, so that I spoke again to him,
asking if the great earl was here, and he said that he was.

"What do men say?" I asked then.

"That the matter is like to puzzle the earl himself, so that it is
hard for a plain man to unriddle. But I think that half Reedham are
here to see justice done you; even if it is naught but Earl
Ulfkytel's justice!" And he grinned.

I knew why. For Ulfkytel was ever a just man, though severe, and
his justice was a word with us, though in a strange way enough. For
if a case was too hard for him to decide in his own mind, he would
study to find some way in which the truth might make itself known,
as it were. Nor did he hold much with trial by hot water, or heated
ploughshares, and the like; finding new ways of his own contriving,
which often brought the truth plainly to light, but which no other
man would have thought of. So that if a man, in doing or planning
some ill to another, was himself hurt, we would laugh and say:
"That is like the earl's justice".

So though Ulfkytel was no friend of my father's, having, indeed,
some old quarrel about rights of manor or the like, I thought
nothing of that, save that he would the sooner send me to the king
for trial.

The jailor told me that I should be tried at noonday, and went
away, and so I waited patiently as I might until then, keeping
thought quiet as best I could by looking forward and turning over
what I could say, which seemed to be nothing but the plain truth.

At last the weary waiting ended, and they took me into the great
hall of the castle, and there on the high seat sat the earl, a
thin, broad-shouldered man, with a long gray beard and gray eyes,
that glittered bright and restless under shaggy eyebrows. Beorn,
too, was brought in at the same time, and we were set opposite to
one another, to right and left of the earl, below the high place,
closely watched by the armed guards, bound also, though not
tightly, and only as to our hands.

And there on a trestle table before us lay the body of Jarl
Lodbrok, my friend, in whose side was my broken arrow. All the
lower end of the hall was filled with the people, and I saw my two
serfs there, and many Reedham folk.

Then the court was set, and with the earl were many men whom I knew
by sight, honest thanes and franklins enough, and of that I was
glad.

First of all one read, in the ears of all, that of which we two who
were there bound were accused, giving the names of those half-dozen