STEINVOR (_shuddering_) Is it not rare.

HALLGERD That blow upon the face So long ago is best not spoken of.

I drave a thrall to steal and burn at Otkell's Who would not sell to us in famine time But denied Gunnar as if he were suppliant: Then at our feast when men rode from the Thing I spread the stolen food and Gunnar knew.

He smote me upon the face--indeed he smote me.

Oh, Gunnar smote me and had shame of me And said he'd not partake with any thief; Although I stole to injure his despiser....

But if he had abandoned me as well 'Tis I who should have been unmated now; For many men would soon have judged me thief And shut me from this land until I died-- And then I should have lost him. Yet he smote me--

ASTRID He kept you his--yea, and maybe saved you From a debas.e.m.e.nt that could madden or kill, For women thieves ere now have felt a knife Severing ear or nose. And yet the feud You sowed with Otkell's house shall murder Gunnar.

Otkell was slain: then Gunnar's enviers, Who could not crush him under his own horse At the big horse-fight, stirred up Otkell's son To avenge his father; for should he be slain Two in one stock would prove old Njal's foretelling, And Gunnar's place be emptied either way For those high helpless men who cannot fill it.

O mistress, you have hurt us all in this: You have cut off your strength, you have maimed yourself, You are losing power and worship and men's trust.

When Gunnar dies no other man dare take you.

HALLGERD You gather poison in your mouth for me.

A high-born woman may handle what she fancies Without being ear-pruned like a pilfering beggar.

Look to your ears if you touch ought of mine: Ay, you shall join the mumping sisterhood And tramp and learn your difference from me.

(_She turns from_ ASTRID.)

Steinvor, I have remembered the great veil, The woven cloud, the tissue of gold and garlands, That Gunnar took from some outlandish ship And thinks was made in Greekland or in Hind: Fetch it from the ambry in the bower.

(STEINVOR _goes out by the dais door._)

ASTRID Mistress, indeed you are a cherished woman.

That veil is worth a lifetime's weight of coifs: I have heard a queen offered her daughter for it, But Gunnar said it should come home and wait-- And then gave it to you. The half of Iceland Tells fabulous legends of a fabulous thing, Yet never saw it: I know they never saw it, For ere it reached the ambry I came on it Tumbled in the loft with ragged kirtles.

HALLGERD What, are you there again? Let Gunnar alone.

(STEINVOR _enters with the veil folded._ HALLGERD _takes it with one hand and shakes it into a heap._)

This is the cloth. He brought it out at night, In the first hour that we were left together, And begged of me to wear it at high feasts And more outshine all women of my time: He shaped it to my head with my gold circlet, Saying my hair smouldered like Rhine-fire through, He let it fall about my neck, and fall About my shoulders, mingle with my skirts, And billow in the draught along the floor.

(_She rises and holds the veil behind her head._)

I know I dazzled as if I entered in And walked upon a windy sunset and drank it, Yet must I stammer with such strange uncouthness And tear it from me, tangling my arms in it.

Why should I so befool myself and seem A laughable bundle in each woman's eyes, Wearing such things as no one ever wore, Useless ... no head-cloth ... too unlike my fellows.

Yet he turns miser for a tiny coif.

It would cut into many golden coifs And dim some women in their Irish clouts-- But no; I'll shape and st.i.tch it into shifts, Smirch it like linen, patch it with rags, to watch His silent anger when he sees my answer.

Give me thy shears, girl Oddny.

ODDNY You'll not part it?

HALLGERD I'll shorten it.

ODDNY I have no shears with me.

HALLGERD No matter; I can start it with my teeth And tear it down the folds. So. So. So. So.

Here's a fine shift for summer: and another.

I'll find my shears and chop out waists and neck-holes.

Ay, Gunnar, Gunnar!

(_She throws the tissue on the ground, and goes out by the dais door._)

ODDNY (_lifting one of the pieces_) O me! A wonder has vanished.

STEINVOR What is a wonder less? She has done finely, Setting her worth above dead marvels and shows.

(_The deep menacing baying of the hound is heard near at hand. A woman's cry follows it._)

They come, they come! Let us flee by the bower!

(_Starting up, she stumbles in the tissue and sinks upon it. The others rise._)

You are leaving me--will you not wait for me-- Take, take me with you.

(_Mingled cries of women are heard._)

GUNNAR (_outside_) Samm, it is well: be still.

Women, be quiet; loose me; get from my feet, Or I will have the hound to wipe me clear.

STEINVOR (_recovering herself_) Women are sent to spy.

(_The sound of a door being opened is heard. GUNNAR enters from the left, followed by three beggar-women, BIARTEY, JOFRID, and GUDFINN. They hobble and limp, and are swathed in shapeless, nameless rags which trail about their feet; BIARTEY'S left sleeve is torn completely away, leaving her arm bare and mud-smeared; the others' skirts are torn, and JOFRID'S gown at the neck; GUDFINN wears a felt hood b.u.t.toned under her chin; the others'

faces are almost hid in falling tangles of grey hair. Their faces are shriveled and weather-beaten, and BIARTEY'S mouth is distorted by two front teeth that project like tusks._)

GUNNAR Get in to the light.

Yea, has he mouthed ye?... What men send ye here?

Who are ye? Whence come ye? What do ye seek?

I think no mother ever suckled you: You must have dragged your roots up in waste places One foot at once, or heaved a shoulder up--

BIARTEY (_interrupting him_) Out of the bosoms of cairns and standing stones.

I am Biartey: she is Jofrid: she is Gudfinn: We are lone women known to no man now.

We are not sent: we come.

GUNNAR Well, you come.

You appear by night, rising under my eyes Like marshy breath or shadows on the wall; Yet the hound scented you like any evil That feels upon the night for a way out.

And do you, then, indeed wend alone?

Came you from the West or the sky-covering North Yet saw no thin steel moving in the dark?

BIARTEY Not West, not North: we slept upon the East, Arising in the East where no men dwell.

We have abided in the mountain places, Chanted our woes among the black rocks crouching.

(GUDFINN _joins her in a sing-song utterance._) From the East, from the East we drove and the wind waved us, Over the heaths, over the barren ashes.

We are old, our eyes are old, and the light hurts us, We have skins on our eyes that part alone to the star-light.

We stumble about the night, the rocks tremble Beneath our trembling feet; black sky thickens, Breaks into clots, and lets the moon upon us.

(JOFRID _joins her voice to the voices of the other two._) Far from the men who fear us, men who stone us, Hiding, hiding, flying whene'er they slumber, High on the crags we pause, over the moon-gulfs; Black clouds fall and leave us up in the moon-depths Where wind flaps our hair and cloaks like fin-webs, Ay, and our sleeves that toss with our arms and the cadence Of quavering crying among the threatening echoes.

Then we spread our cloaks and leap down the rock-stairs, Sweeping the heaths with our skirts, greying the dew-bloom, Until we feel a pool on the wide dew stretches Stilled by the moon or ruffling like breast-feathers, And, with grey sleeves cheating the sleepy herons, Squat among them, pillow us there and sleep.

But in the harder wastes we stand upright, Like splintered rain-worn boulders set to the wind In old confederacy, and rest and sleep.