“Where is the king?” asked Felix; “I came to try and take service with him.”

“Then you will be welcome,” said the woman.  “He is in the field, and has just sat down before Iwis.”

“That was why the walled city seemed so empty, then.” said Felix.

“Yes; all the people are with him; there will be a great battle this time.”

“How far is it to Iwis?” said Felix.

“Twenty-seven miles,” replied the dame; “and if you take my advice, you had better walk twenty-seven miles there, than two miles back to the bridge over the river.”

Someone now called from the opposite bank, and she started with the boat to fetch another passenger.

“Thank you, very much,” said Felix, as he wished her good day; “but why did not the man at the other ferry tell me I could cross here?”

The woman laughed outright.  “Do you suppose he was going to put a penny in my way when he could not get it himself?”

So mean and petty is the world!  Felix entered the second city and walked some distance through it, when he recollected that he had not eaten for some time.  He looked in vain for an inn, but upon speaking to a man who was leaning on his crutch at a doorway, he was at once asked to enter, and all that the house afforded was put before him.  The man with the crutch sat down opposite, and remarked that most of the folk were gone to the camp, but he could not because his foot had been injured.  He then went on to tell how it had happened, with the usual garrulity of the wounded.  He was assisting to place the beam of a battering-ram upon a truck (it took ten horses to draw it) when a lever snapped, and the beam fell.  Had the beam itself touched him he would have been killed on the spot; as it was, only a part of the broken lever or pole hit him.  Thrown with such force, the weight of the ram driving it, the fragment of the pole grazed his leg, and either broke one of the small bones that form the arch of the instep, or so bruised it that it was worse than broken.  All the bone-setters and surgeons had gone to the camp, and he was left without attendance other than the women, who fomented the foot daily, but he had little hope of present recovery, knowing that such things were often months about.

He thought it lucky that it was no worse, for very few, he had noticed, ever recovered from serious wounds of spear or arrow.  The wounded generally died; only the fortunate escaped.  Thus he ran on, talking as much for his own amusement as that of his guest.  He fretted because he could not join the camp and help work the artillery; he supposed the ram would be in position by now and shaking the wall with its blow.  He wondered if Baron Ingulph would miss his face.

“Who’s he?” asked Felix.

“He is captain of the artillery,” replied his host.

“Are you his retainer?”

“No; I am a servant.”