h girl's embrace, Dearwyn shivered and nestled closer.
"Randalin, you hear her? She thinks he did it."

"She is a foolish woman," Randalin said impatiently, "and if she do not
take care, she will feel it for speaking so. See how his fingers tap his
belt for all that his face is so still."

His face was curiously still as he regarded the beautiful Elfgiva,--and
stilly curious, as though he were examining some familiar object in a
new light. "You believe then that I had him murdered?" he asked. "And
you find pleasure in believing it?"

"Now it is not murder!" she protested. "When a king kills--in war--"

"But this is not war," he said slowly. Lifting one of the jewelled
braids from her shoulder, he played with it as he studied her. "This is
not war, for I had reconciled myself to him. I had plighted faith with
Edmund Ethelredsson and vowed to avenge his death like a brother."

Her white forehead drew itself into a puzzled frown. "But you were not
so foolish as to swear it on the holy ring were you?" When he did not
answer, she raised her shoulders lightly. "What should I know about such
matters? Have you not told me, many times and oft, that it behooves a
woman to shun meddling with great affairs?"

He gave a short laugh, "And when were you ever before content to follow
that advice?" Letting the braid slip from his fingers, he stood looking
her up and down, his lips curling with scorn. "Yet this was not needful
to show me that the elves felt they had done their full day's work
when they had made you a body," he said. And whether he did not see her
bridling displeasure, or whether he saw and no longer cared to appease
it, the result was the same.

Randalin spoke abruptly to her companion. "Dearwyn, I can tell you
something. Elfgiva will never get the queenship over England."

"What moves you to say that?" the little English girl asked her,
startled.

But Randalin's attention had gone back to the King, who had turned where
the son of Lodbrok waited regarding him over sternly-folded arms.

"Brother," he was saying gravely, "your opinion is powerful with me, so I
will openly tell you that you are wrong in your belief. I was satisfied
with the crown of an under-king, satisfied to pass the time as I had
been doing. Never have I so much as hinted to yonder peace-nithing a
word of harm against Edmund Ironside."

From Thorkel the Tall came one of his rare laughs,--a sound like the
grating of a rusty hinge,--and Rothgar