Valdar the Oft-Born: a saga of seven ages, etc

Front matter

" In what new age of the world had I awakened?' Frontispiece. Page 249. Valdar of §even Jlges THE Oft-Boen : BY GEORGE GRIFFITH AUTHOR OF "THE ANGEL OF THE REVOLUTION," " OLGA ROMANOFF," "THE OUTLAWS OF THE AIR," "GOLDEN STAR," &€., &0. ILLUSTRATED BY HAROLD PIFFARD. London : C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LIMITED HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 1895. [AU rights reserved. Copyrighted Abroad.] LONDON : PHINTED BY HORACE COX, WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS, E.C. TO THOSE WHOSE FAITH IN THE AGES-OLD DOCTRINE OF RE-INCARNATION WILL REVEAL TO THEM SOMETHING MORE THAN ROMANCE IN THE SAGA OF VALDAR THIS DREAM OF THE CHANGING AGES IS FRATERNALLY INSCRIBED. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAOE

Prologue

1 I. A STRANGER IN THE WORLD 4 II. A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS ....... 19 III. THE FLESHING OF THE SACRED STEEL .... 32 IV. FROM VICTORY TO DEATH ....... 47 V. A STRANGE AWAKENING 62 VI. THE TIGER LORD OF ASSHUR ...... 69 VII. A MYSTERY OF THE FLESH ...... 78 VIII. WITH GUDRUN TO SALEM 92 IX. BEFORE THE THRONE OF SOLOMON ..... 106 X. LOVE DEADLIER THAN HATE 114 XI. CLEOPATRA 122 XII. BOW AND SWORD ONCE MORE 139 XIII. BROKEN FAITH AND BLASTED HOPE 154 XIV. AVE CÆSAR ! 164 XV. FROM ACTIUM TO CALVARY 172 XVI. "THE SWORD OF GOD" 185 XVII. THE WOOING OF ZORAIDA 198 XVIII. THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS 213 XIX. KHALID IN SYRIA Contents VI CHAP. PAGE XX. THE PASSING OF ZORAIDA 230 XXI. BACK TO THE SHADOWS ....... 239 XXII. THE SEA WOLVES' GUEST ....... 248 XXIII. THE LILY OF THE NORTHLAND 265 XXIV. TO THE HOLY WAR ........ 287 XXV.

THE DEATH-VOYAGE 303 XXVI. IN THE DAYS OF GREAT ELIZABETH 312 XXVII. SIR VALDAR AT COURT 328 XXVIII. THE FLEET INVINCIBLE ....... 346 XXIX. THE CRUISE OF THE " SANS MERCI " . . . . 358 XXX. THE MARTYR CROWN OF FLAME 370 XXXI. LIFE AND LOVE ONCE MORE . . ... 383 XXXII. THE LAST VICTORY 399

Epilogue

IN A GARDEN OF PEACE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE "IN WHAT NEW AGE OF THE WORLD HAD I AWAKENED?" Frontispiece ANOTHER MOMENT NIMROD MUST HAVE YIELDED OR DIED faxing 57 " TAKE THY SLAVE, O KING ! " „ 77 " TRULY MY LORD MUST LOOK WITH FAVOUR ON US BOTH " „ 115 FLOATING ON THE BROAD SMOOTH BOSOM OF THE ANCIENT NILE ,, 140 ON THE SUMMIT STOOD THREE CROSSES .... „ 183 I BENT HIS HEAD BACK TILL HIS NECK BROKE . . . „ 197 THE PASSING OF ZORAIDA „ 237 I STOOD OUT IN THE MIDST „ 286 THE BURNING SHIP DRIFTED ON WITH ITS DEAD THROUGH THE NIGHT „ 311 »> " WHAT ART THOU f " . . . i 370 THE MERCY OF HEAVEN HAD RAISED HER BEYOND THE REACH OF THE INHUMANITY OF MAN. ... „ 378 I COULD SEE THE SMOOTH BLUE SUNLIT SEA . . . ,, 384 "THIS IS FRANCIS VALDAR " „ 390 THE SHOT WHICH PLUNGED BRITAIN INTO MOURNING. . „ 396 IT WAS NEY — "THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE " . . „ YALDAR THE OFT-BORN. A SAGA OF SEVEN AGES.

PROLOGUE.

