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By Root 758 0

to fight for him and how he would be brought in honourable custody to see the fight. Though this must have been uneasy news for him, he was too just a man not to see that we were using him as well as our weakness would bear. Then I called for wine that we might drink together. But when the door opened — this angered me for the moment — instead of my father's butler it was Redival who came in bearing the flagon and the cup. I was a fool not to have foreseen it. I knew her well enough to guess that once there was a strange man in the house she'd eat her way through stone walls in order to be seen. Yet even I was astonished to see what a meek, shy, modest, dutiful younger sister (perhaps even a somewhat down-trodden and spirit-broken sister) she could make of herself carrying that wine, with her downcast eyes (which missed nothing from Trunia's bandaged foot to the hair of his head) and her child's gravity.

"Who's that beauty?" said Trunia as soon as she was gone.

"That's my sister, the Princess Redival," said I.

"Glome is a rose-garden, even in winter," said he. "But why, cruel Queen, do you hide your own face?"

"If you become better known to my sister, she'll doubtless tell you," said I more sharply than I had intended.

"Why, that might be," said the Prince, "if your champion wins tomorrow, otherwise death's my wife. But if I live, Queen, I wouldn't let this friendship between our houses die away. Why should I not marry into your line? Perhaps yourself, Queen?"

"There's no room for two on my throne, Prince."

"Your sister then?"

It was of course an offer to be seized. Yet for a moment, saying yes to it irked me; most likely because I thought this prince twenty times too good for her.

"For all I can see," said I, "this marriage can be made. I must speak to my wise men first. For my own part, I like it well."

The day ended more strangely than it began. Bardia had had me into the quarters for my last practice. "There's that old fault of yours, Queen," he said, "in the feint reverse. I think we've conquered it; but I must see you perfect." We went at it for half an hour and when we stopped to breathe he said, "That's as perfect as skill can go. It's my belief that if you and I were to fight with sharps you'd kill me. But there are two things more to say. This first. If it should happen, Queen — and most likely it won't happen to you, because of your divine blood — but if it should happen that when your cloak's off and the crowd's hushed and you're walking out into the empty space to meet your man — if you should then feel fear, never heed it. We've all felt it at our first fight. I feel it myself before every fight. And the second's this. That hauberk you've been wearing is excellent for weight and fit. But it's a poor thing to look at. A trace of gilding would suit a queen and a champion better. Let's see what the Bedchamber has."

I have said before that the King kept all manner of arms and armours in there. So in we went. The Fox was sitting by the bedside — why, or with what thoughts, I don't know. It was not possible he should love his old master. "Still no change," he said. Bardia and I fell to rummaging among the mail, and soon to disputing; for I thought I'd be safer and more limber in the chain-shirt which I knew than in any other, and he kept on saying, "But wait — wait — now here's a better." And it was when we were most busied that the Fox's voice from behind said, "It's finished." We turned and looked. The thing on the bed which had been half-alive for so long was dead; had died (if he understood it) seeing a girl ransacking his armoury.

"Peace be upon him," said Bardia. "We'll be done here very shortly. Then the women can come and wash the body." And we turned again at once to settle the matter of the hauberks.

And so the thing that I had thought of for so many years at last slipped by in a huddle of business which was, at that moment, of more consequence. An hour later, when I looked back, it astonished me. Yet I have often noticed since how much less stir nearly everyone's death makes than you might