Mellissent regarded her, chin in hand. “Have you fondness for Rainulf?”
“No.”
“I will tell you some things,” said Mellissent. “There forms a wish in me to speak to you.... I was a girl in this castle, but it was brighter then than it is now. My father and his sons were slain in battle, and Count Odo was my overlord. He would give this fief to one who fought hard and ruled hard, so one morning there rode here Rainulf to be my husband. Now I loved a man whose castle was not far away, and he was noble, and in all ways fit to carry this fief. So I stole from this castle and rode to find Count Odo, and kneeling before him begged him to give me that one for my husband. But he would not, and he held me there in his town, and sent for Rainulf, and married me to him, there in the church, and the next day we rode back to Red Castle. That was summer, and when winter came Rainulf picked quarrel with that man whom I loved. War was between them, and Red Rainulf slew my man.... Soothsay to me if a woman is ever and always to marry only as says father or brother or suzerain! They say that the End of the World is coming. I care not how soon it comes if things change. If they change not, it is nothing, coming or going!”
“I cannot soothsay to-day,” said Gersonde. “I only know that the world does not end and much is yet to happen.”
What should happen immediately with herself was to leave the castle. She was homesick for Jeanne and the children.
But a month passed before she might win away. Then the quarrel between bishop and baron flamed from earth to zenith. Out at gate, over bridge, down the road clattered Rainulf the Red and his men. They went to the bishop’s lands there to harrow, burn, and slay. The Red Castle stood emptied of fighting men.
The sun set; there followed a chill night of clouds with a few stars in between. The soothsayer crept out upon the wall, the great and small gates being fastened. She had a rope which she had made of many different woven things. This she tied about a jutting stone and flung the loose end clear. Resting upon her hands she looked over the wall and saw that it hung not far from earth. Trusting her weight to the rope she came down the castle wall. At hand was the moat, cold under the stars. She entered the water, finding it rise not higher than her bosom. Over moat she went, climbed the bank, and presently was upon wild hillside. Below were the huts of the serfs of Red Castle; these she avoided, and went her way by a cart track that took her by meadow and forest. She did not know how she should find Jeanne and the children, but she trusted to find them.
After walking for a long while she saw to the right in the woods a red star. Going toward it she came to a woodcutter’s hut, and peering in at the crack that did for window saw that it held none but women and a babe. She saw that the fire had been lighted because there was birth. She knocked at the door, and when at last, after consultation within, it was opened a little way, asked for shelter and warmth. “Naught but a woman alone?” asked she who held the door. “Sit quiet then by the fire.” She entered and sat by the fire and dried her clothing.
In a corner, upon a sheepskin and some straw, lay sleeping the mother of the two-hour-old babe. An old woman sat in the red firelight, the child in her lap. The woman who had opened the door took again her seat upon a billet of wood on the other side of the hearth. She rested her elbow upon her knee, her cheek in her hand. Gersonde sat upon the earthen floor, between the two. The fire of faggots danced and glowed. The thin smoke wandered and circled in the hut before it found and went out at the hole in the roof.
“Who are you, and why are you so wet?” asked the younger woman.