Forsooth many men that saw
me desired me beyond measure, and assuredly some great proud man
or other would have taken me from my lord, but that they feared
the wrath of his father, who was a mighty man indeed.
"Yea, one while as we sojourned by a certain town but a little outside
the walls, a certain young man, a great champion and exceeding masterful,
came upon me with his squires as I was walking in the meadows,
and bore me off, and would have taken me to his castle, but that my lord
followed with a few of the burghers, and there was a battle fought,
wherein my lord was hurt; but the young champion he slew; and I cannot
say but I was sorry of his death, though glad of my deliverance.
"Again, on a time we guested in a great baron's house, who dealt so foully
by us that he gave my lord a sleeping potion in his good-night cup,
and came to me in the dead night and required me of my love;
and I would not, and he threatened me sorely, and called me
a thrall and a castaway that my lord had picked up off the road:
but I gat a knife in my hand and was for warding myself when I saw
that my lord might not wake: so the felon went away for that time.
But on the morrow came two evil men into the hall whom he had suborned,
and bore false witness that I was a thrall and a runaway.
So that the baron would have held me there (being a mighty man)
despite my lord and his wrath and his grief, had not a young
knight of his house been, who swore that he would slay him unless
he let us go; and whereas there were other knights and squires
there present who murmured, the baron was in a way compelled.
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