Helgi and Thorgisl and Thorir were sat cheek by jowl on the upper bench at the end nighest the door. They liked well of the good eats and drinks and made game together. They spoke softly so as they should not be overheard.
Thorgisl said, “Well fares he that sits quiet with his own. Sith Styrbiorn is come into kingdom now in our despite, let us drink and be glad and kick at the pricks no more.”
“That is well said,” said Helgi. “And yet, it dislikes me he should hold his chin so high, sitting there so glad, with his backside rooted in yonder high seat as though he were King already. If he be puffed up now so big, who shall abide to live under him when he shall be King indeed?”
“He thinketh,” said Thorgisl, “on the Swede realm, which now lieth loose before him.”
“Well,” said Thorir, “so the ale runneth trill-lill down the throat, what need grieve us?”
Helgi drank and said, “None shall deny that Styrbiorn hath a pretty piece of flesh o’ the right hand side of him. Would I were nearer, to mark if, spite o’ that, his eye stray not toward the upper bench.”
“A point eastward o’ the King?” said Thorir: and they laughed. “ ’Tis not every man loveth the same meat, though, Helgi. I have marked the King look seldomer tonight of’s own right hand than thereaway, to the cross-bench.”
“How? there?” said Helgi, craning forward over the board, and scanning the other women where they sat, seen dimly fair through the flicker and reek of fire and torchlight. “I see,” he said, sitting back again and wiping the mead-froth from his moustachios with the back of his hand. His eyes wandered back toward the cross-bench: they glittered, and he ran his tongue over his lips.
“ ’Tis not every man hath his pick of suchlike morsels,” said Thorgisl. “He that had his pick, and picked not, should be a fool, to my thinking.”
Thorir took him round the neck and said in his ear. “Helgi will not be slow to pick there, when his turn cometh: and little blame to him, think’st thou?”
“Is it any one?” said Thorgisl.
“Art thou blind?” said Thorir. “She, third from the end: the King’s latest bondmaid. O’ the Erse King’s blood, men say. If black women be ugly, there’s argument for thee that foul is fair.”
“Black women’s the fashion tonight,” said Thorgisl.
Helgi was yet licking his lips and shifting uneasily in his seat, his eyes yet on the black-haired damosel on the cross-bench. Looking round and seeing his comrades’ laughing gaze upon him, he squared his shoulders, crammed his mouth with mutton, hailed the cupbearer for more drink, and said through his munchings, “Women’s but cattle: one’s like another, when all’s said and done.”
“So much the better for thee,” said Thorir; “for I think thou’lt have to wait a weary while for this one.”
Helgi drank and spat. “O, the trolls take thee and thy talk,” he said.
“Thorgnyr receiveth all this wondrous calm,” said Thorgisl after a time. “What if we have but mistook him all this while?”
“Never think it,” said Helgi, looking up the table to where that old man sat, near the King. “Sometimes the sea will moan in a calm. I hear it now, methinks.”
The hall was hung with outlandish hangings, curtains of rich crimson stuff and cloth of gold and broidered work brought out of Micklegarth or Garthrealm or the Western Isles, plunder of war or gifts of peace and tribute made to Styrbiorn by kings and lords that he had brought under him; and these treasures he had given now to the King his uncle, so many and rich and goodly as had not heretofore been seen, not one tenth the number nor goodliness, in the realm of Sweden. And there were plates of gold and great cups and breakers and goblets of gold and silver, rough with jewels and beautifully enchased, that made the rude, smoke-darkened and ponderous boards of the long tables blossom, like the brown earth in spring, with shining splendours. But the magnificence and glory of that banquet had root not in the fair setting only of gold and jewels and gorgeous tissues and weapons hung on the walls and armour glinting, but in the living presence and splendour of the men and women that feasted in that pomp: Eric the King, his youth come back upon him, eating and drinking and making merry, oftenest with his eye on Styrbiorn that sat there over against him in the beauty of his youth and strength; and that young affianced bride of Styrbiorn’s, white-skinned and with night-dark hair, quiet, with eyes and ears only for him; and opposite, on the King’s right hand, that fair young Queen of his. She too was quiet. The lids drooped over her dark eyes that looked out like some animal’s eyes, profound and of doubtful import, under shadowing lashes, unsounded pools. Her face was flushed. Her red-gold hair, swept back in heavy shimmering and luxurious masses, shadowed her brow on either side, and was gathered and coiled again under strings of jewels darkly sparkling. Her gown was of silk, a treasure of untold price out of the land of the Greeks, deep purple and purfled with gold. There was a strange and disturbing grace in her quiet pose and carriage, as if the fair and lovely body of her with the burning fire of its beauty pierced the rich attire that hid it, giving to every silken fold and to every glittering gem a warm and breathing loveliness as of very flesh and blood. And yet her lord, sitting there at handreach, had eyes and mind, as it appeared, only for his nephew, if it were not for a sidelong glance now and again at that newest damosel of his on the
