“That is Sweyn, my King, with his horde of Danes.”
“I have no fear of them, Thorgills. Never yet did Danes beat Norsemen, and I will conquer them to-day. But to what chief belongs the standard there on our right hand?”
“To Olaf of Sweden, my King.”
“The heathen Swedes would find it better, Thorgills, to stay at home and eat their horseflesh and lick the bowls of sacrifice than to meet our arms to-day on the ‘Long Serpent.’ We have no need to fear these horse-eaters. But whose are those large ships on the left hand of the Danes?”
“That is the fleet of Jarl Erik, the son of Jarl Haakon,” answered Thorgills.
“From them we may expect a hard battle,” said the king. “Earl Erik hath much reason for giving me hard blows, and his fighters will strike hard, for they are Norsemen like ourselves.”
Queen Thyra was listening in her cabin to the voice of the king and the answers of Thorgills. She was terrified as she heard the names of the different fleets, and a great regret came over her that she had placed her lord in such peril. She went up to the deck and stood beside the king. She looked in dismay at the terrible line of the enemy’s ships and at her husband’s sadly reduced fleet. Thyra wrung her hands in anguish, and the tears she shed were not the tears of petulance, but the outbursting of a heart filled with deep sorrow and deeper remorse.
