long as such men are to be found and their advice listened to,” he concluded, “we shall prosper. But as the years pass, the number of wise men grows less, and I think that, of those men whose judgment can be fully relied upon, no more than two are alive who are likely to survive much longer, Ugge and myself. It is therefore more than ever necessary that you young men who have been chosen to represent your tribes, though you have not yet any streak of gray in your beards, should listen carefully to what we say and thereby glean wisdom, which as yet you lack. For it is a good thing when old men are listened to and young men understand that they themselves have but a small measure of understanding.”