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Updated: June 11, 2025
"You are a truth teller, Kolgrim the Tall," Harald said. "Now if you will leave Einar's service and come and be of my courtmen, I will speak to the jarl and make matters right with him, and it shall be worth your while." Then my comrade answered plainly: "I am no jarl's man now, King Harald; I belong to King Ranald here, and I will not leave him."
"Slain a dozen men and lamed twice as many more," answered several voices; "have them forth straightway." "They were attacked, and defended themselves," said the sheriff, "and it is no fault of theirs that they had to do their best. Get you home, and I will answer to the jarl for them. They are the jarl's guests."
"Where is this stranger?" said the jarl's voice; "bring him forth." Raud turned to beckon me, but I was close to him, and came out of the hut unbidden.
But those wise words of Osritha's had made things easier for me, for now Halfden knew that into the story of the jarl's death, I and my doings must come, so Ingvar's words meant little to him. "You went not to Reedham?" I said, for now the men were at work again, and all was noise and bustle round us. "I have come here first by Orkneys from Waterford, where we wintered," he answered.
In a boat that drew but a few inches of water, but an indifferent look-out would preclude all danger on that score. At all events, the thing seemed feasible enough, notwithstanding old Jarl's superstitious reverence for nautical instruments, and the philosophical objections which might have been urged by a pedantic disciple of Mercator.
I cannot gainsay his wise words, and I will leave the matter so. Thereafter Kolgrim and I went back to Einar, who yet waited for us. Glad was he to see us return in safety; but both he and Thord were speechless when they saw the jarl's sword girt to me and the jarl's golden ring on my hand.
Now, in old Jarl's lingo there was never an idiom. Your aboriginal tar is too much of a cosmopolitan for that. Long companionship with seamen of all tribes: Manilla-men, Anglo-Saxons, Cholos, Lascars, and Danes, wear away in good time all mother-tongue stammerings. You sink your clan; down goes your nation; you speak a world's language, jovially jabbering in the Lingua-Franca of the forecastle.
One feels like his own ghost unlawfully tenanting a defunct carcass. Even Jarl's glance seemed so queer, that I begged him to look another way.
Now Eadgyth heard the jarl's name, and knew naught of the terror that that name brought to all the land, and least of all that a battle could have been fought, for we had kept it from her. Nor had I told her of how nearly he had been to slaying me, for I would not make Osritha's brothers terrible to her.
"Men," I said, "save your lives as this chief bids you. Join him now, and leave him when you may." "Do you join him?" said one in answer. Not I." "Neither do we. We live or die with you. What else should courtmen of the jarl's do?" So said one of our Norsemen; but the eyes of the Scots were on the bleak hills, and for them the choice was harder, I think.
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