“The Etheling must needs have extraordinary respect for the endurance of Harald Fairhair, for it is said that to accomplish a vow he went three years without barbering himself,” another said gravely. While a third became slyly reminiscent, as he chewed his venison.
“These are soft days, comrades. The last time I followed the old chief, of honored memory, we held our war-council standing knee-deep in a fen. We had neither eaten nor drunk for two days, and three days’ blood was on our hands.”
The young chief took it all with careless good-humor.
“When you leave off eating, in memory of that brave time, I will leave off washing,” he returned. “Would you have me go into a royal council looking as though birds had nested in my hair?” With a parting scrutiny of his smooth locks, he motioned the shield-bearer aside and turned back to them his comely face, rosy from his recent ablutions and alight with a momentary enthusiasm.
“I tell you, nothing but a warrior’s life becomes ethel-born men,” he said as he straightened himself with a gallant gesture. “Nor sluggishness nor junketings, but days under fire and nights among the Wise Men of the council; that, in truth, becomes their station. By Saint Mary, I feel that I have never lived before! One week at the heels of Edmund Ironside is worth a lifetime under the banner of any other king.”
A pause met his warmth somewhat coldly; and the warrior who broke the silence lowered his voice to do it.
“Keep in mind, lord, that it is no more than a week that you have been at his heels,” he said.
“Likewise bear in mind whose son he is,” the man with the drinking-horn added grimly. He was a stout white-bearded old cniht with an obstinate old face that looked something like a ruddy apple in a snow-bank.
Flushing, the young noble ceased examining his sword-edge to meet the eyes bent upon him.
“I hope you do not think I stand in need of a rebuke for lukewarmness, Morcard,” he said gravely. “I have no more forgot that King Edmund’s father gave the order for my father’s murder than I have forgot that Edric was the tool who did the deed. May Saint Peter exterminate him with his sword! Did I not live even as a lordless man the while that Ethelred remained upon the throne? But what sense to continue at that after Ethelred was dead, and the valor of his son was to that degree exalted as if he had sprung from Alfred? Yourself counselled me to join him at Gillingham, and take the post under his banner that my fathers have always held beside his fathers.”