"How's this, lad?" demanded Olvir. "You stand gaping, doleful as a bee-stung cub. God forbid that you bear ill tidings of our lord king!"
"I bear ill tidings, not of our lord king, but from him," answered Gerold; and he turned appealingly to Liutrad. "I cannot tell them! I cannot say it!"
"Speak! Speak out, man!" commanded Olvir, fiercely.
"Sea-king,--king's son! here is fit ending for your seven years of service. Now are you wolfshead throughout the length and breadth of the Frank realm,--you and all your following! You shall sail down Rhine Stream so soon as you can ride to Cologne. Worad rides after, to hunt you from the realm. If within an hour you have not left Attigny, your head shall pay for the loitering. Such is the command of Karl, King of the Franks, to the hero who has served him as a king's son--a king's son!"
Gerold paused, the words choking in his throat with grief and anger, and Olvir and Liutrad stood before him speechless, stunned by his message. But Rothada slipped from her horse and ran to Olvir.
"Ah, Christ!" she moaned. "My hero outlawed!"
"The king your father has named him wolfshead, maiden," answered Gerold, and then his voice broke into plaintive appeal. "Why did you slay the old leech, Olvir? Why strike the greybeard? At the least, you should have taken your knife with you. Where were your nimble wits? But for the witness of the reddened blade--"
"Hold! Are you mad?" cried Olvir. "You babble of knives and slain men like a fool."
"Would that it were so, friend! But your knife, the ill-omened blade! With my own hand I plucked it from the heart of the luckless Magian."
"How--my knife? None the less, it is a foul lie. I gave the blade long since to this dear one on my breast, and last night I placed it again in her hand, unused, when I spurned the cowering leech. Why should I slay the spy, when I was even then going with my betrothed to stand before her father? There would be nothing to betray."