“A fool’s ditty. Will you ask me to prove that a hart royal is no better than a rooting hog? A scullion’s forbears were scullions: that’s the sense of’t.”
She held out the loaf to him.
“Will you not eat?”
“I eat but twice a day.”
“Proud, even over a platter. Oh, my good bachelor, you will not be long-lived!”
When she had eaten, Fulk took a rushlight, lit it at the torch, and stood waiting. Isoult rose and followed him to the door of the store-room that opened out of a passage leading from the hall. He gave her the rushlight, and their fingers touched.
“Cold hand, Messire Fulk, hot heart.”
He said nothing, but waited for her to enter, and then locked the door after her and took the key.
Fulk slept in the hall that night on a deer-skin spread upon a bed of bracken, and so little had the feminine temper of the adventure stirred him that he slept till five of the clock, when he was wakened by John the forester opening the shutters.
“A touch of frost, master, but a fine morning. Peter of the Purlieus has been watching the Pippinford rides. He was to meet me at Stonegate two hours after sunrise.”