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Updated: June 4, 2025
This time his inflection showed that he had finished. He turned his eyes from the hole and fastened them on the Lord of Ivarsdale, in the confidence of invincible power. The room was so still that when a gust came in around the ill-fitting windows, the flare of the torch-flames sounded loud as the hiss of serpents. The Etheling's voice was very deep and quiet.
The awkwardness of the pause seemed to afford Canute a kind of mischievous amusement, for all the courtesy in which he veiled it. His voice was almost too cheerful as he addressed the Etheling. "Now as always it can be told about my men that they stretch out their hands to greet strangers," he said, "but I ask you not to judge all Danish hospitality from this reception, Lord of Ivarsdale.
The fire held up funeral tapers of flickering flame, and the whispers of the starving men who warmed themselves in its heat broke the silence as dismally as the voices of mourners. But the Lord of Ivarsdale said steadily, "Not so, good friend; and it hurts my pride sorely that you should speak as if I were still of no importance in my father's house.
What concerns war-time is a thing by itself; as ruler over laws and land-rights, I cannot give one man's lands to another, though the one be a man I care little for, and the other is my foster-brother. Go back therefore, unhindered, Lord of Ivarsdale, and live in peace henceforth.
Laughing, they all looked up where the young master leaned in his chair, watching the revels with a smile of idle good-humor. All except the blue-eyed page; he bent forward instead, so that his long locks fell softly about his face. The Lord of Ivarsdale shook his head indolently against the cushion. "No wood lass for me, friend Celric," he said.
Elfgiva caught the nearest and shook him until his teeth chattered; and in the lull, the swelling shout reached them for the first time unbroken: "Honor to the King! Hail to the King of the Danes and the Angles!" From the Lord of Ivarsdale came a cry, sharp as though a heart-string had snapped in its utterance, the tie that for generations had bound those of his blood to the house of Cerdic.
So Sebert of Ivarsdale went to his tower unhindered; and the rest of the winter nights, while the winds of the Wolf Month howled about the palisades, he listened undisturbed to his harper; and the rest of the winter days he trod in peace the homely routine of his lordship, in peace and in absent-eyed silence.
Why do you not go in boldly and rescue him? Does he not look to be in need of your help?" To stifle his laughter, he muffled his head in his cloak and leaned, shaking, against the wall. Flushing a deeper and deeper red, the Lord of Ivarsdale stared at the smiling maiden. Just so, a hundred times, she had lifted her sparkling face toward him, and he fool that he was! where had been his eyes?
He whom they had called the Etheling drew himself up alertly. "I make no answer to hedge-creepers," he said. "Come out where you can be seen." The voice took on a mocking edge. "There is no gainsaying that I feel safer here. I am the messenger of Edric of Mercia." Only a warning sign from the Lord of Ivarsdale restrained an angry chorus.
It seemed that he divined the appeal, for with the hand that pressed hers he drew her forward a step. "Is it not your wish to speak to the Lord of Ivarsdale yourself and thank him for keeping his troth with Fridtjof?" he said kindly; and without waiting for an answer, moved away and joined a group of those who had been his companions before the interruption.
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