And presently from behind the curtains of the litter the princess spoke to me, very low, and I do not think any other heard.

“Good friend of him whom I loved, I thank you for your loyalty to him.  The archbishop has told me, and you have given me back a little of my trust in men.  I had deemed that all were false for aye, but for you, I think.  Now I go hence, and beyond the walls of some nunnery I shall never pass, and there I will pray for you also.  And for you there shall be happy days to come, in the meed of utmost loyalty.”

I could not answer her, and still I knelt, for there was somewhat needed to come ere I could part from her without a word.  But before I could frame aught she set her hand through the curtains, and in it was somewhat small, as it were a silken case cunningly woven round a little jewel, perchance.

“There was none whom I would ask to do what I longed for,” she said; “but now it will be done.  I pray you set this on his heart, that it may go to his grave with him.”

“There it shall most surely be, lady,” I said.  “I am honoured in the duty.”

“Go!” she said faintly; “and farewell.”

I rose up hastily, and went back to my horse, while the lady who had spoken just now busied herself in caring for her mistress.  Selred took my arm and walked aside with me.

“You must not come back to East Anglia,” he said.  “I know that you would fain see the lady of Thetford, but it were useless danger for you.  I will tell her all that you have done, now; and if in after days you may come to us, do so.  Bide and tend Sighard and Hilda, and mind that there is sore peril to both of them so long as Quendritha lives.  She is shut up now, but all the more has her mind freedom to plan and plot the fall of those who have seen her at her worst.  One cannot shut up such a woman as she, but she will have her ways of learning all she will, and her tools are many.”

“I would that you could bide here,” I said.

“I also; but I must pass eastward with this poor lady and these others.  Yet I am sure that Offa will do all honour to our king.  He has been seen by none as yet save his pages.  They whisper that he is fasting, and bowed with shame and grief.”

For a little longer we spoke, and then we must part.  The sad train of the princess went on, and swung into the eastward track which she would take, and the archbishop signed to us to follow him.  And that was the last which any man in Mercia saw of the fair princess who had been the pride of the land, for she came safely to far Crowland, in the fenland, and there pined and died.

It is said that the parting between her and her terrible mother was such that men will tell little thereof.  I know that in that time some strange gift of prophecy came over the maiden, and she foretold the death of her who planned the deed, even to the day, and the awesome manner of it; and that also she wept for the knowledge given her that the deed should bring the end of the line of Offa and the fall of Mercia—­things which no man could think possible at this time, so that she seemed to rave.  More things strange and terrible, I heard also, but them I will not set down.  Mayhap they were not true.