me for my verses.

Then she began to talk of other matters, especially of how, after we
were wed, her father wished to make war upon another chieftain and to
seize his land. She said that it was for this reason that he had been
so anxious to form an alliance with my father, Thorvald, as such an
alliance would make him sure of victory. Before that time, she told me
that he, Athalbrand, had purposed to marry her to another lord for this
very reason, but unhappily this lord had been killed in battle.

"Nay, happily for us, Iduna," I said.

"Perhaps," she answered with a sigh. "Who knows? At any rate, your House
will be able to give us more ships and men than he who is dead could
have done."

"Yet I love peace, not war," I broke in, "I who hate the slaying of
those who have never harmed me, and do not seek to die on the swords
of men whom I have no desire to harm. Of what good is war when one has
enough? I would be no widow-maker, Iduna, nor do I wish that others
should make you a widow."

Iduna looked at me with her steady blue eyes.

"You talk strangely, Olaf," she said, "and were it not known to be
otherwise, some might hold that you are a coward. Yet it was no coward
who leapt alone on board the battle ship, or who slew the great white
bear to save Steinar's life. I do not understand you, Olaf, you who have
doubts as to the killing of men. How does a man grow great except upon
the blood of others? It is that which fats him. How does the wolf live?