Now Einar saw that Grani was not dead, but stunned by some blow. He
called the women and bade them bring cloths, and heat water, and use
all craft to bring his son to life again. They set to work, and Helga
Grani's sister came and looked on her brother's face for the first
time since he had been a little boy.
But Ondott brought before Einar those two, Rolf and Frodi, and said
he: "Here we have that ravening outlaw and his cousin; now what is thy
will of them? Shall they die here under the knife?"
Einar said: "Nay, but rather set them free."
Ondott cried: "What is thy thought? Here they have come again with
designs on thee, and wilt thou let them go? And they will dispossess
thy son of his heritage; wilt thou suffer that? Rolf is out of the
law, and no harm will come of the slaying."
And Ondott pressed Einar with other reasons, saying that most of their
men were at the cove for the jetsam, and Hallmund and Hallvard would
never tell.
Now Helga heard, and stood before her father, saying: "Take not this
sin on thy head, but rather let both the men go."
Yet Einar's heart was turned to evil as he saw how but two of his men
were there, and those of the trustiest; so that those cousins might be
quickly slain, and buried, and none would know that they had come
ashore from the wreck. "Stand aside," quoth he to Helga, "and let
these foes of thy heritage die as they should."
But Helga stepped before Rolf and Frodi, and fronted the drawn swords
of Ondott and his men. "Unlawful is such a deed," she cried, "until
the morning light comes. For all night-slayings are forbidden, even of
outlaws, and such slayings are murder." And when she saw her father
waver again she told him how even the Earl of the Orkneys (and he was
father of Earl Thorfinn) dared not slay those sons of Njal who came
into his hands, and so take the sin of midnight slaying on his soul;
but he set them aside till morning should come.
"Aye," answered Ondott, "and in the morning the twain were fled."
That Helga knew, and had the same thought in her mind; but she begged
her father not to take such shame on himself, rather to let Rolf and
Frodi lie in bonds till morning. And at last Einar promised her that
those two should not die until the day.
Rolf said to her: "I thank thee, maiden; and when I come into mine own
again I shall not forget this. For it has been prophesied me that I
shall yet sleep in my father's locked bed, and that means that this
house shall be mine again."
Then Ondott laughed. "Not so is the prophecy to be read!" he cried.
"Throw them into the locked room of Hiarandi for this night. To-morrow
they shall sleep soundly elsewhere."
So in that little room where Rolf's fathers had slept he was cast with
Frodi, and there they lay on the floor, and had no comfort of that
place because of their bonds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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