XI
“A wise man’s guess is a prophecy”
—Northern saying.
Out in the long trading-hall there was a confusion of shuffling feet, as the company rose to show respect to the Jarl’s kinswoman; but over the inner chamber such silence reigned that the rows of rich garments hanging around the walls took on the semblance of listening figures. Rooted where his sister had left him, the Jarl stood gazing incredulously at his friend, and the song-maker’s head was bowed over the cap he was tearing in strips.
Helvin said at last: “Songsmith, you took oath that no man could give you aught,—is it as it would seem, that what you desire is a woman’s help?”
The Songsmith made no other answer than a movement of his bent shoulders, but that was answer enough. Starkad’s son said disgustedly:
“This is how it is, then,—you have sulked and chafed for lack of my sister’s favor, even though you have my friendship and every honor that friendship can devise. There is more shame in your falling before her than of all men else. I wonder not that you were ashamed to own it to me. To confess that after all your boasted wildness you had put on her yoke as tamely as any mincing courtman among them! Tamely? Cravenly! How does this hang together, that you have a man’s pride yet like any whipped hound give love in return for abuse!”
“Trolls, lord!” the song-maker gasped, flinging his cap on the floor.
Helvin made a change from scorn to sternness. Placing his foot upon an iron-bound chest, he set his elbow on his knee in an attitude of exhortation.