Havelok the Dane | Page 9

He would not tell me his name, but I saw him when he and the jarl made terms the other day. Now he has bidden me meet him on the road a mile from the town as soon as it is dark, and alone. He has somewhat secret for me to do."
"It is a risk to go alone and unarmed," I answered; "let me go home and get your weapons, for the errand does not seem honest."
"That is what I think also," said my father, "and that is why I am going to meet him. It is a bad sign when a king has a secret to share with a thrall, and I have a mind to find out what it is. There may be some plot against our jarl."
He was silent for a few minutes, as if thinking, and then he went on.
"I cannot take arms, or he would suspect me, and would tell me nothing; but if there is any plotting to be done whereof I must tell the jarl, it will be as well that you should hear it."
Then he said that he thought it possible for me to creep very close to the place where he was to meet Hodulf, so that I could hear all or most of what went on, and that I might as well be armed in case of foul play, for he did not suppose that the Norseman would think twice about cutting down a thrall who did not please him.
It was almost dark by this time, and therefore he must be going. I was not to go home for arms, but to borrow from Arngeir as we passed his house. And this I did, saying that I had an errand beyond the town and feared prowling men of the Norse host. Which danger being a very reasonable one, Arngeir offered to go with me; and I had some difficulty in preventing him from doing so, for he was like an elder brother to all of us. However, I said that I had no great distance to go, and feigned to be ashamed of myself for my fears; and he laughed at me, and let me go my way with sword and spear and seax[4] also, which last my father would take under his fisher's jerkin.
I caught up my father quickly, and we went along the sands northwards until we came to the place where we must separate. The road was but a quarter of a mile inland from this spot, for it ran near the shore, and it was not much more than that to the place where Hodulf would be waiting.
"Creep as near as you can," my father said; "but come to help only if I call. I do not think that I am likely to do so."
Then we went our ways, he making straight for the road, and I turning to my left a little. It was dark, for there was no moon now, but save that I was soundly scratched by the brambles of the fringe of brushwood that grew all along the low hills of the coast, there was nothing to prevent my going on quickly, for I knew the ground well enough, by reason of yearly bird nesting. When I reached the roadway the meeting place was yet to my left, and I could hear my father's footsteps coming steadily in the distance. So I skirted the road for a little way, and then came to an open bit of heath and rising land, beyond which I thought I should find Hodulf. Up this I ran quickly, dropping into the heather at the top; and sure enough, in a hollow just off the road I could dimly make out the figure of a mounted man waiting.
Then my father came along the road past me, and I crawled among the tall heather clumps until I was not more than twenty paces from the hollow, which was a little below me.
Hodulf's horse winded me, as I think, and threw up its head snorting, and I heard its bit rattle. But my father was close at hand, and that was lucky.
"Ho, fisher, is that you?" he called softly.
"I am here," was the answer, and at once my father came into the hollow from the road.
"Are any folk about?" Hodulf said.
"I have met none. Now, what is all this business?" answered my father.
"Business that will make a free man of you for the rest of your days, and rich, moreover, master thrall," said Hodulf. "That is, if you do as I bid you."
"A thrall can do naught else than what he is bidden."
"Nay, but he can do that in a way that will earn great reward, now and then; and your reward for obedience and silence thereafter in this