For a time it looked as if “Fridtjof the Bold” did not know what to say. He stood without raising his hanging head or moving a muscle. Silence filled the tent, while from outside leaked in the noise of the revel. Then, through that noise or above it, there became audible the notes of far-away horns. Edric Jarl was fulfilling his pledge. Cheers answered the blast. An exclamation broke from the King’s lips, and he leaped up. At that moment, “Fridtjof the Bold” fell at his feet with clasped hands and supplicating eyes. “Let me go, Lord King,” he besought passionately. “Let me go, and I will ask nothing further of you. I will never trouble you again. Let me go!—only let me go!” Canute of Denmark is not to be blamed that he stamped with exhausted patience. “Go into the hands of the Trolls!” he swore. And again, “In the Fiend’s name!” And at last, “By the head of Odin, it would serve you well did I take you at your word! It would serve you right did I turn you out to starve. Were it not for your father’s sake, and for the sake of my own honor, I vow I would! Now hearken to this.” Bending, he picked the boy up by his collar and shook him. “Listen now to this, and understand that you cannot move me by the breadth of a hair. I shall not let you go, and you shall be my ward, whether you will or no. And if you run away, soldiers shall go after you and bring you back, as often as you run. And if you answer me now or anger me further—but I will not say that, for it is your misfortune that makes you unruly, and you are weak-spirited from hunger. Take this bread now for your meal, and that bench yonder for your bed, and trouble me no more to-night. I would not be hard upon you, yet it would be advisable for you to remember that I have sufficient temper for one tent. Go as I bid you. I must meet with the Jarl. Go! Do you heed my orders?” Only one answer was possible. After a moment the page gave it in a low voice. “Yes, Lord King,” he whispered, and crept away to his corner. CHAPTER VI. The Training of Fridtjof The Page A foolish man Is all night awake, Pondering over everything; He then grows tired, And when morning comes All is lament, as before. Hávamál. Who that has youth and a healthy body is not made a new being by a night of dreamless slumber? What young heart is so despairing that to waken into a fair day does not bring courage? Wakened by the sun’s caress, to the morning song of blowing trees, Randalin faced her future as became the kinswoman of warriors.