This hasty act filled the king with suspicion, for the sudden death of his young son had seemed to him like the work of poison. In a burst of passion he caught the guilty woman fiercely by the hand, drew his sword, and swore a mighty oath that he would kill her on the spot, unless she told him what had been in the cup and why it was put there. At this threat the queen, trembling and weeping with fright, acknowledged that it had been her design to kill Tristram, in order that her son should inherit the kingdom of Lyonesse. "Thou false traitress and murderess!" cried the king in redoubled passion. "By my royal soul, you shall have the fate you designed for my son. A worse one you shall have, for you shall be burned at the stake as a poisoner." Then he called a council of his barons, who confirmed this sentence on learning the dark crime of the queen, and by the order of the court a fire of execution was prepared, and the murderess bound to the stake, while fagots were heaped about her drooping form. The flames were already kindled, and were crawling like deadly serpents through the dry wood, but before they could reach the condemned queen young Tristram kneeled before his father and begged him a boon. "You shall have it, my son. What would you ask?" "Grant me the life of the queen. I cannot bear to see her die so terrible a death." "Ask not that," said the king. "You should hate her who would have poisoned you. I have condemned her more for your sake than my own." "Yet I beseech you to be merciful to her. I have forgiven her, and pray God to do so. You granted me my boon for God's love, and I hold you to your promise." "If you will have it so, I cannot withdraw my word," said the king. "I give her to you. Go to the fire and take her, and do with her what you will." This gladdened the boy's heart, which had been full of horror at the dreadful spectacle, and he hastened to release the victim from the flames. But after that Meliodas would have nothing to do with her until after years had passed, when Tristram reconciled them with each other. And he sent his son from the court, being afraid the pardoned murderess might devise some new scheme for his destruction. The noble-hearted lad was therefore given as tutor a learned gentleman named Gouvernail, who took him to France, that he might learn the language and be taught the use of arms. There he remained seven years, learning not only the language, but the art of minstrelsy, till he became so skilful that few could equal him in the use of the harp and other instruments of music. And as he grew older he practised much in hunting and hawking, and in time became famous also for his skill in this noble art. He in after-life devised many terms used in hunting, and bugle calls of the chase, so that from him the book of venery, or of hunting and hawking, came to be called the "Book of Sir Tristram."