“If you will,” the man on the bench answered. “I was away on a Viking voyage last summer when it happened.”
Next above this man on the bench sat a tall, broad-shouldered young fellow with a frank, comely face and the air of one amiably used to having his own way. He was the son of King Olaf’s most powerful vassal, and his name was Erling Erlingsson. Now suddenly he, too, spoke up.
“I, also, would like to hear that story. If it is true, as I have heard it, then are you the only man in the world who has ever made Sigurd Asbiornsson bow his neck.”
Thorer Sel threw him a glance over his shoulder.
“I forgot that it would not sit comfortably in your ears,” he said. “It had slipped my mind that the Halogalander is your kinsman.”
“Kinsman or not, I like to see justice done to men of courage,” young Erlingsson answered. “I say, in the presence of everybody, that Sigurd Asbiornsson is one of the bravest men that ever drew sword or breath.”
“The story will show,” Thorer Sel said mockingly, and began forthwith.
“To start at the beginning, Sigurd Asbiornsson is the man who came down here from the north and bought corn and malt to carry home for the entertaining of his friends, though it was well known to him that because of the bad seasons, King Olaf had forbidden that any meal should be carried out of the south of the country. Dauntless as I am wont, I went down where he had put in under the island for the night and stripped him of his cargo and his fine embroidered sail, and drove him home in disgrace—all in the manner which I will truthfully relate.”
“I have seen that you have his sail in your possession,” Erling said slowly, “but only he could convince me that you got it without a trick, if you got it against his will.”
That was not a bad guess, since the only cause to which the bailiff owed his success was his forethought in providing himself with sixty men, as against Sigurd Asbiornsson’s twenty, and in falling upon him at the moment when he and his crew were dressing after a morning swim and stood utterly defenseless against attack. But a guess is only a guess—and no one stood up to confirm it.