Harold Lamb

“ Robert forced himself to speak coldly. Beholding her pride and her trust in him, he clenched his hands and strode the length of the chamber, to pause beside her.
“Nay, I am a wildling and worthless—as the peers of Palestine did maintain,” he went on. “Hither came I to loot gold and gear and raise myself to a high place, and this day I plotted how to profit by the treachery of the wazir to his master. When I cast aside my spurs I put aside my vows and I have mocked the prayers of good Evagrius—thinking to drown memory of the past in a sea of blood. And this thing is true.” ”

“ She held out a finely wrought haburgeon of delicate chain mail with a silk girdle, and wide damask pantaloons with embroidered slippers, and—smiling merrily—a long khalat of the richest purple.
“Ha, Master Robert,” quoth the bowman, who had come in when he heard his name called, “she hath the bearing of a likely esquire-at-arms and a temper to boot. I have found for her a small shield and a bow suitable for her hand——”
“Yah khawand,” interrupted Ellen blithely, “wilt take me for a companion upon your road—your road of peril?” ”

“ Nay, child, hast forgotten our second meeting, beyond the Gates, by the desert sea? Your hand was gentle then—to a churl.”
Ellen bent over her embroidery, and her fingers tangled in the thread. For when Robert had lain ill with fever she had often taken his head upon her knee and stroked his forehead until he slept. She wondered how much he remembered, and, observing with a swift, sidelong glance that he still smiled, she waxed haughty.
“My lord, I am no child. Next Martinmas I will be seventeen.”
“My lady,” Robert laughed, “I am no lord. Nay, you have spoiled the pattern. What is it?” ”