He had the crowd with him, and angry shouts went up.
“Bring the rat out.”
“Who calls the King a liar?”
“Smite the churl on the mouth.”
Merlin pulled his cowl down, pushed through, and slunk away.
“Pax, pax,” he said; “it was not I who challenged the King.”
But his red mouth looked fierce, and his eyes formidable, under his cowl.
In another hour this great crowd had been tamed and won, the men of each county standing massed about the King’s banners. A clerk sat on an overturned tub beside Fulk’s horse, dipping his quill into the ink-horn at his girdle, making a rough draft of the King’s charter to the Commons. And the men who were to tarry behind stood and looked over the clerk’s shoulders, knowing nothing of letters, but seeing in them symbols of strange power.
Fulk sent a trumpeter to start the men upon their march. They circled round him with their banners, like a huge wheel with the figure on the white horse for the hub. The King’s lords and gentlemen thanked God and the saints for a marvel.
“To your homes, sirs.”