The Scar-Cheek, who had been scanning her critically where she stood before them, drinking, gave a pitying grunt. “By the crooked horn, boy, you must have had naught but ill luck since the time of Scoerstan! No more meat is on you than a raven could eat; and the night I was in the Englishman’s hall, you had the appearance of having been under a lash. Your guardian spirit must have gone astray.”
Though she managed to keep her eyes upon her cup, Randalin could not hinder a wave of burning color from over-running her face. Seeing it, Rothgar held up his handless left arm for silence.
“You act in a mannerless way, Snorri Gudbrandsson, when you remind a high-spirited youth that he has been disgraced in his mind. Yet do not let that prevent your joy, my Bold One. To make up for the injury I have been to you, I will give you a revenge on the Englishman that shall wipe out everything you have endured from him. If it is possible for me to take him alive and bind him, your own hand shall be the one to strike Sebert Oswaldsson his death-blow.”
The girl’s nervousness betrayed her into a burst of hysterical laughter, but her wits were quick enough to turn it to good account. She said with Fridtjof’s own petulance, “Your boon is like the one Canute has in store for me. I am likely to wait so long for both that I shall have no teeth left to chew them with. I like it much better to take your kindness in the shape of food, if that is a loaf yonder.”
The abruptness with which silence fell over the group was startling. Snorri bent forward and plucked her sternly back as she made a move toward the bread. A dozen voices questioned her.
“What do you mean by that?”... “Why will it take long?”... “Are they not short in food?”
Knowing that she could not achieve unconcern, she kept to her petulance, jerking her cloak away from the hand that detained it. “Should I be apt to blame him for starving me if he did it because no better cheer was to be had? Nor do I think you have proved much more liberal. Let me by to the bread.”
Instead, the ring narrowed around her; and the chief himself put peremptory questions in his heavy voice. “Has he food? What do you mean? Clear your wits and answer distinctly. Can you not understand that we think this food-question of great importance? The thrall told us they are wont to keep their provisions in the house we burned. Did he lie?”
“I do not know whether he lied or not,” Randalin answered slowly; “but it seems to me great foolishness that you did not take the time into consideration. At the end of the harvest, any English house would be fitted out for weeks of feasting. You came the night the larder was fullest; and they have only spent one meal a day since.”
Rothgar got upon his feet and towered over her, his Jotun-frame appearing to swell with irritation. “Do you not know how provoking your words are, that you are so glib of tongue?” he thundered. “Tell shortly what you think of their case; can they last one day more?”