I bade Brand the thrall goodnight, and went back into the great room of the house, where Olaf sat with Ottar resting and talking together.  There was no one else in the place, for we had no fear of aught, and Olaf cared not to have many men about him.  Some of his men would come presently and sleep across the doorway, but the evening was young yet.

“You seem as if you had heard somewhat pleasant,” Olaf said when I came in.

I suppose that my certainty of finding Gunnhild and Hertha pleased me well enough to make my face bright.

Now both Olaf and Ottar knew of my wish to search for Hertha, and who she was, for I had told them as we sailed to Maldon on the way to my own country again, and they were eager to help me to take her from hiding into what we thought would be greater safety.  So when the king said this, at first I thought of saying only that I had surely found out where she was hidden.  But then I would not keep back what Ailwin had said, for Olaf might have advice for me.

Therefore I sat down and told them all the story of my talks with the priest and the thrall, adding that I was the more sure that Gunnhild was hard by, because Ailwin had said that it was but yesterday she had given him the message for me.

Then Olaf said: 

“Cousin, I think these two old folk are right.  Better wait for peace, as they say.”

“It is not so sure that Cnut will come back,” I said.

“Is it not?” said Olaf.  “Why—­seeing that he has left his host of thingmen in the towns, and we had Thorkel’s foster brother to fight but the other day, and that these Danes do not yield at once and so gain peace and hold what they have, but will rather fight than own Ethelred—­I think that none can well doubt that word has gone round the Danes in the kingdom that he will return, and that they need not fear to hold out till he comes.”

Then the last doubt of trouble to come passed from me, for it was plain that these thingmen looked for help presently.  But Olaf was thinking of my affairs again.

“Four years is overlong for anyone to play ghost on a whole countryside,” he said laughing.  “I cannot think that Gunnhild, even if she be a witch, can have bided in sight of the village all this time without being found.”

“No man dares go near the place,” I said.

“Well, whence has she her food unless from the village?  I think she cannot be so near,” he replied, and there was reason in his question.

I was cast down at this, for I had made so sure that I had found out the secret that was so carefully kept from me.  When there is mystery made, which is, or seems, needless, there is pleasure and a feeling of mastery in finding it out unaided, and I was losing that.

I will say this, however, that I was more vexed in this way than with the thought that I should not find Hertha, for in my own mind I began already to own that Ailwin and Gunnhild were in the right about our not meeting yet.