To see such favor as hers squandered on such as he was worse than maddening. She answered most kindly:
“No man should have a better right to mar my pleasure than you who have so often made it. And it was bearing my message that became a misfortune to you! Will you receive my necklace for weregeld?” Reminded by the law-term, she glanced for the first time towards the prisoner, her white lids drooping coldly. “Let Visbur lay bonds on the fellow and take him where the lawmen can deal with him.”
It was not the tightening grip of the men that wrung words from the forester’s silence; it was the pang of standing ill with her that caused him to speak earnestly.
“One thing I wish, Jarl’s daughter, and that is that you yourself would hear how little I am to blame.”
Again she looked at him, this time squarely.
“You will have no cause to complain of the lawmen’s justice,” she said.
“Then will they judge me innocent, and how shall it be made up to me that I have endured the disgrace of bonds, and been a gazing-stock for your followers? Be as fair in your actions as you are fair in your face, noble one.”
The guards around gasped, but she did not belie her Valkyria eyes. As steel answers steel with a spark they answered the demand, even while her proud mouth resented his boldness in every curve. After a moment she turned back where a tree had fallen across the glade, and seated herself upon the mossy trunk.
“Will you lay it upon Norse custom and not upon me, my friend Olaf, if I think it necessary to grant the forester’s request?” she asked. “And will you support me further by feigning that this is a law-place and telling me here what he did that you disliked?”
“Is it true that Norse custom is so childish?” Olaf queried, with rising shoulders. Then as she continued to look at him entreatingly, he yielded, smiling, to come forward with playful ceremony and take up his stand before her.