. HE GEEAT city sleeps at last — so far as it ever does sleep, this London of the English, this latest Babylon of the world-lords, for the Eastern stars are paling in the whitening blue of a mid-winter dawn, and the earth is waiting, as a new wed bride waits the coming of her chosen one, for the rising of the sun that comes from the south, for the re-birth of Baldr the Good, as we used to say in those old times of which I shall have to tell, I, Valdar the Asa, son of Odin the Father of Ages, the Thunderer, Giver of Victory. Many and strange will be the things that I shall tell of before I have finished the task which I have begun to-night at the turning point of the sun in obedience to the bidding of the Nornir, the three immortal sister-maidens who measure out the fates of men as they run from the past through the present into the future, Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld, to whom all things are known that have been, that are, and that will be.

Eor I, who write these words, sitting at the northward-facing window of my upper chamber in Babylon the New, looking towards the stars that circle B Valdar the Oft-Born 2 over what was my earliest home in the unremembered ages before the beginning of time — I, Valdar the Oft-born, though in outward seeming but a man little different from the thousands that I pass daily in your crowded streets, have clasped hands with men whose dust is the sport of the winds that blew over lands whose very names are forgotten, lost in the twilight mists of the Morning of Time, men who were dead before the story of Man began to be written. I have dwelt in cities out of whose ruins have been built other cities that now themselves are ruins, and I have seen in the height of their power and splendour, kings whose names, carved deep in everlasting stone, are now the only relics of their memory.

I have stood on the roofs of palaces and temples where now the desert sands lie level, and joined in the wine-warmed chorus of roystering songs where now the lonely jackal yelps, and the owl of the wilderness blinks at the moon. The kings and the warriors who to you are but names blazoned upon the scroll of history, have been my captains and boon companions-in-arms, my friends or my enemies as the Fates willed it. I have looked upon their faces with the same eyes that are now looking down upon this written page. I have loved them and hated them, feasted and fought with them, as you have done with the men of to-day and yesterday. I have gazed into the eyes of women whose love-glance has set empires ablaze, and I have heard the words of immortal wisdom fall from the lips of the sages and prophets who have revealed the Divine to men, and founded the religions of the world.

I have seen the fickle tide of empire ebb and flow from East to West, and West to East again, and I have joined in the triumph-songs of victorious armies marching home from conquest over lands where now the desert winds whistle among broken ruins, or where the ploughman shouts to his horses as they drag the peaceful steel through the turning furrows. Now you who read these seemingly wild words will ask how it came to pass that any being in mortal shape, whether Prologue 3 of the kindred of Gods or men, should have fallen under the ban of so strange a fate as this, and why he should have been singled out, among all the myriads who have lived and died and been forgotten, to live on and remember as a living man what others can only read as a story that seems like a dream of past ages, peopled with phantoms which move to and fro like shadows cast on a screen, or like vague figures limned in uncertain light on the dark back ground of the night of Time.

The question is justly asked — read on and you shall learn the answer. And if it shall seem to you only as the telling of a strange vision, the creation of a dreamer's phantasy, well, what is that to me or to you, since I have a tale to tell, and you, perchance, are in the mood to hear it? And remember, too, even while you doubt, that truth ere now has often come to men in wondrous guises, and has been received or rejected according to their wisdom or their folly. The myths of to-day were the faiths of yesterday, and the dreams of one age have been the deeds of the next. I, who write this, have seen men and women flung as prey to the wild beasts of the Arena that their agonies might make a spectacle for the holidayidlers of Imperial Rome, and I have watched other men and women writhing in the flames of the Holy Inquisition for professing that faith whose denial you hold to be a deadly sin.

Need I point the moral finer ? Surely not, for I ask you to hear the tale that I have to tell only with the ears of interest. This is all I am concerned with, for I am but he who tells the story, the channel through which the stream flows, and whether the waters are lost in the desert sands or fertilise the fields of future harvests, matters but little to their source or the bed over which they run — so read on if you will. b

Chapter I

A STRANGER IN THE WORLD. UT OF the night of unconsciousness came a faint, uncertain thrill of feeling. Through the black darkness of oblivion trembled a thin, faint ray of light which kissed my eye-lids, closed for who shall say how long a sleep, and bade them open once again. A shudder as of returning life — first a cold tremor quivering through stiffened limbs, and then in ever quicker succeeding waves to and fro from heart to brain and back again, and so spreading over the whole of my naked body as the ripples spread outward when a stone is thrown into smooth water, so ebbed and flowed the returning life-tide, ever stronger in the flow than the ebb, till, drawing a dee}) gasping, labouring breath, I gathered my limbs under me aud sprang to my feet and looked about me. This is what I remember of the first of the many awakenings from the death-sleep that I have known since then, and so I, who then knew my fate but dimly, set out upon that long pilgrimage which began on an undated morning which, by the reckoning of you who read, was more than five thousand years ago.

