William Stoddard - Ulric the Jarl - A Story of the Penitent Thief

"He loseth half his force," said Olaf; "he will lose more as he retreateth."

Fiercer and fiercer arose the sounds of the combat, the shouting, the howling, the twanging of loud harp strings, and the braying of the trumpets. Hard was it for the vikings that they might not have a part in such a battle.

"The Romans are outnumbered," said Olaf, "but they fight well. Their retreat will be to the river mouth, where was my village. There have they a camp in our own stockade, and they have also increased it with a rampart of earth and palisades. There we must strike them. It is but a little distance. Come and see."

"But first," said Ulric, "I would see the end of this battle, and I would have speech with a Druid concerning the sacrifices."

"That thou mayest not this day," said Olaf, "and the Romans are cutting their way through the tumult of half-naked spearmen. Lo, how they slay the Britons! But the ranks of their cohort will be thin when the remnant reacheth the fort. So hath it often been in their warfare in Britain, but each new commander of legionaries cometh here a proud one, thinking only of easy victory."

"The darts fly in showers," said Ulric, but Wulf the Skater urged him.

"O jarl!" he exclaimed. "The village! The fort! The trireme! Why wait we here? Let us go with Olaf!"

The jarl answered not, but walked rapidly, and the rocky ledge grew higher as they went; but there came an end of it.

"We have walked far," said Ulric. "The way of the Romans was shorter. There come they and their array is not broken. I can see their commander ordering them."

"Thor the Thunderer!" exclaimed Olaf, "what havoc the Britons have made among them! The gods of the Druids have protected their sacrifices."

"Every Roman left behind hath perished," said Ulric. "Only these are alive."

"Not so," said Olaf. "Not a wounded man or one entrapped hath been slain. He belongeth to the gods at the place of sacrifice."

"With them as with us," said the jarl. "That is the old North custom. I have seen men slain at the stone of Odin. He who is captured must lose his head. It is well – "

"Seest thou?" loudly demanded Olaf. "The ruins of our village are yet smoking, although three days have passed. I saw thy ship on the sea yesterday, but knew not of thy landing. I meant to watch for thee or for the coming triremes after seeing the battle."

"Yonder trireme at anchor," replied the jarl, "floateth well out from the river mouth. She is large. How shall I take her? For there are yet Romans enough to hold her well. I must come to her by night in The Sword ."

Long and thoughtfully gazed Ulric, studying the position of the trireme and the arrival of the beaten Romans at the fort.

"O jarl," said Biorn the Berserker, "knowest thou not that I am a fish? The trireme is held but by an anchor and a cord of hemp. Go thou and bring The Sword . When thou art at hand to strike thou mayest have the trireme drifting with the outgoing tide. Strike not when the tide runneth in?

"Thou canst swim," said Ulric, "and thy seax will sever hemp; but if thou waitest here until I come, how wilt thou know in the dark of my coming, or how wilt thou know where to ply the sharp edge?"

"When I hear thee whistle thrice," said Biorn, "as if thou wert calling thy hawk, I will know of thy coming. If the whistle is from this shore, I meet thee here. If it is from seaward, I swim to the trireme. Thou wilt know the hemp is severed when thou hearest my own falcon call."

"I go with thee, O jarl!" shouted Olaf, eagerly, "that I may be thy pilot."

"Well for thee, O Biorn the Berserker," said Ulric; "thou art of the heroes!"

"Here sit I down," replied Biorn. "It is a pleasant place. I think this taking of the trireme will depend upon thee and thy sword more than upon a man a fish cutting hemp!"

"Haste, now," said Ulric to his men. " The Sword is far from us and this is to be a night of great deeds, and not of ale and feasting."

Olaf led, as the guide of their rapid marching, and Biorn sat down upon a rock to gaze at the doings around the river mouth and at the fort.

"There come the Britons out of the woods," he said to himself. "If they had been well led they would have pursued more closely – only that few care to press too hard upon even the wreck of a Roman army. Now are all the Romans within the stockade."

The Britons were many, but their prey had escaped them. The camp fort was too strong for them to storm, and their showers of darts flew over the palisades without much harm to any within. The taunting clangor of their harps and trumpets sounded furiously for a while, and then the multitude swiftly vanished as if it had melted away.

"If these Britons had a captain," said Biorn, "instead of a herd of priests, and if he would arm them well, the Romans would disappear from Britain. But I think Ulric the Jarl will find many swords on yonder trireme. Even now they go out in small boats. Biorn the Berserker will be with him when the Saxons are on the Roman deck!"

The night was at hand when the jarl and his party arrived at the camp, and already all others were around the camp-fires.

"O jarl!" shouted Tostig. "Come thou and see this mighty one! We hauled him hither upon a bundle of branches, and he wearied us with his weight."

"Never saw I such a one!" exclaimed Ulric, gazing at the great boar which lay at the fire by the spring. "Was he for thy spear alone?"

"For mine!" said Tostig. "Now am I even with thee concerning the white bear, for this one fought as did the son of the ice king. He nearly overcame me after he had slain Nef, the son of Ponda, and had rent him in pieces. He had no wound from Nef."

"We did watch them," said a viking, "and to Tostig is the honor. If his spear had broken, as did thine in the bear, I think Tostig would have lost the battle."

"Then had I felt those great tusks," laughed Tostig, "But it will take all the night to roast him well."

"He will roast while we fight," replied the jarl; "and some of us will eat not of him, but in Valhalla. To the ship, all! We go to attack a Roman trireme. Let those eat now who have not eaten, taking their meat with them. I leave not a sword here!"

"He who would stay behind is nidering!" shouted Tostig the Red. "We will follow our jarl to the feast of swords, and they who return may find the boar roasted. Hael to thee, O jarl! Thou bringest good tidings."

Not until all were in the ship, however, did Ulric explain to his men fully and carefully the errand upon which they were going. Wild was their enthusiasm, and once more the young and the discontented were satisfied with their jarl.

"He is a son of the gods," they said, "and he will lead us to victory."

"Or to Valhalla," growled Knud the Bear. "Not all of you will eat the roasted boar's flesh."

The rowers rowed with power and The Sword went swiftly. Ulric was at the helm, and Olaf was at the prow sending back words of direction. The distance to be traveled was less on the water than on the land, through the forests.

"I would I knew of the doings of Biorn," said one, as the ship rounded a point and entered the harbor at the river mouth.

The jarl answered not, but shortly he put his fingers to his lips and whistled thrice.

"Row slowly, now," he said, "till an answer shall come. I am glad the moon is not yet arisen. We go on behind a curtain."

The jarl's signal had been heard by a man upon whom was only a belt, to which hung a sheathed seax and a war horn. He stood at the water's edge at the harbor side.

"The jarl cometh!" he whispered, and he went into the water, making no sound. Before that he had crept along the shore, landward, bearing his arms and his armor, and now he had but sixty paces to swim. The Roman sentinel on the deck of the trireme heard only the ripple of the outgoing tide against her wooden walls.