Hadding choked back a laugh.

“Of course he won’t mock you with that,” Hunding went on in haste. “He’s had a new guesthouse built. There you will stay and there will he feast you.”

“Well, I know how a king and his household must needs shift around during the year,” said Hadding, “and if Uffi was unable to, he has my fellow feeling.” He turned his grin away from the young man.

“You are kind,” blurted Hunding. “It bodes well for friendship.”

They reached Uppsala in the later afternoon. The sun behind it, the town loomed on the high western bank of the river with its walls and watchtowers a block of darkness. Above that stockade gleamed the roofs upon roofs of the halidom, where stood the gold-bedecked idols of the great gods. Beyond the walls reared the oak and ash trees of the holy shaw. Although leaves were still green, somehow that grove too seemed murky, as if it brooded over the bones of beasts and men offered there.

The riders stopped a little short of the bridge over the stream. A house lay hard by a bigger patch of woods. Shadows under the boughs and in thick brush made brighter the newly trimmed timbers. Though rather narrow, the building was long, fully big enough for Hadding’s troop and as many more. Not only the cookhouse but the stables and other outbuildings stood well to the rear of it, which was seldom done; they wontedly enclosed, thus making the whole easier to defend. “Does Uffi think no foe will ever get this near him?” wondered Hadding.

“We have the town for a stronghold,” Hunding said. “Here is the house of peace.” Thralls and hirelings were hastening out. “Now I bid you farewell for a little. We all need to wash, rest, change clothes. I’ll see you again this eventide after you’ve eaten. Tomorrow we’ll hold a feast worthy of you. Later I hope you’ll let me guest you in my home.”

“Yes, I hope so too,” answered Hadding, less warmly.

“King Uffi should have been on hand to bid you welcome,” said Hunding. “I’m not happy about that either. Maybe something suddenly called him away. But he should surely come like me to drink with you tonight before we sleep.” He pulled hard on the reins, wheeled his horse around, and trotted off, followed by his men.

The servants were few, no women among them. Their headmen said there would be plenty in the morning, to work with food and drink and everything else. Meanwhile these would attend the Danes. As grooms took their steeds away, he led them into the house.

The room beyond the entry was rather gloomy, for the windows were small and high. Fires were being laid and kindled against a chill that affronted the mildness outside. The outfitting was meager. “I should think King Uffi would show off his wealth to us,” Hadding said.