“I would say three or four days,” said Axel.
“They wish to give us time to gather together the tribute,” said Astubux.
“Twice we have fled, but they have always found us.”
“We flee no more,” said the chieftain.
“They are not pleased when we hide,” said Axel. “They kill off men and take twice the tribute.”
“We hide no more,” said the chieftain.
“It was from the first vengeance that they denied us chieftains,” said Astubux.
“You now have a chieftain,” said Otto.
“I fear your tenure as chieftain will be brief,” said Astubux.
“It is I who will face them, who will bear the brunt of their wrath,” said Otto.
“Let us fly, Master,” urged Janina.
“I am chieftain,” said Otto.
“They need never know we were here!” said Janina.
“Do you wish to be tied at the whipping post?” asked the chieftain.
“No, Master!” said Janina.
Quickly she withdrew to one side, and knelt, and put her head down.
“You have a plan?” asked Astubux.
“Yes,” said the chieftain.
“And if it fails?”
“I fear then, good Astubux,” said Otto, “you will once more be without a chieftain.”
“No!” said Astubux.
“Things then, good Astubux,” said Otto, “will be much the same for you as they were before, no better, no worse.”
“But we would have no chieftain!” said Astubux.
“As before!” laughed Otto.
“We will follow you, all of us, into the forest,” said Axel. “Let us hide again.”
“We have hidden long enough,” said the chieftain. “One day the Wolfungs must come from their forest.” Then he went to the door of the hut, and looked out, over the palisade, toward the trees beyond, and the horizon, and the sky. “Let the Wolfungs be the first,” said he.
“What means my chieftain?” asked Astubux.
“Nothing,” said Otto. He regarded the sky, moodily.
“Who knows,” said Axel, “what strands the sisters of destiny have woven into the rope of fate.”
“Last night,” said Otto, “the skald sang not only of the Wolfungs, but of the Darisi, the Haakons, the Basungs, the Otungs.”
“The people, the nation,” said Astubux.
“You think long thoughts,” said Axel.
“Has it not been demeaned, and scattered and persecuted long enough?” asked Otto.
“Yes,” said Axel.
“Is it not among the fiercest of warrior nations?”
“It is the fiercest, and most terrible,” said Axel.
“It once was,” said Astubux.
“And has your blood grown thin and cold?” asked Otto.
“Spears,” said Astubux, “are no match for fire from the stars.”
“Unless we, too, can stand among stars, and grasp that fire,” said Otto.
“You have long thoughts,” said Axel.
“Yes,” said Otto.
“Is there a way?” asked Axel.
“Yes,” said Otto.
“I fear the chieftain is mad,” said Astubux.
Otto turned about and lifted Astubux toward the roof of the hut, and laughed. “Yes,” said he, “your chieftain is mad! Come, share his madness, and die a man!”
“Better than to live as a filch!” said Axel.
“I hear horns,” said Otto, and he lowered Astubux good-naturedly to the floor of the rush-strewn hut. “I am not yet familiar with their signals,” he said. “Tell me their meaning.”
“Do not attend to the horns,” said Astubux. “Rather prepare for the coming of the Drisriaks.”
“What is the meaning of the horns?” asked Otto.
Axel listened for a moment.
“Prisoners,” he said. “Prisoners have been taken.”
“What more?” asked Otto.
“Three women, and a man,” said Axel.
CHAPTER 19
Otto sat alone in his hut.
Outside, beef roasted on a spit.
Beer, in drinking horns, was being passed about.
From where he sat, Otto could hear, clearly, the blows of a smith’s hammer.
The huts of the chieftain’s village, within the palisade, tended to circle about a rather large open space. It was larger than was required for the huts in the chieftain’s village itself, and served as a place of assembly for not only the occupants of the chieftain’s village, but of the several nearby Wolfung villages as well. It was in this open place that Otto, that being the name he had taken for himself, as we have learned, had been lifted upon the shields, to the clamor and acclaim of the Wolfungs. Too, the palisade of the chieftain’s village was the stoutest of any of the villages, and his village, in case of need, was intended as a bastion of defense and a refuge for the Wolfungs for miles about. There were also supplies stored in the capital village, so to speak, which might alleviate the hunger of a great many people, in case of the failure of local croppage, or in the unlikely event of a siege conducted by men armed similarly to themselves. To be sure, a single blast from a Telnarian rifle would have blown the gate away. There was, at one point within the palisade, a deep well, which, within living memory, had never gone dry, even in the late summer. The largest hut, but primitive, as well, was the chieftain’s hut, which had only recently been reoccupied. Its floor was strewn with rushes, but there were rolled skins and furs there, which might also, if one wished, be spread upon the floor. The roofs were thick, and thatched. The walls of most of the huts were of daub and wattle, but the walls of the chieftain’s hut were made of timbers and roughly hewn planking. The interior area of the chieftain’s hut, the roof supported by several posts, gave an area with a diameter of some fifty feet. It could house then, in council, the high warriors of the Wolfungs. Others, women, retainers, and such, could wait outside. There were also, within the palisade, and within the palisades of other villages, as well, coops, stables and pens for domestic animals, which we shall call, for purposes of convenience, chickens, cattle, sheep and pigs, such terms being sufficiently appropriate for our purposes. Many of these were gathered in at night. Some cattle, in particular, milch cows, as we shall call them, were housed with families, in their own huts. There were also, here and there, cages, mostly quite small, with thick iron bars. The Wolfungs had their smiths, you see, who attended to their metalwork, in particular, the forging of weapons, spearblades, and such. There were also other devices, such as log kennels and chaining logs.
“My chieftain,” said Astubux, appearing at the entrance to the chieftain’s hut.
Otto then rose to his feet and went outside, to the open place.
He lifted his hand to the Wolfungs, who cried out upon seeing him, who raised drinking horns and spears in salute.
Janina, who was now clad in the long, loose garb of a Wolfung woman, hurried to kneel beside him.
“Here,” said Astubux, gesturing toward the large chair, on a wooden dais, set up a few feet from the fire, where the chieftain was to have his seat. Across the back of the chair was flung the pelt of a forest lion. Skins of this beast, too, were strewn on the platform.
Otto took his seat, and indicated that Janina, his slave, should kneel beside the seat, on its left.
She hurried to do so.
The officer of the court, the salesgirl and Oona, the woman in the pantsuit, knelt near a post in a hut, not far from the gate. It was dark in the hut but, clearly, outside, there were festivities. They could see, through the chinks in the daub-and-wattle siding of the hut, the flickering of a fire, the light of torches being carried about, such things. They could see bodies, too, like shadows, passing back and forth, the men in rough tunics of pelts, the women in their long dresses, of some plain cloth. There was an excellent reason why the three women knelt near the post. They had been roped to it, closely, by the neck. Their hands were still bound behind their bodies. The three women and the ensign, prisoners, had arrived in the village in the late afternoon. They had been immediately separated, the women put in this hut and the ensign taken elsewhere. Although the officer of the court would scarcely have admitted this to herself, she, and we may speculate the others as well, had been dismayed at the special selection, the special treatment, exhibited in this matter, at their being totally separated from the ensign. This keeping them together, without the ensign, did much to impress upon them, and quite acutely, that they were women. It made them, somehow, feel far more helpless and vulnerable than might otherwise have been the case. They were now merely captured women.