Having reduced the rest of his kingdom to obedience in three arduous campaigns, King Stanislas sat himself down with a great army before the strong place of Or, which was held against him by Runa, daughter of Count Theobald the Fierce. For Countess Runa said that since her father had paid neither obedience nor tribute to the King’s father for fifty years, neither would she pay obedience or tribute to the King, nor would she open the city gates to him save at her own time and by her own will. So the King came and enveloped the city on all sides, so that none could pass in or out, and sent his heralds to Countess Runa demanding surrender; in default of which he would storm the ramparts, sack the city, and lay the citadel level with the earth, in such wise that men should not remember the place where it had been. Sitting on her high chair, beneath the painted window through which the sun struck athwart her fair hair, Runa heard the message. “Tell the King--for a king he is, though no king of mine--that we are well armed and have knights of fame with us. Tell him that we are provisioned for more months than he shall reign years, and that we will tire him sooner than he can starve us.” She ceased speaking, and the principal herald, bowing low, asked: “Is that all the message?” “No, there is more. Tell him that the daughter of Count Theobald the Fierce rules in the city of Or.” Bowing again, the principal herald asked: “Is that all the message?” Runa sat silent for a minute. Then she said: “No, there is more. Tell the King that he must carry the citadel before he can pass the ramparts.” The principal herald frowned, then smiled and said: “But with deference, madam, how can that be? For the citadel is high on a rock, and the city lies round it below, and again round the city lie the ramparts. How, then, shall the King carry the citadel before----?” Runa raised her brows in weariness. “Your speech is as long as your siege will be,” she said. “You are a mouthpiece, Sir Herald, not an interpreter. Begone, and say to the King what I have given you to say.” So the heralds returned to King Stanislas and gave him Runa’s answer; but the King, in his wrath, listened more to the first part of it than to the last, and assaulted the ramparts fiercely for three days. But Runa’s men rolled his men back with loss and in confusion, for they were in good heart because of the message Runa had sent. “For,” they said, “our Countess has bidden the King perform what is impossible before she will yield the city; and as we trusted Theobald the father, so we trust the daughter Runa.”