e money to his owner; and folk came round
about, and wondered, and praised me. But I said: 'My masters, have ye
naught of gifts for the tamer of beasts, and the deliverer of men?'
Thereat they laughed: but they brought me money and other goods, till I
had gotten far more than I had given for the lion.

"Howbeit the next day the officers of the Porte came and bade me avoid
the town of Goldburg, but gave me more money withal. I was not loth
thereto, but departed, riding a little horse that I had, and leading my
lion by a chain, though when I was by he needed little chaining.

"So that without more ado I took the road to Utterbol, and wheresoever
I came, I had what was to be had that I would; neither did any man fall
on me, or on my lion. For though they might have shot him or slain him
with many spear-thrusts, yet besides that they feared him sorely, they
feared me still more; deeming me some mighty sending from their Gods.

"Thus came I to Utterness, and found it poor and wretched, (as
forsooth, it yet is, but shall not be so for long). But the House of
Utterbol is exceeding fair and stately (as thou mightest have learned
from others, my master,) and its gardens, and orchards, and acres, and
meadows as goodly as may be. Yea, a very paradise; yet the dwellers
therein as if it were hell, as I saw openly with mine own eyes.

"To be short, the fame of me and my beast had somehow gone before me,
and when I came to the House, I was dealt with fairly, and had good
entertainment: and this all the more, as the Lord was away for a while,
and the life of folk not so hard by a great way as it had been if he
had been there: but the Lady was there in the house, and on the morrow
of my coming by her command, I brought my lion before her window and
made him come and go, and fetch and carry at my bidding, and when I had
done my play she bade me up into her bower, and bade me sit and had me
served with wine, while she asked me many questions as to my country
and friends, and whence and whither I was; and I answered her with the
very sooth, so far as the sooth was handy; and there was with her but
one of her women, even thy friend Agatha, fair sir.

"Methought both that this Queen was a fair woman, and that she looked
kindly upon me, and at last she said, sighing, that she were well at
ease if her baron were even such a man as I, whereas the said Lord was
fierce and cruel, and yet a dastard withal. But the said Agatha turned
on h