Havelok the Dane: A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln

by Charles W. Whistler

“Where will you hide her then and what of Havelok?”

“For those two there is no safety but across the sea, and they are the most precious cargo that I shall ever have carried. Already Arngeir and the men are at work on the ship, getting the rollers under her keel, that she may take the water with the next tide. I shall sail with the tide that comes with the darkness again, saying that I shall find cargo elsewhere in other ports, as I have done once before.”

“I had not looked to say farewell to you quite so soon,” my mother said; “but this is right. Now I will have all things ready, that the queen shall be in what comfort she may on the voyage. But it will be well that none shall know, even of your seamen, who the passengers are, else will word go to Hodulf in some way hereafter that Havelok has escaped.”

“I have thought of that,” answered Grim. “It will be best that none, not even Radbard, shall know who this is whom we have in the house. A chance word goes far sometimes.”

“The boy will tell his name.”

“There are many who are named after him, and that is no matter. Do you speak to him, for it is plain that he has sense enough, and bid him say naught but that he and his mother have escaped from the town, and, if you will, that he escaped in the sack. I will speak to Radbard, and there will be no trouble. Only Arngeir must know the truth, and that not until we are on the high seas perhaps.”

So there seemed to be no more fear, and in an hour the house was astir, and there was work enough for all in preparing for the voyage. As for me, I went down to the ship with my father, and worked there.

Now, I will say that not for many a long year did I know who this foster-brother of mine was. It was enough for me to be told that he was the son of some great man or other with whom Hodulf had a private feud. Nor did I ever speak of that night’s work to any, for my father bade me not to do so. Presently I knew, of course, that the lady was Havelok’s mother; but that told me nothing, for I never heard her name.

We worked at the ship for three hours or so, stowing the bales of wool and the other little cargo we had; and then my father sent me to the fishing-boats for a pair of oars belonging to the ship’s boat that were there, and, as it fell out, it was a good thing that I and not one of the men went. When I came to the place where they were drawn up on the beach, as we had left them last night, there was a stranger talking to some of the fisher folk, who were working at their nets not far off; and though another might have paid no heed to this, I, with the remembrance of last night fresh in my mind, wondered if he was by any chance there on an errand from Hodulf. I thought that, were I he, I should surely send someone to know, at least, if the fisher went out last night after I had spoken with him. So I loitered about until the man went away, which he did slowly, passing close to me, and looking at the boats carefully, as if he would remember them. Then I went and asked the men to whom he had been speaking what he wanted. They said that they wondered that he had not spoken to me, for he had been asking about my father and of his ship, and if he took any passenger with him this voyage. It would seem that he wanted to sail with us, from all he said.

Certainly he had begun by asking whose boats these were, and wondered that a merchant should go fishing at all, when there was no need for him to do so. Also he had asked if Grim had been out last night, and they had of course told him that he had not, for neither boat had been shifted from the berth she had been given when we came in at dusk.