The man bent his head to her.
“I am thankful, madame,” he answered, “that I should have been so good fortuned as to be able to befriend you. How came you by such evil hazard?”
“I was of Avangel,” she said.
“You speak as of the past,” quoth he, with a keen look.
“Avangel was burnt and sacked but yesterday,” she said. “Many of the nuns were martyred; some few escaped. I was made captive here, and bound to this tree by the heathen.”
Igraine could see the man’s face darken even in the moonlight, as though pain and wrath held mute confederacy there. He crossed himself, and then stood with both hands on the pommel of his sword, stately and statuesque.
“And the Lady Gratia?” he said.
“Dead, I fear.”
A half-heard groan seemed to come from the man’s helmet. He bent his head into the shadows and stood stiff and silent as though smitten into thought. Presently he seemed to remember himself, Igraine, and the occasion.
“And yourself, madame?” he said, with a twinge of tenderness in his voice.