Now it was altogether barren to me.
"So I am," I said; "but of no more use to Hakon for all that.

If I had a jarl's following now--" "You are not needed by Hakon so much as by another, Malcolm," she said.

"To him you are one among many, and that is all." "He has my first fealty," I answered.

"He was the first who has ever claimed it, and he has it, for good or ill." "There was one who claimed your fealty before ever he saw you," she said slowly, and smiling at me meaningly.

"Will you forget that ?" I could not pretend not to understand what she meant, and I answered her with the thought which troubled me.
"Lady, I cannot forget it.