For the moment, the Red King’s former admiration for this brave young princess caused him to waver; but those were days when suspicion and jealousy rose above all nobler traits. His face grew stern again.
“Ordgar of Oxford,” he said, “take up the glove!” and Edith knew who was her accuser. Then the King asked: “Who standeth as champion for Edgar the Atheling and this maid, his niece?”
Almost before the words were spoken young Robert Fitz Godwine had sprung to Edith’s side.
“That would I, lord king, if a young squire might appear against a belted knight!”
“Ordgar of Oxford fights not with boys!” said the accuser contemptuously.
The king’s savage humor broke out again.
“Face him with your own page, Sir Ordgar,” he said, with a grim laugh. “Boy against boy would be a fitting wager for a young maid’s life.” But the Saxon knight was in no mood for sport.
“Nay, beausire; this is no child’s play,” he said. “I care naught for this girl. I stand as champion for the king against yon traitor Atheling, and if the maiden’s cause is his, why then against her too. This is a man’s quarrel.”
Young Robert would have spoken yet again as his face flushed hot with anger at the knight’s contemptuous words. But a firm hand was laid upon his shoulder, and a strong voice said:
“Then is it mine, Sir Ordgar. If between man and man, then will I, with the gracious permission of our lord the king, stand as champion for this maiden here and for my good lord, the noble Atheling, whose liegeman and whose man am I, next to you, lord king.” And, taking the mate to the glove which the Princess Edith had flung down in defiance, he thrust it into the guard of his cappe. line, or iron skull-cap, in token that he, Godwine of Winchester, the father of the boy Robert, was the young girl’s champion.