gh
rocks and trees, which seeming to the servant a place wherein he
might, with assurance for himself, do his lord's commandment, he
pulled out his knife and taking the lady by the arm, said, 'Madam,
commend your soul to God, for needs must you die, without faring
farther.' The lady, seeing the knife and hearing these words, was all
dismayed and said, 'Mercy, for God's sake! Ere thou slay me, tell me
wherein I have offended thee, that thou wouldst put me to death.'
'Madam,' answered the man, 'me you have nowise offended; but wherein
you have offended your husband I know not, save that he hath commanded
me slay you by the way, without having any pity upon you, threatening
me, an I did it not, to have me hanged by the neck. You know well how
much I am beholden to him and how I may not gainsay him in aught that
he may impose upon me; God knoweth it irketh me for you, but I can no
otherwise.' Whereupon quoth the lady, weeping, 'Alack, for God's sake,
consent not to become the murderer of one who hath never wronged thee,
to serve another! God who knoweth all knoweth that I never did aught
for which I should receive such a recompense from my husband. But let
that be; thou mayst, an thou wilt, at once content God and thy master
and me, on this wise; to wit, that thou take these my clothes and give
me but thy doublet and a hood and with the former return to my lord
and thine and tell him that thou hast slain me; and I swear to thee,
by that life which thou wilt have bestowed on me, that I will remove
hence and get me gone into a country whence never shall any news of me
win either to him or to thee or into these parts.' The servant, who
was loath to slay her, was lightly moved to compassion; wherefore he
took her clothes and give her a sorry doublet of his and a hood,
leaving her sundry monies she had with her. Then praying her depart
the country, he left her in the valley and afoot and betook himself to
his master, to whom he avouched that not only was his commandment
accomplished, but that he had left the lady's dead body among a pack
of wolves, and Bernabo presently returned to Genoa, where the thing
becoming known, he was much blamed. As for the lady, she abode alone
and disconsolate till nightfall, when she disguised herself as most
she might and repaired to a village hard by, where, having gotten from
an old woman that which she needed, she fitted the doublet to her
shape and shortening it, made a pair of linen breeches of