"How of the Christian host and this my hearth-friend?" laughed Olvir. "I pledge myself to eat of the same dish, if the fare is savory."
"It is well. There will be room for all at Hardrat's board. Now I go before you," replied the woman, and, wrapping her grey cloak about her, she glided out into the night.
Olvir watched her go, and then he turned gravely to his companion.
"I would speak out my inmost thought," he said. "Could youth come again to my host, would he choose for the second time to wed with a worker of spells?"
"It is five and twenty years since, in the land beyond the Sorb country, the Wend chief's daughter cut free the withes which bound me, and fled away at my side. I have never since had cause to grieve that we plighted troth on the Saale bank. I do not lay it upon her that she has now brought us an ill boding."
"Nor I. She is but the tidings-bearer."
"Bitter tidings!" growled Rudulf, and he began to whet his sword.
CHAPTER XX
Strife and din in the hall,
Cups smitten asunder;