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Never, on former days or since, have I so much as kicked one of your little yelping dogs, though I hate them as Stark Otter hated bells." Sunshine through the mist, Elfgiva laughed. "Nay, but you have them drowned when I am not looking," she retorted. He did not take the trouble to deny it; indeed he laughed as though the accusation was especially apt.
The message is brought by Thorkel Jarl, as this has not been done before." "Earl Thorkel?" Elfgiva cried. "By the Saints, it can be nothing less than the token!" She dropped down upon the rustic seat that stood under the green canopy of the old apple tree and sat there a long time, staring at the grass, her cheeks paling and flushing by turns. Presently, she drew a deep breath of relief.
As for my camp-life, ask Rothgar himself, or Elfgiva, or the King or any soldier of the host! Of them all, you alone have thought such thoughts of me." She flung up her hands against him in a kind of heart-broken rage. "You! To whose high-mindedness I trusted everything I have!" Hiding her face, she ran from them, sobbing, into the house.
A break in the middle allowed the party from Gloucester to filter through; then the opening closed behind them; the line bent at either end, and they moved as between walls, guarded against any further jostling or rude contact. Elfgiva sparkled with delight and greeted the Tall One with more affability than she had ever before deigned his gruffness.
Only the old cellarer, herding his gorgeous flock with waving arms, ventured to address her. "Is it the British woman you are enquiring after, lady? The woman who comes to the lane-gate, of a morning, to get new milk for your drinking?" Elfgiva turned quickly. "Yes, Teboen my nurse. Have you seen her?"
The old cellarer, to whose care the birds fell except during those hours when the brethren were free for such indulgences, watched the scene in grinning delight; and Leonorine laughed gaily at them over the armful of tiny bobbing lap-dogs, whose valiant charges she was engaged in restraining. The only person who seemed out of tune with the chiming mirth was the Lady Elfgiva herself.
"Here, lady. What is your need?" To place the speaker Elfgiva raised her head slightly, laughing as she let it sink back. "Watching for him already, and the sun but little past noon? For shame, moppet! Come here." "So please you, I was watching the rain on the roses," Randalin excused herself with a blush as she came forward.
You shall have the rule over my pages and devise games and junketings without end." Humming gayly, she began to weave in the bright berries; and it struck Randalin that here was a good opportunity to make the plea she had in her mind. She said gravely, "I shall be thankful if you are able to manage it, lady, so that I may go back with you." Pausing in her work, Elfgiva looked down in surprise.
In the cushions of the balcony, Leonorine hid her face with a cry; "They will murder him!" And Elfgiva rose slowly from her chair, her eyes dark with horror yet unable to tear themselves from the scene below. The mail-clad King no longer looked to her like a man of flesh and blood but like a figure of iron and steel, that the firelight was wrapping in unendurable brightness.
As well look for a wood-nymph at confession unless indeed, Elfgiva had taken her there against her will But that was scarcely likely, he remembered immediately afterwards, since an English-woman who had entered into a civil marriage with a Dane would be little apt to frequent an English church. "Doubtless she makes of it a meeting place with her newest lover," he concluded.
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