The great gate was down, and half a dozen sweating fellows were prising up the portcullis with spear-staves and the trunks of young trees. Inch by inch the great grid went up till Bertrand and two others had their shoulders under the teeth and held it till the rest wedged it up with timber. Shouting and swearing, they crowded pellmell like a drove of swine through the tower arch. Some turned into the guard-room, to find it empty. Others made for the hall across the court, expecting resistance and finding none.
The man Guicheaux was at the head of those who made for the hall. With them were the two women, as wild and keen as any of the men. They found the hall empty, but spread this way and that, some towards the screens, others towards the high table and the place where the buffet stood.
A brisk shout startled the whole rabble. Guicheaux, who had been turning over the straw with the truncheon of a spear he had broken under the grid, had started back and stood pointing at the straw, white and abashed, like a man who has found a snake curled in the grass.
The rest crowded round him, querulous and wondering. Then a blank silence fell. They stood staring at one another and at the blackened body Guicheaux had uncovered with his spear. One of the women, who had been peering over a man’s shoulder, clapped her hands over her face and broke into hysterical screaming.
“The murrain, the black murrain! We shall all die of it!”
Guicheaux cursed her, tossed the straw back over the body, and looked at his companions. They were huddling away from the spot like a pack of sheep, the lust of plunder out of them for the moment.
“Let us be off!” quoth a young Poitevin, holding a hand over his nose and mouth.
“Quiet, you fool!” and the big fellow Hopart, with the red beard and angry eyes, cuffed the lad with his gadded glove. “Out with you, milksop! We have taken our chance, and the devil’s with us. Let us have our spoil. Who’s afraid of a dirty corpse?”
He strode up, kicked the body under the straw, and turned a bloated face to Guicheaux and the rest.
“To the chambers first, sirs, and then for the wine.”