As I rose to my feet, fronting the west, I drew another deep breath, and strained my still stiffened body and aching limbs to the full of my stature, stretching my arms wide apari as I did so. At the same moment a waft of warm air struck my shoulders, a swift flood of light streamed out of the brightening Heaven behind me, and over the bare sheet of rock on which I stood there fell in front of me a long shadow, the shadow of that mystic Shape which I have since seen symbolised in all the religions of the world, the Hammer of Odin, the Sword of Bel, and the Cross of Calvary. I turned about to greet the sun, and bowed myself before his rising splendour till my long golden locks fell down from my shoulders about my face, and I could see the light shining and sparkling through them as though in acknowledgment of my involuntary act < f worship, the first conscious act of my new existence.

Then I raised my head again and looked about me once more, still drawing deep breaths of the fresh, sweet air, which seemed to spread from my breast over every vein and nerve in my body in swift streams of a subtle essence of life, at the new strange world into which I had been thus mysteriously born. I was standing on a bare expanse of grey-brown rock, and on all sides of me stretched endless successions of wild ranges of broken hills clothed in dense shaggy woods, which sloped steeply away into dark deep valleys in which the shadows of the passing night still brooded. For all I could see I was the sole inhabitant of some primeval world, alone and, but for the strength of my limbs, helpless, naked before the awful face of the All-Mother Nature. But though I thought I was alone I was not, for soon a low, hoarse cry behind me made me turn again, and I saw striding out of the dense pine growth that encircled the rock on which I stood, five stalwart figures of men clad in tunics of rich dark fur, with sandalled feet, bare arms and legs, and long black hair bound back from their brows with broad fillets of yellow hide.

Each carried a bow and a quiver of arrows on his back, and the right hand of each grasped a long bright two-edged sword. For a moment they stood and stared at me as though struck dumb by amazement. Then with swift, stealthy motion four of them ran forward and placed themselves on all sides of me, and the fifth, whose head-fillet I could now see was of gold, and whose scabbard belt was a broad chain of silver links, strode forward to within three paces of me, and spoke to me not unkindly7 in a musical unknown tongue, yet still keeping the point of his shining blade towards me. I looked him in the eyes, spreading my unarmed hands with the opened palms towards him ; and, shaking my head, said in a language that seemed half strange and yet my own : " Your speech says nothing to me. Who are you ?

" Then his brows came together, and a look of bewildered "wonder sprang into his questioning eyes. He glanced round to his comrades and made a sign to them, still keeping his swordpoint on a level with my breast. I heard their swords rattle into their scabbards, and then the four sprang softly and swiftly forward and seized me by the -arms and shoulders. As I felt their grip a strange new spirit took possession •of me, and the blood surged hot from my heart to my head. I felt the muscles gather themselves up into knots and •cords over my breast and neck, and then I wrenched mv arms upwards, and flung them back to right and left, and as I did so the four strong men that held me reeled away from me and fell prone, like little children, to tho earth. As I drew myself up again to my full height, which I now marked was a good span higher than the stature of the man in front of me, he uttered a low, sharp cry, and crouched as though he would spring at me, as many' a time I have seen since then the lion and the tiger crouching at bay for the last deadly leap.

Another instant and the keen steel would have been buried in my body, but, before he sprang, I, moved by some impulse that then I had no knowledge of, put forth my left hand against the point of the sword, and held my right out open towards him. Our eyes met for a moment, and I saw a kindlier light spring into his, then a flush that must have been one of shame rose into his swarthy cheeks. He lowered the swordpoint and loosed his hold upon the hilt, and as the steel rang upon the rock his right hand met mine in the long warm grip that has been the sign of faith and friendship between man and man since the world began, and when the clasp had loosed again I was no longer friendless in the world. By this time his four comrades had risen to their feet again, and were standing a few paces off, muttering to each other, and scowling half in anger and half in shame at what had happened to them at the hands of an unarmed man.

Yet when they looked at me there was something in their eyes that I have seen many a time in the eyes of men since then, something half of wonder, half of fear, that you may see in the eyes of a wild beast the first time he looks upon the form and face of man. They had seen in me that which yet I did not know in myself, which I was not to know until many a long year of toil and strife, of lonely puzzling thought and swift, brief revelations shining through the smoke and dust of the battle-storm, and at last they bowed their faces and turned their eyes away from me as though they dared no longer to look upon me. Seeing this, he who had clasped hands with me smiled again at me, and then, laughing, spoke some words to them, and taking my right hand laid it with the open palm upon his breast. His words and the sign were understood at once, and the four came forward, bowing themselves awkwardly as though unused to make obeisance, and he took them one by one and placed my hand upon their breasts, each one saying two or three words as he did so.

