Olaf the Glorious | Page 8

a long journey.
"This is the boy you mean," said Reas, as Olaf rose and went on with
his work--"an ill favoured loon you will think him. But had I expected
you I should have seen that he had been well washed and decently
clothed. If you would have him for hard labour, however, he is at least
strong, and I will warrant you that he is healthy, and has no bodily
faults. It may be that he is a little wild and wilful, but you can tame him,
and a sound flogging will do him no harm, as I have ofttimes found.
What price do you offer for him, hersir?"
Olaf looked up in anxious surprise, wondering if in truth the stranger

had come to buy him, so that he might carry him off to the wicked
Queen Gunnhild.
"I will give you two silver marks for him," said Sigurd, "and that is the
value of a full grown man slave."
Reas demurred, looking at Olaf as if regretting that the lad was not
more presentable.
"No," he said at last. "You will not find such a thrall as he in every
day's march. If he were but a little cleaner you would see that he is a
very pretty boy. Look at his eyes--keen as a young snake's! Why, no
woman's eyes are more beautiful! Look at his skin, there where his
kirtle is torn. Is it not fair? And he is skilled in many feats. My own son
Rekoni is not more clever than he. He can run for half a day without
being wearied. He can climb the highest pine tree in Rathsdale--as he
did last seed time to harry a bluejay's nest; and no seamew can swim
more lightly on the water."
"As to his climbing," said Sigurd, with a curious look in his blue eyes,
"I do not doubt that he will some day climb much higher than you list.
But swimming is of little avail where there is no sea. And if he runs so
well there is all the more danger of his running away. I think you will
be well paid if I give you two silver marks. But since you set so high a
value on him for his beauty and his skill, then I give you in addition
this little ring of gold for your good wife's wearing. What say you?"
"It is a bargain!" said Reas, eagerly grasping the ring that Sigurd took
from his belt pouch; "and you may take the lad at once."
Olaf drew back to the far corner of the pig sty. There was a frown on
his brow, and his blue eyes flashed in quick anger.
"I will not go!" he said firmly, and he made a rapid movement to leap
over the barrier; but he forgot the wound in his arm, and the pain of it
made him so awkward that Reas caught him by his wrists and held him
there until Sigurd, springing from his horse, came and put an iron chain
round the lad's neck. Then the two men forcibly drew him to the gate of
the pig sty. So, when Reas had opened the gate, Sigurd, who was a very
powerful man, caught Olaf in his arms and carried him to the horse's
side, and, holding the end of the chain, mounted. Olaf struggled a little
to free himself, but finding the chain secure about his neck, resolved to
await a better chance of escape. Then Sigurd gave Reas the two silver
marks in payment of his purchase, and urged his horse to a quick walk,

dragging Olaf behind him.
Very soon Reas and his straggling farmstead were hidden from sight
behind a clump of tall pine trees. Then Sigurd halted at the side of a
little stream.
"You have done well," he said to Olaf, "in thus coming away with
seeming unwillingness. But do not suppose that I value you so lightly
as did your late master, who thinks, foolish man, that you are no better
than many another bond slave whom he might buy in the marketplace.
Had Reas exacted an hundred gold marks instead of two paltry marks
of silver, I should willingly have given him them."
"And why?" asked Olaf with a frown. "Is it that you think to take me
west to Norway, and cast me like a young goat among wolves? I had
thought when you so blandly spoke to me yesternight that you were a
man of honour. Haply Queen Gunnhild would reward you well if you
should deliver me into her clutches. But this you shall never do!"
"Rash boy," said Sigurd as he stroked his horse's mane, "do you not
recognize a friend when you meet one? Or is friendship so strange