"The King's
ward? Here is a happening!" he ejaculated. "If I am not much mistaken, Canute
will be glad to find this out. It was his belief that you had got your
death-blow at Scoerstan, and he took it ill."
The King's ward made no other answer than to regard him with a strange mixture
of attention and aversion; but the Etheling reached out and pushed the boy
farther behind the great chair.
"Fridtjof Frodesson is my captive and no longer concerns you," he said
briefly. "Give him no further thought, but come to your message."
The swaggering assurance of the man's laugh was more offensive than rudeness
would have been. "If I say that we will shortly set him free, I shall not be
going very wide from my message. My errand hither is that I bring word from
Rothgar Lodbroksson to surrender the Tower."
The page uttered a little cry, and his lord raised a hand mechanically to
impose silence; but no one else seemed able to speak or to move. From the
master in his chair to the serf by the door, they stared dumb-founded at the
messenger.
He, on his part, appeared to realize all at once that the time for formality
had come. Pitching his cloak higher on his shoulders, he fastened his eyes on
a hole in the tapestry behind the Etheling's chair and began monotonously to
recite his lesson: "Rothgar, the son of Lodbrok, sends you greeting, Sebert
Oswaldsson; and it is his will that you surrender to him the odal and Tower of
Ivarsdale; as is right, because the odal was created and the Tower was built
by Ivar Vidfadmi, who was the first son of Lodbrok and the father's father's
father of my chief---" In spite of himself, he was obliged to stop to take in
breath.
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