“Out, fools, out of the way.”
Her voice might have been the sound of the Last Trump so far as Guy the Stallion was concerned, for he picked himself up, drew a sleeve across his face, and attempted an unsteady swagger. A crack in his rusty basinet showed where Fulk’s sword had bitten him.
“Isoult, the cub is mine for the taking. He tricked me the once——”
He flourished his sword towards Fulk, but Isoult’s eyes swept him aside.
“Fool, go and wash the blood out of your boasting beard.”
“S’death! I’ll set hell loose!”
“Poor jay, you pecked at a falcon and got smitten. Stand away. I have no patience to listen to your frothing.”
He slunk aside with furious red eyes, while Father Merlin waited in the background, showing his teeth and smoothing his chin.
Isoult passed on towards Fulk, and these two stood confronting each other, the man with the point of his sword resting on the floor and his hands crossed on the pommel. No one but Fulk saw Isoult’s face, or the cry of “Hail, fellow falcon!” in her eyes.
“Master Fulk Ferrers, I charge you, surrender that sword of yours.”