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Updated: May 8, 2025
"Have you a heavy anchor?" asked the king. "A great one." "Well, then, tie it to this sack and sink it tonight where tide will never shift it. Then you may come to me and claim what reward you will." "Freedom, and gold enough to buy a new boat -two new boats!" said my father eagerly. Hodulf laughed at that, and got on his horse again.
Certainly by this time Hodulf knew that Grim had come to England in safety, for the name of the new town must have come to his ears: and if Grim, then the boy he had given to him. The man who spoke to me went away soon, and Havelok strolled back to me. "I would that the cook, or whoever he is, would come," he said.
But Sigurd said that, first, the trouble was not of his making at all; and next, that if Hodulf plundered the place, it was as well to send away as much as possible beforehand; and lastly -and this was what touched my father most -that he must think of his charge.
But when the jarl and our men reached the town there was naught to be done but to make terms with Hodulf as best he might, that the whole country might not be overrun. For Gunnar had been slain in his own hall, with his two young daughters and with the queen also, as was supposed. Havelok the prince was in his hands, and for his sake therefore Sigurd had been the more ready to come to terms.
When I reached the roadway the meeting place was yet to my left, and I could hear my father's footsteps coming steadily in the distance. So I skirted the road for a little way, and then came to an open bit of heath and rising land, beyond which I thought I should find Hodulf.
And he told all that had happened after Hodulf caught him, from the murder of his sisters to the time when I helped my father to take him from the sack. Only he never remembered the death of his mother or the storm, or how we came to Grimsby.
I think that some would have spoken, for Hodulf held up his hand for silence, and looked to me for answer. "It will be well for you to give up the throne to him, making such terms as you may," I said.
Yet all asked that question; and more than once, when they heard the reply, there would be a halt and a talk, and then the men would turn and cast in their lot with the son of Gunnar, hastening to him with more eager steps than had taken them to Hodulf.
I was sorry for the poor beast, but the men called him "Hodulf," already, and I thought that a good sign in its way. Another good sign, and that one which could not be mistaken, was to see the warriors coming in by twos and threes as the news reached them. They were dotted along the roads from all quarters, and across the heaths we saw the flash of the arms of more.
What Hodulf will do one cannot say, but he may come here with his men behind him to force me to give you up, and the town will be searched for Havelok, and both he and the queen will be lost." "If that is so," my father answered, "we have time enough.
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