The World of Romance

that nation: hundreds of lords, each a prince over many people, sat about him in the council chamber, under

ins, and spread abroad its arms over the valleys of them; all along the sea-line shore cities set with their cr

nd drew up the young wheat in the spring-time, under the rain that made the long grass soft and fine, under all fair fertilising influence

nd gave forth from their sca

d more, as year by year the serfs, driven like cattle, but worse fed, worse housed, died slowly, scarce knowing that they had souls; they builded them huge ships, and said that they were masters of the sea too; only, I trow the sea was an unruly subj

many fields and valleys, blotted out from the memory of men the names of nations, made their men's lives a hopeless shame and misery

proud of them? Moreover they

of men in the hearts of them, and could draw you up cunningly, catalogues of virtues and vices; their wise men could prove to you that

lothed knights seemed to shoot out rays under the blaze of light that shone like many suns in the king's halls. Their women's faces were very fair in red and white, thei

med to help so in carrying on the world to its consummate per

, noble and burgher, just as much as the meane

lingly, but he u

ercy; therefore God's judgments hung over their heads,

mountains; yet now they were pressing them close; acre after acre, with seas of blood to purchase each acre, had been wrested from the free people, and their end see

ing to and fro impatiently: 'Will she never come?' he says, 'it is two hours since the sun set; news, too, of the enemy's being in the land; how dreadful i

, he thought, must surely quite settle the matter; wave after wave, wave after wave, had broken on that dear land and been rolled back from it, and still the hungry sea pressed on; they must be finally drowned in that sea; how fearfully they had been trie

re the walls are somewhat weak, is a little fortress in itself, and is very carefully guarded. The old man's face brightened at the sound of the new comers, and he went t

t, crunching the pearls on the sheath; then says, flinging up his head - 'There, father, the enemy is in the land; may that happen to every one of them! but for my part I have accounted for two already.' 'Son Eric, son Eric, you talk

ng of a disappointment to me - ah! pardon, about my self again; and that is about myself too. Well, father, what am I to do? - But Cissela, she wandered some way from her maidens, when -

, she said) rescued her, and, after he had gazed earnestly into her face, told her she might go back again to her own home, and her maids with her, if only she would tell him where she dwelt and her name; and withal he sent three knights to escort her some way toward the city; then he turned and rode away with all his knights but those three, who, when th

ring after his son had finished; for he said not

poor old Gunnar, broken down now and ready to die, as your country is! How often, in the olden time, thou used'st to say to thyself, as thou didst ride at the head of our glorious house, 'this charge may finish this matter, this battle must.' They passed away, those gallant fights, and still the foe pressed on, an

all traces of her late terror gone from her face now, raising her lips

people? Do they want death

rably through years and yea

his face; and he spoke again, putting back the hair from off her face,

at is not God's way. It comes across my memory somehow, mingled in a wonderful manner with the purple of the pines on the hillside, with the fragrance of them borne from far towards me; for know, my children, that in times past, long, long past now, we did an evil deed, for our forefathers, who have been dead now, an

ou, Siur, come with me to the chapel;

ale, it seemed, from any sinking of blood, but from gathering of intensest

e was little wealth of marble there, I trow; little time had those fighting men for stone-smoothing. Albeit, one noted many semblances of flowers even in the dim half-light, and here and there the faces of brave men, roughly cut enough, but grand,

ed book of the Gospels from the left side of

e they held them aloft, and pointed toward the altar, she opened the book at the page whereon was painted Christ the Lord dying on the cross, pale against the gle

ce so pale against the

olding both his arms about her; she let herself be held there, her bosom against his; then he held her away from him a little spac

could they say? Do you know

ruck, more so they seemed than by her solemn oath. Till S

I am true to her! hear

God help me in my need

them, strange and shy as they had never yet been to each other. Cissela shuddered, and s

, Cissela

ve loosed my hand; take it a

s forehead; he said: 'No, God does not allow such things: tr

p and cold even in the burning summer weather. O knight Siu

e were trying once for all to become indeed one with her; then said:

om off his fing

gave her the one half, saying:

ng still the same dream each of them; while all the knights shouted for Siur and Cissela. Even if a man had spent all his life looking for sorrowful things, even if he sought for them w

l of her golden hair; yet now, as they led her forth in the midst of the band of knights, her brother Eric holding fast her hand, each man felt like a murderer when he beheld her face, wher

t caught eagerl

of the council came floating dim memories of that curse of the burned women, and its remedy; to many it ran rhythmically, an old song better known by the mu

wife and children, concerning children yet unborn; thoughts too of the glory of the old n

ke up within their hearts: 'We may yet be a people,' the

idst of them and said: 'You are right in what you think, countrymen,

spair at her as she stood statu

t of them, he said; yet he died not the

s; she went away from all that was dear to her, to go and sit a crowned queen in the dreary marble palace, whose outer walls rose right up from the weary-hearted sea. She could not think, she dur

left the city amid the tears of women, and fixed sorrowful gaze of men, she turned round once, and stretched her arms out involuntarily, like a dum

but in a cold speculative man

people had such sorrows and lived, and almost doubted if the pain was so much greater in great sorrows t

they had fought so fiercely but a little time before, they spread breadth of golden clo

nial-eyed; the red blood sprang up over his face when she came near; and she looked back no more, but bowed before him almost to the ground, and would have knelt, but that he caugh

one long peal that seemed to m

ds shouted: 'Hurrah for

is younger brother, 'Come, and let us leave Robert here by the forge, and s

the queen then?'

