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"My horses, two of them should be here," she said. "I bade the thralls leave them when they fled." So she thought not that we had loosed them, and did not know her own in the moonlight. Maybe she had no knowledge as to which of many had been left, and I was glad of that, for so her fear was less.
"It is good to see this great meeting," he said, "but when I think of our fatherland I am filled with grief. At what peril I am here with you, you know who see me hounded as a wild beast day by day, hour by hour. But our beloved country is more to me than life. How long must we be thralls, we who were born to freedom?
Thralls know and tell these things to men of their own sort, though they seem to know nothing if you ask them, Thane." "Then you wrote the letters?" "I had them written by the old priest of Combwich by the Parrett River, who will tell you that he did so. I took them myself to the palaces for you." "And was it you who slew Tregoz?" "Ay, with that seax you gave me back at the Caerau wolf's den.
Then he cried aloud on his thralls, who were drawing the deep breath of sleep, 'Lights! Bring lights as quick as may be from the hearth, my thralls, and thrust back the strong bolts of the doors. Arise, ye serving-men, stout of heart, 'tis the master calls. Then quick the serving-men came speeding with torches burning, and the house waxed full as each man hasted along.
Therefore am I fain to show myself to thee in fairer array than yesternight; for though we dwell in the wild-wood, from the solace of folk, yet are we not of thralls' blood. But come now, I bid thee break thy fast and talk with me a little while; and then shalt thou depart in peace. Spake Face-of-god, and his voice trembled as he spake: 'What art thou?
This was the 'roller-reddening, a custom bequeathed from their forefathers, though the old men of the place muttered darkly that the ritual had been departed from, and that in the great days it was the blood not of goats, but of captive foemen that had reddened the galleys and the tide. The thralls sat at the thwarts, for there was no breeze that day in the narrow firth.
"That man," he added, turning to Haldor, "will work himself free in a few weeks hence. He is one of my best thralls. I give my slaves, as thou knowest, leave to work after hours to purchase their freedom, and Kettle labours so hard that he is almost a free man already, though he has been with me little more than two years and a half.
They saw no thralls amongst them; and when Ralph asked hereof, how that might be, since they were men-catchers, they told him that when they took men and women, as oft they did, they always sold them for what they would bring to the plain-dwellers; or else slew them, or held them to ransom, but never brought them home to their stead.
We followed for a little way, and then the thralls ended matters. They say that not one Dane reached the river's bank, beyond which their comrades watched and raged, powerless to help them. I went back to where Odda had fallen, and at that time there rose a thundering cheer of victory from our wearied line, and helms were cast into the air, and weapons waved in wild joy.
Said Ralph: "Fair maiden, I am a stranger in this town, and have seen things I do not wholly understand; now wilt thou tell me before I ask the next question, who will be those war-taken thralls whom even now I saw brought into the Burg by the host? of what nation be they, and of what kindred?"
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