Olvir shook his head. "My heart leaps with joy that I have won again the friendship of the world-hero. Yet I ask two things only,--let my lord king give me my betrothed to wife, and bid me God-speed on my homeward faring."
"The maiden is yours, kinsman. But we cannot part either with her or you."
"Dear lord, I speak with clear vision. The heretic cannot sit in peace among those who bend to the Bishop of Rome; and more, it is best that we should go, both for ourselves and for the queen. I am weary of strife. My heart longs for the iron cliffs of my home land, for the salt billows roaring among the skerries, for the still waters of the fiord. The viking stifles in this sea-less land."
"Can nothing stay you, Olvir? Think what you ask! You tear at my very heart-strings. How can I send my child into the frozen North?"
"Not all is rime and frost with us, lord king. The summer is fair in our North land, and the Trondir are warm of heart. In time, I shall sit on the high-seat of my father. The king's daughter shall not lack either in honor or in love."
"I will gladly give you whatever else you ask, Olvir. But to part with my child--"
Gently Olvir put Rothada from him, and half turned. He spoke with the calm of utter despair: "It would seem the Norns have woven ill for me. I go into the North, and--I go without my bride."
"Ah, no!" gasped Fastrada. Struggling to her feet, she tore from about her throat the necklace of sapphires which the Northman had given her for wedding gift, and pressed it upon Rothada. "Take it, king's daughter; take it--even that!--only, bid him stay!"
Rothada thrust the blue stones from her, and drew herself up with a haughtiness which the king, her father, had never equalled. There was no grief in her white face as she made answer: "Am I such a one as you that I should bid my hero bend his will? He goes--"
"And you go with him!" The words burst from Karl's lips like a cry of anguish.