Late in the afternoon, he came to a wide plateau, surrounded on three sides with mountain-peaks. There was a lake in the center, with a few cottages scattered along its shores, and at one end of the lake a high-gabled, wide-eaved inn, in front of which a short man, dark and wiry and unlike the people of that country, lounged in the sun. He proved to be the innkeeper, a native of Navarre, and, to Cartaret’s delight, spoke French.
“Yes,” he nodded, “I learned it years ago from a French servant that they used to have at the castle in the old lord’s time.”
“I’ve come from Vitoria,” Cartaret explained. “Can you tell me how far it is to Alegria?”
“If you have come from Vitoria,” was the suspicious answer, “you must have taken the wrong road and come around Alegria. Alegria is a score of miles behind you.”
Cartaret swore softly at that road-map. He was tired and stiff, however, and so he dismounted and let the landlord attend to his mare and bring him, at the inn-porch, some black bread and cheese and a small pitcher of zaragua, the native cider.
“These are a strange people here,” he said as the landlord took a chair opposite.
The landlord shook his swarthy head.
“I do not speak ill of them,” said he. His tone implied that such a course would be unwise. “They call themselves,” he went on after a ruminative pause, “the direct descendants of those Celtiberi whom the old Romans could never conquer, and I can well believe it of them. However, I know nothing: the lord at the castle knows.”
“They don’t like the Spaniards?” asked Cartaret.
“They hate us,” said the innkeeper.