“I will not take time to put one foot over the threshold until I hear what lies so near my happiness,” the Jarl’s sister interrupted her. Her foster-mother began without preamble.
“Thus it was, then. The first thing I knew, he had put up his eyelids like a man putting off blankets, and was gazing at the embroideries on the bed-curtains. Then he saw me, where I stood near the head, and asked me slowly what place he was in. I said it was the room in the women’s house whither it was the Jarl’s custom to send sick courtmen to be taken care of,—I thought it unadvisable to be hasty in speaking your name. And then—”
The Jarl’s sister crossed the threshold to get nearer to her. “And then?”
“For a while his expression told me nothing. He lay so long staring ahead of him that I thought he was falling asleep again, and turned to leave. He has more strength than you would think likely in a man so drained of blood. A rustle made me turn back to find that he had pulled himself up and was looking about for his clothes.”
A sound that was half a laugh and half a sob came from Brynhild’s round throat. “His clothes! Those slashed and slitted—blood-sponges! Yet what said he when he saw what garments we had prepared?”
“Nothing, foster-daughter. As yet, stained and tattered leather and gold-embroidered fabric are all one to him. I pointed out where they hung, and did not even tell him that they were useless to him. As I had expected, he was not long in finding it out. With his first motion to rise, he fell back on his pillows, nor even argued with me when I proved to him how foolish he was to attempt to move. Yet if I know anything about the set of a man’s mouth, he will not do our bidding long,” the old dame ended somewhat unexpectedly.
The Jarl’s sister made Yrsa a sign to help her off with the lace scarf that lay around her shoulders, like a mist about a rose.
“I will go to him,” was all she said.
If Thorgerda had any thought of dissuading her, it was abandoned upon a second glance. She spoke only a word of admonishment as Starkad’s daughter turned towards the foot of the hall.
“So it shall be, then. Still it is good counsel to tread softly. It may be that he is sleeping. I advised him to do so when I left.”