their asking of aforetime that I would come to be a Queen
over them, and there have I dwelt ever since betwixt Hampton
and the Castle of Abundance; and that tall champion has been
ever as a brother unto me."

Said Ralph, "And thou art their Queen there?" "Yea," she said, "in a fashion;
yet have they another who is mightier than I, and might, if she durst,
hang me over the battlements of the Scaur, for she is a fierce and hard woman,
and now no longer young in years."

"Is it not so then," said Ralph, "that some of the ill deeds
that are told of thee are of her doing?"

"It is even so," she said, "and whiles when she has spoken the word
I may not be against her openly, therefore I use my wisdom which I
have learned, to set free luckless wights from her anger and malice.
More by token the last time I did thus was the very night of the day
we parted, after thou hadst escaped from the Burg."

"In what wise was that?" said Ralph. She said: "When I rode
away from thee on that happy day of my deliverance by thee,
my heart laughed for joy of the life thou hadst given me,
and of thee the giver, and I swore to myself that I would
set free the first captive or death-doomed creature that I
came across, in honour of my pleasure and delight:
now speedily I came to Hampton and the Scaur;
for it is not very far from the want-ways of the wood:
and there I heard how four of our folk had been led away by
the men of the Burg, therefore it was clear to me that I must
set these men free if I could; besides, it pleased me to think