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Updated: June 21, 2025
Yet I had things to hear from him, now that he had no need to speak falsely, and I went to his side. The two jarls stood and looked at him unmoved. "The justice of Ulfkytel is on you, Beorn," I said slowly; "there is no need to hide aught. Tell me how you slew Lodbrok, and why."
And East Anglia shall know what my thoughts are of those reasons." Then two men seized Beorn and cast him into that foul pit, stripped of all things, and the stone fell. But Beorn moved not nor cried out, and I think that even as Ulfkytel had boded, stripped of life itself was he before the bottom of the pit was reached. So the justice of Ulfkytel the Earl came to pass.
Then came word of a great council to be held at Oxford, and we hoped much from that; but two days after it had been held there came to us, angry and desponding, Ulfkytel, our East Anglian earl, and told us how things had gone as ill as they might. Few words enough are needed to tell it, but none can know what harm was wrought thereby.
Then Ulfkytel pushed away the table from before him so that it fell over. "Take these men away," he said. "I have heard and seen enough. I will think!" They led us away to the cells again, and I wondered how all this would end. In an hour they brought us back, and set us in our places again. The earl had more to say, as it seemed.
And I feared that he would take the land the king offered him, for I longed for it." Then Beorn closed his eyes, and I was turning away, for I need ask no more; but again he spoke: "Blind was yon dotard Ulfkytel not to see all this; would that you had slain me in the woods at first or that he had hanged me at Caistor or that I had been drowned. But justice is done, and my life is ended."
"Redwald is an Anglian name," said Godwine, taking my hand. "Are you English therefore?" "Aye, young sir, from East Anglian Bures, in Suffolk," I answered. "Are you Edric Streone's man then?" he said, dropping my hand suddenly and half stepping back. "I am not," I said pretty stoutly, for I was angry with Streone's way with Olaf and with other ways of his. "Ulfkytel is our earl."
Now with Ulfkytel came my Colchester men, or rather the thirty who were left, And those two brothers, Thrand and Guthorm, who had ridden to Stamford with me were there also. These two came to me that evening when I was alone, and said that they had a plan they would carry out if I gave the word.
Then was a murmur of assent to this strange manner of justice of Earl Ulfkytel's, and I, who feared not the sea, was glad; but Beorn would have fallen on the ground, but for his guards, and almost had he confessed, as I think. "Eat and drink well," said Ulfkytel, "for maybe it is long before you see food again." "Where shall you set them afloat?" asked a thane.
And we talked quietly of this and that, as her wheel hummed and clicked cheerfully the while, and at last some word of mine led her to say: "I have heard little of your own folk, Redwald. I do not know even their names." "After my father was slain, I had none left but my mother," I said. "We are distant kinsfolk of Ulfkytel, our earl, but we have no near kin."
But evil counsel was ever waiting on them, and maybe they are not to blame so much as is he who gave it. There were no men of note among these Danes whom we took, and we thought that Ulfkytel would maybe hear of Egil before long, if he could by any means get his scattered forces together. Yet the rout was very complete, else he would have been back in Colchester before us.
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