But Alsi seemed pleased with himself, or else with what he had heard, and went on.
“Has this Curan friends in the town?”
“None, lord, so far as I know.”
“Let me tell you that you may know a man’s friends by the company he keeps. With whom does he talk?”
“None come to seek him, lord, except one of the housecarls—the big man to whom you spoke tonight. Seldom does he go into the town, and then only the porters seem to know him, for he was among them, as a stranger, when I met him first.”
“A big man will always make an acquaintance with another,” Alsi said, “and the porters are the lowest in the place. One may be sure that he has left his friends in some starving village in the marsh, and has none here. That will do, Berthun. Take care of him, for I may have use for him. But next time you hire a man, use your wits to learn somewhat of him, if it is too much trouble to ask.”
So Berthun was dismissed, and went out in a bad temper with himself. Yet he knew that he would have been laughed at for a fool if he had said that he thought Curan more than he seemed.
Now Alsi was alone, and he fell to thought again. By-and-by it was plain to be understood what his thoughts had been, and they were bad. And after he had slept on them they were no better, seeing what came of them. But I think that he was pleased to find that Havelok was, as he thought, a Welsh marshman, and well-nigh friendless, for so he would be the more ready to do what he was bidden; though, indeed, there seemed little doubt that the plan Alsi made for himself would find no stumbling block in Curan, if it might meet with a check elsewhere. That, however, was to be seen.
Well pleased was Alsi the king with somewhat, men said in the morning.
But there was one who rose heavy and sorely troubled, and that was the Lady Goldberga, for all the fancies that had been brought to her by the vision had come to nothing, or worse than nothing, as she looked on Havelok and saw in the cook’s knave the very form of him of whom she had dreamed, and whom she could not forget. Glad had she been to go to her own chamber and away from the kindly ladies who could not know her real trouble; but not even to her old nurse did she tell what that was. Her one thought now was to seek someone who was skilful in the reading of dreams, and so find some new hope from it all. But no one could tell her of such a one here, unless it were to be a priest of Woden, and that she would not hear of.