The foreign-looking officer smiled incredulously when this explanation was given, and watched them for some time with obvious suspicion.  But the men seemed not to be plotting together, and to be thinking only of their work.  If the English were fools enough to do more than they were made to do it was certainly no loss to their masters.

“I should like to know the name of that vinegar-faced captain,” said Edrupt one day.  “I mistrust he wasn’t born here.”

“No,” said Nicholas.  “They call him the Khawadji, and they never use that name for one of themselves.”

“He’s too free with his whip.  Yon tall man that tends his horses could tell something of that, I make my guess.”

One night they came on the Khawadji’s stable-man caring for a lame horse with such skill that Nicholas spoke of it.  By some instinct he spoke in Norman-French.  The other answered in the same tongue.

“Every knight should know his horse.”

“You are of gentle birth, my lord?”

“Call me not lord,” the Norman said wearily.  “I have seen too much to be any man’s lord hereafter.  Since my fever I am fit only for this, and none will know the grave of Stephen Giffard.”

Nicholas’ heart leaped.  “Sir,” he said quickly, “ere we left London the Lady Adelicia, your wife, came to my father’s house to beseech him to aid her in searching for you.  If any of us ever see home again I will take care that she is told of this.”

The knight looked ten years younger.  “I thank you,” he answered gravely.  “And if I should not live to see her again, I would have her know that my thoughts have been constantly of her.”

“Is not this Khawadji a caitiff knight of France?  He does not seem like a Moor.”

The Norman nodded.  “He is Garin de Biterres, a miscreant of Guienne.  My brother balked him in some villainy years ago.  He took me for Walter when he saw me, and let it out.  Aquitaine being too hot to hold him, and the Normans in Ireland refusing to enlist him, he came through the Breach of Roland and took service under the Crescent.  He was once a slave among the Moors of Andalusia, and owes his deformity to that.  He cozened an old beggar into treating his leg with some ointment which would wither it up so that he could not work, and it never wholly recovered.”

“How comes it that he has not allowed you to send word to your people?  Most of these folk are greedy for ransom.”

“I think he keeps me here for his pleasure.  At first he took the letters I wrote and pretended to have sent them, and gibed in his bitter fashion when no reply came.  That is how I know that the letters were not sent at all.  Had my lady heard so much as a word of my captivity she would have searched me out.”

The approach of some troopers broke off the conversation, and Nicholas went his way, marveling at the strange chances of life.

Some months passed, during which the English worked at varying tasks—­ brickmaking, the hauling of brick and cut stone, the building of walls.  Then a merchant called Mustafa came seeking slaves for his galley.  After much crafty bargaining he secured Nicholas and his companions for about two-thirds the original price asked.  But the Khawadji refused to part with Stephen Giffard.