"Ha! sir fool, wouldst thou have done it better?" demanded Jodelle, turning on the speaker fiercely. "If I slew the fool juggler first, which were easy to do, never should I get a stroke at his lord; and, let me tell thee, 'tis no such easy matter to reach the master, who has never doffed his steel haubert since I have seen him--except when he sleeps, and then a varlet and a page lie across his door--a privilege which he gave them in the Holy Land, where they saved his life from a raw Saracen; and now, the fools hold it as such an honour, they would not yield it for a golden ring. Besides," he added, grinning with a mixture of shrewd malevolence and self-conceit in his countenance, "I have a plot in my head. You know, I bear a brain."
"Yes, yes!" replied several; "we know thou art rare at a plot. What goes forward now? I vow a wax-candle to the Virgin Mary if it be a good plot, and succeeds," added one of them. But this liberality towards the Virgin, unhappily for the priests, met with no imitators.
"My plot," replied Jodelle, "is as good a plot as ever was laid--ay, or hatched either--and will succeed too. Wars are coming on thick. We have no commander since our quarrel with Mercader. This De Coucy has no men. To the wars he must and will; and surely would rather be followed by a stout band of free companions, than have his banner fluttering at the head of half a dozen varlets, like a red rag on a furze bush. I will find means to put it in his head, and means to bring about that you shall be the men. Then shall he lead us to spoil and plunder enough, and leave it all to us when he has got it--for his hand is as free as his heart is bold. My vow will stand over till the war is done, and then the means of executing it will be in my own hands. What say you?"
"A good plot!--an excellent good plot!" cried several of the cotereaux; but nevertheless, though plunged deep in blood and crime, there were many of the band who knit their brow, and turned down the corner of the mouth, at the profound piece of villany with which master Jodelle finished his proposal. This did not prevent them from consenting, however; and Jodelle proceeded to make various arrangements for disposing comfortably of the band, during the space of time which was necessarily to elapse before his plan could be put in execution.
The first thing to be done was to evacuate the woods of De Coucy Magny, that no unpleasant collision might take place between the cotereaux and De Coucy; and the next consideration was, where the band was to lie till something more should be decided. This difficulty was soon set aside, by one of the troop which had been originally in possession of the forest, proposing as a refuge some woods in the neighbourhood, which they had haunted previous to betaking themselves to their present refuge. They then agreed to divide into two separate bands, and to confine their system of plundering as much as possible to the carrying off of horses; so that no difficulty might be found in mounting the troop, in case of the young knight accepting their services.
"And now," cried Jodelle, "how many are you, when all are here?"
"One hundred and thirty-three," was the reply.
"Try to make up three fifties," cried Jodelle, "and, in the first place, decamp with all speed; for this very day De Coucy, with all the horsemen he can muster, will be pricking through every brake in the forest. Carry off all your goods--unroof the huts--and if there be a clerk amongst you, let him write me a scroll, and leave it on the place, to say you quit it, all for the great name of De Coucy. So shall his vanity be tickled."
"Oh! there's Jeremy the monk can both read and write, you know," cried several; "and as for parchment, he shall write upon the linen that was in the pedlar's pack."
"And now," cried Jodelle, "to the work! But first show me where haunt the deer, for I must take back a buck to the castle to excuse my absence."