An armored figure astride a great war-hengist was leading the charge. Even without hearing that lovely voice crying its challenge, Alfric would have known her. He sprang forward, crying out, and seized the bridle, pulling her aside just as the gate defense broke and the attackers burst into the Temple. "I told you to stay in a safe place!" he raged. Huge and bloodsmeared, his lean face painted red by the rising fires, his eyes like green ice in the moonlight, he stood looking up at her. Hildaborg laughed. "You're still a poor fool, Alfric," she said. "Could I stay at home while you were fighting for me?" She took off her helmet. Her dark hair streamed down over his face as she leaned forward to kiss him. In the sky, Dannos swept past Amaris and swung eastward toward the horizon. * * * * * Dawn came, chill and gray, full of weariness and the sobbing of women. Alfric stood leaning on a spear, atop the flat roof of Bronnes the merchant, and looked out over the city. A leather cloak hung from his broad shoulders against the thin bitter dawn-wind. His face was drawn into bleak lines. To him came Hildaborg, lovely in the cold colorless light, her unbound locks floating in the breeze. He looked at her in a vague wonder as to how many women she really was. The passionate lover of the tavern, the haughty queen who had faced the captive guard and the captor priest, the wild war-goddess of the battle--and now this girl, slim and fair and mysterious, with wind-cooled cheeks and a secret laughter behind her eyes--which was the real one? Or were they all Hildaborg? And would he ever know? She touched his arm. "We've won," she whispered. "Aye--won," said Alfric tiredly. "Won what? The Temple is down, but so is the palace, and there's still riot and looting in the city." "It will pass. Victory was dearly bought, but now it is ours. And you, Alfric, are ruler of Valkarion." "I--a heathen outlander?" "After last night, the Household and the guards will follow you to hell and back. And the rest--" she smiled shyly--"will follow me, who follow you myself." "A big task. Too big, perhaps, for the son of an Aslakan peasant." Alfric smiled crookedly down at Hildaborg. "Tis more for you, who are born a queen. Best I continue my travels." "The queen," she said firmly, "needs a king. You have come to the end of your wandering, Alfric." She laughed, a clear beautiful sound in the quiet morning. "You have no choice, my dear. The Sibyl grudgingly admits that the Fortieth Dynasty, 'sons of the heathen,' will be among the greatest. But how can you have sons without--" Alfric grinned. "I surrender," he said. "Who am I to challenge the Fates?" Down in the street a hengist, escaped from his owner in the rioting, whinnied his greeting to the early sun. End of Project Gutenberg's The Virgin Of Valkarion, by Poul Anderson