"
Turning from a muttered word to the soldier at his side, Thorkel answered her
with his usual curtness. "He thrives well, but his time is full of great
matters. To-day he is with the English Witan. Yesterday they chose him to be
their king. To-morrow he is to be crowned."
"To-morrow? And he would have let me remain in ignorance!" The Lady of
Northampton was unable to repress a start of anger, though she turned it as
soon as possible into a plaintive sigh. "Let me be thankful that my arrival is
not too late. I cannot tell you how we have been beset with hardships!"
Whereupon, she instantly began telling him, giving free rein to eyes and lips
and all the graceful tricks of her hands. It did not disturb her in the least
that he rode beside her in silence, when she had observed that from under the
bristling thatch of his brows his gaze never left her face.
So complete was her preoccupation that she dis-regarded another thing,--the
highway along which they were travelling. It was Randalin who first awoke to a
consciousness that the noise of the rabble had become very faint behind them,
that no sounds at all broke the stillness ahead of them, that the uneven
weed-grown path they were treading was very different from the smooth hardness
of the Watling Street. Fens on either side of them, a low hill to the
front--was this the way to London? For the first time, she spoke to the son of
Lodbrok, who had silently taken his place at her side.
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