all the courtmen sat after dark and feathered
arrows and twined bowstrings, and mended mail. And now and then
some chief would ride into the town, feasting that night, and
riding away in the morning after long talk with the jarls. And
some, Bagsac and Guthrum, Sidrac and his son, and a tall man named
Osbern, came very often as the days lengthened.

I would ask nothing of this matter, even of Osritha, having my own
thoughts thereon, and not being willing to press her on things she
might have been bidden to keep from me. She would ask me of my
mother and Eadgyth, as they would ask the jarl of her, and I told
her all I could, though that was not much, for a man hardly notes
things as a woman will. Then she would laugh at me; until one day I
said that I would she could come over to Reedham and see for
herself.

At that I thought that I had offended her, for her face grew red,
and she left me. Nor could I find a chance of speaking to her again
for many days, which was strange to me, and grieved me sorely.

Now the southwest wind shifted at last to the west and north, and
that shift brought home him whom I most wished to see, my comrade,
Halfden. And it chanced that I was the first to see his sail from
the higher land along the coast, south of the haven, where I was
riding with my falcon and the great dog Vig, which Raud and his
brother would have me take for my own after the wolf hunt.

Gladly I rode hack with my news to find Ingvar in the ship garth,
and there I told him who came.

"A ship, maybe. How know you she is Halfden's?" he said carelessly.

"Why, how does any sailor know his own ship?" I asked in surprise.

Then he turned at once, and smiled at me fairly for the first time.

"I had forgotten," he said. "Come, let us look at her again."

And I was not mistaken, though the jarl was not so sure as I for
half an hour or more. When he was certain, he said:

"Come, let us make what welcome for Halfden that we may."

And we went back to the hall, and at once was the great horn blown
to assemble the men; and the news went round quickly, so that
everywhere men and women alike put aside their work, and hurried
down to the wharf side. And in Ingvar's house the thralls wrought
to prepare a great feast in honour of Jarl Halfden's homecoming.

Soon I stood with the jarls and Osritha at the landing place, and
behind us were the courtmen in their best array. And as we came to
the place where we would wait, Halfden's