“Now the worst is past,” he said, “though this is certainly a troublesome and nerve-racking way of obtaining a woman. I do not think there are many men who would have dared to do as I have done; however, I suppose my luck is greater than that of most people.”
“It is better than mine,” said Orm. “I grant you that.”
“That is not so certain,” said Toke, “for your luck has always been good; and a king’s daughter is a greater prize than the woman I have won. You must not grieve that you have not been able to do as I have done, for even I could hardly have succeeded in kidnapping a girl as closely guarded as yours was.”
Orm laughed between his teeth. He sat silent for a while and then ordered Rapp to replace Ake at the steering-oar, for the latter’s ears looked likely to stretch themselves to tearing-point. Then he said to Toke: “I had supposed that a firm friendship existed between us two, since we have been together for so long; but, as the old ones truthfully used to say, it takes a long time to prove a man. In this mad enterprise in which you have now involved us both, you have behaved as though I did not exist or was not worth bothering about.”
Toke replied: “You have one characteristic that ill becomes a chieftain, Orm, and that is the ease with which you take offense. Most men would have praised me for stealing the woman single-handed, without endangering anyone else; but you regard yourself as having been insulted because you were not told about everything beforehand. What kind of friendship is it that breaks on so small a rock as this?”
Orm stared at him, white with fury.
“It is difficult to forbear with such addleheadedness as yours,” he said. “What do I care about what methods you use to get your women, or whether or not you keep your plans to yourself? What does concern me is that you have earned us King Harald’s enmity and wrath, so that whithersoever we go in the Danish kingdom, we shall find ourselves outlaws. You have got your woman, and have barred me forever from mine. A man does not have to be quick to take offense to find fault with such evidence of friendship.”
Toke could not find much to say in reply to this charge and was forced to admit that he had not thought of it in this light before. He tried to mollify Orm by saying that King Harald was old and feeble and could not live much longer; but Orm drew scant comfort from this, and the more he thought about it, the more irrevocably he felt himself to be separated from Ylva, and his anger waxed accordingly.
They put in for the night in a sheltered creek and lit two fires. Orm, Toke, Rapp, and Mirah sat by one of them, and Ake and his crew around the other. None of the Vikings was in a mood for talking, but the other men kept up a greedy murmur of discussion. They spoke, however, in low tones, so that the matter of their talk could not be heard.
After they had eaten, the woman curled up to sleep by the fire, with a cloak covering her body. Orm and Toke sat in silence some way apart from each other. Dusk began to fall, and a cold wind sprang up, turning the sea gray; and a storm-cloud appeared in the west. Orm sighed deeply several times and tugged hard at his beard. Both he and Toke were black with anger.
“It would be best to settle this matter,” said Toke.
“You have only to say the word,” replied Orm.
Rapp had gone to gather fuel for the fire. Now he returned and overheard their last words. He was a silent man, who seldom minded anyone’s business but his own. Now, however, he said: “It would be a good thing if you two could leave your fighting till later, for we have other work to do. There are fourteen men in the crew, and we are but three; and that is already difference enough.”
They asked him what he meant by this.
“They are planning to kill us, because of the woman,” said Rapp. “I heard them discussing it as I was gathering wood.”
Orm laughed.
“This is a fine hare you have started,” he said bitterly to Toke.
Toke shook his head sadly and stared with troubled eyes at his woman as she slept beside the fire.
“Things are as they are,” he said, “and the main thing now is to decide the best way out of this affair. I think the wisest course for us to follow would be to kill the lot of them where they sit, while they are still planning how to dispose of us. They are many, but they are far from being such men as we.”
“It looks as though we shall have rough weather tomorrow,” said Rapp, “and in that case we cannot afford to kill many of them, for we shall need them in the ship, unless we want to spend the rest of our lives in this place. But whatever we do, let us do it at once, or we shall have a rough night of it.”
“They are foolish folk from Fyn,” said Toke, “and once we have killed Ake and one or two of the others, the rest will tumble over themselves to do our bidding. But it is you, Orm, who must decide what we are to do. Perhaps it might be wisest to wait till they are asleep and attack them then.”
Orm’s melancholy had left him, now that there was work to be done. He got to his feet and stood as though making water, so as to be able to survey the group around the other fire without exciting their attention.
“There are twelve of them there,” he said when he had sat down again, “which may mean that they have sent two of their number inland to get help, without our noticing their departure. If that is so, we shall soon have a swarm of foes descending on us; so I think we would do best to settle this business without delay. It is plain that they have little foresight or lust for combat, or they would have tried to overpower Rapp when he was in the woods alone. But now we shall teach them that they must manage things more skillfully when they have men of our mettle to deal with. I will go alone and speak with them; then, while their eyes are upon me, come silently up behind them and hew well and quickly or it will go hard for us. I must go without my shield; there is no help for it.”
He picked up a tankard they had used at supper, and walked across to Ake’s fire to fill it from the barrel that they had brought ashore and set down there. Two or three of the crew had already laid themselves down to sleep by the fire, but most of them were still seated and awake, and their eyes turned toward Orm as he walked toward them. He filled the tankard, blew off the froth, and took a deep draught.
“There is bad wood in your barrel,” he said to Ake; “your ale smacks of it already.”
“It was good enough for King Harald,” retorted Ake sullenly, “and it should be good enough for you. But I promise you that you will not have to drink much more of it.”
The men laughed at his words, but Orm handed him the tankard as though he had noticed nothing untoward.
“Taste for yourself,” he said, “and see if I have not spoken the truth.”
Ake took the tankard without moving from where he sat. Then, as he set it to his lips, Orm gave the bottom of the tankard a great kick so that Ake’s jaw was broken and his chin fell upon his breast.
“Does it not taste of wood?” said Orm, and in the same instant he whipped his sword from its sheath and felled the man beside him as the latter jumped to his feet.
The other men, dumbfounded by the suddenness of all this, barely had time to grab for their weapons before Toke and Rapp fell on them from behind; and after that they had little time to show what mettle they were made of. Four of them were killed in addition to Ake, two fled into the woods, and the remaining five ran to the ship and prepared to defend themselves there. Orm cried to them to throw down their weapons, vowing that if they did so he would spare their lives. But they stood wavering, uncertain whether to believe him.
“We cannot be sure that you will keep your word,” they shouted back.
“That I can believe,” replied Orm. “You can only hope that I am less treacherous than you have proved to be.”
They held a whispered conference and then shouted down that his proposal gave them insufficient assurance and that they would prefer to keep their weapons and be allowed to depart, leaving the ship and everything else to the Vikings.