“Jarl, it will never answer our end that you should give yourself into the guidance of a raw woodsman. That the youth is skilled in woodcraft, no one gainsays,—let him rule your hunting, then. Since he has the singing-gift, hand over your entertainments to him. But when it comes to a matter in which one may so act that men’s lives hang on it—lord, leave that to us!”
“Leave that to us!” the others echoed.
Helvin made no reply. He had flung himself back upon the wolfskins and was gazing far away into the haze, his blood-streaked lip held between his white teeth. It was left for Randvar to answer.
Long enough to conquer the itch to bandy words with them, the forester stood pushing about a stalk of orange-splotched fungus with his moccasined foot. Then he spoke curtly:
“To this I will reply that because you are raw in knowledge of the Skraellings, you could not follow the track of my reasoning. But like enough you will believe that I am not guessing if I prove how sure of it I am. On what I have said, I will lay down my life. Say, then, that the Jarl shall leave me bound in your hands to suffer death for any harm that befalls him.”
The stillness seemed to deepen around them as the three old chiefs drew nearer to him. It was Mord who broke the silence.
“That you would bear yourself boldly was to be looked for, but it will not stand to your good if your dream-spinning has made you over-trustful. Though there be no guile behind it, and your mistake be the most excusable that man was ever tricked into, you should not come off with your life.”
“I shall make no mistake,” Randvar answered.
Again the stillness settled, as the Grim One’s eyes probed from their beetling ambush. But he moved at last with a curt gesture.
“So be it,” he assented, and laid a light hand on the young Jarl’s knee. “Lord, all is in readiness.”