Freda did not weep, but she felt the unshed tears thick in her throat. “You think this is dawn for us,” she said once, the second day. “I tell you it is night.” He looked at her, puzzled. “What mean you?” “The sword is full of wickedness. The deed we go to do is wrong. No good can come of it.” He laid his hands on her shoulders. “I understand you do not like making your kin travel the troublous road,” he said. “Nor do I. Yet who else among the dead will help and not harm us? Stay here, Freda, if you cannot bear it.” “No-no, I will be at your side even at the mouth of the grave. It is not that I fear my folk. Living or dead, there is love between us; and the love is yours too, now.” Freda lowered her glance and bit her lip to halt its trembling. “Had you or I thought of this, I would have less foreboding. But Leea meant no boon in her rede.” “Why should she wish ill on us?”
