Earl Thorfinn thanked the King and returned to his ship. The King stayed a long time in Seley, and men gathered to him from Vík;[275] for he intended to sail to Jutland when he obtained a fair wind. Thorfinn was often in conversation with the King, who treated him in a friendly manner, and had him frequently present at his councils. One day the Earl went on board the King’s ship, and went up to the poop. The King asked him to sit down. The Earl sat down, and they both drank together and were merry. A tall brave-looking man, dressed in a red tunic, came to the poop and saluted the King, who received his greeting graciously. He was one of the King’s henchmen. He said: “I have come to see you, Earl Thorfinn.” “What is your business with me?” said the Earl. “I wish to know what compensation you intend to give me for my brother who was killed by your orders out west in Kirkiuvag (Kirkwall), along with others of King Magnus’s henchmen.” “Have you never heard,” said the Earl, “that it is not my wont to pay money for the men whom I cause to be killed?” “I have nothing to do with how you have treated other people, if you pay the manbote for him for whom it devolves on me to seek compensation. I also lost some money there myself, and was shamefully treated. It is more binding on me than any one else to seek redress for my brother and myself, and therefore I now demand it. The King may remit offences committed against himself, even if he thinks it of no importance that his henchmen are led out and slaughtered like sheep.” The Earl answered: “I understand it to be to my advantage here that I am not in your power. Are not you the man to whom I gave quarter there?” “True enough,” said he, “it was in your power to have killed me like the others.” Then the Earl said: “Now the saying proves true—‘That often happens to many which they least expect.’ I never thought I should be so placed that it would be injurious to me to have been too generous to my enemies; but now I have to pay for having given you quarter; you would not have denounced me to-day in the presence of chiefs if I had caused you to be killed like your comrades.” The King looked at the Earl and said: “There it comes out still, Earl Thorfinn, that you think you have killed too few of my henchmen without compensation.” While saying this the king turned blood-red [with anger]. The Earl started up and left the poop, and returned to his own ship, and all was quiet during the evening. In the morning, when the men awoke, a fair wind had sprung up, and they rowed away from the harbour. The King sailed south to Jutland with the whole fleet. In the earlier part of the day the Earl’s ship stood out farther to sea, and in the afternoon he took a westerly course, and there is nothing to be told of him till he arrived in the Orkneys, and resumed the government of his dominions.