h I take it well that you should trust me...
Yes, certainly; I will be king-like once. Stand here before me, while I
question you."

She caught her breath rather sharply as she stepped forward. Would she
be able to tell a straight story? She stood with fingers interlacing
nervously.

"Tell me first how you are called?"

"I am called Fridtjof Frodesson."

"Frode of Avalcomb! Now I know where I have heard that name; my father
spoke it often, and always with great respect. It will go hard with me
if I must return an unfavorable answer to his son. Tell me how his death
was brought about."

Randalin thrust the sobs back from her throat; the tears back from her
eyes. Only a clear head could deliver her out of the snare. She began
slowly: "Leofwinesson set upon him last night, at the gate of the
castle, and slew him. The Englishman had long been covetous of Avalcomb,
so that even his fear of you was not so great as his greed. He had
five-and-fifty men, and my father but twelve--besides me; he--we--had
just come in from hunting. Then he rode over my father's body into the
castle." She stopped uncertainly to glance at her listener.

The brightness of his eyes startled her, though they were not turned in
her direction. They were blazing down into the cup that he was turning
and pinching between his fingers. He said, half as though to himself:
"Vermin! What would I give if I might take them in my teeth and shake
them like the filth-fed rats they are! Ten hundred such do not reach the
value of one finger of a warrior like Frode! I knew that the fetters of
Thorkel's craftiness would pinch me some-where--" He broke off and flung
the goblet from him, burying his hands in his yellow hair. "How I hate
them!" he breathed between his teeth. "How I hate their smooth-tongued
Jarl, and all their treacherous hides! Oh, for the day when I no longer
need their aid; when I am free to strike!" The joy of his face was a
terrible thing to hold in one's memory.

Perhaps he saw its awfulness reflected in the wide blue eyes, for he
checked himself abruptly. When he spoke again, he had himself well in
hand.

"I act like a fool to let you hear my ravings. Poor cub! it is likely
you will call me a worse name when you find out how I am hindered! Yet
go on and tell me the rest. How comes it that you escaped unharmed?"

With Gram's experience to follow, it was not hard to frame that answer.
"They knocked me on the head with a spear-butt and left