Randalin thrust the sobs back from her throat; the tears back from her eyes. Only a clear head could deliver her out of the snare. She began slowly: “Leofwinesson set upon him last night, at the gate of the castle, and slew him. The Englishman had long been covetous of Avalcomb, so that even his fear of you was not so great as his greed. He had five-and-fifty men, and my father but twelve—besides me; he—we—had just come in from hunting. Then he rode over my father’s body into the castle.” She stopped uncertainly to glance at her listener. The brightness of his eyes startled her, though they were not turned in her direction. They were blazing down into the cup that he was turning and pinching between his fingers. He said, half as though to himself: “Vermin! What would I give if I might take them in my teeth and shake them like the filth-fed rats they are! Ten hundred such do not reach the value of one finger of a warrior like Frode! I knew that the fetters of Thorkel’s craftiness would pinch me some-where—” He broke off and flung the goblet from him, burying his hands in his yellow hair. “How I hate them!” he breathed between his teeth. “How I hate their smooth-tongued Jarl, and all their treacherous hides! Oh, for the day when I no longer need their aid; when I am free to strike!” The joy of his face was a terrible thing to hold in one’s memory. Perhaps he saw its awfulness reflected in the wide blue eyes, for he checked himself abruptly. When he spoke again, he had himself well in hand. “I act like a fool to let you hear my ravings. Poor cub! it is likely you will call me a worse name when you find out how I am hindered! Yet go on and tell me the rest. How comes it that you escaped unharmed?” With Gram’s experience to follow, it was not hard to frame that answer. “They knocked me on the head with a spear-butt and left me for dead. When I got my senses again, I found my way to the nuns of St. Mildred’s; and they gave me food, and I rode hither.” “It is the Troll’s luck! I—yet, go on. The day will come! Did they further harm within the castle? Have you women-kin?” Randalin hesitated. Would it not be safer if she could deny altogether the existence of a daughter of Frode? But no, that was not possible, in the face of what Norman might reveal. She began very, very carefully: “It happened that my mother died before we came to Avalcomb; and my father had but one daughter. She was called Randalin. I did not see what became of her, for I was outside; but I think that she is dead. A—her thrall-woman told me that Leofwinesson pursued her to a chamber in the wall. And and because she could not escape from him—she—she threw herself from the window, and the stones below caused her death.”