d much shame would come
of it if we did not have our share. We will start when the cock crows.
As soon as Canute gets the kingship over the English realm, Ivarsdale
will fall to me anyway. Let the Angle enjoy himself until then."

Chapter XVI. The Sword of Speech

Speech-runes thou must know
If thou wilt that no one
For injury with hate requite thee.
Sigdri'fuma'l.

No holiday finery tricked out the Danish host where it squatted along
the Severn Valley that dreary October day; neither festal tables nor
dimpling women nor even the gay striped tents. Of all the multitude of
flags but one banner pricked the murky air,--the Raven standard that
marked the headquarters of the King; and its sodden folds distinguished
nothing more regal than a shepherd's wattled cote. Scattered clumps of
trees offered the weary men their only protection against the drizzling
rain; and the sole suggestions of comfort were the sickly fires that
patient endeavor had managed to coax into life in these retreats. Some,
whom exhaustion had robbed even of a fire-tender's ambition, had dropped
down on the very spot where they had slipped from their saddles, and
slept, cloak-wrapped, in the wet. And the circles about the fires were
not much noisier.

Rothgar's face gathered gravity as he gained the crest of the last hill
that lay between him and the straggling encampment.

"The rain appears to fall as coldly on their cheer as on their fires,"
he commented. "They hug the earth like the ducks on Videy Island."

"And look about as much like warriors who have got a victory," the child
of Frode added wonderingly.

The Jotun threw her a glance, where she rode at his side. "Hear words of
fate! I think that is the first time you have spoken in three days."

"You would think that great luck if you knew the kind of thoughts that
have been in my mind," she muttered. But the son of Lodbrok was already
leading his men down the hillside toward the point where the silken
banner mocked at the wattled walls.

Under the thatched roof of the hut, a still more striking contrast
awaited the eyes of those who entered. With a milking-stool for his
table and the shepherd's rude bunk for a throne, the young King of the
Danes was bending in scowling meditation over an open scroll. Against
the mud-plastered walls, the crimson splendor of his cloak and the
glitter of his gold embroideries gave him the look of a tropical bird in
an osier cage; wh