With the keen tact that characterised him, Villehardouin dropped the subject there; but he talked on tirelessly, for he was a man insatiable in his pursuit of knowledge. He asked Matteo concerning the Saracens and their mode of warfare, and he was equally curious regarding Hugh's training in England.
"An you have been well-exercised in arms, y'are no worse off for delay in taking the field," he asserted. "Many a boy is thrown and crippled in his first tourney for lack of strength to stand the blows."
But what caused him to marvel most was the fact that Hugh had been taught to read and write.
"What," he cried, "you can write fair script like the holy fathers? 'Tis wellnigh beyond belief, lordling. And you read? Latin, too, say you? St. Remigius aid me! Ah, I would I had the art. All my life have I longed for it, but the toil of arms and my seigneury have left me no opportunity—or perchance furnished my idleness an excuse. But in my embassages and visits to courts and parliaments of barons, how great an aid would it have been to me had I been able to set down that which happened in writing that it might never have been lost. Ah, God, fair sirs, this is a matter very close to my heart!"
"If I can be of service to you on the journey. Lord Marshal, I shall count it an honour," proffered Hugh.
"That is right courteously said," Villehardouin responded with boyish alacrity. "Doubt not I shall make use of you, with your permission. I like not to use the monkish scribes. They are too foreign in their understanding. An you will bear with me, I shall have much for your hand to write."
The pleasant company and the ceaseless clatter of thousands of hoofs at their heels made the ride into Troyes seem very short; but it was dusk when they entered the gates and passed up the main street, torch and cresset glaring on hauberk and byrnie, shield and lance-point, sword and battle-axe. From the marketplace came the clamour of a crowd hysterically excited.
"Messer Fulke has aroused the good people again," commented Villehardouin, with the cynicism of the great noble, to whom the Crusade, first and last, was mainly an opportunity for adventure in a good cause. "Lord Hugh, Messer Matteo, I shall meet you anon."
He turned into an inn courtyard, leaving the comrades in the street.
"Shall we seek quarters?" asked Matteo.