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Updated: May 8, 2025
Many men scowled at me as I passed, and more than one cried out on me. But Halfden and Thormod and Hubba, and more than were angry, seemed glad that this was all the harm that came to me just now. And Ingvar leaned back in his great chair and did not look at me, though his face was dark.
And it was true, for there would have been no sign of joy among those who had heard the news that waited them there. I knew not how to bear this meeting, but I was not alone in my trouble, for nearer me crept Osritha, saying to me alone, while the people cheered and shouted: "How shall we tell Halfden?"
So Raud bided in the farm with me for a while, and now with new thoughts and with his talk of Halfden and Osritha, I mended quickly, for it was my troubled mind that had kept me back mostly, as I cared for nothing. One day I felt strong again, waking up and taking delight in the smell of the fresh morning and in the sunlight.
She came swiftly, and at last I knew my own ship again, and thought that Halfden had come with news of peace, and maybe to take me to sea with him, and so at last back to Osritha.
But Ingvar's face was black with rage, and not heeding Halfden, he shouted: "Set the man before me." No man stirred, for indeed I think that most of our crew knew not who was meant, and those near me would, as Halfden told me, say nought. Then said Ingvar to Rorik: "Point the man to me." Then Rorik pointed to me. So I stood forth of my own accord, not looking at him, but at Ingvar.
I asked the names of those three, and he told me, even as I had feared, that they were called Ingvar and Hubba and Halfden; and so I knew that the blow was falling, and that Ingvar had stirred up other chiefs to join him, and so when the host gathered at some great Thing, he and his brothers had been hailed kings over the mighty following that should do their bidding in the old Danish way.
And to that way I cleave. I have done despite to no man's faith neither to yours nor my own." At that Rorik lost patience, and lifting his axe, ground his teeth and said savagely: "I will even make you honour Thor yonder." Now at that Halfden saw a chance for me, and at once stayed Rorik's hand, saying in a loud voice: "Ho! this is well.
"Aye maybe I would, after all," he answered, and was silent. Then he said, "Guthrum and I spoke just now, and he said that your faith must be worth more than he knew, to set you so fixedly on it." Now I would have told him that it was so, but there came a little sound at the door, and Halfden went and opened it. Across its half darkness came a woman's form, and Osritha spoke in her soft voice.
Ingvar is the eldest, Hubba, the next, and the third, Halfden, is three-and-twenty, and so about your own age, as I take it, as he is also about your equal in build and strength. Yet I would sooner see a ship of mine steered by you than by him, for he is not your equal in that matter." Now that praise pleased me well, as it did also my father.
"We shall lose our tide," grumbled the old man, who was himself again, now that he knew we had naught to fear. "That is all we shall lose," I answered, "and what matters it? we have all our time before us." "I like not the weather," he said shortly. But I paid no more heed to him, for Halfden spoke to me.
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