“If you do not know that by this time,” he said gaily, “I am mistaken.  Maybe you had better ask her.”

“Am I to take her with me?”

“Yes,” he said, gravely enough.  “There may be fighting here, and she is best out of the way.  Her folk will hail her, and she will be safe with them, Arnkel notwithstanding.  Thoralf will send his wife and daughter with her that they, too, may be safe.”

Then he laughed at me again, and said that if all his followers were so ready to leave him, he would be a lonely man shortly, and so on.  Yet I knew that for him to have one loyal haven in the south lands would be no little gain, so that I was serving him as well as Gerda.

“That is well,” he said at last.  “And I wonder how long I may be able to jest thus.  Now, I will give you the ship we took from Heidrek, and Bertric will be shipmaster, for this is his affair also.  You shall have crew enough, at least, to make sure that Gerda’s men will join you without fear.  And you shall sail tomorrow, before ever Arnkel hears that I am in the land.  Take him, if you can, and deal with him as you will.  Maybe a rope at the end of the yardarm is what he deserves.  But, anywise, do not let him get to Eric if you can help it.”

Then I had to fetch Bertric, and thereafter we arranged all that was needful as to ship and crew.  We were to have thirty men, and that would be as many as we should want, seeing that Gerda’s folk would join us so soon as they knew that she had returned.  Also we must find a pilot, for Gerda’s place lay some four days’ sail down the coast, at the head of the fjord which men call Hvinfjord, or Flekkefjord, which lies among the mountains south of Stavanger, in a land of lakes and forests and bright streams, of which she had told me much.

Presently Hakon spoke to me of another matter wherein I might help him.  It was his hope that he might win Norway to the Christian faith, and, indeed, I think that he cared little for the crown if it might not give him power to that end.  He knew that in the long days of the homeward cruise both Gerda and I had been talking much with Father Phelim and the two English clergy, so that we could not be aught but friendly toward the faith, if not more.

“Stubborn are our Norse folk,” he said, “and the work will be hard.  Maybe I shall do little, but someone else may take up the task which I mean to begin.  It must needs be begun at some time.  In that quiet place of Gerda’s it is likely that men may listen peacefully, and so will be a centre whence one may hope much.”

Then I said, “So may it be, King Hakon; for this will be what Gerda wishes most of all things.”

“What of yourself then?” he asked.

Bertric answered for me, and I was glad.

“Malcolm thinks likewise, for so he has told me.  But he will do nothing in haste.  This is a matter which is weighty, and in no wise to be lightly gone into.  But have no fear for him, Hakon.”