“The one with her face turned away is the Jarl’s daughter, Brynhild the Proud. It is said that she is worth looking at, though it has never happened to me to do so.”
If the Skraelling looked at her, that was all the notice he vouchsafed. It was not until the last maiden had gone by that he was stirred to interest.
“That is the great sachem that the sun now shines on?” he asked.
“That is Starkad Jarl,” the Northman confirmed; and even as he said it, the old man with the jaw like iron and the beard like steel had passed on into the shade, and the light was playing on the comely group that followed, revealing foppish secrets of gay embroidery and golden buckle.
“Here are the battle-twigs we saw a while ago,” the young forester added. “I wish I knew if any of them is Helvin, the Jarl’s son.”
The Skraelling answered but one word. “Blood!” he said; and while the young men remained in sight his eyes rested on one in garments of gray, whose bowed head was hooded by hair of the very shade of clotted blood.
Looking after the young courtmen, the forester seemed to lose all who followed. When leaves had blotted out the last guard’s broad brown back, and the music of the horns had dwindled to a silver speck in the gray silence, he spoke musingly:
“Take Helvin, now, if you wish to judge what metal comes of Starkad’s forging. It is said that he was born with the wanderlust upon him, so that his every breath is a panting to take ship and travel over the sea-king’s road wheresoever the wolf of the sail might choose to drive him. But because the sons that came before him are dead, and the only other heir is a maiden, his sister, it is not allowed him to risk his life. It may be they will find out that they have cherished the scabbard and rusted the blade,—they say that the fire cased in his flesh has given him an unlucky disposition.”
The savage’s black eyes gave forth a sympathetic flash, though his training in repression kept the feeling out of his voice. He said calmly:
“A day will come when it will be over. The old man cannot live forever. Already he has passed so far beyond the timber-line that nothing grows on his scalp.”