“Yes, my Lord.”
“And if I had not flown into a passion and told who I was, I might have been safe! O Sir Eric! Sir Eric! you will not let me be carried off to a French prison!”
“Here, my child,” said Dame Astrida, holding out her arms, “Sir Eric will do all he can for you, but we are in God’s hands!”
Richard came and leant against her. “I wish I had not been in a passion!” said he, sadly, after a silence; then looking at her in wonder—“But how came you up all this way?”
“It is a long way for my old limbs,” said Fru Astrida, smiling, “but my son helped me, and he deems it the only safe place in the Castle.”
“The safest,” said Sir Eric, “and that is not saying much for it.”
“Hark!” said Osmond, “what a tramping the Franks are making. They are beginning to wonder where the Duke is.”
“To the stairs, Osmond,” said Sir Eric. “On that narrow step one man may keep them at bay a long time. You can speak their jargon too, and hold parley with them.”
“Perhaps they will think I am gone,” whispered Richard, “if they cannot find me, and go away.”
Osmond and two of the Normans were, as he spoke, taking their stand on the narrow spiral stair, where there was just room for one man on the step. Osmond was the lowest, the other two above him, and it would have been very hard for an enemy to force his way past them.