“Here is a fine affair,” quoth Biorn, sitting himself down with his back against the high stone wall round the tower top. “It will take me all my time to set this right.”
“You have stood by us well, friend,” Havelok said, “and it is a pity that you have had to share our trouble so far as this. Who was the man who fell on you?”
“That is the trouble,” answered Biorn, “for there will be more noise over him than all the rest. He was Hodulf’s steward, the man who gathers the scatt, and therefore is not liked. And all men know that there was no love lost between him and me.”
“Hodulf’s man,” said I; “how long has he been here, and is he a Norseman?”
For I knew him. He was the man who had spoken to me at the boat side when we had to fly—one, therefore, who knew all of the secret of Havelok.
“Ay, one of the Norsemen who came here with the king at the first, and is almost the last left of that crew. I suppose that you have heard the story.”
We had, in a way that the honest sheriff did not guess, and I only nodded. But I thought that we had got rid of an enemy in him, and that Griffin had fallen in with him on landing, and known him, and taken him into his counsel about us. He would have gone down to see the vessel and collect the king’s dues from her and from us at the same time. He had not come into the town till late, as we heard afterwards.
There was no time for asking more now, however, for the shouts of the men round the door ceased, and someone gave orders, as if there was a plan to be carried out. So I went and looked over on the side where the door was to see what was on hand.
It was about what one would have expected. They had got the trunk of a tree, and were going to batter the door in. But now we were all armed, for Raven had brought Havelok’s gear with him when he fetched his own. He had thought also for Goldberga, and she was sitting in the corner of the tower walls wrapped in a great cloak that she had used at sea, with her eyes on her husband, unfearing, and as it seemed waiting for the end that her dream foretold.
I called the rest, and we looked down on the men. They saw us, and an arrow or two flew at us, badly aimed in the moonlight.