Mild displeasure stiffened Rolf’s big frame.  He said gravely:  “It is plain your thoughts do not do me much honor, since you think I have so little authority.  I tell you now that you will always be free to do whatever I ask of you.  If there is anything wrong in the doing, it is I who must answer for it, not you.  That is the law, while you are bound and I am free.”

A fresh sense of the shame of his thraldom broke over Alwin like a burning wave.  It benumbed him for a second; then he laughed with jeering bitterness.

“It is true that I have become a dog.  I can follow any man’s whistle, and it is the man who is responsible.  I ask you to forget that for a moment I thought myself a man.”  In sudden frenzy, he whirled the great sword around his head and lunged at the pine tree behind Rolf, so that the blade was left quivering in the trunk.

It was weather to gladden a man’s heart,—­a sunlit sky overhead, and a fresh breeze blowing that set every drop of blood a-leaping with the desire to walk, walk, walk, to the very rim of the world.  The thrall started out beside the Wrestler in sullen silence; but before they had gone a mile, his black mood had blown into the fiord.  River bank and lanes were sweet with flowers, and every green hedge they passed was a-flutter with nesting birds.  The traders’ booths were full of beautiful things; musicians, acrobats, and jugglers with little trick dogs, were everywhere,—­one had only to stop and look.  A dingy trading vessel lay in the river, loaded with great red apples, some Norman’s winter store.  One of the crew who knew Rolf threw some after him, by way of greeting; and the two munched luxuriously as they walked along.  They passed many Viking camps, gay with streamers and striped linens, where groups of brawny fair-haired men wrestled and tried each other’s skill, or sat at rough tables under the trees, drinking and singing.  In one place they were practising with bow and arrow; and, being quite impartial in their choice of a target, one of the archers sent a shaft within an inch of Rolf’s head, purely for the expected pleasure of seeing him start and dodge.  Finding that neither he nor Alwin would go a step faster, they rained shafts about their ears as long as they were within bow-shot, and saw them out of range with a cheer.

The road branched into one of the main thoroughfares, and they met pretty maidens who smiled at them, melancholy minstrels who frowned at them, and grim-mouthed warriors whose eyes were too intent on future battles even to see them.  Occasionally Rolf quietly saluted some young guardsman; and, to the thrall’s surprise, the warrior answered not only with friendliness but even with respect.  It seemed strange that one of Rolf’s mild aspect should be held in any particular esteem by such young fire-eaters.  Once they encountered a half-tipsy seaman, who made a snatch at Rolf’s apple, and succeeded in knocking it from his hand into the dust.  The Wrestler only fixed his blue eyes upon him in a long look, but the man went down on his knees as though he had been hit.