Her white forehead drew itself into a puzzled frown. “But you were not so foolish as to swear it on the holy ring were you?” When he did not answer, she raised her shoulders lightly. “What should I know about such matters? Have you not told me, many times and oft, that it behooves a woman to shun meddling with great affairs?” He gave a short laugh, “And when were you ever before content to follow that advice?” Letting the braid slip from his fingers, he stood looking her up and down, his lips curling with scorn. “Yet this was not needful to show me that the elves felt they had done their full day’s work when they had made you a body,” he said. And whether he did not see her bridling displeasure, or whether he saw and no longer cared to appease it, the result was the same. Randalin spoke abruptly to her companion. “Dearwyn, I can tell you something. Elfgiva will never get the queenship over England.” “What moves you to say that?” the little English girl asked her, startled. But Randalin’s attention had gone back to the King, who had turned where the son of Lodbrok waited regarding him over sternly-folded arms. “Brother,” he was saying gravely, “your opinion is powerful with me, so I will openly tell you that you are wrong in your belief. I was satisfied with the crown of an under-king, satisfied to pass the time as I had been doing. Never have I so much as hinted to yonder peace-nithing a word of harm against Edmund Ironside.” From Thorkel the Tall came one of his rare laughs,—a sound like the grating of a rusty hinge,—and Rothgar unfolded his arms to fling them out in angry rejection. “This is useful to learn!” he sneered. “Do you think I could not guess that you had no need to put your desire into words after you had shown Edric by your actions that your mind and his are one, after you had admitted by your bond with him that you hold the same curious belief about honor?” This time it was Randalin who clutched the English girl. “Oh!” she gasped. For Canute’s eyes were less like eyes than holes through which light was pouring, while his fingers opened and shut as though he had forgotten his sword and would leap upon the scoffer with bare hands. Thorkel left off laughing to grasp the Jotun’s arm and try to drag him backwards. “Do you want to drive it from his mind that he has loved you? Go hide yourself in Fenrir’s mouth!” But the King did not spring upon his foster-brother. Even as they looked, the fire went out in his eyes, spark by spark, until they were lustreless as ashes, and at last he put up his hand and wiped great drops from his forehead. “Never had you the keenness to father that judgment,” he said in a strangely dull voice. “It must be that a god spoke through your mouth.” Leaving them, he moved forward to the well and stood gazing into it, his fingers mechanically raking together and crushing the dead leaves that had fluttered down upon the curbing.