He couldn’t!” with a grim laugh. Roric lowered his sword again; whoever this person was, he did not seem one of Hadros’s men. “The king is my sworn lord, and he would be outlawed himself. But I wondered at the time why he sent me to this manor on such a trivial errand. Still, I did not suspect treachery until I saw the warriors arrive by stealth: three of them, my king’s fiercest fighters. I would not have seen them at all if I had not forgotten my knife in the hall at dinner and gone back for it.”

“Sit down by me,” said the man. Roric had still not seen his face. “I do not like having to look up at an armed man when I’m trying to talk to him. Now tell me,” when Roric had slowly seated himself, his sword again across his knees, “do you intend to kill these warriors?”

“I will not stand quietly while they kill me!”

“But are they not beneath your notice?”

“One of them I could certainly outfight,” said Roric, “probably even two. Three I think will be harder… My tale is already short, because it starts with me, but the end should be very interesting.”

There was another faint chuckle from beneath the broad-brimmed hat. “So your intent is to give up your life to make a glorious song? I would not have thought a life for a song a good bargain. The song will not cause your king much distress, nor comfort the lady.”

Roric did not answer but stared straight ahead at the moonlit side of the barn on the far side of the courtyard.

“And tell me,” added the other, “why loving your king’s daughter should be such a crime.”

“She’s much too high-born for a man without kin, but she is not really his daughter,” he started to say, then stopped. He thought again that if this person with a shadowed face-if he even had a face-was a Wanderer, he should already know this. For someone of great voima, he seemed remarkably ill-informed. “And you tell me, who it is who wants to use me, and for what purpose!”