Miriam misunderstood my silence, for her body moved softly within my arms as she added, as if in afterthought:
“Take two spare horses, Lodbrog. I shall ride the other . . . with you . . . with you, away over the world, wherever you may ride.”
It was a bribe of kings; it was an act, paltry and contemptible, that was demanded of me in return. Still I did not speak. It was not that I was in confusion or in any doubt. I was merely sad—greatly and suddenly sad, in that I knew I held in my arms what I would never hold again.
“There is but one man in Jerusalem this day who can save Him,” she urged, “and that man is you, Lodbrog.”
Because I did not immediately reply she shook me, as if in impulse to clarify wits she considered addled. She shook me till my harness rattled.
“Speak, Lodbrog, spe
