‘And was that Saxon Hugh the novice?’ Dan asked.

’Yes, and more than that.  He had been for three years at the monastery at Bec by Rouen, where’—­Sir Richard chuckled—­’the Abbot Herluin would not suffer me to remain.’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’ said Dan.

’Because I rode my horse into the refectory, when the scholars were at meat, to show the Saxon boys we Normans were not afraid of an Abbot.  It was that very Saxon Hugh tempted me to do it, and we had not met since that day.  I thought I knew his voice even inside my helmet, and, for all that our Lords fought, we each rejoiced we had not slain the other.  He walked by my side, and he told me how a Heathen God, as he believed, had given him his sword, but he said he had never heard it sing before.  I remember I warned him to beware of sorcery and quick enchantments.’  Sir Richard smiled to himself.  ’I was very young—­very young!

’When we came to his house here we had almost forgotten that we had been at blows.  It was near midnight, and the Great Hall was full of men and women waiting news.  There I first saw his sister, the Lady AElueva, of whom he had spoken to us in France.  She cried out fiercely at me, and would have had me hanged in that hour, but her brother said that I had spared his life—­he said not how he saved mine from the Saxons—­and that our Duke had won the day; and even while they wrangled over my poor body, of a sudden he fell down in a swoon from his wounds.

’"This is thy fault,” said the Lady AElueva to me, and she kneeled above him and called for wine and cloths.

’"If I had known,” I answered, “he should have ridden and I walked.  But he set me on my horse; he made no complaint; he walked beside me and spoke merrily throughout.  I pray I have done him no harm.”

’"Thou hast need to pray,” she said, catching up her underlip.  “If he dies, thou shalt hang.”

’They bore off Hugh to his chamber; but three tall men of the house bound me and set me under the beam of the Great Hall with a rope round my neck.  The end of the rope they flung over the beam, and they sat them down by the fire to wait word whether Hugh lived or died.  They cracked nuts with their knife-hilts the while.’

‘And how did you feel?’ said Dan.

’Very weary; but I did heartily pray for my schoolmate Hugh his health.  About noon I heard horses in the valley, and the three men loosed my ropes and fled out, and De Aquila’s men rode up.  Gilbert de Aquila came with them, for it was his boast that, like his father, he forgot no man that served him.  He was little, like his father, but terrible, with a nose like an eagle’s nose and yellow eyes like an eagle.  He rode tall warhorses—­roans, which he bred himself—­and he could never abide to be helped into the saddle.  He saw the rope hanging from the beam and laughed, and his men laughed, for I was too stiff to rise.

’"This is poor entertainment for a Norman knight,” he said, “but, such as it is, let us be grateful.  Show me, boy, to whom thou owest most, and we will pay them out of hand."’