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Updated: May 13, 2025
But my one voice prevailed not at all, and after a while I went down to Reedham, and there bided with my mother and Eadgyth, very lonely and sad at heart in the place where I had looked for such happiness with my father and Lodbrok and Halfden at first, and now of late, for a few days, with Osritha, and Halfden in Lodbrok's place.
Now it was plain that this ship came from that place; either beaten off, or knowing that Ingvar's haven lay open to attack while his men were away thus. And a greater fear than any came over me. "Where is the Lady Osritha?" I said. "She was here in the town this morning." "So, Wulfric," said Thormod quickly, "she will have fled. The steward will have seen to that.
And when the red light from wharf and open house doors danced in long lines on the ripples towards us, and voices hailed our ship from shore, and our men answered back in cheery wise, she drew nearer me, saying: "Is this home, Wulfric?" "Aye," I answered. "Your home and mine, Osritha and peace."
Yet the other ship will stay while I send messengers inland, if Ingvar will not. But I shall return no more." "Then," said I, "I will speak to the Lady Osritha." "Go at once," he said, smiling; "bid her come with us to the better home we have found." I had not seen Osritha since I left her yesterday, and now I feared a little, not knowing how she would look on things.
But presently, at the summer's very end, I knew from the Danes that Ingvar had gone back to Denmark, called there by some rumour of trouble brewing at home in his absence; and that made it yet harder for me, if possible, for on Ingvar I would not willingly look again, nor would I think of Osritha but as apart from him. So the winter wore away.
Well, too, did my mother and Eadgyth like the courtly ways of the jarl, who was ever ready to tell them of the life in his household, and of the daughter, Osritha, who was its mistress since her mother died but a few years since, and her two elder sisters had been married to chiefs of their own land.
"Now I would that you would turn good Dane and Thor's man, and bide here with us; and then maybe " But Osritha rose up quickly and said that she must begone, and so bade us goodnight and went her way into the upper story of that end of the great hall where her own place was.
At that Halfden rose up, for he had found a seat of logs and sat by me on it, sighing a long sigh, but saying: "Well, this is even as I thought, and I will not blame you, my brother. Fain would I have kept you here, and sorely will Osritha pine when you are gone. But you shall not die, else will the justice of Ulfkytel come to naught."
Now, had I not known the great love and reverence in which those three wild brothers held Osritha, I should have been amazed at these words from Ingvar; but there is somewhat of good to be found in every man. Then I answered: "I must fight for my land, Ingvar, but I also would fain not fight against yourself. Where stand you in your line?" "On the right," he said; "Guthrum is on the left."
Ever as the days went by I would seek the shipmen who came to Reedham on their way up the rivers, so that I might hear news from the Danish shore, where Osritha was thinking of me, till at last I heard from a Frisian that three kings had gathered a mighty host, and were even now on their way to England.
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