Adventure Magazine Cover — page 30: what you’re looking at

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28 bade Helma stay there on the poop; and when Conops had found rope and -cloth enough, and the hammering began below deck, he stood in front of her, folding his arms on his breast. She supposed he intended to use her again as interpreter between himself and Sigurdsen and made ready to accept that duty willingly enough; it made her feel in- dispensable and the earlier look of ironic challenge returned into her eyes. But Tros surprized her. “Can you cook?” he demanded. She nodded, stung, indignant. “Then do it! These Britons have rotted my belly with cindered deer-meat until poi- son would taste like golden oranges from Joppa! Go! The cook-house is in the citadel. I hunger. Cook enough for -six- teen people.” Her eyelids trembled, brimming with indignant tears, but she bit her lip and not a tear fell. She held out Tros’ gold fore- head-band. “Keep it,’ he said, “for your wages.” That chance thrust brought tears at last; she choked a sob. ‘Tros knew then he had conquered her, although her friendship might be yet to win, and deadlier than her anger! “I don’t work for wages!’’ she blurted. There was more passion in her voice than when she had screamed to Sigurdsen while the fight waged on the poop. She could endure to be a prisoner, to fetch and carry for her brother’s conqueror; but as one whose “fathers were kings when ice first closed in on the North and it was dark at noonday”’ death looked better than earned money. “Keep it as my gift then,” Tros retorted with an air of huge indifference. ON] 0!” She thrust the thing toward him and, since he would not take it, flung it at his feet, then, sobbing, hurried down the ladder and disappeared into the citadel, whence smoke presently emerged. Tros did not want to talk to Sigurdsen; he wanted to think. It suited him best to have no interpreter at hand. Sigurdsen, Whose wounds were painful, soused. his bandages with water and lay down in a cor- ner oi the poop, his eyes alight with fever. Tros leaned against the rail, facing the river bank, whence longshore plunderers might come, yet thinking less of them than Adventure of the blue-eyed, fair-haired Helma. She annoyed him. He was vaguely restless at the thought of having to provide for her. Some spark of tyranny within him, not yet gritted out against the rocks of destiny, stirred him toward cruelty, and it was blended with an instinct to defend himself against all women’s wiles. The custom of the whole known world, as regarded prisoners, was even more rigid and compulsory than written law. He, Tros, was answerable for the fate of fifteen people; they were his property, to do with as he pleased, dependent on him, obliged to be obedient on penalty of death, their only re- maining right, that of looking to him for protection..- He might set them free, but if he did so Caswallon, should he see fit, could punish him for succoring and aiding public enemies. If he should keep them in Lunden, it would probably be months before the Britons would begin to treat them civilly; they would be in danger of mob-violence. Yet, if he should imprison them their use- fulness would vanish; they would cease to feel beholden to himself and would either seek to escape or else intrigue against him with any personal enemy who might evolve out of the political tangle. Britain was full of rival factions; hun- dreds of Northmen had found shelter and prosperity in Britain by lending them- selves to one faction or another, and these new prisoners might find friends easily enough. The probability was that Caswallon had met with political trouble during Tros’ ab- sence; some aspirant for power very likely had accused him of assisting Tros with pro- visions and men at a time when the tribe could ill afford it. If Caswallon’s power were in jeopardy the chief would be a fool not to consider his own interests and might even feel com- pelled to show him enmity. Skell, who was of Norse extraction and a natural born treason-monger, might easily enough have stirred such disaffection as would shake Caswallon’s chieftainship. The long and the short of all that was, Tros needed friends, and the only available possible friends in sight were his Northmen prisoners, whose gratitude he proposed to earn and keep. Not that he placed much faith in gratitude—at any rate, not too much. Eomicbooks.com