I would not be hard upon
you, yet it would be advisable for you to remember that I have sufficient
temper for one tent. Go as I bid you. I must meet with the Jarl. Go! Do you
heed my orders?"
Only one answer was possible. After a moment the page gave it in a low voice.
"Yes, Lord King," he whispered, and crept away to his corner.
Chapter VI
The Training of Fridtjof The Page
A foolish man
Is all night awake,
Pondering over everything;
He then grows tired,
And when morning comes
All is lament, as before.
Ha'vama'l.
Who that has youth and a healthy body is not made a new being by a night of
dreamless slumber? What young heart is so despairing that to waken into a fair
day does not bring courage? Wakened by the sun's caress, to the morning song
of blowing trees, Randalin faced her future as became the kinswoman of
warriors.
"I do not know why it was that fear crept into my breast last night," she told
herself severely, when the first wave of strangeness and grief had broken over
her, and she had come up again into the sparkling air. "Great dangers have
threatened me, but I have escaped them all with great luck; it is poor-
spirited of me to despair. And it must be that witches had thinned my blood
with water that I should have thought of running away. To do that would be to
lose my revenge forever.
Pages:
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71