Then, as we rested thus, Goldberga came quickly, for she saw that her husband was wounded, and she began to bind his hurts with a scarf she had. She was very pale, but she was not weeping, and her hands did not shake as she went to work.
“This is my dream,” she said. “Was that the voice of Griffin that I heard? It does not seem possible; but there is none other who speaks in the old tongue of Britain here, surely.”
“There is no more fear of him,” said Havelok, looking tenderly at her. “Your dream has come true so far, if he was in it. How did it end?”
“We fled to a tree,” she said, smiling faintly.
Havelok smiled also, for this seemed dream stuff only to all of us—all of us but Withelm, that is, for at once he said, “This door will be down with a few blows. What of that tower of yours, Biorn? Might we not get there and wait till the jarl comes?”
At that Biorn almost shouted.
“That is a good thought, and we can get there easily. Well it will be, also, for the men are wild now, and there have been too many slain and hurt for them to listen to reason.”
“Bide you here,” said Withelm, “for it is we whom they seek. Then you can talk to them.”
But he would not do that, seeing that we had been put in his charge by the jarl.
“I go with you,” he said. “Now, if we climb out of the window that is in the back of the house we can get to the tower before they know we are gone.”