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Updated: May 8, 2025
"One may trust him," said Raud; telling of how Vig the dog had made friends with me at first, and he nodded in friendly wise to me, so that I would not seem to hold aloof, and spoke to him. "That is Jarl Hubba, surely?" "Aye, and the best warrior in all Denmark," said Raud. "We fear Ingvar, and we love Halfden; but Hubba is such a hero as was Ragnar himself."
Sooth is the saying that Strongest the Norns are. Lo! at my life's end I laugh and I die." "Nay, my brother," said Halfden earnestly; "think of me, and of Osritha, and seem to bow at least." That word spoken by my friend was the hardest I ever had to bear, for now I was drawn by the love that had been so newly given me.
"Aye, truly," said Thormod; "he has taught you more than you think." Halfden would have me keep his axe, but I told him of that one which the jarl had made for me, and straightway he sent the boat for it, and when it came read the runes thereon. "Now this says that you are right, Thormod! Here has my father written 'Life for life' tell us how that was!"
"And I have been over sure that no mishap might be in a long six months." "What of the voyage? let us speak of this hereafter," said Hubba. And Halfden, wearily, as one who had lost all interest in his own doings, told him that it had been good, and that Thormod would give him the full tale of plunder. Then came a chief from the ship whose face I knew, though he was not of our crew.
She was like Halfden and Hubba, though with Ingvar's hair, and if those three were handsome men among a thousand, this sister of theirs was more than worthy of them. She stood in the door, doubting, when she saw me.
These newcomers held long counsel with Halfden and Thormod, and the end of it was that they agreed to sail in company, making a raid on the English coast, and first of all on the South Saxon shores, behind the island that men call Wight.
And now, maybe, I must see the roofs that had sheltered him, and heard the first praises of his converts, burnt before my eyes, and that while I myself was siding with the destroyers. Then at last I took Halfden aside and told him my trouble, putting him in mind of the promise he had made me. "Aye," said he, "I knew what made you so silent, and I have but waited for you to speak.
But Hubba was ever the same, and I liked him well, though I could not have made a friend of him as of Halfden. In March messengers began to come and go, and though I asked nothing and was told nothing, I knew well that Ingvar was gathering a mighty host to him that he might sail in the May time across the seas for plunder or for revenge.
But Ingvar looked at Beorn fixedly, and the man shrank away from his gaze. "How did he die, is what I would know?" he said sternly. "Let the man to whom Halfden and Lodbrok gave these gifts tell us presently. We have enough ill news for the time. Surely we knew that the jarl was dead, and it is ours but to learn how;" said Hubba. "How know you that these men slew not both?"
Yet I liked not the look of the Danish men, after the honest faces of our own crew. It seemed to me that they were hard featured and cruel looking, though towards me were none but friendly looks. Yet I speak of the crew only, for Halfden was like his father in face and speech, and that is saying much for him in both.
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