plain your thoughts do not do me much honor, since you think I have so
little authority. I tell you now that you will always be free to do
whatever I ask of you. If there is anything wrong in the doing, it is I
who must answer for it, not you. That is the law, while you are bound
and I am free."

A fresh sense of the shame of his thraldom broke over Alwin like a
burning wave. It benumbed him for a second; then he laughed with jeering
bitterness.

"It is true that I have become a dog. I can follow any man's whistle,
and it is the man who is responsible. I ask you to forget that for a
moment I thought myself a man." In sudden frenzy, he whirled the great
sword around his head and lunged at the pine tree behind Rolf, so that
the blade was left quivering in the trunk.

It was weather to gladden a man's heart,--a sunlit sky overhead, and a
fresh breeze blowing that set every drop of blood a-leaping with the
desire to walk, walk, walk, to the very rim of the world. The thrall
started out beside the Wrestler in sullen silence; but before they had
gone a mile, his black mood had blown into the fiord. River bank and
lanes were sweet with flowers, and every green hedge they passed was
a-flutter with nesting birds. The traders' booths were full of beautiful
things; musicians, acrobats, and jugglers with little trick dogs, were
everywhere,--one had only to stop and look. A dingy trading vessel lay
in the river, loaded with great red apples, some Norman's winter store.
One of the crew who knew Rolf threw some after him, by way of greeting;
and the two munched luxuriously as they walked along. They passed many
Viking camps, gay with streamers and striped linens, where groups of
brawny fair-haired men wrestled and tried each other's skill, or sat at
rough tables under the trees, drinking and singing. In one place they
were practising with bow and arrow; and, being quite impartial in their
choice of a target, one of the archers sent a shaft within an inch of
Rolf's head, purely for the expected pleasure of seeing him start and
dodge. Finding that neither he nor Alwin would go a step faster, they
rained shafts about their ears as long as they were within bow-shot, and
saw them out of range with a cheer.

The road branched into one of the main thoroughfares, and they met
pretty maidens who smiled at them, melancholy minstrels who frowned at
them, and grim-mouthed warriors whose eyes were too intent on future
battles even to see them