And I care not to gainsay them, for it is close enough to the truth, and few know that I had so nearly a hand in the matter.
So we rode to Thetford, and how we were received there is no need for me to tell, for I came back as it were from the dead, and Egfrid after years of absence.

And there with Eadmund were my father and mother, and Eadgyth, and Lodbrok, and Egfrid's folk also, with many more friends to greet us, and the king would have us keep Yuletide with him.
It had been in my mind that Halfden would have come to Reedham, and at first I looked for him, but he had not been heard of, so that now we knew that we should not see him before springtime came, for he must needs be wintering somewhere westward.

Yet now Lodbrok was at ease with us, seeing the end of his stay, and being in high favour with our king, so that he was seldom away from his side in all the hunting that went on.
That liked not Beorn, the falconer, and though he would be friendly, to all seeming, with the Dane, it seemed to me that his first jealousy had grown deeper and taken more hold of him, though it might only be in a chance look or word that he showed it as days went on.
But one night my father and I rode in together from our hunting, and there was no one with us.

We had been at Thetford for a month now, since I came home, and there was a talk that the king would go to the court of Ethelred at Winchester shortly, taking my father with him for his counsellor, and so we spoke of that for a while, and how I must order things at Reedham while he was away.
"Lodbrok, our friend, will go back with you," he said.

"Now, have you noted any envy at the favour in which he is held by Eadmund ?" "Aye, Father," I answered, "from Beorn, the falconer." "So you, too, have had your eyes open," went on my father; "now I mistrust that man, for he hates Lodbrok." "That is saying more than I had thought." "You have been away, and there is more than you know at the bottom of the matter.