To her surprise, his gravity deepened almost to horror. “Love-token!” he repeated; and suddenly he laid his hands on her shoulders and forced her gently to give him eye for eye. “Randalin, if I comply with you in this matter, will you answer me a question? Answer with such care as though your life—nay, as though my life depended on it?”
“Willingly; more than one,” she consented; but forgot to wait for it as a memory, wakened by his words, stirred in her. “Now it is time for me to remember that there is one thing I have not been altogether truthful about, through forgetting,—about the Danes we have seen. I recall now that last winter Teboen often saw one when she was gathering herbs in the wood. She spoke with him of the magic things she brews to make Elfgiva sleep, and he gave her herbs which she thought so useful that she has been fretful because she has not seen him since—”
Unconsciously, the young soldier’s hands tightened on her shoulders until she winced. “You know with certainty that she has never seen him since?” he demanded,—“that Danes had naught to do with the last token Elfgiva sent through the scullion? You can swear to it?”
“Certainly, if they speak the truth, I know it,” she answered wonderingly. “How should Danes—why, Sebert, what ails you?”
For he had let go her shoulders as abruptly as he had seized them, and walked away to the window that looked out upon the rain-washed garden. After a moment’s hesitation, she stole after him. “Sebert, my love, what is it? Trouble is in your mind, there is little use to deny it. Dearwyn says it concerns me, but I know that it is no less than the King. Dear one, it seems strange that you cannot disclose your mind to me as well as to—Fridtjof.”
It was the first time, in their brief meetings together, that she had spoken that name, and his smile answered. Even while his lips admitted a trouble, his manner put it aside. “You are right that it concerns the King, my elf. Sometimes the work he assigns me is neither easy nor pleasant to accomplish. Yet without any blame to him, most warlike maiden, for—”
But she would not be prevented from saying stern things of her royal guardian, so at last he let her finish the subject, and stood pressing her hands upon his breast, his eyes resting dreamily on her face.
When she had finished, he said slowly, “Sweeting, because my mind is laboring under so many burdens that my wits are even duller than they are wont, will you not have the patience to answer one question that is not clear to me? Do you think it troublesome to tell me why it was that you said, that day in the garden—Now shake off that look, dearest; never will we speak of it again if it is not to your wish! Tell me what you meant by saying that you came into Canute’s camp because you had too much faith in Rothgar, if you despise him—since you despise him so?”
Her eyes met his wonderingly. “By no means could I have said that, lord. When I left home, I knew not that Rothgar lived. The one in whom I had too much faith was the King. Because I was young and little experienced, I thought him a god; and when I came to his camp and found him a man, I thought only to escape from him. That was why I wore those clothes, Sebert—not because I liked so wild a life. That is clear to you, is it not?”
He did not appear to hear her last words at all. He was repeating over and over, “The King, the King!” Suddenly he said, “Then I got that right, that it was he who summoned me to Gloucester to make sure that you had kept your secret from me also?—that he was angry with you for deceiving him?”