"So you, too, have had your eyes open," went on my father; "now I mistrust that man, for he hates Lodbrok."
"That is saying more than I had thought."
"You have been away, and there is more than you know at the bottom of the matter. The king offered Lodbrok lands if he would bide with us and be his man, and these he refused, gently enough, saying that he had broad lands of his own, and that he would not turn Christian, as the king wished, for the sake of gain. He would only leave the worship of his own gods for better reasons. Now Beorn covets those lands, and has hoped to gain them. Nor does he yet know that Lodbrok will not take them."
Then I began to see that this matter was deeper than I had thought, and told my father of the first meeting of Lodbrok and Beorn. But I said that the falconer had seemed very friendly of late.
"Aye, too friendly," said my father; "it is but a little while since he held aloof from him, and now he is ever close to Lodbrok in field and forest. You know how an arrow may seem to glance from a tree, or how a spear thrust may go wide when the boar is at bay, and men press round him, or an ill blow may fall when none may know it but the striker."
"Surely no man would be so base!" I cried.
"Such things have been and may be again. Long have I known Beorn, and I would not have him for enemy. His ways are not open."
Then I said that if Beorn was ever near Lodbrok, I would be nearer, and so we left the matter.
There was one other thing, which was more pleasant, which we spoke about at that time. And it was about the betrothal of my sister Eadgyth. For it had come to pass that Egfrid, my friend, had sought her hand, and the match pleased us all. So before the king and my father went to Winchester there was high feasting, and those two were pledged one to the other. Then was a new house to be built for them at Hoxne, where the wedding itself should take place.
"Maybe Halfden will be here by that time," said Lodbrok to me. "I wish, friend Wulfric, that honest Egfrid had not been so forward, or that you had another fair sister."