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As Harald slammed the door on entering, some of the rods were set in motion and struck against each other with a tiny twinkle that seemed to Keith the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. That room, Harald said, was used only to receive visitors, and he gave Keith to understand that there were any number of other rooms on both sides of it. One of these was Harald's own and used by nobody else.
"Never was a bloodier deed done in the land since the Danes came," ran a popular song, when Harald's men seized Ælfred, a brother of Eadmund Ironside, who returned to England from Normandy where he had found a refuge since his father's flight to its shores. Every tenth man among his followers was killed, the rest sold for slaves, and Ælfred's eyes torn out at Ely.
Tancred of Hauteville and his Italian Normans, though important too, in Italy, are not worth naming in comparison. This is a feracious earth, and the grain of mustard-seed will grow to miraculous extent in some cases. Harald's chief helper, counsellor, and lieutenant was the above-mentioned Jarl Rognwald of More, who had the honor to cut Harald's dreadful head of hair.
Of course there were many freeborn noble-spirited udallers who could not thus be tickled into the selling of their birthright; but Harald's tremendous energy and power, coupled with his rigorous treatment of all who resisted him, had the effect of reducing many of these to sullen silence, while some made a virtue of necessity, and accepted the fate which they thought it impossible to evade.
"That is wisely spoken, Glumm; nevertheless I feel disposed to meet King Harald's men." "This spirit accords ill with the assertion that thou art not fond of war," returned Glumm, with a smile. "I am not so sure of that," rejoined Erling, with a look of perplexity.
Harald stood up in his chariot and complained, in as loud a voice as he could, that Ring was requiting his benefits with wrongs; that the man who had got his kingdom by Harald's own gift was now attacking him; so that Ring neither pitied an old man nor spared an uncle, but set his own ambitions before any regard for Harald's kinship or kindness.
They could see their friends quietly but swiftly gliding towards the very fate they sought to avoid, and experienced all the agony of being unable to give a shout of warning, or to prevent the foe from capturing them; for, even if there had been time to rush upon them before the meeting, which there was not, Erling by so doing would have been obliged to place the whole of Harald's host between him and the boat at Crow Cliff.
Now Brun, being instructed to form the line on Harald's behalf, made the front in a wedge, posting Hetha on the right flank, putting Hakon in command of the left, and making Wisna standard-bearer.
He first killed his brother, Ragnvald Rattlebone, because he was said to be a sorcerer. Next he killed his brother Biorn, because he refused to pay him homage and tribute. None of Harald's sons could be safe while Erik was thus allowed to take the law into his own hands; so two other of the brothers attempted to take Erik's life, by setting fire to a farmhouse in which he was feasting.
This indeed seemed to be true; for Kettle lay with his arm over an oar, and his head hanging down in the water, like a dead man. Yet there was life in him, for his fingers moved. Ulf had witnessed all this, and was on the point of attempting to leap across to Harald's ship when Kettle fell.
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