“She may serve or she may not. It does not signify: the man’s the master. If only he be persuadable. And you, Isoult, may do much.”
Her voice betrayed impatience.
“Let the adventure go on, but do not think of me as hell fire. We shall see how the stag runs. And now, good-night.”
She heard the sound of his breathing die away, and knew that the window was empty. Like a ghost he had come and like a ghost he stole away, leaving Isoult distraught and restless.
It was in the half light of a May dawn that Peter of Pippinford came running to the White Lodge with his head all bloody and a short sword in his hand. He had been ranging his ward, and had come back to find his lodge on fire and four ragged rogues waiting for him behind the woodstack. One of them had given Peter a bloody poll with the thick end of a holly cudgel, and Peter had cut off one man’s hand, slashed another across the face, and then had saved himself by the grace of his long legs. He set up a furious hallooing outside the White Lodge gate, and Fulk went out to let him in.
Fulk listened to his news with a face that was very quiet and very grim. He had been warned two days ago by one of the purlieu men that the common people were breaking down fences and emptying fish ponds, and that the whole country had gone mad. A tax-gatherer had been beaten to death in one of the villages. The gentry were flying to Lewes and Pevensey, leaving their houses and larders to be plundered by their boors.
“We must get the women out of the way. I will ride over to the vachery and bring Barnabas’s people in. Get your head tied up, Peter, and then help John to make ready the great wagon.”
Fulk had a word with his mother, Margaret Ferrers standing at her chamber door in her night gear, looking like a corpse in a shroud. Cold woman that she was, she fell to pleading with him, but he put her prayers aside.
“Run away from the lousels? Not I! The men shall take you and Isoult and the women to Lewes, and then come back to me. We will make these scullions skip.”