Then they put me and my brothers into our old loft,
and Havelok and Goldberga had the room that had been
my father’s. As for Biorn, he would be
in the great room, before the fire. There was
only this one door to the house, and therefore he
would guard that. His thralls were in the sheds,
as ours used to be, so that we and he were alone in
the house.
Now, as soon as we three had gone into our old place
of rest, Raven went at once, as in the old days, to
the little square window that was in the high-pitched
gable, and looked out over the town and sea. We
used to laugh at him for this, for he was never happy
until he had seen, as we said, if all was yet there.
“There are yet lights in the jarl’s hall,”
he said, “and there are one or two moving about
down in the haven. I think that there is a vessel
coming in.”
“Come and lie down, brother,” I said.
“We are not in Grimsby, and you cannot go and
take toll from her if there is.”
He laughed, and came to his bed; but we talked of
old days and of many things more for a long while
before we slept. And most of all, we thought
that Sigurd the jarl knew Havelok by the token of the
ring and by that likeness to Gunnar which Mord had
seen, and that our errand was almost told.
So we slept without thought of any danger; but the
first hour of the night in that house was not so quiet
to Goldberga, for presently she woke Havelok, and
she was trembling.
“Husband,” she said, “it is in my
mind that we are in danger in this place; for I cannot
sleep by reason of a dream that will come to me so
soon as my eyes are closed.”
“You are overtired with the voyage,” Havelok
told her gently; and then he asked her what the dream
was.
“It seems that I see you attacked by a boar
and many foxes, and hard pressed, and then that a
bear and good hounds help you. Yet we have to
flee to a great tree, and there is safety. Then
come two lions, and they obey you.”
“I think that is a dream that comes of waves,
and the foam that has followed us, and the shrill
wind in the rigging, and the humming of the sail,
sweet wife; and the tree is the tall mast maybe, and
the lions are the surges that you saw along this shore,
where is no danger.”
So she was content; and then all in the house slept.
Maybe it was about an hour before midnight when the
first waking came to any of us, and then it was Biorn
himself who was roused by footsteps that stayed at
the doorway itself, after coming across the garth,
and then a voice that was strange to him which bade
him open. At once he caught up his axe and went
to the door, and asked quietly who was there.
“Open at once,” said the man who was without;
“we must speak with you.”
“Go hence, I pray you, and wait for morning,”
said the sheriff. “Here are guests of the
jarl’s, and they must not be disturbed.”
