"I know it is not. The queen made it new for the coronation."
He was silent for a while, looking on the ground and shifting his foot in the dust, and some fear rose in my mind as to what he would tell me.
"Eh, well," he said, sighing again, "mayhap the sun was in my eyes before I looked on him."
"Is it the second sight again, Erling?" I asked in a low voice, for that was what I feared.
"Ay. Methought I saw that royal robe all spotted with blood as he sat in it."
"What does that portend?" I said.
He lifted his eyes slowly to mine, and answered, "Why need you ask?"
I did not answer him, for, in truth, I only asked with a half hope that he might have some other interpretation of this portent than that of violent death, which seemed the plain meaning of it--that is, if he saw aught, and I had no reason to disbelieve him. I tried to think that his glance had met the sun for a moment before he looked on the king; but I could not think it, for in the hall was no chance thereof. And then he spoke again slowly, with his eyes still on the ground.
"Thrond, who is my uncle, saw the same on the mail of my father not long before he fell. He said at that time that so it had often been in our family; but this has not come to me until I came here. I had no second sight up to this time."
"It is sent for some reason, therefore," said I. "Now, is it possible to avert the doom which seems written?"