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Updated: September 27, 2025
Then I saw that our rear rank was already formed up, as I thought, and that is not quite the order of things, as a rule, and it seemed far off from the stream. I thought that they should have asked me about this, for there were some of my courtmen in that line. And then I saw that in the line was no movement, and no flash of arms, as when one man speaks to another, turning a little.
My father came and sat himself beside me, and he was as I had seen him last, dressed in his mail, but with a peace on his face instead of the war light. My brothers came, and they stood before us, not smiling, but grave and content. The courtmen whom I had loved came, and they ranged themselves across the deck, and I watched them, and felt no wonder that they should be here.
Now I think that we might have slain him there, and after that have been slain ourselves, for the odds were against us, even though I had the courtmen; but that was Havelok's deed to do, for the sake of father and sisters to be avenged, and so we only cut our way out of the hall to the door, which my men threw open at once.
She was to bide here in the town until we came back in triumph or defeat; and as men looked on her, they grew strong, that no tears might be for those bright eyes. Now I left them before the march began, for I and the courtmen were to go forward and see where the foe was posted, and so bring word again. And we went some five miles before we saw the first sign of them.
Surely my longings had called them, and they came. So I and they all bided still for a little while; and then the courtmen raised their weapons toward me as in salute, and drifted from the deck into the white mists over the water, and were gone.
The hammers went all day long in the ship garths, where the air was full of the wholesome scent of tar; and in their houses the women spun busily, making rope and weaving canvas that should carry the jarl's men "over the swan's bath;" while in the hall the courtmen sat after dark and feathered arrows and twined bowstrings, and mended mail.
"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."
And then, when we were inside, and the courtmen had gone clattering down the street homewards, Biorn took the great door bar from its old place and ran it into the sockets in the doorposts, as I had done so many times; and the runes that my father had cut on it when he made the house were still plain to be seen on it, with the notches I had made with the first knife that I ever had.
I will speak with him in open hall, and more than he shall learn how he thought to slay Havelok." All thought that this was good, and I was to go at once. It was but a few hours' ride, as has been said, to his town, and the matter was as well done with. So they gave me a guard of twenty of the jarl's courtmen, and in half an hour I was riding northward on my errand.
Presently our rear was on the water's edge, and it seemed likely that in crossing there might be a breaking of the line; and when he saw that, Havelok called to me, and he went to the front with the courtmen round him. It was good to hear the cheers of our men as they saw the dancing banner above the fight, and beneath it, in the bright sun, the gold-circled helm of their king.
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