He answered: “Grant it I would before it were asked if I were not desirous to hear how you would beg; but what is it you wish?”
Her white lids drooped haughtily. “It is known far and wide, brother, how you hate formalities, so it is not to be expected that you will hold to them now that you can do what you like about everything. What I want is your leave to retire with my women as soon as the amusements begin. I dislike brawling freedom.”
Curling like the petals of a rose, her beautiful lips curved disdainfully. Helvin’s smoke-gray eyes showed a spark as they rested on her.
“It is well that my face is not set against what you ask, kinswoman,” he said, “for your way of entreating would be unlikely to move a man to much gentleness. This I grant you willingly, that you may leave as soon as any brawling begins.”
She thanked him in the formal phrase, and mocking him again with the bend of courtly submission, made as though she would have passed on. Then, seemingly for the first time, she saw the deerskin-clad figure leaning on the arm of the high-seat, and paused to look him up and down in displeasure.
“Greeting, Randvar, Rolf’s son, and welcome to you!” she said. “Yet I think, after all, you would have done better to take service with me, if my brother’s generosity towards you is to be measured by the clothes you wear.”
Deep in the cave of his breast, Randvar felt his temper stir like a sleeping bear; but craving a smile from her starry eyes, he made an attempt at conciliation.
“I had thought you would guess, gold-bright maiden, that it is the Jarl’s forbearance which lets me be slow in shedding my bark.”
The tilt of her chin showed how little his deprecation had helped him.
“An economical virtue is the Jarl’s forbearance,” she said, “and Freya’s son is more than expectedly dull at learning what beseems him.”