Rannveig, intercepting him.
Nay, let me take him.
It is not safe—there may be men who hide....
Hallgerd, look up; call Gunnar to you there:
Hallgerd is motionless.
Lad, she beckons. I say you shall not come.
Gunnar, laughing.
Fierce woman, teach me to be brave in age,
And let us see if it is safe for you.
He leads Rannveig out, his hand on her shoulder; the hound goes with them.
Steinvor.
Mistress, my heart is big with mutinies
For your proud sake: does not your heart mount up?
He is an outlaw now and could not hold you
If you should choose to leave him. Is it not law?
Is it not law that you could loose this marriage—
Nay, that he loosed it shamefully years ago
By a hard blow that bruised your innocent cheek,
Dishonouring you to lesser women and chiefs?
See, it burns up again at the stroke of thought.
Come, leave him, mistress; we will go with you.
There is no woman in the country now
Whose name can kindle men as yours can do—
Ay, many would pile for you the silks he grudges;
And if you did withdraw your potent presence
Fire would not spare this house so reverently.
Hallgerd.
Am I a wandering flame that sears and passes?
We must bide here, good Steinvor, and be quiet.
Without a man a woman cannot rule,
Nor kill without a knife; and where's the man
That I shall put before this goodly Gunnar?
I will not be made less by a less man.
There is no man so great as my man Gunnar:
I have set men at him to show forth his might;
I have planned thefts and breakings of his word
When my pent heart grew sore with fermentation
Of malice too long undone, yet could not stir him.
O, I will make a battle of the Thing,
Where men vow holy peace, to magnify him.
Is it not rare to sit and wait o' nights,
Knowing that murderousness may even now
Be coming down outside like second darkness
Because my man is greater?
Steinvor, shuddering. Is it not rare.
Hallgerd.
That blow upon the face
So long ago is best not spoken of.
I drave a thrall to steal and burn at Otkell's
Who would not sell to us in famine time
But denied Gunnar as if he were suppliant:
Then at our feast when men rode from the Thing
I spread the stolen food and Gunnar knew.
He smote me upon the face ... indeed he smote me....
O, Gunnar smote me and had shame of me
And said he'd not partake with any thief;
Although I stole to injure his despiser....
But if he had abandoned me as well
'Tis I who should have been unmated now;
For many men would soon have judged me thief
And shut me from this land until I died—
And then I should have lost him.... Yet he smote me....
Astrid.
He kept you his—yes, and maybe saved you
From a debasement that could madden or kill,
For women thieves ere now have felt a knife
Severing ear or nose. And yet the feud
You sowed with Otkell's house shall murder Gunnar.
Otkell was slain: then Gunnar's enviers,
Who could not crush him under his own horse
At the big horse-fight, stirred up Otkell's son
To avenge his father; for should he be slain
Two in one stock would prove old Njal's fore-telling,
And Gunnar's place be emptied either way
For those high helpless men who cannot fill it.
O, mistress, you have hurt us all in this:
You have cut off your strength, you have maimed yourself,
You are losing power and worship and men's trust.
When Gunnar dies no other man dare take you.
Hallgerd.
You gather poison in your mouth for me.
A high-born woman may handle what she fancies
Without being ear-pruned like a pilfering beggar.
Look to your ears if you touch ought of mine:
Ay, you shall join the mumping sisterhood
And tramp and learn your difference from me.
She turns from Astrid.
Steinvor, I have remembered the great veil,
The woven cloud, the tissue of gold and garlands,
That Gunnar took from some outlandish ship
And deemed a thing from Greekland or from Hind:
Fetch it from the ambry in the bower.
Steinvor goes out by the daïs door.
Astrid.
Mistress, indeed you are a cherished woman.
That veil is worth a lifetime's weight of coifs:
I have heard a queen offered her daughter for it,
But Gunnar said it should come home and wait—
And then gave it to you. The half of Iceland
Tells fabulous legends of a fabulous thing,
Yet never saw it: I know they never saw it,
For ere it reached the ambry I came on it
Tumbled in the loft with ragged kirtles.
Hallgerd.
What, are you there again? Let Gunnar alone.
Steinvor enters with the veil folded. Hallgerd takes it with one hand and shakes it into a heap.
This is the cloth. He brought it out at night,
In the first hour that we were left together,
And begged of me to wear it at high feasts
And more outshine all women of my time:
He shaped it to my head with my gold circlet,
Saying my hair smouldered like Rhine-fire through,
He let it fall about my neck and fall
About my shoulders, mingle with my skirts
And billow in the draught along the floor.
She rises and holds the veil behind her head.