Part 30 (1/2)

There fell a silence as we came in, and then Sigurd greeted us; and we were set on the high seat, and feasted royally. On right and left of our host sat Havelok and Goldberga, and the jarl's wife next to Havelok, and Biorn the Brown, the sheriff, next to our princess. This was a newcomer here since my days, but well we liked him.

There is nothing to tell of what happened at this feast, for Sigurd asked no questions of us but the most common ones of sea, and wind, and voyage, and never a word that would have been hard for Havelok to answer in this company, where men of Hodulf's might well be present. Withelm noticed this, and said that no doubt it was done purposely, and he thought much of it.

When we had ended with song and tale, and it was near time for rest, Sigurd bade Biorn, the sheriff, take us to his house for the night, telling him that he must answer for our safety, and specially that of the fair lady who had come from so far. And then he gave us a good guard of his housecarls to take us down the street, as if he feared some danger.

”Why, jarl,” said Biorn, ”our guests will have a bad night if they think that in our quiet place they need twenty men to see them to bed thus!”

”Nay, but the town is strange to the lady,” answered Sigurd; ”and who knows what she may fear in a foreign land!”

So Biorn laughed, and was content; and we bade farewell to the jarl, and went out. And then I found that it was to my father's house we were to go, for it had been given to Biorn.

Now, I was next to Goldberga as we came to the door, and there was a step into the house which we always had to warn strangers of when it was dark; and so, in the old way, without thinking for a moment, I said to her, ”One step into the house, sister.”

”Ho, Master Radbard, if that is you, you have sharp eyes in the dark,” said Biorn at once; ”I was just about to say that myself.”

”I have some feeling in my toes,” I answered; and that turned the matter, for they laughed.

And then, when we were inside, and the courtmen had gone clattering down the street homewards, Biorn took the great door bar from its old place and ran it into the sockets in the doorposts, as I had done so many times; and the runes that my father had cut on it when he made the house were still plain to be seen on it, with the notches I had made with the first knife that I ever had. More I will not say, but everywhere that my eyes fell were things that I knew, even to fis.h.i.+ng gear, for it seemed that Biorn was somewhat of a fisher, like Grim himself.

Then they put me and my brothers into our old loft, and Havelok and Goldberga had the room that had been my father's. As for Biorn, he would be in the great room, before the fire. There was only this one door to the house, and therefore he would guard that. His thralls were in the sheds, as ours used to be, so that we and he were alone in the house.

Now, as soon as we three had gone into our old place of rest, Raven went at once, as in the old days, to the little square window that was in the high-pitched gable, and looked out over the town and sea. We used to laugh at him for this, for he was never happy until he had seen, as we said, if all was yet there.

”There are yet lights in the jarl's hall,” he said, ”and there are one or two moving about down in the haven. I think that there is a vessel coming in.”

”Come and lie down, brother,” I said. ”We are not in Grimsby, and you cannot go and take toll from her if there is.”

He laughed, and came to his bed; but we talked of old days and of many things more for a long while before we slept. And most of all, we thought that Sigurd the jarl knew Havelok by the token of the ring and by that likeness to Gunnar which Mord had seen, and that our errand was almost told.

So we slept without thought of any danger; but the first hour of the night in that house was not so quiet to Goldberga, for presently she woke Havelok, and she was trembling.

”Husband,” she said, ”it is in my mind that we are in danger in this place; for I cannot sleep by reason of a dream that will come to me so soon as my eyes are closed.”

”You are overtired with the voyage,” Havelok told her gently; and then he asked her what the dream was.

”It seems that I see you attacked by a boar and many foxes, and hard pressed, and then that a bear and good hounds help you. Yet we have to flee to a great tree, and there is safety. Then come two lions, and they obey you.”

”I think that is a dream that comes of waves, and the foam that has followed us, and the shrill wind in the rigging, and the humming of the sail, sweet wife; and the tree is the tall mast maybe, and the lions are the surges that you saw along this sh.o.r.e, where is no danger.”

So she was content; and then all in the house slept.

CHAPTER XIX. THE LAST OF GRIFFIN OF WALES.

Maybe it was about an hour before midnight when the first waking came to any of us, and then it was Biorn himself who was roused by footsteps that stayed at the doorway itself, after coming across the garth, and then a voice that was strange to him which bade him open. At once he caught up his axe and went to the door, and asked quietly who was there.

”Open at once,” said the man who was without; ”we must speak with you.”

”Go hence, I pray you, and wait for morning,” said the sheriff. ”Here are guests of the jarl's, and they must not be disturbed.”

”Open, or we will open for ourselves,” was the answer. ”We have no time to stay here talking.”