About noon I heard horses in the valley,
and the three men loosed my ropes and fled out, and
De Aquila's men rode up. Gilbert de Aquila came with them,
for it was his boast that, like his father, he forgot no man
that served him. He was little, like his father, but terrible,
with a nose like an eagle's nose and yellow eyes like an
eagle. He rode tall warhorses - roans, which he bred
himself - and he could never abide to be helped into the
saddle. He saw the rope hanging from the beam and
laughed, and his men laughed, for I was too stiff to rise.
"'This is poor entertainment for a Norman knight," he
said, "but, such as it is, let us be grateful. Show me, boy,
to whom thou owest most, and we will pay them out of hand."'
'What did he mean? To kill 'em?' said Dan.
'Assuredly. But I looked at the Lady Aelueva where
she stood among her maids, and her brother beside her.
De Aquila's men had driven them all into the Great Hall.'
'Was she pretty?' said Una.
'In all my long life I have never seen woman fit to strew
rushes before my Lady Aelueva,' the knight replied,
quite simply and quietly.
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