Out of her great skill in healing she may devise some aid to the Lady Helda in saving the sweet blossom of your hearth. It were, in truth, too fair a flower to perish so swiftly. This day will I send to thy maiden my own physician Egil, the wisest leech in all Norway, so it is said; though truth to tell, my many days upon the strong sea have left me little need to test his skill.”
“I thank thee, my King,” Earl Gormo replied, “and now, with thy leave, I will go to my dark home.”
“I would stay thee a moment, Jarl Gormo. I have that to tell my thanes it were not well to delay, and I reckon thee among my best and truest.”
“As well thou mayest, my King,” Earl Gormo assented. In the silent pause that followed, the Lady Aastrid, sadly looking at the king, was thinking within herself, “These men! these men! How little they know! Well may Olaf send Egil now, with all his skill, to my poor little Freda. I wot no medicine of the leech can heal the wounds that his master’s kind words and his goodly looks and viking fame have left in the maiden’s heart.”
Aastrid’s self-communing was checked by the sound of Olaf’s voice, full and defiant.
“My thanes, ye have counselled me often of late to wed, to let in the light upon the darkness that came to me when the eyes of my Irish princess were closed. Ye have said it were well for me to place a wife beside
