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Gudruda greeted Eric well, and for the first time since Swanhild went away she kissed him. Moreover, she wept bitterly when she learned that he must go into outlawry, while she must bide at home. "How shall the days pass by, Eric?" she said, "when thou art far, and I know not where thou art, nor how it goes with thee, nor if thou livest or art already dead?"
Now Eric called to Skallagrim and charged him strictly that he should tell nothing of Swanhild, and of the wolf that he saw by her, and of how Gudruda was found hanging over the gulf. "Fear not," growled the Baresark, "my tongue is now my master's. What is it to me if women do their wickedness one on another? Let them work magic, hate and slay by stealth, so shall evil be lessened in the world."
"This thou canst not do, lord, seeing that thou hast held it in thy arms," Groa answered, laughing. "Go rather and lay out Gudruda the Fair on Coldback Hill; so shalt thou make an end of the evil, for Gudruda shall be its very root. Learn this, moreover: that thy dream does not tell all, seeing that thou thyself must play a part in the fate. Go, send forth the babe Gudruda, and be at rest."
"Greeting, Gudruda, my sister!" she said. "When last we met I sat, Atli's bride, where to-day thou sittest the bride of Ospakar. Then Eric Brighteyes held thy hand, and little thou didst think of wedding Ospakar. Now Eric is afar so strangely do things come about and Blacktooth, Brighteyes' foe, holds that fair hand of thine."
This done, cover yourselves with your cloaks, and wait till ye hear the murderers come. Then rise and rush upon them, the two of you, and they shall melt before your might. I have journeyed over the great deep to tell thee this, Eric! Had Gudruda done as much, thinkest thou?"
So Jon was bound, and there in the booth he sat two days before anyone came to loose him. "Whither away?" said Gizur to Swanhild. "To Middalhof first," Swanhild answered. Now Eric and Gudruda sat silent in the high seat of the hall at Middalhof till they heard Skallagrim enter by the women's door. Then they came down from the high seat, and stood hand in hand by the fire on the hearth.
It had been well to hurl the wolf-witch from the cliff." "Ay, well," said Eric; "but that song must yet be sung." Now dimly lighted of the rising moon by turns they bore Gudruda down the mountain side, till at length, utterly fordone, they saw the fires of Middalhof.
But Gudruda saw that her eyes burned like fire and felt that her lips were cold as ice, and shrank back wondering. Now it was supper-time and men sat at meat while the women waited upon them. But as she went to and fro, Gudruda always looked at Eric, and Swanhild watched them both.
But when he would have kissed her, she shrank from him, for now he was more hideous in her sight than he had ever been, and she loathed him in her heart. That night there was feasting in the hall, and at the feast Gudruda heard that Eric had been made outlaw. Then she spoke: "This is an ill deed, thus to judge an absent man."
It is this: 'Go hence and see me no more; for I have little wish to cleave to such a feather-man, to one so blown about by the first breath of woman's tempting." "Yet, methinks, Gudruda, I have withstood some such winds. I tell thee that, hadst thou been in my place, thyself hadst yielded to Swanhild and kissed her in farewell, for she was more than woman in that hour."
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