So they put me in a strong cell in the old castle, leading Beorn to another, and there left me.  The darkness came, and they brought me food, so I ate and drank, being very hungry and weary; and that done, my thoughts passed from me, for I slept heavily, worn out both in body and mind.

CHAPTER VI.  THE JUSTICE OF EARL ULFKYTEL.

An armed jailor woke me with daylight, bringing me food again, and at first I was dazed, not knowing where I was, so heavy was my sleep.  Yet I knew that I woke to somewhat ill.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“Under Caistor walls, surely,” he said; and I remembered all.

The man looked friendly enough, so that I spoke again to him, asking if the great earl was here, and he said that he was.

“What do men say?” I asked then.

“That the matter is like to puzzle the earl himself, so that it is hard for a plain man to unriddle.  But I think that half Reedham are here to see justice done you; even if it is naught but Earl Ulfkytel’s justice!” And he grinned.

I knew why.  For Ulfkytel was ever a just man, though severe, and his justice was a word with us, though in a strange way enough.  For if a case was too hard for him to decide in his own mind, he would study to find some way in which the truth might make itself known, as it were.  Nor did he hold much with trial by hot water, or heated ploughshares, and the like; finding new ways of his own contriving, which often brought the truth plainly to light, but which no other man would have thought of.  So that if a man, in doing or planning some ill to another, was himself hurt, we would laugh and say:  “That is like the earl’s justice”.

So though Ulfkytel was no friend of my father’s, having, indeed, some old quarrel about rights of manor or the like, I thought nothing of that, save that he would the sooner send me to the king for trial.

The jailor told me that I should be tried at noonday, and went away, and so I waited patiently as I might until then, keeping thought quiet as best I could by looking forward and turning over what I could say, which seemed to be nothing but the plain truth.

At last the weary waiting ended, and they took me into the great hall of the castle, and there on the high seat sat the earl, a thin, broad-shouldered man, with a long gray beard and gray eyes, that glittered bright and restless under shaggy eyebrows.  Beorn, too, was brought in at the same time, and we were set opposite to one another, to right and left of the earl, below the high place, closely watched by the armed guards, bound also, though not tightly, and only as to our hands.

And there on a trestle table before us lay the body of Jarl Lodbrok, my friend, in whose side was my broken arrow.  All the lower end of the hall was filled with the people, and I saw my two serfs there, and many Reedham folk.

Then the court was set, and with the earl were many men whom I knew by sight, honest thanes and franklins enough, and of that I was glad.