“These three hours, master.”
“Good. Bring the cider, bread and honey, and then go and set up the truckle bed in the store-room, and get clean straw.”
They were left alone together. Fulk pointed her to a stool by the fire.
“My mother and her wench are abed. They shall look to you to-morrow.”
She nodded, and said nothing, but stole a glance at him from under her hood. The smoky flare of the solitary torch was even more baffling than the moonlight, and Fulk was standing, half turned to the light, and examining the two halves of the bow he had taken from her, his face hard, inscrutable, and murky.
“This bow was not made in these parts.”
“It may tell you more than I can.”
John the forester returned with a jug of cider, and bread and honey on a hollywood platter. Fulk bade him set the food and drink before Isoult. The fellow, none too sober, stumbled against the hearth curb, and spilt half the cider.
Fulk struck him across the shoulders with half of the broken bow.
“Sot! Vanish—get out of my sight!”