OLAF SKAKTAVL. Do? How should I know what I will do? It has never been my part to plot and plan. That is where you must help me. You have the wit for that. I have but my sword and my two arms.
LADY INGER. Your sword is rusted, Olaf Skaktavl! All the swords in Norway are rusted.
OLAF SKAKTAVL. That is doubtless why some folk fight only with their tongues.—Inger Gyldenlove—great is the change in you. Time was when the heart of a man beat in your breast.
LADY INGER. Put me not in mind of what was.
OLAF SKAKTAVL. 'Tis for that alone I am here. You shall hear
me, even if——
LADY INGER. Be it so then; but be brief; for—I must say it—
this is no place of safety for you.
OLAF SKAKTAVL. Ostrat is no place of safety for an outlaw? That I have long known. But you forget that an outlaw is unsafe wheresoever he may wander.
LADY INGER. Speak then; I will not hinder you.
OLAF SKAKTAVL. It is nigh on thirty years now since first I saw you. It was at Akershus* in the house of Knut Alfson and his wife. You were scarce more than a child then; yet you were bold as the soaring falcon, and wild and headstrong too at times. Many were the wooers around you. I too held you dear—dear as no woman before or since. But you cared for nothing, thought of nothing, save your country's evil case and its great need.
* Pronounce Ahkers-hoos.