“I could not have judged the matter better myself,” said Orm to Father Willibald when they were discussing the case later. “Now he will have to get along with the old woman as best he can. He was reckoning on becoming a slave of the Smalanders anyway.”
“For all his weaknesses,” said Father Willibald, “it may be that God’s spirit was upon him last night when he went up to denounce the heathen priest and his abominable practices. Perhaps he will do great works now, for the glory of God.”
“Perhaps,” said Orm, “but the best of it is that we are now rid of him. When a man is campaigning or a-viking, it is only right that he should indulge his lust for women, even if they belong to someone else; but it seems wrong to me that a man of his mettle, a Christ-priest and a good-for-nothing, should cause women to lose all sense of decency as soon as they set eyes on him. It is not right; it is unnatural.”
“He will have plenty of opportunities to atone for his sins,” said Father Willibald, “when that old crone Katla gets her claws into him. Certain it is that I would rather be in the hungry lions’ den with the prophet Daniel, whose story you have heard me recount, than in his clothes now. But it is God’s will.”
“Let us hope,” said Orm, “that it will continue to coincide with our own.”
The Thing continued for four days, and many cases were judged. The wisdom of Ugge and Sone was praised by all, save those who received the wrong end of their decisions; and Olof Summerbird, too, showed himself to be a shrewd judge, rich in experience despite his youth, so that even Ugge was forced on more than one occasion to admit that he might, with the passing of the years, attain some wisdom. When difficult cases arose, in which the parties refused to come to any agreement and the representatives of the tribes involved in the dispute could not agree, the third judge was called upon to help them reach a decision, such being the ancient custom; and on two occasions, when the dispute lay between the Virds and the Göings, Olof Summerbird officiated as the impartial judge and acquitted himself with great honor.
Thus far all had gone well; but gradually the common members of the assembly began to show signs of increasing unrest as time went on without any good fight developing. A combat had, indeed, been ordered on the second day, as the result of a dispute between a Finnveding and a Göing concerning a horse-theft, for no witnesses could be found and both parties were equally obstinate and equally cunning at prevarication; but when they fronted each other on the combat place, they proved so unskillful that they straightway ran their swords through each other’s belly and fell dead to the ground, like two halves of a broken pitcher, so that nobody gained much pleasure from that contest. The tribesmen made wry faces at one another when this happened, thinking that this was proving a very disappointing Thing.
On the third day, however, they were cheered by the appearance of a complicated and difficult case, which promised excellent results.
Two Virds, both known men of good reputation, named Askman and Glum, came forward and told of an instance of double woman-theft. Both of them had lost their daughters, buxom young women in the prime of their beauty, who had been stolen by two Göing otter-hunters in the wild country east of the Great Ox Ford. The identity of the thieves was known; one of them was called Agne of Sleven, son of Kolbjörn Burnt-in-His-House, and the other Slatte, known as Fox Slatte, nephew to Gudmund of Uvaberg, who was one of the twelve Göing representatives. The theft had taken place a year previously; the two young women, it appeared, were still in the clutches of their captors; and Askman and Glum now demanded treble bride-money for each girl, as well as reasonable compensation for the injury caused to the Widow Gudny, Glum’s sister, who had been with the girls when the theft had taken place and had been so affected by the incident that for a good while after it she had been out of her proper mind. This good widow, they explained, they had brought with them to the Thing; she was well known to have an honest tongue, and, since many could testify that she had by now returned to her full senses, she would, they claimed, be the best witness to tell the assembly exactly what had happened.
The Widow Gudny now came forward. She was of powerful and impressive appearance, not yet old enough to frighten men; and she described clearly and earnestly how the incident had taken place. She and the girls had gone into the wild country to gather medicinal herbs and had had to spend the whole day there, because these herbs were rare and difficult to find. They had wandered farther afield than they had intended, and a terrible storm had suddenly broken over them with thunder and hail and pelting rain. Frightened, and drenched to the skin, they had lost their way; and after wandering for some time without coming upon any track or landmark, they had at last arrived at a scraped-out cave in the earth, in which they had taken shelter. Here they began to feel the effect of cold, hunger, and fatigue. There were two men already in the cave, hunters who lived there while trapping otters; and she was relieved to see that they did not look dangerous. The men had given them a friendly welcome, making room for them at their fire and giving them food and hot ale; and there they had remained until the storm ceased, by which time it was night and very dark.
Up to then, she continued, she had only worried about the storm and the ache that she was beginning to feel in her back as the result of being cold in wet clothes. But now she began to fear for the girls, which worried her much more. For the men were now in high spirits and were saying that this was the best thing that could have happened, for it was a long time since they had seen any women; and they were liberal with their ale, which they kept in a keg in their cave, and warmed more of it against the cold, so that the girls began to grow muzzy, being young and inexperienced. She had asked the men, in a pointed manner, to describe to her the way back to their home, and they had told her; but apart from this they had shown no concern for the girls’ safety except by sitting close to them and feeling them to see if they were dry. This went so far that after a while Fox Slatte picked up two small bits of wood and told the girls that they were now to draw lots to decide which man each was to sleep next to. At this she had declared vigorously that the girls must straightway go home, finding their way as well as they might in the dark. For her own part, she was compelled to remain in the cave because of the severe pain in her back.
“I spoke thus,” she said, “because I thought that the men might give way and let the girls go in peace if I undertook to remain with them. I was ready to make this sacrifice for the girls’ sake, since, whatever the men might do to me, it would be less horrible for me than for them. But instead of being accommodating, the men grew angry and addressed me in the most insulting terms and seized hold of me and threw me out of the cave, saying that they would speed me on my way with arrows if I did not instantly depart from the place. I spent the whole night wandering in the forest, in terror of wild beasts and bogies. When I reached home and told what had happened, people went to the cave and found it empty, with no trace of the men or the girls or the otter skins. For a long while after this I was sick and half crazed because of the treatment I had endured at the hands of these foul ruffians.”
Here the Widow Gudny ended her testimony, having spoken her last few sentences in a voice dimmed by weeping. Gudmund of Uvaberg now rose and said that he would present the case of the two young men. He was doubly qualified to do this, he said, partly because he was wiser than they, and so better able to choose his words, and partly because he had on more than one occasion heard the whole story of events, not only from Agne of Sleven and his nephew Slatte, but also from the mouths of the young women themselves. He therefore was as well informed about this matter as anyone, if not better; and as regards the testimony of the Widow Gudny, to which they had just been listening, he would say this, that much of it was according to the facts, but most of it contrary to them.