er
as they stood before the fire, and I thought that what Beorn said
was not pleasing to the Dane, for he turned away a little, and
answered shortly.

When they saw me both turned, Lodbrok with a smile of welcome, and
Beorn with a loud, rough voice crying to me:

"Ho, Wulfric, here is a strange thing! This gold ring have I
offered to your stranger here for his falcon--which has three wing
feathers missing, moreover--and he will not sell, though I trow
that a man cast ashore must needs want gold more than a bird which
he may not fly save I gain him leave from the king."

"The bird is Wulfric's," said Lodbrok quietly.

"Nay, Jarl," I answered, "I would not take so loving a hawk from
her master, and over all our manors you may surely fly her."

"See you there!" cried Beorn, with a sort of delight, not heeding
my last words, "Wulfric will not have her! Now will you sell?"

Then Lodbrok looked at me with a short glance that I could not but
understand, and said that it would surely grieve him if I would not
take the falcon.

Pleased enough I was, though half unwilling to take what seemed as
a forced gift. Yet to quiet Beorn--whom I never liked, as he was
both overbearing and boastful, though of great skill in his art of
falconry--I thanked the Dane, and went to where a hawking glove
hung on the wall, for my arm would feel the marks of those strong
talons for many a day, already. As I put it on I said that I feared
the bird would hardly come to me, leaving her master.

"Once I would have said that she would not," said Lodbrok; "for
until today she would bide with no man but myself and her keeper.
But today she has sat on your wrist, so that I know she will love
you well, for reasons that are beyond my guessing."

And so he shifted the falcon lightly from his wrist to mine, and
there she sat quietly, looking from him to me as though she would
own us both.

Then said Beorn, holding out his hand, on which he wore his
embroidered state glove of office:

"This is foolishness. The bird will perch on any wrist that is
rightly held out to her, so she be properly called," and he
whistled shrill, trying to edge the falcon from my hand.

In a moment she roused herself, and her great wings flew out,
striking his arm and face as he pushed them forward; and had he not
drawn back swiftly, her iron beak would surely have rent his gay
green coat.

"Plague on the kite!" he said; "surely she is bewitched! And if her
master is,