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Three days later, when my strength began to return, I sent for Steinar and said: "Brother, Iduna the Fair, whom you have never seen, my betrothed, must wonder how it fares with me, for the tale of this hurt of mine will have reached Lesso. Now, as there are reasons why Ragnar cannot go, and as I would send no mean man, I pray you to do me a favour.
The next thing that I remember is the coming of the men of Agger. This cannot have been very long after Steinar went to Lesso, for he had not yet returned. Being still weak from my great illness, I was seated in the sun in the shelter of the house, wrapped up in a cloak of deerskins for the northern wind blew bitter.
"What did that matter, Steinar, when you had already pierced my heart, though not with a sword?" At these words Steinar moaned aloud, then said: "For the second time you have saved my life." "Aye, Steinar; but who knows whether I can do so for a third time? Yet take comfort, for if I may I will, for thus shall I be best avenged." "A white vengeance," said Steinar. "Oh, this is not to be borne."
"It is not you who are shamed," answered Freydisa hotly. "It is Steinar and that ," and she used a harsh word of Iduna. "Oh! I saw it coming, and yet I dared not warn you. I feared lest I might be wrong and put doubts into your heart against your foster-brother and your wife without cause. May Odin destroy them both!" "Speak not so roughly, Freydisa," I said. "Ragnar was right about Iduna.
And I pointed to the dead and dying and to the ships around, whence came the sound of groans. Steinar stared at me and asked in a thick voice: "Was it with you, Olaf, that I fell into the sea?" "Even so, Steinar." "I knew it not in the darkness, Olaf. If I had known, never would I have lifted sword against you."
"How can I if she is for Olaf?" answered Steinar, smiling, as he left the place to make ready for his journey to Lesso. "What did you mean by those words, Freydisa?" I asked when he was gone. "Little or much," she replied, shrugging her shoulders.
Yet, before I die, who am come here but to die, I pray you hear the truth, that my memory may be somewhat less vile to you in the after years. Olaf, you think me the falsest of the false, yet I am not altogether so. Hark you now! At the time that Steinar sought me, some madness took him. So soon as we were alone together, his first words were: 'I am bewitched. I love you.
That he, Athalbrand, was little to blame for what had happened, which was due to the mad passions of two young people who had blinded and misled him. That no marriage had taken place between Steinar and his daughter, Iduna, as he was prepared and able to prove, since he had refused to allow any such marriage.
No one remained save my dark-browed uncle, Leif, the priest of Odin, Freydisa, the wise woman, my nurse, and Steinar, my captive foster-brother, who had been the cause of all this war. The dying words of Ragnar had been noised abroad. The priest of Odin had laid them before the oracle of the gods, and this oracle declared that they must be fulfilled without change.
This Valhalla was but a child's tale, invented by a bloody-minded folk who loved slaughter. Wherever Steinar and the others were, it was not in Valhalla. Then, perhaps, they slept like the beasts do after these have been butchered. Perhaps death was the end of all. It might be so, and yet I did not believe it.
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