As the other ships pulled ashore, Ulfrik left Toki to greet these men while he and Gunther proceeded to the hall. He tried to hide his anxiousness, noting how Gunther's single eye managed to appraise every building and person in Nye Grenner. He was grateful for Gunther's silence, who instead turned his attention to Runa as they arrived at the hall doors.
"As beautiful as ever, your wife. Now with a sword to match her temper." Runa's eyes widened and her mouth gaped. Gunnar, who had clung to her side, suddenly stood before her as if in challenge. Both Ulfrik and Gunther laughed. "And your son has grown fierce and strong!" He growled at Gunnar, who flinched but remained before his mother. "Braver than his father, too!"
"And another son in the hall as well," Ulfrik said.
"You've not been idle with your success, I see!"
Laughter eased both Runa’s and Gunnar's stances. Ulfrik introduced Gunther again, both to Runa and to the other men. Most had never met Gunther, though Thrand the Looker had. His greeting to Gunther bordered on disdain, and Ulfrik glared him into a better welcome. Others who remembered him were warmer and Gunther shocked many of them with specific memories of their details. "You've got a sharp memory for a drunk," Ulfrik said.
"Mead sharpens the mind. Now let's go sample some of that famous drink of yours!"
Ulfrik welcomed them into the hall with a wan smile. He let them pass inside, each man laying his weapons at the door as custom demanded. Runa followed Ulfrik inside, and whispered over his shoulder, "I'm worried about this."
"That you summoned him out of the past?" he whispered over his shoulder.
"No! That he's here with three ships. Are we in trouble?"
"We'll find out."
He shepherded Gunnar along with Runa into the darkness of the hall. Moments of embarrassing confusion ensued as the villagers who had sheltered against a possible raid filed out and Gunther and his warriors entered. Runa assumed command of the transition, and held several girls back to assist her in the hall. Gunther chuckled, and his men stood in patient attention. Ulfrik caught Humbert leaving with the others, but barred him with his arm.
"Master will need Humbert?"
"You stay where I can see you. Forget any plans for taking advantage of the confusion. Go see my wife for instructions."
Moving from battle readiness to hosting guests proved a jarring and complicated transition, one that frustrated and embarrassed Ulfrik. Fortunately, Gunther One-Eye smoothed everything over with easy laughter and wry comments. One of his crew had a horn pipe, and played a tune while the hall settled. "He's a lot happier than I remember," Snorri quipped at one point. Ulfrik agreed, but wondered as much as Runa did at the meaning of his arrival.
Ulfrik had passed a wearisome afternoon entertaining nearly one hundred guests, and now sat at the high table with Gunther and his bodyguards. Toki, Snorri, Einar, Ander, and others of Ulfrik's men had joined them. The hall reverberated with loud talk and laughter, and despite the chill night, sweat beaded on many faces. Doors and windows hung open and stars winked in the indigo squares.
Gunther's arrival had forced Ulfrik to slaughter two lambs and open a cask of winter ale. Runa had prepared a sumptuous stew from the fresh goat meat and blood, and the thick aroma filled the hall. She leaned over the iron pot with a ladle, and caught Ulfrik starring at her. He smiled, but she looked away. Later, once the feast had ended, in bed, he feared her anger. He had no doubts how strongly she opposed draining winter stocks for an extravagant feast. A glance at her bearing and he heard every complaint ringing in his mind.
Gunnar stood behind Ulfrik and he felt his son leaning close. Gunther drained his horn, dropping it across the table then wiped his thick mustache with the back of his hand. He fixed his single eye on Gunnar, then leaned toward him.
"Does my eye scare you, boy?"
Gunnar shook his head, but Ulfrik felt him press closer.
"He thinks you're Odin," said a hirdman seated beside Gunther, who exploded in laughter. Ulfrik put a comforting arm over Gunnar, and drew him forward.
"That right, boy? Do you think I'm Odin? Sitting with your Da and drinking his ale?"
"No, lord," Gunnar ducked out from Ulfrik's arm, his face reddening. "I wondered how you lost your eye, lord."
"Your manners are a compliment to your father." Gunther raised his brow at Ulfrik. "He calls me 'lord' and not 'a drunk.' Did you hear?"
"I did, but he'll learn soon enough."
More laughter lightened the mood, and Gunther wiped his face with a paw-like hand. He leaned down to Gunnar's height and met him eye to eye. "Odin sacrificed his eye to Mimir for a drink from the Well of Wisdom. But old Gunther got his plucked out against his will."
"How did it happen, lord?" Gunnar's eyes widened, and his fingers drifted to his own eye.
"With a spear. One moment's distraction in a shield wall, and an enemy spear plucked away my eye. Just like that!" Gunther jabbed at Gunnar's eye with a gnarled finger, causing him to jump in surprise and drawing laughter around the table.
"Did it hurt, lord?"
"Hurt?" Gunther leaned back, a bemused smile twisting his lips. He glanced around the table before answering. "No, it didn't hurt. At the time I was too drunk to notice."
Men hurled backwards in an uproar, even Ulfrik burst out laughing. Gunnar's blush deepened as he smiled, and Ulfrik guessed he missed the humor.
Soon the meal was served and Runa and her women circulated through the crowd with steaming bowls. Humbert had been pressed into reluctant service, filling mugs and drinking horns. He distributed them with an expression that made it seem he handled urine rather than ale. He spilled a horn over someone's head, Ulfrik guessed intentionally, and he received a reflexive punch that sprawled him on the dirt floor. Another was following, but Gunther stopped the man with a shout.
As the feast proceeded and men ate and drank, then sang songs or told riddles, Ulfrik's mood lightened. Even Runa, now seated beside him with Hakon on her lap, smiled and laughed. For a short time, he forgot his worries and reveled in celebration. However, each time he met Gunther's toasts with a raised mug or answered one of his simplistic riddles, dread smoldered in the pit of his gut. He still did not know Gunther's purpose.
At last, late in the night when most of his men were face down on tables or fallen beneath them, he lifted his one eye to Ulfrik's. True to memory, he had consumed copious volumes of ale but remained sitting straight and clear-faced. Ulfrik had paced himself, knowing the moment for real talk would require his full wits. Gunther's single eye drifted to Runa, who sat defiantly for a moment before rising from the bench.
"A good night to you, then," and Runa strode toward their room where Gunnar and Hakon had already gone to bed. Ulfrik watched her go, then turned to Gunther.
"You didn't just come to sample my hospitality." He gestured Snorri to slide closer while Toki, Einar, and Ulfrik's other trusted men leaned in to listen.
"Your hospitality is as great as it ever was, nor has much changed in three years." Gunther's single eye squinted, while the ruined flesh of his other eye wriggled. "I expected you'd have expanded since defeating Hardar."
Ulfrik sighed, while his men bowed their heads or turned away. "After you left, winter was hard. Every winter has been hard. It took all my wealth to rebuild, and to rebuild Ingrid's lands. And ships and weapons cost, as you know."
"That they do," Gunther agreed. "But I thought you wealthier."
"I was, but I had lands to the north that now need tending, and blood prices to pay after the war with Hardar." Ulfrik found himself glancing at the red-faced and frowning Thrand the Looker, who sat at the farthest end of the high table. "Summer raids have not been good. We're just returned from one that barely paid for itself."