"Love, if already he does not love another."
"Another? Then I am safe! He will come back--he will come back to me! Give me the spell-stone, leech--now! A day may lose all! I swear to befriend you!"
"I do not doubt, maiden. But the ring is in your own land,--at Metz on the Moselle, pledged to a Jew trader, Yusuf Ben Israel. It is a heavy debt,--four ounces of gold."
"I will pay it gladly for such a ring. Here is what will win the spell-stone from the greedy Jew. Ai! you may well eye the bright clasp. It was my first gift from him!"
Olvir sprang up from his seat on the battlement as though stung.
"Loki!" he muttered. "The witch's daughter thinks to creep back into my heart with the aid of spells and evil craft. I have wasted my pity. Sooner would I cherish an adder than that fair-faced werwolf."
He turned to descend out of ear-shot of the sibilant voice, only to pause as it pierced the air in a hissing whisper: "Hist, leech! Some one mounts the other tower. Let us go down."
"The trolls flee before the light-elf!" murmured Olvir, and he stepped forward, smiling, as Rothada sprang gaily into view up the last steps of the narrow stairway. In a moment she was beside him, her face raised for his greeting. But when, instead of kissing her forehead, Olvir bent to her lips, she drew back with a startled look, and a faint blush crept into her cheeks.
Never had the little maiden appeared so winsome as when she stood thus, half shrinking before him, overcome by a shyness whose source was a mystery to her child mind. In her play with the pages, she had dressed herself in a Saracen woman's street costume, several of which had been found in the citadel. Swathed from head to foot in the uncouth gown, with her face framed about by the brown folds, she appeared for all the world like a spring blossom just bursting from its dull husk. Olvir was quick to see the resemblance.
"By Ostara, little maid!" he exclaimed; "had I come upon you so out in the woodland, I 'd have fancied you the elf of the violets. Surely no flower-elf could be more winsome!"