For I mourn him as a man mourns a trusted leader
and a loved comrade, and I should have asked no better than to be
allowed to serve him all my days. Yet I serve the queen, and in
that I do most truly serve her lover.
Times change for all of us. The roaring flood of youth goes by,
and the stream of life sinks to a quiet flow. Sapt is an old man
now; soon my sons will be grown up, men enough themselves to
serve Queen Flavia. Yet the memory of Rudolf Rassendyll is fresh
to me as on the day he died, and the vision of the death of
Rupert of Hentzau dances often before my eyes. It may be that
some day the whole story shall be told, and men shall judge of it
for themselves. To me it seems now as though all had ended well.
I must not be misunderstood: my heart is still sore for the loss
of him. But we saved the queen's fair fame, and to Rudolf himself
the fatal stroke came as a relief from a choice too difficult: on
the one side lay what impaired his own honor, on the other what
threatened hers. As I think on this my anger at his death is
less, though my grief cannot be. To this day I know not how he
chose; no, and I don't know how he should have chosen. Yet he had
chosen, for his face was calm and clear.
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