But the boy Ulick scowled. "It was no business of yours," he said, angrily.
"That depends. Besides, it stands to reason that no man likes to see his own property mishandled. You don't realize, my good fellow, that you have a fist as rough as a shark-skin."
"Your property!" echoed the boy, in disdain. "Prove it."
"Easily," smiled Quinton Edge, and drew aside the lock of hair that concealed the V-shaped nick in Constans's left ear.
"Oh!" said Ulick, shortly. He had been quick to see and interpret the appeal in his prisoner's eyes. "It makes not a particle of difference," asserted Ulick, stubbornly. "He is my captive, taken in fair fight, and he belongs to me for all of his nicked ear. I sha'n't give him up, and that's my last word to you, Master Quinton Edge."
Half a dozen men entered the hall hurriedly; the girl Esmay must have summoned them when she had disappeared a few minutes before. Sturdy varlets they were, clad in green jerkins and armed with ashen lances pointed with steel. As Constans came afterwards to know, they were of the personal body-guard of the old Dom Gillian, to whom the boy Ulick was both grandson and presumptive heir. Now Quinton Edge was not yet ready to measure swords with Dom Gillian. So he veiled his irritation and answered, equably:
"You know the law about harboring a House-dweller, and since you choose to violate it"—here he shrugged his shoulders detestably—"let Dom Gillian see to it. Yet, for the sake of peace, I will ask you once more to surrender this serf, who bears my mark and is legally proved my property. In the end it may save a mountain of trouble. What say you?"
"No!" thundered Ulick, roundly, for he was angered at the implied threat, and would have held his ground now out of pure stubbornness. Whereupon Quinton Edge smiled and sauntered out, adjusting the ruffles at his wrist and carrying himself as gallantly as though he had been the victor, not the vanquished, in this little contest of wills.
Constans went up to Ulick and held out his hand. "Thank you," he said, awkwardly, and Ulick flushed in his turn.