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Updated: September 20, 2025
Men were doubting yet, and Arnkel's men had no mind to begin a fight which would be fell enough. "You have said that I am a captive, Arnkel," she said calmly. "Listen, friends, and say if so I am." She half turned to me, and took my hand before them all, smiling. "This is my promised husband," she said proudly, "Jarl Malcolm, who saved me. If I am captive, it is willingly.
I have heard the bay of those terrible hounds more than once indeed, but I have seen naught, and round our hall is no unrest. In the sunshine of next day Gerda would hear what had become of Arnkel, supposing that he was kept safely somewhere. I think that the hurt to me, small as it was, angered her against him more than the wrongs he had done to herself. "He is dead," I told her.
Then old Gorm answered in a voice which shook with wrath: "And with him, bound in the funeral chamber, with burning peat piled round it, Arnkel set the Lady Gerda to burn at sea, even as you see her. But for chance she had never stood in Arnkel's way more. She is Thorwald's heiress." In the silence which followed Gerda spoke again.
Just for a moment we doubted if that was safe for her, but Gorm the Steward had the last word. "Let it be so," he said. "Gerda shall call to her men, and they will not hang back. Then Arnkel must needs give in. Now, the sooner the better for all concerned." The folk ashore had made fast the ship by this time, and were idly waiting while Gorm spoke to us.
"The people cannot hold you as in league with Arnkel now," I said. "They will not molest you." "They know that there is no league between us now, at all events," he answered, with a short laugh. "No, there will be no trouble of any kind." Bertric and I rose up and bade Eric's men go to the guest hall, and so we two went out of the great door with Asbiorn.
"We may be blown back into the arms of old Heidrek. What say you to taking one of these boats, or fitting out our own with their oars, and so trying to make the coast? Even Heidrek would pay no heed to a boat." "We may have to do that yet," answered my friend. "Heidrek is not coming, or he would have sought this ship under oars at once. That Arnkel must have beaten him soundly is that likely?"
The ship had passed in the dawn of that morning, and had not far to go. Whereon my father sent a message to Arnkel, whom he knew, to say that he was at hand, and landed and fell on him. As it turned out, he had better have taken his ships, for Thorwald's folk set the ship adrift to save her from pillage. It seems that they meant her to burn, but blundered that part.
Arnkel, who tried to burn me, is hand in glove with him." Then Bertric said: "Have you heard naught of Hakon, that son of Harald, whom our king, Athelstane, has brought up in England?" "No," she answered, shaking her head. "We have heard naught.
Now, Gorm bade us choose our men quickly and follow him, lest some word should go to Arnkel of the armed ship which had come instead of the peaceful trader which the pilots should have brought. So I went down the starboard side and named a dozen men, while Asbiorn did the same from the other bank of rowers, and as we named them, they leapt up and fell in behind us.
"I think so," I said. "Every warrior would be in his war gear at that funeral, and it would be a full gathering of the king's folk. Now, I wonder how Arnkel explained the making away of the lady to her people." "One may think of many lies he could tell. Men do not heed what goes on behind them when a fight is on hand. He will say that she fled, or that Heidrek's men took her as the fight may go.
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