of himself.

"Who told thee?" he demanded.

"None told me," she answered. She raised her hands to her temples. "I
felt it--here. So, I say that he shall _not_ be crucified, nor harmed in
any way at all. And thou must see to it!" She was like an imperious
young empress, commanding her meanest slave.

"And if I will not?" said the slave, perversely.

Her child's mouth quivered.

"But thou wilt!" she pleaded. She laid a hand upon his bare sinewy arm,
fingering the heavy golden armlet on it, and for a fleeting instant
raised her eyes to his. "Thou wilt?" she repeated sweetly.

His dark face hardened against her wiles.

"The man hath played the traitor. He also is Saxon. Who knows but that
he may set his fellows on again? Nay, lady wife; I fear thy man must
die."

"Ah, no!" she begged. "It is the first request I make of thee--thou'lt
not refuse it if I ask thee?"

"Ask it then," said Marius, his eyes on her, "in the right and proper
way that a wife should ask her husband."

Rose-leaf color flushed her cheeks; she raised herself to her knees amid
the draperies of the couch, and clasped her folded hands upon her
breast, and closed her eyes, devout and meek and holy.

"Pray thee, let Wardo go, my lord!" she said softly, and opened her eyes
quickly to see how he might take it. "Is it thus thou wouldst have me
ask?"

He bent his head, sudden laughter in his eyes, and kissed her pleading
lips.

"Who could resist thee, lady mine?" he cried gayly. "Sure never did
unworthy man have so fair a lawyer. Ay, child, if he saved thy life--and
thy account and his do tally--he shall go free."

Varia slipped out of his arms and clapped her hands.

"Go then--go quickly and tell my lord father so! He will do it for thee,
as thou hast done it for me. Is it not so?"

So it came to pass that evening that the cross in the chamber of fate
knew not its victim; and for this there were more reasons than a girl's
tender wiles.

For while the flame of sunset again stabbed the dusk of night, came men
out from the Wood of Anderida, fifteen miles away, some on foot and some
on horseback, with at their head the red Wulf, astride a great bay
horse. Wardo, from his station on the roofs, saw them from far off; saw
also that many as they had been the night before, they were now fivefold
more, an army bent on plunder, captained by lawlessness. And still no
aid had come. Wardo told Marius, and Marius went up on the roofs to see,
and came back