“If breach there be,” answered Thordis, “it is thy doing. This is nothing to what we owe thee, and I doubt there will be more to follow.”
They had words. Bersi said that harm would come of her evil counsel; and so they parted.
When he left the house he said to his men, “Let us turn aside to the shore and take a boat; it is a long way to ride round the waterhead.” So they took a boat—it was one of Thord's—and went their way.
They came to the meeting when most other folks were already there, and went to the tent of Olaf Peacock of Hjardarholt (Herdholt), for he was Bersi's chief. It was crowded inside, and Bersi found no seat. He used to sit next Thord, but that place was filled. In it there sat a big and strong-looking man, with a bear-skin coat, and a hood that shaded his face. Bersi stood a while before him, but the seat was not given up. He asked the man for his name, and was told he might call him Bruin, or he might call him Hoodie—which-ever he liked; whereupon he said in verse:—
(35)
“Who sits in the seat of the warriors,
With the skin of the bear wrapped around him,
So wild in his look?—Ye have welcomed
A wolf to your table, good kinsfolk!
Ah, now may I know him, I reckon!
Doth he name himself Bruin, or Hoodie?—
We shall meet once again in the morning,
And maybe he'll prove to be—Steinar.”
“And it's no use for thee to hide thy name, thou in the bearskin,” said he.
“No more it is,” he answered. “Steinar I am, and I have brought money to pay thee for Cormac, if so be it is needed. But first I bid thee to fight. It will have to be seen whether thou get the two marks of silver, or whether thou lose them both.”
Upon which quoth Bersi:—
(36)
“They that waken the storm of the spear-points—
For slaughter and strife they are famous—
To the island they bid me for battle,
Nor bitter I think it nor woeful;
For long in that craft am I learned
To loosen the Valkyrie's tempest
In the lists, and I fear not to fight them—
Unflinching in battle am I.
“Well I wot, though,” said he, “that ye and your gang mean to make away with me. But I would let you know that I too have something to say about it—something that will set down your swagger, maybe.”