So he said, and maybe he was right.

I rode back presently to Bures with my heart full of joy, and a wondrous content.  And when I came to the house on the green I was to learn that joys come not always singly any more than sorrows, which are ever doubled.

The door stood open as I rode up, and in the red light from within the house stood two tall figures on the threshold, and the light flashed from helms and mail as they moved, and for a moment a fear came over me that some new call to arms waited me, so that the peace that I thought I had at last found was to be snatched from me.  For it was as in the days when Olaf’s men stood on guard over us at the doorway.

More like those days it was yet to be, for as I reined up a voice cried: 

“Ho, cousin what of the White Lady?”

And Olaf himself came and greeted me as I leapt from the saddle, holding my shoulders and looking at me as he took me into the light to scan my face.  The other warrior was Ottar the scald, my friend, and now I had all that I could wish.

We sat together in the old places, and he said presently: 

“You seem contented enough with Cnut, to judge by your face, my cousin.”

“I had forgotten him.  I am content with all things,” I answered.

“How came you here?”

“Nay, but you shall tell me of yourself first,” he said.  “Then I may have somewhat to say of my doings.”

So I told him all.

“Why then, you must be wedded betimes,” he said; “for I must see that wedding, though I would not have Cnut catch me.  The ships are in Colchester river, and but for Egil I had never got there even.”

Then I heard how he had been southward, and what deeds he had done; and it was Ottar who told me that, for Olaf had nought to say of himself.  But presently when it came to the time when he turned his ships homeward, Olaf took up the story.

“When I was minded to go on from this place, in Carl’s water as they call it, even to Jerusalem and the holy places, I had the sign that I looked for—­the sign that I should go back to Norway.  I slept, and in my sleep there came to me a man, very noble looking and handsome, and yet terrible, and he stood by me and spoke to me saying, ’Fare back to the land that is thy birthright, for King of Norway thou shalt be for evermore.’  And I knew this man for Olaf Tryggvesson my kinsman, and I think that he means that I shall gain all Norway for Christ’s faith, and that my sons shall reign after me in the days to come.”

“It is certain that you shall win Norway,” I said, “for so also ran the words of the Senlac witch, ’For Olaf a kingdom and more than a kingdom—­a name that shall never die’.”