"A brave piece of work your Edict of Restitution! Is it not time to get on with your trade?" she taunted.
"In good time!" he said curtly. "Call in two men!" was his order to Sergeant Blick.
The two men came in, muskets at the ready.
"This lady will show you where to lay the old man!" he said.
As before she obeyed, stepping across the room to a door which opened into a small bedchamber. The two men-at-arms at a sign from the sergeant lifted the body and laid it on the bed. Elspeth of the golden-hair made an effort to rise, bent on following, but her strength had not yet returned. She lay back again on her cushion and wept silently.
"Peace! Lie still, dear heart!" said the dark lady, kneeling beside her and holding her hand, raising about her the bulwark of her own compassion, as who should say to Nigel Charteris that he was without the pale.
When the door of the dead man's chamber closed and the musketeers stood once more to command he bade them make ready their weapons. Without a look at the women he strode across the chamber to another door at the opposite side of the room to that which he had entered and flung it open.
In the doorway stood three very determined-looking men armed with pikes, and behind them a motley assembly of burghers, some armed, some not.
A curiously interested expression came upon the face of her who knelt. To her mind Tilly's captain was in the toils.
But Tilly's captain had quick ears. He had divined something of what lay behind the door. When he stepped backward three paces and drew his sword, there stood covering the door with their muskets his two men.