They all agreed to that. Then he said, "I will ask one or several of you to tell the king in the morning. It is late now, and he will not expect you to disturb him at this hour of the night. Yet I tell you fairly that I myself shall go to find Gunnar and warn him of what is astir against him. If I think, when I see him, that he is the guilty man, it may be that I shall go with you to King Olaf. If I leave him still in the mind I am in now, then I shall not testify against him."
They all said, No, no. They said that he knew nothing of the matter, and that his name need not be in the business at all. Sigurd said, "The king will speak to me about it, I know. But I shall have time for what I want to do." Then he left them sitting at their drink, and went to find Gunnar.
Now first I will deal with the embassy to the king, and then with what happened when Sigurd saw his brother. Olaf was in a great taking. He grew red and thumped the table with his fist. "This is what comes of clemency. That rascal refused my religion and I let him go. He vowed that he would serve me and I believed him, like a fool. This is how it is brought back to me, sevenfold into my bosom. Now do you go and apprehend Gunnar, and hang him up on a tree. Don't let me see him, for I am in such a rage that I should insult him in his chains. Hang him out of hand, and let us get on with our affairs."
That was what the king said, and they left him with heavy hearts. But Gunnar was not hanged because he was not at home when they went to fetch him.
The very night of the slaying Sigurd had gone to him. He went directly to him from the inn where Halward lay dead.
"Gunnar," he said, "what was the grief between you and Halward that you must deal him a dog's death?"
Gunnar gaped at him. "Halward? Is Halward dead? Who did that?"
Sigurd said, "They say that you did it this very evening at the inn on Markfleet."
Gunnar answered him, "That be far from me." But he had no more to say.