'Why wouldn't he?' said Dan.

'Because I rode my horse into the refectory, when the
scholars were at meat, to show the Saxon boys we
Normans were not afraid of an Abbot. It was that very
Saxon Hugh tempted me to do it, and we had not met
since that day. I thought I knew his voice even inside my
helmet, and, for all that our Lords fought, we each
rejoiced we had not slain the other. He walked by my
side, and he told me how a heathen God, as he believed,
had given him his sword, but he said he had never heard
it sing before. I remember I warned him to beware of
sorcery and quick enchantments.' Sir Richard smiled to
himself. 'I was very young - very young!
'When we came to his house here we had almost
forgotten that we had been at blows. It was near
midnight, and the Great Hall was full of men and women
waiting news. There I first saw his sister, the Lady
Aelueva, of whom he had spoken to us in France. She
cried out fiercely at me, and would have had me hanged
in that hour, but her brother said that I had spared his life
- he said not how he saved mine from the Saxons - and
that our Duke had won the day; and even while they
wrangled over my poor body, of a sudden he fell down in
a swoon from his wounds.

"'This is thy fault," said the Lady Aelueva to me, and
she kneeled above him and called for wine and cloths.