"Our mistress has gone sadly since the day you were taken, master; even asking me to tell her, if I could, where you were kept, thinking me one of those who guarded you, mayhap. But I knew not till today what had chanced to you. Men may know well from such tokens what is amiss." Hearing that, my heart lightened within me, for I saw that the man spoke truth. However, I would not speak more of this to such as he, and I bade him cease his prating, and answer plainly my first question, laying my hand on my seax as if to draw it. "Gurth could have told you; master," he cried, "but he is dead. Matelgar held no counsel with me. I can but tell you what the talk is among the men." "Tell it." "Because Matelgar had taken charge, as he said, of your lands while you were away, and knowing well that in your taking he had had some hand, men say it is to get possession thereof; and the women say that, while you were near, the Lady Alswythe would marry no other, so that he had had you removed." The first I had guessed by the token of the sword that I had regained. That last was sweet to hear. "Go on," I said. "How came Matelgar to have power to hold my lands?" "There came one from the king, after you were taken, giving him papers with a great seal thereon, and these he read aloud in your hall, showing the king's own hand at the end. So men bowed thereto, and all your men he drove out if they would not serve him, and few remained. The rest have taken service elsewhere if they were free." So Matelgar was in possession, and now would be confirmed in the same. What mattered that to an outlaw? But I could have borne anything better than to think of him sitting in my place as reward for his treachery. This was evidence of weakness, however, in his case, that he should have tried to have me slain. Now I had learnt all I needed, and more, in the one thing next my heart, than I hoped, if that were true--for still I could not but doubt the faith of all. Only one thing more I would ask, and that was if Matelgar bided in his own or my hall. The man told me that he kept in his own place. "Now," said I, "I had a mind to leave you bound here for the wolves, but you shall take a message to your master." On that the man swore to do my bidding, or, if I would, to follow me. "Save your oaths," I said. "I have heard a many today, and I hold them as nothing. Take these cast rags of mine, and bear them back to your master. Give them to him, and then say to him whatsoever you will-- either that you have slain me and these are the tokens, but that Gurth was by me slain, and you must leave him and his arms here because of the wolves which you feared; or else you can tell him the truth, as it has happened, and see what he does to you. I mind how he hung up a thrall of his by the thumbs once for two days. He will surely take good care of one of two who were beaten by an unarmed man. But I think the lie will come easiest to your master's man."