And all this was soft and full of delight for my soul:
and I, whose body a little while ago had been driven to daily
toil with evil words and stripes, and who had known not what
words of thanks and praise might mean!
"But so it must be that we should depart, and the kind folk
showed us how sore their hearts were of our departure, but they
gainsaid us in nowise, but rather furthered us all they might,
and we went our ways from them riding on horned neat (for they knew
not of horses), and driving one for a sumpter beast before us;
and they had given us bows and arrows for our defence, and that we
might get us venison.
"It is not to be said that we did not encounter perils;
but thereof I will tell thee naught as now. We came to other peoples,
richer and mightier than these, and I saw castles, and abbies,
and churches, and walled towns, and wondered at them exceedingly.
And in these places folk knew of the kingdom of my lord and his father,
and whereas they were not of his foes (who lay for the more part
on the other side of his land), and my lord could give sure tokens
of what he was, we were treated with honour and worship, and my
lord began to be himself again, and to bear him as a mighty man.
And here to me was some gain in that poverty and nakedness wherewith
we came out of the mountains and the raiment of the simple folk;
for had I been clad in my poor cloth and goat-skins of the House
of the Sorcerer, and he in his brave attire and bright armour,
they would have said, it is a thrall that he is assotted of,
and would have made some story and pretence of taking me from him;
but they deemed me a great lady indeed, and a king's daughter,
according to the tale that he told them.
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