Brand.—You have robbed the bishop's see!
Broddi.—No, I have come by the victuals in an honest manner. You know that warriors may take as their own all food they find. I should like to see my brother-in-law Kolbein attack us by scaling these ramparts of ice, and see his men tumble down from above, and the ice coloring red under them.
Jorun.—My husband shudders at that sport; he is sick in his soul.
Broddi (seizing BRAND).—There is no time now to have a sick soul. We shall have to fight. As soon as my brother-in-law Kolbein has made an onset at our fort and lost many men he will himself see fit to obtain conditions of peace from us.
Brand.—That will he never!
Broddi.—Maybe, maybe.
Brand.—It will cost many lives to attack and defend Holar this time. Ought we to sacrifice them all merely to lengthen our own lives by a few years?
Broddi.—Lives? Worth, each, one or two hundred ounces of silver! Brand, you do not know the joy there is in fighting! Every man in the fort has sworn to fall at his post. And I shall spare no effort, so that he who will set down an account of it will be able to say with truth that our last defence was the most glorious ever told of in sagas, and that the fame thereof shall last while there live men in this land.
Brand.—I shall come to Holar, unless I find better counsel which you approve of.
(ALF OF GROF, DEACON SIGURD, and HELGI SKAFTASON lead in the CLERK
HELGI between them. He has a bandage over his eyes.)