Then Arngeir said quickly, “This is foolishness, Havelok, my brother.  Whither will you go?  For worse is the famine inland; and I think that we may last out here.  The fish will come back presently.”

“I will go to Lincoln.  All know that there is plenty there, for the townsfolk were wise in time.  There is the court, and at the court a strong man is likely to be welcome, if only as one who shall keep the starving poor from the doors, as porter.”

He spoke bitterly, for Alsi, the king, had no good name for kindness, and at that Withelm laughed sadly.

“Few poor would Havelok turn away,” he said, under his breath; “rather were he likely to take the king’s food from the very board, and share it among them.”

That made us laugh a little, for it was true enough; and one might seem to see our mighty one sweeping the table, while none dared try to stay him.

But many times of late Havelok had gone dinnerless, that he might feed some weak one in the village.  Maybe some of us did likewise; but, if so, we learned from him.

“Well, then,” Havelok said, when we had had our wretched laugh, “Alsi, the king, can better afford to feed me than can anyone else.  Therefore, I will go and see about it.  And if not the king, then, doubtless, some rich merchant will give me food for work, seeing that I can lift things handily.  But Radbard here is a great and hungry man also, and it will be well that he come with me; or else, being young and helpless, I may fall into bad hands.”

So he spoke, jesting and making little of the matter.  But I saw that he was right, and that we who were strong to take what might come should go away.  It was likely that a day of our meals would make a week’s fare for Arngeir’s three little ones, and they were to be thought for.

Now for a little while Arngeir tried to keep us back; but it was plain that he knew also that our going was well thought of, and only his care for Havelok stood in the way.  Indeed, he said that I and Raven might go.

“Raven knows as much about the fish as did our father,” Havelok said.  “He will go out in the morning, and look at sky and sea, and sniff at the wind; and if I say it will be fine, he says that the herrings will be in such a place; and so they are, while maybe it rains all day to spite my weather wisdom.  You cannot do without Raven; for it is ill to miss any chance of the sea just now.  Nor can Withelm go, for he knows all in the place, and who is most in want.  It will not do to be without house steward.  So we two will go.  Never have I been to Lincoln yet, and Radbard knows the place well.”

I think that I have never said that Grim would never take Havelok to the city, lest he should be known by some of the Danish folk who came now and then to the court, some from over seas, and others from the court of King Ethelwald, of whom I have spoken, the Norfolk king.  But that danger was surely over now, for Havelok would be forgotten in Denmark; and Ethelwald was long dead, and his wife also, leaving his daughter Goldberga to her uncle Alsi, as his ward.  So Alsi held both kingdoms until the princess was of age, when she would take her own.  It was said that she lived at Dover until that time, and so none of her Danes were likely to be at court if we went there and found places.