For a while the silence continued unbroken. Then Count Rudulf flung the sword-blade aside, and turned his slit eyes upon the stranger.
"Guest, or tidings-bearer?" he asked in a harsh voice.
"_Heu!_" growled Rudulf; "I thought as much,--a court-man; and yet such mail-- You ride a shapely mare."
"Twelve days since, she drank from the Garonne at Casseneuil."
The Thuringian shifted on his bench and peered at Olvir with narrowing eyes.
"Liars are abhorred alike by Odin and the White Christ."
"Here is the king's message, sealed with his great seal. Doubtless Fulrad, Keeper of the Seal, noted the date of sending," replied Olvir, coolly; and he held out the folded parchment.
Rudulf took the message in a hairy fist, and stared at the barbarous Latin of the address.
"How--am I a monk? That shall wait a while. You spoke of other tidings."
Rudulf laughed derisively, and surveyed Olvir from helmet to buskin.
"A gay bird of the South," he sneered. "He had best wing it home again. The North is cold for such."
"The gerfalcon soars over the ice-fells," rejoined Olvir.
"Gerfalcon--gerfalcon!" muttered Rudulf, in an altered tone. "It may be! But hearken, my gay king's rider. Falcon or sparrow, you had best be winging southward. I have broken the backs of two Saxon and three Sorb champions, and my strength is still with me. Fastrada, my daughter, goes to no man who cannot best me at my chosen game."
Olvir silently laid aside his helmet and unclasped his mail-serk.
"It were a pity to mar so shapely a child," he muttered. "Do not be rash, boy. I have never but once been thrown, and that by the greatest of heroes, Otkar the Dane."
At that name, the terrible weariness which deadened Olvir's nerves fell away, and left him a-tingle with life and power.
"Come, then, braggart," he jeered. "Now shall you bite the dust the second time."
Stung by the taunt, Rudulf dropped his wolf-skin, and advanced, half crouching, upon the audacious challenger. His eyes were narrowed to a line, and his grey hair stood up like the bristles of a wolf. His gaunt figure, creeping forward in the dying firelight, was a sight to appall any but the stoutest hearted.
Olvir, though he held himself with seeming carelessness, waited the attack with every faculty alert. He had no doubt that Rudulf's boasts were based in truth, and yet, though the strain of his long ride was against him, he did not shrink. He was resolved to win the old hero's daughter, or die in the attempt.