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Updated: May 2, 2025
Such joy as befitted the absence of their lords was theirs, and Alfgar and Bertric, not to waste the holiday, agreed to have a day's hunting in the forest, rich with all the hues of autumn, while the feast was preparing at home. The day was delightful.
Bertric looked up at the sky and out to windward, and his face changed. "What is it?" asked Gerda anxiously. "Running into a fog bank," he said. "Look ahead." One could not see it. Only it was as if the ring of sea to windward had of a sudden grown smaller. Heidrek was not a mile astern of us, and still his ships were in bright sunshine.
"I have a fancy to see you three as you should be, with the things which belong to your rank on you." Bertric shook his head at that. "No, lady," he said. "What need?" "Maybe I would see my friends as they should be," she answered. "Maybe I would fain for once give the gifts a queen may give, if never again.
So we slept a great sleep, and it was not until near sunset that Dalfin roused us. "There is somewhat like a sail on the skyline to the eastward," he said. "I have watched it this half hour, and it grows bigger fast. I took it for a bird at first and would not wake you." That brought us to our feet in a moment, and we looked in the direction he gave us. "A sail," said Bertric.
Bertric spoke again to Dalfin, asking him how it came to pass that he could not swim, which was as much a wonder to him as it had been to me. "Yesterday I would have asked you why I should be able," Dalfin answered lightly, "today I know well enough. But my home in Maghera, where we of the northern O'Neills have our place and state, lies inland.
Now I could see well enough to choose for the others, for the dimness was but the change from the sunshine outside on deck. I took a lighter weapon for Dalfin, and a heavy, short sword for Bertric, and with them shields. No long choice was needed, for not one of the weapons but was of the best.
Gerda had hidden her face in her hands, for he was not the only one who had been swept past us. There were still cries, which rang in my ears, from men who were sinking as we passed on. Bertric felt the boat lurch, and looked round. He saw the head above the gunwale, and the clutching hands on it, and reached for his oar. "Hold hard!" I cried, staying the thrust which was coming. "It is Asbiorn!"
Dalfin rose up and called to me, and I went toward them, leaving Gerda and Bertric to wait for what might happen. "This is Malcolm of Caithness, a good Scot," said he. "Malcolm, we are in luck again, for it seems that we have fallen into the hands of some good fathers, which is more than I expected, for I never heard that there was a monastery here."
Yet I knew that for him to have one loyal haven in the south lands would be no little gain, so that I was serving him as well as Gerda. "That is well," he said at last. "And I wonder how long I may be able to jest thus. Now, I will give you the ship we took from Heidrek, and Bertric will be shipmaster, for this is his affair also.
Seeing that when the ship was to be put about the square sail had to be lowered, brought aft round the mast and rehoisted on the other board, the unhandiness of the thing was terribly unseamanlike. Bertric and I grumbled and wondered at it the while we worked, only hoping that by some stroke of luck we might be able to reach a haven without having to shift the sail.
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