The silver sweetened his face like a charm. He seized me by the hand.
"My name," he cried, "is Peter of the Pigs. I am not stable-master, but feed the grouting piglings. And yet in a way I am indeed stable-master. For the Bishop hath had no horses since the Duke took them away to mount his cavalry for the raids into Plassenburg. So Peter of the Pigs looks after all about the yard, and precious little there is to look after—except one's own legs getting longer and leaner every day."
"And where is the Bishop this afternoon?" I said.
"Where should he be," cried Peter of the Pigs, "but at the trial of the witch-woman in the Hall of Justice? It must be a rare sight. They say she is to be put to the torture, and that they want a new executioner to do it."
"Why," said I, struck to the heart by his words, "what is the matter with the old one?"
"Oh," said the lad, "he is mortal sick abed. He happened an accident, or some one stuck a dagger into him—no great matter if he had stuck it through him, or cloven him to the chine with his own Red Axe!"
CHAPTER XL
THE TRIAL OF THE WITCH
At this point came my master back, looking exceedingly disconsolate. A starveling, furtive-eyed monk accompanied him.
"The Bishop," he said, "is gone forth of his house. He is in attendance at the trial of a woman for witchcraft, one whom some of the common city folk hold to be a saint. But the young Duke and others swear that she is a witch, and hath murdered the Duke Casimir. Haste thee with the horses, sirrah, and attend me to the Hall of Justice. I have sent a messenger forward with my credentials to the Bishop Peter."