The waning light falling into the Jarl’s bedchamber from its one small window under the eaves disclosed dimly the figures of the priest and the counsellor and the courtman, as they waited in the middle of the floor, but showed little more than the mass of the high curtained bed that stood under the window against the wall. The old advice-giver, declaiming before it, had the feeling that he was talking into space, even while he knew that somewhere in the gloom beneath the hangings the young ruler must lounge listening to him.
“Whether you take it well or not, you shall not keep on in a false step for want of my foresight. Long ago I told you that the son of Freya, the king-born, was trying to get friends behind him. Now I tell you that he has got them. Courtmen tag at his heels. Traders and guardsmen clink horns at the sound of his name; while the saying runs that hunters show fight if they think that so much as his cloak-hem has been trod on. In a year more, he will have wormed his way into the high-seat. I foretell it.”
Mord’s voice rose to a wrathful climax; and the gesture of his knotted hands, when it looked as though the silence of the bed was going to continue unmoved, suggested that he would like to use them on the sullen shoulders.
But the Jarl’s voice sounded presently in measured accents: “Has it come to your ears that men are speaking against my rule?”
Slightly appeased, Mord’s hands relaxed to smooth his beard. “I do not mean that, Starkad’s son. You mistake me if you think I mean that the fellow has yet power enough to get you disliked. Well spoken of over all the land is your rule. Only—”
Measured and relentless as the boom of surf, the Jarl’s voice sounded through his. “When it happens that they do find fault, come and tell me of it; and I will listen patiently. Only about aught which belongs to my life as a free man—”
A moment it seemed as though his control weakened, as if measure might be lost in fury; but he recovered himself and beat it out slowly to the end.
“Witness, priest! and Olaf as well! I know how well-beloved the Songsmith is; and I know also how little loved I am. Plain as you, I see how proud my sister is; nor do I forget that she is my heir. Yet I have given leave to the son of Freya, the king-born, to woo and wed her and join his power to her ambition. Judge from that how I trust him, and take other counsel than to slander him to my ears again.”
Deeper than ever seemed the stillness when he had ceased. All that stirred it was the grating of iron hinges, as Mord jerked open the door which led from the alcove-chamber out into the great living-room of the body-guard.