"I saw thy giant," said Ulric. "Tostig the Red will slay him for thee. Make thy wagers. I would talk with Abbas."
"So do!" said Caius, for Ben Ezra had beckoned him and he stepped away a little.
"What is it?" asked Abbas of the jarl.
"Only this," said Ulric. "I have seen the lion of Julius. He is a great one. Hath he slain many?"
"That I know not," said Abbas. "Why askest thou? What matters it to thee?"
"Little," said Ulric, "but I was curious," and he asked him other questions, keeping him while Ben Ezra talked with Caius, getting full permission that the jarl should wear arms of his own choosing and not the armor of a Roman soldier.
Caius rode away and many great ones came and went, as they had been doing; for they who were to make wagers willed to see these pirates of Caius, as they called them. Not any, it seemed, went away believing that the jarl could face the Numidian, and they declared that Julius would win his wager.
Then the night passed and in the early dawn Ulric, the son of Brander, sat apart by himself sharpening the long, beautiful sword on the stone which Wulf the Skater had brought to him from the North Cape, at the end of the world. To him came then Ben Ezra, looking like one whose soul is burdened within him.
"O jarl," he said, "the great games are set down for the third day hence. Wilt thou then be rested after thy journeying?"