Now the boy arose and defiantly flung back his head in shrill laughter. "Your wife! Oh, God ha' mercy! Your wife, and for ten years left to her own devices! Why, look you, to-day you and your wife would not know each other were you twain brought face to face."
Prince Edward said, "That is very near the truth." But, indeed, it was the absolute truth, and as concerned himself already attested.
"Sire Edward," the boy then said, "your wife has wearied of this long waiting till you chose to whistle for her. Last summer the young Prince de Gâtinais came a-wooing—and he is a handsome man." The page made known all which de Gâtinais and King Alphonso planned, the words jostling as they came in torrents, but so that one might understand. "I am her page, my lord. I was to follow her. These fellows were to be my escort, were to ward off possible pursuit. Cry haro, beau sire! Cry haro, and lustily, for your wife in company with six other knaves is at large between here and Burgos—that unreasonable wife who grew dissatisfied after a mere ten years of neglect."
"I have been remiss," the Prince said, and one huge hand strained at his chin; "yes, perhaps I have been remiss. Yet it had appeared to me— But as it is, I bid you mount, my lad!" he cried, in a new voice.
The boy demanded, "And to what end?"
"Oy Dieus, messire! have I not slain your escort? Why, in common reason, equity demands that I afford you my protection so far as Burgos, messire, just as equity demands I on arrival slay de Gâtinais and fetch back my wife to England."
The page wrung exquisite hands with a gesture which was but partially tinged with anguish and presently began to laugh. Afterward these two rode southerly, in the direction of Castile.
For it appeared to the intriguing little woman a diverting jest that in this fashion her husband should be the promoter of her evasion. It appeared to her more diverting when in two days' space she had become genuinely fond of him. She found him rather slow of comprehension, and was namelessly humiliated by the discovery that not an eyelash of the man was irritated by his wife's decampment; he considered, to all appearances, that some property of his had been stolen, and he intended, quite without passion, to repossess himself of it, after, of course, punishing the thief.
This troubled the Princess somewhat; and often, riding by his more stolid side, the girl's heart raged at memory of the decade so newly overpast which had kept her always dependent on the charity of this or that ungracious patron—on any one who would take charge of her while the truant husband fought out his endless squabbles in England. Slights enough she had borne during the period, and squalor, and hunger even. But now at last she rode toward the dear southland; and presently she would be rid of this big man, when he had served her purpose; and afterward she meant to wheedle Alphonso, just as she had always done, and later still she and Etienne would be very happy; and, in fine, to-morrow was to be a new day.
So these two rode ever southward, and always Prince Edward found this new page of his—this Miguel de Rueda—a jolly lad, who whistled and sang inapposite snatches of balladry, without any formal ending or beginning, descanting always with the delicate irrelevancy of a bird-trill.