When Olvir entered the open gateway of the burg, no sign of life was to be seen within, other than the thin streamers of smoke rising through the roof-hole of the hall and the high narrow windows of the keep. Not even a hound ran forward to bay at the stranger. Olvir felt little surprise, however, as it was the hour for the Frankish noon-rest. Seeing that the great red and blue mottled door of the keep was ajar, he sprang off before it, and entered, Zora at his heels.
The intruder at once found himself within a gloomy apartment, only half lighted by the flickering of a small fire. Close by the hearth, on the side nearest to the entrance, crouched a woman, at play with several weasels. She was chanting to them in a tongue unknown to Olvir; and as she droned the refrain, the weasels ran up and down her extended arms.
Olvir caught only a glimpse of the strange play. Before he had ceased blinking from the sudden change out of the sun-glare into the dim-lit interior, the woman had become aware of his presence. A low hiss brought the weasels clustering about her neck, and she glided silently away into the gloom beyond the fire.
"I have known warmer guest-cheer," muttered Olvir; and he advanced to seat himself on the bench beside which the woman had been crouching. As he took the seat he heard a dull grinding on his left, and, looking closer, saw the outlines of a man. He touched the fire with his foot, and the upleaping flames lighted the room with a ruddy flare. It showed to Olvir a grisly warrior, bending over a newly forged sword-blade.
The worker was not unusually big as men went in the North; but he was lean and sinewy, and his bristling grey hair and beard well matched the wolf-hide slung across his shoulders. Except for the fleshy but pointed nose, his face was covered to the eyes by its shaggy beard, and the grey bristles grew low down on his forehead, close upon the overhanging brows. Most startling of all were the man's eyes, long and narrow, and set in oblique sockets. One glance at them was enough to tell Olvir why Count Amalwin had called Rudulf of Thuringia the "Grey Wolf." As he looked and wondered, Olvir's thoughts flew even farther afield, and there came into his mind the memory of Floki's bitter words against this forest hero's daughter. If the father so clearly looked the werwolf, might not the maiden--? But he put the disquieting thought from him, and sat calmly facing the fire.
For a while the silence continued unbroken. Then Count Rudulf flung the sword-blade aside, and turned his slit eyes upon the stranger.
"Guest, or tidings-bearer?" he asked in a harsh voice.
"No guest," replied Olvir.
"What tidings?"
"Word from the king--and more."