"If all is well there, I have no need to serve any man." "So you have not been home yet," he said slowly, as if turning over some thought in his mind.

"What if I asked you to help me in some small service here and now?
You are free, and no man's man, as one may say." "Nor do I wish to be," I answered dryly.
I did not like this Gymbert.
"No offence," he said quickly.

"You are a Frank as one may say, and a stranger, and such an one may well be useful in affairs of state which need to be kept quiet.

I could, an you will, put you in the way of some little profit, on the business of the queen, as I think." "Well, if the queen asks me to do her a service, that may be.

These matters do not come from second hand, as a rule." He glanced sidewise at me quickly, and I minded the face of another queen, whose hand had been on my arm while she had spoken to me with the tears in her eyes.
"Right," he said, laughing uneasily.