"Then you are at a loose end for the time?" he said. "Why not take service here with Offa?"
"I am for home so soon as this is over," I said. "If all is well there, I have no need to serve any man."
"So you have not been home yet," he said slowly, as if turning over some thought in his mind. "What if I asked you to help me in some small service here and now? You are free, and no man's man, as one may say."
"Nor do I wish to be," I answered dryly.
I did not like this Gymbert.
"No offence," he said quickly. "You are a Frank as one may say, and a stranger, and such an one may well be useful in affairs of state which need to be kept quiet. I could, an you will, put you in the way of some little profit, on the business of the queen, as I think."
"Well, if the queen asks me to do her a service, that may be. These matters do not come from second hand, as a rule."
He glanced sidewise at me quickly, and I minded the face of another queen, whose hand had been on my arm while she had spoken to me with the tears in her eyes.
"Right," he said, laughing uneasily. "But if one is told to seek for, say, a messenger?"
"I am a thane," I said. "To a thane even a queen may speak directly."