“And failing that?” said Runa, smiling.
“Leave to abide here for a while, in the hope that by my own wit I may discover the meaning.”
The knights laughed and murmured scornfully, but the ladies, on whom the stranger’s appearance had made no small impression, sighed sadly, as though it were lamentable to hear a personable brave man ask such foolish things. But Runa sank her head in thought. When she raised her eyes she met those of the stranger fixed full on her. They gleamed blue and keen. A faint flush rose on Runa’s cheek—or was it a red light from the painted window over her head?
“Seven days and seven nights you may abide here,” she said, “but on condition that at the end of that time my officers deliver you to your King again. If by then you have read the riddle, it will be good for the King and for you. But if you have not read it, let it be evil for you as for him—evil unto death. How say you?”
“I accept the condition, and I will abide,” said the stranger.
Runa signed that he should be led forth. “And leave me alone, all of you,” she said.
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.”