Then he pointed his finger to himself and said slowly in a clear tone : " Arax ! " And after that he pointed to me, raising his brows, and looking at me with an expression that said as plainly as words in my own language could have said : " Arax is my name. What is yours ? " I was silent for a space, for I had no name, and though I understood his question I could not answer it. Then a word came into my mouth and I uttered ir. It was Terai, which in my own unknown tongue meant a stranger, or one who is newly arrived. It served as well as anything else would have done, for he saw that I understood him, and took that for my name. And, indeed, I could have had no better one, for was I not a stranger upon earth, and were not these five hunters th'* only mortals that were then known to me in the whole world ?

He repeated it two or three times like a child who is learning a new lesson, making his comrades repeat it after him. Then when he had picked up his sword and sheathed it, he took me by the hand again, and led me from the rock towards the spot where he and his comrades had come out of the wood. From here a narrow path wound downwards into the valley, and into this we passed together, the four following us in single file. We went swiftly downward, none of us speaking a word, until the path bent sharply, and ran along to the left hand by the side of a little stream of clear brown water, and along this we walked swiftly and still silently over a smooth, soft turf covered with broken pine needles and decayed leaf-dust, until the gloom of the forest, through which the stream ran as under an arch, gave place to a brighter light, and the path opened out into a little mountain glade, by one ride of which, nestling unde • the tall, straight pines, lay a little log-built, moss-roofed hut, of which the door stood half open.

Into this Arax led me, followed by two of the others, one of whom struck fire from something he held in his hand, and with it lighted a pine torch which he stuck in a metal socket in the wall. As the torch burned clear I looked about me, and saw hanging on the walls of the hut bows and sheaves of arrows, axes, spears, and other weapons of the chase, whose names and uses I was soon to learn. In one corner hung two or three skins, one of which Arax took down, and, spreading it open before me, showed me that it was a tunic of furs such as he wore himself. Then he made motions, by which I soon understood that he wished to clothe me in it, and this I let him do, awkwardly enough. Next he took a belt of dressed hide and put it round my waist, and after that he took the golden fillet from his own head and placed it on mine, parting my thick long hair aside from my face as he did so, and, lastly, he found a pair of sandals, and, motioning me to sit down, bound them firmly, but easily, upon my feet.

All this he did smiling, and evidently well pleased with me and himself, as I have since seen mothers dress their children, for he had evidently taken me, the stranger, under his protection, and was seeking to make me look as much like himself and his fellows as he could. But he offered me no weapon, neither sword nor spear, nor did he seek to hang bow or quiver across my back. That was to come later. When he had finished making this, my first toilet on the earth, I heard a crackling sound outside the hut, and then there came through the open door a savoury smell that was strange to my nostrils and which woke still stranger feelings within me. I looked towards the door and then at him, smiling I knew not why, and he, nodding and laughing back at me, took me by the arm and led me out of the hut into the glade, where 1 found a fire of sticks burning brightly, and one of Arax's comrades cutting steaks of flesh from some newly-killed animal, the other roasting them over the flames.

A third was rolling little cakes of meal and water on a flattened strip of bark, and soon the fourth came from behind the hut, bearing in his two hands a great bowl of foaming new-drawn milk. Then we six — I and my five strangely-found friends and comrades — sat down on the green sward of that lonely mountain glade, and I ate my first meal on earth. It was the first time that I had felt hunger and thirst, and the first time I had assuaged them. Since then I have feasted with kings and conquerors, I have eaten from plates of silver, and drunk the strong wine of many lands from golden flagons that shone with gems. I have broken my hard and scanty crust by the bivouac fire, and washed it down with muddy water from a trampled stream, and I have fared whole days in the desert on a score of dates and a few handfuls of meal ; but good or bad, rich or poor, I have never since tasted a meal like that first simple hunter's breakfast eaten in that little glade among the mountains which stood in a land I did not even know the name of.

When at length we had finished, and I can tell you we sat long, for we were hungry, I, with a fast that had lasted I know not how long, and my companions with their march in the keen, fresh mountain air, Arax rose to his feet, followed by the rest of us, and put his hand on my shoulder nnd pointed over the hills away to the westward, and then at the path we had come by, signifying to me that we had a long journey before us. I nodded to show that I under stood him, and stretched myself till the ties of my tunic were like to crack, for it had been made for a smaller man than I. Then his followers trampled out the fire, took what little we had left uneaten of the animal into the hut, and when these simple offices were ended we started out again on our way, walking one after the other, Arax going before me with two of his companions in front and the other two behind me.

