"You are awake, boy!" he said, somewhat sternly.
I nodded up to him without speaking.
"What would you with the little maid?" he said. "Do you know that you and she together came very near losing me my favor with the Duke, and it might be my life also, both at one time to-night?"
I put my hand on the maiden's head where it lay on the pillow by me.
"She is my little wife!" I said. "The Duke gave her to me out in the court-yard there!"
And this is the whole tale of how the Little Playmate came to dwell with us in the Red Tower.
CHAPTER III
THE RED AXE OF THE WOLFMARK
Just as clearly do I remember the next morning. The Little Playmate lay by me on my bed, wrapped in one of my childish night-gowns—which old Hanne had sought out for her the night before. It was a brisk, chill, nippy daybreak, and I had piled most of the bedclothes upon her. I lay at the nether side clipped tight in my single brown blanket. It was perishing cold. Out of the heaped coverings I saw presently a pair of eyes, great and dark, regarding me.
Then a little voice spoke, sweetly and clearly, but yet strangely sounding to me who had never before heard a babe speak.