Then Hallvard said: “I only make this condition—that Rodny should give me her word not to betroth herself to any other man while I am gone.”
“I have no fault to find with that,” said Lambi.
So he sent for Rodny, and she came thither, and with her three women. She spoke to them all well and courteously; and after that she sat down, and Lambi told her all about the bargain and left nothing out.
It could be seen from her way that she thought the terms far too strong. And when she heard what it was that Hallvard wanted of her, she answered without waiting:
“I will promise that, and more besides. I will promise that when his ship comes to land in the Autumn, I will come down half-way between my house and the shore to meet him, that some honor may be done him, as too much has not been shown so far.”
Hallvard said that it was honor enough that he got the right to woo her, still he would not fling back the kindness she offered him; and they made a bargain about that also. After that, they bade each other farewell, and Hallvard and his friends rode away to their booth.
Now it must be told how Skapti wearied of his pastime and came in and asked his father what it might be that Hallvard wanted, and Lambi told him of the bargain he had made.
At first it looked as Skapti could not believe it, and then it seemed as if he would never leave off scolding.
“Now,” he said, “it is proved true what I have long suspected, that you are a doting old man that no longer knows how to behave with sense, when you thus give away to another man the woman that I have always had it in my own mind to marry.”
So he went on, and made it known in every way that he thought he had been wrongfully used.