“Yea,” said he, “not because thou art of the Gods, but because thou hast become a woman to me, and I love thee.”
Then was she silent some while, and at last she said, “Thiodolf, wilt thou do off the Hauberk if I bid thee?”
“Yea, yea,” said he, “and let us depart from the Wolfings, and their strife, for they need us not.”
She was silent once more for a longer while still, and at last she said in a cold voice; “Thiodolf, I bid thee arise, and put off the Hauberk from thee.”
He looked at her wondering, not at her words, but at the voice wherewith she spake them; but he arose from the stone nevertheless, and stood stark in the moonlight; he set his hand to the collar of the war-coat, and undid its clasps, which were of gold and blue stones, and presently he did the coat from off him and let it slide to the ground where it lay in a little grey heap that looked but a handful. Then he sat down on the stone again, and took her hand and kissed her and caressed her fondly, and she him again, and they spake no word for a while: but at the last he spake in measure and rhyme in a low voice, but so sweet and clear that it might have been heard far in the hush of the last hour of the night:
“Dear now are this dawn-dusk’s moments as is the last of the light
When the foemen’s ranks are wavering, and the victory feareth night;
And of all the time I have loved thee of these am I most fain,
When I know not what shall betide me, nor what shall be my gain.
But dear as they are, they are waning, and at last the time is come
When no more shall I behold thee till I wend to Odin’s Home.
Now is the time so little that once hath been so long
That I fain would ask thee pardon wherein I have done thee wrong,
That thy longing might be softer, and thy love more sweet to have.
But in nothing have I wronged thee, there is nought that I may crave.
Strange too! as the minutes fail me, so do my speech-words fail,
Yet strong is the joy within me for this hour that crowns the tale.”
Therewith he clipped her and caressed her, and she spake nothing for a while; and he said; “Thy face is fair and bright; art thou not joyous of these minutes?”
She said: “Thy words are sweet; but they pierce my heart like a sharp knife; for they tell me of thy death and the ending of our love.”
Said he; “I tell thee nothing, beloved, that thou hast not known: is it not for this that we have met here once more?”
She answered after a while; “Yea, yea; yet mightest thou have lived.”