ll me."

He sighed, and his face fell.

"I have heard that the Christian folk hold most precious such robes
as are marked with the blood of one who has died for his faith. Are
you sure that this robe is not such an one?"

"I know it is not. The queen made it new for the coronation."

He was silent for a while, looking on the ground and shifting his
foot in the dust, and some fear rose in my mind as to what he would
tell me.

"Eh, well," he said, sighing again, "mayhap the sun was in my eyes
before I looked on him."

"Is it the second sight again, Erling?" I asked in a low voice, for
that was what I feared.

"Ay. Methought I saw that royal robe all spotted with blood as he
sat in it."

"What does that portend?" I said.

He lifted his eyes slowly to mine, and answered, "Why need you
ask?"

I did not answer him, for, in truth, I only asked with a half hope
that he might have some other interpretation of this portent than
that of violent death, which seemed the plain meaning of it--that
is, if he saw aught, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. I tried
to think that his glance had met the sun for a moment before he
looked on the king; but I could not think it, for in the hall was
no chance thereof. And then he spoke again slowly, with his eyes
still on the ground.

"Thrond, who is my uncle, saw the same on the mail of my father not
long before he fell. He said at that time that so it had often been
in our family; but this has not come to me until I came here. I had
no second sight up to this time."

"It is sent for some reason, therefore," said I. "Now, is it
possible to avert the doom which seems written?"

He shook his head. "I have never heard so," he answered.

"Yet the king does not seem fey," said I, "and there is no man in
all this land who would harm him. Ah, maybe you saw the robe as of
a saint, because all men hold him most saintly!"

"May it he so," he answered. "You are Christian folk, and it may
mean that; I will hope it does. How should a heathen man know what
is for you? Over you the Norns may have no power. Pay no heed to
me."

"No," said I. "We ride to Offa with the king in a few days, and if
you and I have fears for him, there are two who will watch him
carefully. That is why the sight has come to you, I think. There is
danger, and we may meet it."

Thereat he cheered up, for the thought of facing a peril heartened
him. His heathen fear of fate was enough to make any man downcast