So we journeyed on through the forest paths, scaling mountains and dipping into valleys, while the sun rose higher and higher over our heads and began to shine in our faces until we scaled the last ridge, and from its top I looked down on to a wide, pleasant valley, out of the midst of which rose a great steep hill of bare, rugged rock, ou the top of which I saw the afternoon sunlight falling on the white battlemented walls and low massive towers of the stronghold that was to be my first home on earth. As soon as we had drawn breath on the summit of the ridge, Arax pointed towards the fortress, and said : " Armen ! " Then, drawing his sword, he held it erect before him, pointing first at the city and then at the blade with gestures that I did not then understand, but which I was soon to learn meant that the stronghold on the mountain was Armen, City of the Sword.

Then we struck into the path again downwards towards the valley, and when the sinking sun was but a short space above the tops of the western mountains, we were scaling the steep winding path which led up the rock to the chief or southern gate of the city. Those ,on guard had seen us coming from afar, and, recognising those who were with me, had already thrown the gates open for us to enter. As we passed under the deep portal between the great twin towers of the gate way, I saw on either hand of me a long line of men clad and armed just as the followers of Arax were, and as we entered the short, broad street that led from the gateway to the central citadel a thousand swords on either hand flashed from their scabbards and went aloft in the bright evening air. The same instant Arax and his companions drew their blades as though in answer to the salute, and then, after he had exchanged a few words with a warrior who seemed to be the captain of the gate, he placed me on his left-hand side, and, with two of his men going before and two behind, we marched in silence up to the gate of the citadel between the two lines of shining steel, the warriors on either hand pointing their lifted blades inward, so that it seemed as though we walked under a long archway of steel.

Not a word was spoken until the guards at the gate challenged us, though I could see from the curious glances cast at me as I walked that many a one of those stern and silent warriors w7ould have been glad to satisfy the curiosity that my strange appearance had aroused. Arax answered the challenge of the sentries, and as they stood aside saluting with their naked swords the doors opened, and Arax and I went in together, leaving the four others outside with the sentries. Then, as the doors closed behind us, I heard the long, ringing rattle of the sword-blades falling back into their sheaths, and the confused tramp of thousands of feet as the guard that had received us broke its ranks. Arax now took me by the arm, and led me out of the little courtyard, into which the gates opened, into an ample square chamber in one of the wings of the citadel, out of which three other rooms opened.

The walls of this chamber were of smooth stone, and hung with weapons of war and the chase, and trophies of armour and shields, heads of bears and boars, and the antlers of many a lordly stag that had fallen to his arrows. The floor was spread with green, fragrant rushes. Along two of the sides stood couches of rich-dressed furs, and on a heavy table of wood, with benches on three sides and a great carved chair of oak at the head, stood flagons and drinking-cups of gold and silver and bronze. Here Arax clapped his hands, and two men in grey woollen tunics, with clean-shaven faces and close-cut hair, came in and took away from the table two great flagons of silver. When they came back one carried the flagons full of dark red wine, and the other carried a trencher of hammered silver, on which were fresh-cooked meat, cakes of baked meal, aud fruits.

They set them on the table, and left the room backwards, bending their heads towards us as they went. Then Arax took a flagon and filled two goblets of beaten gold, giving one to me and taking the other himself, and so i and the first friend I had made on earth pledged each other in a deep draught of that good gift of the Gods which has been the symbol of kindliness and good-fellowship through all the ages. Then we sat down to the table and ate together, and, after, he took me to an inner room, and there made me change my rough jacket of furs for a longer tunic of fine white linen embroidered with coloured threads. He put a belt of silver round my waist and a chain of gold about my neck, and then over my shoulders he hung a cloak of blue woollen stuff, held together with bronze clasps, and when he at last seemed satisfied with me he dressed himself somewhat similarly, save that he hung a sword on his hip, but, as before, gave me none.

Then he pointed to a couch of furs against the wall, as though bidding me lie down and rest, and, nodding farewell, went out of the room and left me alone to think of tho strange things that had happened since the morning, and wonder what was to come next. I remained alone until the room, which was lighted by long, narrow windows cut in one wall, and by an opening in the roof covered with a white awning, grew nearly dark. Then I heard voices and footsteps, and saw a glow of light shining through the doorway of the central room. Arax came in, followed by a man carrying a lighted torch, and, seeing that I was awake, signed to me to follow him. In the central room there were six other men dressed like Arax, but not so richly, and three others, that I afterwards found to be servants, unarmed and carrying the torches.