While he was bowing, however, one of the guards—a burly ruddy-faced fellow—entered into the conversation, after the off-hand manner of Northern retainers. Hemming loudly, he held up the horn-handled knife which he had taken from the forester’s unresisting hold.
“This can be told about the youth, Jarl’s daughter,” he said, “that he is no better than a crazy Berserker. Behold with what a cheese-cutter he met the flail of Thorgrim’s son!”
“And not alone met, but also mastered the flail!” a second guard chuckled; while a third, their grizzled old leader, vented a gruff laugh and openly patted his prisoner on the back.
“I will hang you if Starkad’s daughter decides that way,” he declared, “but you may hang me if I do not tell afterwards that you were a young hawk!” Whereupon a rumble of acquiescence came from every point where a brass helmet gleamed amid the russet leaves.
At any other time the forester might have shown appreciation of their friendliness, but just now it was the favor of the purple-robed judge upon which his heart was set. The silver-trunked birches behind her were not more impassive than her finely chiselled face, as she ignored all but the man she had addressed.
When quiet was entirely restored, Olaf spoke lightly: “Most gentle law-giver, if it is through Norse eyes that we must look, I have to tell you that the churl is in no way to blame. That he should show rudeness is a result to be expected from the barbarity in the land. That I who am French-bred should have a wish to civilize him was no less to be expected. As has been pointed out, he had no more than a hunting-knife; while my feet are more used to paved roads than to fox-trails. It made a merry game, altogether too merry to fall to the ground here. But for Norse law, fairest law-woman, there is no handle to take hold of. Turn him loose, and forget that so unworthy a happening ever quickened your fragrant breath.” He ended with another bow, his last words almost lost amid the applauding murmurs of the women and the pages.
With an unconscious gesture of relief, the Jarl’s daughter rose quickly.
“Now as always, your broad-mindedness puts all other Norsemen to shame,” she said. “For taking it in this way and making my task easy, I thank you much.” A second time she extended her hand to him, while over her shoulder she spoke coldly to the prisoner: “I give you peace, woodsman. Go your way.”
“Come behind the bushes and tell us more news about this fight,” the burly man-at-arms muttered in the forester’s ear as he gave him back his hunting-knife.
Pretending to hustle him along, they accompanied him eagerly, the gentlewomen making a great show of getting out of his path as out of the way of a bear unchained. But after he had made a dozen paces, the forester stopped, shook them off and turned back to Brynhild the Proud.