You decide to wait, but soon regret it. A guard visits you twice a day and brings you only black bread and water. In a few days you feel almost too weak to escape even if you have the chance.
But just as you are beginning to despair of ever regaining your freedom, the guard walks in, smiling.

“The King has ordered you out of here,” he says. “We have a much more important prisoner a man who insulted the King’s horse.” He laughs in your face. You don’t know whether he is telling the truth or not, but he holds the door and waves you out. You walk down the long flight of stone steps to the main courtyard, free again – at least for the moment. The drawbridge is down and there seems to be nothing in the way of your leaving the castle.

There is a splendid black horse tied up near you, probably owned by one of the knights. It occurs to you that you could cover a lot of ground on that horse before anyone realizes what happened.