them riding on horned neat (for they knew not of horses), and
driving one for a sumpter beast before us; and they had given us bows
and arrows for our defence, and that we might get us venison.

"It is not to be said that we did not encounter perils; but thereof I
will tell thee naught as now. We came to other peoples, richer and
mightier than these, and I saw castles, and abbies, and churches, and
walled towns, and wondered at them exceedingly. And in these places
folk knew of the kingdom of my lord and his father, and whereas they
were not of his foes (who lay for the more part on the other side of
his land), and my lord could give sure tokens of what he was, we were
treated with honour and worship, and my lord began to be himself again,
and to bear him as a mighty man. And here to me was some gain in that
poverty and nakedness wherewith we came out of the mountains and the
raiment of the simple folk; for had I been clad in my poor cloth and
goat-skins of the House of the Sorcerer, and he in his brave attire and
bright armour, they would have said, it is a thrall that he is assotted
of, and would have made some story and pretence of taking me from him;
but they deemed me a great lady indeed, and a king's daughter,
according to the tale that he told them. Forsooth many men that saw me
desired me beyond measure, and assuredly some great proud man or other
would have taken me from my lord, but that they feared the wrath of his
father, who was a mighty man indeed.

"Yea, one while as we sojourned by a certain town but a little outside
the walls, a certain young man, a great champion and exceeding
masterful, came upon me with his squires as I was walking in the
meadows, and bore me off, and would have taken me to his castle, but
that my lord followed with a few of the burghers, and there was a
battle fought, wherein my lord was hurt; but the young champion he
slew; and I cannot say but I was sorry of his death, though glad of my
deliverance.

"Again, on a time we guested in a great baron's house, who dealt so
foully by us that he gave my lord a sleeping potion in his good-night
cup, and came to me in the dead night and required me of my love; and I
would not, and he threatened me sorely, and called me a thrall and a
castaway that my lord had picked up off the road: but I gat a knife in
my hand and was for warding myself when I saw that my lord might not
wake: so the felon went away for that time. But on the morrow