'We may hold the keep for months,' said a knight.
'Yes, if manna would fall from heaven,' suggested another jestingly; 'else I fear we must needs eat each other ere many moons had waned.'
'Gentlemen,' said Sir Hoël gravely, 'there is a means by which we may increase our supplies a shade less desperate than that.'
The countess turned to him with anxious curiosity. Sir Hoël continued,—
'We cannot stable all our horses in the keep, some must be sacrificed; better we kill them with our own good swords, and salt their flesh, than let the king's men have them. Horse-flesh may not be palatable, but at least it would be better fare than picking each other's bones. Relief may come before we need fall back on such provender. Still, it will be there.'
A sick shudder of horror passed through Emma's heart. Was famine indeed so near?
The faces of the knights grew serious. No man stood forward to proffer his own steed for the sacrifice. More than one gave evidence, by trembling lip and quickened breathing, of the hardness of the trial. For those mailed warriors were a centaur race. Their steeds were almost a part of themselves. Their lives were constantly hanging on the qualities of their mounts. A hard mouth or a nervous temper might bring them their death any day, and docility and nimble limbs be their safeguard. The horse became a trusted friend, and a champion's destrier was often as celebrated as himself.
The countess's lip trembled also, and her cheeks grew even paler than before, while her heart throbbed in cruel doubt.
For was not Oliver, the earl's noble Spanish warhorse, in the castle? Had she not visited him morning and night, and seen with her own eyes that he had his due ration of corn, and that his satin skin was sleek as grooming could make it? Had she not patted his splendid neck morn and night, and plaited his thick mane, and had his velvet nose thrust into her soft palms for an apple or a wastel cake? She knew how the earl loved the creature, and had misliked leaving him behind, and she herself loved him both for his master's sake and for his own. He seemed to her half human as she thought of his intelligent eyes, and the clear, soft neigh, musical as the whistle of a blackbird, with which he was wont to greet her, and a sob caught her breath as she thought of condemning him to death. She knew also that he was worth his weight in gold.
Yet to sacrifice him seemed to her a clear duty, as she looked round the circle of reluctant men about her. They would never ask it, she knew. Some few horses would be kept, and the earl's destrier amongst them, as a matter of course; but she remembered how she had heard it told of William the Conqueror, that when, on his march on Chester, his men, weary with labour and cold, begged him to let them go back, he dismounted and went afoot to encourage them, and shared all their hardships. Was her lord a less generous knight than William? A thousand times no! If he were in Blauncheflour, he would be the first to lead the sacrifice. As he was absent, she must do it for him. These thoughts flashed through her mind in a moment, though they are long to write.