weather!" he said, laughing; and as he spoke the blue lightning paled the red glow of the forge to a glimmer. "This should be a good axe, and were you not a Christian, I would bid you hold your beginning, as its wielder, of good omen."

Then the thunder crashed, and there was no need for me to answer. And in the end he taught me patiently, until, one day, he said:

"Now do you teach me to use your long spear. I can teach you no more axe play than you know. Some day you will meet an axeman face to face, and will find out what you know. Then, if I have taught you ill, say naught; but if well, then say 'Jarl Lodbrok taught me'."

Now I hold that the test of mastery of a weapon is that one wishes for no other, and I knew that I had learned that much. But I could not tell how much he had taught me, for axe play was new to me, and I had not seen it before.

After I had learned well, as he said, the jarl tempered the axe head, heating and cooling it many times, until it would take an edge that would shear through iron without turning. And he also wrought runes on it, hammering gold wire into clefts that he made.

"What say they?" I asked.

"Thus they read," he answered:

"Life for life. For Wulfric, Elfric's son, Lodbrok the seafarer, made me!"

Thereat I wondered a little, for I knew not yet what he had taught me. Yet when I asked why he wrote those first words, he only laughed, saying, "That you will know some day, as I think."

Now if I were to write all that went on until August came, I should speak of little but how the jarl and I were never apart; for though he was so much older than myself, I grew to be his fast friend. And many a long day did I spend with him in his boat, learning somewhat of his skill in handling her, both on river, and broad, and sea. Very pleasant those days were, and they went all too soon.

No ship came in that could help him homewards, and though the Danish host was in Northumbria, he cared not to go there, for his sons were gone home. And Eadmund would fain see more of him, so that, although I would willingly have taken our ship across the seas, for the first time, to his place, he would not suffer me to do so; for he said that he was not so restless here with us, and that his sons and Osritha, his daughter, had doubtless long thought him dead.

Now in June the king had gone to Framlingham, and in August came back to Thetford. Then he sent for my father, begging him to bring Lodbrok with him, that together they might hunt over the great heaths that stretch for many a mile north and west and south of the town. No better sport is there for hawk and hound than on Brandon and Croxton heaths, and the wilds to which our Saxon Icklings and Lakings have given their names, for they stretch from forest to fen, and there is no game in all England that one may not find there, from red deer to coney, wolf to badger, bustard to snipe, while there are otter and beaver in the streams.

So they would go, for the wish of a king is, as it were, a command, even had not both my father and Lodbrok loved to be with him, whether in hall or field. And I thought that I should surely go also.

However, my father had other plans for me, and they were none other than that I should take the ship round to London with some goods we had, and with some of the new barley, just harvested, which would ever find ready sale in London, seeing that no land grows better for ale brewing than ours of East Anglia.

Now that was the first time I had been trusted to command the ship unaided by my father's presence, though of late he would say that he was owner, not captain, and but a passenger of mine; so, though I was sorry not to go to Thetford, I was more proud of myself than I would show; and maybe I would rather have taken to the sea had there been choice.

I was to go to my godfather, Ingild the merchant, who would, as ever, see to business for me; and then, because the season was late, and wind and weather might keep me long in the river, my father bade me stay with him, if I would, and if need were lay up the ship in Thames for the winter, coming home by the great Roman street that runs through Colchester town to our shores; or if Ingild would keep me, staying in London with him even till spring came again.

"If I must leave the ship," I said, "I shall surely come back to hunt with the jarl and you."

"Nevertheless," answered my father, smiling, "Ingild will have many a brave show for you in town. Wait till you get to London, for the court of Ethelred himself will very likely be there, and there will be much to see. And maybe you will find some Danish ship in the river, and will send her captain here to take the jarl home with him; for we may not hold him as a prisoner with us."

Then Lodbrok added that, in any case, I might find means to send messages to his home by some ship sailing to ports that he named; and that I promised I would do. Thereon he gave me a broad silver ring, rune graven, to show as a token to any of his countrymen whom I might meet, for the ring was known.