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"Is Wulfric wounded then?" asked Ulfkytel. And I was not. "Whence then is Beorn's sword stained?" he asked. Then came my two thralls, and spoke to the truth of my story, as did one of the men who had stayed with them, for he too had seen the deer hanging where I had left it, nearly a mile away from where the fight was.
Wulf then fell back to Beorn's side, and half an hour later the shipwrecked party entered the gates of St. Valery. The townspeople flocked round them, and as soon as they learned that they were a party of shipwrecked Saxons who had been blown by the gale from England, they were led to the house of the officer in command of the town.
Thereat we laughed, for Beorn's jealousy was a sport to us when we thought of it, which was seldom enough. So these two went to Thetford, and in the last week of August I sailed for London, with a fair breeze over the quarter, from our haven.
They closed and locked the door on the prisoner, and the father and son set out. A sudden instinct for carefulness had prompted him to make that request. At the last moment he had thought that he noticed on Beorn's part a certain uneasiness in handing over to him the custody of Spurling.
There I told him all my story, and he remembered how I had told him, laughing, of Beorn's jealousy at first. And when my tale was nearly done Osritha crept from her bower and came and sat beside Halfden, pushing her hand into his, and resting her head on his shoulder. Then I ended quickly, saying that Ingvar had done justice on Beorn.
"And when all the fighting was done, did the soldiers get after you?" asked Granger. But Beorn's eyes were closing, and the soul was departing as day returned. Already the sun was leaping above the horizon, and the sigh of the waking forest was heard. Granger seized him by the arm and shook him he had learnt only the least part of that which he desired to know.
Somewhere across the river a whippoorwill kept on uttering its plaintive cry, as it were Beorn's lost soul come back, pleading insistently for permission to take up its residence in his body once again. And over against the farther bank a brood of yellow ducklings swam in and out among the rushes, hidden behind which their mother watched and waited.
Yet I feared Beorn's treachery, and doubted for a while, until the coil of rope that lay at my feet caught my eye as I pondered. With that I made no more ado, but took it and bound him lightly, so that at least he could not rise up unheard by me. Nor did he stir or do aught but breathe heavily and slowly as I handled him. When he roused I knew that I could so deal with him that I might unbind him.
Beorn's stay in the country had done much for him, his thin tall frame had filled out and there was a healthy colour on his cheek.
So the chance for which he had waited had come at last, and he was unable to take it and his mother was dead! He sat very still and motionless. The flies drummed against the panes they also were captives. Outside, across the river, the whippoorwill continued to cry, demanding entrance into Beorn's body because it was his soul.
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