“None at all,” I answered. “Women are pleasant, but one may buy sweets too dear, and all that ever I saw put together were not worth my brother Steinar, who lost his life through one of them.”
“Tell me, Captain Olaf, are you a secret member of this new society of hermits of which they talk so much, who, if they see a woman, must hold their faces in the sand for five minutes afterwards?”
“I never heard of them, Augusta.”
“Are you a Christian?”
“No; I am considering that religion—or rather its followers.”
“Are you a pagan, then?”
“No. I fought a duel with the god Odin, and cut his head off with this sword, and that is why I left the North, where they worship Odin.”
“Then what are you?” she said, stamping her foot in exasperation.
“I am the captain of your Imperial Majesty’s private guard, a little of a philosopher, and a fair poet in my own language, not in Greek. Also, I can play the harp.”
“You say ‘not in Greek,’ for fear lest I should ask you to write verses to me, which, indeed, I shall never do, Olaf. A soldier, a poet, a philosopher, a harpist, one who has renounced women! Now, why have you renounced women, which is unnatural in a man who is not a monk? It must be because you still love this Iduna, and hope to get her some day.”