king, and she yielded her
kingdom with herself. Thus her sceptre and her hand went together. It
was no mean favour for such a woman to offer her love, who in the case
of other men had always followed her refusal with the sword. Therefore
she pressed him to transfer his wooing, to make over to her his marriage
vows, and to learn to prefer birth to beauty. So saying, she fell upon
him with a close embrace.

Amleth was overjoyed at the gracious speech of the maiden, fell to
kissing back, and returned her close embrace, protesting that the
maiden's wish was his own. Then a banquet was held, friends bidden,
the nobles gathered, and the marriage rites performed. When they were
accomplished, he went back to Britain with his bride, a strong band of
Scots being told to follow close behind, that he might have its help
against the diverse treacheries in his path. As he was returning, the
daughter of the King of Britain, to whom he was still married, met him.
Though she complained that she was slighted by the wrong of having a
paramour put over her, yet, she said, it would be unworthy for her to
hate him as an adulterer more than she loved him as a husband: nor would
she so far shrink from her lord as to bring herself to hide in silence
the guile which she knew was intended against him. For she had a son as
a pledge of their marriage, and regard for him, if nothing else, must
have inclined his mother to the affection of a wife. "He," she said,
"may hate the supplanter of his mother, I will love her; no disaster
shall put out my flame for thee; no ill-will shall quench it, or prevent
me from exposing the malignant designs against thee, or from revealing
the snares I have detected. Bethink thee, then, that thou must beware
of thy father-in-law, for thou hast thyself reaped the harvest of
thy mission, foiled the wishes of him who sent thee, and with willful
trespass seized over all the fruit for thyself." By this speech she
showed herself more inclined to love her husband than her father.

While she thus spoke, the King of Britain came up and embraced his
son-in-law closely, but with little love, and welcomed him with a
banquet, to hide his intended guile under a show of generosity. But
Amleth, having learnt the deceit, dissembled his fear, took a retinue of
two hundred horsemen, put on an under-shirt (of mail), and complied
with the invitation, preferring the peril of falling in with the king's
deceit to the shame of hanging back. S