“Now, Sir Shepherd, out with your sheep.”
The innkeeper saw that Bertrand was in no mood to be trifled with, and that he was the master of the situation so far as Robin was concerned. He beckoned the women out, pulling a wry face, yet outwardly obsequious as any son of Mammon. The women followed him, tossing their ribbons and looking saucily at Bertrand, whose ugly face was like a block of stone. Their insolence was nothing to him, for he had drunk the dregs of recklessness and thrown the cup away.
Robin was sitting sulkily before the fire, biting his nails and glancing at Bertrand out of the corners of his eyes. He knew that the elder man was in the right, and yet Bertrand’s mastery chafed his pride.
“You meddle rather much, messire,” he said.
Bertrand went up to him with the air of a brother, a good-humored smile softening his face.
“Nonsense, Robin; you are a little hot in the head. No more wine, lad; I ask it as a favor. Who kissed you last—was it not your sister?”
Robin shuddered, and sat staring at the fire.
“You are right, Bertrand,” he said. “By God, I was going to Mivoie with a harlot’s kisses on my mouth!”
“No, no, lad, you have the true stuff in you. Come to bed; we must not waste our sleep.”
It was some time after midnight when Bertrand woke with a start and lay listening in the darkness of the room. A voice was babbling in the silence of the night, making a hoarse whispering like dead leaves shivering in a frosty wind. Bertrand’s eyes grew accustomed to the dark, and he could see Robin half kneeling, half lying upon the bed. The lad was praying like a man in the extremity of terror.