He turned and went back to the house. The men were already snoring on the benches. By the light of the dying fire he found his own place. In the morning he did not look as though he had slept much.
They reached Keldorgard before midday. The sky hung low, a sunless gray. A mile or so northward the shaw stood like a stronghold wall for jotuns, the barrow a hill before it. Lesser dwellings stood nearer, and neighbor farms afar, their smoke more dear to sight than the dwindled buildings. Otherwise the land stretched flat, shadowless, bare fields, withered grass, tangled briars. The air was not very cold, but it gnawed.
The garth bustled. Hoofs rang in the flagged yard. Smells of roasting meat rolled around it. Folk milled about the newcomers, shouting. Even their most faded woad-dyed wadmal was colorful today, and Ulfhild’s red cloak blazed like her hair as she hastened forth to greet her father. Gudorm lagged behind, well enough clad but his face locked.
Hadding swung down from the saddle. Ulfhild caught both his hands. “Welcome, welcome!” she cried. “Thank you for that you’ve come. Did you have a good journey? You shall surely have a good stay with us. Now, into the house with you, a stoup of mead, a bite of food if you like, then the bathhouse.”
“Yes, welcome,” said Gudorm roughly. “We have much to talk about.”
Hadding’s eyes met his. “We have much to remember, you and I,” he answered.
“We’re happy to see you, lord.”
“I keep my promises.”
In the entry Hadding unslung his sword and racked it, as was the usage with weapons. He carried a bundle he had along to the shutbed set aside for him, and unrolled fresh clothes from it. “Yes,” he said, “I’m more than ready for cleanness.”
A thrall in the bath poured water on red-hot stones. Hadding basked and breathed. As the hut cooled, the man dashed a bucketful over him while another brought in more heated rocks. After the third time, they toweled him dry and he came forth aglow. In a room alongside he dressed himself in green woolen breeks with kidskin cross-garters, calfhide shoes, tunic brocaded and marten-trimmed above linen shirt, silver-buckled belt and silver brooch at throat, gold coils on his arms, gold headband circling his well-combed locks. He entered the house smiling and sought Ulfhild out among her busy women.
“Well,” he said, “now I’m fit to meet with the children and see how they’ve grown since last. I’ve brought a few little things for them.”
“I’m sorry, father,” she told him. “I thought they shouldn’t be underfoot, and sent them off to stay with a crofter of ours.”
“Oh.”
“We’ll fetch them back before you go, of course. But first there’s this feast, and then tomorrow we’ll have everything to talk about, the three of us.”
“Yes.”
Hadding went over to where Gudorm sat, moodily whittling on a stick with his eating knife. “I gather you’ve more to take up with me than you’ve let on,” he said.
Gudorm’s gaze did not leave his hands. “We’ve met too seldom,” he mumbled.
“Maybe. I would like to hear about whatever hopes they are that have had you going up and down the kingdom.”
“You shall. Later.”
“As you wish. I’ve not forgotten that night under the boat.”
“Nor I.” Gudorm rose. “Forgive me, lord. I’d better see to things. They’ll soon bring out the tables.”
The winter day was well into its afternoon. Already the house was gloomy, high though the hearth fire crackled. One could not eat in seemly wise by flamelight, though drinking might well go on till sunrise.
Servants bore in the trestles and laid the boards across them. There was no high seat, but Hadding took his place at the middle of the platform bench along the south wall. Across the rush-strewn floor from him were Gudorm and Ulfhild. To right and left on both sides sat three or four men, clad in their rough best. They were the foremost of Gudorm’s caries, skilled smallholders in their own right, together with the most well off of his neighbors. He would have affronted those had he not asked them to come the first evening and meet the king.
Women went about pouring ale for them. Hadding whispered to one. She brought him something from his shutbed, wrapped in a cloth.
Gudorm stood up, lifting his beaker. “Drink we to the gods,” he said into the smoky, flickering twilight, “Njord, Freyr, and almighty Thor,” the gods of fishery, harvest, and weather.
“Skaal,” rumbled through the room, and men drained their draughts. The women refilled for them.
“Now drink we to our guest King Hadding,” said Gudorm. Suddenly his voice was harsh. “Health and long life be his.”
“Skaal, skaal.”
The king rose. Firelight glinted off the cup of costly outland glass he had once given this household. “Drink we to Gudorm, our host and my reeve in the shire, and to his lady, Ulfhild, my daughter,” he called. “May their honor be ever as high as their worth.”
Gudorm caught his breath. Ulfhild sat unstirring.
As the ale went down, Hadding unwrapped the battle horn. The long curve of it sheened in his hands. “Gudorm,” he said, “I know you for a warrior, a man born to do great deeds and win great fame. Take this of me, and may it soon call up the men that we want.”
A woman carried it between them. Gudorm held it aloft for all to see and wonder at while he spoke slurred thanks. He had already been drinking hard. The house boomed with cheers. Ulfhild hung the horn by its sling from a peg in the wainscot above her.
Now trenchers and trays came laden from the cookshed. The men fell to. Talk growled and buzzed, often breaking into guffaws. Gudorm was mostly silent; Ulfhild answered mildly whenever someone spoke to her. Hadding stayed grave, as befitted a king and an old man, though willing enough to swap words.
Yet
