"You Wessex folk are quick-tempered; or is that a Frankish trick you have picked up?" he sneered. "Nay, but I will not offend you."
Then he was silent for a time while we walked on. I thought that the queen had hardly sent a message to me in that way, and that he had made some mistake. I would leave him as soon as we turned back toward the hall. We were alone on the rampart, with the stables below us on one side and the high stockading on the other; and then he dropped that subject, and talked of my home going in all friendly wise.
"There are always chances," he said. "Come and take service with Offa if aught goes amiss at home."
"I have promised to go to Ethelbert, if so I must," I answered, thinking to end his seemingly idle talk.
I had put up with it because I was his guest in a way, seeing that he was the marshal, and it does not do to offend needlessly those who hold one's comfort in their hands.
End his talk this did, suddenly, and why I could not tell.
"Why," he said, "then you are his man after all! I deemed that you had but ridden westward with him for your own convenience."
"So it was, more or less," I said, somewhat surprised at his tone.
And when I looked at him his face seemed white in the moonlight.
"Of his kindness he bade me bear him company."