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Updated: May 13, 2025
There was great feasting that night in the king's hall, as one may suppose, and I sat with the housecarls at the cross tables beyond the fire, and I could see the Lady Goldberga at Alsi's side. Tired she was with her long journey, and she did not remain long at the table; but I had never seen so wondrously beautiful a lady.
At that Alsi's face seemed to clear, and his forced smile came to him. He looked round on the thanes who were nearest him, and coughed, and then answered, "Here has been some mistake, my niece, and it has cost many good lives. If it is even as you say, get you to your land of Anglia, and there shall be peace. I myself will send word to Ragnar that he shall hail you as queen."
Then said I, "How was it that she had to throw in her lot with Havelok? He was Alsi's own choice for her." "That is not what we have heard," the spokesman answered. "Now it is best that you go hence, for you have the answer." "This means fighting for Goldberga's rights," said Arngeir, "and I will tell you that Havelok will not be backward in the matter."
But we saved our breath until the first of us were on the banks of the stream, and then I shouted, and with a great shout of "Ahoy!" in answer, we charged through the stream and up the far bank, where Alsi's spearmen waited for us.
Then up spoke a new voice, and it was one that I knew well. "No need to do that, lord king," said Berthun the cook. "Here have I come posthaste, and riding day and night, to say that Ragnar is but a day's march from here, that he and all Norfolk may see that their queen comes to her own." Then Alsi's face grew ashy pale, and without another word he swung his horse round and went his way.
They crowded together as they saw how narrow our front was, and there was a hedge of steel before us three brothers; but the spear is not the weapon to use if one would check the onrush of the Northman's wedge, and shield and axe between them dashed and hewed a way to the men who got to their swords too late, and then we were in the midst of Alsi's line, with the gap that we had made widening behind us with each step that we took forward.
But I do not think that any noticed us with those twain to look at, unless they scanned our arms, which were more after the English sort than the Danish, so far as mail and helms are concerned, and therefore might seem strange. The old hall was not changed at all; and handsome it seemed after Alsi's, though it was not so large.
Now Goldberga, the princess, was, as I have said, Alsi's ward, and was at this time just eighteen, so that it would be time for her to take the kingdom that was hers by right. It was common talk, however, that Alsi by no means liked the thought of giving the wide lands of East Anglia up to her, and that he would not do so if he could anywise help it.
It had been done by the marshmen in the dark hours of the morning, and from across the stream I saw Alsi's men staring at the new force that they thought had come to help us. There were men enough moving along our bank with food to us to prevent them seeing that this line stirred not at all.
We are not Alsi's men, and our fathers fought for his mother's Welsh kin against the English long ago. Let us fight for the rights of Goldberga, at least." Havelok welcomed them in all friendliness, though he asked them if they had no grudge against him for the slaying of Griffin. "As to that," they said, "after the duel we think that he deserved all that has befallen him.
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