That I could do, within a very short time. My father and Offa had been wedded in the same year, as I had heard him say but a few days ago, at Winchester, as men talked of the bride whom we had welcomed, Quendritha's daughter. And as he heard, Thrond's face grew very dark.
"That is she. Now I will tell you the beginning of that voyage. I was a courtman then to the father of Thorleif, our jarl here, and I myself made the boat ready and launched her in it."
And then he told me that which I have set down at the beginning of this tale--neither more nor less. What was the fullness of the evil the woman had wrought he did not tell me, and I am glad.
When he ended he sat silent and brooding for a long time. The ship forged slowly and uneasily over the waves with the heavy trader after her, and on our decks the men were silent, waiting for word from Thorleif of what was to be done. We could hear him, now and then, laughing with the crew of the other ship as if all went easily.
"Lad," said old Thrond, suddenly turning to me, "you had best forget all this. It is dangerous to know aught of the secrets of great folk; and if it comes to the ears of Quendritha that one is telling such a tale of her, the life of the man who has told it will not be worth much. Maybe I am wrong, and I speak of one who is drowned long since; for, indeed, it seems out of the way of chance that a girl could win across the sea from Denmark to a throne thus. And if it is true, she has done even as Thorleif's father bade her, and has left her ways of ill.
"And, yet," he said again, "if ever you have to do with her, remember what she may have been. It will be ill to offend her, or to cross her in aught."
"That is the hardest saying that our folk have of her," I said, "but I have heard it many a time."
"There is much in that saying," Thrond answered grimly.
"Well," I answered shortly, "I suppose that if any man will set himself against a king or a queen, he has to take the chances."
"Small chance for such an one if the queen be--well, such another as I helped to set adrift from our shore."