As though the touch were fire, Helvin started up. “Too long have we waited as it is! Songsmith, I forgot to listen to your pleading, but it must have been all-powerful. Thorbiorn, be good enough to call those whom I have chosen to accompany me,—I have warned you openly that no old men shall have part there. Such suspicion as cries from your wrinkles would breed murder in a lamb’s heart! Call Bolverk and five guardsmen, and Gunnar and—” He broke off at the spectacle of Randvar delivering his sword into the keeping of Mord. “What is the meaning of this?”
When Mord had told him in a few words, he burst out angrily.
“That shall not be! He is my friend. The risk is mine. How is any peace-talk to be made without him? Who else can speak enough of the Skraelling tongue?”
“It is no less your people’s risk,” the old counsellor made him stern reminder; and Randvar reassured him briefly:
“Lord, when I learned the Skraelling tongue of the sachem’s son, as I told you, he learned Norse of me in return.”
It would seem that all objections had been met, but Helvin did not yield with his usual reasonableness. Instead, he stood scowling at the tree beside him, his hands picking and tearing at a gray lichen plastered on the bark. Finally, while they waited perplexed around him, he turned his head and looked at the Songsmith.
Meeting the look, Randvar stiffened and spoke amazedly: “Lord, what have I done?”
In words, Helvin made him no answer; but for the space of a heart-beat murder glared from his murky eyes. Then, flinging a sign towards the waiting escort, he strode down to the point where the horses waited at the fording-place, hailed eagerly by the idling groups.
Mord’s tap on the song-maker’s shoulder reminded him of his share in the bargain. Going aside with the three old men to the prison-chamber they had selected, he submitted his body to be bound to a tree with ropes of walrus-hide.
A wall of evergreens hid the water from his view, but he could follow the progress of the peace party only by interpreting the outbursts of the throng. A farewell of cheers marked the Jarl’s departure from this bank; a babel of comment showed when his dark-skinned hosts had received him on the other. Then a waning of interest betokened that he had passed beyond the spectators’ range of vision as the Skraelling ranks closed about him to conduct him to the council-fire.