"Why then," muttered Roger gulping, and clenching trembling hands, "we must needs be plague-smitten, blasted and everlastingly damned, for needs must I go with thee."
Very soon pike and bow and gisarm fell into array; the pack-horses stumbled forward, the dust rose upon the warm, still air. Now as they strode along with ring and clash and the sound of voice and laughter, came Giles to walk at Beltane's stirrup; and oft he glanced back along the way and oft he sighed, a thing most rare in him; at last he spake, and dolefully:
"Witchcraft is forsooth a deadly sin, tall brother?"
"Verily, Giles, yet there be worse, methinks."
"Worse! Ha, 'tis true, 'tis very true!" nodded the archer. "And then, forsooth, shall the mother's sin cleave unto the daughter—and she so wondrous fair? The saints forbid." Now hereupon the archer's gloom was lifted and he strode along singing softly 'neath his breath; yet, in a while he frowned, sudden and fierce: "As for that foul knave Gurth—ha, methinks I had been wiser to slit his roguish weasand, for 'tis in my mind he may live to discover our hiding place to our foes, and perchance bring down Red Pertolepe to Hundleby Fen."
"In truth," said Beltane, slow and thoughtful, "so do I think; 'twas for this I spared his life."
Now here Giles the Archer turned and stared upon Beltane with jaws agape, and fain he would have questioned further, but Beltane's gloomy brow forbade; yet oft he looked askance at that golden head, and oft he sighed and shook his own, what time they marched out of the golden glare of morning into the dense green depths of the forest.
CHAPTER XXXII
HOW BELTANE MET WITH A YOUTHFUL KNIGHT
Now at this time the fame of Beltane's doing went throughout the Duchy, insomuch that divers and many were they that sought him out within the green; masterless men, serfs new-broke from thraldom, desperate fellows beyond the law, thieves and rogues in dire jeopardy of life or limb: off-scourings, these, of camp and town and village, hither come seeking shelter with Beltane in the wild wood, and eager for his service.