“Where is Matelgar?” I asked.

“I know not exactly; but do as I say and all will be well.”

Then I said that his advice had saved me, I thought, when before the Moot, and I would follow it here.

“Then,” he went on, “come you to the hall door and bide there while I go in and call the thane thither.  He will stay by his great chair to hear your message, and I will stand by the man who keeps the door.  Then, when you have given up the arrow, tarry not, but come out at once, and get out of this gate, lest he should raise some alarm.  Then must you take to the woods quickly.”

So he turned and went in before me.  There were some twenty yards of courtyard to be crossed before we came to the great timber-built hall, round which the other buildings clustered inside the palisades.  But there were no men about, though I could hear them whistling at their morning’s work in the stables, for the idle time of the day was yet to come.  Only a boy crossed from one side to the other on some errand, behind us, and paid no attention beyond pausing a little to stare, as I could judge by his footsteps.  At any other time I should not have noticed even that, but now that I was in the very jaws of the wolf, as it were, I saw and heard everything.  And all the while my heart beat fast—­but that was not from fear, but for thinking I might by chance see Alswythe.

Yet I will say it truly, that thought of her had no share in bringing me on this mad errand, which might have ending in such fashion as would break her heart.

One man, as my guide had said, sat just inside the hall, but I knew him not.  Since he had my hall and his own to tend, Matelgar must have hired more and new housecarles.  This man was trimming a bow at the hearth, and did not rise, seeing that, whoever I might be, I was brought in by his comrade.  The great hall looked wide and empty, for the long tables were cleared away, and only the settle by the hearth in the centre remained, beside the thane’s own carved seat on the dais at the far end.

“Bide by the fire till he comes,” said my guide, seeing that the man did not know me, and leaving me there, he went through a door beyond the thane’s chair to seek him.

So I stood where the smoke rose between me and that door, waiting and warming my hands quietly, and as unconcernedly to all seeing as I could.

“Ho, friend,” said the man, so suddenly that he made me start; “look at your sword hilt before the thane comes,” and he pointed and grinned.

Sure enough, my sword hilt was not fastened to the sheath as it should be in a peaceful hall, but the thong hung loose, as if ready for me to thrust wrist through before drawing the blade.  So I grinned back, without a word, lest Matelgar should hear my voice and know it, and began to pretend to knot the thong round the scabbard.  All the same, I was not going to fasten it so that I could not draw if need were, and only kept on plaiting and twisting.