The Sergeant-At-Law's Tale: Part 2

Upon Constance's arrival, a huge welcoming is arranged. She rides to the Sultan's Kingdom with the Sultan himself and his mother. The mother plays her part well, and pretends to love Constance and treats her as a daughter. However, that night at the feast, the mother hosts Constance and her party and kills them all, including the Sultan's advisors. She spares Constance and sends her on a ship with provisions, ordered to never come back. Constance wanders the sea for three years until she arrives at the tip of Gilbatar, a formerly Christian kingdom but one that has now been taken over by Muslims. Constance arrives delirious and forgetful of her past. The governor of the castle near where she comes ashore greets her and takes her in. He and his wife treat her as a daughter and she is well loved throughout the kingdom. A young knight sees her and falls in love but she rejects all his advances. Bitter, the knight devises a plan to destroy Constance. He slips into the castle when everyone is sleeping and slits the governor's wife's throat. He lays the knife next to Constance and she is thus accused of murder. She is brought before the King and makes her plea. The whole kingdom believes her plight and the King pities her. He asks the Knight to swear witness to the murder, which he does before God and is then smote on the back of his neck. He dies because of his lie and the King asks Constance to marry him. After a little while she bears a son, but the King is not present because he is off in Scotland. She sends word to the King's mother, who then gets the courier drunk and forges a letter to her son telling him that the child is deformed and is the Devil's spawn. The King writes back and tells the mother to keep the child safe until he returns, but the mother forges another letter in the King's name telling the governor to send Constance and the baby to sea within four days on the very same ship she arrived. The governor and the rest of the kingdom are shocked by the demand and regretfully force Constance to leave. She climbs aboard the ship with her baby and enough provisions to last her many years.