Read Hrolf Kraki's Saga for Free Online

at his arm and asked leave to come along. He barked a laugh and told them, “Of course not.”
    Little snow had fallen thus far. The air lay cold beneath a sky low and heavy as a slab of slate. Fields reached brown, trees stood leafless, farmsteads crouched inward. Here and there a flock of crows jeered “Ha-kra-kra!” Hoofs and wheels rang on the road. Against this, the jarl’s troop splashed brightness. All his warriors owned helmets, more than half had byrnies, which gleamed; the blues and greens, yellows and reds of cloaks fluttered back from their shoulders; they were mostly young men, whose merriment stood forth in steam-puffs. Their shaggy ponies trotted briskly ahead.
    Signy rode in a wagon carved and painted, trimmed with gold and silver, drawn by four horses of the big Southland stock. With her were a driver, two serving wenches, and supplies of food and gifts. She was a tall woman, the Skjoldung handsomeness in her face and amber-hued braids. Inside a fur coat she wore gaily dyed clothes and lovely ornaments. But no mirth was in her eyes.
    Jouncing slowly over the ruts, her car went at the end of the train. Hence she heard the rack at her back before her husband or his men did. Turning about, she saw two ragged, dirty shapes in hooded cloaks, overhauling.
    Because those beasts fit to ride were gone from the hall, Ham and Hrani had caught a pair of unbroken foals in a paddock. With bridles of rope and sticks broken off thornbushes, they somewhat made these mounts carry them. The bucking, plunging, and shying were wild to behold. Ham sat backwards, yelled, flapped his arms, and behaved in every way like a fool. Hrani rode more soberly. Even so, it was his horse which made such a leap as he drew nigh that his cowl fell off.
    Signy saw fair locks fly around a face whereon, through grime and gauntness and untrimmed fuzz of beard, she knew her father’s looks. She remembered—and had she maybe, during these past three years, begun to suspect? “Hroar!” she gasped as if he had stabbed her. “Then … then your mate must be Helgi—”
    Hroar fought his steed till he mastered it. He covered himself anew and sought back to his lolloping brother. Signy buried her head in her hands and wept.
    Word passed along the line that she was troubled. Sævil trotted rearward. He was a dark man, fork-bearded, given to keeping his own counsel. There in the wagon, beneath the frightened gaze of her servants, sat his wife crying. He drew alongside and asked what her trouble was. How she answered need not be from a later tale-teller. The wellborn were expected to be able to make a verse at any time, and a gift of skaldcraft ran in her blood.
    “The end has come
    of Skjoldung athelings.
    The oak has fallen,
    leaving only twigs.
    My darling brothers
    are riding bareback
    while Sævil’s folk
    go off to feast.”
    The jarl sat quiet in the saddle for a bit until he said, most sternly, as he stared at the driver and girls: “Great tidings, but let them not come out.”
    He spurred toward the lads. They dismounted, to show him respect and listen more readily. “Go home, you shameless whelps!” he bellowed. “I ought to hang you! It’s not fitting for you to be in a troop of good men!” He whirled his horse around and cantered back.
    Helgi bristled. “If he thinks—” he began.
    Hroar cut him off: “If
you
think, brother mine, you’ll recall how his hand moved, hidden from his followers. It signed us a warning, not a threat. And see, our sister weeps. She must have known me and told him. He doesn’t want anybody else to learn it from his words.”
    “Well,” said Helgi, “what should we do now?” They had had no fast-set plan. They merely hoped to spy things out while seeming a pair of nitwits, and afterward do whatever looked best. Could they get near enough to King Frodhi to sink their knives in him, then before the guardsmen slew them call out who they were—but Hroar called that a daydream.
    “We’d better not