A King's Comrade: A Story of Old Hereford

by Charles W. Whistler

"I do not know," she answered, glancing round her. "She has said that she would fain keep me here. What she says she means, mostly."

"Then," said I boldly, "I shall have to come and take you away myself."

Whereon she laughed a little, but did not seem displeased at the thought.

"Stay," I said. "You have that arrowhead I gave you?"

"An I have not lost it. I will search."

"Send it me if you need my help," I said; "then naught shall hinder me from coming to you."

"Spoken paladin-wise," she answered, laughing at me. "Mayhap that bit of flint shall chase you round Wessex in vain, and meanwhile the ogre will have devoured me."

But she set her white hand on my arm for a moment, as if in thanks. Then she started and looked at me in the face wonderingly. She felt the steel.

"Wilfrid," she whispered, "why do you wear mail under your tunic?"

I told her plainly; otherwise it would have surely seemed that it was a niddering sort of habit of mine, and unworthy of a warrior in a king's friendly hall. And there was no laughter in her fair face as she heard, but fear for me. Like Erling, she seemed to see peril around us.