"This prophet!" he thought. "I will see him if I may. Alas for me, there is no temple here to Mercurius or to Apollo! I have great need to offer sacrifices. No! not to Juno nor to Venus! They have not dealt well with me. I think I shall now hate Sapphira when I see her. How is it then that I also love her, seeing that I would slay her if I could? This is that strange thing between a fool and a woman."
[CHAPTER XXXV.]
In the Court of the Women.
It was still the winter time in the Northland, but in Judea the spring had returned. In the lowlands there was already much heat and a swift growth of all fruits of the earth, but in a high place, like Jerusalem upon her hills, the days were cooler and oft the nights were frosty, so that men builded fires in their braziers.
"This is not according to nature," said Lars, the son of Beolf, among his companions. "We have had no snow save a few flakes, and there hath been no ice thicker than the blade of my seax. I weary of this land!"
"Hael to the Northland!" exclaimed Tostig the Red. "Hael to the driving storms and the glittering ice, and to the frost and to the snow!"
"I will not stay here," said Knud the Bear. "I will depart from an accursed country wherein there is never good winter. But didst thou hear the keeper? He saith that ships at Joppa dare not put to sea because of the rough weather. What seamen are these!"
"O men!" said Wulf the Skater. "By Odin! If vikings were at the oars and if I were at the helm, a keel would seek the open sea."
"We will even go to Joppa when we may," said Tostig. "But our errand will be to the Northland, that we may bring back fleets, and in them Saxons, to march with the jarl into the great battle in Esdraelon. We are too few."