Gudorm stood up, lifting his beaker. “Drink we to the gods,” he said into the smoky, flickering twilight, “Njord, Freyr, and almighty Thor,” the gods of fishery, harvest, and weather.

“Skaal,” rumbled through the room, and men drained their draughts. The women refilled for them.

“Now drink we to our guest King Hadding,” said Gudorm. Suddenly his voice was harsh. “Health and long life be his.”

“Skaal, skaal.”

The king rose. Firelight glinted off the cup of costly outland glass he had once given this household. “Drink we to Gudorm, our host and my reeve in the shire, and to his lady, Ulfhild, my daughter,” he called. “May their honor be ever as high as their worth.”

Gudorm caught his breath. Ulfhild sat unstirring.

As the ale went down, Hadding unwrapped the battle horn. The long curve of it sheened in his hands. “Gudorm,” he said, “I know you for a warrior, a man born to do great deeds and win great fame. Take this of me, and may it soon call up the men that we want.”

A woman carried it between them. Gudorm held it aloft for all to see and wonder at while he spoke slurred thanks. He had already been drinking hard. The house boomed with cheers. Ulfhild hung the horn by its sling from a peg in the wainscot above her.

Now trenchers and trays came laden from the cookshed. The men fell to. Talk growled and buzzed, often breaking into guffaws. Gudorm was mostly silent; Ulfhild answered mildly whenever someone spoke to her. Hadding stayed grave, as befitted a king and an old man, though willing enough to swap words.

Yet his eyes were always watchful, the eyes of a hunter or a sailor. The day waned. Servants kept wood on the fires and brought in lamps, but still the light dimmed. Hadding saw a man come in by the rear door and sit down at that end. Though the room was warm, he hunched in a shabby hooded cloak, another shadow.

Hadding pointed. “Who’s that?” he asked Olaf on his left hand.

The carle peered. “Urn, hard to see from here, but I ken him. A poor wretch hight Styr, lately shifted to this neighborhood from somewhere else. Gudorm lets him sleep in a barn, help the thralls, and share their food. I take it Gudorm’s told him he can have a bite and listen to somebody besides the cows. He’s a kindly fellow, him Gudorm.”

Eating came to an end. The housefolk took the tables away. Two of them rolled in a cask of ale, set it upright near the hearth, and knocked the end off. Men whooped. As they went to fill their cups and horns for themselves, the free women of the garth, no longer needed for serving, and having had their own food beforehand, returned to drink and mingle likewise.