Explore "The Riddle of Countess Runa" by Antonio Hope on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Seven days and seven nights, then, the stranger abode in the city. Every day he held speech with Runa, both in the great hall, with the ladies and the knights, and privately. Much he told her concerning the kingdom and the King, and she showed him all the wealth and power of her city.
But when she bade him speak of himself, he would answer, "I am nothing without the King," and would say no more of himself, so that she was full of wonder about him, and pondered more and more as to who he was and whence he came. And meanwhile the King's army lay idle in its tents and made no assault on the ramparts.