"Master Rudd will tell me more at large?"
There was certainly something of insolency in his tone, and being already ruffled with the King's manner of receiving my news, I did not feel very amiably disposed towards this stranger, who looked at me under his beaver with a glance of mockery.
"Master Rudd, if it please him, will tell me more at large," says the man again, while I was still considering of how I should deal with him.
"You heard the King's command, Master Lameray——"
"Pardon—De Lameray," says he, interrupting me.
"De Lameray," I said, making a bow. "The château of St Aubyn-le-cauf, your nobility may not be aware, lies something less than two miles along the road towards Dampierre, and if you hurry you may yet be in time to do the King's bidding."
"And perhaps Master Rudd would be pleased to accompany me?" he said, smiling upon me.
"No," I said shortly, and thinking that perhaps his mockery sprang of my dirty and dishevelled aspect, I left him there, and strode away, with a bare acknowledgment of his salutation, to the quarters I had formerly occupied in the camp. There, having bathed and got me into clean raiment, and bound up the wound in my leg, no great matter, and eaten pretty ravenously, I set off to find Raoul de Torcy, who was of my own age, and had been my particular friend ever since I came to France.
"What news of the camp?" I said, after I had greeted him, for having been absent for a fortnight I knew nothing of what had happened of late.
"The question I myself would ask," he said, "for I only returned from Paris last night."