She did not stop when Canute’s voice called after her,—not until she had reached the entrance, and the rattle of crossing spears, without, had told her that her way was barred. Then she whirled back with a sharp cry. “Let me go! I hate you! Let me go!” He did not bid his guards kill her, as she half expected. Instead, he said patiently, “I foresaw that you would take it ill; there is the greatest excuse for you. In your place I should be equally unruly. Indeed, there is a likeness about our luck, which causes my heart to go out to you as it has done to no one else. I will grant your boon in time to come; so sure as I live, I will. And until then, since all your stock has been cut off, I will be your guardian and you shall be my ward, as though you were my own brother. Come, sit here, and I will tell you.” She repulsed him sharply. “No, no, you shall do nothing for me! I am going back. I ask you to let me go.” “Let you go, to starve under a hedge?” “I shall not starve; Avalcomb is mine.” “What food will that put in your mouth, since Leofwinesson has conquered it and driven out your servants and set his own in their place?” Her heart sickened within her. Once more the impulse came to creep away, like a wounded animal, and fight it out alone. She turned again to the door. “I will starve, then. Let me go.” Leaning at his ease in the great chair, the young King regarded his ward thoughtfully. “It is not possible that the son of Frode the Fearless should be a coward,” he said at last; “but you are over-peevish, boy. That you have never known government is easily seen. Listen now to the truth of the matter. If you were a maiden, it would be easy for me to—Are you listening?” He paused, for the slim figure had suddenly become so statue-like that he suspected it of plotting another attack upon the door. The boy answered very low, “Yes, Lord King, I am listening.” Canute went on again: “I say that if you were a maiden,—if you were your sister, to tell it shortly,—I could easily dispose of you in marriage. Thus would you get protection, and your father’s castle would gain a strong arm to fight for it. I would wed you to my foster-brother, Rothgar Lodbroksson, and thus bring good to both of—Are you finding fault with that also?” But the lad stood before him like a stone. If a faint cry had come from him, it was not repeated; and there was nothing offensive about a hidden face and shaking limbs. The King continued more gently: “But since you were so simple as to be born a boy, such good luck is not to be expected. It is the best that I can do to offer you to become my ward and follow me as my page, until the sword’s game has decided between me and Edmund of England. But I do not know where your ambition is if that does not content you. There are lads in Denmark who would give their tongues for the chance. What say you, Fridtjof the Bold?”