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 “No, stay here, you fool!”

“Yes, stay here until you go and quietly murder the one who is dearer than life to me! Oh no, I will not stay!”

“Stay here! I swear to God that I will not raise a hand against him!”

“Oh, I know very well what that means!” cried Peace-Renown. “But of course, you are a boyar, how would it look for you to fight a mere lout! You will order your vicious friends to aim their poisoned arrows at him!”

“Well, since you are so concerned about it, I give you my word of honor that neither I nor anyone else in my company shall touch him, no matter how hard he fights against us! Surely that ought to be enough!”

Peace-Renown stood there shaken by suppressed emotion and could not utter a word. Was she sure that was enough or not? Oh, how she wished she were a bird and could fly to him and with eager chirpings warn him of the danger! But of course that was an impossibility!

Her father armed himself and before leaving the tent, said in parting, “I’m asking you again and commanding you to stay within the encampment until I return and then you can do whatever you please. Now, good-bye.”

He went out and the flap of the tent which served as a door stirred restlessly after him.

With clasped hands, the picture of forlorn wretchedness and abject despair, Peace-Renown stood in the middle of the tent, paralyzed with dread, her head bowed and her lips parted, ears strained for the last sounds of the hoof-beats dying away south of the entrenchment in the direction of Tukhlia to which her father was leading the Mongols in order to revenge himself on the Tukholians.