All night long Gudruda sat in the bride's seat. There she sat in the
silver summer midnight, looking on the slain who were strewn about the
great hall. All night she sat alone in the bride's seat thinking--ever
thinking.

How, then, would it end? There her brother Björn lay a-cold--Björn the
justly slain of Brighteyes; yet how could she wed the man who slew
her brother? From Ospakar she was divorced by death; from Eric she was
divorced by the blood of Björn her brother! How might she unravel this
tangled skein and float to weal upon this sea of death? All things went
amiss! The doom was on her! She had lived to an ill purpose--her love
had wrought evil! What availed it to have been born to be fair among
women and to have desired that which might not be? And she herself had
brought these things to pass--she had loosed the rock which crushed her!
Why had she hearkened to that false tale?

Gudruda sat on high in the bride's seat, asking wisdom of the piled-up
dead, while the cold blue shadows of the nightless night gathered over
her and them--gathered, and waned, and grew at last to the glare of day.




XXVI

HOW ERIC VENTURED DOWN TO MIDDALHOF AND WHAT HE FOUND