And yet Rolf’s son did not throttle him,—only stood looking at him with head lowered and thrust forward like a bull moose at bay. The hand Olaf had laid on his hilt, in the hope of being called upon to defend his lord, fell paralyzed. He doubted the ears that brought him Randvar’s low answer:
“Lord, I entreat you to hold down your anger. Remember that we are not alone, and—”
“Call you that humbleness which would command me where and before whom I shall rebuke you?” Starkad’s son snarled. “Now do you stand so stubborn as to think that I will hold back from punishing you? Bend lower—low as your knee!”
Again Olaf made a hopeful move towards his sword. Again his arm fell benumbed. Rigidly as a man of iron, Rolf’s son had knelt, his sinewy, brown hands gripping each other behind his back.
Who was the stillest for a while it would have been hard to say—the Songsmith or the gaping courtman or the young ruler, who stood wiping great drops from his forehead while his devil-like eyes watched Olaf from under his palm.
“Are your French courtmen better broken?” he sneered at last.
Out of his trance Olaf came slowly. Drawing his shapely form erect, he laughed mellowly in his enjoyment.
“Jarl, I make you a hundred compliments! The proudest king in France had not dared say one-half as much to his meanest lackey. I make you a thousand apologies for my stupidity! I see now that what makes the forester a comfort to you is not his boldness but his meekness. I give you ten thousand thanks for the merry lesson you have taught me!”
Bowing almost at the song-maker’s side, he laughed almost in the song-maker’s ear, and laughing bowed himself gracefully out of the room.
Swiftly as well as gracefully it must have been, for while the sound of the soft mirth was still in the air, the Jarl rushed forward with the snarl of a wolf robbed of its bone, yet Randvar had time to leap ahead of him. On Olaf’s heels, the song-maker shut the door with a thunderous crash, and set his back against it.