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Updated: June 12, 2025
Alwin had drawn himself into a sitting posture; and with one hand was tugging at the handle of his knife. He flushed shamefacedly at the question, nor did he look up as he answered it. "I am going down to help the beast," he said. "I cannot remedy it if I am a fool. I do not deny that Kark is a cur; yet he is white, as we are; and alone. I cannot watch his murder."
With a hoarse cry, he caught up a fragment of broken oar and struck Kark over the head so that he fell stunned upon the deck, blood reddening his colorless face. "In the Troll's name!" Valbrand swore, after a moment of utter stupefaction. Alwin laughed between his teeth at Sigurd's despairing glance, and waited to feel the steersman's knife between his ribs.
Kark heard the order without a motion except an angry scowl, and Sigurd drew back with something like a breath of relief. But Rolf made a sudden move as though to rise to his feet, and the effect was magical. "I am going as soon as is necessary," the thrall growled. "You said nothing of being in haste."
Sometimes, where we should have expected him to apply his system, he refrains, whether from caution or oversight it is not easy to discover. For instance, "Crag. 1. The neck, the throat. Jam. Du. kraeghe, the throat; Pol. kark, the nape, crag, neck; Bohem. krk, the neck; Icel. krage, Dan. krave, the collar of a coat. The origin is an imitation of the noise made by clearing the throat.
When the hunter had passed on down the line of the crew, Thorhall came forward and greeted Leif with great civility. Only as he was retiring his eye appeared to fall upon Alwin for the first time; he stopped in pained surprise. "What is this I see, chief? You have got another bowerman in place of my son, whom your father gave to you? It must be that Kark has done something which you dislike.
The young man explained that the earl had escaped from out of Gauldale, where he had been in hiding, and that he had gone off attended only by a certain thrall named Kark. Men had given chase to him, and at the edge of a deep morass they had found the footprints of the earl's horse.
Kark was not deferential, even toward his superiors; there was barely enough discretion in his roughness to save him from offending. Among those of his own station, he dispensed even with discretion. And he had looked upon Alwin with unfriendly eyes ever since Leif's first manifestation of interest in his English property.
The old henchman looked at the new favorite as dispassionately as he would have looked at a weapon or a dog that had taken his master's fancy. "I would not oppose your will in this, any more than in other things; yet I take it upon me to remind you of Kark. If you make this cook-boy your bowerman, to keep the scales balancing you must make him who was your bowerman into a cook-boy.
Then they went to the sty, which was built with its back against a large boulder stone. Kark took a spade and cleared away the mire, and dug deep until by removing many stones and logs he opened up a sort of cave. When the rubbish had been borne away Thora brought food and candles and warm rugs.
Neither dared to close his eyes. But towards morning Earl Hakon leaned back against the rock, with his head thrown back. Sleep overwhelmed him, yet he was troubled, for he started and rolled uneasily as though in a nightmare, and at times he moaned and muttered as if in anguish, so that Kark could not look upon him but with horror.
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