"I have asked no mercy," he said, proudly.
Leif made no motion to pick up the weapon. Instead, a glint of something like dry humor touched his keen eyes.
"No," he said, quietly. "You have asked nothing of what you should have asked. You have even failed to ask whether or not you have deceived me."
With her dagger half drawn, Helga paused to stare at him.
"You—knew—?" she gasped.
Leif smiled a dry fine smile. "I have known since the day on which Tyrker was lost," he said. "And I had suspected the truth since the night of the day upon which we sailed from Greenland."
He made a gesture toward the shield-maiden that was half mocking and half stern. "You showed little honor to my judgment, kinswoman, when you took it for granted I should not know that love alone could cause a woman to behave as you have done. Or did you think I had not heard to whom your heart had been given? That my ears only had been dead to the love tale which every servant-maid in Brattahlid rolled like honey on her tongue? Or did you imagine that I knew you so little as to think you capable of loving one man in the winter and another in the spring? Even had the Norman borne no resemblance to the Englishman, still would I—"
"But..." Helga stammered, "but—I thought that you thought—Rolf said that Sigurd—"
For perhaps the first time in his life, Rolf's cheeks burned with mortification as a derisive snap of the chief's fingers fell upon his ear.
"Sigurd! Your playmate! With whom you have quarrelled and made up since there were teeth in your head! By Peter, if it were not that the joke appears to lie wholly on my side, I could find it in my heart to punish the four of you without mercy, for no other crime than your opinion of my intelligence!"