her death."

The King's hands clenched convulsively. "It is like them!" he muttered. "It
has happened as I supposed. If the master be like his men, I ask you in what
their God is to be preferred to ours? Have no fear but that I will avenge your
kinswoman. Those of her own blood-ties could do no more. And Frode also. You
need not wait long for me when the day comes; the last hair of the otter-skin
shall be covered, though I take from them the Ring itself. You shall see! Have
patience, and you shall see!"

Upon burning ears the word "patience" falls coldly.

"Patience!" the child of Frode repeated.

Perhaps in days gone by the young King himself had rebelled at the tyranny of
that word. Perhaps the smart of its scourge was still upon him. He put forth a
kindly hand and drew the boy down beside him.

"Listen, young one," he said, "and do not blame me for what I cannot help. Had
I come hither only to get property and go away again, as Northmen before me
have come, it would not matter to me whom I killed, and I would slay
Leofwinesson more gladly than I would eat; may the Giant take me if I lie! But
I have come to the Island to set up my seat-pillars and get myself land. I
think no one guesses how much I have the ambition at heart; even to me it
appears a strange wonder. But it is true that I look upon the fair rolling
meadows with such eyes of love that when it is necessary that I should set
fire to them, it is as though I had laid the torch to my hair. And because of
that, in order that I be not kept destroying them until they are not worth the
having, I have made a bargain with Edric Jarl, who is dissatisfied with his
king, that we are to support each other in the game. There it is all open to