第9章 CHAPTER III(3)

Thou shalt die one day. So hearken, to help me at my need."His face grew troubled and he said: "What is this word that I am no chief of the Wolfings?""Nay," she said, "but better than they. Look thou on the face of our daughter the Hall-Sun, thy daughter and mine: favoureth she at all of me?"He laughed: "Yea, whereas she is fair, but not otherwise. This is a hard saying, that I dwell among an alien kindred, and it wotteth not thereof. Why hast thou not told me hereof before?"She said: "It needed not to tell thee because thy day was waxing, as now it waneth. Once more I bid thee hearken and do my bidding though it be hard to thee."He answered: "Even so will I as much as I may; and thus wise must thou look upon it, that I love life, and fear not death."Then she spake, and again her words fell into rhyme:

"In forty fights hast thou foughten, and been worsted but in four;And I looked on and was merry; and ever more and more Wert thou dear to the heart of the Wood-Sun, and the Chooser of the Slain.

But now whereas ye are wending with slaughter-herd and wain To meet a folk that ye know not, a wonder, a peerless foe, I fear for thy glory's waning, and I see thee lying alow."Then he brake in: "Herein is little shame to be worsted by the might of the mightiest: if this so mighty folk sheareth a limb off the tree of my fame, yet shall it wax again."But she sang:

"In forty fights hast thou foughten, and beside thee who but IBeheld the wind-tossed banners, and saw the aspen fly?

But to-day to thy war I wend not, for Weird withholdeth me And sore my heart forebodeth for the battle that shall be.

To-day with thee I wend not; so I feared, and lo my feet, That are wont to the woodland girdle of the acres of the wheat, For thee among strange people and the foeman's throng have trod, And I tell thee their banner of battle is a wise and a mighty God.

For these are the folk of the cities, and in wondrous wise they dwell 'Mid confusion of heaped houses, dim and black as the face of hell;Though therefrom rise roofs most goodly, where their captains and their kings Dwell amidst the walls of marble in abundance of fair things;And 'mid these, nor worser nor better, but builded otherwise Stand the Houses of the Fathers, and the hidden mysteries.

And as close as are the tree-trunks that within the beech-wood thrive E'en so many are their pillars; and therein like men alive Stand the images of god-folk in such raiment as they wore In the years before the cities and the hidden days of yore.

Ah for the gold that I gazed on! and their store of battle gear, And strange engines that I knew not, or the end for which they were.

Ah for the ordered wisdom of the war-array of these, And the folks that are sitting about them in dumb down-trodden peace!

So I thought now fareth war-ward my well-beloved friend, And the weird of the Gods hath doomed it that no more with him may Iwend!

Woe's me for the war of the Wolfings wherefrom I am sundered apart, And the fruitless death of the war-wise, and the doom of the hardy heart!"Then he answered, and his eyes grew kind as he looked on her:

"For thy fair love I thank thee, and thy faithful word, O friend!

But how might it otherwise happen but we twain must meet in the end, The God of this mighty people and the Markmen and their kin?

Lo, this is the weird of the world, and what may we do herein?"Then mirth came into her face again as she said:

"Who wotteth of Weird, and what she is till the weird is accomplished? Long hath it been my weird to love thee and to fashion deeds for thee as I may; nor will I depart from it now." And she sang:

"Keen-edged is the sword of the city, and bitter is its spear, But thy breast in the battle, beloved, hath a wall of the stithy's gear.

What now is thy wont in the handplay with the helm and the hauberk of rings?

Farest thou as the thrall and the cot-carle, or clad in the raiment of kings?"He started, and his face reddened as he answered:

"O Wood-Sun thou wottest our battle and the way wherein we fare:

That oft at the battle's beginning the helm and the hauberk we bear;Lest the shaft of the fleeing coward or the bow at adventure bent Should slay us ere the need be, ere our might be given and spent.

Yet oft ere the fight is over, and Doom hath scattered the foe, No leader of the people by his war-gear shall ye know, But by his hurts the rather, from the cot-carle and the thrall: