Perhaps she wanted to lure him into taking her part against herself, but he did not even see the bait. Through the hands still supporting his head, he spoke absently.
“You had not the most share in the matter, Jarl’s sister. For the hardships he dragged me under with Helvin, I should have followed up Olaf; and on top of that, there was the trap he baited with Eric. Eric! Who would have believed a false heart grew in the boy!”
Looking up through his hands, she saw how bitter his mouth had become. Of a sudden she rose and pressed her lips to it, as one who would draw poison from a wound.
“The little viper! Never think of him!” she breathed.
Whether it changed his look she did not see, for even more quickly she dropped back and hid her eyes upon his arm. Only she knew that he sat a long time looking down at her.
“At least you cannot take the memory of that from me. Give you thanks for that!” he said at last, and for an instant she felt the touch of his lips upon her hair. But he ventured no further caress. When he spoke again, she knew that his gaze had gone back to the rush-strewn floor.
“What I should do is to be grateful that I was hindered from killing the boy. To have had that news come to Erna’s ears—” She felt the muscles harden in his arm with the clinching of his fist. Then he went on somewhat anxiously: “Yet she would like his deed little better. I hope there is no likelihood of her hearing of it. It seems that he has not fled to the forest, since you say he was before the lawmen. I suppose Olaf has taken him under his safeguard?”
She shook her head without raising it. “You do not know Thorgrim’s son, if you think he troubles himself about a tool after it has served his purpose. In the first place, he prevented the boy from running away that he might send him as a witness before the lawmen. Then, when that had been accomplished, he resigned him willingly to Helvin’s demand. Nothing has been done to him as yet, for it was not until to-day that the herb-woman would say how it was like to go with your life—so has your heart-wound puzzled everyone—but to-morrow they are to take him out and hew off his hand—” She broke off in a gasp, as the Songsmith’s fingers crushed her arm unknowingly.
“Ill will it be, then! Do they forget that he is but a child?”
The eyes which she lifted to his were Valkyria’s eyes, that would look without flinching on the torture of a friend’s foe.