"Note carefully the height of the wall, the depth of the ditch, the position of the gates, the number of the tents, the direction of the paths between them, so that you can report everything accurately to me. Now go, and send Zercho the bondman. No, do not ask what I want with him. Obey!"
Adalo left the tent. His heart was throbbing violently. "I shall see her; ransom her! I will give all my property; nay, if necessary, my estate, the land I have inherited--or sell it. But will she desire to be ransomed? Will she not prefer to go with the clever-tongued Italian to his sunny home? And what if he will not release her? Well, then there will at least be one way to bring her forth, known only to the Duke and my father's oldest son."
Fiercely agitated by such thoughts, he sent the bondman, who was crouching beside the fire, to the tent. The slave stood timidly before the mighty soldier.
"How long is it since Suomar bought you?"
"That's hard for Zercho to say. I can hardly count beyond the fingers of both hands, and there are more years than fingers. The little elf was very small then. My master got me cheap, for the Romans had dragged many, many of us as prisoners from the beautiful pastures of the Tibiscus. He exchanged a horse and a net full of fish for me with the dealer over in Vindonissa."
"Suomar has praised you to me. He has never been obliged to flog you."
Zercho made a wry face and rubbed his ear. "Yes, my lord--once."
"And why was that?"
"When I first saw the little elf--she was then a child about seven years old--I thought she was the wood maiden, red Vila, threw myself on the ground and shut my eyes; for whoever sees her is blinded. Then he shouted a word in your language which I have often heard since,--it means an animal with horns,--and struck me. But never afterwards." The slave had uttered all this very rapidly; he was afraid of the Duke, and kept on talking to deaden his fear.
"You are faithful to the young girl?"