In the morning Ragnhild watched him go, along with the household and most of the neighborhood. A hundred warriors fared off in two ships. More would have seemed threatening. Besides, this was harvest season. They rowed lustily, a brave sight athwart the Scanian shore that lay low and hazy across the Sound. Soon they were small in her eyes, soon they were lost.
The run went easily, with overnight stops along the way, up the Baltic to the Skerrygarth and in among its many islets. A troop of Swedes were camped at a landing that the messengers had told of. Uffi’s brother, Hunding, led them. He stood on the wharf to greet the Dane-king with a handclasp.
“We have been waiting here for you, that we may bring you to Uppsala with your rightful honor,” he said. “Thank you for that you came. Glad will all our folk be of peace with you, but none more glad than me.” He gulped, fumbled at the brooch that held his cloak, and pulled the garment off. It was of scarlet wool lined with silk and trimmed with ermine. The words burst from him: “In token of welcome, take this, and, and may goodwill always cover our houses.”
Hadding looked closely at him while saying thanks. Hunding was young and slim, though well knit. Hair so fair that it was nearly white fluttered about sharp features, as yet only thinly bearded, with big eyes. “My hopes are high,” said Hadding.
The troops ate together that evening in the nearby hamlet. After ale had flowed freely, wariness became merriment.
In the morning they set forth. Hunding had brought horses for all. They rode briskly through a rolling land, broad and rich. Fields rippled tawny, kine cropped meadows, hayricks stood shaggy for winter, smoke lifted from farmsteads and thorps, laden oxcarts creaked on the roads, harvesters lowered their sickles and children shouted as the warriors passed by with iron aflash and ringing. Wind soughed in woodlots, but no big stands of trees were left. “Yours is a mighty kingdom,” Hadding said once.
Hunding flushed and looked away. “We can’t guest you as well as behooves us. I hope you won’t take it amiss.”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“The kingly hall is not fit for men such as you and yours. Uffi did not fare about this year, but stayed the whole while at Uppsala. He said he must, to look after some things hereabouts that were getting troublesome—I’m not sure what they were—and so he could send quick answers to any word from you. The upshot is that there’s been no time when the privies could be mucked out, nor to scrub the buildings and let them sweeten unused. They’re all dirty and they stink. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Hadding choked back a laugh.
“Of course he won’t mock you with that,” Hunding went on in haste. “He’s had a new guesthouse built. There you will stay and there will he feast you.”
“Well, I know how a king and his household must needs shift around during the year,” said Hadding, “and if Uffi was unable to, he has my fellow feeling.” He turned his grin away from the young man.
“You are kind,” blurted Hunding. “It bodes well for friendship.”
They reached Uppsala in the later afternoon. The sun behind it, the town loomed on the high western bank of the river with its walls and watchtowers a block of darkness. Above that stockade gleamed the roofs upon roofs of the halidom, where stood the gold-bedecked idols of the great gods. Beyond the walls reared the oak and ash trees of the holy shaw. Although leaves were still green, somehow that grove too seemed murky, as if it brooded over the bones of beasts and men offered there.
The riders stopped a little short of the bridge over the stream. A house lay hard by a bigger patch of woods. Shadows under the boughs and in thick brush made brighter the newly trimmed timbers. Though rather narrow, the building was long, fully big enough for Hadding’s troop and as many more. Not only the cookhouse but the stables and other outbuildings stood well to the rear of it, which was seldom done; they wontedly enclosed, thus making the whole easier to defend. “Does Uffi think no foe will ever get this near him?” wondered Hadding.
“We have the town for a stronghold,” Hunding said. “Here is the house of peace.” Thralls and hirelings were hastening out. “Now I bid you farewell for a little. We all need to wash, rest, change clothes. I’ll see you again this eventide after you’ve eaten. Tomorrow we’ll hold a feast worthy of you. Later I hope you’ll let me guest you in my home.”
“Yes, I hope so too,” answered Hadding, less warmly.
“King Uffi should have been on hand to bid you welcome,” said Hunding. “I’m not happy about that either. Maybe something suddenly called him away. But he should surely come like me to drink with you tonight before we sleep.” He pulled hard on the reins, wheeled his horse around, and trotted off, followed by his men.
The servants were few, no women among them. Their headmen said there would be plenty in the morning, to work with food and drink and everything else. Meanwhile these would attend the Danes. As grooms took their steeds away, he led them into the house.
The room beyond the entry was rather gloomy, for the windows were small and high. Fires were being laid and kindled against a chill that affronted the mildness outside. The outfitting was meager. “I should think King Uffi would show off his wealth to us,” Hadding said.
Gunnar shrugged. “Well, I’ve heard he’s a stingy one.”
Ax-Egil scowled. “He wasn’t unwilling to lay out for war on us, or in seeking our lord’s life.”
“I care not,” said Svein, “as long as his ale doesn’t run out: It’s been a thirsty day.”
Drink was forthcoming. The Danes drained the
