Our housecarls grumbled a bit for a while, for with all the newcomers dressed span new for the gathering, we had had nothing fresh for it from the king, as was the custom, and I for one was ashamed of myself, for under my mail was naught but the fisher’s coat, which is good enough for hard wear, but not for show.  But one day we were fitted out fresh by the king’s bounty in blue and scarlet jerkins and hose, and we swaggered after that with the best, as one may suppose.

Berthun had the ordering of that business, and he came and sat with Eglaf in the gatehouse and talked of it.

“Pity that you do not put your man Curan into decent gear,” the captain said.  “That old sailcloth rig does not do either him or you or the court credit.”

“That is what I would do,” said the steward, “but he will not take aught but the food that he calls his hire.  He is a strange man altogether, and I think that he is not what he seems.”

“So you have told me many times, and I think with you.  He will be some crack-brained Welsh princeling who has been crossed in love, and so has taken some vow on him, as the King Arthur that they prate of taught them to do.  Well, if he is such, it is an easy matter to make him clothe himself decently.  It is only to tell him that the clothes are from the king, and no man who has been well brought up may refuse such a gift.”

“But suppose that he thanks the king for the gift.  Both he and the king will be wroth with me.”

“Not Curan, when he has once got the things on; and as for Alsi, he will take the thanks to himself, and chuckle to think that the mistake has gained him credit for a good deed that he never did.”

“Hush, comrade, hush!” said Berthun quickly; “naught but good of the king!”

“I said naught ill.  But if Woden or Frey, or whoever looks after good deeds, scores the mistake to Alsi as well, it will be the first on the count of charity that—­”

But at this Berthun rose up in stately wise.

“I may not listen to this.  To think that here in the guardroom I should hear such—­”

“Sit down, comrade,” said Eglaf, laughing, and pulling the steward into his seat again.  “Well you know that I would be cut to pieces for the king tomorrow if need were, and so I earn free speech of him I guard.  If I may not say what I think of him to a man who knows as much of him as I, who may?”

“I have no doubt that the king would clothe Curan if I asked him,” said Berthun stiffly, but noways loth to take his seat again.

“But it is as much as your place is worth to do it.  I know what you would say.”

Berthun laughed.

“I will do it myself, and if Alsi does get the credit, what matter?”

Wherefore it came to pass that as I was on guard at the gate leading to the town next day I saw a most noble-looking man coming towards me, and I looked a second time, for I thought him one of the noblest of all the thanes who had yet come, and the second look told me that it was Havelok in this new array.  I will say that honest Berthun had done his part well; and if the king was supposed to be the giver, he had nothing to complain of.  Eglaf had told me of the way in which the dressing of Havelok was to be done.