s an eagle; a man warrior-like, and
somewhat fierce of aspect. He knelt down by the King's bedside, and
asked him in a sorrowful voice what he would, and the King said: "I ask
a great matter of thee, and all these my wise men, and I myself,
withal, deem that thou canst do it, and thou alone--nay, hearken: I am
departing, and I would have thee hold my place, and do unto my people
even what I would do if I myself were living; and to my daughter as
nigh to that as may be. I say all this thou mayst do, if thou wilt be as
trusty and leal to me after I am dead, as thou hast seemed to all men's
eyes to have been while I was living. What sayest thou?"

The Earl had hidden his face in the coverlet of the bed while the King
was speaking; but now he lifted up his face, weeping, and said: "Kinsman
and friend and King; this is nought hard to do; but if it were, yet
would I do it."

"It is well," said the King: "my heart fails me and my voice; so give
heed, and set thine ear close to my mouth: hearken, belike my daughter
Goldilind shall be one of the fairest of women; I bid thee wed her to
the fairest of men and the strongest, and to none other."

Thereat his voice failed him indeed, and he lay still; but he died not,
till presently the priest came to him, and, as he might, houselled him:
then he departed.

As for Earl Geoffrey, when the King was buried, and the homages done to
the maiden Goldilind, he did no worse than those wise men deemed of him,
but bestirred him, and looked full sagely into all the matters of the
kingdom, and did so well therein that all men praised his rule perforce,
whether they loved him or not; and sooth to say he was not much beloved.

CHAPTER IV. OF THE MAIDEN GOLDILIND.

AMIDST of all his other business Earl Geoffrey bethought him in a while
of the dead King's daughter, and he gave her in charge to a gentlewoman,
somewhat stricken in years, a widow of high lineage, but not over
wealthy. She dwelt in her own house in a fair valley some twenty miles
from Meadhamstead: thereabode Goldilind till a year and a half was worn,
and had due observance, but little love, and not much kindness from
the said gentlewoman, who hight Dame Elinor Leashowe. Howbeit, time
and again came knights and ladies and lords to see the little lady, and
kissed her hand and did obeisance to her; yet more came to her in the
first three months of her sojourn at Leashowe than the second, and more
in the second than the third.