ng wonderingly at the stro

ind me so much of one I loved long ago in my own lan

elling me; I do not feel as it I should ever think of

in the land of dreams. A gallant dream it was he dreamed; for he saw himself with his brothers and friend

d been unjustly dealt with long ago; everywhere love,

knew not that it takes longer to restore that whose growth has been through age and age,

, calling out: 'Now, brother Svend, are we really ready; s

sely enough now, hanging down from left to right, an iron crown fantastically wrought, w

es and down his cheeks, looking like tears: not so Svend; he rose, holding the crown level on his head, holding it back, so t

Robert? I shall

thing; better let Siur put it in the fu

y were going, Siur called out: 'Yet will I sell my dagger at a price, Princ

ortly, for he thought Siur was going back

this whim of mine; it is the first favour I have asked of you: will you ask

ster Siur, if it ple

r from a secret place drew out various weapons and armour, and began to

hren, went their ways to the queen, and fo

round about it; and when she saw them coming,

ent over them lovingly, there see

s way of talking and his face, the colour of his hair even, till the boys wondered, she questioned them so closely,

t be angry with Siur, will you? bec

ody could not come, and for a moment or two she was living

nted me to ask you i

his hair soft then, this Siur, going down on to his shoulders in waves? and

d? Ah well! tell him I am happy, but not so happy as we shall be, as we were. And so you, so

g with him that makes him seem quite infinite

upon her heart more than the others; she blus

ntry, in her father's house, some one had said that only men who were born so, could do cunningly with the left hand; and how Siur, then quite a boy, had said,

he works with his left hand al

ould say, 'Cannot I then?' and this more when he does smith's work in metal than when he works in marble; and once I heard him sa

and something glittered on it, near her wrist, something wrought out

m; perfect in face and body, in wisdom and strength was Svend: next to him sat Robert, cunning in working of marble, or wood, or brass; all things could he make to look as if they lived, from th

ant when the harp-strings quivered underneath his fingers: there were the two sailor-brothers, who the year before, young though they were, had come back from a long, pe

ir mother, the Peace-Queen Cissela was dead, she who had taught them truth and nobleness so w

word, only thinking drearily; and under the pavement of the great church Cissela lay,

ed awhile on the carven face of he

to lie there.' And he pointed to the vacant s

es on steel, I have done work now, having carved

trength of life enough to get to the bottom of things; doubt vanished soon from his heart and his face under Siur's pitying gaze; he said, 'Then perhaps I shall be my own statue,' and therewithal he sat dow

we do when we fear to waken a sleeper; and the king never turned his

hall (for his house was larg

ight, the work o

ught wonderfully in bright steel, except that on the breast of each suit was a face worked marvellously in enamel, the face of Cissela in a glory of golden hair; and the glory of that gold spread away from the breast on all sides, and ran cunningly along with the steel rings, in such a way as it is hard even to imagine: moreover, on

to meet them. And Svend and his brethren sat silent in the co

her breast, his head had fallen forward, and rested now on the shoulder of the marble queen. There he lay, with strange confusion of his scarlet, gold-wrought robes; silent, motionless, and dead. The seven brethren s

cloaks even as the princes were, only the crests of the princes' helms were wrought wonderfully with that bird, the phoenix, all flaming with new power, dying because its old body is not s

ale face, there was no fear or rage, scarcely even a

lowing from out of his helmet: a smile of quiet confidence overflowing from his mighty hea

pturned from the under-sea of their many-coloured raiment; the murmur from them was like the sough of the first tempest-wind among the pines, and the gleam of spears here and the

of it would come a fierce, hoarse, tearing, shattering roa

, his arms hidden under his

ng somewhat, sent from his chest a migh

ly and base; peace with all that is fair an

im with a dagger; whereupon Svend clearing his right arm from his cloak with his left, lifted up his glittering right hand, and t

as you poisoned the king your father, that you and your false brethre

ce and heart now, he look

I should make you good, and because good, happy, when I should become king over you; bu

en determined to bear everything and stay with you, even though you should remain unjust and liars, for the sake of the few who really love me; but now, seeing that God has

and changing colours stood the great terrace, cold, and calm, and wh

d the cling, clang, from the armour of the terrace as Prince Harald

ollowing the lightning flash when a tower is struck. 'What! war? swords for Svend! ro

s sprang seven swords, steel from pommel to point only; on the bl

, and amid the hurtling of stones and w

curses, the low waves nearest the granite pier were edged wit

e had taken aboard those ten ships whosoever had prayed to go, even at the last moment, wounded, or dying even; bet

as worse than death, or mere pain, howsoever fierce - these saw all the ships go out of the harbour merrily

took from Svend's hand an iron crown fantastically wrought, and placed it on his head as he knelt; then he continued knee

aw Svend and his

but afterwards (in the night-time) he found

ships, but of a strange fashion like the ships of the ancients, and destitute of any mariners: besides they saw no beacons for the guidance of seamen, nor was there any sound of bells or singing, th

lour of new-hewn freestone, yet were they not statues but real men, for they had, some of them, g

d, and the harbour waves were red with it, becau

t on this people for sins of theirs; thereupon they entered into a church of that city and

this history saw all t

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