"More harm should he speak for himself," replied Count Hardrat. "The girl's eye is caught by his glitter. We must break in on the talk. Bid him and the counts to your feast. I have a plot in mind."
"I trust to your counsel," replied Lupus, and he thrust himself half between Fastrada and Olvir.
"Greeting, lord count," he said. "I am Lupus, Duke of Vasconia, a child of kings."
"Greeting, lord duke," replied Olvir, coldly. "I am Olvir Thorbiornson, heir to the King of Lade."
"I gladly welcome a king's son to my south country. In two days I give a feast to our Lord Karl. I trust that you will be present with your companions."
"I give thanks. I will come, and so, doubtless, will my friends."
"Farewell, then, for a time," said Lupus. Unable to witness any longer Fastrada's preference for the new-comers, he bowed to the party and turned away, dragging with him the unwilling Hardrat.
As Fastrada sought to catch again the eye of the perverse stranger, a barge came sweeping downstream and headed in for a small wharf, just above the viking ships. As the craft made fast to the landing, the high-pitched imperious voice of Karl rang out above the loud talk of his retainers: "Lord Olvir! Where is Lord Olvir?"
Olvir glanced at Roland, and hesitated. But Fastrada said quickly: "Go! Gerold and I will see Count Roland aboard the barge."
As the Northman drew near, Karl smiled and hailed him with more friendliness than ever in his voice: "Here comes my Dane hawk,--truly, a king's son, no less in deed than in bearing! But you are no spokesman, Olvir. This little maid has told in full how you saved herself and my sister's son from the savage Hroar, and, at her bidding, loosed the thrall-bonds of the Frisians."
"That was the doing of Floki, lord king,--yonder tall man at the fore of my crews. In past years he had been a sword-brother to the Frisian shipmaster, and so had the disposal both of ship and thralls. They should all have burned together, had not this little vala--this little seeress--offered him her head-ring for ransom."
"There are few men more grim than Floki the Crane; but he is no greedy trader. When he yielded to the maiden's wish it was not to rob her glossy tresses of their ring. As to the rest, I 'll not say that the fate of any in the trade-ship would have been easy to bear had Hroar prospered."