“No; you are right there. But though we talk a great deal about fighting, it is only occasionally that we engage in it.”
The pages' room was a small one. It contained two pallets, which served as seats by day, and two wooden chests, in which they kept their clothes.
Their conversation was interrupted by the ringing of a bell.
“That is supper,” De Lille said, jumping up. “We will leave you here while we go down to stand behind our lord's chair. When the meal is over we will bring a pasty or something else good, and a measure of wine, and have our supper together up here; and we will tell the servitors to bring up another pallet for you. Of course, you can go down with us if you like.”
“Thank you, I would much rather stay here. Every one would be strange to me, and having nothing to do I should feel in the way.”
The boys nodded, and taking their caps ran off, while Gervaise, tired by the excitement of the day, lay down on the bed which a servant brought up a few minutes after they had left him, and slept soundly until their return.
“I think I have been asleep,” he said, starting up when they entered the room again.
“You look as if you had, anyhow,” De Lille laughed. “It was the best thing you could do. We have brought up supper. We generally sit down and eat after the knights have done, but this is much better, as you are here.” They sat down on the beds, carved the pasty with their daggers, and after they had finished Gervaise gladly accepted the proposal of the others to take a walk round the walls.
They started from the corner of the castle looking down upon the spit of land dividing the two ports.
“You see,” De Lille said, “there is a row of small islands across the mouth of the outer port, and the guns of St. Nicholas, and those on this wall, would prevent any hostile fleet from entering.”