"And I think that you are right. You know how to make yourself respected, I believe. But many women like to be beaten. I know that I should love the man who could beat me. But he would have to fight with me first. My husband is as timid as a Norway rat. You don't see him here often." Gudrid had never seen him. "He comes when I send for him," said Freydis.
After that she saw Theodhild at Mass, and went home with her to her hermitage and told her the news. Theodhild said little, but one thing she said struck Gudrid. She said: "You will have much trouble, and give more of yourself than you can afford. But you will leave something to give to God at the end—more than I have left." Gudrid said: "It is foretold of me that I shall have three husbands, then go to Iceland and live as pleases me best." "It may well be so," said Theodhild. "Love is all to women, but if they can love God they are happiest. Love of man is more sorrow than joy. Love of God is pure joy. You will find it so."
Gudrid was young enough to wonder if that was true.
XII
Thore was very good to her, as he had promised, but he had to be obeyed. Directly he saw the token which she wore, he wanted to know about it.
"What is that which you wear round your neck? It looks to be gold."
She said it was a token. "A token! And what kind of a token?" She said she had had it when she was a child.
"Let me look at it," said he. He held it near to the light.
"Rats have been at this," he said. "Here are teeth-marks. Hungry rats, too, they must have been. And that was a good coin of England once—and valueless now. There's the half of a king for you. That was Knut King of England—a rare man I have heard my father say. And rats have bitten him in half. Take it off, my girl. You don't want such things now." She thought that reasonable, and took it off, to be laid aside. She had not much feeling about it now, and yet could not bear it should be lost. She put it carefully away in her chest next day.
By and by she told Thore that she had not spoken the truth. She had not been really a child when it was given her.