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"Would that I were more worthy of your love," I answered, smiling, "as in years to come I hope to show myself." Athalbrand, who was watching, tugged at his forked beard and muttered something that sounded like an oath. Then he rode off, kicking his horse savagely and not noting my outstretched hand, or so it seemed.
So all the folk of that land met together at my bidding yes, even the women and the children. First we laid the dead in the largest of Athalbrand's ships, his people and Athalbrand himself being set undermost. Then on them we set the dead of Thorvald, Thorvald, my father, and his son Ragnar, my brother, bound to the mast upon their feet.
"Well, as I never saw my father or my brothers, and they treated me but ill, I cannot weep for them." "Hakon!" broke in Athalbrand. "Why, I knew him well, for in my youth we were comrades in war. He was the wealthiest man in Jutland in cattle, lands, thralls and stored gold.
My father, Thorvald, remained silent, but his half-brother, the dark-browed priest of Odin, lifted his hands to heaven and called down the curse of Odin upon the troth-breakers. The company drew swords and shouted for vengeance, demanding to be led against the false Athalbrand. At length my father called for silence. "Athalbrand is a man without shame," he said.
So it came about that just as the moon was sinking our watchmen caught sight of four other ships, which by the shields that hung over their bulwarks they knew must be vessels of war, gliding towards them over the quiet sea. "Athalbrand comes to meet us!" cried one, and in a minute every man was looking to his arms.
Do you pray the gods, Olaf, that no woman may ever draw you on to such shame as mine. Hearken now to the great reward that I have won. I was never wed to Iduna, Olaf. Athalbrand would not suffer it till he was sure of the matter of the lordship of Agger. Then, when he knew that this was gone from me, he would suffer it still less, and Iduna herself seemed to grow cold.
So it came about that, although both my father, Thorvald, and Iduna's father, Athalbrand, stormed and threatened, these two declared that they would have nothing to do with each other, and the project of their marriage came to an end. On the night before we were to leave Lesso, whence Ragnar had already gone, Athalbrand saw me staring at Iduna.
She said that it was for this reason that he had been so anxious to form an alliance with my father, Thorvald, as such an alliance would make him sure of victory. Before that time, she told me that he, Athalbrand, had purposed to marry her to another lord for this very reason, but unhappily this lord had been killed in battle. "Nay, happily for us, Iduna," I said.
They are all quiet yonder," he added, nodding at the vessel of Athalbrand, to which they were still grappled. "Where is Ragnar?" I asked. "Come on board and see," answered the man. A plank was thrust out and I ran across it, fear gripping at my heart. Resting against the mast sat Ragnar, dying. "Good morrow to you, Olaf," he gasped. "I am glad you live, that there may be one left to sit at Aar."
As it happened, Athalbrand, a brave and skilful captain, who from his youth had seen much war by sea and land, had a design of his own which brought ours to nothing.
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