The two men whom Fresnoy had enlisted I directed to ride a score of paces in advance. Luke and John I placed in the rear. In this manner I thought to keep them somewhat apart. For myself, I proposed to ride abreast of mademoiselle, but she made it so clear that my neighbourhood displeased her that I fell back, leaving her to ride with Fanchette; and contented myself with plodding at their heels, and striving to attach the later evangelists to my interests.
We were so fortunate, despite my fears, as to find the road nearly deserted—as, alas, was much of the country on either side—and to meet none but small parties travelling along it; who were glad enough, seeing the villainous looks of our outriders, to give us a wide berth, and be quit of us for the fright. We skirted Lusignan, shunning the streets, but passing near enough for me to point out to mademoiselle the site of the famous tower built, according to tradition, by the fairy Melusina, and rased thirteen years back by the Leaguers. She received my information so frigidly, however, that I offered no more, but fell back shrugging my shoulders, and rode in silence, until, some two hours after noon, the city of Poitiers came into sight, lying within its circle of walls and towers on a low hill in the middle of a country clothed in summer with rich vineyards, but now brown and bare and cheerless to the eye.
Fanchette turned and asked me abruptly if that were Poitiers.
I answered that it was, but added that for certain reasons I proposed not to halt, but to lie at a village a league beyond the city, where there was a tolerable inn.
‘We shall do very well here,’ the woman answered rudely. ‘Any way, my lady will go no farther. She is tired and cold, and wet besides, and has gone far enough.’
‘Still,’ I answered, nettled by the woman’s familiarity, ‘I think mademoiselle will change her mind when she hears my reasons for going farther.’
‘Mademoiselle does not wish to hear them, sir,’ the lady replied herself, and very sharply.
‘Nevertheless, I think you had better hear them,’ I persisted, turning to her respectfully. ‘You see, mademoiselle—’
‘I see only one thing, sir,’ she exclaimed, snatching off her mask and displaying a countenance beautiful indeed, but flushed for the moment with anger and impatience, ‘that, whatever betides, I stay at Poitiers to-night.’
‘If it would content you to rest an hour?’ I suggested gently.