THE LADY PIETOSA DE BRÉAUTÉ
Evidently they were expected at High March; for no sooner the white plumes had cleared the forest purlieus and came nodding over the heath in view of the solemn towers, than a white flag was run up the keep. It floated out bravely—a snow patch in a pure sky.
"Peace, hey?" quoth Prosper, asking. "Well then, there shall be peace if they will take it. It is for them to settle."
Isoult said nothing. She had no reason to welcome High March, or to attend a welcome. She might have doubted the wisdom of their adventure had she been less newly a wife. As it was, she would have followed her man into the jaws of hell.
When they drew closer still, they could see that the great gates were set open and the drawbridge let down. Soon the guard turned out and presented arms. Then issued in good order a white-robed procession, girls and boys bare-headed, holding branches of palm. A rider in green marshalled them with a long white wand which he had in his right hand. It was all very curious.
"I should know that copper-headed knave," said Prosper.
"It is the seneschal, dear lord," said Isoult, who would know him better, "with his white rod of office."
Prosper gave a mighty shout. "Master Porges, by the Holy Rood! Oh, Master Porges, Master Porges, have you not yet enough of rods white or black? Look how the rascal wags the thing. Why, hark, child, he has set them singing."
The shrill voices, in effect, rose and fell along the devious ways of a litany to Master Porges' household gods. Mention has already been made of his curiosity in these commodities. The present times he had judged to be times of crisis, big with fate. Who so apt as his newest saint to propitiate the hardy outlaw Galors de Born, and the young Demoiselle de Bréauté?
For the shocked soul of Porges had fled into religion as your only cure for esteem and a back cruelly scored. In such stresses as the present it still took wing to the same courts. "Sancta Isolda, Sancta Isolda, Genetricis Ancilla," went the choir, "Ora, ora pro nobis."