A Slave's Tale

23

23 WE PASSED the town of Dinan and pushed on south. But the memory of the size of that town, and the fact that we no longer had the sea to look upon, made us uneasy. Even the young men did not laugh as readily as they had before. In this part of Frankland, the country is covered by forests; we hunted and ate well, for there were many deer. When we came to a clearing, where people lived and the fields were plowed, we walked closer together, and each kept an arrow on his bowstring . The second night after we left Dinan, we stayed at a farm that belonged to a friend of Rark's. This farm looked like most of the other farms we had seen. There were four or five stone houses with thatched roofs, all of them very small except the house of the owner. In the main house, there was a fireplace with a chimney for letting out the smoke. This seemed to me much better than our open fire, which so often is smoky and causes tears to come into one's eyes. But the houses in Frankland must be very damp in winter, for even now, in summer, the walls were very wet. In Norway, we use stone only for the storehouses and the sheds for the animals ; the halls are built of wood. 166 Rark's friends were not unkind to us; yet we felt that they were happier to see us leave than they had been at our arrival. Our plan was to march to the church called Saint Meen, which was not far from Rark's hall. From there we would send a message to Hugues. Hakon thought that with gold, one might persuade Hugues to give up what was not his own. The last night before we came to Saint Meen, we camped in a clearing in the woods. After our evening meal, Rark told us of the great magician, Merlin, who had once lived in a stone tower in these woods. He had loved a fairy, named Vivienne; and she — because she loved him, too — had drawn a magic circle around the tower, so that Merlin could never leave her. Hakon, who was sitting beside me, was fond of this kind of story. I watched his face while Rark told of an ancient king, who had been Merlin's friend. I do not like stories about magicians, elves, or trolls, as much as Hakon does; for my mind always stops at one place in the story, and starts to go its own way. So it was this evening. While Rark's story went on, my thoughts stayed with Vivienne: had she really loved themagician? Why did she need a magic circle to bind him to her? If she truly loved him, would she not have taken away the spell? I looked towards the fire. On the other side of it sat Rigmor Ragnvaldsdaughter. "No," I thought, "if the fairy had been Rigmor, she never would have let the magician leave the tower." From Rigmor, my thoughts passed to Hakon's father and Thora Magnusdaughter. I closed my eyes and tried to see their faces. Thora 167 would never have tried to hold Olaf Sigurdson with anything less than her love. "Oh, to have lived in those times!" Startled, I realized that Rark had finished his story, and Hakon was talking to me. I nodded, though I did not know if I wanted to live in a time when there were so many trolls and magicians. "Why do we all like to dream of times that are past?" I looked with surprise at the speaker. It was Ketil Ragnvaldson, who usually was too shy to talk when more than four ears could hear him. "Because we have all once been children." I knew the speaker was Magnus the Fair, and I did not look up. Since my last meeting with Rigmor, I had tried to keep away from Magnus, and had done my best not to notice him. "What do you mean, Magnus?" Hakon's question made me smile to myself, for though I could not have explained Magnus the Fair's words, I felt I knew what he meant. Magnus started to say something, but he was interrupted by one of the sentries, who called out from his post. We all grabbed our bows. Luckily it...