Dearwyn’s pretty lips began to quiver with approaching tears. “Randalin, I am miserably terrified. The air feels as though awful things were about to happen.” “It seems that the world has begun to fall to pieces everywhere,” Randalin said wearily. The momentary forgetfulness which the happenings around her had created was beginning to give way before the weight in her breast. She drew herself up listlessly. “Is it of any use to remain up here, Dearwyn?” But Dearwyn’s grasp had tightened. “See! the King is beginning to speak.” Whom he was addressing was not quite clear even though he had turned back to the group of nobles, for his eyes still gazed into space, but his words sounded distinctly: “Heavy is it to lose faith in others, but heavier still to lose faith in one’s self... I know that no word of mine urged Edric to this deed, but what my eyes may have said, or some trick of my voice or my face, is not so sure... It may be that I wanted this thing to happen without knowing it. When I see what it has brought me, I cannot understand how I could help wanting it... It is true that I do not always know for certain what I have at heart.” His eyes came back from space to rest musingly on Elfgiva. “When I began this feasting-time, I thought I had grasped heaven with my hands, but now—” he spread out his fingers and released the little bunch of dead leaves that he had been rolling against his palm—“now I let not this go from me more easily... You see that a man is not sure even of his own mind.” Again his head was sinking on his breast, when he raised it with a fierceness that startled them. “One thing only I am sure of, and that is that I have done forever with craft. Hereafter, if a man is a hindrance to me, Rothgar’s axe shall send him to Hel while it is broad daylight and all his friends are looking. Such is my luck with craft as though I had grasped a viper by the tail, in the belief that I had seized its snout... I have been finely treated... Not only have I been betrayed by all of you who have thought such thoughts of me, but now some troll has got into me and turned me false to myself so that I cannot give you punishment for your treason! Certainly the gods must think this crown of great value since, before they give it to me, they take from me all that I have thought my happiness, and rob me of my honor as well!” He dashed his fist against the tree beside him and did not seem to feel it when his hand was bleeding. “Here I take oath that they shall cause their gift to prove its value! It shall be meat and drink to me, and honor and life itself. Many happenings shall spring from this gift, for I will put my whole strength into the holding of it; Odin himself shall not wrest it from me! I will be such a king that there will not be many to equal me; such a king that they will wish they had given me happiness and left me a man.”