"And won!" shouted Gerold.
"Where's the rebel's head?" rejoined Count Hardrat. "Were I a slayer, his skull should serve me for mead-bowl. Satan seize the traitors! They all but broke my own skull with their sling-stones."
"The hero's head is on his shoulders,--where Count Hardrat is free to seek it," said Olvir, coldly.
"Speak out!" exclaimed the king. "You fought the Westphalian, and won; yet he still lives. Do you then bring him back in thrall-bonds?"
"No, sire. When the hero's sword fell from his grasp, I spoke with him a little while, and then told him to go free."
"Free! King of Heaven!"
In an instant the king's smiling face was ablaze. He sprang up, and stood towering above the Northman in speechless anger, his hand gripped hard on the hilt of Ironbiter. There were few among the war-counts who did not whiten with dread as they saw the great blade half drawn from its sheath.
But Olvir stood quietly in his place, and faced the king with a look of calm friendliness that bordered on pity. As he met the look, Karl's hand fell away from the sword-hilt, and he turned to pace across the front of the tent. Twice he repeated the swift movement, and when he paused to again face the Northman, all his anger was gone, and in its place only bewilderment.
"Lord Christ!" he muttered; "a little more, and I 'd have struck my heart's friend. Ah, Olvir, why try me so? You were mad to set that traitor free,--him, the head and front of all the heathen cause!"
"Is there then no end to what you would ask of me, sire? The Saxon reproached me as the one who had turned his victory into bitter defeat. Have I not waded in blood for you,--the blood of my brothers? I could not strike down that hero when he stood before me bare-handed, and death were far less bitter than the shame of thraldom. The thought came to me, sire, how he was a brave man, fighting for his country. He at least is no forsworn traitor, however many of his fellows may be."