Tell
me, then, what were the felons who were slain at Carlstead? Knowest
thou of them?'
'Over well,' she said, 'they are our foes this many a year; and since
we met last autumn they have become foes of you Dalesmen also. Soon
shall ye have tidings of them; and it was against them that I bade
thee arm yesterday.'
Said Face-of-god: 'Is it against them that thou wouldst have us do
battle along with thy folk?'
'So it is,' she said; 'no other foemen have we. And now, Gold-mane,
thou art become a friend of the Wolf, and shalt before long be of
affinity with our House; that other day thou didst ask me to tell
thee of me and mine, and now will I do according to thine asking.
Short shall my tale be; because maybe thou shalt hear it told again,
and in goodly wise, before thine whole folk.
'As thou wottest we be now outlaws and Wolves' Heads; and whiles we
lift the gear of men, but ever if we may of ill men and not of good;
there is no worthy goodman of the Dale from whom we would take one
hoof, or a skin of wine, or a cake of wax.
'Wherefore are we outlaws? Because we have been driven from our own,
and we bore away our lives and our weapons, and little else; and for
our lands, thou seest this Vale in the howling wilderness and how
narrow and poor it is, though it hath been the nurse of warriors in
time past.
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