[Illustration: "This is the son of your king. I charge you with his care."]
Then she spoke to me, low and quickly, drawing the slender, handsome boy before her and towards me.
"Friend, I am Margaret the Queen. This is the son of your king. I charge you with his care--see that you are worthy of such an honour."
And then, as I stared at her in amazement, stepping back a pace, she added, "Hide him in your forest till danger is past, and hereafter his palace shall be free to you--baron of England shall you be if you will. See! Is it fitting that a Prince of Wales should wander with no attendants?"
But I was on one knee before her by this time, needing and thinking of no promise of reward or honour. It was enough that I was asked for help by her who had been, and to me yet was, the highest in the land. And my heart ached that she should have to seek for succour from such as I.
"On my life be it, Queen Margaret," I stammered, "I will give life for you willingly."
But then as the dog growled fiercely at some fresh burst of noise that came from the road, making the young prince shrink from him, I leapt up, rousing to the danger close at hand, for the Queen would be sought for directly.
"Follow me, I pray you, Madam," I said, "it is not far to a safe place. Come, my prince, you are weary; fear not the good hound, but let me carry you."
"Aye, friend, I am aweary," he said, with a little smile, "but I am sorely heavy for you, and you are armed moreover."
But the weight of a slight boy of twelve is nothing, and I took him up, laughing to reassure him. The Queen followed me without a word, and we went back to my place by the way I had come--surely the strangest, saddest little company in all England.
I marvel how our Queen kept up in that rough walk until the cave was reached, but she never faltered. Once I pressed on her the boar spear that I carried, that she might use it as a staff, but she would not have it, and she never so much as put out her hand to my arm when she stumbled over root or jutting rock. It was a rough road for her, but I dared take no path lest we should be more easily followed. And all the way I listened for the voices of men who hunted us, but I heard none.
So we came to my cave without mischance and were safe. I set the half-sleeping prince on a heather-covered bank while I pulled away the stones of its entrance, and the Queen stood by him watching him, and I thought how any other woman had surely sunk down to rest after that weary flight. But she seemed tireless in this as in all else that she took in hand.
