“Jarl! How know you that I am that?”
“By the jarl’s bracelet that you wear, surely.”
“So you are a real Dane—not an English-bred one like myself. That is good. You and I will have many a talk together. Odin, how good it is to meet a housecarl who speaks as man to man and does not cringe to me! Who are you?”
“Radbard Grimsson of Grimsby, housecarl just now to this King of Lindsey.”
“And your comrade?”
I was about to tell this friendly countryman Havelok’s name without thought, but stopped in time. Of all the things I had been brought up to dread most for him, that an English Dane should find him out was the worst, so I said, “He is called Curan, and he is a Lindsey marshman.”
“Who can talk Danish though his name is Welsh. That is strange. Well, you are right about me. I am Ragnar of Norwich, the earl, as the English for jarl goes. Now I want to see Alsi the king straightway.”
“That is a matter for the captain,” I said, and I called for him.
Eglaf came out and made a deep reverence when he saw the earl, knowing at once who he was, and as this was just what the earl had said that he did not like, he looked quaintly at me across Eglaf’s broad bent back, so that I had to grin perforce.
All unknowing of which the captain heard the earl’s business, and then told me to see him to the palace gates, and take his horse to the stables when he had dismounted and was in the hands of Berthun.