The asking had become a matter of necessity by the time she found anyone capable of answering the question. Three foreign merchants whom she overtook near noon could give her no information, and she covered the next five miles without seeing a living creature; then it was only a beggar, who crawled out of the bushes to offer to sell the child beside him for a crust of bread. The petition brought back to Randalin her own famished condition so sharply that her answer was unnecessarily petulant, and the man disappeared before the question could even be put to him. Two miles more, and nothing was in front of her but a flock of ragged blackbirds circling over a trampled wheat-field. Already the sun’s round chin rested on the crest of the farthest hill. In desperation, she turned aside and galloped after a mailed horseman who was trotting down a clover-sweet lane with a rattle and clank that frightened the robins from the hedges. He reined in with a guffaw when he saw what mettle of blade it was that had accosted him. “Is it your intention to join the army?” he inquired. “Canute will consider himself in great luck.” “I am desirous to—to tell him something,” Red Cloak faltered. His grin vanishing, the man leaned forward alertly. “Is it war news? Of Edric Jarl’s men?” Before her tongue could move, Randalin’s surprised face had answered. The warrior smote his thigh resoundingly. “You will be able to tell us tidings we wish to know. Since the fight this morning we have been allowed to do no more than growl at the English dogs across the plain, because it was held unadvisable to make an onset until the Jarl’s men should increase our strength. It is to be hoped they are not far behind?” “You make a mistake,” Randalin began hesitatingly. “My news does not concern the doings of Edric Jarl, but the actions of his man Norman—” A blow across her lips silenced her. “Hold your tongue until you come in to the Chief,” the man admonished her, with good-humored severity. “Have you not learned that babbling turns to ill, you sprouting twig? And waste no more time upon the road, either. Yonder is your shortest way, up that lane between the barley. When you come to a burned barn, do you turn to the left and ride straight toward the woods; it should happen that an old beech stock stands where you come out. Take then the path that winds up-hill, and it will bring you to the war booths before you can open your foolish mouth thrice. Trolls! what a cub to send a message by! But get along, now; you will suffer from their temper if they think it likely that you have kept them waiting.” He gave the horse a stinging slap upon the flank, that sent him forward like a shaft from a bow.