But Beltane suffered it all, uttering no word and staring ever straight before him with wide, vague eyes, knitting his brow ever and anon in troubled amaze like a child that suffers unjustly; wherefore Sir Pertolepe, fondling his big chin, frowned.
"Ha!" quoth he, "let our Duke that hath no duchy be lodged secure—to the dungeons, aye, he shall sleep with rats until my lord Duke Ivo come to see him die—yet stay! The dungeons be apt to sap a man's strength and spirit, and to a weak man death cometh over soon and easy. Let him lie soft, feed full and sleep sound—let him have air and light, so shall he wax fat and lusty against my lord Duke's coming. See to it, Tristan!"
So they led Beltane away jangling in his fetters, across divers courtyards and up a narrow, winding stair and thrust him within a chamber where was a bed and above it a loop-hole that looked out across a stretch of rolling, wooded country. Now being come to the bed, Beltane sank down thereon, and setting elbow to knee, rested his heavy head upon his hand as one that fain would think.
"Helen!" he whispered, and so whispering, his strong fingers writhed and clenched themselves within his yellow hair. And thus sat he all that day, bowed forward upon his hand, his fingers tight-clenched within his hair, staring ever at the square flagstone beneath his foot, heedless alike of the coming and going of his gaoler or of the food set out upon the bench hard by. Day grew to evening and evening to night, yet still he sat there, mighty shoulders bowed forward, iron fingers clenched within his hair, like one that is dead; in so much that his gaoler, setting down food beside the other untasted dishes, looked upon him in amaze and touched him.
"Oho!" said he, "wake up. Here be food, look ye, and, by Saint Crispin, rich and dainty. And drink—good wine, wake and eat!"
Then Beltane's clutching fingers relaxed and he raised his head, blinking in the rays of the lanthorn; and looking upon his rumpled hair, the gaoler stared and peered more close.
Quoth he:
"Methought thou wert a golden man, yet art silver also, meseemeth."
"Fellow," said Beltane harsh-voiced and slow, "Troy town was burned, and here was great pity, methinks, for 'twas a fair city. Yet to weep o'er it these days were a fond madness. Come, let us eat!"
But as Beltane uprose in his jangling fetters, the gaoler, beholding his face, backed to the door, and slamming it shut, barred and fast bolted it, yet cast full many a glance behind as he hasted down the winding stair.