They stumbled after him through the wind. Sunset must be nigh, for the streaming skies were growing blacker still. Beyond the grass was a. stretch of woodland. Trees tossed and moaned. Some had boughs ripped off. Some lay fallen, splintered. Spume hazed the surf where it boomed.

“Hadn’t we better make brushwood huts while light abides?” asked Arnulf.

“I see cattle dung,” Hadding told them. “Folk cannot be far off.”

A clearing notched the shaw As they rounded the edge of this, they saw a clump of buildings at the middle. Boats lay moored in a creek. The dwellers must be fishers who did some farming. They might or might not be friendly to strangers. The castways had no weapons left except a few sheath knives and whatever scraps of wood they had taken along for clubs.

Nonetheless Hadding limped ahead of them. Three houses and a shed walled a small yard. Stoutly built of earth and drift-wood, with sod roofs, they might well make vikings think them not worth attacking for whatever meager goods were inside. The king knocked on the first door he came to.

It creaked a little ways open. A man peered out. In the murk behind him stood at least two more, shadowy, spear and ax in hand. “We are wrecked sailors,” Hadding said beneath the storm. “The gods think well of hospitable folk.”

“Um, you look wretched enough,” grunted the householder. “Wait a bit. Thormund, rouse the neighbors.”

“You’re wise to be wary of us,” Hadding said, “but you’ll see it’s not needful. We wish no fight with anybody.” He did not add that they would most likely lose it. There was no sense in tempting.

Men came armed, roughly clad, from the other houses. Before long they understood that the newcomers spoke truth. Even so, they split the guests among themselves—though that was also because of crowding. Each family here had children, oldsters, and unwedded kin living with it.

Hadding knew this kind of lodging from aforetime, a single room with beasts stalled at one end. It was full of their warmth and smells. A peat fire guttered on a hearthstone. Rushes decked a clay floor, There he must sleep, for lack of anything better. first the women hung his clothes to dry and lent him a blanket to wrap around himself. They brought him bread, curds, and sour beer, the best they had when they themselves had already cooked and supped. His friends they treated likewise.

The newcomers gave their names but said no more about their sorrows. The dwellers did not guess that this Hadding might be the king. “You are a good man, Kari,” he said to the householder. “Tomorrow we must talk. You stand to gain by helping me.”

“Tomorrow,” answered the fisher. “Now let’s sleep.”

All stretched out and were quickly lost to awareness. The banked fire glowed dim. Outside, the wind shrieked. Louder it blew and louder.