"'I wondered,' he said in his soft voice, 'if you'd like to see the thing in my book that made your friend Schaefer so anxious to leave my room.'
"I assured him that I did not. He smiled and came in, all uninvited.
"Then he spoke, briefly but very clearly, about certain things he hoped to do, and about how he needed a helper. He said that I might be that helper. I made no reply, but he knew that I would not refuse.
"He ordered me to kneel, and I did. Then he showed me how to put my hands together and set them between his palms. The oath I took was the medieval oath of vassalage. And I have kept my oath from that day to this."
Davidson abruptly strode back along the way to the lodge. He stopped at half a dozen paces' distance.
"Maybe I'd better get along," he suggested. "You two may want to think and talk about what I have said, and my advice not to get in Varduk's way."
With that he resumed his departure, and went out of sight without once looking back again.
10. That Evening
Judge Pursuivant and I remained sitting on the roadside bank until Davidson had completely vanished around a tree-clustered bend of the way. Then my companion lifted a heavy walking-boot and tapped the dottle from his pipe against the thick sole.