Sebert smiled his satisfaction as the sandals pattered away. He had foreseen this interval of waiting, indeed, he had timed his arrival to gain it,—and it was his design to put it to good use. While he swallowed what he wanted of the wafers and wine which were brought him, he took measure of the reverend servitor, with the result that, as he set down the goblet, he ventured a question.
“From the numbers and heaps of attendants I saw in the outer courts, holy brother, it appears that this season of peace has in no way lessened the tax on your generosity. Is rumor right in declaring the Danish King to be one of the guests of your bounty?”
Either it was the agreeable presence of the young noble which relaxed the Benedictine’s austerity, or else the fact that Sebert had left half his wine in his cup. The holy man answered with unwonted readiness.
“Rumor, which is the mother of lies, has given birth to one truth, noble stranger. The King whom a chastening Providence has set over the northern half of the Island, has been our guest for the space of four weeks,—together with the gold-bought English woman who is known as his ‘Danish wife.’” The monk’s watery eyes were rolled upward in pious disapproval, before he turned them earthward with a sigh of resignation. “Nevertheless, it is the will of Heaven,—and he is very open-handed with lands and gold when his meals please him.” He cast a thirsty glance toward the half-filled goblet which Sebert was absently fingering. “If you have eagerness for a sight of him, you have but to walk through the galleries until you come to the garden in which he is fleeting his time with his women.”
“Now I think I should like to take a look at him while I am waiting,” the Etheling assented, rising gravely. “Should Edmund be the first to pay the debt of nature, which God avert! the Dane will become my King also. Is it this door that commands the cloister?”
“The door on your left,” the monk corrected; and shuffled away lest some envious chance should snatch the cup from him before his thirsty throat could close on the sweet remnant.
At the moment that he was making sure of his booty in the safe darkness of a passage, the Lord of Ivarsdale was pursuing his object along the chill enclosure of the gallery. The November sunlight that, unsoftened by any filter of rich-tinted glass, fell coldly upon the worn stone, showed the carrels beneath the windows to be one and all deserted by their monkish occupants, and he strode along unhampered by curious eye or ear.
“After all this luck,” he congratulated himself, “it will go hard with me if I do not either stumble on the youngling himself, or someone who can give me news of him.”
He had no more than thought it, when the sound reached him of a door closing somewhere along the next side of the square, followed by the clank of spurred feet coming heavily toward him. As they drew nearer, the rattle of a sword also became audible. Lifting his eyebrows dubiously, the Etheling grasped his own weapon beneath his cloak.
When the feet had brought their owner around the corner into sight, he did not feel that his motion had been a mistaken one, for the man who was advancing was Rothgar Lodbroksson. It flashed through Sebert’s mind that the old cniht’s forebodings had not been without cause, and that Ivarsdale was in danger of changing masters by a process much quicker than a month’s siege. He stared in amazement when the Dane, instead of flashing out his blade, stopped short with a burst of jeering laughter.