Did you not hear that?"
Rothgar kicked a stone out of his way with impatient emphasis. "Oh, yes, I
heard it. I heard also how you said that you would rather have the
Englishman's friendship than his kingdom."
The eyebrows Canute had drawn down into a frown rose ironically. "There is
room in your breast for more sense, Rothgar, my brother, if you think, because
I am forced into one lie, that I never speak the truth," he said. "We will not
talk of it further. I should like to remain good-humored to-night, if it were
possible. What are the words you have waiting for my ears?"
The Jotun's sudden frown quite eclipsed his eyes. "It is not likely that I
shall remain good-humored if I put my tongue to them. Oh! Now it becomes clear
in my mind what you have sent your black-haired falcon down the wind
after,--to carry your order to Northampton?" "Certainly it is," Canute
assented. "When the boy found that I had need of a messenger, he begged it of
me as a boon that he might be the one to carry the good news to my lady. I
thought it a well-mannered way to show his thankfulness. But why is your voice
so bitter when you speak of him?"
"Because I have just found out that he is a fox," Rothgar bellowed. "Because
it has been borne in upon me that he has played me a foul trick, by which I
lost property that was already under my hands; lost it forever, Troll take
him! if it be really true that we are to make no more warfare upon the lands
south of the Watling Street.
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