“So?” said Tyrker, peering forth inquiringly.  “Yet never have I heard that he any accomplishments had, or that in battle enemies he had overcome.”

“No,” Leif assented.

He did not finish immediately, and there was a pause.  From the courtyard came a clashing and jingling of bells, as servants brought the reindeer from the feeding-ground to harness them to the boat-like sledges that stood waiting.

“It may be that I have acted unwisely,” Leif said at last; “but because I did not believe it would be according to Helga’s wish, I told him that I would not bargain with him.”

Alwin buried a gulping laugh in the fur cloak he had picked up.  He had known that it would end in some such way.  Of course; it had been idiotic to expect anything else.  He listened smilingly for what else Leif had to say.

The guardsman drew the last strap through the last buckle on his double fur jacket, and turned toward the door.  “It may be that I was unwise, but it may also be that it will not matter much.  The most desirable men come home latest; we have not seen them all.  It is likely that the next feast will decide it.”

Long after the door had closed upon Leif, and he had entered the sledge and been whirled through the gate in a flurry of snow and a clamor of bells, Alwin stood there, motionless.  Tyrker dozed in the comfort-able warmth, and woke to find him still staring down into the fire.

“What hast thou, my son?” he questioned, kindly.  Alwin came to himself with a start and a stare, and catching up his cloak, hurried out of the room without replying.

“I will find Helga and tell her that she must put a stop to it,” he was saying to himself as he went.  “That is what I will do.  I will tell her that she must stop it.”

Pulling his cap lower as the keen wind cut his face, he hurried across the courtyard toward the women’s-house, trying to frame some excuse that should bring Helga to the door where he could speak to her.

Half-way across, he bumped into Rolf.

“Hail, comrade!  Have you left your eyes behind you in your hurry?” the Wrestler greeted him, catching him by the shoulders and spinning him round and round as he attempted to pass.  “You look as sour as last night’s beer.  What will you give to hear good tidings?”

“Nothing.  Let me go.  I am in a hurry,” Alwin fumed.

“You have not outrun your curiosity, have you?  I have just learned why it is that Thorhild no longer speaks to Eric, and why he is in a mood to smash things.”

“Why?” asked Alwin, impatiently; but he no longer struggled, for he knew it was useless in Rolf’s grip.

“Because last night Thorhild told Eric that she had become a Christian.  Her bowerwoman told Helga, and when I met Helga—­”

“Met her?  Where?  Is she in the women’s-house?”

Rolf shook him by the shoulders he still held.  “Is that all you have to say to news of such importance?  Do you not see that now that Thorhild has been converted, Eric’s men will no longer dare oppose us; lest in time to come, when she has brought Eric round—­”