“I could see no banner or pennon. Maybe—”
He hesitated, thumbing the string of his cross-bow and looking up into the corners of the roof. Tiphaïne guessed what was passing in his mind. She shot the panel back and went down from the solar into the hall.
“Jehanot,” she said, very earnestly.
The man waited.
“It is not the Vicomte—no—I can read that on your face. There is no banner or pennon; and that means a ‘free company.’ ”
She was standing with one fist to her chin, looking vacantly at the pile of straw that covered the dead bodies, for Richard and the lad Berart had not yet been buried.
“Jehanot, go up into the portcullis-room and watch.”
The cripple nodded.
“They will summon us. If they are strangers, learn from them who they are. If friends, say that I will come out to them.”
“Yes, madame.”