“It is likely that he roused her,” Alwin said slowly.

There was something so peculiar in his voice that they all turned and looked at him.  He had suddenly grown very red and uncomfortable.

“It seems that anyone can be foreknowing at certain times,” he said, trying to smile.  “Now my mind tells me that the summons will be for me.”

“For you!” Egil’s brows became two black thunder-clouds from under which his eyes flashed lightnings at the thrall.

Alwin yielded to helpless laughter.  “There is little need for you to get angry.  Rather would I be drowned than go.”

It was Sigurd’s turn to be offended.  “I had thought better of you, Alwin of England, than to suppose that you would cherish hatred against a woman who has offered to be your friend.”

“Hatred?” For a moment Alwin did not understand him; then he added:  “By Saint George, that is so!  I had altogether forgotten that it was my intention to hate her!  I swear to you, Sigurd, I have not thought of the matter these two weeks.”

“Which causes me to suspect that you have been thinking very hard of something else,” Rolf suggested.

But Alwin closed his lips and kept his eyes on Editha’s approaching figure.

The little bondmaid came up to them, dropped as graceful a curtsey as she could manage with the pitching of the vessel, and said timidly:  “If it please you, my lord Alwin, my mistress desires to speak with you at once.”

“Hail to the prophet!” laughed Sigurd, pretending to rumple the locks that he had so carefully smoothed.

“Now Heaven grant that I am a false prophet in the rest of my foretelling,” Alwin murmured to himself, as he followed the girl forward.  “If I am forced to tell her the truth, I think it likely she will scratch my eyes out.”

She did not look dangerous when he came up to her.  She was sitting on a little stool, with her hands folded quietly in her lap, and on her beautiful face the dazed look of one who has heard startling news.  But her first question was straight to the mark.

“Leif has told me that Gilli and Bertha of Trondhjem are my father and mother.  He says that you have seen them and know them.  Tell me what they are like.”

It was an instant plunge into very deep water.  Alwin gasped.  “Lady, there are many things to be said on the subject.  It may be that I am not a good judge.”

He was glad to stop and accept the stool Editha offered, and spend a little time settling himself upon it; but that could not last long.

“Bertha of Trondhjem is a very beautiful woman,” he began.  “It is easy to believe that she is your mother.  Also she is gentle and kind-hearted—­”

Helga’s shoulders moved disdainfully.  “She must be a coward.  To get rid of her child because a man ordered it!  Have you heard that?  Because when I was born some lying hag pretended to read in the stars that I would one day become a misfortune to my father, he ordered me to be thrown out—­for wolves to eat or beggars to take.  And my mother had me carried to Eric, who is Gilli’s kinsman, and bound him to keep it a secret.  She is a coward.”