"A woman!" ejaculated Piers Minor, in supreme disdain. "Always that." "Yes, always that," retorted the boy, and Piers Minor burst into a laugh. "You are a bold one," he said, half admiringly. "Well, I will tell him; I promise you that. And now what am I to do with you?" The boy made a grimace. "We may part as we have met, with no one the wiser." "I am not so sure of that," said the other, suspiciously. "You are a Doomsman, and you know me to be a Stockader--a spy, if you like. If it were for myself alone I might trust you, but so much may hang----" He stopped abruptly and his eyes darkened. "The only sure way lies at my knife-point." He scanned intently the face which paled before his gaze, yet changed not in the smallest line. "Good!" said Piers Minor, heartily. "Although, indeed, I could never have done it. Yet I must bind and gag you," he added. The boy pouted. "No; I will not have you touch me." He tried by a sudden movement to slip under Piers Minor's detaining hand. The shock displaced his cap, a fastening gave way at the same instant, and a mass of long, black hair tumbled down upon the youth's shoulders. Even then Piers Minor, being of masculine slow wit, might not have guessed the truth but for a bright blush that overspread brow and cheek, a confession that even his dull senses could not misinterpret. "A woman!" he said, confusedly, and blushed as unrestrainedly in his turn. Beholding his embarrassment, Nanna was relieved of her own. "You will have to trust me, you see," she said, coldly. The abashed Piers Minor murmured an indistinct assent. "And you will not forget my message?" "No, no! He shall have it at the earliest possible moment." "Very good--it is understood, then. Now you may go." Piers Minor had not a word to say. He had been meditating upon a thousand possible explanations, excuses, apologies, and his tongue would not utter one of them. He accepted his orders meekly, but as he turned to go he managed to stammer out, "Of course--to meet again." Nanna, to her own infinite amazement, answered with a look that meant yes, and knew that he had not failed to so understand it. As she walked over to the Citadel Square she could feel that he was standing where she had left him and looking after her. She would have turned to fittingly rebuke behavior so indecorous, but something told her that her insulted dignity would be better saved by removing it to a greater distance. Nanna entered the Citadel Square after some parley with the sentinels on the walls, who grumbled at the trouble to which they were put to let down a rope-ladder; but, being a daughter of the Doomsmen, she could not be denied. A little crowd of women and elderly men gathered about an ox-cart in the centre of the square attracted her attention. They were listening to a speaker who, standing upright in the wagon-body, was haranguing them earnestly. Nanna recognized him--Prosper, the priest.