oing back to
him.

"Then you are at a loose end for the time?" he said. "Why not take
service here with Offa?"

"I am for home so soon as this is over," I said. "If all is well
there, I have no need to serve any man."

"So you have not been home yet," he said slowly, as if turning over
some thought in his mind. "What if I asked you to help me in some
small service here and now? You are free, and no man's man, as one
may say."

"Nor do I wish to be," I answered dryly.

I did not like this Gymbert.

"No offence," he said quickly. "You are a Frank as one may say, and
a stranger, and such an one may well be useful in affairs of state
which need to be kept quiet. I could, an you will, put you in the
way of some little profit, on the business of the queen, as I
think."

"Well, if the queen asks me to do her a service, that may be. These
matters do not come from second hand, as a rule."

He glanced sidewise at me quickly, and I minded the face of another
queen, whose hand had been on my arm while she had spoken to me
with the tears in her eyes.

"Right," he said, laughing uneasily. "But if one is told to seek
for, say, a messenger?"

"I am a thane," I said. "To a thane even a queen may speak
directly."

"You Wessex folk are quick-tempered; or is that a Frankish trick
you have picked up?" he sneered. "Nay, but I will not offend you."

Then he was silent for a time while we walked on. I thought that
the queen had hardly sent a message to me in that way, and that he
had made some mistake. I would leave him as soon as we turned back
toward the hall. We were alone on the rampart, with the stables
below us on one side and the high stockading on the other; and then
he dropped that subject, and talked of my home going in all
friendly wise.

"There are always chances," he said. "Come and take service with
Offa if aught goes amiss at home."

"I have promised to go to Ethelbert, if so I must," I answered,
thinking to end his seemingly idle talk.

I had put up with it because I was his guest in a way, seeing that
he was the marshal, and it does not do to offend needlessly those
who hold one's comfort in their hands.

End his talk this did, suddenly, and why I could not tell.

"Why," he said, "then you are his man after all! I deemed that you
had but ridden westward with him for your own convenience."

"So it was, more or less," I said, somewhat surprised at his tone.

And when I looked at him his face seemed wh