Then Lambi said: “If you will lean on my counsel, foster-daughter, you will call up your pride and stay at home. Hallvard has broken agreements enough to set you free, and more besides; and it is even as my son says, that mocking tongues will not be wanting to shame you if you keep a tryst that your lover has forgotten.”
But Rodny, when she had held her peace for a little, answered them slowly and said: “It is true that Hallvard has seemed to forget me, and that my pride has been sorely tried; and it is no less true that if he gives me fresh cause for anger, I may let my temper go as far as it will. But now you both show how little you guess what love is in a woman’s breast, or you would know that while there is any chance at all that he may prove himself guiltless of meaning disrespect toward me, I care no more about mocking tongues than I do about the blowing of the wind.”
After that she went away, and at first Skapti thought matters had taken a bad turn. But shortly he saw that it was unlikely that Hallvard would keep the tryst himself, and that would become a fresh cause of strife between them; and then he was merry again.
Now it must be told how Rodny rode the next morning to the trysting-place, and Lambi and Skapti and ten men with her. And when they got there, there was no one to meet them.
“What did I tell you?” said Skapti.
“It is early yet,” replied Rodny; and so they sat for a while.
Then there came the noise of hoofs trampling over brush. But it was only one of Rodny’s house-carles that had taken horse and come after her to tell her that he had just been up on a high hill that overlooked the river, and there he had seen Hallvard’s men camping on the shore, and taking no steps to get ready to ride, but lying about on the sand and amusing themselves with the tumbling-girl.
Rodny made him tell it three times over, and then she was so wroth that no one had ever seen any woman so wroth before. She swung her horse about and was for riding home without a word, when Hallvard came out of the wood before her, red in his face and out of breath because he had come on foot from the shore while his mates thought him sleeping on the ship.
As soon as Skapti saw that, it seemed to him that he had got into a luckless state; and he slipped behind a bush and made off toward the shore to find Jofried and scold her for her great falling-off of wit. But Hallvard went up to Rodny and gave her a joyful greeting; and after a little she welcomed him with both hands.
Then he said: “I see that you dislike my tardiness, and I want to beg off from your wrath; for it is the truth that I came as fast as I could.”