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"If so, I will come with you, Olaf, for you still need a nurse, though, for my part, I hold that the lord Steinar and the lady Iduna can guard themselves as well as most folk. No, I am wrong. I mean that the lady Iduna can guard herself and the lord Steinar. Now, be not angry. Here's your cloak." So we started, for I was urged to this foolish journey by some impulse that I could not master.
Steinar, there's no need to bid you to be brave, for who of our Northern race is not? That's our one heritage: the courage of a bull. Yet it seems to me that there are other sorts of courage which we lack: to tread the dark ways of death with eyes fixed on things gentler and better than we know.
Would that I had not mocked him." "Would that I had died and not he," said Steinar with a sob. "It is borne in upon my heart that it were better I had died." "Then that may well be, for the heart does not lie at such a time. Also it is true that he was worth both of us. There was something more in him than there is in us, Steinar.
"Aye, I know that," I said, "because Steinar told me so." "And, save for that one kiss, Olaf, I am still the maid whom once you loved so well." Now I stared at her. Could this woman lie so blackly over dead Steinar's corpse? When all was said and done, was it not possible that she spoke the truth, and that we had been but playthings in the hands of an evil Fate?
So they went, and before they had been gone an hour the storm broke as I had foreseen. First came wind, and with it hail, and after that thunder and great darkness, lit up from time to time by pulsing lightning. "Steinar and Iduna do not return. I am afraid for them," I said at last to Freydisa. "Then why do you not go to seek them?" she asked with a little laugh. "I think I will," I said.
Neither do I wish to wreak vengeance upon Steinar, who for many years was my brother, and who has been led away by a woman, as may chance to any one of us and has chanced to many. Therefore I say that my father should accept Athalbrand's fine in satisfaction of the insult to our House, and let all this matter be forgotten.
"Thus, Steinar: These men" and he pointed to the three messengers "have but just arrived from Agger with the news that your father, Hakon, and your half-brothers are all drowned. They say also that the folk of Agger have named you Hakon's heir, as, indeed, you are by right of blood." "Is that so?" exclaimed Steinar, bewildered.
"Thus, perchance, I, who love life, may pay some of the price of sin, who, if I slew myself, would but multiply the debt, which in truth I dare not do." Still I shook my head, and once more she spoke: "Olaf, in this way or in that doubtless my end will find me, for, if you refuse this office, there are others of sterner stuff. The knife that smote Steinar is not blunted.
"Aye, I'll go," answered Steinar, "fast as horses' legs and sails can carry me," adding with his pleasant laugh: "Long have I desired to see this Iduna of yours, and to learn whether she is as beautiful as you say; also what it is in her that Ragnar hates." "Be careful that you do not find her too beautiful," broke in Freydisa, who, as ever, was at my side.
Behind, clad in armour, with a battle-axe girt about him, rode another man, big and fork-bearded, who stared about him gloomily, and behind him again ten or twelve thralls and seamen. One glance was enough for me. Then I sprang up, crying: "Iduna's self, and with her my brother Steinar, the lord Athalbrand and his folk. A happy sight indeed!" And I would have run forward to meet them.
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