“You have not supped, messire,” he said.
Bertrand glanced at the old man over his shoulder.
“Good man, Hoel, I’ll take what you are carrying. Bring me a mutton-bone for Jake.”
Bertrand pulled out his knife, set the tankard down amid the rushes, and, ignoring the inquisitive glances of the Vicomte’s servants, fell to on the bread and chicken. There was much gossiping and gesturing at the servants’ table. A man-at-arms with a pointed black beard and a red scar across his forehead was asking Sieur Robert’s falconer who the ugly oaf on the stool might be. Bertrand caught the words and the insolent cocking of the soldier’s eye as he looked him over and then grimaced expressively.
“ ’Sh, friend, the devil’s in the lad.”
“True, friend, true,” quoth Bertrand, coolly throwing his platter at the soldier’s head.
It was the first incident that had called the attention of those at the high table to the lad seated by the fire. To Bertrand the richly dressed figures loomed big and scornful before the crimson hangings, all starred and slashed with gold. He saw the Vicomte stare at him and then turn to Sieur Robert with a courtly little gesture of the hand. Dame Jeanne was sitting stark and stiff as any Egyptian goddess. Bertrand saw her flush as the Vicomte questioned her husband, flush with shame that the lad on the stool should be discovered for her son. Bertrand blushed, too, but with more anger than contrition. He heard Olivier’s shrill, squealing laugh as he tossed Robin an apple and bade him throw it at “the lout upon the stool.” Every eye in the hall seemed fixed for the moment upon Bertrand. He knew that the “mean” folk were mocking at him, and that the great ones on the dais—even his own mother—regarded him with a feeling more insolent than pity.
Dame Jake, oblivious to the tableau, sat up upon her hind-legs and begged. She waved her fore-paws in the air, almost as though to recall Bertrand to the fact that he had one friend in his father’s hall. Bertrand took a piece of bread, rubbed it on a chicken-bone, and tossed it to her with a growl of approval. Jake swallowed the morsel and then sat with her muzzle on her master’s knee, her eyes fixed upon his face.
At the high table the child with the brown hair coiled up in a silken caul had laid her hand on the Lady Jeanne’s arm.
“Madame, who is that?”