"Iduna was more beautiful than ever you can have been, Augusta," I replied quietly.
She stared at me till her eyes grew quite round, then puckered up her mouth as though to say something furious, and finally burst out laughing.
"By every saint in Byzantium," she said, "or, rather, by their relics, for of live ones there are none, you are the strangest man whom I have known. Are you weary of life that you dare to say such a thing to me, the Empress Irene?"
"Am I weary of life? Well, Augusta, on the whole I think I am. It seems to me that death and after it may interest us more. For the rest, you asked me a question, and, after the fashion of my people, I answered it as truthfully as I could."
"By my head, you have said it again," she exclaimed. "Have you not heard, most innocent Northman, that there are truths which should not be mentioned and much less repeated?"
"I have heard many things in Byzantium, Augusta, but I pay no attention to any of them--or, indeed, to little except my duty."
"Now that this, this--what's the girl's name?"
"Iduna the Fair," I said.
"----this Iduna has thrown you over, at which I am sure I do not wonder, what mistresses have you in Byzantium, Olaf the Dane?"
"None at all," I answered. "Women are pleasant, but one may buy sweets too dear, and all that ever I saw put together were not worth my brother Steinar, who lost his life through one of them."
"Tell me, Captain Olaf, are you a secret member of this new society of hermits of which they talk so much, who, if they see a woman, must hold their faces in the sand for five minutes afterwards?"
"I never heard of them, Augusta."
"Are you a Christian?"
"No; I am considering that religion--or rather its followers."
"Are you a pagan, then?"
"No. I fought a duel with the god Odin, and cut his head off with this sword, and that is why I left the North, where they worship Odin."
"Then what are you?" she said, stamping her foot in exasperation.
"I am the captain of your Imperial Majesty's private guard, a little of a philosopher, and a fair poet in my own language, not in Greek. Also, I can play the harp."
"You say 'not in Greek,' for fear lest I should ask you to write verses to me, which, indeed, I shall never do, Olaf. A soldier, a poet, a philosopher, a harpist, one who has renounced women! Now, why have you renounced women, which is unnatural in a man who is not a monk? It must be because you still love this Iduna, and hope to get her some day."