“Winter is the time between summers.”
“Have it so.... It was wise to delay this knight the week out.”
“Ah, where is Wisdom? Even the hem of her mantle turns out to be a stray light-beam in shadow. But it seemed wiser. So one may think a little.”
“Now, by God Almighty!” said Gaucelm, “it needs not much thinking!”
“No. But still one may take time and speak Montmaure fair, while we study what will come and how we meet and defeat it.... Let us deal first with Thibaut Canteleu and Roche-de-Frêne.”
Gaucelm the Fortunate, leaning forward, warmed his hands at the fire which was burning with a singing sound. “Aye, my burghers—Child, all over the green earth they cease to be mine or another’s burghers!”
“They grow to be their own men. Yes.”
“Gaucelm of the Star thought that idea the strangest, most abhorrent!—and his father before him—and so backward into time. It outraged them, angering the very core of the heart within them! Late and soon they would have fought the town!”
“Or late or soon they would have lost.—Does it in truth anger us that Thibaut Canteleu and the others should wish to choose their magistrates?”
“No. Montmaure angers me, but not Thibaut.”