en that she had not finished washing: and when the good
God asked her if all her children were there, with their meek little
heads against His knees, to say their prayers to Him, she answered, Yes.
So God told her that what she had tried to hide from God should be
hidden from men: and He took away the unwashed children, and made a
place for them where everything stays young, and where there is neither
good nor evil, because these children are unstained by human sin and
unredeemed by Christ's dear blood."

The Count said, frowning: "What drunken nonsense are you talking at
broad noon? It is not any foolish tatter of legend that I am requiring
of you, my boy, but civil information as to what is to be encountered
out yonder."

"All freedom and all delight," young Ruric told him wildly, "and all
horror and all rebellion."

Then he talked for a while. When Ruric had ended this talking, Count
Manuel laughed scornfully, and spoke as became a well-thought-of
nobleman.

Ruric whipped out a knife, and attacked his master, crying, "I follow
after my own thinking and my own desires, you old, smug, squinting
hypocrite!"

So Count Manuel caught Ruric by the throat, and with naked hands Dom
Manuel strangled the young clerk.

"Now I have ridded the world of much poison, I think," Dom Manuel said,
aloud, when Ruric lay dead at Manuel's feet. "In any event, I cannot
have that sort of talking about my house. Yet I wish I had not trapped
the boy into attempting this adventure, which by rights was my
adventure. I did not always avoid adventures."

He summoned two to take away the body, and then Manuel went to his
bedroom, and was clothed by his lackeys in a tunic of purple silk, and a
coronet was placed on his gray head, and the trumpets sounded as Count
Manuel sat down to supper. Pages in ermine served him, bringing Manuel's
food upon gold dishes, and pouring red wine and white from golden
beakers into Manuel's gold cup. Skilled music-men played upon viols and
harps and flutes while the high Count of Poictesme ate richly seasoned
food and talked sedately with his wife.

They had not fared thus when Manuel had just come from herding swine,
and Niafer was a servant trudging on her mistress' errands, and when
these two had eaten very gratefully the Portune's bread and cheese. They
had not any need to be heartened with rare wines when they endured so
many perils upon Vraidex and in Dun Vlechlan because of their love for
each other.