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Pray to our gods, Steinar, since they are the best we have to pray to, though dark and bloody in their ways; pray that we may meet again, where priests and swords are not and women work no ruin, where we may love as we once loved in childhood and there is no more sin. Fare you well, my brother Steinar, yet not for ever, for sure I am that here we did not begin and here we shall not end. Oh!
"I do not yet need Olaf's leave to walk abroad, though some few days hence it may be different," broke in Iduna, with a merry laugh, before I could answer. "Come, lord Steinar, let us go and see this sunset whereof you talk so much." "Yes, go," I said, "only do not stay too long, for I think a storm comes up. But who is that has taught Steinar to love sunsets?"
Tell Steinar, the woman-thief, that he would do well to slay himself, or to be sure that he is killed in battle, since if we take him living he shall be cast into a pit of vipers or sacrificed to Odin, the god of honour. Begone!" "We go," answered the spokesman of the messengers; "yet before we go, Thorvald, we would say to you that you and your folk are mad.
Friends, swear to me that Steinar shall lie on Odin's altar, Steinar, the bride-thief, Seiner the traitor. Swear it, for I do not trust this brother of mine, who has woman's milk in his breasts. By Thor, he might spare him if he had his way. Swear it, or I'll haunt your beds o' nights and bring the other heroes with me. Swift now, while my ears are open." Then from both ships rose the cry of
The rude temple, the glaring statue of the god, the gathered crowd, open mouthed and eyed, the spring sunshine shining quietly over all, and, running past the place, a ewe calling to the lamb that it had lost; I see the dying Steinar turn his white face, and smile a farewell to me with his fading eyes; I see Leif getting to his horrible rites that he might learn the omen, and lastly I see the red sword of the Wanderer appear suddenly between me and him, and in my hand.
"You will not fail me in this, Steinar?" I said, clasping his hand. He tried to answer something, but the words seemed to choke in his throat and he turned away, leaving them unspoken. "Why," I exclaimed, "one might think you were going to be married, not I." "Aye," broke in Iduna hurriedly. "The truth is that Steinar is jealous of me. How is it that you can make us all love you so much, Olaf?"
Finding that this tale was true, and that Hakon had treated her ill indeed, we gave her shelter, and here her son Steinar was born, in giving birth to whom she died of a broken heart, as I think, for she was mad with grief and jealousy. I nursed him with my son Olaf yonder, and as, although he had news of his birth, Hakon never claimed him, with us he has dwelt as a son ever since.
"The story of Steinar is short, sirs," she said. "His mother, Steingerdi, who was my cousin and the friend of my childhood, married the great chief Hakon, of Agger, two and twenty summers gone. A year later, just before Steinar was born, she fled to me here, asking shelter of my lord. Her tale was that she had quarrelled with Hakon because another woman had crept into her place.
"Supping with Odin," answered Ragnar and pointed to me. Steinar rose to his feet, staggered to where I lay, and stared at me stretched there as white as the snow, with a smile upon my face and in my hand a spray of some evergreen bush which I had grasped as I fell. "Did he die to save me?" asked Steinar. "Aye," answered Ragnar, "and never did man walk that bridge in better fashion. You were right.
"Not quite, Olaf, for, see, its tail still moves." Then she went, leaving me alone. I sat myself down by the murdered Steinar, and stared at him. Could he be really dead, I wondered, or did he live on elsewhere? My faith had taught me of a place called Valhalla where brave men went, but in that faith and its gods I believed no more.
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