way or that, as they listed. But this time she had her babe for
comfort, and he grew to be a child near five years old before she was
rescued. And this is the way it happened. When the Emperor of Rome
heard of the deeds the cruel Soldaness had done, and how his daughter's
husband had been slain, he sent an army to Syria, and all these years
they had besieged the royal city till it was burnt and destroyed. Now
the fleet, returning to Rome, met the ship in which Constance sailed,
and they fetched her and her child to her native country. The senator
who commanded the fleet was her uncle, but he knew her not, and she did
not make herself known. He took her into his own house, and her aunt,
the senator's wife, loved her greatly, never guessing she was her own
princess and kinswoman.

When King Alla got back from his war with the Scots and heard how
Constance had been sent away, he was very angry; but when he questioned
and found the letter which had been sent him was false, and that
Constance had borne him a beautiful boy, he knew not what to think.
When the governor showed him the letter with his own seal which
directed that his wife and child should be sent away, he knew there was
some hidden wickedness in all this. He forced the messenger to tell
where he had carried the letters, and he confessed he had slept two
nights at the castle of Donegilde.

So it all came out, and the king, in a passion of rage, slew his
mother, and then shut himself up in his castle to give way to grief.

After a time he began to repent his deed, because he remembered it was
contrary to the gentle teachings of the faith Constance had taught him.
In his penitence he resolved to go to Rome on a pilgrimage to atone for
his sin. So in his pilgrim dress he set out for the great empire.