Into this turmoil leaped the hounds, their fangs flashing. There was one yelp, a flurry of bloody fur, and Dan Russell's last race was run. The youth and the girl pounded out of the ride in the midst of the confusion, and reined in their horses barely in time to avoid riding down a couple of pack-mules and a frightened servant who cowered in the dust.
"By the Bodyless Ones, but you ride hard, gentles!" drawled a voice in Norman French with a sibilant lisp.
Hugh pulled his stallion around on its haunches. The speaker was a man of his own height, dark with a Latin darkness quite unlike Hugh's Northern tincture, clothed richly in stuffs that even Hugh's untutored eye identified as the fabrics of Eastern looms. He might have been anywhere from thirty to forty years in age, and he had an assurance of manner that indicated wide experience. Involuntarily, Hugh hated the man, hated him coldly, but implacably, for his cruel thin-lipped mouth and inscrutable eyes that hinted at grim secrets within and greedily fastened on Edith's flushed face.
But Hugh was an English gentleman, this man was a stranger, and the courtesies of the day were just beginning to elaborate into the full-flowered perfection of the age of chivalry. Off came Hugh's cap, and he bowed to his saddle-bow.
"I crave your pardon, sir, if my hounds disturbed your servants," he apologised. "We are not wont to kill in the highroad. 'Twas a mischance."
"Say no more," replied the stranger, forced to withdraw his eyes from the girl's face. "You ran your quarry well, young sir. In sooth, you took us by surprise. One moment, and we plodded calmly along, dull as pilgrims. The next, and I feared me some robber baron was worrying my train."
He spoke with a tentative lilt of humour, his eyes again fastened on the girl's face, as if to force her into the conversation. But Hugh refused to be drawn.
"Give you god-den, Messer," he said curtly. "Come, hounds! Good dogs!"
A lift of his eyebrows, and Edith reined around and backed her mare into the shadows of the ride. Hugh was about to follow, when the stranger interposed.
"May I crave your indulgence further?" he asked, pressing his horse forward. "I seek Blancherive, a castle of Sir Godwin Halcroft. Can you direct me towards it?"