"I have no shame in doing so. I fight for the Archbishop and the Church."
"Then stand aside and see whether Archbishop or Black Count wins."
"Nay, that I will not do. You are no true follower of the Church or you would call me to your aid. Release your hold of the other's throat, or I will draw my knife across yours."
Conrad, seeing that the game was up, and guessing also that the two were not comrades and accomplices, as he had at first supposed, relaxed his hold and stood up. The other lay gasping where he had fallen.
"Now speak, fellow, an' enough breath has returned to you; are you for the White Cross or the Black Count?"
With some difficulty Surrey rose to a sitting posture, and said at last:
"Indeed I think I must be the Black Count himself, for with the choking I have had, my face, could any see it, more nearly resembles that of His Swarthiness than it does the lilies of the field."
"Is it you, archer?" asked Conrad in surprise, stepping forward.
"Yes," answered Surrey and Kent simultaneously, then the former added, shaking himself as he rose to his feet, "at least it was me before your most unlooked for interference, but who I am now it is beyond me accurately to tell. If you are Conrad, then what the devil do you here out of the castle on the hillside after midnight, when all honest folk, except those on watch, should be sleeping soundly on straw?"
"If it comes to that," replied Conrad, "what do you here, honest watchman, who at this moment are supposed to be faithfully guarding the battlements of Castle Thuron?"