Then Alfgar said: “Ettaine of the bright hair, it is not right that at to-morrow’s noon an archbishop will be putting the crown of a queen of Ecben upon your shining head. Ecben is but a little land: and if the brightness of the crowns of Rome and of Byzantium, and of every other kingdom which retains a famousness, had all been shaped into one crown for my Ettaine to be wearing, the brightness of this hair would shame it.”
Ettaine answered him, “It is not the crown which is dear to me, O heart of all my happiness, but the king alone.”
“Why, but,” said Alfgar, “two kings have loved Ettaine.”
Whereupon the fond and radiant daughter of Thordis Bent-Neck laughed contentedly, and replied: “Yet to my judgment and to my desires no person is kingly except Alfgar. And, as for that Ulf—” A shrug rounded off her exact opinion.
Such was the sort of nonsense which these youthful lovers talked upon the eve of their marriage feast, as they sat together in the hedged garden at Sorram, where the pale new grass grew raggedly between the brown flagstones, and the silver jetting of the little fountain wavered everywhither under the irresolute, frail winds of April. And around and above these lovers who were young the young leaves whispered in their merry prophesying of more than a century of summers might by any chance fulfil.
Chapter III. A Dream Smites Him
NOW it was in the night season of his marriage eve that a dream came upon King Alfgar. Through his dreaming a music went wandering. It was a far-off music not very clearly heard, and a music which, he knew, was not of this world. But that there was a sorcery in this bitter music he knew also, for it held him motionless.
The champion that had slain many warriors lay upon his couch, beneath a coverlet of lamb’s wool dyed with blue stripings, as still as a slain warrior. Upon him who had all his desires came doubtfulness and discontent. He desired that which this music desired, and which this music quested after, skirlingly, and could not find in any quarter of earth. For it was to the sound of this music, as Alfgar knew, with a troubled heart, that Horvendile and his Ettarre passed down the years together, and led men out of the set ways of life.
So now a woman came to Alfgar where the King lay upon his couch beneath the coverlet of lamb’s wool, and with this woman came a red-haired boy. The woman smiled. The boy smiled also, but his face became white and drawn when he had laid the hand of this woman upon the hand of Alfgar, and when the woman bent downward so that her face was near to Alfgar’s face.
She spoke then, putting her command upon Alfgar in the while that he saw her face and the bright glitter of her eyes and the slow moving of her lips. It was in this way that Ettarre the witch-woman, whom a poet fetched out of the gray Waste Beyond the Moon, to live upon our earth in many bodies, now put a memory and a desire and a summoning upon King Alfgar in the hour of his triumph.
Moreover Alfgar now heard, very faintly, and as though from a far distance, a noise of grieving little voices which wailed confusedly. And that remote thin wailing said,—
“All hail, Ettarre!”
Then one small voice was saying, “Because of you, we could be contented with no woman.” And yet another voice was saying, “Because of you, we got no pleasure from any melody that is of this world.” And still a third voice said, “Because of you, we fared among mankind as exiles.”
Thereafter all these faint thin voices cried together, “All hail, Ettarre, who took from us contentment, and who led us out of the set ways of life!”
So was it that this dreaming ended. King Alfgar awoke alone in the first light of dawn, and knew that his doom was upon him.
Chapter IV. The Sending of the Swallow
NOWHERE in that part of the world was there any king more powerful than Alfgar. Young Alfgar sat upon his throne builded of apple-wood with rivets of copper, and his barons stood about him. Upon his fair high head he wore the holy crown of Ecben, the gift of Ecben’s one god: the kingship over all Ecben was his who wore that crown. Gold rings hung in the ears of Alfgar; about the neck of Alfgar were five rings of gold, and over the broad shoulders of Alfgar was a purple robe edged with two strips of vair.
He bade them summon from the women’s pleasant galleries Ettaine, the daughter of Thordis Bent-Neck, so that Ettaine might be crowned as Queen over Ecben. He bade them fetch from the dark prison that Ulf who was no longer a king.
Alfgar considered well these two who stood before him. Behind Ettaine were her bridesmaids. These maids were sweetly smiling tall girls, with yellow curling hair and clear blue eyes: each one of these four maids had over her white body a robe of green silk with a gold star upon the tip of each of her young breasts. But behind Ulf two of the masked men in red who had fetched him hither were laying out the implements of their profession, and the other two masked men were quietly kindling a serviceable fire.
The barons of Ecben deferentially suggested such tortures as each baron, during the course of his military or juridical career, had found to be the most prolonged and entertaining to watch. But the archbishop of Ecben took no part in these secular matters: instead, he gallantly fetched a chair of carved yew-wood, and he placed in it a purple cushion sewed with gold threads, so that Ettaine might observe the administration of justice in complete comfort.
Then, while all waited on the will of Alfgar, a swallow darted toward Ulf, and plucked from his defiant dark head a hair, and the bird flew away with this hair dangling from its broad short bill. At that, the barons of Ecben cried out joyously. All were familiar with the Sending of the Swallow: it was a Sending well known to fame and to many honorable legends; for it was in this way that the gods of Rorn were accustomed to put ruin and downfall upon their cousins, the kings of Rorn. So every baron now rejoiced to observe their morning’s work thus freely endorsed in advance with the approval of Heaven, now that Ulf’s gods forsook him. King Alfgar alone of that merry company kept silence.
Then Alfgar said: “This is the Swallow of Kogi. This is a Sending of the three gods of Rorn. In what forgotten hour did these three take their rule over Ecben?”
“Nevertheless, sire,” remarked the archbishop, in a slight flurry, “it is well, and it is much wiser too, to preserve with the gods of every country our diplomatic relations.”
But Alfgar answered: “What the king wishes, the law wills. And we of Ecben serve only one god, and one king, and one lady in domnei.”
Alfgar descended the red steps of his throne.
He unclasped his robe of purple edged with a king’s double striping of vair, and he put this robe about the shoulders of another. Alfgar took from his fair head the holy crown of Ecben: the kingship over all Ecben was his who wore that crown which Alfgar now placed upon the head of another. Alfgar raised toward his lips the hands of Ettaine, he touched for the last time in his life the lovely body of Ettaine, because of whose comeliness the heart of Alfgar had known no peace now for four years; and he placed her right hand in the right hand of another. Then Alfgar knelt, he placed his own hands between the hairy thighs of Ulf, he touched the huge virility of Ulf, and Alfgar swore his fealty and his service to the wearer of the holy crown of Ecben.
It was then that, after a moment of human surprise, Ulf spoke as became a king. But first he waved back the four masked men as they advanced to perform the duties of their office upon the body of Alfgar. The barons murmured a little at that, and the archbishop of Ecben perforce shook his head in unwilling disapproval.