“I am Elias of Montaudon,” he said. “I understand that, and how to play the jongleur, and that if peril comes and stands like a giant and questions us, I am no jongleur of Roche-de-Frêne nor allied there—”
“Say that you are of Limousin.”
“I have not dropped from the sky into the camp of Cap-du-Loup, but have been singing and playing, telling japes and tales, merry or sad, vaulting and wrestling elsewhere in the host—”
“With the men of Aquitaine. Say that in Poitou Duke Richard himself praised you.”
“And should they question me of you?”
“I also am of Limousin. There I watched sheep, but now I am your mie and a traveller with you.”
“By what name am I to call you?”
“I am Jael the herd. You will call me Jael.”
They were moving this while up the stream. Did any come upon them now, it would hardly be held that they had flown from the battlements of Roche-de-Frêne. The ground was rough, the trees, crowding together, shut out the light from the moon, while the fires at the end of vistas grew ruddier. The muttering and humming also of the host in the night increased.
Jael the herd stood still. “It will not suit us to stumble in the dark upon some wild band! Here is Saint Laurent’s garden of safety. Let us rest on the pine-needles until cock-crow.”