Of Fulk she thought vaguely with a distant tenderness that looked back at a fragment of the past, and asked nothing of the future. What had become of him? Did he believe her dead? Or had he guessed that she had lied to save him, and pretended that she had come by her death wound when an arrow had done no more than pierce the flesh of her flank? She could not have run with that arrow in her side, and Fulk would have been taken with her had she not acted a lie. What had become of him? What part would he play in this savage overthrow that threatened a kingdom? What could a thousand such men do to stay it? The valour of a prince’s bastard seemed to her a mere thread of steel set to bear the blows of a thousand bludgeons.
The day’s march ended upon Blackheath, and the peasants of Kent and Sussex camped there to the number of some sixty thousand men. The oxen were unyoked and the wagon left standing on some high ground close to the road, and so placed that Isoult looked northward towards where the great city hung upon the silver thread of the river. The sun was low in the west, and through the haze of a June evening she fancied she could see a distant glimmer of vanes and steeples, a something that looked like a forest touched by the long yellow rays of the setting sun.
Fifty yards away, John Ball, mounted on a barrel, was preaching to the people. The crowd was very silent, and his voice came to her with the sound of bells ringing in the distance. She saw his arms waving exultantly as he flared like a torch burning in a wind. Hundreds of intent, hairy, and fresh-coloured faces looked up at him, open-mouthed, with eyes that glittered. And away yonder lay the great city, dim in the yellow light, like a dream on the uttermost edge of sleep.
Isoult heard a man’s laughter, and, turning about, saw a face with a forked red beard look at her over the tailboard of the wagon. It was Guy the Stallion, gorgeous in a red camlet coat with a silver baldric over his shoulder, his bassinet polished till the pits of rust had been rubbed away. He rested his elbows on the tailboard of the wagon, and cleaning his teeth with the point of his tongue, stared at Isoult with an insolent relish that made his red-brown eyes look like points of hot metal.
“Ha, Madame Isoult, it has been a great day, surely!”
She felt all her pent-up scorn flash up at the sight of this absurd boaster’s arrogant face.
“A great day indeed for the cattle who go to the shambles.”
He opened his mouth wide and cawed like a bird.
“Tell me, fair one, where now is the gentleman? Our great barons have fled out of the kingdom, to make war on Spaniards, since it is safer. We shall march down yonder, and eat up all the King’s creatures, all the fat merchants and clerks and moneylenders. John Ball will be our archbishop, Wat our Lord Marshal, Merlin our Chief Councillor.”
“And you, Master Chanticleer?”