A fresh hiss of execration burst from the bystanders, as the cruelty of the young man's fate came home to them.
Stephen le Hareau! The handsomest and most popular squire in the earl's following! They knew him, too, for a brave and dauntless soldier.
Sir Hoël looked towards the countess, wondering how she would bear the blow, for the difficulty with which she had maintained her self-control when she had parted with her noble bridegroom had been manifest to all, and now the worst fears she could then have entertained were declared to have come to pass.
But Emma, who had shrunk from the approach of evil, stood firm to meet its actual contact. Her face was white as marble, and her lips quivered, but she said in a firm voice,—
'The cruelty this poor gentleman has undergone may well nerve our hearts to resistance. St. Nicholas grant thou art in the right, Sir Hoël. He may well deem things blacker than they are! I prithee, keep him no longer answering our vain queries. Let him be lifted from his horse and carried to the spital. I will tend him with my own hands. His poor steed also, let it be cared for.'
Eadgyth and several of the ladies were sobbing hysterically behind her. She turned to them.
'Courage, dames and damsels!' she said, with a simple dignity that shamed them into self-control. 'I have heard as evil tales as this, and found them vanish like dreams at the breaking of the morn.'
She gathered her robes around her and swept back into the keep, and, calling her tirewoman, ordered her to bring sundry essences and simples, which, like every noble lady of the time, she kept by her, the science of medicine being chiefly in feminine hands in those days. Then, bidding Eadgyth to attend her, she proceeded at once to the spital, to leech the unfortunate squire.
She stopped a few moments in the chapel, to direct the chaplain to offer masses for the souls of those who had fallen in the battle. A sob caught her breath as she remembered the earnest repetition with which Stephen le Hareau had declared that the earl was amongst them.
But she dare not think, and went on hurriedly to direct that others should be offered for the safety of those who had escaped, and for the success of their undertaking.