Within the skin-hung feast-hall the late-comers found that the seats of honor, on the right and left hand of the host, had been kept waiting for them. Next below Rudulf's place on the bench sat a huge Wend warrior, beside whom was the Wend witch in her grey cloak.
Upon the entrance of the counts, many of the guests had risen, with brimming horn or bowl, to drink health to them, and Rudulf, as he passed up the table, greeted many by name. But the black-bearded Wend giant was bent over his trencher, and the old count took his seat on the bench beside him, with a puzzled shake of his grisly, bristling head.
"By the fiend Odin!" he muttered; "have I come here to sit with Karl's foes?"
"Be at ease, my lord!" entreated his wife. "Would I have asked you to this feast had not all been well?"
"All sit here as friends, hero," added Hardrat, earnestly. "We meet like kinsmen, to talk upon weighty matters. Only give us fair hearing, and I pledge myself you will not rue your coming."
"Let be, then. I will listen," replied Rudulf.
"Well said!" called out one of the guests, and many echoed the words.
Hardrat rose, smiling, and addressed Olvir. "The guests sit in their grey iron coats, and you in your linked mail, hero, as is fitting for warriors gathered in council. Yet all heads other than your own are bare of helmet. Uncover your sunbright locks, and sit at ease."
"The war-cap rests lightly upon the head of a viking," replied Olvir.
"Count Olvir doubts the faith of his host," sneered Hardrat. "Let him sit with naked sword across his trencher. We ask only that, with the Grey Wolf, he hear out whatever his fellow-guests would say."