later--"

"Let it be later, lord. After you have had time to marshal your wits,
and when it is daylight, and you have your men at your back."

After a while, the Etheling yielded and turned aside. "Let it be as you
have said--though I cannot believe yet that it will happen." Coming back
where a fallen tree made a mossy seat, he dropped down upon it and sat
staring at the ground in frowning abstraction.

The motion dropped him out of the range of Randalin's vision, and her
eyes wandered away discontentedly. If there was nothing more to look
at, she might as well go to sleep. The fire was dying down so that the
overhanging shadow was drooping lower, like a canopy that would fall and
smother them when the spears of light that upheld it should sink at last
in the ashes. The doors of darkness had moved far up the tree-corridors,
and strange flickering shapes peered through. Her eyes followed them
heavily. The forest was very still now; even the grating sound of the
frogs was hushed, and the low hum of the voices around the fire was
soothing as the sound of swarming bees.

She was just losing consciousness when the figure of a second
yeoman-soldier moved across her vision, looming black against the
fireglow. His whisper came sharply to her ears. "It is done, chief. May
they have the wrath of the Almighty! Their hands have met, Edric's and
the King's, and his thanes' and Norman of Baddeby's, who is with Edric.
Now are they lying down in their man-ties, as it were to seal their
pledge by sleeping within reach of each other's knives."

"Norman of Baddeby!" the name leaped out of the rest to bite at her like
a dog, worrying deeper and deeper through the wrappings of her stupor.
Her eyes widened in troubled questioning. She heard the angry voices
rise, and she saw the Etheling leap to his feet and shake his clenched
hand above his head. Then she lost sight of everything, for the fang had
pierced her torpor and touched her.

"Norman of Baddeby"--her father's slayer! Memory entered like poison to
spread burning through every vein. Her father--Fridtjof--the Jotun--the
battle--Her ears were dinned with terrible noises; her eyes were seared
by terrible pictures. She crushed her hands against her head, but the
sound came from within and would not be stilled. She buried her face
in the leaves, but the visions pressed faster before her. The son of
Leofwine and the drunken feast--the girl outside the tent--the Jotun
within it--her te