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The last scene in this episode (which ends the first part of the story) is a scene by night in the hall of the castle of Beaurain, where by the light of torches Count Guy and Harold (who have ridden to Beaurain together as men of equal rank though one is being held to ransom) are bargaining—for the word “Parobolant” must refer to the discussion of the ransom.
To this first series of episodes in the story succeeds the arrival of the Duke of Normandy’s heralds insisting upon the release of Harold because Guy was vassal to William. The advent of these messengers forms the [12th] and [13th] sections of the design. It is perhaps a guide to the time of year in which all this took place, that on the border below we have the ploughing and the sowing of the spring. There has arisen in connection with these messengers of William’s a considerable and rather futile debate as to the meaning of the little figure who is holding the horses. I take his small size to be merely a piece of perspective, and the word “Turold” to refer to the taller figure on the left, to which it is attached.
This name Turold will be familiar to the students of Normandy in another famous connection, for it was a Turold (much at this time) who put at the end of “The Song of Roland” his inscription: “This is the end of what Turoldus wrote.”
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