"Ask it then," said Marius, his eyes on her, "in the right and proper way that a wife should ask her husband."
Rose-leaf color flushed her cheeks; she raised herself to her knees amid the draperies of the couch, and clasped her folded hands upon her breast, and closed her eyes, devout and meek and holy.
"Pray thee, let Wardo go, my lord!" she said softly, and opened her eyes quickly to see how he might take it. "Is it thus thou wouldst have me ask?"
He bent his head, sudden laughter in his eyes, and kissed her pleading lips.
"Who could resist thee, lady mine?" he cried gayly. "Sure never did unworthy man have so fair a lawyer. Ay, child, if he saved thy life—and thy account and his do tally—he shall go free."
Varia slipped out of his arms and clapped her hands.
"Go then—go quickly and tell my lord father so! He will do it for thee, as thou hast done it for me. Is it not so?"
So it came to pass that evening that the cross in the chamber of fate knew not its victim; and for this there were more reasons than a girl's tender wiles.
For while the flame of sunset again stabbed the dusk of night, came men out from the Wood of Anderida, fifteen miles away, some on foot and some on horseback, with at their head the red Wulf, astride a great bay horse. Wardo, from his station on the roofs, saw them from far off; saw also that many as they had been the night before, they were now fivefold more, an army bent on plunder, captained by lawlessness. And still no aid had come. Wardo told Marius, and Marius went up on the roofs to see, and came back square of jaw and with moody eyes. He sought out Eudemius, where the latter was going the rounds of their makeshift defences, and said:
"This red hound of hell hath come back upon us and brought his pack, five times as many as before. Thou knowest I am not one to turn tail when there is fighting to be done, but I can see what is to be seen. And we have women and children with us."