“With the littlest good-will in the world, I promise you,” she answered. “But, you know, he so plagued for the parley that it was easier to try him than deny him. Besides, good friend and captain, I learn from what I read in Master Froissart’s Chronicles that it were neither customary nor courteous to deny conference to a supplicating enemy.”
Halfman adored her for her courage, for her calm assumption of success.
“How if he but come to spy out our strategies?” he asked. “The leanness of our larder? Our empty bandoliers?”
Brilliana beamed back at him with her bewildering confidence.
“I have thought of that, too,” she admitted. “But he shall not find us at our wit’s-end. Seek Simon Butler, friend captain. Though our cellars are near empty he will make shift to find you some full flagons. Bring hither a bunch of your subalterns, the rosiest, the most jovial, if any still carry such colors and boast such spirit; let them gather in the banqueting-hall, where, with such wit as French wine can give, let them sing as if they were merry and well fed. Our sanctimonious spy-out-the-nakedness-of-the-land must think we are well victualled, he must think we are well mannered.”
Halfman made her a sweeping reverence which was not without its play-actor’s grace, though its honesty might have pardoned a greater awkwardness.
“We are well womaned, lady,” he asseverated, “with you for our leader. By sea and by land I have served some great captains, but never one greater than you for constancy and manly valor.”
Brilliana’s bright face took a swift look of gravity and she gave a little sigh.
“The King’s cause,” she said, soberly, “might turn a child into a champion.”