“We are in luck!” cried the younger knight, joyfully. “They are fighting within, and we are just in time, the saints be praised, for our share of the sport!”
Knights, squires, and pages loosened their swords in the sheath with a business-like and cheerful air; for, to any man of those rough times, the mere fact that a fight was going on anywhere within reach was a good reason for joining in, without caring a straw what was the cause of quarrel, or on which side lay the right.
But, to explain this tumult, we must go back a little.
Four or five of the Du Guesclin men-at-arms were lounging about the castle-yard of Motte-Brun, on their return from escorting their lady on another visit to the convent, when there came gliding among them, with a half-tripping, half-sliding step, a pale, meagre, flighty-looking man, whose fantastic dress, and parti-coloured cap adorned with small bells, showed him to be one of those nondescript personages, half idiot and half jester, who led, in the households of the gentry of that age, the life of a spaniel in a lion’s cage—now taking liberties with their masters of which no one else would have dared to dream, and now being scourged till the blood ran down, when one of those liberties happened to be ill received.
“Ha! why wentest not thou forth with us, Messire Roland?” cried one of the soldiers to the jester, whom his master had named in joke after the famous legendary champion of Charlemagne. “Had we been beset by thieves, we had sorely missed the aid of thy puissant arm.”
“Not so,” said Roland; “had ye been bare-headed, ye were safe enow without aid of mine, for never was blade forged in Brittany that could hew through skulls as thick as yours!”
A hoarse laugh applauded the retort, such as it was.
“Well, better a thick skull than an empty one, methinks,” chuckled another of the band, with a meaning leer at the jester.
“Mock me not, slave!” cried Roland, majestically, “or I will hold thee so fast that thou shalt gladly pay ransom to get free again.”
“Thou?” said the brawny, red-bearded giant whom he addressed, eyeing his challenger’s puny frame with a look of scorn.