, I think I need give myself no further uneasiness. It must be
that I am very like Fridtjof in looks. It may be that it would not be
unadvisable now for me to ask advice of the next person how I can come
to the camp."

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 rid