Hrolf Kraki's Saga Read Online Free PDF Page B

snoring and eavesdropping.
    Around a courtyard cluster the outbuildings. Beyond them may lie the homes, byres, and worksteads of humbler families; and a stockade may enclose everything. Thus many a hall and its attendants make up a whole small town, always abustle with men and women, children and beasts, always alive with talk, song, shouts, smithing, baking, brewing, gaming, jesting, courting, weeping, whatever it is that living beings do.
    Besides the dwellers—lord, lady, children, and kin; warriors; yeomen; artisans; craftsmen; free hirelings; thralls—there are sure to be visitors. Some are neighborhood men, come for a bit of trade or gossip or talk about deeper matters. Some are guests invited from further off, as to a wedding or a Yuletide feast. Some are travelers passing through. And some are footloose, fallen on ill days if ever they knew good ones, given food and a strawheap in a stable for the sake of the lord’s honor and for whatever tales they can tell from elsewhere.
    To this kind of steading did Hroar and Helgi make their way. Vifil had given them food to pack along, andthey found no dearth of brooks to drink from. Nonetheless that was a stiff and dangerous trek. He had likewise patched together a pair of hooded cloaks for them, and sent them off with keen redes.
    They drew little heed when they limped into Saevil’s garth and begged shelter. Many were tramping that year, after Frodhi’s host had cast them out and taken their land for its pay. These two sat quietly in dimness, and next day lent a hand with feeding the kine and cleaning the stalls. “Bide your time,” Vifil had said, over and over. “Get your growth first,
then
your revenge.”
    After a week the cowherd foreman felt they had better speak to the jarl if they wished to stay on. They neared him toward evening, when he had had several horns of beer before he ate and was feeling cheery. They kept the cowls on their heads and the mantles drawn around their shoulders. In the dull unrestful light, neither Saevil nor their busy sister Signy knew them. These kin had seldom been together anyway after Regin took in the boys. The jarl shrugged and said, “Small help do I think there is in you; but I shan’t refuse you food for a while longer.”
    Helgi flushed and might have spoken hotly, save that Hroar gave his hand a warning squeeze. They muttered thanks, louted low, and withdrew.
    And now through three winters they abode with Sævil.
    They hardly saw him or his wife, save as grandness on the high seat or on horseback. For the most part, they were off doing the meanest work of herding, harvesting, and barnyard chores—more apt to sleep in a haymow or a meadow than in any house. Ever they kept the secret of who they were. Hroar called himself Hrani, while Helgi was Ham, and they said in a few words that they were sons of a smallholder killed in battle, themselves driven off his land. To this same end, they always wore their coverings when in sight of anyone else.
    A number of carls teased them, saying they must have misformed skulls or breasts like women. They bit their mouths shut and endured. Alone, they could yarn about that which would someday be theirs, or take out theirblood-anger on fowl and hare, or spend hour upon bruising hour in weapon-practice, staves for swords and shields made from stolen planks.
    But after the three years, Helgi was thirteen and really starting to shoot up. Hroar, fifteen, was smaller, though lean and lightfooted; he was the thoughtful one of them.
    King Frodhi had dwelt in peace all this while, and thus his fears had eased a good deal. He sent word, asking Sævil and Signy to a midwinter feast. When Helgi heard, he smote the frozen ground and said, “Hroar, we’re going along.” Nor could his brother talk him out of that. Instead, it was the other way around, until both were eagerly busking themselves to seek their revenge.
    V
    Sævil rode off with his lady and twoscore men. The urchins Ham and Hrani plucked