“Well,” I said, “if you’ve no home, we can keep you here for a while.”

“I can work,” he said eagerly. “I’ll be worth my pay.”

Now I knew he was from a far land, because what chief would work on any land but his own, and for hire at that? Yet he had the easy manner of the highborn, and had clearly eaten well all his life. I overlooked that he had made no gifts; after all, he was shipwrecked.

“Maybe you can get passage back to your United States,” said Helgi. “We could hire a ship. I’m fain to see that realm.”

“No,” said Gerald bleakly. “There is no such place. Not yet.”

“So you still hold to that idea you came from tomorrow?” grunted Sigurd. “Crazy notion. Pass the pork.”

“I do,” said Gerald. There was a calm on him now. “And I can prove it.”

“I don’t see how you speak our tongue, if you come from so far away,” I said. I would not call a man a liar to his face, unless we were swapping brags in a friendly way, but…

“They speak otherwise in my land and time,” he replied, “but it happens that in Iceland the tongue changed little since the old days, and I learned it when I came there.”

“If you are a Christian,” I said, “you must bear with us while we sacrifice tonight.”

“I’ve naught against that,” he said. “I fear I never was a very good Christian. I’d like to watch. How is it done?”

I told him how I would smite the horse with a hammer before the god, and cut his throat, and sprinkle the blood about with willow twigs; thereafter we would butcher the carcass and feast. He said hastily: “There’s my chance to prove what I am. I have a weapon that will kill the horse with…with a flash of lightning.”

What is it? I wondered. We all crowded around while he took the metal club out of his sheath and showed it to us. I had my doubts; it looked well enough for hitting a man, perhaps, but had no edge, though a wondrously skillful smith had forged it. “Well, we can try,” I said.

He showed us what else he had in his pockets. There were some coins of remarkable roundness and sharpness, a small key, a stick with lead in it for writing, a flat purse holding many bits of marked paper; when he told us solemnly that some of this paper was money, even Thorgunna had to laugh. Best of all was a knife whose blade folded into the handle. When he saw me admiring that, he gave it to me, which was well done for a shipwrecked man. I said I would give him clothes and a good ax, as well as lodging for as long as needful.

No, I don’t have the knife now. You shall hear why. It’s a pity, for it was a good knife, though rather small.