"You do wrong to heed the ungrateful slanderers. The court is full of gossip and evil tales, the offspring of envy and malice."
"Then my lord king has not yet broken the betrothal tie between myself and his daughter?"
"Not yet, Olvir," replied Karl, and the severity of his look relaxed in a half-smile. "The bond still holds. Yet tell me, you who talk of ill faith--I speak no more of your plot to lure away the maiden; but how of your loyal service? You are far from the Sorb Mark."
"I bear tidings from the forest land, lord king,--ill tidings," answered Olvir, and he told over again the plotting of the Thuringians and the slaying of Rudulf and his witch-wife.
Neither Alcuin nor Rothada could restrain their cries at the terse recital; but Karl sat through it all, stern and silent, and gave no sign, even when, in a dozen words, Olvir told how the grim old count had fallen to the thrust of Hardrat's spear. When, however, the account was ended, the king nodded, and said: "Years gone, I lost my trust in that drunkard. Name his fellow-plotters."
"Would that I might, lord king! Yet I knew only Hardrat and the witch-wife, and I heard no names spoken."
"You would know their faces again?"
"Some of them in a thousand."
"It is well. You have rendered me good service; and so, if you will bend to Holy Church--"
"I cannot--it would be a lie!"