Cuthbert replied quietly that he had no valuables upon his person; that if they took him there were none would pay as much as a silver mark for the ransom of them all; and that the only things that they had to give were sharp arrows and heavy blows.
"You talk bravely, young sir," the man said.

"But you have to do with men versed in fight, and caring but little either for knocks or for arrows.

We have gone through the Crusades, and are therefore held to be absolved from all sin, even that so great as would be incurred in the cutting of your knightly throat." "But we have gone through the Crusades also," Cuthbert said, "and our persons are sacred.

The sin of slitting our weazands, which you speak of, would therefore be so great that even the absolution on which you rely would barely extend to it." "We know most of those who have served in the Holy Land," the man said more respectfully than he had yet spoken, "and would fain know with whom we speak." "I am an Englishman, and a follower of King Richard," Cuthbert said, "and am known as Sir Cuthbert of Evesham.

As I was the youngest among the knights who fought for the holy sepulcher, it may be that my appearance is known to you ?" "Ah," the other said, "you are he whom they called the Boy Knight, and who was often in the thick of the fray, near to Richard himself.