“Ho!” said I, “I thought you some newcomer.”

“I hardly know myself,” he answered, “and I am not going to grumble at the change, seeing that this is holiday time.  Berthun came to me last evening, and called me aside, and said that it was the king’s wont to dress his folk anew at the time of the Witan, and then wanted to know if my vow prevented me from wearing aught but fisher’s clothes.  And when I said that if new clothes went as wage for service about the place I was glad to hear it, he was pleased, as if it had been likely that I would refuse a good offer.  So the tailor went to work on me, and hence this finery.  But you are as fine, and this is more than we counted on when we left Grimsby.  I suppose it is all in honour of the lady of the North folk, Goldberga.”

“Maybe, for I have heard that she is to come.”

“To be fetched rather, if one is to believe all that one hears.  They say that Alsi has kept her almost as a captive in Dover, having given her into the charge of some friend of his there, that she may be far from her own kingdom and people.  Now the Norfolk Witan has made him bring her here.  Berthun seems to think there will be trouble.”

“Only because Alsi will not want to let the kingdom go from his hand to her.  But that will not matter.  He is bound by the old promise to her father.”

Now we were talking to one another in broad Danish, there being none near to hear us.  We had always used it among ourselves at Grimsby, for my father loved his old tongue.  But at that moment there rode up to the gate a splendid horseman, young and handsome, and with great gold bracelets on his arms, one or two of which caught my eye at once, for they were of the old Danish patterns, and just such as Jarl Sigurd used to wear.  But if I was quick to notice these tokens of the old land, he had been yet quicker, for he reined up before I stayed him, as was my duty if he would pass through this gate to the palace, so that I might know his authority.

“If I am not mistaken,” he said in our own tongue, “I heard you two talking in the way I love best.  Skoal, therefore, to the first Northman I have met between here and London town, for it is good to hear a friendly voice.”

“Skoal to the jarl!” I answered, and I gave the salute of Sigurd’s courtmen, which came into my mind on the moment with the familiar greeting of long years ago.  And “Skoal,” said Havelok.

“Jarl!  How know you that I am that?”

“By the jarl’s bracelet that you wear, surely.”

“So you are a real Dane—­not an English-bred one like myself.  That is good.  You and I will have many a talk together.  Odin, how good it is to meet a housecarl who speaks as man to man and does not cringe to me!  Who are you?”

“Radbard Grimsson of Grimsby, housecarl just now to this King of Lindsey.”

“And your comrade?”

I was about to tell this friendly countryman Havelok’s name without thought, but stopped in time.  Of all the things I had been brought up to dread most for him, that an English Dane should find him out was the worst, so I said, “He is called Curan, and he is a Lindsey marshman.”