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Updated: June 9, 2025
I will only say that the life was pleasant enough, if idle, as a housecarl, and that I saw Havelok every day at one time or another, which was all that I could wish.
"You know not what a war with these savages is," an old housecarl who had fought them again and again said to a listening group of Wulf's men. "You might as well fight with the evil spirits of the air as with them. Fight! there is no fighting in it, save when they have with them Danes from the North, or Norwegians.
While the nurse told Withelm to fetch the priest when Alsi was in the hall that evening, the housecarl came for Havelok; and much wondering, he followed the man to the king, and presently stood before him and saluted. "Where did you get that salute?" said Alsi sharply, seeing at once that it was not English; and, indeed, it was that of Gunnar's courtmen. "I cannot tell," answered my brother.
The thane knew, and rode round the wood end, and we went with him. Then Erling lifted the wounded man on his own horse, and walked beside him. "You and I will ride in turn," said Werbode. "As I am mounted, I will take first turn for a mile or two. It will be all the same in the end." Presently Erling came alongside me, leaving the housecarl to mind his comrade. He held out a broken arrow to me.
They left the stone where he had set it, and any one may see it there to this day, and there I suppose it will be for a wonder while Havelok's name is remembered. Then they began wrestling and the like, and I left the crowd and went to Withelm, going afterwards to the widow's. I was not yet wanted by Eglaf for any housecarl duty.
"We are seeking the same road," I answered. "Now our horses are at the service of the lady and yourself. I suppose we are not far from the town, if we cannot find it;" and I laughed. "Matter of ten or twelve miles, lord," said the housecarl. "Why, then, the sooner we go the better. Lucky that the May twilight is long." "We have met you in the nick of time," said the old thane courteously.
"If you know not, master housecarl, no more do I. 'Justice to be done, says the king, and so I suppose that you have some notable prisoner in ward maybe the leader of those villains who scared our fair princess." "But we had taken no man, and I will say that we had wondered that we had not been sent out to hunt those people, instead of biding to see if they came to trouble us here."
Then thought I that if ever the princess needed one to fight for her, even to death, I would do so for the sake of that smile and the thought for a rough housecarl that was behind it. Now came Berthun with more wine, before the matter of the stone was forgotten in other talk, and the king said, "It seems that you have found a new man, steward, for all are talking of him.
But there was no sign of any follower. "Ten miles from the town," I said to him, "and more heath to cross. We must hurry. But we cannot leave those horses to suffer." "Our horses; and I have tended them, lord," said the rough housecarl, with a bit of a shake in his voice. "Leave that to me." He drew his seax, and we went on. The poor beasts could never rise again, and that was the only way.
He ordered that each native soldier and housecarl should be presented in the winter season with three marks of silver, a common or hired soldier with two, a private soldier who had finished his service with only one.
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