Hrolf Kraki's Saga Read Online Free PDF Page A

everything for them that they asked, never did they see trace of their prey. Again they must go home draggle-tailed.
    Meanwhile the wizards had told Frodhi more about eeriness lurking on yonder island, blindnesses which neither they nor those which they sent to spy for them could pierce. When he heard the marshal of his guard, Frodhi grew red and white by turns. He slapped the high seat and shouted: “We’ve taken enough from that yokel! Tomorrow morning, I myself will seek him out.”
    Vifil awoke at dawn from a heavy sleep. Troubled, he roused Hroar and Helgi and said to them: “Now it goes ill, for your kinsman Frodhi is himself afoot, and he’ll seek your lives with every kind of trick and ill-doing. I’m no longer sure I can save you.” He tugged his beard and brooded. “If you try to sit the whole while in the storehouse like before, his kind of search may well turn you up. Best you keep flitting amongst brush andtrees. Yet they’ll beat the woods for you, so you’ll need that lair at the right time…. Well, stay in earshot. And when you hear me shout for the hounds, Hopp and Ho, remember it’ll be you two I mean, and go to earth.”
    Hroar nodded grimly, sweat on his cheeks. Helgi grinned; to him, this had been a great game.
    The king arrived, not on horseback but in a ship which had sailed from what we today call Roskilde Fjord. The hull bore far more men than Regin’s boats might readily carry over. They ran her onto a sandbar, dropped anchor, and waded ashore. Vifil stood leaning on a staff, beneath trees which had begun faintly to turn color. A wind blew cold and shrill, fluttering cloaks. Spearheads blinked, ring-mail rattled.
    “Grab him!” Frodhi cried. Hard hands pushed the yeoman forward to meet the king.
    Frodhi glowered at him and said word by word: “You’re a foul, sly one, aren’t you? Tell me at once where my nephews are—for I know that you know!”
    Vifil shrugged. “Hail to you, lord,” he answered. “How can I ward myself against that kind of charge? Why, if you keep me here, I can’t even hold the wolf off my little flock.” The guardsmen were spreading out over the cleared patches, headed for the woods. Vifil filled his lungs and yelled, “Hopp and Ho, help out the beasts!”
    “What’s that you’re calling?” asked Frodhi.
    “The names of my hounds,” said the yeoman blandly. “Look as hard as you want. I don’t think you’ll be a-finding of any king’s sons hereabouts. And really, I don’t understand what makes you think I’d hide aught from you, a poor old fisher like me.”
    Frodhi growled, told off a warrior to watch the islander, and himself took command of the chase. Today they uncovered the storehouse. However, by then the brothers had slipped from it—after the beaters went past—and were in treetops well back of the onward-moving troop.
    At eventide the men returned to the hut. Vifil waited. Dithering with rage, the king told him: “Indeed you’re a sly one, and I ought to have you killed.”
    The yeoman met his eyes and said, “That stands within your might, if not your right. Then you’ll at least have gotten somewhat for your trek here. Otherwise you’ll go home bootless, eh?”
    Frodhi clamped fists together and stared around the crowding ring of his warriors. His slaying of bound Halfdan had not really sat well with them. To order death for a helpless gaffer against whom naught could be shown would truly brand him unmanly. No few would forsake him on that account alone, should a foeman arise.
    “I cannot let you be slain,” said Frodhi between his teeth; “but I do think it’s unwise to let you live.”
    He turned and stalked to his ship.
    The crew rowed him to Regin’s garth, where he spent the night. And here he demanded the sheriff swear him troth, as the rest of the Danish headmen had already done.
    “You give me a thin choice,” said Regin. “Besides my holdings, I have wife, children, and grandchildren. So be it, then. As for