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Updated: June 9, 2025
And when we were but a bow shot apart the hail came. The two vessels were then broadside on to each other, we a little ahead, if anything. My father was steering now, fully armed, and Arngeir was beside him with myself. I had the big shield wherewith one guards the helmsman if arrows are flying. The Viking bade us strike sail, and let him come alongside, but my father made no answer.
The tide had set her into a little creek that opened out suddenly, and there Arngeir saw her first, aground on a sandbank, with the lift of each wave that crept into the haven she had found sending her higher on it. And my father cried to us that we had best follow her; and he put the helm over, while we sheeted home and stood by for the shock of grounding.
Arngeir heard the men trampling, if not the whistle, and he was with us directly, and heard what was to be done. "It is a chance if the yard stands it," he said, looking aloft. "Ay, but we cannot chance going about in this sea, and we are too short of men to lower and hoist again. Listen!"
So they were very ready to buy, and soon the name of Grim the fisher was known far and wide in Lindsey, for my father made great baskets of the willows of the marsh, and carried his burden of fish through the land, alone at first, until we were able to help him, while Arngeir and we minded the nets. Only two of our men stayed here with us, being fishers and old comrades of my father.
Somewhat of the same kind he said to Arngeir, for he had heard of this king when he had been in the king's new haven in the Wash some time ago. But Arngeir would by no means leave the uncle who had been as a father to him. Now when we marked out the land that Witlaf gave us, there was a good omen.
So Mord met the old man as he left the chamber, and told him that he must fly; and after that Withelm took him away in the dusk, for none hindered his going, and went to the widow's with him, hearing all that had been said; and that which they thought was even as Goldberga had said, that all must needs be for the best. In a day or two all would he plain, for Arngeir would have come.
"Ran is spreading her nets," said Arngeir, "but if all holds, she will have no luck with her fishing." Then we manned the main sheet and the guys from the great yards, but we were all too few for the task, which needed every man of the fifteen that we had sailed with. There was the back stay to be set up afresh on the weather quarter for the new tack also, and three men must see to that.
As for our own crew, they were told that it was certain that the ship would be taken unless we went on this tide, and so they worked well. Very early in the morning, and unseen, Arngeir had brought Eleyn, the queen, on board, and she was in the cabin under the raised after deck all the while that the bustle of making ready was going on.
And then, unbidden, Arngeir followed, for he too loved Havelok, and would fain be his brother indeed. After that my father took a sharp flint knife that he had brought with him, and with it cut Havelok's arm a little, and each of us set his lips to that wound, and afterwards he to the like marks in our right arms, and so the ancient rite was complete.
I went out to the marketplace and found a man whom I knew one of those who carried our fish at times; and him I sent, with promise of two silver pennies presently, to Arngeir for my arms, telling him that all was well. There is no need for me to say how my arms came to me from Grimsby, and how I went to Eglaf as I had promised.
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