strong hand if one expects to find justice from such a man; and Havelok
had thought it possible that if we came here first we should bring him
to reason at once, whereas if we went to Norfolk there would be fighting
with all the host of the Lindsey kingdom before long; while if he did
fight here we might save Goldberga's land from that trouble, and maybe
have fewer to deal with.

So a message was to be sent to Alsi at once, bidding him know that
Goldberga had come to ask for her rights, and that he might give them to
her in all honour. Arngeir was to take this, for it did not seem right
that a Dane should do so, and he was one who would be listened to. I was
to go with him, with my courtmen as guard; and we rode to Lincoln on the
fourth day after our coming to Saltfleet. Good it was to ride over the
old land again, and I thought that it had never looked more fair with
the ripening harvest, for when last I had seen it there was none. The
track of the famine was yet on all the villages, for fewer folk were in
them than in the days before the pestilence and the dearth, but these
had enough and to spare.

And when these poor folk heard from us that Curan and his princess had
come again for what was hers, they took rusty weapons and flint-tipped
arrows and stone hammers from the hiding places in the thatch of their
hovels, and went across the marshlands to where the little hill of
Saltfleet stands above its haven, that they might help the one whom they
had loved as a fisher lad to become a mighty king.

So we came to Lincoln, and already there was a gathering of thanes and
their men in the town, and they knew on what errand we had come well
enough. But they were courteous, and we were given quarters in the town
at once, that we might see Alsi with the first light in the morning.