IV
SEVEN days and seven nights, then, the stranger abode in the city. Every day he held speech with Runa, both in the great hall, with the ladies and the knights, and privately. Much he told her concerning the kingdom and the King, and she showed him all the wealth and power of her city. But when she bade him speak of himself, he would answer, “I am nothing without the King,” and would say no more of himself, so that she was full of wonder about him, and pondered more and more as to who he was and whence he came. And meanwhile the King’s army lay idle in its tents and made no assault on the ramparts.
At last, on the third day, she said to him: “Tell me why the King your master leaves all his great kingdom and makes war on my poor city?”
“The King,” he answered, “makes war that peace may come, and union, and power. In three years he has brought peace to all the kingdom. This city alone is left, a foe set among friends, disobedient among the obedient, a weakness amidst that which is strong. Without the kingdom the city is nothing, and without the city the kingdom is feeble.”
Runa knit her brows and heard him in silence. But after a while she said:
“Had the King sent an embassy to me with these words, it may be that I should have listened. But he sent me only a summons to surrender.”
The next day she sent for him again and said: “If I give up my city and submit myself to the King, what am I then—I who was Runa of Or?”
“You will be high in the King’s counsel and in his love,” he answered.
“I do not covet the King’s love,” said Runa, knitting her brows again.
“You do not know what it is, madam,” he said softly.
On the fifth day she sent for him again, and privately, and said to him:
“If I give up my city and submit myself to the King, and there is peace in the kingdom such as there has not been since the day my father Count Theobald ruled in Or, what will the King do?”
“He will enrich the kingdom, and make it fair and secure it against all foes.”
“And what will you do?” she asked.
“I shall be by the King’s side,” he answered, “if by chance I can give him good counsel.”
“And he will reward you with high honour?”
“All honour is at once mine if I read the riddle,” he replied.
“You have not read it?”
“I seek to read it in your eyes,” he answered boldly, and Runa turned her glance away from him, lest he should read the riddle there.
On the seventh day, in the evening, she sent for him again in secret, unknown to any of her knights or ladies. The great hall in which she sat alone was dimly lighted; only her face, her fair hair, and her rich robe of white gleamed from the gloom. He came and stood before her.
“To-morrow at sunrise,” she said, “I must deliver you to the King your master according to our agreement. What gift do you carry in your hand to turn his wrath into favour?”
“If I do not bear in my hand the keys of the citadel, I bear nothing,” he answered.
There fell a long silence between them, and the great hall was marvellously still. The stranger drew very near to Countess Runa and stood by the arm of her high chair.
“Madam, farewell,” he said.
She looked up at him and murmured softly: “Farewell.”
“Yet we shall meet again.”
“When?” she asked, with lips just parted and eyes that strained to see his face.
“In a day’s time, outside the ramparts.”
“Outside the ramparts?”
“Yes.” He knelt before her and kissed her hand. “The citadel of the city is the heart of its mistress,” he said.
She rose suddenly to her feet and would have spoken, but he raised his hand to impose silence on her. With one long look he turned away and left her alone, standing under the emblazoned window, through which one ray of moonlight caught her fair hair and illumined it.
She stood with clasped hands, her eyes still set on the door by which he had gone out.
“My heart knows its lord,” she whispered. “I have been speaking with my King.”