“Besides, if I were to keep you, my enemy might get hold of you and collect the ransom himself, which would never do. Twelve days from now, if I should be in need of carts, a messenger from me will call at the palace of Theoph the Grim; and if you are at all grateful, you will make me a present of about twenty sturdy wagons.
“As for you,” turning to Myles, “your life is mine, since you failed to redeem it. Some day I may call upon you for it, but for the present I wish to use it. You are detailed, as my personal representative, to escort this lady safely to Vairkingi. Now both of you get out of here, for I have more important things to do. I must put my army on the march.”
One of the guards stepped up to Myles and cut his bonds. Quivven had not been bound.
“May I have arms, O king, so that I can fulfill your mission with credit to you?” Myles asked, with a twinkle in his gray eyes.
“You keep on improving,” Grod replied. “Yes, you may. Here, take my own sword. You are a brave man and an able warrior, as my chin well remembers. May the Builder grant that some day we shall fight side by side.”
This gave Cabot an idea. “Why can that not be now?” he suggested. “Why not form an alliance with Vairkingi against the unmentionable one?”
But Grod the Silent shook his head. “No,” he said positively, “it cannot be. In the first place, the unmentionable one is himself seeking to make such an alliance against me; and in the second place, this is my own private fight. I have spoken.”
Then Cabot had a further idea. “About the wagons,” he said, “would you mind sending for them to my brickyard north of Vairkingi? That would be more convenient.”
Roy warriors then supplied the two prisoners with portable rations, and escorted them for quite a distance from the camp, until they struck a mountain trail. This, the escort informed them, led to Vairkingi. There the Roies left Myles and Quivven alone.
The first thing that she asked was, “With all these mountains full of warring Roies, do you believe that we shall be safe?”
“I think so,” Myles replied. “The very fact that they are at war will keep them much too busy to bother about us. Come on.”
As they hurried down the trail, each related his or her adventures to the other. Cabot’s have already been set down. As for Quivven, she had gone with a few soldiers to hunt for Myles after his prospecting party had returned and reported his disappearance by the river; but her party had been killed, and she had been taken prisoner.