Think you I
know nothing of the Pagans, that you set my words at naught? Who but
Danish-men laid low these walls, and slaughtered the holy nuns as lambs are
torn by wild beasts? Have I not seen their horrid wickedness? You think a nun
a coward? Know you how these scars came on my face? Three times, with my own
hands, I pressed a red-hot iron there to destroy the beauty that allured, else
had the Pagans dragged me with them. Was I a coward?"
Randalin's eyes were very wide. "It seems to me that you were simple-minded,"
she breathed. "Why did you not thrust the iron in _his_ face?"
But Sister Wynfreda's expression changed so strangely that the girl foresaw an
attack along another line, and hastened to forestall it. "It is not worth
while to tell me further about the matter. Do you not see that it is by no
means the same? I shall be a Danish woman among Danish men. I shall not be a
captive, to be made a drudge of and beaten. It is altogether different. I
shall be with my own people, my own King. Let us end this talk. Give me the
bread and let me go. The sun is getting high."
She glanced at it as she spoke, and found it so much higher than she had
realized that her haste increased.
"No, I dare not wait for it. It is necessary that I get a good start, or they
will overtake me. They are to join Canute near Scoerstan; I heard it talked
among them.
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